Supernatural: Season 1 - Episode 2: 'Wendigo' - TV Episode Review

[caption id="attachment_325" align="alignright" width="263"] Official Score = 3 Devils[/caption]

Written by: Eric Kripke (Revolution), Ron Milbauer (Alphas), Terri Hughes (Idle Hands) & Directed by: David Nutter (The X-Files). Starring: Jensen Ackles (Dark Angel), Jared Padalecki (Friday The 13th), Gina Holden (Fantastic Four), Alden Ehrenreich (Stoker) & Graham Wardle (Mon Ami).

This episode of Supernatural, as it happens, takes place only a short time after the events that took place in the pilot episode, Sam (Jared Padalecki) & Dean (Jensen Ackles), are now hunting regularly together, with Sam still having some gruesome nightmares about the aftermath of the death of the love of his life in the same gruesome fashion that ended up killing his mother, and has left School!

During this time they are heading to a really small town in Colorado, a town called, 'Black Water Ridge', because that is where the coordinates that their father had sent them to... In the process they come to discover that a woman by the name of, 'Haley Collins' (Gina Holden) and her little brother, 'Ben' (Ehrenreich) are looking for their brother, who had disappeared recently in the woods that surround the town...

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="600"] Sam (Jared Padalecki) with Dean (Jensen Ackles), Haley Collins (Gina Holden) and her little brother, Ben (Alden Ehrenreich) as they are loking for Haley and Ben's brother in the woods![/caption]

Well since they can't find their father, Sam (reluctantly) and Dean (happily) decide to start investigating and notice that there have been tons of disappearing campers/hikers and the like that have disappeared in the woods in this area... And so despite Sam's protests, Dean assumes that this is why his father sent the 2 brothers to this small town and decides to have the two of them start investigating, so that they could find out, 'what goes bump in the night' that they are going to have to kill to be able to stop the threat to the town, and also hopefully to help Haley and her brother and get him to safety!

In the end, I found this episode to be dramatically more satisfying... I mean the pilot had a lot of hope for it and it was alright but it had that, (Jersey Shore) mentality to it, (and what I mean by this is that it felt like to me like the first episode was overcompensating when trying to be a cool episode... And this episode rested on the laurels of being a naturally good, if not, (dare I say, 'organic'... And yes I am little scared myself right now), episode, utilizing everything that just makes a good episode of a TV show a good episode of a TV show, and in my opinion (albeit not the greatest episode of the series), was the episode that help set the tone, and quality of the series!

http://youtu.be/t-775JyzDTk

Supernatural: Season 1 - Episode 1: 'Pilot' TV Episode Review

[caption id="attachment_325" align="alignright" width="263"] Official Score = 3 Devils[/caption]

One of my favorite shows that I really enjoyed watching when I was a kid was, 'Buffy The Vampire Slayer'... Now I will admit that being apparently one of the few fans of the original movie, that I had not initially got in to the show, but, ultimately I really was glad that I did, because that show besides the awesome effects, talent and the like, also had a truly awesome story line that expanded well beyond just the basic story line of a woman that had been chosen to fight the forces of darkness on her own...

I mean don't get me wrong, all of that was there but that show also dealt with a lot complex social issues that people of that day and age had to deal with... And where as the concept behind Supernatural is inherently different then Buffy was, it was also similar in that instead of a group of people dealing with complex social issues while fighting the forces of Darkness, Supernatural, had more to deal with the issues of how 2 lone hunters of the forces of Darkness and how they survive in a world that requires people essentially to conform to survive!

And that is just one of many reasons why this show really was a lot of fun!

Now as for the Pilot episode. This episode was written by: Eric Kripke (Revolution) and Directed by: David Nutter (The X-Files). Starring: Jared Padalecki (Friday The 13th), Jensen Ackles (Dark Angel), Sarah Shahi (Life). Adrianne Palicki (Red Dawn), Samantha Smith (Transformers), Jeffrey Dean Morgan (Watchmen), and Steve Railsback (The Stunt Man).

This episode starts off 22 years earlier in the small town of Lawrence Kansas...

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="600"] A young, 'Winchester' family before they knew what was about to happen...[/caption]

You see during this time the Winchester family is your average every day family... A husband and wife couple with 2 sons... All of this changes in the blink of an eye during one night that none of them will ever forget!

You see after putting young Sam and Dean to sleep, their mother. 'Mary' (Samantha Smith) looks in on her baby and sees a man that she mistakes for her husband standing by the crib... Once she realizes that the man in her baby boy's room is not their father, Mary runs up to his room to confront him and screams out!

John (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), Mary's husband, and the kids father was fast asleep during all of this in front of the TV, but when he hears Mary scream out, he runs up stairs and notices something in Sam's room... Mary is hanging suspended from the ceiling, when all of a sudden the fire consumes the room, and the Winchester boys have to escape!

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="452"] Sam (Jared Padalecki) & Dean (Jensen Ackles) as they are working on their first case together years after the fateful incident in Lawrence![/caption]

Years later, Sam (Padalecki) and Dean (Ackles) have grown up with their father giving them para-military training so that all 3 of them can go out and get the son of a bitch that killed his wife and their mother so many years ago!

The only problem is that Sam has left the  family business to pursue a legal career and is currently in college at Stanford, and Dean and their father have essentially disconnected from Sam... That is until John disappears and Dean enlists Sam's help in finding him!

In the end this series is an awful lot of fun... This episode had a lot of potential, but was not the best of the series... Don't get me wrong, it truly was a fun episode, and I thought the struggle for Sam between going after his father Vs. staying at School was quite fascinating... And the special effects when it came to the pyrotechnics in the first scene when Mary is burned up was really well made... But the truth is, is that I didn't like the way this episode ended... And I know that with the only problem I have being the ending shouldn't be a huge issue, but it is!

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="624"] This episode has some truly awesome special effects![/caption]

You see I am not a fan of the cheap way of doing things... the almost, 'Jersey Shore' way of doing things... What I mean is, is that I liked the fact that ultimately Sam made the decision, but this whole change thing, I don't believe it, and I am also convinced that if it were me and my girlfriend died that I would not be one of the most happiest people in the world... Angry, Sad, whatever, in some way you would see it on my face... But Sam on the other just kind of jumped back in to his career... And all that I just am not convinced would have went down the way it did!

In the end this show is a lot of fun, and even this episode is pretty solid, and I suspect that if you keep up with the series that you might find this show to be a lot of fun... I did, and you might to!

http://youtu.be/t-775JyzDTk