#director david nutter

[shallowseeker]

Absolutely fascinated by you pointing out that John has a lot in common with The Woman in White!

Unhinged damsel-John is a favorite of mine.

[wheretheloveisstored]

1x01 Pilot kitchens

We don't see a lot of kitchens in the pilot episode. The thrust of the Winchesters’ home shots are centered around the family tree (outside), the exterior of the Winchester family home, John and Mary's bedroom, John's den, and of course, Sam's nursery.

Sam's kitchen is little more than a peek-a-boo, but nevertheless, I think it's an important presence here. It's clear that this is the first kitchen Sam's very own, separate from the domestic life of his nursery/youth.

In short, I think the decoration of Sam's living space itself deserves "a kitchen label," notable for it being more personalized and "alive" than almost anything we'll see out of Sam Winchester for a very long time.

////////////////////////////////////

But first, some honorable mentions:

////////////////////////////////////

(1) BAR

The first roadhouse-style bar of friendships

Ah, a festive bar. A place where we gather to drink and be merry, to celebrate life's milestones. (Or conversely, to nurse our hurt feelings.) Here, Sam's girlfriend and classmates try to coax Sam out of his perfectionistic shell. At Stanford, Sam is called "golden boy" and is clearly a hard worker.

He's the specter of the (quickly-burning-out) gifted kid. The overachiever. (We'll see this echoed in other underdog characters like Kevin Tran and Patience Turner. They work so hard because so much is stacked against them. But that work ethic is a candle burning at both ends. Sam is a bit of a head-down, stick-in-the-mud guy, like how Patience Turner in 13x03 Patience doesn't do "fun" because she's so busy with the "successful" planning of her life.

////////////////////////////////////

(2) A DINER

It’s not a family diner, per se, but in a sense, it's almost familial. Small-town. Outside of it, we see the vic's girlfriend, Amy, putting up missing posters.

Inside, she sits and talks with Sam and Dean, being supported by her friend. (Aside: We also see the first protective amulet, which is echoed in the symbol hanging above John's bed. And of course, the amulet that passed from Bobby to Sam to Dean.)

(2a) Coffee cups of domesticity: Sam and Dean drink from matching white mugs, a symbolic shared space of family, of domestic rhythms. We'll see coffee featuring heavily in shows like The Winchesters, with the core four using it as a way to signify their blended "work-family."

But in this episode, we see it in the mode of the shared childhood domesticity. Siblings are often from the same vine, and they grow out of the same nursery, sharing the first kitchens together as they grow up.

Alternatively, the caffeine symbolizes work. Long hours toiling.

////////////////////////////////////

(3) SAM'S APARTMENT

Sam's apartment is small but cozy, filled with personal affects that are very unlike the Sam we come to know while on the road and the one that later lives in the bunker.

We see a bike, a well-loved reading chair and a dog-eared book, a fun, colorful shirt on a peg. This is certainly "Sam's home" in a way that other places are not. Perhaps it's because this home was so well-nested that it's painful for him to carve out spaces for himself in the future, even under the protective wing of his brother (and later his mother).

(Sam peeks in from the direction of the kitchen.)

Yes, this is a home. Light streams in, and plants, books, and art are everywhere. There is growth. It's like a little Eden. Artwork and esoteric touches are very cute throughout the apartment. Books and reading chairs abound, and we see stacks of document boxes for Sam's studies.

Even in her sleep, Jess is turned towards the sun, like a flower basking in the light.

Also: These beaded dividers were SO popular at this time; I feel so nostalgic! (It's such a college thing! (Of note, Endverse Cas also has a beaded divider like this is his cabin).

///

OTHER ITEMS OF NOTE:

Behind the image of Sam packing a sickle, we see a full bookshelf. Jess comes into the frame, and we see her hearth-coded gray dressing robe hanging on the wall.

It could also be Sam's robe, a sign that at one time, he let himself be clothed in the warmth and comforts of a home. (Perhaps by the time he lands at the bunker, he can't bear it.)

///

WHERE ARE YOU GOING?

