Things I Love About SPN Season 1: Bugs (Part 2 of 2)

[fanspired]

Continued from Part 1

Comments

[dragonardhill]

So, is honesty always the best policy?

- Part of what I love about the early seasons is the secrets and lies and the exploration of the reasons and rationales for them. Big lies/secrets presented as “bad” while at the same time the Winchesters spend nearly all their time outside of time with each other - lying about who they are, engaging in fraud, or hustling for money. So we seem to be led to believe that lying isn’t inherently bad but lying to family definitely is.

As you point out, the insights gained into the characters in this episode are key. Especially the always controversial John Winchester! Your statement - “Although it’s been established in this episode that John never physically abused his sons, it seems to me his legacy of emotional damage that is revealed over the course over the series is hard to dismiss as “just doing the best he could” is spot on. Great review and analysis.

[fanspired]

I think the show makes very few definitive moral statements. Most of the time I think it's object is just to raise questions. The question of the brothers' honesty with each other is a grey area. There are times when I think it's pretty clear they should come clean, other times I'm not so sure. The biggest question for me, I guess, is should Dean have kept his mouth shut about what John had made him promise? I feel that learning the truth about what his father had said ultimately did Sam nothing but harm. It's a toughie.

Thanks so much for continuing to support this series. I really appreciate the feedback.

[casey28]

Yes, since John was the one who told Sam to stay away, it was up to him to reach out to his son. I loved this brother scene, where Sam learns that John was looking out for him during his college years.

Joe calls Dean out for lying, but he's only judging him in the moment. He doesn't know that Sam and Dean both lie, it's part of their job as hunters.

I find it an interesting comparison... Sam and Dean don't live a normal life, and they're "cursed". Here we have people living a normal life, in a place they thought was safe, but ended up being cursed.

Bugs is definitely not the worst ep of SPN, but the bugs creep me out a lot, lol. Ugh.

[fanspired]

> I find it an interesting comparison... Sam and Dean don't live a normal life, and they're "cursed". Here we have people living a normal life, in a place they thought was safe, but ended up being cursed.

Cool observation!

Yes, some of the bug scenes creeped me out (when they weren't just laughable) but there are some violent scenes in SPN that I find far harder to watch. Working on "Home" at the moment and I found capping the arm in the waste disposal scene a real struggle. I mean, I know you never really see anything, but it really traumatizes your imagination! :D

[dizzojay]

Oh, the plastic spiders - I love that you've brought those up and yes, the curled up legs . I've had that exact same conversation with Mr D.

This episode is interesting in that it uses Matt and his strained relationship with his Dad to parallel Sam's strained relationship with his Dad. It was good to hear Dean's side of the story, as we'd only heard about it from Sam's POV up until then. Dean's remarks give a little bit of balance to the whole situation, but ultimately I think it would have been John's responsibility to mend bridges with Sam given that he was the one that drove Sam away.

It's so funny to read you making the exact same observation about the loft scene as I did, although I forgot the main antagonists were termites!

To your closing comment 'is Bugs truly irredeemable'? I would say no; it has its faults, but as an episode, it moves the plot and the characters along really well. The bugs are creepy, and the timing is dodgy, but it could always be Bloodlines!!

[fanspired]

I think it's fair to say it's one of the more poorly executed episodes in the show's run but, in terms of the script, there were many far worse episodes in later seasons, Bloodlines not the least of them! :D It's strength is definitely in the brother interaction and development, and the way the monster plots were always a tool for developing that story was so skillfully done in the early seasons.