Things I Love About SPN Season 1: Asylum #4
Supernatural, Season 1
Episode 10, “Asylum”
Written by Richard Hatem
Directed by Guy Bee
Continued from #3
Warning: image heavy post.
Sam is presently cornered by the spirit of a woman who appears to have an exploding eyeball. A lot of these spirits seem to have issues with their eyes for some reason.
Kudos to the make-up team, though.
Dean promptly dispatches her with the salt gun, but Sam is puzzled that the spirit didn’t attack him: “if she didn’t want to hurt me, then what did she want?” he wonders.
As the boys move into an area that looks like one of the old wards, they hear a noise. Readying for action, they pull back an upturned bed and discover Kat hiding behind it, which could be a smarter hiding place than she knows. Nothing is actually said about it, but regular viewers may speculate whether the old bed might contain iron that would protect her from the spirits.
The brothers want to get Kat to safety, but she insists she won’t leave without Gavin, which establishes her as a brave girl. (But also, “let’s go die”.)
Really, Dean?!
Oddly contrary to their usual MO, Dean babysits the civilian while Sam is sent off by himself, maybe because this gives Dean an opportunity to lecture Kat:
DEAN
I got a question for ya. You've seen a lot of horror movies, yeah?
KAT
I guess so.
DEAN
(turning to face her) Do me a favor. Next time you see one? Pay attention. When someone says a place is haunted...don't go in!
http://www.supernaturalwiki.com/1.10_Asylum_(transcript)
This from the guy who just suggested they split up!
Meanwhile Sam has found Gavin who relates his traumatizing experience with the spirit who kissed him. Sam doesn’t seem particularly sympathetic to the boy’s trauma, possibly because it pales in comparison to his own experience. “Trust me, it could have been worse” he remarks, dismissively, but he establishes that Gavin wasn’t hurt, and that the woman tried to whisper something in his ear. “What?” Sam asks.
Oh yeah, he’s a real hero this one.
Sam is unimpressed.
Meanwhile, Dean’s flashlight cutting out presages trouble. Ever the boy scout, he’s ready with his back-up lighter, but it doesn’t save Kat from being grabbed and dragged into a locked cell with one of the spirits. Sam and Gavin return to find Dean desperately trying to prize the door open while Kat’s panicked screams issue from the interior.
“It won’t hurt you!” Sam assures her. “You have to face it!”
“You face it!” she snaps back. (I really like this girl.)
Nevertheless, Sam persuades her to listen to the spirit and, after a few tense moments in which Sam quietly reveals to Dean he’s not entirely confident of the outcome, the door is released and Kat emerges having successfully confronted her fear, and with new information, just a number: “137”.
We love it when they talk together, right? 😊
More in keeping with the brothers’ usual practice, Dean tells Sam to get the teenagers to safety while he checks out the new intel. As they search for a way out, Kat asks Sam how he and Dean know about “all this stuff”.
SAM
It's kinda our job.
KAT
Why would anyone want a job like that?
SAM
(huffs a laugh) I had a crappy guidance counselor.
http://www.supernaturalwiki.com/1.10_Asylum_(transcript)
Who else thinks Sam has Dean in mind when he makes this comment? And Kat’s follow up question pleases him not at all:
KAT
And Dean? He's your boss?
SAM
(looking down at her) No.
Ibid
When they reach the exit the door won’t open, and Sam concludes something is keeping them from leaving, and he doesn’t think it’s the spirits of former patients. Meanwhile, Dean has found room 137 and a plaque on the floor identifies it as Sanford Ellicott’s office. A search of the room reveals a secret panel behind which Dean finds a hidden satchel containing Sanford’s private Patients Journal. It makes for grisly reading.
Dean is visibly horrified as he studies the nightmarish pictorials, but he falls back on his usual defence mechanism of wisecracking with another The Shining reference.
But it seems to me that the text is rather reminiscent of another gruesomely illustrated journal with which we’re very familiar:
And I can’t help wondering what life was like at home for the young Ellicott Jr. whilst his father was pursuing his ghoulish obsession.
Meanwhile, Sam returns from a search for an exit and confirms there’s no way out. “What the hell are we going to do?” cries Gavin. “We’re not going to panic” Sam replies, firmly, to which Gavin retorts “why the hell not?!”
They’re interrupted by Sam’s phone and, when he answers, Dean’s voice calls for urgent back up in the basement. “It’s coming at me! Hurry up!”
Sam asks if either of the teenagers can handle a shotgun. Of course, Gavin can’t, but that’s OK because Kat can. “My dad took me skeet shooting a coupla times,” she explains when Gavin stares at her. Points to Richard Hatem for creating a strong female character who can handle herself, but one point off for feeling that requires an explainer. For the benefit of the teenagers, and any audience members who may not be up to date with the latest exposition, Sam tells her “it's loaded with rock salt. It may not kill a spirit, but it will repel it. So, if you see something, shoot.” “OK,” she says and, as Sam moves off, she pumps the shotgun trope to show she means business. It’s a cliché, but I still love it 😊
Sam’s search for Dean leads him into the boiler room, which should set off alarm bells because, as we know, bad things always happen in boiler rooms.
And that’s never a good sign, either.
Then Sam’s torch dies, and I’m starting to feel that trope’s been just a little overused in this episode. Sure enough, a creepy door opens all by itself and Sam investigates. He catches sight of a shadow passing behind a hospital curtain but when he pulls it aside there’s nothing there. Because, of course, the monster’s right behind him. This episode is a veritable tropefest.
The supernatural forces this week are targeting Sam’s brain. Similar to the regular throttlings that mark Sam as the soul part of the soul/heart partnership, this marks him as the mind part of the mind/body partnership. As I’ve mentioned before, historically our culture has tended to privilege mind over body. Classical literature often equates mind with soul and sees it as the source of all that elevates the human spirit, while the body with all its sensual needs and demands is represented as a burden, the source of all the impure urges that drag us down to Hell. This mindset is relevant to the upcoming confrontation that takes place between the brothers.
But, before that confrontation, we’re shown a significant, albeit brief, exchange between the teenagers:
KAT
(sighing) Hey, Gavin?
GAVIN
(coming to crouch beside her) Yeah?
KAT
If we make it out of here alive...we are so breaking up.
(Ibid)
Could the young couple’s break up foreshadow a similar parting of the ways between Sam and Dean?
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