Supernatural: Faith

Spoilers for the episode

Story:

Dean gets mortally injured fighting something that they try to kill using electricity so Sam does everything he can to find a way to save him. They go to a faith healer who’s meant to be legit but Dean’s not happy about it and it turns out it is too good to be true.

Thoughts:

It’s night time and the brothers get their weapons to enter a house. They find some kids hiding from something and go to get them out but Sam gets grabbed and Dean tasers whatever it is.
Sam takes the kids and Dean continues the hunt. He finds the creature but falls in water so when he tasers it he gets shocked as well. Sam finds him unconscious.
At the hospital the doctor has bad news. Dean’s heart is damaged and he’s only got a few weeks to live.
In the hospital room Dean’s watching bad daytime TV when Sam enters. Dean tells him to take good care of the car or he’ll haunt him. Sam doesn’t find it funny (probably a bit too soon) but Dean says he’s drawn the short straw and it’s what happens to people who live their lives.
Sam decides to look for a mystical cure. He phones his dad and every other contact in the journal.
Dean turns up at the motel because he’s not going to die in hospital and makes a sexist comment about the nurses. Sam’s found a specialist in Nebraska.
They get there and Dean’s annoyed because he thought they were going to see a doctor not a faith healer. They argue and Dean believes in what he can see while Sam’s more open to it. Then they meet Darla from Buffy who’s there to be healed so now Dean decides he’s a believer because she’s pretty.
In the healing tent Sam makes them sit up front when all Dean wants to do is hide in the back.
The Reverend Roy starts his speech but hears Dean making sarcastic comments so calls him up to be healed. Dean tells him he’s not a believer but the Reverend says he will be.
Dean goes up reluctantly and Roy puts a hand on his head. He collapses to his knees and then onto the floor. The crowd start cheering before he gets back up. How do they know he’s not dying right there.
Dean sees a spirit behind ROY dressed in a suit.
They go tO the doctor who says he’s healthy but they also find out that a healthy young man died yesterday of a heart attack. Dean’s suspicious but Sam wants to let it go.
Dean goes to visit the Roy and gets his story about how he became a faith healer. He woke up one day blind and went to the doctor who told him he had cancer. He went into a coma and when he woke up he could heal people.
Dean wants to know why he chose to heal him out of everyone there. The reverend says god guides him. He looked into his heart and Dean has a great purpose.
Meanwhile Sam’s asking after the guy who had a heart attack. Before he died the guy was convinced someone was chasing him and the clocks froze at his time of death.
As Dean’s leaving the reverend’s house he meets Darla again who has a brain tumour. Her mother asks Dean why he deserved to live more than her daughter. That’s a pretty mean thing to say especially with Dean’s self esteem issues.
Back at the motel and Sam says heart attack guy died at the same time Dean was healed. He’s also researched other deaths that match when people were being healed and he’s sorry. Dean wishes he’d never come here.
Dean figures out it’s a reaper trading people’s lives. Reapers stop time and you only see them when they’re coming at you.
Sam thinks Roy’s using black magic to control it. Dean wants to kill Roy because he’s playing god which is also playing god because you’re deciding who lives and who dies.
Sam says no and they’ve got to figure out how to break the spell. Sam’s going to find the spell book while Dean stalls him.
Sam breaks into the house and finds a book that’s not dusty and behind it is a black magic book full of newspaper clippings. Sam calls Dean to tell him the next victim’s going to be the guy protesting in the parking lot.
In the tent Darla is called up to be healed and Dean tries to convince her not to go.
Sam finds the protester being chased by the reaper but can’t do anything because he can’t see it. It’s actually kind of funny.
Dean yells fire to get everyone out of the tent and then calls Sam who thinks the reaper’s gone but then the guy starts dying.
Dean finds Sue Ann the reverend’s wife chanting in a corner and stops her but she calls for help and he gets escorted out. She’s not going to press charges but that’s probably because she’s going to set the reaper on him.
Darla asks Dean why he did it and the reverend promises her a private session later.
The book Sam found teaches you how to do black magic. She used a binding spell on the reaper to save Roy and is now using it to kill immoral people. They’ve got to destroy the necklace or the alter and they’re not sure which so they should do both.
Dean’s feeling guilty because they’re stopping Darla from being healed again.
Sam goes to find Sue Ann while Dean provokes the cops and runs off.
Sam goes down to the basement where he finds an altar with Dean as the next victim. She locks him down there and says it’s all God’s will.
The reverend starts the healing and Dean sees the reaper but he doesn’t run.
Sam smashes the necklace and the reaper comes after Sue Ann.
Back in the tent Darla and Roy are confused why nothing happened.
At the motel and Dean wants to know they did the right thing. Darla turns up because Sam told her Dean wanted to say goodbye.
She still believes because you’ve got to have faith when the miracles don’t happen apparently. Dean tells her he’s going to pray for her and she takes that as a miracle. You have really low standards for what a miracle is.
Also I don’t think she’d show up here after he ruined her chances of getting healed. She’s nice but that’s unrealistically nice to a guy she met briefly about three times.
It’s not a bad episode. Usually religious stuff gets on my nerves quickly but this focused on who deserves to die and who has the right to decide.
It’s always interesting to see how they handle religion in a fantasy story. Usually the characters believe in magic because they’ve seen it but then they believe in god even though they’ve got no evidence. Like they don’t believe in every myth but god’s the exception to that.
I like that Dean believes in what he can see and I’m fine with him praying for her at the end because he’s not an atheist he’s an agnostic. I feel that I understand agnosticism better in fantasy settings because there’s lots of things they don’t believe in until they see them. Vampires for example. There are lots of things that are just myths in their world.
I don’t like faith healing unless it’s done for free and people are warned not to get their hopes up. I think they should have gone a little further with the faith healing is a con thing.
Dean’s against it at the beginning of the episode and Darla doesn’t get healed after the reaper’s gone but it always makes me uneasy thinking about the people who get conned.
I like all the Dean angst and you really get to see how unworthy he feels. At the end when the reaper’s coming after him there’s that possibility that he doesn’t want to fight it. He wants her to live.
I like Sam a bit more this episode because he acts like you would. Doing everything you could to save the person you love. That’s another part of faith healing I don’t like. The person trying everything they can only has so much time and energy to hunt down all options. They need to be informed and it’s misinformation. Preying on vulnerable people. I’m going to stop here or I’m going to go on all day about the evils of faith healing. I’ll be going round and round in circles.

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