Supernatural: Bugs

Squatting in Suburbia
by Sylvia Bond
Supernatural Episode Review, Season One – Episode Eight
“Bugs”

This episode reminds me of the house you hear tell of in the real estate market. You know, the cheapest one on the block, the one you’re supposed to buy and fix up a little. Because when you do, by virtue of the higher value of all the other houses on the block, your house goes up in value. So Bugs is not the most sophisticated ep in the bunch, especially compared to the large, square footage and professional paint job on the multi-gabled efforts of Salvation and Devil’s Trap. But, since Bugs is a) a Supernatural episode, b) stars Ackles and Padalecki, and c) has lots of funny, cute bits, it automatically goes up in value, and voila, you’ve just tripled your equity. With me so far?

The basic plot has to do with the fact that some dumb contractor (and aren’t they all that way? Dumb and money hungry?) decided to create a housing development on a Cursed Indian Burial Ground. The houses go up, and people start dying pretty much right off the bat. (This being a Supernatural episode, that shouldn’t surprise anyone.)

The first guy to go is wearing a construction hat, which is good because he falls down into sinkhole (in Oklahoma?) and is eaten alive by, yes, you guessed it, bugs. Our sinkhole cam gives us nice views of him bleeding from his ears and eyes, all good, gory stuff, and then the bugs cover him like a blanket, and give me the absolute creeps, on account of one of my first nightmares was that I was being covered by ants. I can barely watch this part.

The second dead body results is of the Real Estate agent, and she really didn’t have it coming even if she was wearing the ugliest Real Estate jacket ever and had her hair wound so tightly in a bun I could hear it screaming even before the bugs got her. Not to mention which, it is my sad duty to announce that, yes, she did die naked and whilst taking a shower, damp from head to foot. Why is it that Show’s idea of an interesting death for a female character always involves them in the bathroom, wearing no clothes, and performing some sort of ablutions? (Or alternately, they are dressed in black lingerie.) It’s old news, hackneyed, clichéd, and frankly, I’m not ashamed to admit it, I’d be a whole lot less peeved by the entire matter if Show treated male characters the same way. Give us a good looking MALE victim for once, have him taking a shower NEKKED, and then KILL him off as he flings water droplets from his body everywhichway, to indicate to us how serious the situation is. It’d be fair, and would follow my precepts of Equal Opportunity Nekked Nudity. Then the feminists wouldn’t have a leg to stand on, and I’d be entertained, which is, of course, the most important thing. I’d be jiggy with that whole scenario. Wouldn’t you?

The cuteness involving the boys (which is far more important even than my campaign for random about-to-be-dead-running-around-naked guys) starts right away when they pull into suburbia to check out the creepy bug thing. Their remarks about how cool or uncool the perfect green lawns and beautiful houses are telling. Sam thinks they are nice, because he’s, at this point, a very nice boy, and he likes nice things. He understands the concept of buying the cheapest house on the block, he understands the value of a savings account, and in fact, he probably has an IRA account (or, because he’s so smart, a Roth IRA) tucked away that even Dean doesn’t know about. Plus, more importantly, Sam’s dream is to live in a place Just Like This. Or rather his dream WAS to live in a place just like this. Right now, during this ep, he just wants to find The Dad and then finish it all up to get back to his old life. Or what’s left of it.

Dean, on the other hand, is creeped out by the collection of cookie-cutter sameness, and even if Dean doesn’t know the meaning of the word banal, he would understand the concept, were it explained to him. Not for our boy is the bland, the contained, the self-modifying outlines of the houses, the lawns, the fences, hell, even the trees. All of which must operate within the doctrines of the local HOA, the Neighborhood Watch, and that lady who undoubtedly would live across the street, peeking through her blinds like Gladys Kravits, who knows all and makes up more. Dean would rather shoot himself in the head than put up with ANY of this, and you can see Sam do a double take when he finds this out. Rather as if he is, at that moment, just realizing that not only is Dean not like him, he probably doesn’t have an IRA either, Roth or otherwise.

Funnier still is the reception the Boys get upon meeting the Greedy Developer and the Ugly Coat Wearing Real Estate Agent. Because, for some reason, upon first blush, Sam and Dean, our tough, macho, gritty, street-wise, sexy black Impala-driving, gun-toting boys, appear to be gay. This is imparted in the cute scene where the GD gives his little speech about not refusing a sale based on race, religion, color, or sexual orientation. This is repeated later by the UCWREA, whereupon it gets even funnier watching their expressions as they realize just how pervasive and unshakable the idea that they’re gay is.

