Supernatural: Wendigo

Spoilers for the episode

The Story:

Hikers go missing in the woods so Dean and Sam have got to go save them from whatever is lurking out there while keeping the search party alive as well.

Thoughts:

Despite the last episode ending with Sam declaring ‘we’ve got work to do’ while looking at all their weapons in the boot of the car and closing it dramatically they never got anywhere with finding what killed Jess.

They gave up after a week and decided to go back to looking for their Dad because they seem to think he knows everything. They have way too much trust in him. It’s like he’s their god and his journal is their bible. There’s definitely a parallel there especially considering the role religion plays later in the series.

He left them co-ordinates for Black water ridge so they go to find him and end up investigating because of the deaths but he’s not there.

It turns out it’s not bears killing people it’s a Wendigo which are very hard to kill. They are the perfect hunter. Smart, fast and able to mimic human voices to lure their victims out. Guns don’t work only setting them on fire does.

So Dean and Sam do a little investigating but most of the episode takes place at Black Water Ridge. This episode has more of the feeling of a horror movie than the previous one.

It’s like when a big cast of characters go to somewhere isolated and get picked off one by one. Except here the only extraneous character is the guide the woman hired so he’s the only one who dies.

The brother and sister have to be kept alive so when they find their brother they get a happy ending and Sam can get over his revenge motivation and be motivated by helping people instead. I think it’s really contrived that out of all the people the Wendigo took its only the missing brother left alive.

Sam’s really angry this episode and when he realises their Dad isn’t at the co-ordinates he wants to leave without stopping the Wendigo. By the end of the episode he gets a nice feeling from helping people and so wants to help other people.

The sister has an active role in the story and arranges everything to go find her brother. She’s not passive and gets stuff done. Which leads her to be criticised as women generally are of being too pushy. (There’s a campaign to Ban Bossy and instead label women as leaders.)

Specifically she’s called a “pistol” by Dean. It’s patronising and it’s similar to when women are called feisty. Pistol should probably be added to this list of words that are only used to describe women.

It’s Dean that describes her as a pistol and the other male in the room agrees. I kind of like that Dean’s got the sexist opinions of an old man.

So other sexist Dean moments this episode are when he tells the woman looking for her brother that this is the most honest he’s ever been with a woman. Implying that the only relationship he has with women are either when he’s hunting and trying to get information or when he’s sleeping with them. So Dean’s lying to get women into bed and has no meaningful relationship with any woman.

The other implied thing is that women have to be deceived so you can sleep with them. No woman just wants sex. They all want relationships. There’s also an uncomfortable issue about consent if you’re actively deceiving someone to sleep with them.

My favourite Dean moments this episode are him being out of his depth in the woods and nature. With his non-hiking clothes and his snacks and almost stepping in a trap. What makes this even better is when his snacks save them because brightly coloured sweets are easier to follow than breadcrumbs. M&Ms save the day.

So once in the woods we get some horror cliches. The guide not believing them about what’s going on and the woods being silent.

I always like when characters point out that the area around them is too quiet. Not even the crickets are making noise.

Why are the crickets scared of the Wendigo? A Wendigo eats human flesh not crickets. Unless the crickets can sense the magic or something. Which in that case is very useful and they should keep lots of crickets in their car or home as an evil detector.

You don’t really get to see the Wendigo until the end and then it’s really brief. Which is good. Because it looks awful but also what you can’t see is more scary than what you can. Your imagination does all the work. They probably didn’t have a lot of money at this early point in the series either.

It also seems to slow down at the end as if it’s giving them a sporting chance to get away.

The best moment though is the old man explaining what happened the night his parents died. That gave me shivers.

The Wendigo is a good choice as the second monster of the week. It’s different to the first episode because there’s less investigating and it gives us new rules with other monsters mentioned.

Black dogs and skin walkers are given as possibilities of what’s happening. Dean carves symbols into the ground to protect them at night (the guide calls it the magic circle) and Sam explains what a Wendigo is to the siblings looking for their brother.

Previously Supernatural: Pilot                                                                  Next Supernatural: Dead in the Water

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