S1 Episode 5: Bloody Mary

Welcome to Episode 5 of Season 1, of the awesome show known as Supernatural! Today, we get to cover a classic theme. Remember back to those good old school days where someone would dare you to stand in front of the mirror in the bathroom? The lights had to be turned off a candle could be lit if necessary. You gaze into the mirror, and say “Bloody Mary” exactly three times. Yeah, we get to cover that today!

This episode of Supernatural actually carries a creepy theme to it and builds upon an urban legend just about every school child has ever heard. A group of teenage girls are at home talking to each other, giggling, and just being general teenagers. One of them dares their friend to go into the bathroom and chant “Bloody Mary” three times. So, the girl does. A jump scare occurs a few seconds after the girl has chanted the mantra only to come out annoyed with her friends scaring her.

As the episode progresses, the father comes to tell the girls to keep it down. He’s annoyed with them, but not to angry. He walks into the bathroom and suddenly begins to start feeling a pain. Blood begins dripping down from his eye and the scene cuts to black. When we see the father’s body again, he’s on the floor dead as a doornail. His eyes have blown out and blood is spread across the floor in a crimson mess.
Sam and Dean find out about the case in the obituary. They go to investigate, and find out the father died from internal bleeding in the brain. His eyes were also nothing but masses of blood leaking out onto the floor at the time of his death. Sam and Dean are puzzled by this and immediately start to investigate. What follows next is a string of murders with “Bloody Mary” causing all of them.

This episode is interesting because it plays on childhood fears. It shows how gullible children can be when it comes to those nightly terrors. Standing in a pitch dark bathroom, and chanting the name of a dead woman to come to you? Not knowing if you’ll see a dark figure reaching out of that mirror to you. Sam and Dean even cover up all reflective surfaces in order to protect the next victim Bloody Mary is going for.

One sad aspect of this episode is that Bloody Mary is actually a spirit. In life she was just a simple girl named Mary who was murdered by a man who had betrayed her. Mary came back to kill the man, and ever since has been murdering people as a vengeful spirit if they “killed” someone else. The girl Sam and Dean protect abandoned her boyfriend when he threatened to kill himself. The boyfriend ended up committing suicide. Mary was so far gone she could not tell the difference between someone deliberately killing in cold blood versus just being connected to an unfortunate death.

There is one scene that is guaranteed to send chills down the spine. Sam is forced to face Bloody Mary alone, and Dean has to fend off some cops who came to investigate the antique store they broke into. Sam is doing his best to fend off Mary and distract her long enough for Dean to come. His eyes start to bleed, but Dean rushes in at the last second. He breaks the mirror, and the brothers believe they have won.

Just as the brothers are turning away, a scene which could have been as easily inspired by the grudge, Mary climbs out of the mirror. The shadows are creeping in, and all you can see behind her is the blackness of the mirror. She has long, tangled lank hair, and goes after the brothers a second time. Sam and Dean eventually fend her off and defeat her a second time. Leaving another town once again the secret heroes no one gives them credit for.

The episode itself is fun to watch. For anyone into urban legends, the writers of the show took it and updated it rather well. You feel sympathy for Mary because she was wronged. At the same time you can’t condone her killing. However, it raises the question, is it morally right to kill a killer? That’s a can of worms best left to higher powers, but you get the point.

It also carries a hint of creepiness to it. While Supernatural is a show about demons, angels, devils, and supernatural creatures all around there is not a lot of truly “scary” moments in the series. “Bloody Mary” definitely takes the cake for creepiness, even if it only is in one scene.

Side Note: For anyone curious, there actually was once a real life “Bloody Mary”. Mary Tudor I was actually the only child of Henry VIII. Mary became Queen of England and Ireland in July 1553 until her death in November of 1558. Mary got her nickname due to her executions of Protestants, and so her opponents coined the term “Bloody Mary.”

The reason Mary executed so many Protestants was because she was trying to restore Catholicism to England. Henry VIII, her father, had already begun the process himself. What is tragic about this tale is that, much like the Mary in the episode, Mary Tudor actually started as a good woman who was actually very kind. She was even lenient during the early part of her reign before she decided it was right to “burn heretics” so they would know what it was like to be in hell.

However, we still don’t recommend you play the Blood Mary game… after all you never know who may come out of mirror!