"Remind me not to piss this girl off."

Episode seven, Hookman, is a strongly standalone episode – entertaining to watch, although without much in the way of ongoing plot movement or character development to recommend it.

The prologue introduces us to Lori, a demure student at East Iowa University, preparing to go out on a date and being egged on by her much more sophisticated and confident roommate, Taylor. Lori's boyfriend Rich drives them out to the remote 9 Mile Road and parks up in expectation of a little fun, whereupon Lori turns off her phone to avoid a call from her Dad, and settles in for some kissing. Kissing, yes, but when Rich clearly wants more, Lori becomes uncomfortable and backs off, leading to disappointment and confusion on Rich's part about the somewhat mixed signals she's broadcasting – and outside the car a tall dark figure with a hook in place of one hand starts dragging said hook across the street sign. Rich, his disappointment swiftly forgotten and replaced by complete lack of common sense, gets out of the car to investigate the noise – and promptly vanishes.

The now terrified Lori very sensibly rolls up the windows and locks herself in, panic-stricken, but then, on hearing more banging and scratching, rather less sensibly gives in to her panic and gets out of the car to make a run for it – only to find Rich's bloody corpse suspended upside down over the car. She screams, loudly and melodramatically.

DEAN: "Your, uh, half-caf, double vanilla latte is gettin' cold over here, Francis."
SAM: "Bite me."
 
Sam and Dean seem to be splashing out on a trip to Starbucks, judging by the sign on the wall behind them as they enjoy the outdoor seating. Dean is working on the laptop, so presumably this is a café with wireless internet they can make use of, while Sam has been using the payphone, leading me to wonder what's happened to his cellphone.

DEAN: "So, anything?"
[SAM shakes his head.]
SAM: "I had 'em check the FBI's Missing Persons Data Bank. No John Does fitting Dad's description. I even ran his plates for traffic violations."
DEAN: "Sam, I'm tellin' ya, I don't think Dad wants to be found."

The search for John continues, although Dean now seems pretty resigned to the fact that John has deliberately gone into hiding without telling them why and that they aren't likely to find him until he wants to be found, while Sam remains desperate to continue the search no matter what. Sam is very tightly wound, frustration levels riding high and way too tense to be healthy, and Dean almost immediately diverts his attention onto a new potential case – Rich's mysterious death. Could be something, could be nothing: as Sam points out, there's not much in the news report he's found to go on as evidence that it was anything supernatural. But, although Dean doesn't actually come out and say so, following it up will give them something tangible to do as a distraction from this increasingly fruitless and frustrating search for their missing father. And Sam, especially, needs that, before he implodes from all that negative emotion he spends most of his downtime brooding over.

What Dean doesn't point out, to his credit, is that the last lead we saw them following up on was at Sam's own insistence because his friend was in trouble, and that Dean went along with it readily enough.

DEAN: "Dad would check it out."

So off they go, and infiltrate Rich's fraternity house with great ease – Sam is, after all, still only a few months away from his past life as a student, and Dean has a way of always acting as though he has every right to be wherever he is, and the sheer bravado of it pays off more often than not. For long enough, at least.

The frat guy painting himself purple is wonderfully random.

FRAT BOY: "Do me a favor? Get my back. Big game today."
DEAN: [pointing to SAM, who glares back at him] "He's the artist. Things he can do with a brush."

Brothers will take any opportunity to wind each another up. Dean, with the advantage of seniority and sheer nerve, tends to manage it more often than Sam, who never fails to rise to his baiting.

Purple Merv is fairly informative once they get him talking, and soon points them in the direction of Lori – as a reverend's daughter, it seems half the guys on campus are after her. Why Dean feels the need to know which church, rather than simply asking to be pointed in the direction of her dorm, I don't know.

