Post by luxshine on Aug 28, 2017 16:58:30 GMT -5
Route 666 is usually on the top ten worst episode lists. It is considered one of the most racist, ridiculous, and stupid MotW stories. Now as I started rewatching it, I came to the conclusion that maybe a lot of it’s reputation comes not from the episode itself, but from it’s position in the season. It comes right after the incredible Faith, and right before Nightmare, which is an arc episode with some very heavy implications and the advancement of Sam as the hero figure. So, sandwiched between these two, it is no wonder that the Racist Truck is found lack luster.
So, let’s see the episode step by step, and then judge it on it’s own, rather than in comparison to the ones that surround it.
General stuff
Another small consideration on the old recap montage… I know it’s accidental, but it’s still very curious.
Right after Dean says the uber iconic “I think Dad wants us to pick up where he left off, saving people, hunting, things, family business”, Sam answers “I’ve got to find Dad. It’s the only thing I can think about”. Which puts Sam’s answer as if it finding Dad was in fact the direct opposite of Saving people. We know it’s not, but the way the montage works, makes it a very curious distinction.
That actually works with Sam’s tendency of leaving hunts to find Dad.
Anyway…
Black man on road being chased by big bad black truck. That’s our cold opening. And… it is not that bad. Sure, the truck is not that scary, but let’s be honest, unless your name is Stephen King and your car is a Plymouth, cars are not that scary. (I mean it. Even Trucks, by King himself, is not as scary as Christine).
We don’t even get to see if the truck is supernatural. We just hope it is because if not? We accidentally walked onto the set of Law and Order while shooting Supernatural.
So, cut to the brothers, where Sam is checking some road, and Dean closing his phone, telling Sam they’re not going to Pennsylvania, as they had planned, since an old friend called, her father was killed and she needs help.
This is the first time that Dean actually tells Sam what they’re going to do, no questions asked. It is also an interesting parallel to Skin, where the tables were turned and Sam decided to go on a case to help a friend. However, there are a couple of differences that make me not count this as Dean forcing Sam to do something –as opposed to Skin, that counted as Sam forcing Dean to do something. (Although, disclaimer. If my reasoning doesn’t convince you, and you have a good strong argument as to why it should count, let me know. If your argument is solid, I could change the counter)
First thing is that where Skin began the situation with Sam arguing on how Dean could ask him to cut ties with his college friends and declaring point blank that Dean has no friends at all (a common thing with Sam), and then Sam explaining (With a very awkward phrasing that I did highlight in the Skin review) that well, he thinks that maybe the thing is something that could be “their thing”. Dean goes straight to the point “we’re not going to Pennsylvania because an old friend called me and thinks her dad’s death might be our kind of thing.”
He does stumble with the old friend part, but the rest is pretty straightforward. He’s not giving extra explanations (As “A girl who was a friend” is, when a simple “a friend” or “a classmate” would’ve worked better) and simply starts driving when Sam offers no protest.
And this is the thing. While in Skin the script gave us three distinct times where Dean said he didn’t want to go to St. Louis, here Sam doesn’t object to going with Dean to meet this old friend. So he’s not being forced, even if Dean is changing their travel plans. More importantly, Dean ASKS if Sam is coming. As we have seen in previous episodes, he is ok with Sam not coming with him. One can imagine that after Scarecrow, if Sam wants to take a bus, Dean won’t have an issue with it and they could meet later. But Sam doesn’t raise an objection, so both of them can travel to help Dean’s friend.
However, not much later, curiosity gets the best of Sam and he starts fishing for info, despite that we can see pretty clearly that Dean is not in a sharing mood.
This, by the way, counts both as not respecting boundaries (as after the Didn’t I it would’ve pretty obvious that talking about Cassie is off limits, and even if it wasn’t by the time we get to the last shrug it should be) and mocking, since someone as Empathic as Sam is supposed to be would’ve noticed that Cassie is a sore point and thus the “for more than one night” is unnecessarily aggressive.
It works as a good reminder that Sam doesn’t really know Dean, and has been absent from Dean’s life for at least 4 years.
And then Sam finally works out why Cassie would call Dean and kind of explodes, but that goes in the Secret and Lies subtitle because it presents a really strange turn of phrase from Sam and a very important dynamic on how Sam and Dean relate to their loved ones outside their blood family.
We change the scene to see Cassie and her editor arguing about the story of the men killed by a ghost truck in one of those moments that are… a bit cringe worthy as the Major tells them they can’t print the story. The Major insists that the Editor was too close to the case, and shuts them down, before leaving and having Cassie meet Dean in a scene that shows clearly that neither are completely over the other, just by the way they look at each other.
I adore Sam’s little smile, by the way. It’s a warm smile, as he sees that his brother is absolutely in love… which is weird given that a little later he is still referring to Cassie as if she was one night stand in a long line of similar flings from Dean.
Now, the reason why the scene is cringe worthy is because the Major is white, and the Editor and Cassie are black. And the two victims were black too. It is anvilicious and really obvious so it sounds strange that at that point no one points to the huge elephant on the room.
Anyway, Dean and Sam go to Cassie’s house and she explains to them why she believes there’s something supernatural involved, even as she is, in her own words, skeptical, but there were no signs of other vehicles around his father’s accident, and it happen in the same way as the other death so she is at a loss.
And it does make sense, since she is a reporter. She’s using all the leads she has.
But before the brothers can do anything, Cassie’s editor dies in a car accident in the exact same road as everyone else and well, now it is obvious that something is wrong.
And now the elephant is addressed with all the subtlety of… well, an elephant doing ballet in a china store in the middle of an earthquake.
Pretty much summed up why the episode is considered horrible.
The problem is… Cassie has a point caused by the bad plotting. In the USA, there’s the Missing White Girl Syndrome. I am not going to go googling statistics, but in general, crimes against white people get more media time than crimes reported against PoC, so… Cassie is right on her question. It’s not out of place, and had it been asked in any show BUT Supernatural… it would’ve given people pause. But instead, she gets shrugged off by the mayor (who, as many people unaware of their own privilege, acts as if HE was the insulted party, not the woman who is seeing three people she cared for, three people who share her race, getting killed in mysterious circumstances that no one is investigating)
This also makes Sam call her fearless and wonder if she ever kicked Dean’s ass which makes me wonder why the hell Sam is so interested in people putting Dean down. Again, context. On it’s own and in this episode, it could be harmless teasing. But we’re up on episode thirteen and there hasn’t been a single episode where Sam doesn’t put down Dean somehow so… continuity matters people. THIS is what we call a constant thing, as we are up for 13 out of 13 episodes where it happens –and given that I count individual incidents, we have more than 13 now)
After that weird comment that can be chalked up to Sam being so used to start conversations by putting Dean down that he doesn’t realize he is doing it, then he proceeds to do something very sweet and it’s to point out that the way in which Dean and Cassie are most definitively NOT looking at each other pretty much means that… well, they want to look at each other. Sure, as Dean still doesn’t want to talk about it, it is still Sam not respecting Dean’s boundaries, but in a way is a bit sweet.
