Bible Entry 1x12: Faith

[ciela_night]

1x12 Faith

Boring Production Crap

Original Air Date: 1/17/2006

Writers: Raelle Tucker, Sera Gamble

Director: Alan Kroeker

Guest Players

Roy Le Grange: Kevin McNulty
Sue Ann Le Grange: Rebecca Jenkins
Layla Rohr: Julie Benz
Mrs. Rohr: Gillian Barber

What Time Is It?
After Scarecrow so technically should be after April 2006- When Dean is hurt he's in a hospital for three days before checking himself out.

Now, Which One Was That?
The episode opens with Dean and Sam in the middle of a hunt, (where? Never mentioned) preparing to kill a creature named a rawhead. They have electric shock guns. During the hunt Dean gets shocked with the gun and receives severe damage to his heart. The doctors tell Sam that there isn’t anything they can do and that Dean is dying. Sam refuses to accept this and goes through all the contacts in John’s journal in an attempt to find a cure for Dean. One of John’s contacts, Joshua, tells Sam about a faith healer in Nebraska.

Nebraska: The boys go to a 'faith healer' named Roy Le Grange who claims to heal people with the power of God and prayer. On their way to the service, they meet a young woman named Layla Rohr and her mother. Once inside the tent Dean is called up to be healed by Roy. During the healing process, Dean sees an old man, some kind of spirit. Even though he's healed completely, Dean somehow feels that his healing was 'wrong'. He and Sam investigate and discover that Roy is using a 'Reaper' to trade one person's life for another. Around the same time, Dean disovers that Layla is dying of an inoperable brain tumour. While trying to figure out how they can stop Roy without killing him, they discover that it's actually Roy's wife, Sue Ann, who is controlling the Reaper and directing it to take the lives of those she feels are amoral.

Sam and Dean manage to stop Sue Ann from killing a man (unfortunately this is right when Layla is about to be healed)- but they can't stop her altogether yet. Dean feels incredibly guilty about Layla. When they go back in the evening to finally stop Sue Ann, Sam finds her Black Altar and discovers that Sue Ann is planning on having the reaper go after Dean next. While Roy is attempting to 'heal' Layla, the reaper comes after Dean and Dean doesn't try to fight it- probably because he feels that Layla's life is worth more than his own. But Sam manages to smash Sue Ann's cross (which controls the reaper) and it goes after her and kills her instead of Dean.

At the end of the episode, as Sam and Dean are preparing to leave, Layla stops by to visit and reassures Dean that she's 'okay' about not being healed. Dean tells her that he'll pray for her and Layla responds that that's a miracle right there.

All the Niggling Little Details

• The doctor tells Sam that they “can’t work miracles” when he tells him about Dean’s condition. Nice foreshadowing for later in the episode.
  
  • Contacts in John’s journal: Sam mentions to Dean that he called them all. One guy Joshua, called him back, telling him about Roy Le Grange
  
  • The first sign outside the healing tent says: The Church of Roy Le Grange, - Faith Healer - Sundays 11 AM & 2 PM, Witness the Miracle. It’s hard to tell which service Sam and Dean went to since the day is cloudy, windy and raining (lovely Vancouver weather)
  
  • Second sign outside of tent says: Welcome All Faiths, True Believers Revival
  
  • Dean notes once they get inside the tent. “Yeah, peace, love and trust all over" and points to the security camera.
  
  • Third sign inside of tent: For I will restore health unto the [sic], & the [sic] heal thee of thy wound. - Jeremiah 30:17
  
  • Fourth sign inside of tent: Jesus Christ maketh thee whole… - Acts 9:34
  
  • Fifth sign in tent: The Healing Church of Roy Le Grange, Minister. I am the Lord who healeth thee - Exodus 15:26
  
  • When Roy calls Dean up to be healed you can see the look of disappointment on Layla’s mother’s face
  
  • Everyone in the tent seems to close their eyes when Roy says ‘pray with me’ but Sam keeps his open and trained on Dean and Roy the whole time
  
  • Yay, continuity! Sam makes reference to his visions in the doctor’s office. “Don’t you think I would’ve seen it too (the Reaper). I mean I’ve been seeing an awful lot of things lately…”
  
  • “I saw a young man with an important purpose, a job to do… and it isn’t finished.” - Roy’s explanation of why he picked Dean to heal. Does Roy have some powers of his own? Or is this just lucky guess (or heavy-handed writing?)
  
  • Clock in pool froze at 4:17, same time as Dean was healed - so I guess answers the question which service the boys had gone to, probably the 2:00 one.
  
  • Roy healed six people over the past year (2005)
  
  • First time in the series when they bring up killing a human being instead of a ‘monster’. (Dean suggests killing Roy, Sam says if they do that they’re no better than he (Roy) is.
  
