Baby’s Rear View Recap: 12.04 “American Nightmare”

This post is about Supernatural season 12 episode 4 “American Nightmare,” written by Davy Perez and directed by John F. Showalter.

*****Spoilers below*****

“Prok yaw-thi a-law-haw”

The episode opens on a quiet church. But the quiet sanctity is soon disturbed by the sobs of a young woman, who enters the chapel and pleads in Aramaic as she stumbles on bloody feet, whipped by an invisible force. As she reaches the end of the aisle, she collapses, her body an obvious representation of Christ’s crucifixion.

“What kind of priests are you?”

“The old-fashioned kind.”

Sam and Dean dress as priests to question the witnesses at the church. The priest there insists that it was the devil, but there were no signs of black smoke or sulfuric smells.

“That's right -- one's an angel, one's a demon, and apparently, they solve crimes.”

Dean calls Cas to find out if it’s a rogue angel, since it seems a little small-time to be Lucifer. Cas tells Dean about Vince Vicente and his team-up with Crowley, and Dean in turn relays the information to Sam. Dean sends off a text to his mom, unbeknownst to Sam.

“Heck, on the way here, you wouldn't even make a pit stop.”
“So now your tiny bladder is my problem?”

Dean and Sam dress as FBI agents to visit the body in the morgue. When Dean is oddly short with Carl, the morgue attendant, Sam confronts Dean about his foul mood. Dean, however, wants to focus more on the case and less on the “Dr. Phil crap” and directs Sam’s attention back to the body. It looks like stigmata, and her skull was “filled with a goopy mush.”

“Well, that was easy.”
“What?”

“What? The Wicca'd Witch of the West in there. Little Miss Positive Energy wanted a bigger office, did a little hoodoo, Boom. I say we put a witch-killing cap in her ass, call it a day.”

The Feds visit Olivia’s old office and question her successor Beth—a self-identified Wiccan. She tells them Olivia was having migraines, and that Olivia, in working for CPS, has made a lot of enemies. She gives them the case files and they leave. But not before Dean and Sam argue over her suspected guilt and Dean expresses his desire to kill her.

“Weird, creepy, off the grid, "Children of the Corn" people? Yeah, I'm in.”

When another person turns up dead in the same way, Sam checks the name against Olivia’s case files and finds that the boy probably delivered groceries to the Petersons, a family who are so religious that they let their oldest daughter Magda die of pneumonia because they believed it was “God’s will.”

“Yeah, thought you'd be, uh, you know, long beard, suspenders, big hat.”
“We're not that kind of religious.”

The boys pose as CPS caseworkers and visit the family. While they’re there, a mysterious motorcyclist stops to consider the impala where they left it on the side of the road. Dean helps the father and son fix their buggy outside. He thinks they’re nice. The father, Abraham, tells Dean that they left the modern world because of all the distractions.

“God doesn't care what kind of life you live. Trust me. And God didn't kill your daughter. You did.”

Sam, meanwhile, drinks lemonade with the mother, Gail. She tells him that she was in a car accident that nearly killed her and damaged the nerves in her legs. She became addicted to the drugs she took for the pain and was at her lowest when she heard God’s voice telling her to live a life of simplicity and humility and the pain would be taken away. When Sam asks her about the delivery boy, he is dissatisfied with her answering claim that it was God’s will. Angry, he confronts her about her hand in her daughter’s death.

“We'll see who's right.”
“Well, you'll see I'm right.”

Abraham asks them to leave and they head back to the car. Once there, Sam grabs the EMF to head back and track down Magda’s ghost while Dean heads back to town—convinced that Beth is responsible for the deaths.

“I have tried to keep the Devil locked away, and you let him out. You couldn't let it rest. And now—now the Devil is doing his work through you. Confess your sins. Pray for forgiveness.”

Gail goes down to the basement, where she accuses Magda of killing those people. Magda whips herself at her mother’s bequest while her brother, Elijah, watches through the window.

“Son, the Devil's a deceiver. Don't let him sow doubt in you. If anyone found out about Magda, they'd come for her. And if that happened—I love your sister but you know what she can do. Magda . . . Magda's our cross to bear.”

That night, Sam sneaks into the barn to look around. He overhears Abraham and Elijah talking about Magda, and realizes that she’s still alive.

“You make more, but you work more. And if somebody screws up, that's on you. If somebody blows a deadline, that's on you. And if somebody's photocopying their ass in the breakroom, you have to adult and act all mad, even though it's kind of hilarious. Being the boss sucks.”

Dean goes to talk to Beth, who he soon realizes did not want Olivia’s job at all. He’s real awkward about being there in the middle of the night to kill her once he realizes he’s gotta play it cool.

