Supernatural: Asylum

May 22, 2021 2:35 PM - Season 1, Episode 10

While investigating a haunting in an abandoned asylum and rescuing two teenagers who ventured in, Sam and Dean become trapped with the spirits of those who died in a violent patient riot decades before, one of whom was a doctor whose treatments caused extreme rage in his victims.
posted by orange swan (8 comments total)

Dean: Hey, Sam, who do you think is a hotter psychic: Patricia Arquette, Jennifer Love Hewitt, or you?

Sam talking to the psychiatrist about his life was amusing. If he told the doctor the truth about the life he actually leads, he'd come across as insane, so instead he says things like, "We've met some interesting people. Seen some interesting things."

The girlfriend, Kat, is a fun character. She bravely refuses to leave without finding Gavin, she can handle a shotgun, and then she tells Gavin she's breaking up with him once they get out of the asylum. 

The cops should have been able to find Dr. Ellicott's body after the riots. It certainly wasn't that hard for Dean to find it.
posted by orange swan at 2:38 PM on May 22, 2021 [1 favorite]

I did enjoy Kat breaking up with her idiot boyfriend. That was well deserved.
posted by sardonyx at 2:58 PM on May 22, 2021

This comment isn't about this episode specifically but I just feel like saying that I really like the fact that Dean wears a lot of jewellery. Yes, I know the necklace comes into play later on in the series, but I don't think there's any in-universe reason (at least that I've encountered yet) for the ring and the bracelet. I could see where silver (the ring) might come in handy in their line of work, but it seems like Dean just wears the pieces because he likes them and it's part of his personal style. I just think it's a creative way to show a character's personality, especially as I wouldn't have naturally pegged Dean's personality and style to be one that lead itself to jewellery.
posted by sardonyx at 3:39 PM on May 22, 2021

It looks to me like Jensen Ackles routinely dresses very much like Dean in real life: several bracelets, necklaces, a right hand ring as well as his wedding ring, loose untucked shirts and/or t-shirts, jeans, and boots. (Though he's also given to hats, which Dean wasn't.) It may be that Jensen had some say in what Dean wore, or that the costume designer adapted Jensen's own look for the character.
posted by orange swan at 4:53 PM on May 22, 2021 [1 favorite]

I don't know if I'm misremembering, but Dean/ Ackles is a huge clothes horse?
posted by porpoise at 11:16 AM on May 23, 2021

I don't know about Ackles, but Dean isn't. He has a few set things he likes and that's what he wears. He'll wear suits or other things if he has to in order to pass as someone in an official role or other line of work (and he sometimes complains about that), and there was one time he got into wearing western gear for time travel, but otherwise he's in a t-shirt and/or a loose shirt, jeans, boots and his few pieces of jewelry. He won't wear shorts (other than a pair of cut-offs to wash the car), or sweaters, or even exercise wear, and never dresses up of his own accord.
posted by orange swan at 3:29 PM on May 23, 2021 [1 favorite]

Ackles is particular about his clothes but Dean and Sam both settle into very Midwestern Walmart flannel early on. The necklace chipped his tooth in a fight scene so they wrote it out but the accessories are great. The original intent was to have them with tattooed as well but practicalities intervened. There is a very amusing tumblr tag ‘hbo spn’ that includes Dean with a lot of bad stick n poke tattoos and piercings.
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 9:51 PM on May 23, 2021

I just like the jewellery as a character element (whether it comes from Ackles' own style or not). I mean Dean seems to be very concerned about his image and people not perceiving him to be gay, and yet the jewellery isn't very Midwestern straight boy from a decade-and-a-half ago. The character is confident enough to wear it (and presumably to like it), even if he's not confident enough not to truly care what people think about him. It's a nice, realistic dichotomy and it's also one that seems to be pretty true to Dean's character--stubborn and dedicated to his job and enjoying it for the most part, but still a bit conflicted by the life he's missing (and especially the life he's "depriving" Sam of living).
posted by sardonyx at 11:47 AM on May 24, 2021