Supernatural Review: Season 1 Episode 7 "Hook Man"

By: John Shiban

**Spoilers**

If you have not yet watched this episode, please go and do so before proceeding

         Beware of drinking and driving. Beware of lying and hypocrisy. Beware of fornication. If you should engage in any of these activities, beware...the Hook Man waits for you! Or at least he will if you have a prudish friend who is also religious and rebellious and secretly thinks you deserve to be punished for your sin. It's the little things in life!

       Yeah, this episode sort of lays it on thick with some of the religious commentary. Not that that's necessarily a bad thing, mind. One of the delightful things about this show is its treatment of the religious elements. It makes fun of the more ridiculous peccadilloes man has dreamed up, satires the stuff that everybody knows about, and then treats the serious issues with the utmost respect. It's funny, sarcastic, and yet manages to still keep the focus where it should be. Some people might be offended by some of the reinterpretation of things, but I choose not to be. For a secular show, they get so many things right and do a darn good job of dealing with the issues that arise from using that mythology. It's the perfect balance of irreverent humour and solemn respect. 

       That being said, if you don't like that sort of thing then this episode definitely isn't for you. A girl named Lori is the daughter of a pastor who, due to her confusion and anger about discovering her father having an affair, inadvertently summons the Hook Man, the spirit of a deceased reverend-turned-vigilante who kept up with his 'thinning out the goats' practice even after death. Once called up, the ghost sets about taking out all of the individuals in Lori's life that she subconsciously believes are sinning and need to be punished. He takes out the boyfriend who pushed a bit too hard on a date, the best friend who slept around and pressured Lori to loosen up and do the same, and nearly killed Lori's wayward father before Sam and Dean came in to save the day.

Favorite Moments & Random Thoughts:



- One question...did the Hook Man dragging his hook through those road signs in the beginning serve some sort of purpose, or was he just flexing his muscles after so many years in whatever prison his spirit had been chained?

- At least the girl (Lori) for once did the smart thing and locked herself into the car rather than going out to investigate.

- "Your half-caf double vanilla latte is getting cold over here, Frances." Somehow it makes me feel like laughing to hear that Sam has a very specific taste in coffee...and of course Dean teases him mercilessly about it. Also, was Sam using a payphone in this scene? I wasn't even aware those still existed in America!

- And I'm calling foul on Dean's ability to pull off the fraternity brother from out of town thing. I'm no expert on this sort of group, but aren't there usually passwords and things to identify a faker?

- It is funny, though, how this is the only episode where Sam and Dean infiltrate a school or university as students. The kid who ends up being their roommate makes me crack up. All that body paint he's wearing (and that Dean volunteers Sam to help put on his back) makes him look like he belongs in a 90's Kool-Aid commercial!

- I snickered aloud whenever Dean accidentally slammed the church door during the memorial service. Bad form, Winchester! Bad form!

- The sermon that the pastor gives about mourning and channeling your grief into something productive (i.e. protecting your children) is quite beautiful. Shame it's ruined by our finding out that he's a lying, scummy hypocrite who is destroying his daughter's faith by having an affair with a married woman from the congregation.



- And of course Sam pulls out the puppy-dog eyes again as he and Dean try to covertly gather some intel from Lori. I swear that boy was made with 'good cop' in mind! It works, though, and Lori seemingly has little issue with spilling the most traumatic experience of her life to two young men she's never met before in her life. Maybe it was the puppy-dog eyes combined with the soulful look she and Sam traded in the church.

- I am ashamed to admit that, before seeing this episode, I had actually never heard of the Hook Man legend...so I'm not entirely certain that I buy the idea that it's the most famous urban legend from rural America. It is interesting, though, that Dean brings up the idea that Hook Man, Bloody Mary, and the rest might be the only ones of their kind, but legends spread out from point zero and take a life of their own. It's comforting to know that they 'ganked' the original Hook Man, then. I'd hate to have to lay in bed dreaming about what would happen if he immigrated to my backyard.

- Would a campus library really have arrest records stored on paper all the way back to 1851? Surely that all would have been discarded or transferred to electronic by this point? On the flip side of that, I really want to know what line they fed that librarian in order to get access to the boxes.

