Review – “Devil’s Trap”
“Devil’s Trap”
–Robin’s Rambles
–Robin Vogel
This episode is one of my top-five favorites. So many firsts…Bobby Singer and his fascinating salvage yard, his dog, Rumsfeld, the Key of Solomon, the Devil’s Trap, demon exorcism! Most of this became common-place, of course, but seeing it for the first time, ambrosial!
From the moment the brothers learn their father is in Meg’s clutches, they realize they need help to find him, so they rush over to South Dakota and Bobby, who, we learn, pumped John full of buckshot last time they saw each other. Yet Bobby is more than willing to help Sam and Dean get John back.
Meg comes to them, making a grand entrance (starting, it seems, with killing Rumsfeld, who is never seen again). They capture her, tie her in a chair under a devil’s trap. “Where’s my father, BITCH?” demands Dean. “Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?” counters Meg. “Oh, I forgot, you can’t!” She insists John is dead, she killed him herself, slowly, painfully, and made him scream and beg for his life. She and Dean exchange a lot of ugly insults and she’s furious when she realizes he’s sending her back to hell even after getting the information he wanted. “I LIED!” he says with great satisfaction. Sam starts to exorcise the demon, even though Bobby warns them there’s a girl in there, and only the demon is keeping her alive.
Sam keeps reading from the bible in sexy Latin (his voice sublime), sending Meg’s smoky essence back to hell. The boys learn where John is and that he is still alive. Sadly, the broken body the demon used/abused for a year dies. Bobby assures them he’s spoken with the cops before and knows what to do. He wants them to go get their father, and he shouldn’t be a stranger in the future.
Once they reach the apartment building where demons are keeping John, Sam wants to keep the Colt in the car, under the protection of Devil’s Traps he’s drawn on the trunk. Dean wants to bring it along with them. With only three bullets left, Sam insists they have to keep the gun safe so they can use it on THE demon. Dean reminds his brother the only important thing is getting Dad back; he’s willing to trade John for the Colt if necessary. Dean considers his brother as obsessed and selfish as John is, but Sam insists he only wants to do what John himself wants. Dean agrees to leave the Colt in the trunk.
Arriving at the Sunset apartments, they decide to pull the fire alarm to empty out the building of potential demons wearing human suits. Dean keeps a fireman occupied by talking about his Yorkie upstairs, who pees when he gets nervous. They steal fireman outfits, enter the building and find the demons with their special meter. They burst into the apartment, use holy water to subdue the demons, lock them in a closet and salt the door, imprisoning them. Even as the demons are finding new meatsuits and coming after them, the brothers free a drugged John, who is tied to a bed, and hustle him out the window. Sam, concerned he might be possessed, first sprinkles holy water on their father, which only succeeds in waking him.
Outside, Sam is jumped by a handsome male demon who sits on him and begins pounding his face with first one first, then another. It looks as if he’s going to quickly beat Sam to death. Dean tries kicking the demon in the face, accomplishing nothing, so he shoots him with the Colt. Like Luther in “Dead Man’s Blood,” he dies a great special effects death. As it turns out, Sam would have died if not for Dean bringing the Colt, and he later thanks him for saving his life. Dean gives a touching and telling speech about how far he’ll go for his family, that killing Meg or killing the humans these demons are inhabint doesn’t phase him if it means saving Sam or John
They take John to a cabin, where he praises Dean for using a bullet to kill the demon who whaled on Sam. Which is why when the lights go wonky and John announces the demon is coming, Dean refuses to hand over the Colt to him. “You’re not my father! You’re possessed!” Indeed, the YED has gotten into John, and he instantly smashes both Sam and Dean against the cabin walls. Chillingly, using John’s voice but the demon’s hideous golden eyes, the demon reveals that Meg and the unnamed demon Dean killed with the Colt were HIS kids–so demons have family, too. He tells Sam Jessica and Mom had to die because they were in the way of “the plans I have for you and all the children like you.” He gets close enough to Dean to kiss him and taunts him that John’s favorite of the brothers is Sam, even when they were fighting.
Dean makes a smart-assed remark about how he killed the YED’s kids; the demon, infuriated, starts him bleeding from the inside out. Dean pleads, “Dad, don’t you let him kill me!” in a heart-rending scene, while Sam tries desperately to make the Colt rise from the table where the demon left it, challenging “psychic boy” to move it. John, hearing Dean plead for his help, is momentarily able to take possession of the body. Sam, freed from the wall, tumbles to the floor, grabs the Colt and shoots John in the leg. Dean, lying on the floor, blood flowing from his mouth because of his injuries, weakly orders Sam not to shoot his father again. John, barely keeping control of the body, yells, “SAMMY! SHOOT ME IN THE HEART! FINISH IT!” Caught between his brother’s pleas not to kill their father and John’s orders to kill the demon, Sam waits too long; the demon escapes John’s body.
Of course, the final scene is one we will never forget: “Bad Moon Rising” blares from the Impala’s speakers. Sam, driving a gravely injured Dean and his father to the nearest hospital, blathers that they still have one bullet left; they’ll find the demon again, and. . .a gigantic semi tractor-trailer, driven by a black-eyed demon, slams into the Impala! We see it happen over and over, from several different directions, destroying the beautiful car.
