Supernatural: Hook Man

Getting Hooked Up
by
Sylvia Bond
Supernatural Episode Review, Season 1 – Episode 7
“Hook Man”

This episode is about sex and sin. The sex you want, the sex you can’t get, the sex you shouldn’t be having but are, and the sex that should never happen, even between consenting adults. It’s about trying to get your brother laid. And then it’s about sin, in all its various guises, and what happens to you when commit one. This episode is also about the hook man, which is an urban legend that goes under many names, but is basically about a madman who’s got a hook for a hand and goes around to lover’s lanes everywhere and guts the guy (who just wants to cop a feel), and hangs him upside down over the car he was just in, leaving him there to bleed. And scratch at the top of the car, which brings the girlfriend out for a marvelous scream.

The hook man legend is one of those cautionary tales in which the narrative uses gruesome images and serves as a warning against the sex you should not want, as well as every other kind. Naturally, in this ep, Show gives us two young idiots, Laurie and Rich, who plow through the warnings with nary a sideways glance, and get what they deserve. But you can see it coming, even if they can’t, because Laurie wears a red top that her ever-so-helpful and slightly slutty roommate (how does she study in that outfit, I ask you?) foisted upon her to wear to the party. You can see the top doesn’t quite suit Laurie’s coloring, and that it’s the kind of top bad girls wear, and a bad girl she ain’t. And I can tell that on account of her lack of glossy makeup and the crux anasta she wears around her neck. Strap in, boys, we’re in for a bumpy night.

Then there’s Rich, who doesn’t quite understand that no means no even when you want it to mean yes. On top of which, he’s one of those dofuses who gets out of a nice, solid car to check out the mysterious noises. Naturally, he does not come back, which is okay, because that means there’s one less for the gene pool to worry about. For a minute, Laurie seems smart, locking the doors, rolling up the windows. The keys are in the ignition, and maybe she’s going to drive away. She could be like one of those chicks, whose gumption is the reason she’s the only survivor to walk out of a plane crash in the jungle. But then she gets out of the car instead of simply using the already established cell phone to call for help, and gets an eyeful of the legend, live and in person: blood pooling on the top of the car, her boyfriend upside down, his nails scraping the roof, and the awful stillness of his body as it hangs there. And then, Laurie screams, throwing her arms back, looking a bit like she’s just about to sing the high C in her debut aria. I hang my head. Some heroines are so hopeless.

To more important matters, of course, the boys. This ep has lots of the boys dithering, a perennial favorite of mine. They are at a coffee joint discussing where The Dad is. Or rather, Sam is telling Dean all his trials, lord, about not being able to find The Dad. Dean’s response is a rather casual: “Maybe Dad doesn’t want to be found.” And it’s not that Dean doesn’t care about The Dad, because he does. In his mind, in his loyal, wanting-to-be-number-one-son brain, he’s doing what The Dad wants, which is not only not finding, but also not even looking. Sam, on the other hand, is looking, wants to find, and isn’t going to stop. But Dean is more interested in the mutilated body found at a nearby college campus, and he wants to go there. This ep, for once, he gets his way.

What’s fun about this scene, besides the dithering, is the whole coffee issue, that is, what kind of coffee each boy orders. You can see Dean drinking black coffee in a glass mug. Black as in no cream, but I’m thinking that he might have put sugar in it, because have you tasted straight black coffee? Don’t quote me on that, because I’m willing to be informed that Dean likes black coffee without sugar. Heck, I’d be willing to make it for him. As for the glass mug, I put it off to the stylings of the frou-frou place they are at, because glass mugs are awfully hot and not easy to drink out of.

As for Sam, yeah, he’s ordered a fancy coffee, one girlish enough for Dean to mock him horribly, and I’d say, give it to him, because I’m that way. Sam’s drink, according to Dean, is a half-caff double vanilla latte, and try saying that fast three times. I’m sure he picked up the habit at Stanford, because the Winchesters don’t seem the type to like fancy coffee. To Sam’s credit, he doesn’t let the teasing faze him at all, he’s gonna have the coffee he likes and Dean be damned.

Next, Dean and Sam rolling up to a fraternity house is a satisfying combination of sight and sound. The Impala rumbles like an unsettled beast, Quiet Riot blasts from the speakers, and every frat boy head turns his head to look at the sleek and shiny sex on wheels thing that has poured into their midst. Frat boys, need I point out, who are working on a not-too-new BMW, a car that will never, not in a million years, come even close to approaching the Impala in mystery, magic, and machismo. The headlight that is out on the Impala only adds to the bad boy just-been-in-a-fight air to the car. Throughout this ep, the Impala makes many manly entrances and exits, and I WANT an Impala like this so bad, I can’t even tell you.

