Supernatural: Asylum

Spoilers for the episode

Story:

An asylum is haunted so naturally people have to trespass but there’s something causing people to get angry and commit murder so the brothers investigate.

Thoughts:

At Roosevelt Asylum one cop is giving exposition to the new cop about the town’s legend of the asylum. It’s haunted. They can’t keep kids out and some one has used bolt cutters to cut through the chain to the south wing.

They separate to look for the kids. One cop find the kids but the new cop goes into a room when a door mysteriously opens.

He turns up outside and he’s acting weird. He goes home and shoots his wife and himself.

Sam’s on the phone asking for information about their dad while Dean’s looking through the journal. Sam wants to file a missing person report with the FBI and doesn’t care if their Dad would be pissed about it because he’s dead for all they know.

Then they get a text message with coordinates which is suspicious to them because their dad can’t work a toaster. Which makes me wonder how he manages with guns.

Sam’s reluctant to go but Dean says they’re going where their Dad sends them.

They find the cop from the first scene and run a little con on him. Dean’s a horrible reporter who just wants a story while Sam runs him off and buys the guy a beer.

It turns out the new cop was the head of his class and good at his job so it’s out of character for him to kill his wife and commit suicide.

They go to the asylum and a newspaper clipping form the journal says that a kid went crazy and set the place on fire. They deduce there haven’t been more deaths because the chain on the door kept people out but they manage to include the line maybe it was keeping something in. That has got to be one of the biggest horror cliches.

Dean teases Sam about the psychic stuff and they find a room where it looks like the patients were tortured.

Sam decides this is a good time to talk about how Dad’s not there but Dean says they’re following his orders.

They find the son of the Doctor who ran the asylum. He’s a psychiatrist and Sam goes to see him as a patient to get more information about the asylum. The psychiatrist says he’ll answer Sam’s questions if he answers his. How do you feel about your brother? The look on Sam’s face and that Dean comments on how long he was in there says that Sam had a lot to say about Dean.

The patients rioted but nobody could find the body of the doctor.

Back at the Asylum and two kids have decided to explore. The girl thought they were going to a movie but the boy says this is better because it’s like being in a movie. That’s not better that’s worse.

The boy wanders off leaving her behind. I would have gone back to the car and left him in there.

He enters a room and a girl appears in the darkness behind the boy and when he sees her she comes forward and kisses him. Then he hears his girlfriend calling him from somewhere else. That moment of realisation is so creepy.

The brothers have come back with an emf and a camera. Sam comes across a spirit and Dean shoots it with the rock salt shot gun but Sam doesn’t think it was trying to hurt him.

They find the girl, who’s called Kat, and she can’t find the boy, who’s called Gavin. She’s been seeing things and she heard Gavin scream but she refuses to leave without him.

They wander around calling his name. Dean asks her if she’s ever seen a horror movie and next time she does watch one she should pay attention and not enter buildings that are haunted. It’s everything I’ve always wanted to say to someone in a horror movie. It’s like people in a zombie movie who have never heard of the word zombie let alone seen a zombie movie.

Sam finds Gavin who ran from the spirit who kissed him. Sam confirms that she didn’t try to hurt him.

Back with Dean and Kat and she tells Dean he’s hurting her arm and he’s like what. She gets pulled into a room by the spirit and the door closes.

It’s another one of the bigger horror cliches and I love it. It makes me wonder why the spirits don’t just grab you and run instead of waiting until you’ve realised it’s not the person standing next to you that’s touching you. These spirits may not be attacking them but they’re still mean. Also from the way they were standing how does she think it’s Dean holding her arm.

Dean can’t get her out then Sam arrives and tells her to calm down and listen to what the spirit has to say.

She’s let out and she says a number. Dean thinks it’s a room number and goes to look for it. He tells Sam to get them out.

Kat asks about how they know about the ghost stuff. Sam answers it’s their job. She thinks Dean’s his boss.

Dean finds Doctor Ellicot’s journal.

Sam can’t find a way out and Gavin’s panicking. Then Dean calls and it’s full of static and breaks up. He’s in the basement. Sam leaves Kat with the shot gun.

Sam finds the basement, his torch goes out and a door opens. Sam goes in and we get the curtain cliche where Sam slowly pulls back the curtain but it’s a misdirect because the ghost is behind him. Then doctor Ellicot grabs him telling him he’ll make him all better.

Kat tells Gavin she’s breaking up with him once they get out of there. I wouldn’t wait until you get out of there I’d do it now.

She sees movement and shoots but it’s only Dean. Who says he didn’t call (which we already know, it would have worked better if this scene came before Sam’s scene.)

Dean finds Sam and tells him the patients rioted against the Doctor because he was doing nasty stuff to them. He had a rage therapy where he thought that if he got all their rage out he could cure them.

Dean finds the hidden treatment room when Sam’s nose starts bleeding and he aims the gun at dean.

It’s full of rock salt so it won’t kill just hurt. Sam shoots Dean who smashes through the door to the treatment room.

Sam’s tired of taking orders form Dean. Then he mocks him about following Dad’s orders like a good little soldier. Dean gives Sam a gun with proper bullets and calls his bluff.

Sam takes a while but pulls the trigger but there’s no bullets and Dean knocks him out. I like that love doesn’t win.

Dean explores the treatment room with all it’s curtains and the doctor appearing behind him. He finds the corpse and starts salting it as his torch goes out. The spirit grabs Dean and starts his treatment but Dean manages to throw his lighter onto the body and it goes up in flames.

Sam wakes up and Dean asks if he’s going to kill him now because that would be awkward.

Outside and Sam apologises. Dean asks if he meant it and Sam asks if they need to talk about this which Dean doesn’t want to.

Later Dean’s asleep when the phone rings. Sam answers and its their dad.

This episode is so much better than the recent ones. It’s a lot like Wendigo. I enjoy them being isolated in creepy places. And they manage to save people. They’ve only got two but they both survive.

And we get a lot of horror cliches making it very genre aware (that’s why I like scream).

The Dad stuff though is getting old. I don’t know why they want to find him he seems like an awful person. Also how is going through the journal and calling people going to help. Surely they’ve already done this. Because if they haven’t they’re really bad at their jobs.

The subplot about following orders and Sam being in conflict with their dad comes back again later in the show. And there’s a good episode exploring Dean’s need to follow their Dad’s orders because of something that happened to him as a child.

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