  • Ford City Tribune: ‘Openly Gay Teacher Wins Lawsuit’, Local Abortion Rights Advocate Calls For End of Violence Against Women’ ‘Wright - Local Church a Cult’
  
  • David Wright is the name of the man Sam and Dean manage to save from the reaper
  
  • More signs in the tent: ‘He sent his word and healed them - Psalms 103:3. ‘He forgiveth all injuries, healeth all diseases. - Psalms 103:3-4.
  
  • Items noted on Sue Ann’s Black Altar: human hand, blood, red candles, horned skull, crystal beads, Dean’s picture (obtained when?) with a red X through his face. First time Sam overturns a Black Altar, second time is in Shadow.
  
  • Language Sue Ann is summoning the Reaper in- maybe latin, but it would make more sense if it were Aramaic or Coptic.
  
  • When Sam smashes Sue Ann’s cross, red liquid comes out of it. Blood, maybe?
  
  • While Sam was against killing Roy, he doesn’t seem to have any problem standing by while the reaper kills Sue-Ann
  
  • Layla always wears a golden necklace with a pendant on it. I’m thinking it might be a Saint Christopher medallion?

Where'd That Myth Come From?

• 
  Rawhead: (also known as 'Tommy Rawhead') - a sort of troll/boogeyman that eats children
  
  Reaper (also known as 'Grim Reaper' - Personification of Death.
  
  Early Christian Church.
  
  Coptic Christianity/Coptic Cross: (See also Ankh) - Early form of Christianity in Egypt and Ethiopia
  
  Necromancy - Wkipedia has it as "is a form of divination in which the practitioner seeks to summon the spirits of the dead in order to gain knowledge of future events from them." Not quite the same practices that Sam was talking about, but close enough.

What's in a Name?

• Insurance Card: Mr. Berkowitz (Sam) I couldn't find any significance to the name. ETA: siberian-skys mentioned that the name might be in reference to David Berkowitz, the serial killer also known as 'The Son of Sam'.


• Sam/Sammy Battle: No 'Sammy' this time around.

What Did You Just Say?

Dean: You're not gonna let me die in peace, are you?
Sam: I'm not gonna let you die at all.

Dean: That fabric softener teddy bear...ooh....I wanna hunt that little bitch down...

Dean: I'm not gonna die in a hospital where the nurses aren't even hot.

Dean: You gotta take care of that car, or I swear I'll haunt your ass.
Sam: That's not funny
Dean: Come on...it's a little funny

Dean: God save us from half the people who think they're doing God's work.

Dean: It must be rough, to believe in something so much and have it disappoint you like that.
Layla: You wanna hear something weird? I'm okay, really. I guess if you're going to have faith you can't just have it when the miracles happen, you have to have it when they don't.
Dean: So what now?
Layla: God works in mysterious ways. Goodbye Dean.
Dean: Hey, um, you know, I'm not much of the praying type. But I'm gonna pray for you.
Layla: Well, there's a miracle right there.

Counting the Cost
Pain Quotient:

• the big one: Dean is shocked with a 100,000 volt gun.
  
• He also almost dies when the Reaper comes for him at the end of the episode.

Collateral Damage: - All the people that died when Sue Ann sent the reaper after them.
- The guy, Marshall -- who died to save Dean's life.
- Although it doesn't happen onscreen, Layla is likely to die in the next few months.

The Bad, the Ugly, and the Dead:
- the rawhead that Dean killed at the beginning of the episode (shocking himself while doing so)
- Sue Ann Le Grange, after she loses control of the reaper

Metallicar Watch: She's fine! (Except for a lot of Nebraska mud!)

Zippo Count: None. :(

Sacrificed on the Altar of Whoops!

• As far as I can know (from Standard First Aid courses) you should never just go directly to a victim who's been electrocuted, especially if they're still in water, like Dean was. Sam really risked electrocuting himself when he ran to help Dean
  
  
• The RV Dean is hiding on when on the run from the cops has a big Maple leaf on it. Canadians in Nebraska, maybe?



• Although the services that Roy conducts start at 11 and 2, Dean is healed at 4:17 pm. It doesn't really seem like it was two and a bit hours from when Roy started his service and when he healed Dean.
  
  
• morgan32 noticed another gaff- 'Sam finds Sue-Ann's book with the dark magic ritual in it, and alongside there are all those incriminating news articles. And he still doesn't catch on that the bad guy isn't Roy: why would a blind man collect news clippings? Sam's smarter than that, isn't he?'
  

Driver Picks the Music
Only one this episode and it's a classic. Blue Oyster Cult's 'Don't Fear the Reaper'

What Did They Just Say?
Official Heavy Metas

Not Waste Away: John in Faith

Other really cool people talked, too!

I'm still looking. If you have any meta on Faith, please link me!