Recap / Supernatural S 07 E 08 Season Seven Time For A Wedding

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Recap of Supernatural
Season 7, Episode 8

Season Seven, Time for a Wedding!

Written by Andrew Dabb and Daniel Loflin.

Directed by Tim Andrew.

Air Date: November 11, 2011.

It's been a few months of work and Sam and Dean are on their annual trip to Vegas, however, Sam leaves Dean to go camping. Dean gets a text from Sam on his cell that asks him to come to a church, and finds that Sam is getting married to Becky Rosen. Dean is surprised and worried that Sam might not be thinking straight, but he also finds another piece of disturbing news; people in the town are dying "freaky deaths". With Becky coming between Sam and Dean, Dean is forced to work with a laid-back hunter named Garth.

Body Count:

For this episode = 2 humans and 1 demon.

For the series so far = At least 762 humans (of which 6 were witches), 89 demons, 55 angels, 36 ghosts, 36 Jefferson Starships, 26 vampires, 19 zombies, 14 gods, 9 hellhounds, 7 skinwalkers, 6 changelings, 5 shapeshifters, 4 ghouls, 3 djinn, 2 Arachnes, 2 dogs, 2 kitsunes, 2 werewolves, 1 crocotta, 1 dragon, 1 fairy, 1 Khan worm, 1 lamia, the Mother of All, 1 okami, 1 phoenix, 1 Purgatory creature, 1 rakshasa, 1 rawhead, 1 reaper, 1 rugaru, 1 shtriga, 1 siren, 1 wendigo, 1 whore of Babylon, and 1 wraith.