It just so happens that there's a church service in process just as Sam and Dean arrive. The conduct of both on entering amuses me – Sam lets the door slam loudly, disturbing the entire congregation, and then has to elbow Dean hard to remind him to bow his head for the prayer. Viewers are left with the distinct impression that church has never exactly been a regular feature in the lives of the Winchester brothers. However, all the fuss does draw Lori's attention in their direction, and she gives Sam a very long look, and he looks back and gives her a weak little smile – this, we are to understand, is the mutual recognition of two kindred spirits, or summat like that.

Outside church after the service, Lori's friend Taylor – who clearly only attended as a show of moral support for her friend, which is actually pretty good of her, since she clearly has no actual interest in church – tries to talk her into skipping dinner with her dad in favour of tequila shots with the girls. Then once Taylor has gone the boys approach. Apart from the whole 'transfer student' thing, they are actually about as honest as they ever get, simply using expressions of sympathy as a way of getting her talking, rather than adopting the usual elaborate cover stories. And Sam even alludes to his experience of Jessica's death as a method of winning her confidence, which draws Dean's attention in his direction for a long, appraising look, because Dean is always ultra aware of Sam's every mood swing and nothing ever gets past him. This is a big brother thing, clearly, because Sam does not reciprocate – when Dean is troubled, it tends to be a toss up whether or not Sam will actually notice.

Reverend Sorensen then approaches and, following another round of introductions Dean turns on the charm and draws him aside to discuss church groups of all things, which is not a conversation he's going to be able to keep up for very long, I suspect. This leaves Sam and Lori alone to talk, seeing as they have so much in common. It doesn't take much probing on Sam's part to get Lori talking about the events of that night, although she's still all confused about what did or didn't happen and what she did or didn't see. Sam treads very gently with her; this is something he is good at.

LORI: "I was so scared, I guess I was seeing things."
SAM: "That doesn't mean it wasn't real."
 
Later, at the library, the brothers discuss Lori's story – it comes across as classic Hook Man, a famous urban legend.

SAM: "Every urban legend has a source. A place where it all began…. maybe the Hook Man isn't a man at all. What if it's some kind of spirit?"
 
Cue research: lots of it, involving very dusty boxes filled with very dusty old paper records dating back a good two hundred years. Watch how the librarian checks Dean out as she hands over the boxes, followed by him checking her backside out as she walks away. Hehe.

DEAN: "So, this is how you spent four good years of your life, huh?"
SAM: "Welcome to higher education."

Four years – the writers are now finally correcting their initial mistake in saying two years in the early episodes, which leaves the canon timeline pretty messed up.

Hours later, Sam finally comes up with something, and about time too, as both boys by now look absolutely bored rigid with reading through musty old records.

SAM: "Hey, check this out. 1862. A preacher named Jacob Kearns was arrested for murder. Looks like he was so angry over the red light district in town that one night he killed 13 prostitutes. Uh, right here, 'some of the deceased were found in their bed, sheets soaked with blood. Others suspended upside down from the limbs of trees as a warning against sins of the flesh.'"
DEAN: [looking at another page] "Get this, the murder weapon? Looks like the preacher lost his hand in an accident. Had it replaced with a silver hook."

The scene of these murders was 9 Mile Road, where young Rich was murdered, so the boys decide to check it out, because trampling all over crime scenes is what they do best.

Meanwhile, Lori's dad drops her off back at her dorm, and takes the opportunity to deliver a mini lecture on temptation and the potential moral dangers of living with a bunch of fellow students. Frustrated, Lori snaps angrily at him that she's a grown up now and can take care of herself, and flounces inside to find Taylor fast asleep in bed. What happened to the wild night she had planned with the girls, the tequila shots and whatnot? She's in bed and asleep before Lori even got home from having dinner with her Dad. So much for that wild student living Reverend Sorensen was warning his daughter about. Anyway, Lori gets changed in the dark so as not to wake Taylor and gets into bed, completely failing to realise the significance of a long scratch in the wall outside their room – and completely failing to notice the Hook Man hiding behind the door…

Out at 9 Mile Road, the boys prepare to investigate the crime scene. Sam is bemused when Dean hands him a shotgun.