See, if we go by the theory that Dean is a parentified sibling, that sees Sam as his son, and not as his brother, the fact is that the reverse is also true: Sam is incapable of seeing Dean as his brother, as he has always seen Dean as his caretaker. So, doing a small mental exercise, picture Sam a bit younger. Say, 13 instead of 20. And then repeat the exact same scene with the exact same dialogue. And we have a kid happy because his parental figure may be finding someone to love and thus, the kid gets a mommy.
It only gets awkward and mean when the “little kid” is older than 20 and a brother, rather than a son.
Which also reflects a lot on how Sam and Dean relate to each other at times, something that will be called out in Season 5. The problem is that it’s not Dean who treats Sam as a little kid… it’s the writers.
And not just this particular pair of writers that have been the most hated pair in fandom for years.
So the brothers go to talk to Jimmy’s friends, pretending to be Insurance agents. The white friend ignores them, but the black friend tells them about a killer, back in the 60’s, that only killed black people and used a big, black truck.
Again, probably it is a coincidence, but the fact that the one who remembers the killer (And even lampshades that they probably didn’t look for the killer back in the sixties) is black. Which is making this to be a very special Supernatural episode on why Racism is Bad. (Which, paired with future episodes… is cringe worthy on it’s own)
While the plot is dropping anvils, Sam insists and badgers Dean about Cassie again, which makes Dean finally snap and tell Sam everything what happened. Again, this whole exchange:
Would’ve been a lot cuter had Sam been younger… or if he hadn’t spend 70% of the episode time more worried about Dean keeping a secret from him than about the racist ghost truck killing people. Dean is hurt, Dean is really wounded that someone he loved shut the door on him, and Sam.. is making fun of it.
Now, while I usually would put this on emotional violence (Sam making fun of Dean’s feelings and pushing as hard as he can to make Dean admit he’s hurt), but since the context that I mentioned before about parentification makes this seem as if the original intent was to show Sam as concerned for Dean, I will let it pass (It is still Sam forcing Dean to do something, open up, but it is not done out of malice to count as violence on it’s own)
Dean goes to talk to Cassie and they end up in bed. While we get our first sex scene of the series, the racist truck decides to show it is not really racists and goes after the very white mayor, killing him.
Because the episode suffers from whiplash, we go back to Dean and Cassie in bed, when they talk a bit more, and it seems that they are trying to patch things up, with Cassie fully aware of what’s going on.
But before we get confirmation, Sam informs Dean of the Mayor’s death… incredibly happy that Dean didn’t sleep in the motel with him.
With the death of the Mayor breaking the pattern, Dean goes to the paper to try and find info on the original deaths of the sixties, with Cassie mocking that no, they’re not going to find a lot of information as no one investigated those deaths.
Finally, with some bit of jumping to conclusions, they find a man named Cyrus Dorian who disappeared back in 63. And the first death that happened in the present was the day after the mayor bulldozed the house.
Cassie then gets threatened by the truck, that goes to her house, and tries to break the walls to no avail. So the truck is moving away from it’s usual hunting grounds, but still keeps chasing Cassie’s family. Somehow. And it is apparently scared away when Cassie calls Dean on the phone.
At this point I realize I have not mentioned that Cassie’s mom is white. Thing is, I haven’t mentioned it because the woman has been a non-entity for most of the episode, but once that her daughter is targeted by the truck, it’s time to stop using kid gloves with her.
After Dean badgered her, she admits that Cyrus died 40 years ago. And with a bit more insistence, we get to the fact that she was dating Cyrus at the same time he had been dating Cassie’s mom. And when he found out he went off the deep end, and started to kill people.
The town pretty much ignored the fact that Cyrus had been killing people, even to the point that no one put two and two together and realized that Cyrus burnt the church where Cassie’s parents were going to get married and killed the choir of kids that was inside. Not happy with that, Cyrus kidnapped Cassie’s dad.
Something went wrong for Cyrus, as Cassie’s father managed to free himself and kill Cyrus in obvious self defense.
Dean asks the most stupid question a man in the united states can ask when it comes to the fact that a black man killed a white man without witness in the early sixties in the south, which makes Cassie’s mom look at him as if he was an idjit (because “Why didn’t he call the cops?” IS a stupid question when he has just been told that the cops didn’t care that many black men had been lynched AND a whole kid choir had been burned alive).
Cassie’s dad called his friends, and the three of them put the body on the truck and sank it into the swamp. Mayor Todd was a cop back then, appointed to investigate Cyrus’s disappearance, and when he figured out what had happened, he kept silent.
Dean realizes that Cyrus will come for Cassie, so he and Sam decide to do a stake out.
For some unknown reason, Sam starts complaining how his life used to be simple and he didn’t need to worry about stupid things like killer trucks, but they end up agreeing that it’s time to get the body out of the swamp.
(I mean it, Sam’s complains when put in contrast with the fact that he just heard that the town where they were had racial lynching’s so often that people didn’t investigate a church arson come out as really childish and very non-empathic for the so called “Sensible” brother)
Sam and Dean find the body, and they burn and salt it outside the truck.
Unfortunately, since the ghost seems to have fused with the truck, burning the human body doesn’t do much but piss the truck off, which appears and threatens the boys. Dean gets on the Impala, and tells Sam to burn the truck, somehow, while he drives to distract the ghost away.
Instead of burning the truck, Sam decides to start getting some extra information, and finally gets the BEST show of smarts in this episode by figuring out where Dean is, and then guiding him on the phone through the small roads around town, all the way to where the church was burnt down, destroying the ghost truck.
