Things I Love About SPN Season 1: Scarecrow #1
Supernatural, Season 1
Episode 11, “Scarecrow”
Teleplay by John Shiban
Story by Sean Patrick Smith
Directed by Kim Manners
Warning: image heavy post
Like “Phantom Traveler”, “Scarecrow” is a season arc episode masquerading as a standard monster of the week. John’s appearance early in the episode should have been a clue since he has had some form of presence in each of the demon arc stories so far, even if only as a voicemail, but the episode’s status is only fully confirmed in the final scene when Meg Masters is revealed to be more than a chance meeting for Sam, and actually a part of some sinister plot against the brothers.
The episode represents a major point in the hero’s journey myth, where the hero is tempted from his true quest by the seductress and must choose between two paths: whether to follow the temptress or to commit to the quest.
The episode opens with a man filling up a car in a pleasant seeming small town main street. Alas, this apparently mundane image isn’t as innocent as it appears.
A young couple emerge from a store with an older woman and a young girl. It seems that the couple are tourists who’ve lost their way, and the locals are helping them get back on the road but, before they leave, the woman presents them with a gift:
“We should get lost more often,” says the young woman. “Everyone in this town is so nice.”
“Yeah, what’s the catch?” asks her partner.
The catch comes when the couple follows the directions they’ve been given only to break down on a dark backroad. When they cross through an orchard seeking help, they find themselves confronted by a creepy scarecrow.
“If I only had a brain,” the young man quips, alluding to one of pop culture’s most famous quest romance tales, which is referenced many times in the course of the show: The Wizard of Oz.
“We wouldn’t be lost,” his partner retorts.
Quest romance often begins with the hero getting lost: in The Wizard of Oz where Dorothy is transported from her hometown in Kansas to the magical land of Oz, the plot of the adventure consists of Dorothy trying to find a way home. She is assisted on her journey by a scarecrow, a tin man, and a cowardly lion. (It might be fun to consider if any of the characters our Kansas born brothers meet along their own journey might be compared with Dorothy’s companions 😊).
Unfortunately, this young couple’s journey doesn’t end as well as Dorothy’s, and the scarecrow they meet isn’t as friendly. The scene concludes with the scarecrow climbing from its cross, chasing them down and murdering them both. It transpires that the good people of Burkitsville annually conspire to feed similar couples to the scarecrow, which is the manifestation of a pagan god that protects the orchard.
Apple pie turns out to be the major theme of the episode since the town is famous for its pies and, of course, the orchard supplies the apples. As an apparently idyllic town in middle America, Burkitsville is representative of the eponymous “apple pie life” that Dean mocked Sam for seeking in the pilot. It is significant that the life the town represents is ultimately revealed to be dependent on the sacrifice of young lives.
The brothers' first scene after the title card recaps the close of "Asylum" but there are subtle differences.
Sam is shown sleeping here where he appeared to be awake at the end of “Asylum”. He seemed alert then when he answered the phone, but now he is groggy sounding, and he sits up more slowly than he did in “Asylum”.
The scene is replete with the beautiful facial closeups that are Kim Manners’ specialty.
It’s interesting that we initially only get partial shots of John’s face, perhaps reflecting the elusive figure he has presented through the early part of the season.
While Sam is talking, we can see Dean waking and sitting up in the background. I love the way the lens focus shifts from Sam to Dean when he speaks for the first time. (And we get some bonus shirtless action, too! 😊)
We’re shown John in a Sacratel payphone as he tells Sam he’s on a trail of a demon that killed Mary and Jessica and that the brothers can’t be any part of it. He insists the brothers stop looking for him and take down some names instead. When Sam begins to argue Dean takes the phone from him. His body language is interesting; as soon as he hears his fathers voice, he snaps to attention:
The boys, especially Dean, frequently address John as “sir” and talk about him giving them orders, as if he’s their CO. This is consistent with John’s later comment to Sam that, somewhere along the line, he stopped being their father and turned into their drill sergeant. (“Dead Man’s Blood”).