- Personally I'm getting a bit tired of the oppressive and yet hypocritical parent who just doesn't understand their free-spirited and enlightened child trope so prevalent in media today. It kind of makes it hard for me to feel sorry for either Lori or her father whenever they're having their spats.

- "Aren't you glad you didn't turn on the light?" Oh. My! Does that mean he was in there murdering Lori's room-mate while Lori lay sleeping?!

- He had to have killed her after Lori came home...because whenever she looked at her room-mate and decided not to turn on the light, Taylor wasn't lying in a pool of her own blood. Which begs the disturbing question of how on earth did Hook Man kill her without her screams waking Lori up?

- Here's a little tidbit that I found interesting...the idea of filling up shotgun shells came from Dean after Sam left for college. That's right, high-school drop-out, self-declared grunt Dean Winchester came up with the remarkably effective and incredibly simple-to-carry-out idea that no other hunter (not even John) had thought of before. Just something about Dean and also the timeline of hunting techniques.

- That marshal or whatever he was that forced Sam and Dean down into the dirt was a bit overzealous. C'mon, officer, these two don't scream 'dangerous psychopaths'! Apparently his fellow officers thought so too, given that Dean was able to feed them some cock-and-bull story about hazing and hell-week and they let Sam go with a minor fine. Only a Winchester can make an insult (Dean's story was that Sam was a dumb freshman) end up being the equivalent of a hug.

- I cracked up whenever I saw Lori sitting in the back of that ambulance with the shock blanket around her shoulders, really I did. Even though (sadly) it wasn't orange.

- Also, I know the writers were trying to form a little romance between Sam and Lori in this episode (although Sam, still grieving and brooding, won't go through with it) but I never really felt the connection or chemistry. Actually, the scene where she meets Sam's eyes at the sorority house crime scene always felt a little bit creepy. Like...if I saw a guy who had arrived in town just as the murders connected to me started and had been poking his nose around and (it looks like) stalking me...I might need a second shock blanket and a nice long conversation with a police officer. I know I joked earlier about the officer who arrested Sam and Dean for messing around with a rifle, but I seriously can see how they ended up on the FBI's Most Wanted list.

- "Dude...sorority girls. Think we'll see a naked pillow fight?" And now we know where Dean's priorities lie...

- I love Sam's indignant squawk whenever Dean dives in through the sorority house window after him. Somehow I'm seeing a brotherly dog-pile right now...

- It's a little bit scary just how well Dean manages to fit into the college experience life. Much as he claims to be disgusted by Sam going to the library instead of parties during his four years at Stanford (we all know he's proud of the straight-A's, really) and pretends to be an ignorant brawn, I think Dean would have done well, given the chance. It just kind of makes you feel the tragedy of the Winchester's life all the more strongly.

- Okay. So I remember disliking Lori quite a bit back whenever I first watched this episode. No it wasn't because she was getting close and cozy with Sam (though I don't like how the writers handled that). No...it was just a combination of her rebellious/whiny personality (plus daddy issues, naturally) and the fact that, despite her relatable crisis of faith, she just felt very bland.

- So it turns out that this spirit isn't attached to the place he died, his body, or the thing closest to him when he was killed. He's attached to his beloved silver hook (the one he used to murder all of those prostitutes and gain a death sentence). Ghosthunting is hard since you never know just what the spirit may actually be tied to or when it's going to pop up and throw you around the room.

-  The climax was pretty good, with Dean desperately searching for the right item to burn and Sam protecting the damsel in distress. Not as good as another episode using this particular format will be, though...

- It's a shame that all of that melted silver went to waste. It was purified...why couldn't Sam and Dean gather it up to cast into bullets? Silver isn't exactly cheap, after all. But maybe they draw the line at stealing from churches...

              This episode was okay. Not great, not terrible, just okay. It honestly didn't leave that big of an impact on me (I certainly remember it less than the bugs one) but it wasn't bad either. Sure the religious commentary was a bit heavy in places and there were lots of clichés to the characters that I would swear come straight out of Uncle Walt's world, but overall it had a lot of atmosphere and plenty of fun scenes with Sam and Dean. Those two brothers are like the Merlin and Arthur of this show...an episode can be sub-par, but they'll make their parts work! Hook Man is a 2/5.



What did you think? Do you agree with my rating? If not - what would you say differently?