This also shows how much Dean trusts Sam, as he actually stops the Impala right in front a killer truck, and then stars playing chicken with it, just because Sam told him to do it. Dean doesn’t even ASK what why, if Sam has a plan, or what the plan is, just follows Sam’s instructions to the dot. (yes, I found a parallel to Season 9’s I think I am going to like it here on Season 1’s Route 666. What the hell show)
With the truck gone, Dean and Cassie say goodbye to each other. Dean seems to want to try and keep building a future with her, but she tells him, very honestly, that she doesn’t see a future for them and so, they say goodbye with a very sad kiss, while Sam watches.
Sam is driving again, and then tries to talk to Dean about Cassie again, in a way that I will be honest, rubbed me the wrong way.
Why? Well, because Sam knows the answer to that. Dean did wonder, but at the end, he put SAVING PEOPLE over his own happiness, as Dean usually does. Sam just saw how Dean was trying not to put things on hold, by keeping things open with Cassie, but not to simply quit. Because that is not what Dean does.
It comes out as if Sam is waiting to hear “yes, for a girl like that, it would be ok to stop doing what we do”, which of course, would mean that Dean “accepts” that Sam wanted to stay with Jess.
Except that we already know that Dean was ok with that. Dean drove Sam back to Jess, and has offered three times to let Sam go. So why is Sam still asking for validation on HIS feelings, in a moment where Dean just got his heart stomp on again?
Anyway, with that, the episode ends and we never, ever, reference again that once upon a time, Dean loved a woman so much that he wanted to share everything about his life with her, without pretending to be a normal guy and quitting hunting, or dragging her off to hunt with him.
Violence
No physical violence, which is great, we are still pretty clean in that regard. I am dreading the episodes where I know we will have long paragraphs here.
Emotional Violence
I’ve already discussed Sam’s tone deafness when it comes to Dean not wanting to talk about Cassie, so I won’t go over that again. Just a reminder that Dean at this point in the series dropped the vision thing until it came to affect their job, while Sam keeps pressing even when it is obvious that Dean doesn’t want to talk about certain subjects that in the end… are none of his business.
I just want to make a note of how constant it is that Sam does not like it when Dean has secrets, or when Dean acts in a way that contradicts Sam’s mental image of Dean, as whenever it happens, he turns the mocking and demeaning up to 11. (And yes, it happening in 13 episodes out of 13 means it’s constant)
Secrets, Lies (and their consequences)
We’ve already gone at length about how Sam’s secrecy was, in the end, the cause of Jess’ demise. But here we get a very interesting contrast between the brother when Sam realizes that Cassie knows exactly what Dean does for a living.
First… there is a bit of emotional violence here as Sam dismisses whatever Dean could’ve felt for Cassie as “this chick you saw twice”. This is really off character for Sam in a way. Sam is a very smart character and last time he was confronted with Dean doing something out of what Sam expected (his conversation in Dead on the Water, when he confessed he saw Mary in the ceiling), instead of dismissing it as “Dean is being Dean, somehow”, he files it as “fudge, I don’t know my brother”. Here we get immediately the implication that if Dean, the one who HAS said that hunting is secret, unless they’re talking to the actual victim of the week –because up to now, the only time Dean advocated lying to a victim of the week to save them was in Bugs, which had a lot of out of character moments for both brothers- either Cassie WAS the victim of the hunt Dean and John took in Ohio OR Cassie is special for Dean.
And that last one is pretty obvious for the audience, when the character that we’ve been sold as a womanizer (despite the fact that in 12 episodes he hasn’t been a womanizer in any way, shape or form) doesn’t want to talk about an “old” friend. I mean, we haven’t gotten to that episode yet, but this is the guy that when talking about the woman who WILL be sold by the show as his one love that he wants to make sure is safe after the apocalypse, went on and on about the flexibility of yoga teachers when the subject came up.
Yet, Cassie is a sore subject.
When we met Cassie, we see why, and it’s a contrast between brothers. Sam wanted out of the life completely, so when he met Jess and started dating her, DESPITE the fact that he was having visions of her death, despite the fact that he knew there were things that were dangerous in the night in general, “I do nothing but lie to Jessica”. Why? Simple, and we also get this from Skin and from Sam’s general arc: HE wants to be normal, and telling his fiancée “I believe in ghosts” (which doesn’t require the extra “And I used to hunt them with Dad and my brother I’ve never showed you a picture of”) would be not normal. He was probably afraid that Jess would call him crazy and tell him never to come back, and that is a perfectly normal fear.
I mean, the first thing we know about Cassie’s reaction is pretty straight forward.
It takes a lot longer for Sam to clue in that this means that Dean loved her, which is why he told her the secret… and she dumped him because she thought he was insane.
And while Sam doesn’t know this, or seems to want to ignore it, we know that Dean has a long story of people he loves leaving him alone.
But anyway, this particular difference between the brothers: Sam lying by omission to keep people happy and Dean telling the truth even if he knows it might cost him dearly , is a very telling characteristic that will come to play much later, when the series finally gets its mytharc sorted.
In any case, “I had a girlfriend I loved so much I thought she was going to be with me for the rest of our lives so I told her the Family Business” is a secret that Dean kept close to his heart for years, but it doesn’t go to the counter (same as Sam keeping Jess a secret from Dean didn’t count back in the Pilot. Now, had Cassie become Dean’s fiancée and kept in touch instead of breaking things off? Then it would’ve counted as a secret kept by Dean from Sam that could affect Sam in the future) as it doesn’t directly affect Sam the way that Sam keeping the secret about his visions affected both Dean and Jess.
Still, what it’s curious is that despite the fact that lying to Jess was 100% Sam’s choice, the way he SAYS it in this particular instance and how he presents it to Dean, sounds as if Sam was blaming Dean for Sam lying to Dean. Which is really odd, but goes again with the tendency of Sam’s dialogue of shifting responsibility. It is not HIS choice not to tell Jess (despite the fact that we know he already decided to break the family rules), but he was forced by tradition while Dean is so irresponsible he blurts the secret to everyone.
Speeches and Apologies
There’s no long winded speeches, and no apologies between Sam and Dean (both Cassie and Dean do apologize to each other for how they reacted to their break up, but that’s not the point of this sub section).
So, this one goes clean too.
Final Tally
Just as Kirpke has said that Faith is his personal favorite, Route 666 is one of the ones he dislikes the most, since he didn’t think the phantom truck was scary. I agree with him, since Paul Shapiro couldn’t make a scary truck if his life depended on it.