That they LOOK gay to outsiders finally hits them a little harder than it usually might, and I’m sure they’re each wracking their adorable brains as to why. But I mean really. They’re not that dense, and if they thought about it, they could each come up with a different list of probable reasons. And at the top of each list would be: If you hang around with the same guy all the time, share clothes, and breathe each other’s breath, are in such a relaxed state when you’re together, and are standing very close when you show up at the door, whereupon you talk to each other without words using only your eyes and slight tilts of the head? Even if your shoes don’t match your pants, people will view this sort of relationship through a sexual filter and call it gay. Or, at the very least, sleeping together. Get over it.

Which they do. Sam seems a little uncomfortable with the joke at first (whereas Dean is confidence a’swaggerin’), after which he can laugh a bit. And whether it’s because he’s become a tad monkish since St. Jessica died, or he’s just shy that way, or he’s saving himself for his next One True Love, it’s still adorable to watch him in the fancy, suburban garden, plastering on his fake smile, and trying not to snap his neck as he watches Dean walk off and away from him. Dean who’s like, gay schmay, I’ve got a job to do.

Dean, he seems amused by the whole thing right off the bat, and takes it in stride, as they both march in the house. They do correct the GD, but not the UCWREA, preferring instead to hide in plain sight, walking around looking at the décor and the layout (Dean wrinkles his brow as if truly considering any of it, when we all know that he values none of it), as if they were gay. As if being gay made them harmless, as if being gay meant that you weren’t tough, or macho, gritty and street-wise, as if no gay man ever drove a sexy, black Impala, and let me just call bullshit here, because all the gay guys I know know sexycool when they see it.

Dean and Sam are wonderfully sexycool themselves, and they survive all the alluding with a wink and a nudge, and, at one delicious moment, Dean slaps Sam on the ass and calls him honey, to play it all up. Because honestly, I think Dean and Sam give not a rat’s patootie about anyone’s sexuality, and certainly not to the point where they have to prove their own. For them, who you sleep with and why (or in Dean’s case, why not?) seems to be based on personality and preferences, and without any consideration to anything else. Thought I’ve not yet been able to pin down a physical type for each boy, like, whether Dean or Sam likes blondes or brunettes, I do think that Sam likes them brainy (Jess, Madison), whereas Dean likes them sassy, independent, and stubborn. (And nameless, except for the erstwhile Cassie. Interesting how I can tick off Sam’s girls, on one hand, whereas, for Dean? You couldn’t make a chart big enough for the girls he’s conquered.)

The fact that Show lets the boys keep pretending that they’re gay for the purposes of going undercover is fun. And cute, because it allows Dean to touch Sam and tease him, and, more importantly, laugh on the inside and out, which I love to see because he’s got such a great laugh. And, at the same time, it raises a question in my mind. Dean’s comfort level with the whole issue could just be that his machismo is so strongly in place that he could give a hang what anyone thinks. Or, on the other hand, it could be that, if he wanted to, and the opportunity of just the right sassy, independent, and stubborn man came along, that Dean would avail himself of a little male company. (Say it with me now: “Saving people, hunting things, and humping and screwing anything that moves.” Plus a little Oprah on the side, right, Dean?)

Oh, howl if you must and throw things. I’m not saying that Dean’s gay, but the idea that his promiscuity might lead him down the bi-sexual path isn’t new, nor is it even original. I’ve talked to many a Supernatural fan and none of them, to a woman, was shocked at the thought, nor felt I was presenting them with anything terribly risqué. (In fact, it’s been said that Ackles himself has stated that Dean, hanging out in all those pool halls and bars, is a fairly randy fellow, which suggests that there’s no telling where he’s been. Or, I imagine, with whom.) Besides, Dean’s such a horrendous horn dog, that if the other person was, to quote Bodie, warm, under fifty, and came across, Dean’d be throwing his leg over faster than you can say, “Who’s got a condom?” It would have to be the RIGHT man, of course. Someone interesting, without anything to prove. Someone who could give Dean a run for his money. (Not that he’d ever have to pay, of course.)

And the whole gay undercover thing has nothing whatsoever to do with the shower scene, nor my pleasure in it. Dean decides that they are going to squat in one of the just-built, newly-decorated, sitting-right-on-top-of-a-Cursed-Indian-Burial-Ground houses. He urges Sam to park the Impala, with an impatient “I’m the older brother” gesture, and as Sam drives in, he smacks Dean in the stomach by way of retaliation. Dean doesn’t care, because the house has all the mod cons; he’s going to take advantage of them. This includes a steam shower, and since Dean is such a clean boy, he’s going to get into it as soon as possible. Which means that he got naked as soon as possible. And Show? Doesn’t show me anything. Unlike the death throes of the UCWREA, with that damn naked woman in full view, which did nothing for me except make me wary of showerheads. (Oh, like I wasn’t before!)