When she sits, Jess tenderly caresses his travel bag; a microcosm of married life, almost like: "I wish we didn't have to go to work; work interferes with the Living part of life."

We get Jess too, asking her own variant of, "Where are you going?" / "I wish you'd at least tell me where you're going..."

Henry kept things from John, Mary kept things from John, and now Sam keeps things from Jess.

It's also an echo of child-John to Henry, "Where're you goin'?" & "Work."

And also Dean's season 15 plea to Cas, "Where're you going? What's happening?" & "To look for another way."

///

SAM LOVES HIS FAMILY BUT HIS APARTMENT IS HIS HOME

Sam certainly has love, affection, and nostalgia for his family, even John. As John still keeps a photo of John in his apartment, we see that John still keeps a photo of the boys:

But after the hunt, Same went home.

He comes through the door, and we more personal item: a bike tire, and two umbrellas (one for him and one for Jess). We also see his big stack of study materials and documents:

////////////////////////////////////

(4) THE KITCHEN

Now, Sam visually enters his (tiny) kitchen:

It's small but full of love. A "welcome home." The camera looks through the bars of the empty table chair, and we glimpse his face. He's touched by the little gesture of love: "Missed you! Love you!"

Jess knows he's stressed out. She tries to support him through it. (He's recently taken the LSAT, and now he's trying to juggle his career obligations with his obligations to his family.)

But these cookies have a dark side.

There's also a cheeky reference to an "offering." (Offerings of produce and meals are shared in gratitude for God's provision.) Here too, as with Mary, Jess will become a ritualized sacrifice, chaining Sam to the narrative.

Sam's very first visualized kitchen... becomes a murder scene.

////

SAM WAS GOING TO STAY

Just as Zachariah will in It's a Terrible Life apply extra pressure to pull Dean away from his family life [Bobby, Eileen, and Jo] Azazel applies similar pressure on Sam to pull him away from Jess.

When he gets home to Jess, Sam's relieved. He smiles and grabs a cookie, sighing in relief, feeling loved. (Later in life, Sam seems to struggle to allow himself to eat sweets like this.)

But here, he takes it for what it is: a simple gift of love that he's allowed to eat.

He collapses onto his bed, hearing the calming sound of the shower going in the background. The light is shining on his face...

Until of course it isn't.

That light turns to droplets of blood.

Like Mary is a narrative sacrifical for the audience and gods "above," so too is Jess. The sacrifice occurs, not in Sam's childhood nursery, but at the crossroads of his childhood and adulthood.

Sam echoes John's fate but also Mary's…

In the Beginning (4x03), John was sacrificed by Azazel to put Mary on a certain narrative path, to draw her into a deal. John died right before he was going to commit to a future with Mary, just like Jess died before she would commit to a future with Sam, like Cas died in 12x23 before he could commit to a future with Dean.

///

SAM'S HOME BURNING

Sam's little home is burning.

It's the place where he made his very first, very own kitchen. The place with the paintings and the plants and the chairs... The murder is marked by cruelty and spectacle, as Mary's was:

Azazel’s signature kills often involve twisting the neck (Deanna, John) and/or gutting (Samuel, Mary, and Jess).

Here, Jess's body echoes it all. The stomach, linked to vital organs and emotions ("gut feelings"), symbolize dominance, control, and tye exposing of vulnerability. "The soft underbelly." The bent limbs are meant to send a message, to mock, to create a dramatic display—a very literal "twisted" sense of aesthetics. She’s posed like a doll, with her left "heart-side hand" raised, as if reaching.

Her outfit, unlike her usual nightwear, suggests Azazel dressed her for impact. It’s even possible Azazel turned on the shower and baked the cookies—both calculated to shock Sam.

///

THE RESCUE

I'm not sure how much Dean knows about what happened to Mary, but this is quite traumatic for him as well, bringing up all kinds of horrific memories.

Sam cried as he was carried out the first time, and he cries here now.

////////////////////////////////////

BONUS: THE AFTERMATH

Dean looks on at the ashes of Sam's new life; Azazel (in the form of John) looks down at the ashes of Sam's old life.

