Have you ever wished to visit a haunted asylum? To linger in the very halls where so many of the insane suffered? Well, Sam and Dean take a trip into the dark depths of an abandoned asylum on this new hunt!
This episode of Supernatural is well thought out. It starts out pretty normal. A pair of adventurous teenagers decides to break into an asylum. They use bolt cutters to get through a pair of double doors where a riot had taken place in the past. As a police cruiser pulls up both police officers comment about how they have to check the asylum again. Obviously, it’s a common occurrence as the officers casually walk through the asylum searching for the wayward teens.
The teens are eventually found and told to leave the premises. As the officers are coming back, the younger of the two is acting strangely. Once the younger officer is back in the car a small line of blood trickles down from his nose. After he returns home, the officer is still acting very strangely. He doesn’t respond when his wife starts teasing him and telling him she’s sorry for their argument earlier. A few seconds later the officer kills his wife and then himself.
What makes this episode so interesting is the serious nature it carries. In past episodes of the first season, there is an easy humor, Sam, and Dean go out to kill the monsters, and they move on to the next case. In this episode, the villain is not so clear cut. At first the viewer is led to believe that it’s the deceased inmates who are the bad guys. Sam even goes so far as to register for a therapy session to talk to the son of the doctor who used to run the local asylum. It’s implied Sam stays for the entire therapy session talking about his problems with Dean and their unplanned “road-trip” they’ve been having. When Sam walks out, he appears visibly stressed and tells Dean about the riot that took place at the asylum.
The inmates had risen and taken over the asylum. Ironically, some bodies were never found after the riot took place. One of those bodies happened to be that of the infamous doctor who used to run the asylum. Sam and Dean go to investigate, and in the process run into a teenage couple who had been in the asylum as well. The boy accidentally mistook a ghost as his girlfriend and had kissed her. Only to hear his girlfriend calling for him down the hall. When he looked at the ghost, she backed away revealing a scarred face. The boy screams, and makes a mad dash for it.
As Sam and Dean continue to search through the asylum, Sam notices something odd. He points out to Dean the ghosts do not seem to want to harm them. Dean is skeptical but agrees to split up to look for clues. This is where the twist comes into play. Dean finds a journal with details about the illegal experiments the infamous doctor was doing to his inmates. He also finds out the doctor has a hidden room in the asylum where he performed his experiments.
Sam gets a call on his cellphone, and Dean’s scratchy voice answers he’s in the basement. Concerned, Sam goes down to the basement only to be attacked by a ghost. Dean appears a few minutes later looking for his brother. He talks to the teens, but after finding out his brother was called quickly hurries down to the basement himself.
Dean finds Sam standing alone in the basement. Dean immediately knows something is off. He goes in search of the secret room but is attacked by Sam. Crazy with rage over what the doctor has done to him Sam starts bringing out all the skeletons in his closet. Mocking Dean for always following their father, and how Dean doesn’t have a mind of his own but Sam does. Sam even goes so far to shoot Dean with a gun filled with rock salt. The blast sends Dean through a wall and makes him fall flat on his back.
After mocking Dean for a few minutes, Dean offers Sam a loaded gun. Stating real bullets will kill him a lot better than rock salt. Sam hesitates for a few precious second but pulls the trigger. Only to hear the hammer fall back with a loud click since the gun was unloaded all along. Dean uses Sam’s surprise to knock him out before continuing his investigation. He ends up finding the doctor’s remains shoved into a filing cabinet.
Just as Dean is getting ready to torch the doctor’s corpse, the ghost ambushes him. Applying electroshock to Dean’s face as the ghost mutters about making Dean all better. Sam ends up being the one who comes to the rescue. Torching the infamous doctor’s corpse and saving the day. As the brothers are leaving Sam tells Dean he didn’t mean anything that was said while they were in the asylum. Dean doesn’t respond, and when asked if he wants to talk about it declines.
The episode ends with Sam answering his cell phone. He sits up and realizes it’s his father before the episode ends.
This Supernatural episode contains a good moral lesson to it. In fact, you get two gems for the price of one! Dean mentions to the teenage girl that she should pay attention the next time she watches a horror movie. That if someone mentions if a building is haunted, and not to go inside it.
Another excellent lesson to take from this episode is that the monsters may not always look scary. In this case, the doctor was the bad guy. Practicing illegal procedures on helpless patients entrusted to his care. If nothing else, this is certainly a very thought-provoking episode.