However, while Shapiro would never direct again an episode of Supernatural, the pair that gave us the concept of a racist monster truck would just leave temporarily (basically, from season 1 to season 6 when they make a much hated return with Shut Up, Dr. Phil, another fan hated episode), but the fact that they were absent makes it seem as if the powers that be were punishing everyone involved with this fiasco.
Because it is a bad episode. I don’t think it is the worst episode of the series (for example, Best friends with Benefits, also penned by Leming and Buckner, is far worse both in racist implications and general plot), but it’s fame it’s not just because it was sandwiched between two much better episodes. Also, let’s admit it. Their use of racial conflict as a plot was horribly wrong as it tried to present the whole idea of a racist truck as ridiculous… when in fact everyone complaining about the racism in the city had a very good point. The racism in the city was so ingrained that people didn’t NOTICE that a church full of dead kids and a bunch of black men disappearing HAD been a crime.
According to some sources, the addition of Cassie was due to the network demand for more romance in the show. Given that she was a very one off character (despite the fact that she is presented as Dean first true love, the first woman he went against the rules for) and that now a days the apparent rule is “we do not talk about romance in Supernatural” I wonder what happened between now and then in the network meetings.
Anyway, going back to our tally, the numbers are starting to show a very clear pattern on behavior, at least in the first season.
Also, it was tempting to count Cassie as a dropped plot point for Dean as she is built to be really important and then she just disappears, her place suddenly given to Lisa Braeden as Dean’s first love outside the hunt, but given that they do say goodbye to each other, I won’t.
Numbers (or the TL;DR summary)
(Episode/Total so far)
Times Dean has lied to Sam or to a loved one: 0 / 0
Times Sam has lied to Dean or to a loved one: 0 / 3
Times Dean has been caught in a lie: 0 / 0
Times Sam has been caught in a lie: 0 / 1
Times Dean has hit Sam in anger: 0 / 1
Times Sam has hit Dean in anger: 0 / 3
Times Dean’s lies or secrets have caused someone’s death: 0 / 0
Times Sam’s lies or secrets have caused someone’s death: 0 / 1
Times Dean has abandoned (Or wanted to abandon) a hunt in the middle for his own needs: 0 / 0
Times Sam has abandoned (Or wanted to abandon) a hunt in the middle for his own needs: 0 / 6
Times Dean forced Sam to do something: 0 / 0
Times Sam forced Dean to do something: 0 / 6
Secrets kept by Dean: 0 / 1
Secrets kept by Sam: 0 / 1
Times Dean has blamed Sam for something: 0 / 0
Times Sam has blamed Dean for something: 1 / 2
Times Dean has apologized with words to Sam: 0 / 2
Times Sam has apologized with words to Dean: 0 / 1
Times Dean has respected Sam’s boundaries and/or rules: 0 / 6
Times Sam has respected Dean’s boundaries and/or rules: 0 / 0
Times Dean hasn’t respected Sam’s boundaries and/or rules: 0 / 0
Times Sam hasn’t respected Dean’s boundaries and / or rules: 1 / 10
Times Dean has made fun of something Sam does or has: 0 / 4
Times Sam has made fun of something Dean does or has: 3 / 19
Times we focus on Dean’s needs: 0 / 0
Times we focus on Sam’s needs: 0 / 0
Arc episodes dedicated to Sam: 0 / 4
Filler episodes dedicated to Sam: 0 / 5
Arc episodes dedicated to Dean: 0 / 0
Filler episodes dedicated to Dean: 1 / 3
Arc episodes dedicated to both brothers (or to none): 0 / 1
Filler episodes dedicated to both brothers (or to none) : 0 / 0
Dean’s Dropped Plotlines: 0 / 1
Sam’s Dropped Plotlines: 0 / 1
So, let’s see the episode step by step, and then judge it on it’s own, rather than in comparison to the ones that surround it.
General stuff
Another small consideration on the old recap montage… I know it’s accidental, but it’s still very curious.
Right after Dean says the uber iconic “I think Dad wants us to pick up where he left off, saving people, hunting, things, family business”, Sam answers “I’ve got to find Dad. It’s the only thing I can think about”. Which puts Sam’s answer as if it finding Dad was in fact the direct opposite of Saving people. We know it’s not, but the way the montage works, makes it a very curious distinction.
That actually works with Sam’s tendency of leaving hunts to find Dad.
Anyway…
Black man on road being chased by big bad black truck. That’s our cold opening. And… it is not that bad. Sure, the truck is not that scary, but let’s be honest, unless your name is Stephen King and your car is a Plymouth, cars are not that scary. (I mean it. Even Trucks, by King himself, is not as scary as Christine).
We don’t even get to see if the truck is supernatural. We just hope it is because if not? We accidentally walked onto the set of Law and Order while shooting Supernatural.
So, cut to the brothers, where Sam is checking some road, and Dean closing his phone, telling Sam they’re not going to Pennsylvania, as they had planned, since an old friend called, her father was killed and she needs help.
SAM
Ok. I think I found a way we can bypass that construction just east of here. We might even make Pennsylvania faster than we thought.
DEAN
(Lowering his phone and looking thoughtful) Yeah. Problem is, we’re not going to Pennsylvania.
SAM
We what?
DEAN
I just got a call from an, uh, old friend. Her father was killed last night, think it might be our kind of thing.
SAM
What?
DEAN
Yeah. Believe me, she never woulda called, never, if she didn’t need us.
DEAN
(getting into the Impala.) Come on, are you coming or not?
Ok. I think I found a way we can bypass that construction just east of here. We might even make Pennsylvania faster than we thought.
DEAN
(Lowering his phone and looking thoughtful) Yeah. Problem is, we’re not going to Pennsylvania.
SAM
We what?
DEAN
I just got a call from an, uh, old friend. Her father was killed last night, think it might be our kind of thing.
SAM
What?
DEAN
Yeah. Believe me, she never woulda called, never, if she didn’t need us.
DEAN
(getting into the Impala.) Come on, are you coming or not?