Tropes

• Aesop Amnesia: Come on, Becky! All those books didn't teach you anything about making deals with demons?
• Ambiguously Gay: The crossroads demon. In spades.
  Demon: I am very protective of my ass. It's one of my best features.
• Bound and Gagged: Sam, while Becky is holding him prisoner at the cabin while she restocks on love potion. Impressively, they have a conversation in this manner. Sam's contributions may be muffled, but it's still pretty obvious what he's getting at.
• Brainwashed Bride: Becky uses a Love Potion she got from a demon to make Sam fall in love with and marry her. However, the spell wears off because the demon deliberately gave her a limited amount of the potion.
• Buffy Speak: After giving Sam a Tap on the Head, Becky asks if he's concussion-y.
• Cartwright Curse: Lampshaded by Dean, but Becky is fine with it.
  Dean: Have you forgotten the average lifespan of your hookups?
• Captive Date: Begins with Becky magically controlling Sam and eventually leads to her physically restraining him to prevent his escape.
• Chained to a Bed: When the love potion wears off early, Becky resorts to this trope.
• Chekhov's Gift: Dean gives Sam and Becky a waffle iron as a wedding present. It's later used by Becky to knock out Sam.
• Chekhov's Gunman: Garth is first mentioned in Weekend at Bobbys.
• Class Reunion: The crossroad demon always finds rich pickings there, as people are desperate to impress "the nostalgically bangable head cheerleader." The reunion is Becky's, and it's implied to be a major catalyst in her decision to drug and marry Sam.
• Conveniently Timed Attack from Behind: Becky redeems herself somewhat by saving Sam's life.
• Couch Gag: A wedding cake appears on screen, right before exploding, which reveals the 7th season's version of the Supernatural logo.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?:
  • The crossroads demon is compared to The Aggressive Drug Dealer — handing out free samples to get Becky hooked, then promising to make it permanent in exchange for her soul.
  • Sam compares the Love Potion to Rohypnol.
• Double Standard: Abuse, Female on Male: It's hard to imagine this plot being played for laughs if Sam and Becky's genders were reversed. Although Becky is regretful about what she did and ultimately fixes it, she drugs Sam into loving her and then knocks him out and ties him up when the drug wears off, getting a mild talking-to as a result.
• Double Standard: Rape, Sci-Fi: Though Becky complains they haven't consummated the marriage yet, so someone was clearly thinking of this trope.
• Double Take:
  • Guy on seeing Becky's new husband. It's not until The Reveal that he's a crossroads demon that we know why, as he recognized Sam Winchester.
  • The Winchesters have this reaction when Crowley complains about that smug "dick", having no idea who he's talking about.
• Enemy Mine: Crowley has been keeping his demons away from the Winchesters while they handle the Leviathan problem, in payback for Dick Roman refusing his alliance.
• Even Evil Has Standards: "This isn't Wall Street, this is Hell! We have a little something called integrity!"
• Expecting Someone Taller: Garth was when he met Dean, who was clearly hoping for someone taller himself.
• Falling Chandelier of Doom: Averted with a Diving Save from Dean.
• Fatal Attractor: Lampshaded by Dean. Becky assures him that Sam has fully tested her for being a demon.
• Fate Worse than Death: Dean thinks Crowley has turned up to rescue his minion and threatens to cut his throat.
  Crowley: Please, don't let him get off that easy.
• Flat "What": Dean's (pretty understandable) reaction to Sam's announcement that he's marrying Becky having run into her four days earlier.
• Fourth-Date Marriage: Sam leaves for four days and ends up marrying Becky. Justified in that Becky is slipping him a Love Potion.
• Genre Blindness: Oh, Becky, you should know better, you idiot.
• Good Witch Versus Bad Witch: Becky insists that the man helping her is not a witch but a Wiccan, and therefore good. Turns out he's neither.
• His and Hers: Sam presents Becky with matching "his and hers" fake ID cards so they can investigate the crime of the week together.
• Homicide Machines: Killer ball thrower.
• Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: It's not really news, but the size difference between Becky and Sam is mindboggling.
• I Have This Friend: Word for word when Dean is discussing his brother. No sooner do the words leave his mouth than we see the waitress nodding, clearly knowing that this trope is in effect.
• I Need a Freaking Drink
• Irony: Becky thinks she's a loser, unaware she actually dated God. She got dumped by him but hey, so did the rest of the planet.
• Loophole Abuse: A crossroads demon uses this to cash in souls early. Crowley doesn't like it.
• Love Potion: What Becky uses to get Sam to marry her.
• Magic Is Evil: Sam scoffs at the idea of a "Wiccan" who uses witch powers for good. Fair enough, since the most he can say about magic users is that some of the ones he's met were merely self-centered and not malicious.
• Make It Look Like an Accident: Unfortunately they're freak accidents, so it doesn't work.
• Near-Rape Experience: Sam is knocked unconscious, tied to a bed, and had his pants removed.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Chuck apparently dumped Becky. She took this badly.
• No Honor Among Thieves: Guy has a protege carry out the murders so he keeps his hands clean. Unfortunately he tips off Crowley.
• Not so Dire: When the lights start to flicker, Dean takes out his pistol and kicks in the door to find...Sam getting married? Okay, maybe it is dire.
• Oh, Crap!: Becky does a priceless one when Sam finds her book. And even she is surprised when Sam isn't freaked out.
  • Sam, when he realizes he's not wearing any pants.
  • The crossroads demon and Dean when Crowley shows up, using those exact words.
• Pair the Spares: Subverted. Sam tells Becky that eventually she'll find the right man. Garth perks up and smiles at her, running a hand over his hair and trying to look handsome. Dean shuts him down immediately.
  Dean: No. No.
• Parody Sue: Becky uses a love potion to try to inject herself into Sam's life and live out her fan fiction fantasies. She tries to take Dean's place and prove that she and Sam were meant to be together, but her intense romantic obsession with Sam makes it awkward at every turn. This is most obvious when she interrupts a conversation between Sam and Dean about a case in town to spout off what she knows about the case. It comes off as a weird imitation of the brothers briefing each other before starting a hunt. She eventually fails because her mere presence was too suspicious to fly under the radar and triggered Dean's suspicion that something supernatural was at work.
• Pragmatic Villainy: Crowley is furious over Guy's Loophole Abuse because it would effect their business if word got out.
• Shout-Out:
  • Dean calls the demon "Madolf".
  • To This is Spın̈al Tap of all things: The pitching machine goes up to eleven.
• Shutting Up Now: Becky geeks out after using a devil's trap on the crossroads demon, until a Death Glare from Sam shuts her up.
• Smug Snake: Becky's crossroads demon.
• Stalker with a Crush: Becky. Drugging your crush with Love Potion and to the effect that they marry you has to be this trope's gold standard.
• There Are No Coincidences: "It's never something else. When are there ever two crazy things in town at the same time?"
• Trivially Obvious: Ever the nice guy, Sam tries to compliment Becky who has kept him drugged, bound, and gagged for the majority of the episode:
  Sam: Becky, look. You're not a loser, okay? You're a good person, a-and you've got... a lot of... e-energy.
• Undressing the Unconscious: when the Love Potion Becky has been using to trick Sam into loving her wears off, she knocks him unconscious. He wakes tied to a bed and gagged. When Becky un-gags him, he demands to know where his pants are. She explains that she took them off so he'd be more comfortable. She then says has a bottle and offers to help him "tinkle".
• Walk-In Chime-In
  Guy: Oh, Crap!.
  Dean: You said it, you're in a world of—
  Crowley: [behind Dean] Hello, boys.
  Dean: Oh crap.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: Despite having read all the Supernatural books, Becky thinks she's in the middle of her epic love story where the girl lives happily ever after with the guy of her dreams. She's actually in the middle of...well, a Supernatural book, where the girl nearly idiotically sells her soul to a demon in exchange for the forced affections of a guy who doesn't actually like her.