After the fire, Dean’s pose and jacket mirror Azazel/John, like a ghostly, refracted image. No matter who's at fault, ultimately Dean is the one who feels responsible.

While Dean may deserve some criticism for his human faults, he is often unfairly saddled with blame for everything that goes wrong in his family’s life—caught between genuine mistakes and misplaced accusations.

John, on the other hand, bears far greater responsibility for his wrongdoings. His unhinged paranoia often made his family less safe. And yet, like Lucifer, he is also something of "an Azazel," a "scapegoat." Having already caused so much harm, he becomes a lightning rod for additional blame, absorbing the weight of everything wrong with the world.

John is the felled protector, the failed protector. After all, the snake came into the garden under his watch. (He's really a bit like Gadreel when you think about it.)

[shallowseeker]

John, asleep at the wheel:

And some other neat motifs.

Antlers/deer on the case, guns:

//

Another clock, a forlorn "sock monkey" on the floor, as lifeless as the sleeping John watching a war film, his connection to Vietnam:

///

Besides the threat of doppelganger, John is also a door sentry, meant to protect the most precious inhabitants of home. But he is failing completely. He is like Gadreel, like Castiel, the would-be sentry, but he is exhausted from the fight, asleep as the snake (Azazel) enters the (nursery) garden.

He feels responsible for ruining the universe.

Even with his background as a soldier, and with his weapons at his side... he is underprepared. Mary didn't share the dangers with him.

///

Mary is the only one who knows about the demon (shhh), and she has taken the fight solely upon herself, and now the demon has slipped past her secondary position as defender of the hearth.

And the hearth will go up in flames.

Mary Winchester’s death is more than personal tragedy—it’s a deliberate act by the "narrative," elevating her to a sacrificial offering. Suspended on the ceiling, engulfed in flames, she becomes both an offering by the demigod Azazel and a symbolic gesture to the story itself.

Her death lights the hearth that fuels the Winchesters’ path, burning her as a martyr to a cosmic design.

///

Meanwhile, Sam, marked as an anti-Christ figure, begins his own grim preparation—fattened for eventual sacrifice to the same ruthless gods of story, who demand pain, blood, and obedience to their grand, harrowing tale.

And while Mary is elevated in fire... John falls.

John's words about Dean: "I've got him," and to Sam, "Oh, Sammy it's okay," are maybe the last times he'll truly have these sentiments for his kids.

He gets himself together for a moment, enough to get his kids out of the fire.

"Don't look back. GO! Now, Dean!" And we see little Dean descend, looking for safety. Dean will often be associated with low places; valleys, shelters, bunkers.

///

Then, John hopelessly goes BACK for Mary, screaming "No!" He doesn't want to believe what's right in front of his eyes.

And so, Sam's nursery burns. The thrust of the fire raining from the "Heavenly" narrative above, reaching down to ignite the crib-mobile, the symbol of John's hope.

Symbolically consuming his hope and his body, mimicking the motion of the Supernatural title card as it rolls towards him.

Outside, Dean is already echoing John's role, echoing the words, "It's okay, Sammy."

And John bookends it, echoing his earlier words about Dean at the beginning of the episode: "I've got you!"

And here begins the illness.

After the adrenaline wears off, John cannot comprehend what he's seen. Mentally wounded by Azazel, he is set on the path of "becoming the monster/Azazel." (That is what revenge will do to him.)

They may have escaped the fire, but inside, John is in Hell. This happened on his watch. (Mary hadn't trusted him enough to tell him anything.)

[shallowseeker]

The ghostly specter of John's hopes and dreams in SPN 1x01:

Above Baby Sam's crib, we see John's symbolic hopes and dreams. The crib mobile is filled with the baseball items John adores.

Baseball is a consistent special interest of John's, from the djinn dream where he plays softball to his #SPNwin dream of becoming a minor league catcher.

In SPNwin, he's not yet the monstrous inverse of his "dreamer" self. He's still the thing that attracted Mary to him: the soldier who hasn't lost his ability to dream. He keeps believing, even when Mary, a child-raised-soldier, feels like she can't muster up the strength to. Aside// Mary is like Dean this way, with lines like: "it only ends one way... bloody." On the other hand, John doesn't start there. It takes lying, coercion, and manipulation to get John's world to shrink, for his path[s] to narrow to hunting.

