Supernatural Episode 7.16: “Out With The Old” Preview

DOUBLE TROUBLE

In this Friday’s new episode of “Supernatural”, we find the boys investigating a very unusual case of cursed objects, one of which is a pair of ballet slippers. The boys read about a ballerina who apparently danced herself to death and discover that the slippers she wore were cursed.
Interestingly, this sounds a lot like the ballet of the “Red Shoes” which was about a dancer who was forced to dance continually in her cursed red shoes until she died.

The ballet roughly follows the fairy tale of the same name penned by Hans Christian Andersen, and, needless to say, it was a grim and gory tale. And we all know how the series LOVES grim and gory!

The tale was about a vain young girl who thought more about her beautiful pair of red shoes than she did about the people who loved her. She spent so much time wanting people to admire her shoes, she was eventually forced to continually dance in them. No matter what she did, she couldn’t stop dancing even after she had her feet amputated. The shoes, with the amputated feet still in them, just kept dancing. YUCK, and yes, *definitely* “Supernatural” material.

Andersen explained the origins of the story in an incident he witnessed as a small child. By his report, his father was sent a piece of red silk by a rich lady customer, to make a pair of dancing slippers for her daughter. Using red leather along with the silk, he worked very carefully on the shoes, only to have the rich lady tell him they were trash. She said he had done nothing but spoil her silk. “In that case,” he said, “I may as well spoil my leather too,” and he cut up the shoes in front of her.

The lesson here seems to be one of vanity, selfishness and inconsideration toward others. And given the description of the other characters in this episode, this seems to fit quite well.

So who are the other characters? Bryan Cuprill (Accidentally on Purpose) is set to guest star as George, as a man stuck as a job assistant to a nightmare of a boss named Joyce, played by Mary Page Keller.

Joyce and George are in real estate, and Joyce, besides being the boss from hell, is “high up the totem pole” in town. She is in the process of “trying to buy some stores in Portland” and I’m assuming she plans to sell them at a much higher price. I’m also guessing she doesn’t much care how she goes about getting them. One spoiler said the “producers ask us to think of George as Anne Hathaway and Joyce as Meryl Streep from the “Devil Wears Prada.” Interesting!

Also interesting is that George is listed as a ‘recurring’ guest star but not so Joyce. I think Joyce’s days are numbered.

Other photos stills show Dean looking in a box with a strange sigil etched on the side and neither Dean nor Sam seems too happy to see them.

Turns out the boxes are curse boxes that an antiques dealer found in a safe he unwittingly opened. So part of the episode involves the boys rounding up all the cursed objects to keep them from killing people. The dancing shoes are just the start. What the other part of the episode involves, i.e. the duo of Joyce and George is being kept a mystery.

Once Dean and Sam discover the boxes, they are none too pleased with the antique owner.

We know from the cursed rabbit’s foot we saw in “Bad Day at Black Rock”, any of these objects can never be touched without acquiring the cursed yourself. The question is, did they find the curse boxes, before or after Dean touched the shoes, oh and yes, we do know that he does€¦.touch the shoes€¦sad to say,

So how does that come about? The boys apparently trace the cursed shoes to a young ballerina, named Tracy (Taya Clyne).

Unfortunately they don’t catch up to her before she dons the cursed slippers… ]and from the look on the faces of all three, seems the shoes really pack a wallop of evil.

The boys try to help her remove them and quite a scuffle ensues, at least that’s the way it looks in the trailer scene as well as an even briefer glimpse in the CHCH promo. Seems the shoes just don’t want to come off!

In the end, the boys do get the shoes off, but not before Dean touches them and the curse is transferred.

In a last minute spoiler release, we get some insight into Dean’s curse from Sera Gamble herself.

“Our boys pick up a crazy case in which a ballerina dances her feet off; her shoes are a cursed object,” says Gamble. “There’s a lot of pretty famous fairy tales in Western folklore, like ‘The Red Shoes,’ that are similar. In the case of this cursed object, if you touch the shoes, you become so enamored of them, you just want to put them on. They kind of follow you around until you do, and we see this happen to a couple different people.

“In the course of wrestling them off somebody, Dean does touch them,” she continues. “So he starts to get the urge to put them on. It becomes a high-stakes race as to where this cursed object came from, and are there curse boxes they can shove it back into quickly before Dean becomes the next victim.”

Will Dean prevail? Or will he also pull on a tutu? Gamble adds, “I don’t know if Jensen would want to put one on, as comical as it would seem.”

I’m taking that as a no. Just can’t wait to see ballerina slippers following Dean around.(Smile)

Besides the shoes, the photo stills also show the boys very gingerly handling an antique teapot in a kitchen, which they take with them when they leave…another one of the cursed objects found. Have to wonder if these will all end up in Daddy Winchester’s storage locker.

One has to wonder what a ‘cursed’ teapot would cause people to do. That has a comic feel to it. But, have to say, with multiple cursed objects the boys have to round up, I can see the episode being very dark and grim. We also know from the producer’s promo that there is a larger more dangerous evil in the town that the boys eventually uncover. Maybe we will get a sneak peak at some leviathan action this week. And as we have a new writing team this episode, we have no idea how their mind sets works. Should be interesting.

Here I have to say; BOY the guys are really sharply dressed in these stills! On Twitter we were wondering how they could afford such nice clothes now that the leviathans had made it impossible for them to forge credit cards. We decided, WHO CARES! Let’s just revel in the eye candy whenever we can get a chance!

Besides the photo stills, we do get some tidbits from the promos released. The CW has released a trailer and a sneak peek and a Producer’s Promo. And the Canadian station CHCH also released a promo.

