Reply To: Let’s all talk about the Pilot (S1 E1)
I was supposed to watch the pilot last night – exactly one week after the last-ever new Supernatural
episode. I couldn’t do it. I have been so sad about Dean’s death and Sam’s long life without his brother
that I just didn’t know if I could do it.
But my wife who has been a patient victim of my SPN obsession for 15 years said she’d like to watch it with
me from the start. So I watched the pilot with her tonight.
I’ve only watched the pilot about 4 times over the past 15 years. In spite of my week of crying over the
finale, I immediately fell in love with Sam and Dean. They were magic right out of the gate. I did not, as I
feared, keep thinking about Dean’s death the whole time. How could I when these two incredibly young
guys were showing me these incredibly interesting, fully-formed characters with all kinds of intriguing
suggestions about backstory and this electric, compelling, brother relationship?
Of course I watched it differently in light of the recent comments about the pilot as it informed the finale –
from wardrobe to lines to Jared’s thoughts about Sam’s choice to reunite with Dean being the happiest
moment of his life (though it admittedly did not look that way in the pilot with Sam seeming more
interested in his life at Stanford than in getting dragged back into the life of hunting with Dean). But
Dean’s love and need for Sam was there at the very beginning. Dean always felt they were better together
and even though he did a lot of putting down Sam’s ambitions, now it looks to me like someone trying to
hide his fear of being alone – not being a cocky jerk (though Dean could be a cocky jerk at times back
then).
Sam’s so smart figuring out the case and Dean’s so clever escaping every tight situation. The importance
of family is there with Sam being touched that John kept a photo of the three of them in his motel room. I
think I even saw that very old photo of John and Mary in this episode that appeared in the room where
Sam died in the finale (so no, I could not get the finale entirely out of my mind).
The classic rock and the gorgeous dark look of the show (something I wish they had kept throughout) and
the truly sad and scary woman in white…the destruction of Sam’s happiness in his life with Jess – there
was so much packed in to this first episode that I can’t believe it was under an hour long. Like Swan Song,
there were no wasted scenes. The cinematography was gorgeous. The light and dark on their young faces
(young Jensen, more androgynous than he is now is truly just flat-out beautiful and young Jared smart,
sweet, approachable) and they just seem to UNDERSTAND each other and their characters so well.
I was happy to find out that the finale did not wreck my enjoyment of the first episode I’ve watched since
they said goodbye just over a week ago. Not at all. In a way, they are so much younger here and Sam
and Dean’s story was so different at this point than where it ended up that I did feel a bit like I was
watching a different show than I was last week during the finale, but I could also see all the threads – the
start of all the very Supernatural touches that did carry all the way through. It’s all there and it’s magic.
Maybe the only cure for my Supernatural depression over the finale is – Supernatural itself. I’ve always
turned to this show for relief, distraction from life, to get me through and give me a break and maybe it will
still be able to do that, even when the thing I need saving from is my sadness over this very show’s finale.
I watched the pilot and thought about how they had no idea what this would become. They were just doing
the new job they had been hired to do. They had no idea how incredible it would be and neither did I.
When I first watched it in 2005, I only knew I wanted to watch the next one and I’ve felt that way for 15
years.
