Recap – Salvation
Monica goes in, sees yellow eyes and now she’s pinned against the wall. She slides up, Sam runs in, sees the yellow eyes and fires the colt. Oops, he’s too late! Yellow eyes disappears in thin air, Monica drops from the ceiling, Sam ushers her out and Dean grabs little Rosie a split second before the crib bursts into flames. Interesting, why would the crib do that? If yellow eyes didn’t get to bleed into their mouths the baby had to die? It likely means nothing but that’s interesting.
Back to John who’s running, and…he gets caught. He goes sliding up against the wall screaming in agony. Dun, dun, duh! Leaving in the truck with flat tires seems like a good idea now, doesn’t it? Back to Sam and Dean and the nursery explodes into flames, blowing out the window. Sam, Dean, Monica and Rosie all make it outside, and Dad wants to rip them a new one but Monica tells him they saved them. Dad’s too upset to thank them but Monica does. An upset Sam looks up at the fire and sees yellow eyes up there. Now he’s positively livid! He rages, all eager to go back but Dean won’t let him, holding him back. He tells Sam it’s suicide. “I don’t care!” Sam shouts. “I do!” Dean shouts back. They then watch yellow eyes disappear. Wow, that’s how you ratchet up the tension!
Oh boy, this is my favorite season one scene. Yes, favorite out of all of them. It’s even one of my favorite brotherly scenes in a long line of many. Sam and Dean are back at the motel and a worried Dean is trying the cell phone again. No answer. Sam is sitting on the edge of his bed totally despondent, looking downward and not saying a word. Dean hangs up and realizes something is wrong. He doesn’t like Sam’s non-answer. “You hear me, something’s happened.”
Sam is still stuck on missing out on the chance to kill yellow eyes. “If you just let me go in there. I could have ended all this.” Dean has a good answer. “Sam, the only thing you would end is your life.” Sam looks up at Dean now angry. Oh heck. Let’s just go through this next bit with the full transcript.
Sam (angry): You don’t know that.
Dean: So what, you just willing to sacrifice yourself, is that it?
Sam (still angry): Yeah. Yeah, you’re damn right I am.
Dean: Well that’s not going to happen, not as long as I’m around.
Sam: What the hell are you talking about Dean? We’ve been searching for this demon our whole lives. It’s the only thing we’ve ever cared about.
Dean: Sam, I want to waste it, I do, okay? But it’s not worth dying over.
Sam: What?
Dean: I mean it. If hunting this demon means you getting yourself killed, then I hope we never find the damn thing.
Sam (upset): That thing killed Jess. That thing killed Mom.
Dean: You said yourself once that no matter what we do, they’re gone and they’re never coming back.
Sam (loses it and slams Dean against the wall): Don’t you say that! Don’t you. Not after all this. Don’t you say that!”
Dean: Sam look, three of us, that’s all we have. And it’s all I have. Sometimes I feel like I’m barely holding it together man. And now you and dad-
Sam (Lets Dean go and comes to his senses): Dad. He should have called by now. Try him again.
Oh, I just love that exchange! Sam is so crushed, this events of the past year finally taking its toll and poor Dean, we get to see that vulnerable side that so rarely surfaces, at least in that season. All he cares about is keeping his family together, preserving what little he has left. Nothing else matters. For a guy that has seen as much trauma as he has in his life, that’s a pretty healthy perspective. It’s one his father and little brother need to take.
Following Sam’s request, Dean calls and this time Meg answers. Dean demands to know where John is. Meg assures he’ll never see his father again. Dean freaks, Sam freaks, TO BE CONTINUED??? Damn you…oh never mind. It’s the next episode on the DVD. Bring it on!
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.