As usual, Dean takes the upper hand in spreading his personal machismo around, telling the frat boys that he and Sam are their frat brothers from Ohio, and making everyone believe it by the mere twitch of his eyebrow. Then, up in purple man’s room, he makes Sam to be the dolt who’s got to paint purple man’s back. And then he says, “The things he can do with a brush.” (For the love of Pete, Dean, whatever do you mean by that?) Sam’s glance promises pure doom if he could just get a second alone with his brother, and I wonder how many times Dean can pull a stunt like this before Sam actually takes him apart.

The boys go to church to follow up on the death of Rich, and to check out Laurie. They enter like wolves among the sheep, slamming doors, and attracting a lot of attention to Dean’s leather jacket. Now, the boys have been in plenty of churches, right, but the sight of them sitting in a back pew with their heads bowed in prayer is a new one for me. Or rather, Sam’s head is bowed in prayer; he’s got to nudge Dean pretty hard to get him to follow suit. Which makes it evident to me that while they’ve been in churches to get holy water or whatever else they need to fight evil, Sunday school was never on their social calendars. Maybe the appearance of piety gets to me because I know what’s underneath their clothes, the contrast of surface beauty against the inner wild.

Notice how directly after this scene, when Dean and Sam meet up with the Reverend and his daughter, Laurie, how Dean flings himself at the Reverend so that Sam can hang out with and interrogate the cute girl. And Laurie is cute, besides being, as we were earlier informed, the Reverend’s daughter, which somehow denotes extra hotness. She is pretty, too, in a classy way, and Show plays this up by keeping her makeup and hair simple, and by using judicious filters when the camera works in close-ups of her face. Sam doesn’t care about any of this of course, and I think he senses a kindred spirit in Laurie. As he also must sense Dean’s efforts to get him laid. Problem is, both Sam and Laurie are the monogamous sort, so Dean’s got a long row to hoe if he wants to get these two in bed together. And not to pray.

Sam asks Laurie about what happened at lover’s lane. Then, in order to elicit both sympathy and express empathy, he tells Laurie, “I kinda know what you’re going through. I saw someone…get hurt. Once.” Hurt? Once? Talk about an understatement. Watch Dean’s neck snap around as he looks at his brother. Cause Dean knows, as all fangirls do, that Sam’s not only seen people get hurt, he’s seen them die. In horrible ways. Lots and lots. Without including Jessica (out of respect), I bet that listing all the people and monsters that Sam has seen get “hurt” since he’s he was little, let alone the ones that he himself has “hurt” would take a lot of pieces of paper. The pencil would be worn to a stub. On top of which, every time he pulls this empathy stunt, it’s like he’s giving up a little piece of himself.

The boys then do research at the library, and the fun part is watching them take over the place. They commandeer chairs and tables and have a sassy redheaded librarian at their disposal and they make full use of all of these things. I like watching them work the books and synthesize their information, and part of that is because I think they enjoy working together. Certainly they seem in no hurry to get out of the library, though I do wonder at the ease with which they get access to local arrest records going all the way back to 1862.

After which, they head out to the location most recently haunted by the hook man. In this scene, we get the introduction to bullets made of salt that can repel a ghost, even if they can’t kill it. Sam wants to know who came up with the idea in the first place. My money is on Dean. As should yours be. Anyway, the boys get arrested by the local law, who were waiting there all night for just such an opportunity. It’s interesting to note how many times in this series the boys do not get arrested, and you’d think it would happen more often, seeing as how many legal lines the boys cross in their line of work.

In this case, the boys are able to convince the local cops that it was all a frat prank, and spend only one night in jail. There’s a story about this night that we are missing, but I’m sure there’s some fanfic out there somewhere, filling in this little gap. (One can only hope.) I, for one, would like to see this scene on film, because I’m afraid my naughty brain has made it far worse in my imagination than it probably would have been in reality. Meanwhile, as the boys leave, the cops charge out right behind them, and for a minute the boys think they’re going to be hauled in again. Watch them both. Dean readies his body for a fight; Sam turns to face the music, his whole body tightening like a bullfighter facing a charging bull.

Alas, the boys are not arrested again. The cops, instead, head out to Laurie’s sorority house, where Laurie has woken to find her roommate slashed open, and a message written in blood on the walls, “Aren’t you glad you didn’t turn on the light?” There is a problem with this type of attack going completely undetected, though. For one thing, Laurie left her bedroom door, the one that opens to the main hallway, open when she went to bed and never saw the hook man loitering there. I chalk this up to a plot device, and let it go, my mind still cooking up images of the boys in jail.

