Supernatural: The Purge
November 14, 2021 5:18 AM - Season 9, Episode 13 - Subscribe
After several people are murdered by having the fat sucked out of their bodies, Sam and Dean go undercover and apply for jobs at a local weight loss spa.
Quotes
"Slim" Jim Morgan: When I gear up for a competition I eat lettuce. It stretches the stomach.
Dean: Yet another reason to stay away from salads.
Dean: I don't mean to be rude, uh... But how is it that Wayne McNut is your type? I mean, you're married to a man who's barely a buck – wet.
Mala: What can I say? Sometimes it's nice to feel a little give...
Dean: Oh. Yeah, I get that – a little extra cushion for the, uh...
Sam: [glares at Dean, who subsides]
Dean: Known fact – all women lie about their weight and age.
Sam: Wait, you told that waitress the other day you were 29.
Dean: Yes, personal training brothers. Kind of like Hans and Franz, but, uh, less German.
Sam: You go to bed last night?
Dean: What? Uh, no. No, Rudy was on, and then, uh… Unforgiven, and then I was too jacked to sleep. So...research.
Sam: My, uh, Ashtanza yoga class starts in 5 minutes.
Dean: How the hell do you know anything about yoga?
Sam: You're not the only one who ever dated someone bendy.
Maritza: This isn't what you think. I'm not a killer.
Dean: Well, then, what are you?
Maritza: I'm a pishtaco.
Dean: A fish taco?
Trivia
First appearance of Sheriff Donna Hanscum, portrayed by Briana Buckmaster. Buckmaster was 6 months pregnant when this episode was filmed.
Dean asks if this could be a Thinner type of situation. Thinner is a book by Stephen King where a gypsy curses an obese man to become deathly thin.
This episode is called "The Purge". The employee who tells Dean to "quit flirting and keep scooping" is a main character in the latest installment of The Purge franchise.
The alias Sam is using in this episode is Agent Frehley. This is a reference to guitarist Ace Frehley of the hard rock band Kiss. Sam uses this alias again in the season ten episode "Hibbing 911" (ep. 10.8), where Dean calls himself Agent Criss, named after Kiss drummer Peter Criss.
Dean ties up Maritza and says she "Dysoned to death" two people. Dyson is a brand of vacuum cleaner marketed as having seriously powerful suction.
In the Supernatural universe, pishtacos are fat-eating creatures rarely seen in the United States. They are similar to vampires, but feed only on human fat. They survive entirely upon it, and seem to possess a great hunger for it. Unlike vampires, which are regarded by the pishtacos as killers, pishtacos are more like parasites and do not hunt down their prey to feed. However, some pishtacos do hunt humans for their fat. Just like most other monsters, they look completely human. But their eyes roll back and their mouths open to reveal an elongated sucking appendage that they release from their mouth when they feed.
The original working title for the episode was "Let the Fat One In".
Quotes
"Slim" Jim Morgan: When I gear up for a competition I eat lettuce. It stretches the stomach.
Dean: Yet another reason to stay away from salads.
Dean: I don't mean to be rude, uh... But how is it that Wayne McNut is your type? I mean, you're married to a man who's barely a buck – wet.
Mala: What can I say? Sometimes it's nice to feel a little give...
Dean: Oh. Yeah, I get that – a little extra cushion for the, uh...
Sam: [glares at Dean, who subsides]
Dean: Known fact – all women lie about their weight and age.
Sam: Wait, you told that waitress the other day you were 29.
Dean: Yes, personal training brothers. Kind of like Hans and Franz, but, uh, less German.
Sam: You go to bed last night?
Dean: What? Uh, no. No, Rudy was on, and then, uh… Unforgiven, and then I was too jacked to sleep. So...research.
Sam: My, uh, Ashtanza yoga class starts in 5 minutes.
Dean: How the hell do you know anything about yoga?
Sam: You're not the only one who ever dated someone bendy.
Maritza: This isn't what you think. I'm not a killer.
Dean: Well, then, what are you?
Maritza: I'm a pishtaco.
Dean: A fish taco?
Trivia
First appearance of Sheriff Donna Hanscum, portrayed by Briana Buckmaster. Buckmaster was 6 months pregnant when this episode was filmed.
Dean asks if this could be a Thinner type of situation. Thinner is a book by Stephen King where a gypsy curses an obese man to become deathly thin.
This episode is called "The Purge". The employee who tells Dean to "quit flirting and keep scooping" is a main character in the latest installment of The Purge franchise.
The alias Sam is using in this episode is Agent Frehley. This is a reference to guitarist Ace Frehley of the hard rock band Kiss. Sam uses this alias again in the season ten episode "Hibbing 911" (ep. 10.8), where Dean calls himself Agent Criss, named after Kiss drummer Peter Criss.
Dean ties up Maritza and says she "Dysoned to death" two people. Dyson is a brand of vacuum cleaner marketed as having seriously powerful suction.
In the Supernatural universe, pishtacos are fat-eating creatures rarely seen in the United States. They are similar to vampires, but feed only on human fat. They survive entirely upon it, and seem to possess a great hunger for it. Unlike vampires, which are regarded by the pishtacos as killers, pishtacos are more like parasites and do not hunt down their prey to feed. However, some pishtacos do hunt humans for their fat. Just like most other monsters, they look completely human. But their eyes roll back and their mouths open to reveal an elongated sucking appendage that they release from their mouth when they feed.