SAM: "If it is a spirit, buckshot won't do much good."
DEAN: "Yeah, rock salt."
SAM: "Huh. Salt being a spirit deterrent."

This line was clearly thrown in there for the benefit of viewers who don't hunt ghosts for a living and therefore might not otherwise understand the use of salt in this context, despite the frequent references to the salting and burning of bones throughout the previous episodes.

DEAN: "Yeah. It won't kill 'em. But it'll slow 'em down."
SAM: "That's pretty good. You and Dad think of this?"
DEAN: "I told you. You don't have to be a college graduate to be a genius."

The implication is that this was Dean's very clever idea, although he doesn't quite come out and say so, and the rock salt loaded shotguns are used so frequently throughout the rest of the series it makes you wonder how they ever managed all those years before he thought of it. Might have come in handy a couple of times in previous episodes, too, come to that.

They don't get any actual investigating done, though, instead running smack into a paranoid police officer out patrolling the scene, who, understandably, reacts rather badly to finding two shifty looking characters bearing a shotgun roaming around the scene of a recent grisly murder.

Morning comes, and Lori wakes up to find Taylor very dead in the bed opposite. There is a lot of blood, and the blood has been used to paint the words 'aren't you glad you didn't turn on the light' on the wall opposite. Lori must be a very heavy sleeper to have slept through all that.

Only now leaving the police station, Dean is crowing at his success in talking them both out of trouble, getting away with just a fine – which, presumably, either their fake credit cards will take care of, or they'll just skip town without paying.

DEAN: "I said that you were hunting ghosts and the spirits were repelled by rock salt. You know, typical Hell Week prank."

Heh. Dean lies as easily as he breathes, but always keeps the truth in reserve for the occasions it can be twisted into a defence, safe in the knowledge that no one will believe he is actually telling the truth. General denial and disbelief in the reality of what they do can be a useful weapon, at times.

Their car is there, parked right outside the station. So the cop who arrested them allowed them to drive themselves in? Or called backup to bring their car in for them? I can't see it, somehow. I need an explanation of how the car got there.

However, thus it is that they are right on the spot when whole hordes of police go haring off at speed in response to the latest murder, very neatly alerting them to it.

Sitting in an ambulance all traumatised, Lori is not so traumatised that she doesn't notice Sam and Dean driving past amid the frenzy of police activity and the many gawkers hanging around, before her father talks the sheriff into letting him take her home.

Dean never seems to lock his car when he parks it. Random observation. Creeping covertly up to the sorority building, he is very easily distracted by the scantily clad girls wandering around in various states of distress over the gruesome murder of their sorority sister.

DEAN: "Dude, sorority girls! Think we'll see a naked pillow fight?"

While keeping eyes peeled for either cops or naked sorority girls, Dean gives Sam – who, remember, is several inches taller than him – a leg-up to climb on to the balcony. Sam then completely fails to offer any assistance at all in return, so Dean climbs up all by himself; a tiny, snapshot moment that completely encapsulates the dynamic between the two brothers. They then scramble through a window into Lori's room, Dean apparently landing on top of Sam judging by the comments that come floating back out of the window after them.

DEAN: "Oh, sorry!"
SAM: "Hey, be quiet."
DEAN: "Me be quiet? You be quiet!"
 
Dean closes the window after them, which amuses me, since they found it open. The strong smell of ozone in the room confirms that they are dealing with a spirit, while the symbol painted onto the wall in blood beneath the words confirms that the spirit is that of Jacob Kearns. So, they have to find his grave, and salt and burn his remains – except that nothing is ever that simple. Jacob Kearns was buried in an unmarked grave after his execution, so finding it isn't going to be easy. Predicting where he's likely to strike next isn't going to be easy, either, although both murders so far have been connected to Lori, which gives them a place to start.

