Supernatural: House of the Holy

June 17, 2021 4:15 AM - Season 2, Episode 13

In Providence, Rhode Island, a prostitute kills a man, claiming that an angel in a beautiful white light had chosen her for redemption and asked her to stab the sinner to accomplish God's will. Dean and Sam investigate the case and discover that other people have been visited by the angel and subsequently committed murders.

Dean: [on the vibrating bed] Hey. Man, you gotta try this, I mean there really is magic in the Magic Fingers.
Sam: Dean, you're enjoying that way too much; it's kind of making me uncomfortable.

Dean: [Dean's out of money for the vibrating bed] Did you bring quarters?
Sam: Dude, I'm not enabling your sick habit. You're like one of those lab rats that pushes the pleasure button instead of the food button until it dies.
Dean: What are you talking about? I eat.

Dean: There's tons of stuff on unicorns too. In fact, I've heard they ride on silver moon beams and shoot rainbows out of their ass.
Sam: Wait, there's no such thing as unicorns?

Dean: Well, I think I learned a valuable lesson... always take down your Christmas decorations after New Year's, or you might get filleted by a hooker from God.
Sam: I'm laughing on the inside.

Sam: Dude. I'll admit we've gone pretty ghetto with spellwork before, but this takes the cake. I mean, a SpongeBob placemat instead of an altar cloth?
Dean: We'll just put it SpongeBob side down.

Father Reynolds: What are you doing? What is this?
Sam: Uh, Father, please. I can explain. Um... Actually, maybe I can't. This is a -- a séance.
Father Reynolds: A séance? Young man, you are in the House of God.
Sam: It's based on early Christian rites, if that helps any.

Dean: No, no. This is a demon or a spirit... you know, they find people a few fries short of a happy meal and they trick them into killing these randoms.

posted by orange swan (4 comments total)

Dean didn't need to endanger himself or others by chasing the x-acto knife guy in the Impala. If the woman the guy attacked reported the incident to the authorities (he seemed to be someone she knew as they were on their way to the movies), he would have been arrested for assault. 

I remember being surprised by Sam's declaration that he prays every day. That doesn't seem all that in character for him. The rest of his behaviour was. He's right that Dean's not having personally seen angels isn't proof that they don't exist, and that in a universe where there are demons and all sorts of other supernatural beings and "the lore" often proves to be accurate, it is reasonable to consider that angels might exist. Sam and Dean's respective levels of education came into play in that disagreement, as they so often do. Thinking that something can't be true because you haven't personally experienced it is a common fallacy a university education helps to guard against. In fairness to Dean, he's been hunting most of his life and it's not unreasonable of him to assume he's seen what's out there.
posted by orange swan at 4:19 AM on June 17, 2021 [2 favorites]

I meant to add... I'm not thrilled with Sam's use of "ghetto". Was that really still acceptable in 2007?
posted by orange swan at 11:18 AM on June 17, 2021 [1 favorite]

My sister dated a guy once - it was 6 months before she realized that he said grace under his breath before every meal.
posted by porpoise at 11:51 AM on June 17, 2021

Sam: Dude. I'll admit we've gone pretty ghetto with spellwork before, but this takes the cake. I mean, a SpongeBob placemat instead of an altar cloth?
Dean: We'll just put it SpongeBob side down.

I completely forgot this exchange till I rewatched this recently, and something about using a Spongebob placemat from Goodwill instead of an altar cloth for our magic spell but it's okay, we'll just flip it over, wraps up so much of what I like about this show's sensibility and whole approach to the supernatural world.

But yikes, Sam's word choice is...just real bad, and the line is just bad. I'm not gonna say using ghetto in this way was acceptable in 2007; by 2007 I still heard it used casually in public without remark, but I had definitely heard it challenged in public by then too. It's for sure unpleasant and startling now.

If I take nothing else from this show's portrayal of god, it's that bullshit did he spend his 2007 wandering around Rhode Island impaling would-be rapists. On balance neither Dean nor Sam would be happier knowing God is real, and at that moment almost definitely drunk in a bathrobe somewhere.
posted by jameaterblues at 9:00 PM on June 17, 2021 [1 favorite]