Our episode begins with a recap and then starts...in odd form...with Sam and Dean already on a hunt for things called Rawheads. Dean's equipped them with tasers and they enter an old house. Going into the basement, they find two children and get them out, although Sam is grabbed by something under the stairs. He gets free, throwing Dean his taser and Dean hunts down the second one. Unfortunately, the Rawhead and Dean are both in a pool of still water on the floor and both get electrocuted. The Rawhead dies and it seems that Dean is also on Death's Door.
Get used to this, because this isn't even remotely the last time this is going to happen on this show.
At the hospital a bit later, after talking to the police about the missing kids, Sam speaks to the doctor about Dean's condition. The electricity triggered a heart attack and Dean's heart is damaged, to the point where it's not looking good and they have done all they can. Dean being Dean, however, is flipping through channels in a half-hearted attempt at deflection. Sam is insistent that he can find a way to save Dean in spite of it all. He does research and even calls John in a fit of desperation. Dean returns, having checked himself out (refusing to die in a hospital where the nurses aren't even hot), and Sam tells him that one of John's contacts pointed him to a specialist in Nebraska.
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| "If I ever get better, I am never going skydiving again..." |
...my editor has just handed me new notes. Let me try that again.
Actress Julie Benz, who played Darla in both Buffy the Vampire Slayer and it's spin-off Angel, plays Layla. Dean flirts with her because Dean is Dean. They head into the tent and we meet the Reverend Roy LaGrange, a blind man who begins a sermon. As he does so, Sam notes a strange crucifix on the table on the stage. Dean makes a snide comment about Roy stealing people's money...and Roy hears him. Yes, Virginia, Roy has bat vision! He calls Dean up on the stage and, while Dean is at first reluctant, Roy is insistent. The Lord picked him, Roy says!
...ha. Ha. Ha.
Dean goes eventually give in to peer pressure, though he tells Roy he's not a believer. Roy tells him, rather ominously, that he will be. Roy touches his head...and Dean falls to his knees before passing out. The sound accompanying the act telling us that something has happened. As he drifts back into consciousness, Dean sees a wrinkled old man in a black suit behind Roy that disappears as quickly as he appeared. The brothers go back to the hospital and Dean is checked out. He's healthy as an ox, no problems with his heart and no sign that there ever was. Even so, Dean is unsettled and wants to investigate Roy. He tells Sam about the man in the suit that he saw, thinking that it must be some sort of spirit.
Dean goes to visit Roy and his wife Sue-Ann, hearing Roy's story. He went blind one day, had cancer and then suddenly...he didn't. Dean asks Roy why Roy healed him, and Roy tells him that he looked into Dean's heart and saw that he was a young man with an important job to do, and it isn't finished yet.
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| "SAMMY! GET THE BROWN PANTS!" |
Sam, meanwhile, checks out a heart attack case elsewhere. The victim was apparently a jogger, so the heart attack was sudden...and he screamed about something chasing him. Sam finds the clock by the pool where the man died, frozen at 4:17 - the time of death for the man in question.
As Dean leaves, Layla and her mother arrive. They've apparently been to see Roy six times and have been rebuffed each time. Layla has a brain tumor, inoperable, and in six months she will be dead - Roy is their only hope. Dean returns to Sam, and he's looked up the other people that Roy has healed and found that someone else died at the same time every time. Roy is trading lives for lives, and in a scene set to Blue Oyster Cult's "Don't Fear the Reaper" we get to see it in action. Roy heals a man on an oxygen tank and a woman jogging in the woods somewhere is visited by the wrinkled man in the black suit.
Dean realizes what it is that they're dealing with, the only creature that he knows of (at least right now) that can give and take life: a Reaper. Thinking it over, Sam remembers the cross from the table and looks through a tarot deck to find the Death card. They reason that Roy must be using black magic to bind the Reaper to his service. Dean wants to go guns blazing and kill Roy, saying that he's clearly a monster for deciding who lives and who dies. Sam takes the more level-headed approach and convinces Dean that they have to break the spell that binds the Reaper.
Dean heads in to potentially stall the sermon while Sam heads into the La Grange house to look for clues and eventually finds a spell book. Along with it, Sam finds newspaper clippings of people who Roy would see as "immoral", figuring out that the guy who has been protesting Roy throughout this episode but I didn't mention until now is most likely the next target. In the tent, Layla is chosen to be healed...and Dean has a big moral conundrum. He tries to convince Layla to not go onstage, going with the "You just have to trust me" excuse...which obviously doesn't work because she literally has no reason to.
Meanwhile, Sam finds the protester screaming for help. From the man's perspective, the Reaper is after him. Sam works to get him away from him despite the fact that he can't actually see him...and Dean sets a fire in the tent to get everyone out. Unfortunately the Reaper still attacks the man anyway...and Sam realizes that it isn't Roy doing the killing, it's Sue-Ann. Dean finds her with a necklace in the shape of the cross/ankh and she calls for help and has him thrown out.
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| Jensen Ackles gets a lot of mileage out of the "I have a bad head cold" look. |
Layla, of course, is less than amused by all of this and demands to know why Dean would do what he did before leaving, though she does wish him luck. Dean wishes the same, saying after she's gone that she deserves it a lot more than him.
Roy does, however, tell Layla that he will heal her.
Sam shows the book to Dean, and they realize that while Sue-Ann was at first just using the book to keep the Reaper away from Roy. Now, however, she's using it to kill the people that she finds immoral. The brothers arrive at night to the LaGrange's place, Sam reminds Dean that they shouldn't play God when Dean expresses some trouble with the fact that if Layla had been healed before him, she'd be alive. With that settled, they find that Roy is preparing to heal Layla...but Sue-Ann is nowhere to be found. They split up, Dean distracting the two Sheriff's Deputies that threw him out earlier so that Sam can once more break into the house.
In the basement, Sam finds the altar with a little picture of Dean marked with an "X" in blood. Sue-Ann tells Sam that she gave Dean life and can take it away. Sam responds by overturning the altar...and then in a weird edit, Sue-Ann has somehow outrun Sam to get out of the basement and lock him in.
Not really sure what happened there.
Either way, while she rants about the Lord having chosen her, Sam isn't buying into the hub-ub and works on getting out. Having evaded the cops, Dean now dances with the Reaper. Or, rather, the Reaper grabs him and starts to kill him. Sue-Ann, however, gets her ankh torn off and smashed by Sam, ending the spell. When Roy touches Layla...nothing happens. Outside, Sue-Ann gets her comeuppance as the Reaper, with the coldest of smiles on its face, kills her. Dean and Sam beat a hasty retreat.
Back at the motel, Dean wonders if they did a good thing. Layla, having been called by Sam, shows up and talks to Dean. Dean expresses condolences that Layla had that faith and it let her down like it did when Roy couldn't heal her. Layla tells him that you can't just have faith when the miracles happen, it's about having it always. She bids him goodbye, and he tells her that he's not really the praying type, but he will pray for her. The episode ends on that bittersweet note.
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| "Look, can I stay here and we bang? I don't wanna be in the next episode..." |
Faith is a good episode. The Reapers are a very interesting addition to the lore of the show and have an absolutely awesome design (although not all Reapers look that way as we'll see later on) and it's interesting to see Sam and Dean struggle with questions of faith. Julie Benz has a good turn as Layla, giving Dean advice that he's not really going to be taking to heart despite the ending of this episode making you think that he might. It's a good little one and done, like so many episodes in Season 1.
Unfortunately, rather like Bugs a few episodes ago...we're going into another bad one. Prepare yourself...for Route 666.
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