Supernatural: Nightmare

Spoilers for the episode

Story:

Sam gets visions of a guy being murdered so they rush off to try and save him but don’t make it in time and can’t figure out what’s going on.

Thoughts:

A man comes home in his car and the garage closes by itself then the car doors lock and the engine starts. The man tries to get out of the car as it fills with fumes but he dies instead. Cut to somewhere else and Sam waking up from witnessing it in his nightmare.
He wakes Dean up and tells him they’ve got to go.
In the car Sam runs the license plate by pretending to be the police. They’ve got a couple of hours until they get there.
They pull up at the house. The guy’s dead and the police are bagging him up. A crowd has gathered to watch and the brothers ask a lady about the dead guy.
It seems very rude to gather outside your neighbours house when something bad has just happened. I remember when the police got called next door and we didn’t go out we just peeked through the curtains. But in TV and movies a crowd always gathers.
Sam feels guilty and wonders why he gets premonitions if he can’t stop things from happening. Dean thinks it was suicide but Sam says it was murder.
In the morning they go to the house dressed as priests. The brother doesn’t want to hear Dean’s spiel about religion but the wife is more receptive. Sam tells Dean to tone down the god stuff.
The son Max found his dad dead in the garage so Sam goes to talk to him. While Dean tries to get information about the house asking about strange noises and and other things but she says nothing like that happens.
We learn Max is trying to save up for school and he says he woke up when he heard the car running.
Upstairs Dean gets out the emf and now it’s got green lasers and blue lights so I guess he’s upgraded it.
Back at the motel and Dean’s cleaning his guns. Nothing bad happened in the house. He used an infra red scanner (I’m guessing that’s what the lights were).
Sam gets a bad headache and has another vision. The uncle comes home to find his window open so he shuts it and locks it. But it opens again. This time it won’t close so he sticks his head out (being the genius that he is) and it chops his head off.
They drive to the uncle’s house. Sam’s scared about the visions because he’s now having them while he’s awake. Dean says they’ll figure it out.
They see Roger (the uncle) on the street but he runs away from them thinking they’re trying to push god on him.
They go round the building and up the fire escape and hear him die. Dean tells Sam to start wiping down their fingerprints and then goes to look inside.
Sam saw a dark shape stalking Roger in his vision. They brainstorm that something has latched on to the family. Dean’s offended when Sam says both their families are cursed. I’d be offended too by the amount of time Sam spends bad mouthing his family and I’m not even that attached to mine.
They go see Max and he says his dad and uncle had grown apart. They used to live near each other. They ask about the other house and Max says they were totally normal in a really suspicious way. Because nobody is totally normal. There’s no such thing as normal.
They go find the old house and talk to a neighbour. The dad was a mean drunk and used to beat Max along with the uncle. The step mother ignored it. The mother died in a car accident.
Sam has another vision. Max gets angry at the step mom for not doing anything and puts a knife through her head.
Sam was connecting to max and he feels sympathetic and understanding. Sometimes his empathy goes too far. The guy is killing people.
Dean wants to kill max but Sam says they can’t.
The brother barge in just before Max kills her and they get him to come outside to talk but he sees Dean’s gun and freaks out. He knocks out the step mum and gets Dean’s gun. Sam tries to talk him down by telling him about the visions.
Dean takes the mum upstairs. Sam says they deserved to be punished for what they did to him growing up but Max says it was still happening.
He didn’t leave because they’d still be out there. It was about not being afraid any more. His dad hated him because his mum died in his nursery and burned to death on the ceiling.
Sam says it’s true because it happened to him as well. His powers happened 6-7 months ago. Sam says he’s got to let them go.
Max doesn’t want to be afraid any more. He locks Sam in a cupboard and goes upstairs. He knocks Dean across the room and pulls the gun.
Dean says he’s got to go through him and blood splatters on the wall as he shoots dean in the head.
It was Sam’s vision and the pain of Dean’s death allows him to unlock his own telekinetic powers and he gets out of the closet.
Sam bursts in and says he can help him. Killing people won’t fix anything. Max agrees and shoots himself.
Later after they’ve called the police the step mom tells them that Max attacked her with the gun and the brothers are family friends. She breaks down saying she’s lost everyone. Even though she did nothing to help I kind of feel sorry for her. A lot of women stay in abusive relationships for lots of different reasons and she’s a bit broken.
Sam feels guilty that he didn’t say the right thing to save max because of course he does. He’s got a huge ego.
Then he manages to say something nice about his family. Sam feels lucky that they had dad and Dean never thought he’d hear Sam say that.
Sam wants to know why it killed their mom, jess and Max’s mom. He thinks it’s about them. Dean says it’s not because the demon would have taken him if he wanted him. Dean’s lying to him because he thinks Sam taking too much of the responsibility.
Sam says there’s something else and Dean’s like what now. I’m starting to feel the same way. Sam admits to moving the cabinet with his mind to get out of the closet and tells him he can’t switch it on and off. He then worries about becoming like Max. Dean says he won’t because he’s got him. Then says they should go to Vegas and win.
This episode has way too much Sam moping and whining. I’m finding it harder and harder to sympathise with him. It’s really strange because I’m all for ditching your family if they’re bad for you but something about Sam rubs me the wrong way so I end up on the other side of the argument than I usually am.
Dean doesn’t have much to do except worry over Sam getting stressed but I do like that he sacrificed himself for the step mom. Even if Sam stops that future happening.
The best thing about this episode is it moves the plot of the season forward a bit. They now know what happened to their family happened to others and Sam’s got telekinetic powers to be angsty about.

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