There’s some good camera work here; watch as Dean and Sam drive by the sorority house in the Impala, going around the block to check it out and take in the ruckus. Because of how the camera was set up, and maybe it was a telephoto lens or something, you can see every last little detail in the car. You can see Dean’s hands on the wheel, his thighs, Sam’s cowlick, everything. It shows me how they must look to outsiders: two shady characters in a badass car, going where they shouldn’t go, knowing what they shouldn’t know.

But at any rate, the boys sneak into the sorority house, Dean’s eyes agleam with anticipation of seeing a naked pillow fight. That’s what I love about Dean, he’s so predictable in this regard. Sam, of course, says nothing as he clambers in a second-story window, but it’s always the quiet ones you’ve got to look out for, you know? And just what is it with the whole idea of a sorority house that makes a guy go weak at the knees? I mean, you’d think it was some sort of mystical temple, where women walk around in the altogether all the time, and the naked pillow fights are never ending. They’re not, you know. Pillow fights are tiring, and a girl’s got to sleep some time.

Once in the room (the boys could sneak into Fort Knox if they put their minds to it, so a sorority house is a snap), they discover the message on the wall, and dither a bit more about the legend that they are fighting. Afterwards there’s another dither where the boys sit comfortably on the hood of the Impala. Laconic, hands on their thighs, the knees of their jeans worn to strings. Of course, this being a classic heavy metal car, the hood can take their combined weights without denting. Try that on an import. I dare you. Also of note is the small detail of the ticket for illegal parking that’s been left on the Impala’s windshield. Nothing that moves the plot forward, right? I get the feeling that Dean simply ripped it up and threw it away. Nothing I would ever dare to do, but then I live on the grid. I pay taxes. I fear parking tickets.

There’s a particular pair of scenes in this episode that I’m very fond of. Not on account of the fact that the boys separate, but in spite of it. Dean determines that Sam will watch over Laurie that night, and I know it’s because he’s hoping Sammy will hook up with this chick and get some of the sweet stuff. Dean knows his brother pretty well, but for some reason he keeps missing the fact that Sam likes to connect with women emotionally first before having sex with them. I mean, it seems that way to me, otherwise, why does Sam keep ducking out on the perfect opportunities to get laid that Dean keeps presenting to him?

Well, anyway, Sam sits outside of Laurie’s house, listening to Laurie and her Reverend father arguing about who knows what, and soon, Laurie comes out and she and Sam have an interlude. Laurie says she fears getting close to anyone because they might die. Sam shares this fear, naturally. There is a kiss, and it’s pretty sweet, cause Sam does one of those man things and cups her head in his hand and yes, he has rather big hands, so that makes her look even more delicate than she already is, and my, my, what flutterings this causes in my stomach.

Even more sweetly, Sam pulls away from the kiss because he can’t, he can’t, and you can see that it just KILLS him to do this. Then Laurie, being somewhat virgin-ish in nature, starts talking about sin and punishments, because apparently her dad, the Reverend, is having an affair with a married woman in town, and before you can say “Give Me A Scarlet A,” the hook man has struck down her dad, and up jumps Sam, sawed off shotgun in hand, to race after the monster to shoot it with rock salt before it can do any harm.

What I love, love, love about Sam is that he is totally freaked when he does this, but does it anyway. He’s not inured to the fear, by any means. He doesn’t have the unperturbed this-is-just-another-monster coolness about him that Dean does, no, he’s shaking head to foot, looks wide eyed with wonder and alarm, and frankly, even though he’s doing a bang-up job protecting Laurie, you can kind of tell that he’d would just rather be somewhere else. At the post office. Behind a desk. At the sink, washing dishes. Doing anything but what he’s doing.

But that’s not the scene I really love. Yeah, so Sam’s with Laurie, but where is Dean? He’s on his own, marching through a local graveyard at night, not scared, no, not at all. (Not even of the attack squirrel that is surely lurking in the bushes.) He’s practically whistling as he carries a shovel in one hand and his bag of supplies over his shoulder. He’s so Tom Sawyerish about it all he may as well have a dead rat on a string and a glass doorknob in his pocket as he heads out to dig up the bones of the original hook man. He finds the unmarked grave without much trouble, and pretty soon he’s digging away, muttering that next time, he gets to watch the cute girl’s house and Sam can do the digging.

But think about it for a minute. How much effort is Dean putting in to expose the entire length of the coffin of the hook man in order to salt and burn it? A lot. And here’s why. An average grave is six feet deep, three to four feet wide, and seven to nine feet long, which means that Dean is moving anywhere from 126 to 216 cubic feet of earth. At night. With only a shovel. Digging by himself, it would take him, roughly, anywhere from five to six hours, so if he started around sunset, it’s by midnight that he presents himself as a feast to my eyes. His grey t-shirt is soaked with sweat. There’s mud caked into his jeans, smears of dirt on his face. His muscles are quivering with effort, because even for a young and fit man such as Dean, hauling that much earth over your head is hard. He’s so scruffy by this time that he’s more Huck than Tom, Huck, and as you may or may not know, Huck has a special place in my heart.