“Magda You're not the Devil. You're just psychic. There are others out there like you, like -- like me. I have powers, too. I'd get these visions sometimes and -- and I could move things with my mind.”
“You can do that?”
“Well, no, not anymore, I don't think. But that didn't make me the Devil. It -- it -- it just made me who I am.”

Dean calls Sam just as Sam sees Magda and her mother through the window. But while Sam’s distracted by the call, Elijah pulls a gun on him and Abraham gets the drop on him from behind. They leave Sam tied up in the basement with Magda and the two talk. Magda reveals that she tried to reach out to Olivia and must have killed her in the process; she did the same to the delivery boy.

“I’m not the devil. You are.”

Gail serves everyone dinner while she explains that Magda’s powers caused the car accident that started all of this. Gail continues to encourage everyone to eat, and Abraham does. All of a sudden, Abraham begins to foam at the mouth and collapses, dead. Gail has poisoned the food with rat poison in the hopes that her family, who cannot continue as they have been, will enter heaven together. When Gail encourages Elijah to eat, Magda sends the bowl flying with her powers. Gail raises a knife against Magda, but as she goes for the kill, Elijah jumps in the way. As he dies, Magda makes Gail turn the knife on herself. But before Magda kills her, Sam convinces her that she doesn’t have to and she lets her mother go.

“Magda, I-I know it doesn't feel like it right now, but you're gonna be all right. You can do this. You will do this. Just remember, that power it doesn't control you. You control it.”

The cops lead a ranting Gail away in handcuffs while Sam and Dean offer Magda their support. Beth takes Dean aside to give him her number while Sam has a heartfelt moment with Magda, who plans to go to her aunt in California.

“This whole mom thing, it's I mean, we get her back, and then she leaves. I hate it, but I get it. I do. I guess I’m just still working through some of that crap. I'll try to be less of a dick about it.”

Sam and Dean talk about the case. They agree that giving Magda a second chance is the best they could do. Dean reveals that he’s come to an understanding of Mary’s decision, and then finally gets a text back from his mom telling him she loves them.

“I cleaned up the Winchester's mess. As suspected, they couldn't finish the job.”

Magda’s bus stops on the way to Santa Cruz. As she steps into the bathroom, a man with a cross on his hand and a gun follows her in. It’s Mr. Ketch. After he shoots her, he reports back to the bmol.

Questions:

When Dean was on the phone saying “yeah, Cas, that’s weird,” was that him telling Cas that working with Crowley was weird? Because Cas asked if it was weird? This is really important, I need to know.

Also, did anybody else read that text Dean sent to him mom as really passive aggressive rather than sweet?

Why was Magda speaking Aramaic? The show really likes to bring up Aramaic, and rarely talks about Hebrew. I always thought this was because Aramaic was older, but it’s actually not. Hebrew is older. The only reason Hebrew isn’t a dead language like Aramaic is, is because it was purposefully brought back and is now spoken by 5 million people worldwide, which is still a very small number. So I wonder if the writers are trying to distance themselves from the real people who speak Hebrew, and possibly from modern people of Jewish faith by redirecting all the relevant words into Aramaic instead. But I just wonder, why would Magda speak Aramaic? Literally nobody speaks it. It would have been nearly impossible for her to have learned it naturally, especially since she’s been shut off from everyone. If it’s some kind of gift of tongues thing, why Aramaic as opposed to Enochian? Or at least Hebrew, since we know she desperately wants to connect with other people and at least people speak that? I mean, Olivia’s a papist and dies in a Catholic church, and Magda thinks she might be possessed—why not Latin? Did her parents teach her Aramaic? If they did, how did they learn it? And just what kind of religion do they practice, anyway?

DOES SAM STILL HAVE POWERS. He says “I don’t think so,” which to me feels like the writers just wanted to leave it open in case they decide to bring it back sometime? This feels like a loose-end of an old storyline, and I know lots of viewers would LOVE to bring it back. Me included.

Why doesn’t Dean tell Sam about the nice text from his mom? I mean, it specifically says “tell Sam.” I’m just saying. Come on, Dean, you don’t gotta hide stuff like that.

Was Mr. Ketch talking to Mick? Was it even the bmol at all? I mean, I assume it was but I suppose it’s not a guarantee. At this point is seems that the bmol is not as put-together as you would think, since Lady Toni already went off the rails. Ketch (or his superior/liaison) could be doing the same thing. Or it could be a repeat of the Angel story, where the orders went down a chain of command and got switched up on the way like a nefarious game of telephone. Also, is Ketch even considered to be part of the bmol, or is he more of a private contractor? It seems like they sort of try to keep him on a leash, or somewhat removed.