Mid-conversation as they return to the car, Dean finds a parking ticket on his windscreen, pulls it off and looks at it, but makes no comment – very random, and presumably that's just another fine that will either never be paid, or will be picked up by fake credit card. Never staying in one place long enough to put down roots has its advantages and allows carelessness about such trivial matters as parking regulations.

The next scene finds the boys at a party, for absolutely no apparent reason, although Dean seems to be enjoying it immensely.

DEAN: "Man, you've been holding out on me. This college thing is awesome!" [He winks and smiles at a passing girl.]
SAM [considerably less at ease]: "This wasn't really my experience."
DEAN: "Let me guess. Libraries, studying, straight A's? [SAM nods.] What a geek."

Hehe. We saw Sam at a party in the pilot, but it was Jessica that dragged him there, and although they seemed to have fun being there together, he wasn't exactly the life and soul. Sam is just too serious-minded to be a real party animal. And when he's on a case and committed to it, he really is completely focused: no distractions, no sidetracking. He's all business and mixing that business with pleasure isn't something that comes naturally to him. He's been continuing the research, and has come up with a string of potential Hook Man murders at random times in the past, always connected to men of religion.

SAM: "You know how a poltergeist can haunt a person instead of a place?"
DEAN: "Yeah, the spirit latches onto the reverend's repressed emotions, feeds off them, yeah, okay."
SAM: "Without the reverend ever even knowing it."
DEAN: "Either way, you should keep an eye on Lori tonight." [SAM nods.]
SAM: "What about you?"
[DEAN looks at an attractive blonde smiling at him by the pool table.]
DEAN: [reluctantly] "I'm gonna go see if I can find that unmarked grave."
[He looks at the blonde again, shakes his head in disappointment, and walks away.]

Heh. Dean does know how to mix business with pleasure and is generally more than willing to do so, but despite his seeming reluctance here, he always puts the job first. The salting and burning of bones to destroy a malevolent spirit before it can kill again wins hands down over the lure of the party and pretty girls therein.

At the cemetery, Jacob Kearns' unmarked grave proves remarkably easy to find – and not exactly unmarked, either. His name isn't on the headstone, it is true, but he does have a headstone, inscribed with the strange symbol seen previously on the wall and on the decoration of his silver hook, as illustrated in one of the records the boys found. That's not what I call unmarked. Plus, I've wandered around a cemetery in search of a grave I didn't know the location of – a grave that had a properly marked headstone, too – and it was impossible to find. Cemeteries tend to be sprawling, overgrown places, with headstones quickly becoming worn down and covered with lichen, almost if not completely illegible, especially the very old graves where loved ones have long since ceased to maintain them. This cemetery must be pretty small for Dean to find the grave he was looking for so easily, and at night, as well, and the headstone is in remarkably good condition considering its age.

On finding the appropriate grave, Dean proceeds to get all hot, tired and sweaty digging down to the coffin within, which may not be much fun for him, but is hugely enjoyable for viewers. That grey t-shirt he's wearing here makes numerous appearances throughout the series, and is put through an awful lot, yet always seems to survive to be worn another day. Since the boys live out of the car, spotting how often they re-wear the same outfits is great fun, while the fact that they do wear the same clothes over and over adds great believability to their situation.

Dean then smashes the coffin open to reveal the bones of Jacob Kearns, pours rock salt and accelerant over them, and drops a lighted match inside. Seven episodes into the series, and we have our first glimpse of actual salting and burning of bones, as has been talked about since the pilot but never actually seen as yet.

Kinda makes you wonder what the authorities would think on discovering a hundred and fifty year old grave desecrated like that, all dug up and burned out.

DEAN: "That's it. Next time, I get to watch the cute girl's house."

Sam, meanwhile, is playing stalker, hanging around Lori's house watching as she and her father have a blazing row inside. Lori sees him, since he isn't exactly hiding, and comes sneaking outside to talk – not the slightest bit freaked out about this guy she only just met hanging around outside her house. She seems a bit too calm about her boyfriend and friend's recent gory murders, as well, but is, apparently, very taken with Sam and confides in him freely.

