Supernatural: Dead in the Water

May 15, 2021 5:21 PM - Season 1, Episode 3

Sam and Dean work a case in a small Wisconsin town where something in the lake is killing people by dragging them down into the water, never to be found again. 
posted by orange swan (4 comments total)

Andrea: [After walking Dean and Sam to the motel she recommended at Dean's request.] There it is. Like I said, two blocks.
Dean: Thanks.
Andrea: Must be hard with your sense of direction, never being able to find your way to a decent pick-up line.

Dean: [to a traumatized small boy who is obsessively drawing pictures] So, crayons are more your thing. That's cool, chicks dig artists.

Dean's transparent attempts to pick up a recently widowed woman with a young son who has trauma-induced, elective mutism aside, it was somewhat moving to see him try to connect to Lukas. Everything he said to him was true and sincere. Dean remembers his mother's death, and the events of that night, which turned him from a 4-year-old boy living an ordinary, secure, comfortable life with his mom and dad and baby brother into a motherless young boy, living a nomadic, chaotic existence in awful motel rooms with a barely functional, obsessed, alcoholic father and a baby brother he had to help take care of. That traumatic experience shaped him by seeding the two driving forces of his life in him: killing monsters in order to save innocent people's lives, and being Sam's older brother. 
  
Also, little Lukas can draw better than Dean. 

Amy Acker, who played Andrew, was in Cabin in the Woods and in Person of Interest. It still makes me laugh to think of her as Root in the latter, showing up at their subway lair in a wedding dress that one time without offering any explanation as to why.
posted by orange swan at 5:33 PM on May 15, 2021 [4 favorites]

I always loved this episode for Dean's interactions with Lukas. He's so good with kids.
posted by brook horse at 7:04 AM on May 16, 2021 [1 favorite]

Yeah, it was a good building block episode, showing Dean with the kid and just giving the characters a little more low key interaction since the show was more about relationships than the monster itself. It also kinda gives a sense of how the show will tend to use the threats they face as loose metaphors for the boys own situation rather than, as some shows do, tie the parallels up neatly with bows on so you can't miss the likenesses.

Occasionally they'll be more direct in that manner, but usually it is a bit looser as in these last two episodes. Wendigo with the missing brother that the sister won't let disappear and this one with the light parallel between Dean (and Sam) as boys who saw bad things and this kid.

I'll also give them a tiny bit of credit for even at the height of the show's irksome all the girls want to get with Dean, or maybe Samdom, they still kept the women characters strong enough to not make it feel completely gross, even as the show did venture pretty close to, and sometimes even cross, the line in some of its overall handling of women, but it avoided being a total deal breaker when mixed with all the other weirdness of the show.
posted by gusottertrout at 5:43 PM on May 16, 2021 [1 favorite]

Quotes:

Dean: Alright, if you're gonna be talking now, this is a very important phrase, so I want you to repeat it back to me one more time.
Lucas: Zeppelin rules!

Sam: People don't just disappear, Dean. Other people just stop looking for them.

Dean: I'm Agent Ford; this is Agent Hamill.

Sam: I think it's safe to say we can rule out Nessie!

Andrea: [to Sam] Tell your friend this whole "Jerry McGuire" thing's not gonna work on me.

Trivia:

Jared Padalecki's hand was partially broken while filming this episode.
posted by orange swan at 5:22 PM on July 19, 2021