Recap: SUPERNATURAL Does CARRIE, But without the Prom
Season 12, Episode 4 “American Nightmare”
Directed by John F. Showalter
Written by Davy Perez
The Road So Far segment shows a time that we may have forgotten, when Sam (Jared Padalecki) showed psychic powers, largely driven by consuming demon blood. It’s hard to tell if he could do any of that stuff now, since he broke the addiction to demon blood. He says as much himself in the episode. But what really struck me is how young he was! He looks so young in those flashbacks.
A lovely young lady walks into a church bleeding from her feet. She has blood coming from her hands and scratches on her forehead. She is speaking in tongues. We hear the sound of a whip lashing and see her clothes and back shredded. Stigmata? Maybe.
Dean (Jensen Ackles) is in a grumpy, cranky mood. He hasn’t heard from his mom since she left and all she took was a phone and some money. He leaves her a text message that asks if he should still call her Mom or if he should call her Mary. Sniff. He then scoffs at himself for being a thirteen year old girl. He is, because there is nothing more insecure than a thirteen year old girl.
They check out the coroner’s report and Dean is brusque with the helpful coroner (Jeremy Arnold). Sam calls him on it. Sam is taking this pretty well even though it’s not pleasant to be around. He is only concerned about Dean.
They go check out the church dressed as priests. Dean introduces himself as Brother De Niro but they really should be Brother Whatashame and Father Thatstoobad. The priest (Rick Tae) is fully convinced that it was a demon because he saw her flayed by an invisible whip. He’s not happy that no one believes him. Sam and Dean do. They ask him about smelling sulfur or seeing black smoke but he didn’t, so they aren’t sure it’s a demon.
Dean gets a phone call and finds out what happened in the previous episode, that Cas (Misha Collins) and Crowley (Mark Sheppard) were working together and Rowena (Ruth Connell) banished Lucifer. He and Sam then get into a stupid argument about how bad Vince Vincente’s (Rick Springfield) music was.
Next stop is the victim’s office. She was a social worker, Olivia Sanchez, (Mariessa Portelance) who worked for child protective services. They meet her coworker, Beth Roberts (Aliza Vellani), who says she is Wiccan. She also tells them about an ultra-religious family that lives on a farm and lost a daughter because they wouldn’t take her to the doctor when she was sick. That sounds suspicious so they check it out.
Another person dies the same way. It’s a delivery guy.
Dean and Sam have to park their car at the gate and walk in, wearing social worker clothes. Okay, so they both look like Mr. Rogers. I like the clothes on Dean. He looks very cuddly in his sweater. Dean climbs over the gate clumsily while Sam walks through gap in the fence beside it. It was funny.
While they are visiting the family, a black clad motorcyclist drives by and checks out the car.
Mr.Peterson (William MacDonald) asks for help outside, so Dean helps them put their wagon wheel back on. He and the son seem friendly and sane, so Dean ends up with a good impression of the family. Sam has a very different experience inside the home with Mrs. Peterson (Christina Carlisi). She says that they became very religious after an accident. After the accident, God told her to live a simpler life and she would be free of pain. She wasn’t but said she got by. Sam challenges her about her daughter’s death and gets angry, which is not like him. The rest of them have come back in so Dad orders them to leave.
Dean and Sam get back to the car thinking they are on the same page, but they aren’t. Sam is looking for an angry ghost. Dean thinks the coworker is a witch who wanted a better job. They decide to check out both possibilities.
There’s someone in the basement and Mom Peterson tells her that she killed those people and has her whip herself. This shows that Mom has total control because what punishment for not doing it could be worse than doing it?
Dean goes back to the office to find Beth working late. He has a gun behind his back. She tells him she hates the promotion. He realizes that he’s wrong. See, Dean, Wiccans are not witches. At least, not Supernatural-type powerful, unhygienic witches.
Sam takes the EMF detector and sneaks around the farm. He sees that the daughter, Magda (Paloma Kwiatkowski), is still alive and he witnesses some of the abuse. He calls Dean to let him know and then gets knocked out by the dad. They throw him in the basement with Magda and he tries to convince her that she is not the devil (he should know) and tells her that he used to have psychic powers. She liked the social worker and was unaware that her cries for help had killed the two people.
Sam and Magda get hauled upstairs for a family dinner, which is suspicious. We find out that Magda caused the car accident that injured her mother. Don’t drink the Kool-Aid! That is, don’t eat the food. But dad does and dies immediately. The son (Gig Morton) doesn’t want to, and Sam begs him not to. Mom takes a large knife to her daughter but the son steps in between and gets stabbed. Things start flying around the room of their own accord and Magda forces the knife to turn in her mom’s hand towards her body. Sam begs her not to kill her and she doesn’t, showing great self-control.
They end up with police and emergency personnel and they have a talk while sitting in the ambulance. Magda lays her head on Sam’s shoulder. Sam vouches for the girl with Dean and they leave, knowing Magda is being sent to her aunt and has their number. Mom gets hauled away, raving, and no one believes what she says.
Dean gets a text back from his mom saying she didn’t have a charger and she’s fine. He also sounds like he is more accepting of her decision.
A fairly happy ending, since they saved the girl from horrible abuse even though both nice members of her family died. Of course, they were guilty of collusion but they were trying to keep her from hurting others.
UNTIL: her bus stops at a restroom and the biker kills her in the women’s room! Argh! He has the cross on his hand so we know it’s the Men of Letters’ hit man. Poor Magda. She never even got to go to the prom and destroy it.
Supernatural rarely does an Afterschool Special because its main purpose is to scare the pants off people and its secondary purpose is to let us watch Sam and Dean save the world. There is a lot to think about in this episode, however. The family is screwed up by fanaticism although they may not have been fanatics until the daughter displayed “devilish” powers. There are other lessons to be learned, such as the fact that not all witches need to be burned and have their ashes sown with salt, or that isolation creates an environment for abuse to happen.
The actors who played the family did a good job. Also, the woman who died of invisible flaying gave a strong performance.
This is a great Sam episode. Because of his history, he was the perfect person to talk to the girl and let her know that just because she had supernatural powers that she is not evil and can choose to do good or evil acts. It was also a nice stand alone episode with only the brothers and no Cas or Crowley helping. The most frightening stories are always the ones where it’s human evil, and not supernatural influence causing the mayhem.
It’s pretty clear that the Men of Letters, London Chapter, are going to be the big bad that the brothers face this season.
Supernatural airs Thursday nights at 9/8c on The CW.
