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Recap of Supernatural
Season 3, Episode 1:
The Magnificent Seven
"He didn't make it."
Dean: I feel good for the first time in a long time. I got a year to live, Sam. I'd like to make the most of it, so what do you say we kill some evil sons of bitches and we raise a little Hell, huh?
Written by Eric Kripke.
Directed by Kim Manners.
Airdate: October 4, 2007.
When the Devil's Gate opened at the end of the previous season, hundreds of demons were released. Sam and Dean team up with a few other hunters to fight off the Seven Deadly Sins.
Body count
For this episode = 9 humans and 3 demons.For the series so far = At least 210 humans, 15 ghosts, 5 demons, 5 vampires, 2 shapeshifters, 2 werewolves, 1 djinn, 1 god, 1 rakshasa, 1 rawhead, 1 shtriga, 1 wendigo, and 1 zombie.
Tropes
- Acceptable Breaks from Reality: Chugging drain cleaner is fatal, but it takes a long time, and would be absolutely agonizing.
- May not apply due to the nature of the Seven Deadly Sins, since they seem to be able to amplify the effect of their respective Sin. (Which would be the only explanation for the condition of the family in the beginning of the episode, who died and decayed way faster than they should have.)
- Action Girl:
- Tamara counts by default as a female hunter. She proves to be pretty formidable when she's angry when she attacks and overpowers Wrath itself, keeping it pinned down long enough for Bobby to exorcise later that night.
- The blonde may or may not be a hunter (it's a little unclear at this point, though she seems to be one) but she is definitely not someone you want to pick a fight with unless you want a knife in your throat. Dean jokes that she fights even better than Sam, as she takes on and kills three powerful demons in under a minute.
- Anthropomorphic Personification: The Seven Deadly Sins are actual living demons that both embody their respective sins and kill humans through it.
- Apathy Killed the Cat: An extreme example. The demon Sloth causes an entire family to sit on the couch and watch TV until they died of dehydration and starvation.
- Bad Guy Bar: The Sins like to hang out together at a local bar, The Old Terminal Pub, that is frequented by them and them alone. Wrath, who lays claim to it as his bar, especially hates it when hunters pay their unwelcome visits. Too bad Isaac and Tamara don't realize any of this until it's too late, which results in Isaac suffering a gruesome death.
Fridge Horror comes into play when one considers what the Sins would do to ordinary citizens coming in. - Battle Couple: Husband-and-wife hunting duo Isaac and Tamara.
- Berserk Button:
- Threatening Tamara is Isaac's.
- Incidentally, killing Isaac turns out to be Tamara's.
- Black Eyes of Evil: Despite their special status as the embodiment of sin, the Sins all have the standard black demon eyes. All seven flash them at Tamara and Isaac at the bar to make the couple realize that everyone other than them in the bar is possessed by a demon.
- Boyish Short Hair: Tamara's 'do is a lot more sensible for ass-kicking than some of the other ladies' on the show.
- Brain Bleach: Sam asks Dean for a knife to gouge his eyes out after he walks in on his brother having sex.
- Compelling Voice: The demons use this to make people kill themselves or others, although it's more of a Compelling Touch.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: The Sins inflict this on Isaac, forcing him to chug drain cleaner out of the cannister. He immediately coughs up his blood and other body organs, now liquified.
- Dead Person Impersonation: Wrath possesses Isaac's corpse to mess with Tamara.
- Depraved Bisexual: Lust makes her interest in both Dean and Tamara obvious. Considering the Seven Deadly Sins' modus operandi, it's probably for the best that she never actually gets to have sex with either of them.
- Deus ex Machina: The mysterious blonde shows up to save Sam's ass from getting choked to death.
- Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Did that girl just kill the Anthropomorphic Personifications of Pride, Gluttony, and Greed?
- Double Standard: Rape, Female on Female: Averted with Lust and Tamara; Lust makes it clear that she wants to do "about a thousand" depravities to the clearly frightened and unwilling Tamara, which is treated as just as despicable and undesirable as if Lust were a male character threatening to assault Tamara.
- Driven to Suicide: Isaac. The family found as rotted corpses might also be an example: they sat down in front of the TV and just never bothered to get up again, eventually dying of starvation and dehydration when they had a fully-stocked kitchen in the next room.
- Dynamic Entry: The blonde woman bursts in, slashes demon throats, banters with Sam, and walks out.
- Establishing Character Moment: The blonde is introduced killing three of the Seven Deadly Sins with a knife, something until then thought impossible, establishing what an Action Girl she is. When Sam asks who she is upon meeting her, she tells him "the girl who just saved your ass", establishing her mysteriousness and snarkiness.
- Evil Laugh: All of the Sins start laughing wildly when Isaac kills himself. It's pretty disturbing to watch.
- Fanservice: Dean's shirtless scene at the beginning of the episode. It was definitely disservice for Sam, though.
- Faux Affably Evil: All the demons (perhaps most notably Envy) are this in droves, acting very chummy with their victims and the hunters while casually threatening/manipulating/killing all of them.
- Forced to Watch: The Sins hold a helpless, screaming Tamara still as she watches her Mind Raped husband chug drain cleaner and cough up his liquefied organs.
- I Have You Now, My Pretty: Downplayed Trope but present in Lust's behavior towards Tamara in the bar scene.
- Interplay of Sex and Violence: Lust plans on torturing Dean after having sex with him, but she is definitely open to the possibility of getting a head-start on that if Dean is into it. Soon reversed when they go from making out to Dean waterboarding Lust with holy water.
- Like You Were Dying: Dean has a year to live, and intends to use it.
- Manipulative Bastard: Dean uses his upcoming damnation to get what he wants out of Sam.
- Mysterious Stranger: The blonde girl, who appears briefly when she starts following Sam around and vanishes into thin air when he turns to see who's behind him. She also arrives and saves him in the episode climax. Adding to the mystery is that she knows who Sam is even though he doesn't know who she is, that demons recognize her, and that she has a knife that can kill demons—and she knows how to use it, as demonstrated when she kills three of the Seven Deadly Sins.
- Primal Scene: Sam walking in on Dean having sex is played exactly like if Dean was his father.
- Seven Deadly Sins
- Shapeshifter Guilt Trip: Wrath possessing Isaac gives one to Tamara when he blamed her for their daughter's death.
- Smug Snake: Pride. Dur.
- Stalker without a Crush: The blonde girl secretly follows Sam on the sidewalk and to the house they're fighting the demons at, taking care to get out of sight when he sense someone tailing him and turns around to check.
- Too Kinky to Torture: Alluded to when Lust, as she seduces Dean, offers to start hurting him now instead of later if he wants her to.
- The Vamp: Lust.
- Wham Line: The bartender confronting Isaac when the latter is about to go capture Envy, which culminates in The Reveal that there is more than one demon in town and they are all in the bar with Isaac and Tamara.Isaac: I'm just hitting the head.The bartender: No. I mean, what do you think you're doing here? [Black Eyes of Evil] I don't like hunters in my bar!