The trailer was a mixture of the next two episodes. So, the scenes of Sam on the stretcher, Cass, Dean and Meg were from 7.17. That is an episode with lots of hype.

It opens with a young boy discovering and listening rather intently to an old victrola. It almost seems like the child is being mesmerized in some way because later on we see that same child with a raised knife, posed to strike. Somehow this is another one of the cursed objects

In the CHCH promo we see that is exactly what the child does -or at least – tries to do.

I say ‘tries’ because just before the scene changes we do see someone coming up behind the boy. Looks like another curse object has surfaced…a cursed victrola?

The trailer also gives us a quick glimpse of Dean and Sam rushing into a building and a very interesting shot looking out from inside a cabinet.

The CHCH promo seemed to be mostly a random series of quick edits that gives quick looks at shock and worry on a lot of faces. It also seems to show George is the bad guy right along with Joyce, although that is not a sure thing. What and who all these people are, we will have to wait until Friday to find out.

Sure looks like an action packed episode!

One final spoiler, a recent article, claimed that Sam gets to play with a sword during the episode. I’m guessing that the one quick blip we saw in the CHCH promo of a shadow with a sword must be Sam, though we have no idea why or who he is wielding the sword at.

The CW sneak peak gives us Sam talking about his Luci problem, Dean not being able to get a straight answer out of Frank, an outline of this week’s escapade, some much needed brotherly banter in the form of Sam’s supposed surprise at Dean’s over-active libido, and a panorama that it surreal in its beauty.

We get to see some of that beautiful snow fall Vancouver had just before filming started on this episode. Russ Hamilton tweeted on 1/18: “Tomorrow is Day One of Filming Supernatural Season Seven, Episode 716, thank you for all the snow, won’t be a problem, AT ALL!!!!”

I’ll have to say the vista for this scene was picture postcard beautiful, gorgeous scenery. I had to take extra screen caps just for that. And it just wouldn’t have been the same without all that snow! Job well done, Russ Hamiltion (@RUSS_MOVIEGOD) ! (For those of you who don’t know, Russ Hamilton is the Location Manager for the series.) But the poor boys just didn’t look warm at all. Hope they didn’t have to do too many takes for this scene!

Anyway, the clip opens with Dean on the phone to Frank, who Dean is becoming increasingly annoyed with. Seems ‘having a cranky totally paranoid as your go-to guy” is not sitting well with Dean.

We also learn that Sam has told Dean about his escalading problems with Luci. They talk awhile about Sam’s measures for keeping Luci under control and, as we already know, they are no longer working. Seems Luci has been keeping Sam up nights too, hence Sam’s rather huge consumption of coffee lately.

Dean once again cautions Sam that Luci is not real, and although Sam verbally agrees, unfortunately he doesn’t really believe that.

Dean shoots Sam some very concerned looks as Sam begins to tell Dean what he’s found in the paper.

After Sam explained about the dead ballerina, Dean surprised him with a comment that seems to be from a very happy memory for Dean. “Dancers, they are toe-shoes full of crazy.” Sam puzzled, wants more of an explanation and Dean very proudly says he has seen “Black Swan” —–twice!

Even after Dean’s very *plausible* reasoning for seeing the ballet (LOL), Sam still seems to be surprised at his bro after all these years. Come on Sammy, like you don’t know your brother yet! Hehehe.

Guess Sam is just too tired to beleaguer the point even with all the coffee he is drinking to try to stay awake. Anyway, Dean is interested in the story, so the two take off for Portland. Dean’s final comment, he hopes Sam can get some sleep on the way.

Yeah…doesn’t seem Sammy is to sure that will happen.

Wonder if that will be all the mention of Luci we see in the episode. I am a bit curious, though, to see if Sam has his breakdown at the end of this episode. That would be a great cliffhanger for 7.17, especially with all the hype that has been put out about Cass’ return. At least we won’t have to wait long to find out.

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Official Synopsis: After a ballerina is found dead from dancing herself to death, Sam and Dean look into the case and discover the ballet slippers she wore were cursed. When Dean accidentally touches the shoes the power of the curse starts to take hold of him. Written by CW Publicity

Veteran director John Showalter directed this episode, his 7^th for the series. He also directed one of my favorites “Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid.” His other credits include “Two and a Half Men,” “Clap Your Hands If You Believe,” “Let It Bleed” and “Slash Fiction”

Executive Producer Robert Singer penned the episode along with Jenny Klein. Mr. Singer has co-authored two other episodes of “Supernatural”, “Sin City” with the very talented Jeremy Carver and “Appointment in Samarra” with Executive Producer Sera Gamble.

Jenny Klein makes her writing debut with this episode. Though she is new to writing for the series, she has been an assistant writer on “Supernatural” since 2008. She has two story credits to her name, one for “Caged Heat” with Brett Matthews and one “The Curious Case of Dean Winchester” with EP Sera Gamble. She is extremely excited about her debut and talks a bit more about it in an interview which you can find here. Needless to say, I wish her the best of luck this week. Being a script writer in any capacity is a very great achievement indeed!

Cast (IMDb) includes Jensen Ackles, Jared Padalecki, Bryan Cuprill (George), Mary Page Keller (Joyce), Taya Clyne (Tracy), Howie Lai (Cop), Lindsay Sutton (Irena Koganzon)

Just for completeness sake, IMDb *does* have Misha Collins as Castiel listed as being in the episode. All spoiler reports and even direct tweets from Jim Michaels (@TheJimMichaels) states that Misha doesn’t return until episode 7.17 “The Born-Again Identity” which airs on March 23^rd.
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There were a number of individuals who managed to get BTS shots of the cast and crew filming the episode. Seems they all had a great time in the snow.

A few of the photos are below. To see them all click on the link provided.