Recap: “Faith”
Suddenly Sam appears and grabs Sue Ann’s cross, smashing it to the ground. The reaper quickly realizes something is different and lets go of Dean. Back to Roy, who lets go of Leila, realizing something is wrong. Sue Ann realizes something is very wrong, and Sam gives her a slight taunting, but she’s got bigger problems. The reaper is there and he’s pissed. He even gives her a wicked smile before sucking the life out of her while Sam watches. I guess Sam was done with trying to save people thing by that point.
Sam leaves her dead in the mud and goes to the Impala where Dean is. He asks Dean if he’s okay. He’s alive, right? Looks okay to us. They leave. Back at the motel Dean is quiet. Sam asks “What is it?” and when Dean won’t answer, he does it again with more attitude. It’s interesting how that still works to this day, although Sam’s tag line now is “No, say it!” Doesn’t he know when he does that, usually a hurtful truth comes out of it?
“Did we do the right thing here?” Dean asks. Sam says they did, Dean says it doesn’t feel like it. There’s a knock at the door and Sam answers. It’s Leila and Sam’s not surprised. Sam called her, telling her Dean wanted to say goodbye. Sam diplomatically leaves. Those pesky brothers!
She asks where they are going. Dean gives her the vague answer about work taking the all over the place. She tells him how she went back to Roy and he couldn’t heal her, and Sue Ann is dead. Dean calls Roy a good man and doesn’t deserve what’s happened. Yeah, but Sue Ann so got what was coming to her.
Leila tells him she’s okay. “I guess if you’re going to have faith, you can’t have it when the miracles happen. You have to have it when they don’t.” And there’s our Sunday school lesson for the hour. Dean wants to know what now. “God works in mysterious ways.” I distinctly remember Dean smacking down Castiel for trying to give him that line.
She leaves, and Dean has parting words. “You know, I’m not much of the praying type, but I’m gonna pray for you.” She’s all touched and says, “Well there’s a miracle right there.” She leaves and a saddened Dean watches her go. I get the sentiment in this ending, but I’m breaking into convulsions from the overload of sugar in that scene. It felt wrong.
This episode was a first in showing the deep moral dilemmas Sam and Dean face in saving people and hunting things; a theme that just keeps getting better and better as the seasons unfold. However, execution was still a big issue in this part of season one, thus it was very uneven. Overall, I give “Faith” a B. Good, but it could have been so much better given the material.
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?