Finally, we see the Winchesters, John, Sam, Dean, all unconscious, very bloody, possibly dead.
I was NOT on-line at the time, had no idea this was how the season was going to end! I didn’t know if the show was returning or not! I was screaming at my TV set and crying for days afterward!
Hi Robin
This was a great episode.
We get our first meeting of Bobby.
Learn of the Devils Trap.
Find out why Jessica was killed.
That last scene always gets to me, seeing the Winchesters unconscious and near death with CCR’s Bad Moon Rising playing.
Another scene that always gets to me is in the Cabin, I always found it sad that it took John’s praises for Dean to realize his dad was possessed. That despite Dean saving both his dad and Sam, that he still expected his dad to blast him for wasting one of the colts bullets. I love that Sam believes and stands by Dean over John’s protest that he wasn’t possessed.
Total cracker of an episode … Bobby, Creedence ( love them to bits, particularly that song … ) The Unexpected Black Truck Of Doominess and best of all the defining Big John moment of all time – Affection, kind words … Hah! Definitely possessed!
The ending had me all of a do-dah and I knew perfectly well they were coming back as series 2 was smirking at me from the shelf all the while … Great stuff. 😀
OMG! i wasn’t really online yet either and i remember watching this at home in my bed (it was on at 11pm on a sunday night on ITV at the time in the UK) and i remember jumping in surprise as the truck hit the impala screaming 😮 “noooooooooo! not the car!” at the screen and racing to my computer to see if i could find out if it had been renewed. It was weeks i think before i found out whether there was a season 2 – still the worst hiatus ever!
Best cliff-hanger ending i’ve seen, just brillant because it was so unexpected!
This is a great episode and heart-wrenching season ender. I especially angsted over the entire scene in the cabin and especially where Dean is begging Sam not to kill their father while John is begging Sam to kill him. What a burden Sam would have had to live had he actually shot John. I’m glad Sam listened to Dean and didn’t kill him. And of course Sam is going to side with Dean, Sam knows Dean better than John and even though John is his “father” Dean has ALWAYS been there for Sam where as John has not. I’m so glad John was able to overpower the YED and take control of his body and stop the torturing of Dean.
The music is great in this episode. Except, what the heck is up with TNT. In the airing of this yesterday none of the originally aired songs were played – so no ‘Fight the Good Fight’, Turn to Stone or Bad Moon Rising. Instead they played cheap versions of something else. What’s with that!!!!!
EASILY a top five episode, and probably my favorite season ender of anything this side of The Erlenmeyer Flask. If you’re gonna go out, make it seem like *everyone* just might be dead.
Fantastic, awesome episode! Emotional roller coaster beginning to end.
Just might be my very favourite of all. And when I first saw it, I had no idea if the series had been renewed and the ending shocked me and left me angsting like no other ever had.
The acting by all 3 (and Bobby and Meg) was perfection.
Bad Moon Rising perfect music for the cliff hanger and almost a funeral dirge for the 3 of them and the Impala.
I agree, an awesome eppie. Never have even thought about putting the finales in some kinda order but I’d have to say since this is the first, it’s always special and close to my heart.
And I love Bad Moon Rising, have for years!! I love the lyrics, they’re so haunting, so fitting. This song was used in my highschool horror movie (along with Travelling Band) that we made (we were like 16, lol), so it got a new, better remembrance with this show. Earlier it was a constant reminder that I cannot, in any circumstances even if my life or anyone elses depended on it, act. *hee* So now, it’s a reminder of the first ever finale of my favorite show, so that’s a much, much better thing 🙂
Right, Robin, incredible episode – and another heartbreaker…
One of my all time favourites in a long line of favourites…
I bet the bitch killed that gorgeous Rottweiler, But perhaps he just needed another name… ;-). Jas
I’m aware that they’re changing the songs on TNT, and believe it has something to do with song rights that TNT doesn’t have that the CW purchased.
Actually, I missed the first couple of minutes on TNT and was so angry at myself, I stuck the season 1 DVD in and watched it from the beginning, so I’m unaware of any missing music. Not nearing “Bad Moon Rising” would have pissed me off fiercely, so it’s a good thing I switched over to the DVD!
It’s a good thing Dean knows his father as well as he does, because if not, he might have soaked up that praise instead of realizing there was something very wrong with John.
I wonder–if Dean had handed over the Colt, what would have happened? Would the YED have just killed Dean on the spot and left with the Colt, leaving John and Sam alive? It’s something I’ve always wondered. He still needed Sam as one of his special kids, right?
Love, Robin
Great recap, Robin. This is one of my favorite episodes, too. So much man pain!
I watched season 1 from Netflix, and the three-day wait for the next disc was agony for me, so I can only imagine that having to wait for an entire summer and not even knowing if the show was even coming back was exponentially worse!
Yeah, I’m a little late to the party here. I’m with Suze. I saw the end of Devil’s Trap and was beaming over the fact that the season two DVDs were sitting right in front of me. We did watch Devil’s Trap and In My Time of Dying a few times over before moving on with the rest of the DVDs.
As much as I love Devil’s Trap, and I’ll easily rank it as a top ten episode, No Rest For The Wicked for me was the best finale. This comes a very close second though. Very close! I wasn’t left as bad a hysterical mess with this one like I was with No Rest For The Wicked.
Great post with lots of imptorant stuff.