Recap – Salvation
I’m sure you’re asking, why recap “Salvation?” Easy. “Devil’s Trap” and “In My Time of Dying” have always been high on my list, but it just didn’t feel right doing those without covering the first episode in that trilogy. Sure it’s not as good as those other two, but it’s important! So on with recap.
As I’m sure many of your remember, “Salvation” was actually the first episode to feature “Carry On Wayward Son” as the opening montage. It wasn’t until season two that it became reserved just for the finale. “Salvation” in a sense though is part one of the finale so that’ll work (just ignore the “All Hell Breaks Loose” example). The song goes on to show a great summary of all that happened in season one, which is they’re picking up where Dad left off. You know, saving people, hunting things, the family business. They’re trying to find John, they’re killing things, Sammy has these visions, and the Winchesters are reunited. Then there’s Meg. Why not start with Meg?
Blue Earth, Minnesota. It’s a nice quaint little church, something you’d expect for rural Minnesota. A pastor reads the bible and suddenly a breeze flickers all the candles on the altar. In walks Meg. Oh yeah, some bad shit is going down. She tells the pastor she needs to talk. Don’t do it! Run you bastard! Nah, he talks with her. She does the whole “I’ve done some bad things” chat. I’ll say she has! The pastor claims there’s always forgiveness. “Salvation was created for sinners.” Yeah, but Salvation wasn’t created for evil demon whores. Oops, sorry, I’m jumping ahead.
Meg goes on, admitting she’s lied, a lot, she’s stolen, she lusted (with our Sammy nonetheless!) and then she met a nice guy who’s throat she slit and ripped his heart out through his chest. “Does that make me a bad person?” She shows the black eyes. So the pastor says, “Oh, you’re a demon, that’s all normal. Move along.” Um, no. He freaks out, telling her she can’t be there for that’s hallowed ground. I guess that rule doesn’t work with super bitches like her. Go figure. The pastor runs downstairs to his office and he has one cool arsenal down there. I guess he’s had his run-ins with things like this before.
Meg kicks open the blocked door. He throws a knife at her and she catches it easily. Come on dude, judging by the weaponry you have I’d think you’d be smarter than that. “You throw like a girl,” Meg says. The pastor now decides to ask her what she wants. The Winchesters of course. Even back in season one the Winchesters seemed to attract trouble wherever they went. The pastor claims he hasn’t spoken with John Winchester in a year. Even if he did know where they were, he wouldn’t tell her. She knows, which is the perfect reason to slit his throat. To think, he’s one of the early ones in the body count!
So, what are the Winchesters up to? They’re still in Manning, Colorado. There’s a cool scan of all the weird shit up on John Winchester’s wall. He has some strange decorating tastes. Must be a pattern thinker. He tells Sam and Dean that’s everything he knows about the demon. He explains there’s been nothing on the demon they’ve been hunting all this time until a year ago when, you know, he took off, Sam’s girlfriend was baked on the ceiling and Sam started having all those headaches and nightmares. That’s probably not a coincidence.
The demon is going after families all over the US just like it went after them. Sam asks if they’re families with infants. Yep, night of their six month birthday. Sam is shocked to find Mary was killed on the night of his six month birthday. Um, Sam, didn’t you and/or Dean do the math by now? That’s an obvious one. Sam is in too much of a pissy mood to care about the semantics of time, for he’s concluded that Mary and Jessica’s deaths were all because of him. Dean isn’t ready to make that conclusion, so Sam jumps down his throat about it. “Oh really, because I’d say we’re pretty damned sure Dean!” Dean firmly points out whatever happened to them was not his fault. “No, it was not my fault but it’s my problem!” Sam shouts. I love that line, because it’s so true! This is exactly how Sam treats his misfortunes all the way until the season five finale. He may not be the one to blame, but he’s the one that has to do something about it.
So then Dean says “It’s not your problem, it’s our problem,” and that too takes us all the way to the end of season five. Dean was there right next to Sam the whole time. I so love continuity it this regard. I get all giddy! Back to the story, John breaks up the brotherly fight, so Sam goes back to being rational. He asks what does it want and how do they find it? John wishes he knew for he’s always been one step behind it. Liar!! You do know what the demon wants!! You’re only partially telling the truth. Sneaky Winchester. Be careful, one of your sons might end up doing that! Oh, wait…
John is brutally honest about how he’s never gotten there in time to save people. That does break him up. His sons with one stare dually note that pain. So, how do they find the demon? There’s signs. Ones that have taken John a while to figure out. Cattle deaths, temperature fluctuations, electrical storms. Dean figures it out, those signs happened in Lawrence. John confirms that to be true, a week before Mary died. They happened in Palo Alto too. There’s cattle in Palo Alto? Really?
Now the signs are in Salvation, Iowa. Next shot is John’s truck and the Impala on the road. The rainy road. Go figure. The sign says they’re leaving Salvation, which is kind of weird. Why would you tell people you’re leaving a town? Of course since they’re going the opposite direction it means they’re entering the town. The saying on the sign is cool. “Are you reading for Judgement Day?” JW 2:27. Someone’s having fun with us!! My answer is JW, “Does it matter?”
The truck pulls over and the Impala follows. John’s a bit upset. Pastor Jim is dead. Oh, so that’s who that was! His throat was slashed. They found traces of sulfur. A demon. Or is it “the demon? Dean asks. John isn’t sure, it could be Jim got careless and slipped up. Ding, ding, ding, ding, we have a winner! It also could mean the demon knows they’re getting close. They’ve got to act as though every second counts. There’s two hospitals in the county, they’ll split up and get names of all the infants that are going to be six months old in the next week.
They go to leave, but John takes a moment to have a slight meltdown. He’s pretty broken up over losing Jim. Too bad you haven’t met angels yet, they could fix that problem.
Although we don’t know it yet, John HAS met the Angels and one (Anna) of them tried to kill both John and Mary and did kill Sam. Then Michael cons John into being his vessel. Sadly the Angels would have been no help whatsoever. Poor John was just as screwed as Sam and Dean from the word go.
Ahem, it’s actually a tetralogy, but since a certain webmaster doesn’t care all that much for Dead Man’s Blood, we’ll take what we can get. 😉
Verily, thou that leaveth Salvation leaveth the Lord!
I get that they wanted Pastor Jim to have a suitably bloody death to push the Winchesters’ collective button an extra time, but it always bugged me that someone so well versed in what’s going on wouldn’t have a devil’s trap at the threshold of his bat cave. Not like he’d freak the nuns out any less with the arsenal in the room.
I love how in the Sam-Monica scene it’s coming down pretty hard. Not as bad as in What Is And What Should Never Be, but this might be the only time (outside of Sam and Dean of all people) we see one of those.
And of course the baby had to die, it’s what demented demon mofos do. What a fine, fine episode.
Just adding my note of thanks for this great recap. 🙂
Personally, I’ve always found it a little difficult to watch (and rewatch) “Salvation” (and also “Devil’s Trap”) because they were so intense emotionally.