Hope is "what" John is (until, of course, he isn't):

MARY: I don't know. He's sweet, kind. Even after the war, after everything, he still believes in happily ever after, you know? Supernatural, 4x13 In the Beginning

// Until Mary died, it seems his dreams were difficult to extinguish. His primary mode of being was hopefulness:

Note: As Mary and John discuss their dreams, we see behind Mary some Jack Kline types of motifs, "The Future," crowing roosters, sunflowers, and a rainbow.

JOHN: See, I, I wanted to be a catcher for the Kansas City Athletics. MARY (fatalistic) : My parents never let me dream like that. Being a kid who killed monsters was my only option.

JOHN (wistful): You know, when I was a kid, I, uhm... I made this list of all of these places I was gonna go to look for my dad. Kept it for years, crossing off destinations, adding more. Enough time goes by... all you see is a list, you know? MARY (angry): Are you saying I should stop looking for my dad? JOHN: I'm saying that once you find him and leave hunting for good, you're gonna need a new list. The Winchesters, 1x03 You're Lost, Little Girl

We're familiar with the Winchester gun, but in the 20s Winchester (yes, the same gun brand: Winchester Rifles and Firearms Co) made a short run of baseball gear, known specifically for its top-of-the-line catcher's gear. It was outlasted by brands by Rawlings, Wilson, and Spalding.

Vintage Winchester catcher gear goes for ~$700 on eBay.

//

Here, John, the ever-hopeful soldier who holds onto his dreams will lose those dreams. The dreams will go up in smoke, and he emerges from the flames like a demon possessed. Dean describes him as a shell after Mary died. Maybe he was right.

In the words of Lady Toni Bevell (12x21): "A man slowly going mad, searching for revenge."

[shallowseeker]

Up and down the stairs; away and towards safety

"Run. Take your brother and go! Now, Dean!"

(The story is after us, Dean. It's after Sam.)

We hear the warning again later in the episode, with the overlaid message from John: "I can never go home" & "We're all in danger!"

And the thing is, they are in danger—all of them—from the story itself. The road, then, becomes armor, and motion becomes safety, insisting that they keep moving. Being in one place? That's what kills them. The idea of going off-road functions like a temptation, a lure. The safety of home is just an illusion.

///

Shelter is down

Even in the pilot, Dean is quite literally a marked impala, a prey animal, always on the run. I really love the contrast of Mary and John running "up" towards the fire and little Dean running away, visually "down," away from the fire.

In trying to escape the fire, Dean descends to safety. It is this need for safety (and the safety of his loved ones) that in a very real sense eventually drives him towards Hell.

///

Later in the episode, we see Dean descend the stairs again, when he's leading Sam away from Sam's apartment (an apartment that has been, unbeknownst to them, marked for death by Azazel).

"Going down" will be a mode of movement that follows Dean pretty much his whole life. Dean goes down into the valley, into the shelter, into Hell.

Dean remains on the move for much of his life, but when he does get a true home of his own, it's underground. When he's on the run from Billie/Death in 15x18, he plunges further still, deeper underground, until he loses the love of his life in his safest spot: the bunker's dungeon.

///

Until then, the car is the safest spot they've got.

But the narrative is at work, trying to take control of the car; trying to chisel and shape its targets the way Constance tries to chisel and shape her targets.

When the car charges them on the bridge, Dean is frantic to get out of the way, diving "down" off the bridge, into the safety of another road—into movement, the churning river.

Meanwhile, Sam keeps hanging on. Sam's Taurus-like personality and stubbornness means that he's always trying to cheat a rigged game. Sam tries to stay in the "high place" and not get burned.

Sam monkey-arms and contorts himself to stay on the bridge...

...and Dean comes crawling out of the river like a drowned rat.

///

We see ups and downs for Constance's family, too.

Sam forces her to go home, taking control of the car (narrative) and hurling her into her ruined, dilapidated house.

