Supernatural - Revisiting 1x07: Hook Man
Hook Man.
Ah, the classics.
Also classic: the victims in horror movies act stupid. Why didn't the girl drive away in the car?
I want to talk about the Impala (*moment of silence*). Those creaking car doors are in just about every episode, and it's details like that which constructs the grounded world of the show. When the boys arrive at the college, there's a kid working on his BMW. It may be stretching it, but I read it as a statement of car as plaything vs. functionality. The BMW has its hood up, as it's either broken or just being tinkered with. The Impala never seems to break down or run out of gas. The Impala has been called the fourth Winchester, and it's true.
In church, Sam has to nudge Dean to bow his head. Neither brother looks uncomfortable. I'm taking this as a clue they're used to churches. In Nightmare they pose as priests; it seems like they're vaguely comfortable and familiar with religion, perhaps as a result of studying various religious as a way to vanquish demons, or they actually attended for a while.
There's lots of library scenes, dusty boxes of records, and computers. Research. A major series touchpoint that echoes the episode character beats.
In the reveal scene about the rock salt, which John and Dean came up with working together without Sam, Dean says "you don't have to be a college graduate to be a genius." He's kidding, but the line also points to the thread going through this episode of how the boys view college, and the series theme of different types of smarts. At the party Dean responds to the social appeal of college and is disappointed Sam just studied a lot. It is hard to imagine Dean at college to study. Yet he looks very comfortable with a pen and dusty record book. He fidgets with pens, just a personality trait, but also he fidgets the way someone who is accustomed to sitting with a pen in hand for hours will. So it doesn't break down as simply as: Sam is the bookish one, Dean is the muscle. Yet it's Sam who thinks to ask about the hook in the grave. He seems to know less than Dean about background on killing monsters, despite his Stanford degree, yet it's Sam who often thinks about practical details.
Dean's look of regret at the end as he watches Sam say goodbye to the girl (who didn't work for me, she was too cute-weepy and uninteresting) seems not only because Sam is losing the girl, it's for all the other things Sam is losing, including the college life.
A final note, I liked the staging of the fight with Hook Man, when Dean shouts "Sam, drop!" and Sam does without hesitation, because it speaks of years of the family hunting together. They each know the moves because they've done it before again and again.
Episode coverage still to write:
1x11 Scarecrow
1x13 Route 666
1x14 Nightmare
1x15 The Benders
1x16 Shadow (more coherent/detailed thoughts)
1x17 Hell House
1x18 Something Wicked
1x19 Provenance