Also, he’s going to die, right?

Did he just leave her there? It looked to me like he did. Why would he do that? It doesn’t seem like the bmol way, which we saw in the montage earlier this season (where they sedated the subject, moved them offsite, killed them in a controlled environment, and then cleaned it up immediately). So. Did he leave her to be cleaned up by the bmol? Or did he just leave her for the police and whoever stumbles upon her? Or did he leave her for Sam and Dean to find? I mean, the route from Iowa to Santa Cruz is the same as the route to Lebanon for 8 hours or so. If Dean really does make more pit-stops like he promised Sam, they literally could stop at that very rest stop. I mean, it doesn’t seem very likely, but it is possible.

Do we consider this “fridging”? I’ve heard some debate, so I’m just going to address this briefly: So, there are some people who are pretty upset about Magda’s death. Me included (again). I mean, obviously we are SUPPOSED to be upset, that’s why they did it. But it’s deeper than that, because it goes to a systemic issue with this show and the genre in general. They have killed so many women in a way that can absolutely be described as fridging. (Mary, Jess, Charlie, Sarah). And this one fits the description too. It’s a woman, who was killed off essentially not as part of her own story arc, but for the sake of the main storyline to serve the main protagonists (male) and the main villains (also male). Essentially, it sort of retcons her entire existence into a plot device that serves this one particular plot point (which is, to show how bad the villain is and eventually give the protagonist reason to fight the villain). That is the essence of fridging. I mean, it’s definitely disappointing. But it’s also pretty standard. It’s the easiest way of getting at that characterization for Mr. Ketch and creating the essential conflict. In that sense, it’s a small expenditure for a very high reward. I get it. It’s still gross. The problem with this trope is not that it’s unreasonable to ever have someone die for this purpose. It’s that it’s become a widespread trope that disproportionately effects female characters to the point that it has become a feminist issue. We can’t expect them to stop letting people die, of course. All the tension would go out of it, and that just doesn’t work for a show that considers itself in the horror genre. But, they definitely could stand to be a little more cognizant of the history of this trope. And its overall symbolic consequences. For all the excitement over on Tumblr about the “un-fridging” of Mary Winchester, it’s somewhat disappointing to see that this season may not be quite as subversive as we had hoped. However, we still don’t know how this is going to play out.

And I mean, is there any chance she could still be alive? Shouldn’t she have been able to hear his thoughts as he stalked her? On the one hand, she’s psychic and could possibly stop the bullets and fake her own death. But on the other hand, he’s apparently a professional murderer (of psychics, it seems) and would probably know if she was faking. Also he might have a psychic-killing weapon, since the Winchesters apparently have “witch-killing bullets.” So… Well, this is making me sad. I choose to believe that she is still alive. This is Supernatural, after all.

Conclusions:

Sam episode Sam episode Sam episode Sam episode Sam episode. Ahh yes. It’s. About. Time.

When they said they were getting back to Supernatural of the early seasons, they weren’t kidding. This absolutely reminded me of the early seasons. Emotional, haunting, and able to get to the heart of what’s going on with the Winchesters without spending time on the grand plot. Also, freaking heartbreaking and they don't even know it.

Lots of clever people on Tumblr have pointed out the ways in which this episode calls back to 1x14 “Nightmare,” which also dealt with a psychic (Max.) I won’t really go into that here, but there are tons of parallels that were done really well—in such a way that it made the story bigger instead of making it feel like a repeat.

I am absolutely on the Davy Perez train. For a first episode, I was very pleasantly surprised. It’s obvious he’s watched the show and paid attention. I’m excited for his next episode, especially since it’s going to be 12x12 (the Cas episode!) and I’m just excited for that in general. There were LOTS of good quotes in this episode. Also lots of important development for both Sam and Dean, even in a primarily Sam-focused episode. The characterization for both of them was spot-on for me. I have been waiting for SEASONS for Sam to get to talk about this stuff, and I loved it. I’m so proud of him.

The episode played into the main arc very well without having to talk about it directly. The early prejudices getting resolved, the intolerance for difference, the ultimate agreement in the decision to let a killer live. These all tie in nicely to the overarching themes of this season without actually making themselves all about the plot.

And still it revealed a little bit more of the mystery that is the bmol. I mean, the bmol is not messing around. They killed a psychic, who, as far as we know, is human. Because it seems like regular psychics (like Pamela) go to Heaven (as opposed to Purgatory like traditional non-human monsters, or even Hell like witches). I mean, this does not bode well for anybody.

Overall, this is my favorite episode of the season so far. It was beautiful and moving, very symbolically charged, and well-written with solid acting. I approve.