Supernatural: Hell House
Star TrekStargate:AtlantisFireflySylvia Bond joins Pink Raygun with her coverage of the CW television show, Supernatural. As part of her lead-up to the start of the latest season, Sylvia will be randomly selecting already-aired episodes and shining them under the light of her obsession with all things Sam and Dean Winchester.
Talk to the Towel by Sylvia Bond
Supernatural Season 1 - Episode 17
Hell House is one of my favorite Supernatural episodes, with a very straightforward monster of the week that, while it allows for a healthy dose of creepy, also demonstrates that Supernatural, and the Winchester boys, can be funny. I watch this ep when I want a good laugh, and it makes me laugh every time.
What you have are two kids, Craig and his cousin Dana, who live in the small town of Richardson, Texas (which Jensen Ackles could tell you looks nothing like what you see on the screen), and who are bored, bored, bored. Craig and Dana create a haunted house, along with a legend for the locals.
The haunted house that they create is a clich�-decorated bonanza (in the best sense) of blackened wooden walls and floors, windows you can’t see out of, doors that mysteriously lock behind you, chicken feet nailed over doorways (?), people holding flashlights under their chin to look spooky, odd symbols painted everywhere, and a root cellar where, we are told, is where Satan cans all his vegetables. The cellar is lined with shelves that contain “skank-filled jars,” which, to my joy, come into play quite often. (The selfsame jars break during the first scene and then, mysteriously, get replaced so they can be broken again later.)
Craig and Dana then cook up the tale of Mordecai Murdock, misogynistic murderer of mortals, and spread the word. Dana poses as the dead, hanged girl for the first group of meddling kids who are drawn in by the story that Craig tells them about “something my cousin heard, I don’t know where she heard it from.” Unfortunately, since the pair drew a Tibetan spirit sigil on the walls of this little shack, they help bring a tulpa to life, and, as anyone could tell you, tulpas take on a life of their own.
True to form, a second group of meddling kids take up the brain-numbing challenge known as truth or dare, and one student chooses to go into the farmhouse to steal from the cache of Murdock’s skank-filled jars, rather than make out with local idiot number 1. (Which begs the question, why are these her only two options? Ah well, I suppose if you’re dumb enough to participate in a game of truth or dare, you kinda get what’s coming to ya.) It’s all fun and games until whippersnappers start to die.
Enter two sets of ghost hunters. First, there’s Sam and Dean (looking very well in the damp faux-Texas fog), who have plenty of real-world experience, as you know, saving people and hunting things. Enter also Ed (who wears glasses and likes to pretend he’s got a slight speech impediment) and Harry (who can’t pee if anyone is watching him), poseurs of the first water, living off plot-lines of cancelled TV shows, collecting never-been-opened action figures, and spouting catchy one-liners (that you know they’ve been dying to use on somebody). They also dream of one day having sex. With girls.
Dean and Sam dither boyishly over whether or not the current issue at hand (or gig, as it is sometimes know in the ghost hunting biz) is their thing or not. When the local Scooby-Doo member gets hauled up to the basement rafters by Old Man Murdock (aka Mordecai), the brothers sit up and adorably take notice.
Sam does his geek-boy routine, checking everything out on his laptop (which must have a router that Prometheus gave him because the boy does not ever come up empty handed), and figuring out the whole tulpa business as easily as you or I might deduce which movie theater our favorite movie is playing at. (Of course he knows what most of the other symbols on the walls of the haunted house are without even looking, which leads Dean to comment that that’s why Sam never gets laid.) Dean, for his part, does some mighty fine stretching out on-the-bed-for-me-baby, and as he scribbles on the motel notepad when trying to figure out where he’s seen that one symbol before (the BOC one, the only one he even slightly recognizes), and he is about as fetching as can be as he writes holding his pen between his thumb and second finger. Maybe it’s just me, but I thought it was so cute and, well, rather blue-collar of him. (Sometime later in the ep he says his oft-heard son-of-a-bitch line, and I swear his lips moved like he was Elvis.)