This is the first time that Dean actually tells Sam what they’re going to do, no questions asked. It is also an interesting parallel to Skin, where the tables were turned and Sam decided to go on a case to help a friend. However, there are a couple of differences that make me not count this as Dean forcing Sam to do something –as opposed to Skin, that counted as Sam forcing Dean to do something. (Although, disclaimer. If my reasoning doesn’t convince you, and you have a good strong argument as to why it should count, let me know. If your argument is solid, I could change the counter)
First thing is that where Skin began the situation with Sam arguing on how Dean could ask him to cut ties with his college friends and declaring point blank that Dean has no friends at all (a common thing with Sam), and then Sam explaining (With a very awkward phrasing that I did highlight in the Skin review) that well, he thinks that maybe the thing is something that could be “their thing”. Dean goes straight to the point “we’re not going to Pennsylvania because an old friend called me and thinks her dad’s death might be our kind of thing.”
He does stumble with the old friend part, but the rest is pretty straightforward. He’s not giving extra explanations (As “A girl who was a friend” is, when a simple “a friend” or “a classmate” would’ve worked better) and simply starts driving when Sam offers no protest.
And this is the thing. While in Skin the script gave us three distinct times where Dean said he didn’t want to go to St. Louis, here Sam doesn’t object to going with Dean to meet this old friend. So he’s not being forced, even if Dean is changing their travel plans. More importantly, Dean ASKS if Sam is coming. As we have seen in previous episodes, he is ok with Sam not coming with him. One can imagine that after Scarecrow, if Sam wants to take a bus, Dean won’t have an issue with it and they could meet later. But Sam doesn’t raise an objection, so both of them can travel to help Dean’s friend.
However, not much later, curiosity gets the best of Sam and he starts fishing for info, despite that we can see pretty clearly that Dean is not in a sharing mood.
SAM
By old friend you mean…?
DEAN
A friend that’s not new.
SAM
Oh yeah, thanks. So her name’s Cassie huh? You never mentioned her..
DEAN
Didn’t I?
A long pause, SAM looks at DEAN expectantly.
DEAN
Yeah, we went out.
SAM
You mean you dated somebody? For more than one night.
DEAN
Am I speaking a language you’re not getting here? Dad and I were working a job in Ohio, she was finishing up college. We went out for a coupla weeks.
SAM
And…?
DEAN shrugs slightly.
By old friend you mean…?
DEAN
A friend that’s not new.
SAM
Oh yeah, thanks. So her name’s Cassie huh? You never mentioned her..
DEAN
Didn’t I?
A long pause, SAM looks at DEAN expectantly.
DEAN
Yeah, we went out.
SAM
You mean you dated somebody? For more than one night.
DEAN
Am I speaking a language you’re not getting here? Dad and I were working a job in Ohio, she was finishing up college. We went out for a coupla weeks.
SAM
And…?
DEAN shrugs slightly.
This, by the way, counts both as not respecting boundaries (as after the Didn’t I it would’ve pretty obvious that talking about Cassie is off limits, and even if it wasn’t by the time we get to the last shrug it should be) and mocking, since someone as Empathic as Sam is supposed to be would’ve noticed that Cassie is a sore point and thus the “for more than one night” is unnecessarily aggressive.
It works as a good reminder that Sam doesn’t really know Dean, and has been absent from Dean’s life for at least 4 years.
And then Sam finally works out why Cassie would call Dean and kind of explodes, but that goes in the Secret and Lies subtitle because it presents a really strange turn of phrase from Sam and a very important dynamic on how Sam and Dean relate to their loved ones outside their blood family.
We change the scene to see Cassie and her editor arguing about the story of the men killed by a ghost truck in one of those moments that are… a bit cringe worthy as the Major tells them they can’t print the story. The Major insists that the Editor was too close to the case, and shuts them down, before leaving and having Cassie meet Dean in a scene that shows clearly that neither are completely over the other, just by the way they look at each other.
I adore Sam’s little smile, by the way. It’s a warm smile, as he sees that his brother is absolutely in love… which is weird given that a little later he is still referring to Cassie as if she was one night stand in a long line of similar flings from Dean.
Now, the reason why the scene is cringe worthy is because the Major is white, and the Editor and Cassie are black. And the two victims were black too. It is anvilicious and really obvious so it sounds strange that at that point no one points to the huge elephant on the room.
Anyway, Dean and Sam go to Cassie’s house and she explains to them why she believes there’s something supernatural involved, even as she is, in her own words, skeptical, but there were no signs of other vehicles around his father’s accident, and it happen in the same way as the other death so she is at a loss.
And it does make sense, since she is a reporter. She’s using all the leads she has.
But before the brothers can do anything, Cassie’s editor dies in a car accident in the exact same road as everyone else and well, now it is obvious that something is wrong.
And now the elephant is addressed with all the subtlety of… well, an elephant doing ballet in a china store in the middle of an earthquake.
MAYOR
There’s one set of tire tracks. One. . doesn’t point to foul play.
CASSIE
Mayor, the police and town officials take their cues from you. If you’re indifferent about…
MAYOR
Indifferent!
CASSIE
Would you close the road if the victims were white?
MAYOR
You suggesting I’m racist Cassie? I’m the last person you should talk to like that.
There’s one set of tire tracks. One. . doesn’t point to foul play.
CASSIE
Mayor, the police and town officials take their cues from you. If you’re indifferent about…
MAYOR
Indifferent!
CASSIE
Would you close the road if the victims were white?
MAYOR
You suggesting I’m racist Cassie? I’m the last person you should talk to like that.
Pretty much summed up why the episode is considered horrible.
The problem is… Cassie has a point caused by the bad plotting. In the USA, there’s the Missing White Girl Syndrome. I am not going to go googling statistics, but in general, crimes against white people get more media time than crimes reported against PoC, so… Cassie is right on her question. It’s not out of place, and had it been asked in any show BUT Supernatural… it would’ve given people pause. But instead, she gets shrugged off by the mayor (who, as many people unaware of their own privilege, acts as if HE was the insulted party, not the woman who is seeing three people she cared for, three people who share her race, getting killed in mysterious circumstances that no one is investigating)
This also makes Sam call her fearless and wonder if she ever kicked Dean’s ass which makes me wonder why the hell Sam is so interested in people putting Dean down. Again, context. On it’s own and in this episode, it could be harmless teasing. But we’re up on episode thirteen and there hasn’t been a single episode where Sam doesn’t put down Dean somehow so… continuity matters people. THIS is what we call a constant thing, as we are up for 13 out of 13 episodes where it happens –and given that I count individual incidents, we have more than 13 now)
After that weird comment that can be chalked up to Sam being so used to start conversations by putting Dean down that he doesn’t realize he is doing it, then he proceeds to do something very sweet and it’s to point out that the way in which Dean and Cassie are most definitively NOT looking at each other pretty much means that… well, they want to look at each other. Sure, as Dean still doesn’t want to talk about it, it is still Sam not respecting Dean’s boundaries, but in a way is a bit sweet.