LORI: "It's like I'm cursed or something. People around me keep dying."
SAM: "I think I know how you feel."
 
Again with the kindred spirits thing, although Sam's experiences are very different than Lori's. He has no actual memory of his mother's death in his nursery – only the knowledge that it happened and is the reason he never had a Mom growing up. Jessica's was the only death he really experienced, up close and personal.

Lori seems more angry than upset about the impact recent events have had on her life – she's a confused young woman, and lets off a little steam to Sam, telling him she just found out her father is having an affair with a married woman, this after everything he's taught her about morality.

LORI: "But he taught me, raised me to believe that if you do something wrong you will get punished. I just don't know what to think anymore."
 
She reaches out to Sam for comfort, and, although he doesn't seem entirely comfortable, he hugs her and they kiss – but Sam pulls back very quickly. He just can't do it; it's too soon.

SAM: "Lori, I can't."
LORI: "That someone you lost? I'm sorry."

Plus, I'd have thought, getting involved with someone at the centre of an investigation probably wouldn't be the smartest of moves, anyway.

Lori's Dad then comes to the door to call her inside, and she reacts angrily, only for her anger to turn to horror as the Hook Man appears behind him, plunging the hook into his shoulder and hauling him inside, slamming the door shut.

In the absence of Dean, who generally takes care of the action hero duties, Sam leaps into action, pulling out the shotgun and racing into the house at speed. A few shots with the rock salt are enough to dispel the spirit – for now – and Lori's Dad is saved, albeit already badly injured. I'm amazed he survived long enough to be rescued, though, given how quickly Rich was murdered, while Taylor's murder was very silent, but here the reverend was able to shout and holler tremendously while Sam was sprinting upstairs after him. Hook Man is not terribly consistent, it seems.

At the hospital, Lori hovers at her father's beside while Sam answers police questions, all 'yes, sir, no, sir' wide-eyed innocence, although the sheriff doesn't seem entirely convinced. Dean then joins him, and his first question is "you okay?" Because checking on Sam's well-being is always Dean's first priority, even when Sam is so clearly uninjured. Walking out of the hospital, and therefore having to be careful about being overheard, since there are cops all around, they have a fiercely hissed conversation about what exactly is going wrong with this case. It seems pretty clear that it is Lori herself that Kearns is latching onto, not her father.

DEAN: "Remind me not to piss this girl off."

But Dean salted and burned everything in the coffin, and the spirit of Kearns is still active – so the boys realise that his silver hook wasn't buried with him, and his spirit is probably still clinging to that.

SAM: "So if we find the hook..."
SAM and DEAN [in unison]: "We stop the Hook Man."
 
When they speak in unison like that, it's so much cuter than it should be.

Cue more research to find out what happened to the hook. Apparently, it was donated to the church following his execution – the same church where Lori's father preaches and where she lives, which explains a lot.

SAM: "Yeah, but if the hook were at the church or Lori's house, don't you think someone might've seen it? I mean, a bloodstained, silver-handled hook?"
 
Ah, Sam. Usually so good at the research, but amazingly short-sighted here. As if the hook would have been left in its bloodstained, murder-weapon condition for all this time. It was re-forged, and into what is not specified – which means finding it is going to be very difficult.

DEAN: "All right, we can't take any chances. Anything silver goes in the fire."

They have to break into the house and church and search them both for absolutely anything made of silver, which is then salted and burned in a fire Dean sets up in some kind of furnace down in the cellar. I can't help wondering now just what the church officials will make of that when they find all their silver missing…

Hearing someone move around upstairs and suspecting the Hook Man, Dean automatically takes the lead to go and investigate, shotgun in hand. He generally does: his prerogative to go first into potential danger. But it's only Lori, all upset and confused over what's happening, so Dean leaves Sam to talk to her, since they have that bond of mutual anguish over the deaths of people close to them, and heads back down to tend his fire and finish melting down all the silver they've collected.