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Pretty soon (as the evidence drops in the boys’ be-jeaned laps) they figure out not only that Craig (who is a closet BOC fan) helped set up the haunted house and the legend surrounding it, but also that a tulpa has been created and is on the loose.
There are about two battles that ensue inside the haunted house, and both involve major whumpage and limpage. For those of you who don’t know, welcome to my world. Whumpage is when Dean gets thrown across a room. Limpage is when Sam gets strangled to the point of unconsciousness. (Corrections welcome.) Seeing either or both will make me happy for hours. But please don’t ask me to explain why, because doing so would allow you further into my psyche than I’d care to admit visitors. Watch this episode and you’ll figure it out. Go on. I’ll wait. Also, during the second battle, Sam does his come-get-me-sucka routine where he’s making himself bait so Ed and Harry can escape. He does what I like to call the Sam Spread, where he throws those long arms wide and stands in the shape of an almost-cross. He looks so long and powerful when he does this, that you know the rumors about him being a salad-eater are wrong, wrong, wrong.
In the end, Sam and Dean deploy the ancient art of arson to burn down the haunted house and thus prevent the tulpa (formerly known as Mordecai Murdock) from preying on any other local idiots. Uh, I mean innocents. Dean lights the house on fire with great joy and explains his motives with a little jerk of his head and that slight break in his voice that is irresistibly vulnerable. Sam, who doesn’t think much of this idea, performs what I like to call the silent scoff. (No language but a scoff, eh Sam?) Exit Ed and Harry (in a Gremlin, I think) ladened with all their worldly goods, including a collection of lawn flamingos and a smelly fish in their back seat (courtesy of Dean), to follow up on a phone call from a faux producer (courtesy of Sam). What nice boys.
Sam and Dean call a truce on their pranks (that always escalate, Dean!) and drive off while rock music blares from their radio. Another day, another town saved.
The episode contains a number of clichés.
First, there’s the whole cliché-ridden haunted house. Only Kripke could take something so trite, so old, so smelling of chestnuts and make it a living, fresh, breathing, creepy thing. The man could reinvent Halloween and make it more popular than Christmas if he wanted to, but he plays it close to the chest, and hence, the new, improved haunted house. Complete with tulpa and move-in ready.
Then there’s the cliché of the ghost-hunter wanna bees, Ed and Harry. The represent fans in a way that would make most of us cringe. Their guiding lights are Buffy (aka The Slayer) and John Edwards, late night TV paranormal medium, who gives audiences a thrill by allowing them to talk to their passed-on loved ones. Ed and Harry desire only to be famous, via a book and movie deal, and sole rights to the RPG (role playing game for you and me) that they will, no doubt, one day, unfortunately, create. They are everyman, who, when you stand them next to Dean and Sam, come across as one of the unwashed masses, lacking sophistication and connections, but who do not lack in passion and drive. They will, you know, fumble away at their dreams, before settling down to a nice factory job somewhere. But at least they will have lived life on the high road for a while.
What I love about Sam and Dean in this episode is their valiant attempt not to mock Ed and Harry out loud. Yeah, Sam can barely hold in his bray of laughter as Harry explains what EMF is, and Dean is on the verge of a silent scoff of his own as Ed explains how they almost saw a ghost. But the boys, with the confidence that the power of knowledge bring them, are, on the whole, very polite to Ed and Harry. They can step back and let the two wanna-bes have their day in the spotlight with nary a murmur, which tells me that their Papa sure did raise them right!