See, if we go by the theory that Dean is a parentified sibling, that sees Sam as his son, and not as his brother, the fact is that the reverse is also true: Sam is incapable of seeing Dean as his brother, as he has always seen Dean as his caretaker. So, doing a small mental exercise, picture Sam a bit younger. Say, 13 instead of 20. And then repeat the exact same scene with the exact same dialogue. And we have a kid happy because his parental figure may be finding someone to love and thus, the kid gets a mommy.
It only gets awkward and mean when the “little kid” is older than 20 and a brother, rather than a son.
Which also reflects a lot on how Sam and Dean relate to each other at times, something that will be called out in Season 5. The problem is that it’s not Dean who treats Sam as a little kid… it’s the writers.
And not just this particular pair of writers that have been the most hated pair in fandom for years.
So the brothers go to talk to Jimmy’s friends, pretending to be Insurance agents. The white friend ignores them, but the black friend tells them about a killer, back in the 60’s, that only killed black people and used a big, black truck.
Again, probably it is a coincidence, but the fact that the one who remembers the killer (And even lampshades that they probably didn’t look for the killer back in the sixties) is black. Which is making this to be a very special Supernatural episode on why Racism is Bad. (Which, paired with future episodes… is cringe worthy on it’s own)
While the plot is dropping anvils, Sam insists and badgers Dean about Cassie again, which makes Dean finally snap and tell Sam everything what happened. Again, this whole exchange:
SAM
(huffs a laugh) Dean, what is going on between you two?
DEAN
All right, so maybe we were a little bit more involved than I said.
SAM
(staring at DEAN, waiting) Oh, Ok.
DEAN
OK, a lot more. Maybe. And I told her our secret, about what we do. And I shouldn’t have.
SAM
Ah look man, everybody’s gotta open up to someone sometime.
DEAN
Yeah I don’t. It was stupid to get that close. I mean, look how it ended.
SAM smiles at DEAN.
DEAN
Would you stop!
SAM keeps staring and smiling.
DEAN
Blink or something!
SAM
You loved her.
DEAN
Oh Chuck.
DEAN turns to the Impala.
SAM
You were in love with her, but you dumped her.
DEAN is silent. He stares at the ground, glances at SAM, then looks back to the ground.
SAM
Oh wow. She dumped you.
(huffs a laugh) Dean, what is going on between you two?
DEAN
All right, so maybe we were a little bit more involved than I said.
SAM
(staring at DEAN, waiting) Oh, Ok.
DEAN
OK, a lot more. Maybe. And I told her our secret, about what we do. And I shouldn’t have.
SAM
Ah look man, everybody’s gotta open up to someone sometime.
DEAN
Yeah I don’t. It was stupid to get that close. I mean, look how it ended.
SAM smiles at DEAN.
DEAN
Would you stop!
SAM keeps staring and smiling.
DEAN
Blink or something!
SAM
You loved her.
DEAN
Oh Chuck.
DEAN turns to the Impala.
SAM
You were in love with her, but you dumped her.
DEAN is silent. He stares at the ground, glances at SAM, then looks back to the ground.
SAM
Oh wow. She dumped you.
Would’ve been a lot cuter had Sam been younger… or if he hadn’t spend 70% of the episode time more worried about Dean keeping a secret from him than about the racist ghost truck killing people. Dean is hurt, Dean is really wounded that someone he loved shut the door on him, and Sam.. is making fun of it.
Now, while I usually would put this on emotional violence (Sam making fun of Dean’s feelings and pushing as hard as he can to make Dean admit he’s hurt), but since the context that I mentioned before about parentification makes this seem as if the original intent was to show Sam as concerned for Dean, I will let it pass (It is still Sam forcing Dean to do something, open up, but it is not done out of malice to count as violence on it’s own)
Dean goes to talk to Cassie and they end up in bed. While we get our first sex scene of the series, the racist truck decides to show it is not really racists and goes after the very white mayor, killing him.
Because the episode suffers from whiplash, we go back to Dean and Cassie in bed, when they talk a bit more, and it seems that they are trying to patch things up, with Cassie fully aware of what’s going on.
But before we get confirmation, Sam informs Dean of the Mayor’s death… incredibly happy that Dean didn’t sleep in the motel with him.
With the death of the Mayor breaking the pattern, Dean goes to the paper to try and find info on the original deaths of the sixties, with Cassie mocking that no, they’re not going to find a lot of information as no one investigated those deaths.
Finally, with some bit of jumping to conclusions, they find a man named Cyrus Dorian who disappeared back in 63. And the first death that happened in the present was the day after the mayor bulldozed the house.
Cassie then gets threatened by the truck, that goes to her house, and tries to break the walls to no avail. So the truck is moving away from it’s usual hunting grounds, but still keeps chasing Cassie’s family. Somehow. And it is apparently scared away when Cassie calls Dean on the phone.
At this point I realize I have not mentioned that Cassie’s mom is white. Thing is, I haven’t mentioned it because the woman has been a non-entity for most of the episode, but once that her daughter is targeted by the truck, it’s time to stop using kid gloves with her.
After Dean badgered her, she admits that Cyrus died 40 years ago. And with a bit more insistence, we get to the fact that she was dating Cyrus at the same time he had been dating Cassie’s mom. And when he found out he went off the deep end, and started to kill people.
The town pretty much ignored the fact that Cyrus had been killing people, even to the point that no one put two and two together and realized that Cyrus burnt the church where Cassie’s parents were going to get married and killed the choir of kids that was inside. Not happy with that, Cyrus kidnapped Cassie’s dad.
Something went wrong for Cyrus, as Cassie’s father managed to free himself and kill Cyrus in obvious self defense.
Dean asks the most stupid question a man in the united states can ask when it comes to the fact that a black man killed a white man without witness in the early sixties in the south, which makes Cassie’s mom look at him as if he was an idjit (because “Why didn’t he call the cops?” IS a stupid question when he has just been told that the cops didn’t care that many black men had been lynched AND a whole kid choir had been burned alive).
Cassie’s dad called his friends, and the three of them put the body on the truck and sank it into the swamp. Mayor Todd was a cop back then, appointed to investigate Cyrus’s disappearance, and when he figured out what had happened, he kept silent.