The Big Break Up
In every season there has typically been a moment where the brothers go separate ways for one episode, then reconcile for the remainder of the season. There’s a practical reason for this: it gives the actors an opportunity to take a break and, while each one is away, the other can film scenes by themselves or with separate guest stars. In later seasons the dramatic reasons for their separations often strike me as tenuous and/or so overblown that the subsequent reconciliation after just one episode seems implausible. But in the earlier seasons the divisions and reunions usually felt natural and organic and, in this episode especially, it makes perfect sense. Sam fell back into hunting through force of circumstance rather than conscious choice, but in every quest romance there invariably comes a moment when the hero must make a decisive commitment to the quest.
As I’ve mentioned before, the two brothers have actually been pursuing different goals thus far: the one to find the father, the other to do the father’s will. They have remained together whilst these two goals remained compatible, but now the paths diverge, and Sam is forced to make a choice between the two.
The next scene opens in the Impala. This is one of the rare occasions we see Sam driving. It’s a practical plot point, of course: he needs to have the power to stop the car in this scene, and he duly does so whilst Dean is laying out the details of the case John is sending them to in Indiana and enthusing about their fathers’ masterful hunting skills.
“We’re not going to Indiana,” Sam states. Since the call was from a Sacramento area code, he wants to go there and find John rather than investigate the disappearances in Burkitsville.
Dean looks positively stunned when Sam suggests they don’t always have to do what their father says.
“Dad is asking us to work jobs, to save lives. It’s important” he says. At this point we can see that Dean is still committed to doing his father’s, will while Sam is committed to finding their father. This is the last episode before these roles begin to reverse.
Here we see a subtle reprise of the religious allegory we first noticed in “Wendigo” as Sam and Dean express the typical attitudes of the skeptic vs the religious acolyte respectively.
Sam wants answers and Dean claims to know how he feels but Sam contradicts him:
Dean swallows when Sam asks how old he was when Mom died. What Sam doesn’t appreciate here is that he doesn’t know how Dean feels either. It’s true that Jessica died six months ago, so his grief is fresh but, since he was an adult, he was in a better position to process the loss. Dean, on the other hand, was a child of four when he witnessed his mother's death and, as we come to realize, it left permanent scars on his psyche.
After Sam’s accusation in “Asylum” that Dean doesn’t have a mind of his own, we now get the flip side as Dean accuses Sam of selfishness. Both points of view are simplistic and reflect the brothers’ limited understanding of each other. Nevertheless, there’s a grain of truth in both accusations. It’s worth noting that the hero’s journey is traditionally a story of the protagonist’s movement from a place of isolation and self-involvement toward a willingness to selflessly sacrifice himself for the greater good of the community. Dean’s statement, in the context of an episode that focuses on the quest theme, marks Sam as the hero who is embarking on that journey.
As Sam walks away from the car, his jaw tightens and he jerks his head to one side, a mannerism he tends to exhibit whenever he’s pissed and/or determined. It’s a gesture that will become familiar and, ultimately, surprisingly important.
Desperate to persuade Sam to return to the car, Dean makes the mistake of issuing the ultimatum: “I’m taking off! I will leave your ass!” and Sam’s response is “that’s what I want you to do”.
We get a wonderful display of micro expressions as Dean starts to sneer but immediately recognizes he’s overplayed his hand, and we watch the wind completely empty out of his sails. He swallows, from hurt and grief, then his jaw clenches and we witness the “fuck you” in his eyes as he matches his brother with his own stubborn determination:
“Goodbye, Sam.”
Textually, cinematically and performance-wise, it’s a superb scene.
I hope you've enjoyed this review of "Scarecrow" so far. As always, I look forward to hearing your own thoughts and impressions on the episode. Please click here to continue to the next segment.
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