Finally there’s the last bit, which is not, I think a cliché, but I’m willing to be corrected on that. It’s what Sam says at the end. You know, that whole wrap up line that TV sometimes thinks it needs to give us, which always reminds me of the mocking statement that Mozart makes to Salieri in the movie Amadeus, that some composers are so unsubtle (and believe that their audience is also so) that they need to end a symphony with a big bang, so the audience knows when to clap. So, okay, Sam says, “Kinda makes you wonder of all the things we hunted, how many existed just cause people believed in ‘em.” This is almost too profound for either me or prime time TV, but Sam saying this does something interesting: it makes me think about the power of belief. Dean, of course, shoots in his complaint that if belief makes something so, then how come he’s not getting a visit from St. Nick every year? (His is an adorable pout, I must say, as is his implied and continuing belief in Santa Claus.) Does believing in a thing make it so? And is that necessarily bad? You, the reader, must decide.
But ask any SPN (Supernatural) fangirl or fanboy what the episode was really about (and I’ve left the best bits, as they say, for last) and they will tell you about the following: The Pranks the brothers play on each other and The Towel.
The pranks are a longstanding game between the brothers that you get the feeling started when the brothers were very young and got nasty from there. Dean starts off the current game by placing a plastic spoon in Sam’s mouth (while younger brother is sleeping), and then older brother takes a picture of him with his cell phone. (All this while driving 60 MPH down a back highway in East Texas.) Then, to add insult to injury, Dean turns up the radio and starts to sing at the top of his lungs. (His voice is quite nice to listen to.) Sam wakes up thrashing around, flailing at the who-knows-what that’s in his mouth, and it’s hysterical to watch, really. Dean laughs like a sink draining, Sam mutters that Dean is a jerk, that the pranks always escalate, Dean!, and then the boys settle into the plot. There is one reference to the time Dean put Nair in Sam’s shampoo, but it’s enough to give us the feeling for the kinds of pranks the boys play. Not deadly, but certainly dangerous, and definitely the kind that can get you hurt. But the boys don’t care, they’re boys! And I’m certain Papa Winchester thought it was good training and would toughen them up. (”Aw, quit yer bawlin’ Sammy, yer hair’ll grow back!”) The pranks also create a sense of back-story for the brothers, which I quite love. Sam commits to paying Dean back, and Dean tells him to bring it on.
Other pranks include Sam oh-so-cleverly setting up the Impala so that when Dean turns on the engine, the windshield wipers go full speed and the radio plays something horrible and loud. Dean announces that the prank is weak, and so it is, in the large scheme of things. But I liked it because it made Sam laugh, and the boy has got the most fetching, full-throated, open-mouthed laugh that just makes me want to join in. The next prank is the superglue on the bottle of PBR (Pabst Blue Ribbon, the ultimate in blue-collar beers), which Sam sets up so that the bottle latches itself to Dean’s hand. (Later there are underhanded remarks about Dean not having any skin left on that palm, which Sam states that he will not remark upon.) Another partial prank is the one where Dean picks up a skank-filled jar (the boys are in the basement, waving flashlights around and investigating), and eyes the jar as he might a bug on a pin. He rolls his head in a delicious way in his brother Sam’s direction. He dares Sam to take a swig of the contents. Sam, looking nonplussed, asks why the hell he would want to do that? Dean, not fazed at all, delivers a double dare. At which point Old Man Murdock shows up and starts slamming the boys around. But it makes you wonder, don’t it, how many times Dean got little brother to taste something nasty?
But I’ve skipped ahead in my prank list and left one out, and any ardent SPN fan will know which one I’m talking about already. They’ve got this prank memorized, as do I. Oh, as do I. Here goes. Dean walks into the motel room (from who-knows-what errand), tosses his keys on the table and goes to work. From his pocket he takes a little bag of something (that turns out to be itching powder), and as he keeps up a hearty conversation with brother Sam (who is in the shower), he sprinkles the powder on Sam’s boxer shorts. Sam later puts the boxers on and…
But I get ahead of myself.
