Recap: “Faith”
My next season one selection for recapping is a bit of a surprise for me. This is not one of my favorites. However, this episode, much like “Home” ends up being important for season four. By going through the exercise of a recap, maybe I would appreciate it better. We’ll see.
It should be noted this is the first solo delivery of the writing team of Raelle Tucker and Sera Gamble. Sera especially uses this episode as her blueprint for further developing Dean’s faith issues, so it’s a vital piece of work. It also showcases just how far Dean has come in terms of faith. So, for your recapping enjoyment, I present “Faith.”
The Recap
After the regular season one teaser (you know, saving people, hunting things, the family business) there’s a dark, abandoned spooky house at night. In the background is the roar of that familiar engine, then the headlights appear in the background. It’s the Impala! This opening is good already.
Sam and Dean search the trunk, and Dean finds two taser guns that each deliver 10000 volts. Dean wants “this rawhead extra freaking crispy.” Ah, at least we know who they’re up against early. They only get one shot though, so it must count Per gun I’m assuming.
Now they’re inside, and naturally, for extra creepiness factor, they’re searching in the basement. I guess hideous creatures don’t hang in the master bedroom. With flashlights in hand they search left, search right, search all around, then hear something in a nearby cabinet. Oh, not the “something’s hiding in the cabinet” trick again. That so overdone by the horror genre. Anyway, the go to it cautiously and have weapons handy as they count to three.
Dean opens the door and two innocent children in school uniforms are in there. You guys are picking on kids again! Sam asks if its still here, and the two terrified children nod. They grab the kids and Sam is tasked with getting them out of there, because we have learned in the last few episodes he’s designated child rescuer. Probably because in these early episodes, he looks like a baby himself.
Something from under the stairs grabs Sam’s ankle as he and the kids run and Sam falls down the stairs. Dean goes under the stairs and shoots, but its not there so he wasted his shot. Sam throws Dean his gun and gets the kids out of there. Dean searches alone and I smell an ambush.
Sure enough, the thing pops out of hiding and knocks Dean backward, into a puddle of water. Oh yeah, I see where this is going. The thing comes after him so Dean scrambles for the taser gun, fires, and turns that thing all crispy. Oh, but the electrical current frying the rawhead is charging up the water at his feet as well, the water that Dean is also lying in. Guess what? Dean fries too.
Dean as well as the rawhead are jolted rather intensely as their insides cook, and when its all over, they both collapse. One is dead and one isn’t. I’ll let you guess who. Sam arrives in time to see a fallen Dean, but is late enough where the water isn’t electrified anymore. He yells “Dean!” and rushes over, clutching onto him in the water. Since I’m not an expert when it comes to water and electricity (aka, shouldn’t there be a residual current in the water, thus shocking Sam even a little), I’ll let the debunking slide here for we’ve got some good drama now.
Logo time, and it’s so bland compared to the other seasons.
Sam is at a hospital waiting area, and the nurse asks for an insurance card. He hands it to her and oh yes, Sam looks so much like a Mr. Berkowitz. He’s definitely has that Jewish serial killer vibe. Two cops are waiting, and Sam goes back to them. Ah, remember the days when they could talk to the police?
Sam finishes the story. They were taking a shortcut through the neighborhood with the windows down (nice detail!), heard screaming, ran in the house, found the kids in the basement. The cop thanks God they did.
Okay, I wonder something here. In the time between Sam getting Dean to a hospital and rescuing the kids, what did he do with the rawhead’s body? If he took the kids to the hospital with him, they still know about the house, so wouldn’t their search have come up with the thing? Shouldn’t they be a little floored over the Supernatural killer? Or did Sam actually ditch the body first even though his brother was near death? I know, I’m nitpicking. I’ve always wondered that though.
The doctor arrives to deliver Sam the news. The electrocution trigged a heart attack in Dean, a massive one. His heart is damaged. He gives Dean a couple of weeks, a month at most. I know this is some po-dunky hospital, but other hospitals have this thing when one organ fails on an otherwise healthy young man. It’s called a transplant list. I’m pretty sure Dean would qualify.
Sam doesn’t take the news well. “There’s got to be something you can do, some sort of treatment.” “Sure,” the doctor says, “we’ll get him on the emergency transplant list right away.” Except he doesn’t say that. “We can’t work miracles.” Uh, transplants stopped being miracles 30 years ago. Now I know why I had troubles with this episode.
Sam rushes to go see Dean, who’s in a hospital bed flipping through channels. There are red bags under his eyes and he looks like…death. At least they got that right. Anyone ever watch the old Magnum PI episodes where Magnum would be in the hospital in a coma and aside from one tiny patched up bullet wound on his chest somewhere, justifying the chance to show him bare chested, he looked like he was taking one very pretty nap? Not a tube, wire, or blemish anywhere. TV has indeed changed, and I think its because of nitpickers like me.
I just have to laugh at your review Alice.