And then, oh, man, then. Having uncovered the surface of the coffin and cracked open the wood, Dean hauls himself out of the grave. With deft hands (oh, so very deft), he pulls out the salt and the lighter fluid and spreads them on the coffin. Then he straddles the open grave. I love this bit, because, check it, the man has some hot thighs on him, and I love me some manthigh. Then he lights the match, which sets his face to glowing, bringing to mind the fire elemental in Dean, the pyro part of him that would just as soon be the flames as the spark. All contained within that lovely, sculpted body of his, and the face, narrowing with concentration, his eyes reflecting the burning. Whew. Is that a sweet image or what?

In the morning, with the Reverend recovering in the hospital, Laurie at his side, Sam answers the cop’s questions about how he rescued the Reverend. He does his best to appear small, rolling his shoulders forward, plastering a butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-his-mouth expression on his face, but it’s hard. Not because Sam’s so tall or because he’s not good at it, but because the cop has noticed that everywhere Sam goes, trouble follows, and also because Dean shows up. Dean, looking worse for wear having dug a grave all night and THEN filled it in. Dean, who has the I’m-a-wanted-man look about him at all times, day and night. Dean, whose hair is standing straight up from a hasty wash. Did the boy get any sleep, I wonder?

The boys dither again, eyes flicking about to make sure no one can hear them, and figure out that the hook man is latching on to Laurie, on account of her conflicted inner feelings about all the men around her. More importantly, in this scene you can see how much Dean enjoys working out the mystery with his brother. His eyes are bright, and in spite of getting no sleep the night before, he bristles with energy. When he and his brother say the same thing at the same time, “We stop the hook man,” you can see the joy radiating from every pore of Dean’s body. This is what he loves, and I love watching him do it.

There’s more research as the boys take over the library again. Dean reads aloud, as if he’s done this a hundred times, and you know, he probably has. Sam, he’s sitting there all relaxed, because he likes to listen to the sound of Dean’s voice. Who knows how many bedtime stories, scary and otherwise, that big brother has read to little brother over the years. I’m sure it’s a lot, and it’s a comforting image, the two of them like this, in the relatively safe confines of a small-town library. Or tucked up in bed, while wee Dean scares the crap out of wee Sammy with tales of the hook man, creepy clowns, and the thing under the bed.

Then the boys return to the church at night, while Laurie is at the hospital with her dad. They ransack both the house and the church, getting every piece of silver that they can find. Lucky me, I get more pryo Dean, in the cellar, stoking the furnace like it was a smelter. Upstairs, Sam encounters Laurie, and they exchange yet more talk about punishment and sin, which, of course, attracts the hook man, who comes after them. Sam is sensible and has them do what any sane person in a horror TV show should do and that is GET OUT. He drags Laurie through the church, putting his body between her and the hook man, because that’s what he does. This leads, naturally, to major Sam whumpage against the wall, and the hook man hooking Sam in the arm, because that’s what the hook man does. Enter Dean, who in his best Dad voice, tells Sam to drop, and ta-da, he shoots the hook man! Aren’t you glad Dean is always there to save the day? (Cause that’s what HE does.)

Once they figure out that Laurie is wearing the last bit of silver that could attract the hook man, Sam snatches it off her neck. Then as the hook man approaches, scratching his malevolent hook along the plaster walls, we get a marvelous bit of eye candy as Dean watches. He moves hardly a muscle, only turns his head slightly to look. He pauses, unafraid. Sweaty. Watching it come closer and closer and closer, without an ounce of panic. Measuring the situation with his eyes, his body. It’s just so masculine, I’m all-aquiver. Then there’s the ever-marvelous exchange, where Dean tosses Sam the sawed-off and Sam tosses Dean the necklace, in sync, at the same time. (How many takes for this little stunt, eh?) Then Dean races downstairs to burn the necklace, and comes back, panting, to make sure Brother Sam is okay, because, for Dean, that is the first order of the day.

In the morning, the cops want the boys out of town. Dean is glad to go, though he allows that maybe they could stay so Sam could get his groove on with Laurie. (Dean, it seems, is never going to give up on his quest to get Sammy laid.) Sam looks battered and bruised, like he was dragged through a bush backwards, though there is, at last, evidence of first aid, with Sam’s arm patched up like he was seen to by a field medic. Sad, sad, Sammy shakes his head no to Dean’s offer, and the chance for sin passes, unwept, unhonored, and unsung. But Sam’s in the car with his brother, and they’re leaving town together; they’ll be on the road soon, so that’s okay. And Dean will take care of his Sammy, you know it, and that’s all that matters.

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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