What first strikes me about this prank is the cavalier way in which Dean handles his brother’s underwear. I don’t know about you, but underwear is so very, very intimate. Plus it’s not the first thing in the morning, near as I can figure it, so Sam must be taking a mid-day shower. Dean is handling his brother’s used, and probably still slightly warm underwear. I’m squirming in my seat each time I see this scene, my mild shock stirred through with delight. It’s not an underwear fetish that I’ve got, I’m thinking, but it’s such a cool little scene, the boxers are on the bed (fans continue to debate whether they are either grey or brown), in a tumble with Mr. Long Legs’ jeans. The shirts he later wears are there too, the arms weaving in and out, still warm from Sam’s skin, and
Wow. Is it hot in here, or is it just me?
Then.
Oh, sweet Jesus then. THEN.
Sam walks, no, struts out of the shower wrapped in nothing but a towel. The Towel. (The Towel has little cowboys and cacti on it, near as I can figure, but that’s neither here nor there.)
There’s suddenly enough steam in the room just then to open all of the mailed-in envelopes for any Florida election you care to name. And it’s not from Sam opening the door to the bathroom either.
The Towel is slung low (and I mean low) just below the line of Sam’s legs and that backside, so smoothly, it’s like watching water slide over marble. It’s at this point that the fangirl squee starts to build in my head. (Rumor has it that Jared Padalecki, understandably nervous about this near-naked-nudity he was being called upon to perform, worked out extra hard several weeks before this scene was shot. That’ll do, Padalecki, that’ll do.) There were no panty lines under that towel, none that I could see anyway, and believe me I looked. In slo-mo. Which tells me, really, that Mr. Padalecki was nekked under that towel. Turn fangirl squee up to Maximum, I think my head is gonna expode.
He’s sleek, he’s wet, he’s damp, his hair is a charming disarray, and he’s got all that edible bare skin exposed. Brother Dean shoves the tell-tale and now empty packet of itching powder in his jacket. The camera goes into a close up of Dean, who gives his brother a full body, up and down eye flick that always makes me wonder, whatcha lookin’ at Deano? Making sure the brotherly business is covered? (Maybe I don’t want to know.) The camera goes long, and Dean announces that they will get something to eat (which they don’t do, they only get coffee), and throws himself in the bathroom, shutting the door behind him. Sammy Boy takes it slow and crosses to his tumble of clothes on the bed. His left chest muscle gives a twitch, which makes various parts of me jump, and then that long arm reaches out so he can fondle his own underwear. Fade to black, next scene.
In the next scene, in a coffee shop, Sam is squirming and scratching at himself in all those places you are not supposed to touch in public. Yeah, baby, he’s reaching down between those long, dense thighs of his and pulling on himself. This puts me in a mild panic because a) I shouldn’t be watching such an intimate thing and b) I’m old enough to be his mother. (Neither Sam nor Mr. Padalecki would know who H.R. Puffinstuff was if it bit them in the persqueeter.) Moreover, I should not have gotten such bliss out of watching the boy come out of the shower in nothing but a towel, either, come to think of it. I’ve got too many years on him (and never mind that he’s a fictional character, though the same could be said for Mr. Padalecki), and should’n't be lusting in this way. It’ wrong, and sick, and base, and oh, my, all I want to know is why wouldn’t The Towel fall off? Or, barring this, I want nothing more than to ask The Towel, how was it, and did it want a cigarette?
Sylvia Bond is a ten-year technical writing veteran with too many degrees under her belt to count. She lives in Colorado, but does not ski, preferring instead to spend her money and time at the annual Great American Beer Festival, taking road trips across the United States, and reading historical fiction from the comfort of her fluffy green arm chair. She has been involved in fandom since 1993 and been writing fanfic since approximately 1993. What she finds most amazing about fandom (besides the open heartedness of fans and the sheer amount of creativity) is how visible fandom has become. “In my day,” she says, “we had to hide behind P.O. boxes to get fanfic. But nowadays, people wear t-shirts that shout their affiliation and share their shiny toys on the internet.” It’s a wonderful world.
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