Inside, she's faced with her guilt: and her guilt is up.

The deceased family members are upstairs. They went up, but they never came down.

These children have obviously been paralleled to the pain that Sam and Dean go through at the hands of John's cruel overpreparedness, but these two are also an off-key echo of John and Mary's innocence.

The narrative killed its "first children." Mary's body was consumed alongside John's faith in the future. They are the ones who went "up" and were murdered (Mary) and damaged (John).

///

In many ways, Constance's story is a study of opposites to the Winchesters.

Her first children were drowned. The narrative burned its first children.

Dean's mother Mary ran towards the danger (and we will see she continues to haunt her house as a supreme protector of children). In contrast, Constance runs away from her house. She killed her children.

Constance's ghost is out to prove that deep down, everyone is flawed, operating in a Luciferian mode of engineered hopelessness. She haunts the road in a Trickster-tempter-style of hunting, not just preying on "unfaithful men," but trying to prove that in fact, all men are scum, i.e. "Even if you're still faithful, I'll make you unfaithful."

Many of SPN's villains are out to bring out the worst in people; the writer's task is to prove that anyone (everyone) will break under the right circumstances:

KEVIN TRAN (APOCALYPSE): Michael doesn't want to kill you. He wants to break you. He said for me to tell you that, 'Even if you win, you still lose.' I'm sorry. 13x20 Unfinished Business

We get this from Chuck too in 15x09 The Trap, as he works to drain Sam of all hope.

CHUCK: Um, short version – Sammy lost hope, and now I'm free. Hey, take it easy on the kid. It took a lot to beat it out of him. [Chuck crushes the sphere, destroying the spell] 15x09 The Trap

We also see this attitude reflected in many of the angel characters, reaching all the way into SPNwin The Winchesters, with the OG mindset of Gabriel/The Trickster wanting to prove how horrible humans are:

GABRIEL (unhinged): When the chips are down, humanity always chooses the selfish way out! Always! 1x08 Hang on to Your Life

//

As we learn more about Mary, we unravel that she did do some running of her own—running from hunting, from her parents, from her own childhood home. But here, at least, despite being dressed in white, Mary is in many ways Constance's opposite.

John are Dean are the ones doing the running, afraid to go home. In some ways, Constance is more like John than she is Mary, as John is victimized by Mary's lies and mistakes. John, like Constance, is driven into madness and despair. And of course, John breaks so hard that he hurts his own children.

After what happened, Constance went out on the road, looking for monsters. Making monsters, too.

//

The off-key parallels continue:

A married couple burns upstairs; a pair of siblings drowns upstairs.

The Winchester family faces tragedy in the comfort of their pajamas, while Constance's family are in their daily school uniforms—the period clothing giving off an eerie feeling that they're in "work clothes." (The suit and tie on the boy, especially!)

When Constance faces them, they embrace her, loving her as they bring her to justice.

Dean and Sam are "below." Safe. Looking on as the family is reunited and can finally rest together.

//

Sam goes home.

When Sam ascends up the stairs to his apartment, he leaves safety. There are horrors waiting for him "above," as Jess too is on the ceiling, a sacrifice to the narrative gods (the audience).

Like how Zachariah had to put extra pressure on Dean in 4x17 It's a Terrible Life to get Dean back on the road, Azazel has to burn down Sam's home to get him to play ball.

Sam had roots in this little apartment; he was even looking for a way to stay nearby with regards to his interview:

LUIS: So there you go. You are a first-round draft pick. You can go to any law school you want! SAM: Actually, I got an interview here. 

So, Azazel burns the garden.

///

Meanwhile, after he notices his watch stop, Dean rushes back and kicks open the door, much like a firefighter coming to the rescue. Dean is running into the fire the same way both of his parents did, acting in his parents' stead to save Sam:

Dean quickly spots Jess, and susses out that Sam's destiny is after him, and he works immediately to get him to safety—down the stairs.

Afterward, with the memory of Mary heavy on his mind, Dean turns, knowing.

He got Sam out, but like John, Sam isn't okay.

