Recap of Supernatural
Season 1, Episode 2:
Wendigo
"I think he wants us to pick up where he left off, you know, saving people, hunting things. The family business."—Dean to Sam
Roy: You're rangers?
Dean: That's right.
Haley Collins: And you're hiking out in biker boots and jeans?
Dean: Oh, sweetheart, I don't do shorts.
Written by Eric Kripke, Ron Milbauer, and Terri Hughes Burton.
Directed by David Nutter.
Airdate: September 20, 2005.
Sam and Dean follow coordinates their father left for them to Lost Creek Wilderness
and end up helping to rescue a lost camper.
Following coordinates left to them by their father, Sam and Dean wind up in the woods in Colorado with a group of hikers as they stumble across a wendigo. Sam is still grieving for Jessica and suffering nightmares. Dean teaches Sam that helping others and saving people can provide some relief for his anger, as they work to save Tommy Collins and get to know his sister and brother in the process. Dean seems very interested in getting to know his sister, Haley Collins. However, they do not find their father, and they realize their father left them the coordinates because he wanted them to continue hunting and not to help them find him. While the wendigo kills the group's forest guide and kidnaps Dean and Haley, they and Tommy are successfully rescued and the wendigo is killed by Dean with a flare gun.
Body count:
For this episode = 3 humans and 1 wendigo.For the series so far = 6 humans; 3 ghosts; 1 wendigo.
Tropes:
- Abandoned Mine: The wendigo's lair.
- Arc Words: It's the first appearance of the often-quoted saying "Saving people, hunting things—the family business."
- Artistic License – Geography: The coordinates left by John Winchester (35, -111) actually point to Arizona. The Lost Creek Wilderness Area in Colorado is around 39.3, -105.5.
- Artistic License – Linguistics: Sam claims that "wendigo" is a Cree word that means 'evil that devours'. In actuality, the name is wiindigoo in the Ojibwe language (which is likely the source of the English word): it's wīhtikōw in Cree. The Proto-Algonquian term that both come from was *wi·nteko·wa, which probably originally meant "owl".
- Bears Are Bad News: Played with. No bears appear in the episode, although the wendigo attacks are blamed on bears. Sam even notes that there's ten or more grizzly bears in the area, as a reminder that they have other things besides the wendigo to worry about.
- Big Bad: The wendigo in the woods.
- Big Brother Instinct:Dean: You okay?Sam: Yeah, I'm fine.Dean: Another nightmare? [Sam clears his throat] You wanna drive for a while?Sam: Dean, your whole life, you never once asked me that.
- Big Damn Heroes: Dean saving Sam and the rest of the Collins family.
- Black Dude Dies First: Actually Played Straight, with Brad the camper being the first to die.
- Blatant Lies: Sam pretending he's fine.
- Cannibalism Superpower: The wendigo is a humanitarian.
- Chekhov's Gun: Or, in this case, Chekhov's Flare Guns, which were stolen by the wendigo early in the episode.
- The M&Ms Dean pulled out of his pocket end up leading the way to the wendigo.
- Don't Go in the Woods
- Death by Pragmatism: Roy. To be fair, it was pragmatism of the wrong genre.
- Distressed Dude: Tommy.
- Evil Makes You Monstrous: Eating human flesh transforms a person.
- Floorboard Failure: Ben and Sam fall through a shaft and into the wendigo's lair.
- Gas Leak Cover-Up: The survivors go with the grizzly bear story.
- Geometric Magic: Lampshaded by Roy:Dean: He's trying to draw us out. Just stay cool, stay put.Roy: Inside the magic circle?
- Girl of the Week: Haley for Dean.
- Gun Twirling: Dean waves the two flare guns around despite having just been hung up by his wrists.
- It Can Think: Well, of course, since it's a wendigo, not a grizzly. One particularly clever stunt, though, is updating the old KEEP OUT sign protecting its lair with a modern sign that warns of toxic waste.
- Jerkass: Roy. To be fair, Dean's not exactly making an effort to be nice.
- Jump Scare
- Just Eat Him: Luckily, the wendigo strings his food up alive to "store" it, instead of just eating or killing it.
- Kill It with Fire: They kill the wendigo with flare guns.Dean: Guns are useless, so are knives. Basically...we've got to torch the sucker.
- Mangst:Sam: How do you do it? How does Dad do it?
Dean: Well, for one, them. [looks at Haley and her brother] I mean, I figure our family's so screwed to hell, maybe we can help some others. Makes things a little bit more bearable. [long pause] And I tell you what else helps. Killing as many evil sons-of-bitches as I possibly can. - Molotov Cocktail: Sam finds it broken, apparently having been smashed before Dean had a chance to light it.
- Mood Whiplash: "
You said roses were lame" to Carrie Shout-Out to Foreigner's "Hot Blooded". Ow, my neck. - Neck Snap/Vertical Kidnapping: Roy's death.
- Posthumous Character: Jessica. She had to die for us to find out her last name (off the grave marker).
- Rain of Blood: Roy's body in the tree.
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: Dean's the Red to Sam's Blue. Most of the time.Dean: You wanna tell me what's goin' on in that freaky head of yours?
Sam: Dean—
Dean: No, you’re not fine, you're like a powder keg, man. It's not like you. I'm supposed to be the belligerent one, remember? - Regularly Scheduled Evil: People go missing in the woods every 23 years.
- Rescue Sex: Lampshaded but averted (Haley does give Dean a grateful kiss on the cheek).Haley: So, really, I don't know how to thank you. [Dean grins] Must you cheapen the moment?Dean: Yeah!
- Rise from Your Grave: Jessica's hand reaches out of her grave and grabs Sam, but it is revealed to be a nightmare.
- Screaming Woman: Haley Collins.
- Shout-Out:
- The guys are playing Metroid Prime Hunters on the Nintendo DS.
- Tommy Collins is reading The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell, which Foreshadows The Hero's Journey the brothers have before them.
- Dean makes a couple of cartoon references when talking about wildlife:
- Ben Collins likens the process of becoming a wendigo to what happened to the Donner Party.
- Sam's nightmare, where he dreams of laying flowers on Jessica's grave, only for her hand to pop out of the grave and grab him, is a reference to Sue's nightmare at the end of Carrie.
- Sole Survivor: Shaw with the claw-shaped scar.
- Stab the Scorpion. Roy and Dean are arguing and getting on each others' nerves when Roy violently grabs Dean's shoulder...to stop him from walking on a Bear Trap.
- Stripped to the Bone: The leftovers in the wendigo's lair.
- Thicker Than Water: The Collins siblings, mirroring the Winchester brothers.
- Trail of Bread Crumbs: Trail of Peanut M&Ms, which are "better than breadcrumbs", as the brightly-colored sweets stand out more.
- Unwilling Suspension
-
Vancouver Doubling: For Blackwater Ridge. - Was Once a Man: The wendigo.
- Wendigo: The Monster of the Week.
- While You Were in Diapers:Roy: You, protect me? I was hunting these woods when your mommy was still kissing you good night.