Lori is blaming herself for everything that's been happening, and although Sam tries to reassure her, she's actually part right. The spirit of Jacob Kearns has been doing the killing, and that isn't her fault – but he has been using her and her conflicted emotions to select his victims. Lori is finally properly emotional, having bottled everything up until now, and has decided that she's the one to blame, and that she's the one that should be punished – which is, of course, a potentially fatal thing to say or even think with the murderous spirit of Jacob Kearns still hanging around.

Sure enough, the Hook Man appears and starts to swipe at them both, which seems a little unfair and a shift from his usual MO – he hasn't previously attacked bystanders, instead simply taking out his target. But things are different now – Sam and Dean are actively disposing of his remains, which has got to have made an impression on him, plus Sam is defending Lori here. So Kearns simplifies things by chasing and trying to attack both Lori and Sam. They run and duck and try to hide, and Sam gets slashed painfully across the arm, before Lori is dragged – bloodlessly – across the room, and when Sam chases after her he is knocked flying into a bookcase, which crashes down on top of him. He'll be stiff as anything in the morning after all that.

The Hook Man advances on Lori, but then Dean comes sprinting back into the church in the nick of time to fire a shotgun full of rock salt at the spirit, dispelling it – for now. All agitated and with adrenaline pumping hard, the brothers yell at each other that they thought they'd got all the silver and don't understand why the spirit is still active. But then Sam notices the silver cross Lori wears on a chain around her neck – it was a church heirloom her father gave her when she started school.

If the cross and chain belong to the church not to him personally, surely he had no right to give them away like that.

Scratching on the wall clearly indicates that Kearns is on his way back once more, so Sam and Dean do a very neat swap – Sam tossing Dean the chain while Dean tosses Sam the shotgun. Lori just sits there, apparently frozen to the spot, while Dean sprints back downstairs to toss the chain into his furnace and Sam frantically reloads the shotgun and tries to defend both himself and Lori. The gun doesn't do him much good, though, as Kearns knocks it out of his hand before he can fire, and the chain seems to take forever to melt in the furnace while the two of them cower, defenceless, as Kearns prepares to strike…

But then, finally, the cross melts and so does the Hook Man. Considering the amount of silver or faux-silver items stuffed into it, that must be one fiery furnace to get it all melted down properly. Sam and Lori remember to breathe again and, once he's come sprinting all the way back upstairs once more to check that the spirit was destroyed in time to save them, so does Dean.

Morning comes, and brings with it more ambulances and police and, while the paramedics treat Lori for shock, and dress Sam's injured arm, Dean is left to deal with the cops. And, again, he uses the closest version of the truth that he can as his defence, the same story that Sam used after the attack on the reverend – they were attacked by the same mysterious man with a hook that previously attacked the reverend, they fought him off, they didn't see where he went, yes they all saw him, no they didn't get a clear description, and so on. The long-suffering sheriff knows perfectly well he isn't getting the full story, but he can't prove it, so has to settle for making it clear that the Winchester brothers have worn out their welcome in town. Dean's weary resignation implies that this is a regular occurrence. Saving the good townsfolk from things that go bump in the night (and that no one actually believes in) is not a profession that ever gains them much in the way of recognition or gratitude for the dangers they face.

Getting into the car, Dean then looks thoughtful as he watches Sam saying goodbye to Lori, holding her hand – he doesn't really know what's been going on between them, but he can see that there is an attraction there, and even goes so far as to suggest to Sam that they could stay, in spite of what the sheriff said. He wants very much to see Sam recovering and moving on from his grief over Jessica. But is it clear that Sam isn't ready for that yet – there was an attraction between him and Lori, but he seems more disturbed by it than anything. He just isn't ready for anything more.

So off they drive.


August 2006

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