Sam is "down and out," the light of his happiness snuffed out. This was foreshadowed by "Sam's light going out" in the headlight scene:

(We will later see Dean lose his light too, in season 7, after Cas dies.)

Sam is safe from the fire, but he's, in a very real sense, no longer the same Sam. Despite that Dean is the one wearing John's jacket, it is Sam who is now set on the path to revenge, to "becoming" Azazel.

Sam's broken.

SAM: Yeah. I kinda mean, well, like ever since my head broke, and we lost Cas. You ever feel like he's going through the same motions but he's not the same Dean, ya know? 7x09 How to Win Friends and Influence Monsters

Sam's season 7 self could be talking about his season 1 self here! Loss does things to people. (But the narrative did it to Sam so early!)

///

DEAN: So what are you gonna do? You're just gonna live some normal, apple pie life? Is that it? SAM: No. Not normal. Safe. DEAN: And that's why you ran away. 1x01 Pilot

Despite his extreme efforts, John couldn't keep Sam safe from Azazel's designs.

And Dean can't either.

[shallowseeker]

Not the rip right down the middle of the reaching-hands-couple shirt!

In a game of Mafia/Werewolf, The Lovers are associated with The Shoulder Touch. (To maintain secrecy, the Lovers usually acknowledge each other silently, touching shoulders or linking arms to signify their connection.)

Here, we have the image of Smurfette reaching for a beau, cheekily reworked as the specter of The Lovers, reaching happily for the other.

But the tear definitely foreshadows the narrative doing what the narrative loves to do best: rip the lovers apart.

When Sam joins her, he takes the side of the male smurf, leaving Jess on the side of the female smurf. Ultimately, it's the "Pop's" that we see on Sam's shirt, signifying his family legacy, that will come between them.

"Git yer' ass to Pop's!" his shirt reads.

As John turns cruel and pushes his kids away in his attempt to overprepare them, he plays right into the narrative's hands.

JOHN'S MESSAGE: Watch yourself, Dean. We're all in danger!

///

Aside: There's so much growth and life in Sam's and Jess's apartment! (It's so pretty!  😭) There are plants everywhere and so much light flowing in, illuminating what I presume are Jess's paintings (woods, fish, orbs) and Sam's study nook.

There are even flowers. It's teeming with life!

SAM (about his job interview): "It's my whole future, on a plate."

Indeed it is. And just as John's future was sacrificed, so too will Sammy's be. For the sake of story, of course.

[shallowseeker]

My first kitchen meta will actually be Sam's. :-) @wheretheloveisstored.

There's one diner in episode 1, but most of the kitchen focus is Sam and Jess's (with a sacrificial gesture of cookies, no less). It's amazing how this teeny tiny space is so filled with personality and "new roots"/growth.

It's also amazing to recall how early and hard Sam broke. He practically starts the series broken and fantastically depressed, and I think that's so important! He'll be afraid to move through and operate his own kitchen for a very long time. We can see how, in light of his childhood lack of "home" and this murdered "new growth," he'll be gun-shy to even try to put down roots!

Aside// Watching Sam's newly created kitchen and home burn, I think of how the Leviathan scorched the plants after they took Cas. I think about how horrifically depressed Dean became after Cas's many deaths and ofc Mary's death. And to think that Sam started in that kind of headspace; it really is amazing to revisit,

Anyway, I'll probably have to think on it all week since work is so insane.

In addition to keying in on John's special interest and Jess's ripped smurf shirt, I really love the contrast of Mary and John running towards the fire, and Dean running away, visually "down" from the fire. The shots of Mary and John running up are continually contrasted with Dean going "down the stairs" both as a little boy and when he's leading Sam away from Sam's apartment. Not to mention Dean goes "down" off a bridge while Sam pretzels himself to keep hanging on.

EDIT: I should say, since you asked, my rewatch is more about picking out stuff I think is different or interesting, and I really love to look at visuals. A LOT of stuff has been said, especially when it comes to the real-life inversion of themes (i.e. John "is" Azazel and "is" Jess's murderer etc.) so I'll be focusing more on the story story part of it. :-) Or whatever I'm in the mood for.

#shal spn rewatch