The original working title for the episode was "Let the Fat One In".
Don't competitive eating champions trend away from corpulent body types (like the other guy eating lettuce in his kitchen)? But, ugh, competitive eating feels like an incredibly Americana phenomenon (but which is consistent in pattern of adoption and adaptation by Japanese culture - pointing out and fully embracing the shame associated with the spectacle and reveling in all of it).
re: Dean's developing culinary passion; 'Leverage' has the trope of the gruff fighter ('hitter'), Elliot, enjoying being an incredible chef as an alternative outlet for self-expression, which is parodied hilariously in 'Future Man' by Wolf.
I've complained about the showplagiarizing sampling successful tropes, dumbing them down a little bit, and repackaging them - but I guess this is a winning formula as the seasons progressed and led to this show's longevity?
Maybe I'm old, but "Hoovered... to death" makes more sense than "Dysoned." The latter made me think "completely encapsulated in a megastructure to capture all energy radiating from you." When I think of Dyson as the household appliance, I think bladeless fans more than the vacuum, because of the stupid expensive filters. edit: huh, Dyson has a filterless vacuum cleaner, might have to reconsider them.
Bit of an odd choice for someone who still uses "drop a dime," and "weigh under a buck" (ie., 100 cents, when cents had a lot more buying power, --> 100 pounds).
Eh. Vampires could be parasitic, as evidenced by their ability to survive off of harvested blood stored in bloodbags and keeping living bloodbag humans around. Wikipedia has an interesting synopsis of the ethnology of the folklore behind phistacos - which are anything but "merely" parasitic.
posted by porpoise at 10:27 AM on November 14, 2021
re: Dean's developing culinary passion; 'Leverage' has the trope of the gruff fighter ('hitter'), Elliot, enjoying being an incredible chef as an alternative outlet for self-expression, which is parodied hilariously in 'Future Man' by Wolf.
I've complained about the show
Maybe I'm old, but "Hoovered... to death" makes more sense than "Dysoned." The latter made me think "completely encapsulated in a megastructure to capture all energy radiating from you." When I think of Dyson as the household appliance, I think bladeless fans more than the vacuum, because of the stupid expensive filters. edit: huh, Dyson has a filterless vacuum cleaner, might have to reconsider them.
Bit of an odd choice for someone who still uses "drop a dime," and "weigh under a buck" (ie., 100 cents, when cents had a lot more buying power, --> 100 pounds).
Eh. Vampires could be parasitic, as evidenced by their ability to survive off of harvested blood stored in bloodbags and keeping living bloodbag humans around. Wikipedia has an interesting synopsis of the ethnology of the folklore behind phistacos - which are anything but "merely" parasitic.
posted by porpoise at 10:27 AM on November 14, 2021
Ordering Maritza out of the country felt like an icky solution but I guess I prefer it to them just killing her.
Underappreciated that Sam and Dean undertake this ludicrous undercover mission hunting tentacle monsters at a spa that turns out to actually be the right place partly because they had no idea what cupping was. (I also had a moment of ??? the first time I saw those marks on somebody, but went on with my day as I assumed whatever they were doing with tentacle monsters was their business.)
With a couple episodes' distance, Dean peacing out on “I’m a danger to be around and must go” sabbatical seems…sincere, I think he means it, he might even be right, but it’s also a rock solid excuse not to face Sam or be around for the fallout of what he now realizes was a catastrophically bad call (that he would definitely make again!) That conversation at the end was pretty rough.
posted by jameaterblues at 8:42 PM on November 14, 2021 [1 favorite]
Underappreciated that Sam and Dean undertake this ludicrous undercover mission hunting tentacle monsters at a spa that turns out to actually be the right place partly because they had no idea what cupping was. (I also had a moment of ??? the first time I saw those marks on somebody, but went on with my day as I assumed whatever they were doing with tentacle monsters was their business.)
With a couple episodes' distance, Dean peacing out on “I’m a danger to be around and must go” sabbatical seems…sincere, I think he means it, he might even be right, but it’s also a rock solid excuse not to face Sam or be around for the fallout of what he now realizes was a catastrophically bad call (that he would definitely make again!) That conversation at the end was pretty rough.
posted by jameaterblues at 8:42 PM on November 14, 2021 [1 favorite]
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Dean actually probably wouldn't have minded working in the kitchen at all if he could have been producing the kind of food he likes to eat. And didn't have to wear a hairnet, of course.
Donna said she lost ten pounds/two dress sizes, but ten pounds would only be about half a dress size.
Dean needs Sam to love him the way he loves Sam, and any indication that he doesn't always leaves him stricken: that the memory Sam was reliving the time they were shot by other hunters and went to heaven wasn't one that involved Dean, that Sam didn't look for him when he disappeared to Purgatory, and now Sam's declaration that he wouldn't have gone to the same lengths to save Dean as Dean did to save Sam. Sam does love Dean very much and would do nearly anything for him, but it's never quite enough for Dean. Sam loves Dean as a brother, but because Dean raised Sam, he loves Sam in a way that's more paternal than fraternal.
posted by orange swan at 5:33 AM on November 14, 2021