Dean realizes that Cyrus will come for Cassie, so he and Sam decide to do a stake out.
For some unknown reason, Sam starts complaining how his life used to be simple and he didn’t need to worry about stupid things like killer trucks, but they end up agreeing that it’s time to get the body out of the swamp.
(I mean it, Sam’s complains when put in contrast with the fact that he just heard that the town where they were had racial lynching’s so often that people didn’t investigate a church arson come out as really childish and very non-empathic for the so called “Sensible” brother)
Sam and Dean find the body, and they burn and salt it outside the truck.
Unfortunately, since the ghost seems to have fused with the truck, burning the human body doesn’t do much but piss the truck off, which appears and threatens the boys. Dean gets on the Impala, and tells Sam to burn the truck, somehow, while he drives to distract the ghost away.
Instead of burning the truck, Sam decides to start getting some extra information, and finally gets the BEST show of smarts in this episode by figuring out where Dean is, and then guiding him on the phone through the small roads around town, all the way to where the church was burnt down, destroying the ghost truck.
This also shows how much Dean trusts Sam, as he actually stops the Impala right in front a killer truck, and then stars playing chicken with it, just because Sam told him to do it. Dean doesn’t even ASK what why, if Sam has a plan, or what the plan is, just follows Sam’s instructions to the dot. (yes, I found a parallel to Season 9’s I think I am going to like it here on Season 1’s Route 666. What the hell show)
With the truck gone, Dean and Cassie say goodbye to each other. Dean seems to want to try and keep building a future with her, but she tells him, very honestly, that she doesn’t see a future for them and so, they say goodbye with a very sad kiss, while Sam watches.
Sam is driving again, and then tries to talk to Dean about Cassie again, in a way that I will be honest, rubbed me the wrong way.
SAM
You meet someone like her, doesn’t it makes you wonder if it’s worth it? Putting everything else on hold, doing what we do?
You meet someone like her, doesn’t it makes you wonder if it’s worth it? Putting everything else on hold, doing what we do?
Why? Well, because Sam knows the answer to that. Dean did wonder, but at the end, he put SAVING PEOPLE over his own happiness, as Dean usually does. Sam just saw how Dean was trying not to put things on hold, by keeping things open with Cassie, but not to simply quit. Because that is not what Dean does.
It comes out as if Sam is waiting to hear “yes, for a girl like that, it would be ok to stop doing what we do”, which of course, would mean that Dean “accepts” that Sam wanted to stay with Jess.
Except that we already know that Dean was ok with that. Dean drove Sam back to Jess, and has offered three times to let Sam go. So why is Sam still asking for validation on HIS feelings, in a moment where Dean just got his heart stomp on again?
Anyway, with that, the episode ends and we never, ever, reference again that once upon a time, Dean loved a woman so much that he wanted to share everything about his life with her, without pretending to be a normal guy and quitting hunting, or dragging her off to hunt with him.
Violence
No physical violence, which is great, we are still pretty clean in that regard. I am dreading the episodes where I know we will have long paragraphs here.
Emotional Violence
I’ve already discussed Sam’s tone deafness when it comes to Dean not wanting to talk about Cassie, so I won’t go over that again. Just a reminder that Dean at this point in the series dropped the vision thing until it came to affect their job, while Sam keeps pressing even when it is obvious that Dean doesn’t want to talk about certain subjects that in the end… are none of his business.
I just want to make a note of how constant it is that Sam does not like it when Dean has secrets, or when Dean acts in a way that contradicts Sam’s mental image of Dean, as whenever it happens, he turns the mocking and demeaning up to 11. (And yes, it happening in 13 episodes out of 13 means it’s constant)
Secrets, Lies (and their consequences)
We’ve already gone at length about how Sam’s secrecy was, in the end, the cause of Jess’ demise. But here we get a very interesting contrast between the brother when Sam realizes that Cassie knows exactly what Dean does for a living.
SAM
Look, it’s terrible about her dad, but it kinda sounds like a standard car accident. I’m not seeing how it fits with what we do. Which by the way, how does she know what we do?
DEAN looks shifty.
SAM
You told her. You told her, the secret! Our big family rule number one. We do what we do and we shut up about it. For a year and a half I do nothing but lie to Jessica, and you go out with this chick in Ohio a coupla times and you tell her everything?
Look, it’s terrible about her dad, but it kinda sounds like a standard car accident. I’m not seeing how it fits with what we do. Which by the way, how does she know what we do?
DEAN looks shifty.
SAM
You told her. You told her, the secret! Our big family rule number one. We do what we do and we shut up about it. For a year and a half I do nothing but lie to Jessica, and you go out with this chick in Ohio a coupla times and you tell her everything?
First… there is a bit of emotional violence here as Sam dismisses whatever Dean could’ve felt for Cassie as “this chick you saw twice”. This is really off character for Sam in a way. Sam is a very smart character and last time he was confronted with Dean doing something out of what Sam expected (his conversation in Dead on the Water, when he confessed he saw Mary in the ceiling), instead of dismissing it as “Dean is being Dean, somehow”, he files it as “fudge, I don’t know my brother”. Here we get immediately the implication that if Dean, the one who HAS said that hunting is secret, unless they’re talking to the actual victim of the week –because up to now, the only time Dean advocated lying to a victim of the week to save them was in Bugs, which had a lot of out of character moments for both brothers- either Cassie WAS the victim of the hunt Dean and John took in Ohio OR Cassie is special for Dean.
And that last one is pretty obvious for the audience, when the character that we’ve been sold as a womanizer (despite the fact that in 12 episodes he hasn’t been a womanizer in any way, shape or form) doesn’t want to talk about an “old” friend. I mean, we haven’t gotten to that episode yet, but this is the guy that when talking about the woman who WILL be sold by the show as his one love that he wants to make sure is safe after the apocalypse, went on and on about the flexibility of yoga teachers when the subject came up.
Yet, Cassie is a sore subject.
When we met Cassie, we see why, and it’s a contrast between brothers. Sam wanted out of the life completely, so when he met Jess and started dating her, DESPITE the fact that he was having visions of her death, despite the fact that he knew there were things that were dangerous in the night in general, “I do nothing but lie to Jessica”. Why? Simple, and we also get this from Skin and from Sam’s general arc: HE wants to be normal, and telling his fiancée “I believe in ghosts” (which doesn’t require the extra “And I used to hunt them with Dad and my brother I’ve never showed you a picture of”) would be not normal. He was probably afraid that Jess would call him crazy and tell him never to come back, and that is a perfectly normal fear.