Dean in the shower is every fangirl’s dream, but in this case, it is only a dream of Dean in the shower that we have, because you don’t get to see ANYTHING. Ackles simply cannot be this shy, not when he’s as good looking as he is, so I put it down to a characterization of Dean’s. Where he refuses to show us more than a few inches of juicy, damp Deanskin, and instead comes to the bathroom door (at Sam’s insistent, tall-fisted pounding), wrapped in towels. As Dean peeks coyly around the door at his brother, he’s not only engulfed in steam, he’s completely camouflaged. He’s got a post-shower towel turban on his head, for all that he’s got about two inches of hair, plus, he’s most likely got wrapped around his middle a towel that no doubt STARTS above his navel. This is not fair! No one wants this! But I have to stop myself from starting a petition to get Dean in as little towel coverage as we saw Sam not-in during Hell House, because I’m sure it won’t be of any use. For Kripke’s SAKE, we got to see UCWREA naked, and she’s not even a regular, let alone a hottie like Dean. Why does Show insist on depriving me of these visual pleasures that could and would fuel my fantasies for weeks at a time?

But lest anyone think that I think that this ep is all about Dean and whether or not he’s bi, let’s talk about Sam. Sam’s relationship to the GD’s kid seems to echo his own relationship with The Dad. The Dad hasn’t quite become a force majeure by this point, because it’s early days in Season One, and the Boys haven’t been looking for him for very long. So neither Sam nor Dean is panicked that the search isn’t going well, nor has Sam’s desire to return to his old life and leave Dean (gasp!) become an issue. Perhaps because he feels his old life is only a handbreadth away, Sam can truly believe that he can go home soon, and hang what Normal Mailer says about it.

So the conflict we see between the boys is not that they are not looking or that the trail has gone cold (as becomes the issue in later eps). Instead, the conflict is about the kind of dad that each boy thought that The Dad was. The boys have five different (count ‘em, five) conversations about this issue, peppering the ep with plenty of angst and 180-degree different perspectives. It starts out in front of the pool (where Dean has just won wads of money), where Sam snaps out, “The way we were raised was jacked.” Dean’s feels that being hunter is a valuable, though underpaid profession. His response to Sam’s jibe is a hearty, “Says you,” though he says nothing specific about the implications of Sam’s comment.

At the garden party, Sam rescues the UCWREA from a huge, hairy spider with nary a shiver. (Regarding the spider, there are many species of tarantulas that are rather sweet and completely harmless, to hear about them from their owners. I, yes, me, have held one in my hands, and it felt light and delicate, like feathers. I had to watch a three-year old perform this action of letting the thing crawl across its face FIRST, before I could be brave enough to try it myself. Yes, there are pictures of this event, in case anyone thinks I’m a liar.) Then he listens to the GD’s Kid tell his tale of woe, a tale that matches Sam’s own. As in, the Kid doesn’t get along with his dad, they don’t talk, they have goals that are at cross purposes, and if any of this doesn’t sound familiar, then please watch Show from the beginning and take notes this time. (The Kid plays wonderfully well as a younger, greasier-haired version of Sam. Kind of like his own, personal mini-me.)

This is followed by the next exchange, which starts when Sam points out that the GD reminds him of The Dad, whereupon Dean insists that The Dad never treated them like that. What I like here is Sam’s amazement that Dean has, apparently forgotten everything, right down to the crucial detail that while Dean was The Dad’s perfect son, Sam got the rough edge of The Dad’s attention. This is where we get the great line about how mad it made The Dad that Sam preferred soccer to bow hunting. Dean is shocked to find that Sam feels this way, which says a lot about how he simply accepted everything that The Dad told them. Plus, he’s amazed that Sam doesn’t think that their childhood was the coolest EVER!

There’s a talk in the woods about how families should stick together, another at the university about the fact that Sam respected The Dad, but that he never met The Dad’s expectations of him. This bit includes Dean’s pithy observations about how Sam could have picked up the phone just as easily as anyone, and indicates (to me at least) that there were no phone calls exchanged between Sam and his family during the Stanford years. And then finally, towards the end of the ep, Sam realizes that he’s got to take some initiative in order to heal the wounds that are festering between him and The Dad and keeping them apart. Regardless whether the blame belongs to the fact that Sam left, or that it was The Dad who shut the door, things must change in order for the Family Winchester to continue. Sam, he’s that sort of fellow, and seems willing to shoulder the burden and make the first move. He’s quite tearful as he announces to Dean his intention to renew their efforts to find The Dad, because now Sam’s got more motivation, he’s going to want to fix things between them, and he’s so emo about this, that I wonder how long the gap between him and The Dad has been bothering him? From day one, when he left? Or since Dean came to get him?

