Supernatural: Bugs

May 20, 2021 3:25 PM - Season 1, Episode 8

Sam and Dean head to Oklahoma to investigate a recent spate of insect-related deaths in a new housing development.
posted by orange swan (7 comments total)

Dean: We got a new gig, or what?
Sam: Maybe. Oasis Plains, Oklahoma. Not far from here. Gas company employee. Dustin Burwash, supposedly died from Creutzfeldt-Jakob.
Dean: Huh?
Sam: Human mad cow disease.
Dean: Mad cow. Wasn't that on Oprah?
Sam: [grinning] You watch Oprah?
Dean: [gets a shifty look, changes the subject]

[Sam and Dean are posing as potential homeowners]
Lynda Bloome: Well, let me just say that we accept homeowners of any race, religion, color or... [looks meaningfully at Sam and Dean]... sexual orientation.
Dean: Hmm, right. [to Sam] I'm gonna go talk to Larry. Okay, honey? [slaps Sam on the ass on his way by him]

Dean: Growing up in a place like this would freak me out.
Sam: Why?
Dean: The manicured lawns. "How was your day, Honey". I'd blow my brains out.
Sam: There's nothing wrong with normal.
Dean: I'd take our family over normal any day.

Sam Winchester: [about Larry with his son] Remind you of somebody?
Dean: [looks at Larry and Matthew, confused]
Sam: Dad?
Dean: Dad never treated us like that.
Sam Winchester: [laughs] Well Dad never treated YOU like that, you were perfect. He was all over my case.
Dean: [thinks about it, shakes his head]
Sam: You don't remember.
Dean: Well, maybe he had to raise his voice, but sometimes you were out of line.
Sam: Right, right, like when I said I'd rather play soccer than learn bow-hunting.
Dean: Bow-hunting's an important skill!

Dean: So what are you saying, that Dad was disappointed in you?
Sam: Was? Is. Always has been.
Dean: Why would you think that?
Sam: Because I didn't want to bow-hunt. Or hustle pool. Because I wanted to go to school and live my life, which in *our* whacked-out family made *me* the freak.
Dean: Yeah you were kinda like the blonde chick in The Munsters!

There a number of times when Sam and Dean get mistaken for a couple, and I feel their horror over it. It's happened a few times with me and one or the other of my three brothers, and it's never not been a horrific experience.

So the bugs just conveniently backed off? That was one lazy denouement. 

I thought they were leaning a little hard on the "Sam sees himself in Matthew" thing. They even had the same hair.

Props to Jared Padalecki for LETTING THAT TARANTULA CRAWL ONTO HIS HAND. You couldn't pay me enough to do that. 

Dean loved that steam shower a little too much. 
posted by orange swan at 3:37 PM on May 20, 2021 [1 favorite]

Man these are some phat houses. Huh? I'd like to live here.

Too bad you can't afford it.

You're right, this neighbourhood will be damned expensive when it's done.

Tyler Johnston (Matt Pike) plays a creepy weirdo here, he'll go on to be the king of the skids, Stewart, in 'Letterkenny' another creepy weirdo role. Good looking dude, but I can't put my finger on why his characters feel off.

Jim Byrnes (Professor) was Joe Dawson in 'Highlander,' a sub rosa fixer-type role. I'm glad 'Supernatural' ended up using Jim Beaver (I love Jim Beaver!) in the role later on.
posted by porpoise at 3:52 PM on May 20, 2021 [1 favorite]

This was a much hated episode which ended up being fine on later rewatch. I wish they’d leaned into the urban myths and historical legends and tragedies of America more sometimes - they built their own demon/hell mythology instead, but the local legend episodes were so much fun.

This is the episode with the live bees used for the attic scene and then after all the stings, replaced by CGI because the bees didn’t show up on screen well enough.
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 4:49 PM on May 20, 2021

replaced by CGI because

Geeze, I hate it when stuff like that happens. Only when it happens to me, no-one knows about the pain.

In the end I'm ok with made up the mythology - I was going to comment how I was glad they never really dug into Native North American/ First Nations mythology more ... because it would get bollixed up.

(Old joke, heard during the darker periods of the last 6 years, the punchline being, "Well, what did you expect, the entire nation is built on top of a sacred burial site.")

I guess they did end up corrupting a lot of Judeo-Christian stuff, but it was all so off base and generic that it didn't feel blasphemous?
posted by porpoise at 6:27 PM on May 20, 2021

Preach to the choir, orange swan. I think the default assumption anytime I go anywhere with my brother is that we're a couple. It's so annoying.
posted by sardonyx at 6:28 PM on May 20, 2021

Came in here specifically to make sure somebody had told the story where they made the actors get in the attic with the fifty thousand live bees because they didn't want to pay for CGI bees and then had to do CGI bees anyway, good work team
posted by jameaterblues at 10:16 PM on May 20, 2021 [3 favorites]

Trivia:

For this episode, all the actors who worked around bees were given costumes with cuffs sewed on the inside of their pants and sleeves to help prevent the insects from crawling into their clothing. It helped, but everyone still got stung.

Those are real bees featured in the episode. Jensen Ackles was the first to get stung which amused Jared Padalecki enormously. Ackles got his revenge shortly after when Padalecki sat down on a bee and was stung on his rear end.

Approximately 60,000 bees were used in the attic scene. Unfortunately, they were unseen on camera so CGI was still used in order to see the bees on screen.

Dean suggests that maybe the bugs are being controlled by someone. Sam says, "You mean like Willard?" Willard was a 1971 horror film about a social misfit who befriended and then trained a group of rats to do his bidding.
posted by orange swan at 5:44 PM on July 19, 2021