I mean, the first thing we know about Cassie’s reaction is pretty straight forward.
CASSIE
When you say it aloud like that…listen, I’m a little skeptical about this…ghost stuff…or whatever it is you guys are into.
DEAN
(huffing) Skeptical. If I remember, I think you said I was nuts.
When you say it aloud like that…listen, I’m a little skeptical about this…ghost stuff…or whatever it is you guys are into.
DEAN
(huffing) Skeptical. If I remember, I think you said I was nuts.
It takes a lot longer for Sam to clue in that this means that Dean loved her, which is why he told her the secret… and she dumped him because she thought he was insane.
And while Sam doesn’t know this, or seems to want to ignore it, we know that Dean has a long story of people he loves leaving him alone.
But anyway, this particular difference between the brothers: Sam lying by omission to keep people happy and Dean telling the truth even if he knows it might cost him dearly , is a very telling characteristic that will come to play much later, when the series finally gets its mytharc sorted.
In any case, “I had a girlfriend I loved so much I thought she was going to be with me for the rest of our lives so I told her the Family Business” is a secret that Dean kept close to his heart for years, but it doesn’t go to the counter (same as Sam keeping Jess a secret from Dean didn’t count back in the Pilot. Now, had Cassie become Dean’s fiancée and kept in touch instead of breaking things off? Then it would’ve counted as a secret kept by Dean from Sam that could affect Sam in the future) as it doesn’t directly affect Sam the way that Sam keeping the secret about his visions affected both Dean and Jess.
Still, what it’s curious is that despite the fact that lying to Jess was 100% Sam’s choice, the way he SAYS it in this particular instance and how he presents it to Dean, sounds as if Sam was blaming Dean for Sam lying to Dean. Which is really odd, but goes again with the tendency of Sam’s dialogue of shifting responsibility. It is not HIS choice not to tell Jess (despite the fact that we know he already decided to break the family rules), but he was forced by tradition while Dean is so irresponsible he blurts the secret to everyone.
Speeches and Apologies
There’s no long winded speeches, and no apologies between Sam and Dean (both Cassie and Dean do apologize to each other for how they reacted to their break up, but that’s not the point of this sub section).
So, this one goes clean too.
Final Tally
Just as Kirpke has said that Faith is his personal favorite, Route 666 is one of the ones he dislikes the most, since he didn’t think the phantom truck was scary. I agree with him, since Paul Shapiro couldn’t make a scary truck if his life depended on it.
However, while Shapiro would never direct again an episode of Supernatural, the pair that gave us the concept of a racist monster truck would just leave temporarily (basically, from season 1 to season 6 when they make a much hated return with Shut Up, Dr. Phil, another fan hated episode), but the fact that they were absent makes it seem as if the powers that be were punishing everyone involved with this fiasco.
Because it is a bad episode. I don’t think it is the worst episode of the series (for example, Best friends with Benefits, also penned by Leming and Buckner, is far worse both in racist implications and general plot), but it’s fame it’s not just because it was sandwiched between two much better episodes. Also, let’s admit it. Their use of racial conflict as a plot was horribly wrong as it tried to present the whole idea of a racist truck as ridiculous… when in fact everyone complaining about the racism in the city had a very good point. The racism in the city was so ingrained that people didn’t NOTICE that a church full of dead kids and a bunch of black men disappearing HAD been a crime.
According to some sources, the addition of Cassie was due to the network demand for more romance in the show. Given that she was a very one off character (despite the fact that she is presented as Dean first true love, the first woman he went against the rules for) and that now a days the apparent rule is “we do not talk about romance in Supernatural” I wonder what happened between now and then in the network meetings.
Anyway, going back to our tally, the numbers are starting to show a very clear pattern on behavior, at least in the first season.
Also, it was tempting to count Cassie as a dropped plot point for Dean as she is built to be really important and then she just disappears, her place suddenly given to Lisa Braeden as Dean’s first love outside the hunt, but given that they do say goodbye to each other, I won’t.
Numbers (or the TL;DR summary)
(Episode/Total so far)
Times Dean has lied to Sam or to a loved one: 0 / 0
Times Sam has lied to Dean or to a loved one: 0 / 3
Times Dean has been caught in a lie: 0 / 0
Times Sam has been caught in a lie: 0 / 1
Times Dean has hit Sam in anger: 0 / 1
Times Sam has hit Dean in anger: 0 / 3
Times Dean’s lies or secrets have caused someone’s death: 0 / 0
Times Sam’s lies or secrets have caused someone’s death: 0 / 1
Times Dean has abandoned (Or wanted to abandon) a hunt in the middle for his own needs: 0 / 0
Times Sam has abandoned (Or wanted to abandon) a hunt in the middle for his own needs: 0 / 6
Times Dean forced Sam to do something: 0 / 0
Times Sam forced Dean to do something: 0 / 6
Secrets kept by Dean: 0 / 1
Secrets kept by Sam: 0 / 1
Times Dean has blamed Sam for something: 0 / 0
Times Sam has blamed Dean for something: 1 / 2
Times Dean has apologized with words to Sam: 0 / 2
Times Sam has apologized with words to Dean: 0 / 1
Times Dean has respected Sam’s boundaries and/or rules: 0 / 6
Times Sam has respected Dean’s boundaries and/or rules: 0 / 0
Times Dean hasn’t respected Sam’s boundaries and/or rules: 0 / 0
Times Sam hasn’t respected Dean’s boundaries and / or rules: 1 / 10
Times Dean has made fun of something Sam does or has: 0 / 4
Times Sam has made fun of something Dean does or has: 3 / 19
Times we focus on Dean’s needs: 0 / 0
Times we focus on Sam’s needs: 0 / 0
Arc episodes dedicated to Sam: 0 / 4
Filler episodes dedicated to Sam: 0 / 5
Arc episodes dedicated to Dean: 0 / 0
Filler episodes dedicated to Dean: 1 / 3
Arc episodes dedicated to both brothers (or to none): 0 / 1
Filler episodes dedicated to both brothers (or to none) : 0 / 0
Dean’s Dropped Plotlines: 0 / 1
Sam’s Dropped Plotlines: 0 / 1