As much as I love where I live, there are only so many placed BC can imitate. Especially for a knowledgable eye like yours. GRIN
Also, what many folks don’t realize is that this area of the world is a Sub Tropical Rain Forest. Yes, you read that right, RAIN Forest!!. So ya, it rains here a lot. Due to the mountains, Vancouver sits in a natural pocket for the clouds to get trapped in.
I would love to convince them to move the production over here to the island. We still have the mood setting greyness but it rains a whole lot less over here!
As for the episode – I agree. It’s not one of my favourites either and I probably couldn’t have told you why, but turns out I don’t have to because of your lovely review! Many of the reasons you list are why this epi clunks for me too. Good job! 🙂
Hi Alice!
Great recap! And I just loved your comments about the all transplant thing, but if they would go there this would not be a supernatural ep, would it? 🙂
I’m going tru my season 1 dvd’s and I’m finding that now, after seeing season 4, is so much easy to understand some of the things that happened there! And your recaps give a lot of help too, so I thank you Alice (and you can keep them coming 😀 )
Very entertaining recap, Alice! I snickered just about the whole way through. I like Faith okay, but I’ll admit it’s not my favourite either. It’s clearly a first season episode where they are still finding their footing as a show and getting the feel for the characters.
I read that while they were filming this episode, the rain was so bad all the cars (and people walking) kept getting stuck in really deep mud, so everyone (Jensen and Jared included) were out there pushing cars out of the mud. Ah, Canadian weather – completely unpredictable and unanticipated. At least it wasn’t snow. (That’s my motto just about every day when the last of the white stuff disappears in April/May and later, as we edge closer to winter in October).
Hi Alice, great review 🙂
I agree this wasn’t my fave either but I just have something against the Leila -character… I dunno what it is but I don’t like Julie in this, or in Buffy or in Angel… But then again, I love her in Dexter so I don’t know what is my problem…
This ep would have been a better for me if Leila had been played by someone else (and her mom would have been so less cruel…and played by someone else *g*) Leila seemed kinda old… I dunno, I can’t quite explain it…
But without those scenes I truly love this ep, it has bro-moments and action and Don’t fear the reaper (awesomeness!!) and angst… The whole Sam’s “watch me” and phonecall to Papa made my heart blead, oh boys ;(
But your recap was awesome and funny and full of wittyness and color…
So keep up the god’s work…oops, did I write that? I mean good work naturally 😉
Hi, Alice,
I agree that Faith had some uneven parts (and defintiely mom’s acting was part of it…that whole bit where she walks across the stair landing to stare off into the distance…gone with the wind melodrama (and I hate Gone With The Wind…dumb, dumb, dumb — but that’s another story)
I really like Faith, mostly because looking back there is so much to see, Sam doesn’t really learn the lesson of Faith, it sets up Dean’s lack of faith issues and Layla is a wonderful character to pair off of Dean…for all his initial come on to her he quickly looses that and geniuinly cares and in the end is burdened more by knowing that she (who he says deserves it more than he) likely dies but holds true to her faith.
I also enjoy the many plays on Faith, Sam had faith that he could find a way, anyway, to save Dean, Dean has faith in what he sees, Roy Le Grange truly does have faith, Sue Ann has none, Layla has faith, her mother has faith but needs to see as well…very multi-layered.
Sure there were plot issues (and kinda like OTHOAP, what happened to the rawhead, what happened to Alastair back in that torture chamber and how did Sam get Dean … each time … to the ER? I dunno but there’s only 40 some minutes so I’ll let it go.
🙂
Great screen caps you captured..awesome as always.
Hi Alice
Thanks for the recap, but I really agree with elle2 on this episode. I truly love it! Hope I still can. LOL! I loved the brotherly relationship in this episode and the way Sam cared and desperately tried to save his brother. Big contrast with the ending of season 4.
Loved the screen caps you got.
Really really liked Layla too. I don’t know if her mom was such a bad actress as she was supposed to be an annoying bitch, wasn’t she? And boy, was she ever!
Hope you recap one you really enjoyed next.
Thanks for keeping us entertained almost every day here.
Snigger …
A bit cheesey, right enough, but can’t be all bad with the mighty Blue Oyster Cult in there. I can’t get my head round Saintly Leila being Darla-in-disguise, I kept expecting her to sprout fangs and need staking. The Reapers were nice and spooky but the rest was a bit too heavily syruped, especially the end!
Everytime I see Julie Benz (actress who plays Leila) I have an immediate dislike stemming from Darla (a character I loved to hate) and her evilness. It’s hard to see her in the “good girl” role after watching her eat a guy while donning a Catholic school girl outfit, you know?
Good review Alice! I too enjoyed your enphasis on the lack of the transplant option. I’d like your opinion on something you didn’t touch on though. It always seemed to me that while Dean wasn’t willing to let anyone else die to save Leila, he was willing to let the reaper take his life to do so. There was the whole build up of things like “you deserve it more then me” ect and then when he sees the reaper he just stands there and lets it take him. He definetly had the option of evading and buying Sam time to break the spell, but he didn’t. What are your thoughts?