So why is this number 3? Because out of all the rooms, this is the most flamboyant and the most over the top. It’s also the most outrageous to see the boys in. It has the very regal style common around the ages of Louis IX, a style that has you going “WTF?†the second you see Winchesters in the middle of it. I’m also trying for the life of me to figure out what that theme has to do with the “Cicero Pines†and the southwestern stucco exterior. Why would a farm town with no tall pine trees in Indiana, or traces of early French settlers, have something so extreme like that? At least have something that outrageous and not have it featured on the Travel Channel.
Just look at it. Gold jacquard bedspreads and curtains (very fancy for a low budget room), full length wall mirrors, a red period piece chair, dark scalloped headboards that look more Victorian to me than French, vintage French red wallpaper in between the wainscoting (which also doesn’t belong in a cheap motel), red tile floors, a room divider that isn’t a structure this time but a box of very colorful fake flowers, and the lamps! I’m not sure what décor those represent, but I don’t see vintage French in those. I don’t see vintage anything. I think they came from a brothel in Thailand.
I could see Vern Yip ripping this room to shreds in terms of balance, lack of flow, and poor use of room pieces. He’d say it looked like Marie Antoinette threw up in there. Which is why it’s so perfect. That makes the joke that much better.
#2 – Dream a Little Dream of Me
Any episode that covers most of the room with bright blue peacocks and bright green leaves on a bright yellow background and then say it’s in Pittsburgh, the greyest city in America, ends up getting my attention. Even the room divider has shapes of birds on it and suddenly I want that for my basement rec room. The bedspreads are bright blue, the couches are navy, the area rug is green, and the blue lamp in the middle makes you wonder who dug that out of the neighbor’s trash. I swear I had to watch this episode with sunglasses on. Do you think it was a coincidence that Dean’s ultimate nightmare took place in that room? The peacocks man, they’ll get to you.
What’s even funnier is that was Bobby’s room. They must reserve these outrageous suites just for hunters. Somewhere there’s a collection of vengeful designers snickering over how foolish they’re making these guys look.
#1 – Provenance
What can I say? The clip says it all. Any room that actually gets a reaction from the boys has to be pretty special.
By this time in season one the rooms started making their mark, and a Studio 54 inspired theme is the perfect way to get people giggling, especially when time is actually taken to show every detail of this room as they first enter. The sitting area has black tiled walls on both sides, white plastic bar chairs on one side and half moon chairs on the other and a…is that a martini bar, complete with accessories? Do you see Sam and Dean tipping back a few cosmos while researching the case?
The rest of the monochrome room is an instant attention grabber with very bold wallpaper with white circles and black squares, grey and black flooring, beds with white leather headboards, black and white paisley bedspreads and some rather bizarre artwork on the wall. There’s shiny silver circles on the room divider and yes, there’s even a disco ball hanging by the window. I was waiting for Dean to bust it like a piñata, or at least recreate Disco Demolition Night. Off topic, I actually watched that live on TV back in 1979. The White Sox were playing the Detroit Tigers, and the local Detroit sports broadcast got every bit of it while waiting for the second game of the doubleheader to start. Instead of baseball, we saw history and a forfeit.
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Honorable Mention – Wishful Thinking
This almost made the list. The Tall Totems Motel fits the criteria of outrageous, over the top, and a large totem pole in the corner is certainly the conversation piece we’re looking for. However, I suspect because ”Wishful Thinking” was already an outrageous enough episode and they didn’t try to showcase this off the wall room like they should of. The second that Sam stepped in front of that Totem Pole for the first time, they should have had it in sharp focus, a la the mural in “A Very Supernatural Christmas.” I think comparing someone as tall as Sam to a totem pole would have been hiliarious. Instead, we got a blurry image and not a very great look at the detail that went into this room at all.
Yes I would very much like to compare the height of the totem with the height of Sam Winchester.
And the bedspreads in DALDOM are the same colour as my old high-school uniform. That alone is enough to give me nightmares, even sans-dreamroot.
Aaah, Provenance. That clip makes me giggle every time I see it.
Like Jojo and you, Alice, the Provenance room always makes me laugh..it’s the one time they stepped outside of the ‘camera’ so to speak…love it.
I knew the motel room in provenance would be #1. It is horrible and i know because i have stayed in a room horribly similar – i can send photo’s if you want. it’s a little disorientating and nauseating to wake uip in.
and i agree what makes it better is that the boys actually react, most of the time they don’t seem to notice the rooms but you know it’s bad when they notice and their react is just pitch perfect.
I thought the brilliance of the room in Dream a Little Dream of me was a combination of how Dean’s dream seamlessly flowed from the initial forest setting to the hallway and into the room and the metaphor of into the woods that the designers also used. In literature especially fairy tales there is an imagery associated with going into the woods, it stands for a time of testing and change. In Dream iconography becoming lost in the woods indicates that a change is coming about which you have anxiety and dead woods (and what is more dead than wooden doors and wall paper) indicate that situation is overwhelming you. Brilliant just brilliant. I hope I will get to meet a set designer at the convention and talk to them.
Tall Tales