Watching this scene, with Sam all emo like he gets, I remember that I’d promised myself that I wouldn’t make comparisons between one ep and any other, and I’m not doing that here, exactly. Just that I’m currently watching Season Three, and seeing that the differences between Season One Sam and Season Three Sam are as wide as the sky. Season One Sam is sweet, like fresh butter and fluffy bunnies. If you kissed him, I’ll bet he would taste like cotton candy. (Dean is snips and snails, and puppy dog’s tails, forever ‘n forever ‘n forever). Season One Sam comes off sounding rather like a girl, even though he’s not. (Dean’s changed as well, of course, such a dynamic character could not remain static, but it’s seems due to the fact that more of him is showing. And I mean psychologically, not physically. Unfortunately!)

But by Season Three, Sam reminds me of the killer in the song “Cow Patty” by Jim Stafford. The relevant lyrics are: “From the badlands came the killer, he lived by his knife and the gun; He’d cut you just for standing, and shoot you if you tried to run; He was as big as a tree, and did what he pleased, and everything he did was bad; They said if you was to kill him, it’d only make him mad.” Doesn’t that just describe Season Three Sam to a T? I mean, you’ve got the badlands, that is, South Dakota, where Sam’s final showdown with Jake made him more of a killer, and then subsequent eps that have Sam more than ready to pull out the Colt and shoot something with it. And he seems more pissed off all the time, too! Plus Sam is like a giant redwood, which is, as everyone knows, a really BIG tree. Show and Padalecki have done such a wonderful job making the change in Sam a gradual one, it’s subtle and realistic. But stand the two side by side? It’s as shocking a difference as a punch in the face.

Anyway, back to the bugs. Sam and Dean decide they need to go talk to someone who knows what might have happened before the land was developed into cookie-cutter houses. They drive out to the local Indian Reservation, which might not come across as a cliché if I had not this last summer driven to Monument Valley and past many dusty outposts where the locals really and truly scratch livings from red land that looks half as mean as it probably is and nothing like the reservation in this ep. Plus the whole Cursed Indian Burial Ground is about as unoriginal as the possibility that Dean might be bi, but I like the way Show handled this, because I liked the Indian guy.

The Indian guy that the boys talk to knows right away that Dean is a liar, and he dislikes him for it. Sam is the better liar, he’s just bold enough to know when the truth will serve their purposes better, and gives the Indian guy some of the truth in order to find out what they need to know. From the vantage point of being halfway through Season Three, I know that Sam is the stealth bomber of liars; he could sell you chunks of Heathrow Airport without so much as an eyelash twitch. He’s got the Indian guy flamboozled enough to believe that Sam’s truth is the whole truth, and Indian guy tells them about the legend.

The boys are able to solve the problem, and realize that since the area is a Cursed Indian Burial Ground they have to get everyone out of there fast. Which leads me to the biggest problem of this ep (besides Dean’s hiding amongst too many towels), and that is the instant morning. The boys, according to the dialog, arrive at the GD’s house just before midnight. They manage to convince the family that they are in danger and that the bugs are coming for them. They all barricade themselves in the house, and foolishly allow themselves to be driven upwards, where they become trapped in the attic. Since everyone knows that the safest route of escape is to go to ground, their plan puzzles me further, because the Impala has four wheels and windows and could have gotten them out of there supersexycool fast. Right? But we’re given what we’re given, so let’s look at that.

Everyone is trapped in the attic. Flying bees and bugs eat wood apparently, so they are soon able to break through the roof with its many BRAND NEW layers of roofing tile, tar paper, nails, insulation, and wood. (There’s all sorts of funny behind the scenes stories about the production crew’s ability to either acquire or herd bees, not to mention the bee sting that Ackles got, and joked of proudly for ages until told to hush by his fellows. Most of the bees were CGI creations, except for the one.) The bees come in, and the boys fight them off, with Dean doing his pyro bit, which even though sexy appeases me not much in the face of the lack of Dean-nudity. Be that as it may, the fact of the matter is, all of a sudden, without any indication that time has lapsed, the sun suddenly comes up, announcing that suddenly it is six a.m., and burns off all the bugs and bees. I feel sure that the crew was overwhelmed by bug-herding or something because this is about the sloppiest thing I have ever seen Show do. I’m sure Show and Co have noticed their unfortunate slip long ere this for I have never seen its like again. Which, even if I did, wouldn’t stop me from enjoying Show, because Show is like sex. As in, even when it’s not so good, it’s still the best thing that happens to me each and every week. Or, to be in keeping with the whole real estate metaphor, I’m happy to move into the cheapest house on the block, even if it does have holes in the ceiling, if it means I get to live on the same block as Show.

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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