S02.E06: No Exit

[DittyDotDot]

Sam and Dean investigate the brutal slayings of blond women from the same apartment building and discover that the demon responsible is the ghost of the country's first serial murderer, H. H. Holmes.

[DittyDotDot]

This episode has the opposite effect Simon Said does to me. It's not a particular favorite or anything, but it has risen in my eyes a great deal over the last few years. It could just be the Manners factor, but I think it might be now knowing they changed the direction of Jo and pulling back from her being a love interest for Dean. What I always liked about Jo is the little sister vibe she had with Dean and the young wide-eyed hunter wannabe factor. It makes sense that from time to time they run into folks that idealize the job and think they want to do it. And it makes even more sense to me that they would run into someone who idealizes the job, but still wants to do it even after they learn it's not all it's cracked up to be.

 

Anyway, the things I find weirdly annoying about this episode has never really been because of Jo. I find it weird that they chose to use H.H. Holmes name, but changed up so much about him that I always wonder why they didn't change the name and have him be some version of what H.H. Holmes represented. Plus, it really aggravates me that they are wandering around this apartment building--that presumably other people live in--smashing in walls and pointing their noisy EMF readers all over the place. Not that its really important, but if I'm fixating on this, probably not a good sign is all. I also think the need to have John be the one to have gotten Jo's dad killed was a really unnecessary contrivance, but this show does seem to have an serious need for unnecessary contrivances.

 

I also wish that they hadn't had Sam and Dean suggest that Jo be the bait, but instead have Jo take control of that decision. It would have been a nice bookend to how she was gung-ho to be bait in the beginning thinking it would be fun and glorious, but then in the end understanding how horrifying and horrible it was and still stepping up and making the decision for herself would have been a better way to show Jo growing into the job. But this show being what it is and all, I don't really ever expect them to write good character growth especially with female characters.

 

What does work for me? That scene of Dean and Jo bonding over their daddy issues is really wonderfully played by Jensen. The way he starts by ignoring her question, but then with a little prodding tells the memory and opens up a little more and more until he realizes how pissed he currently is and shuts it all back down again. Nicely played Mr. Ackles, nicely played. Also, I love how Dean is uncomfortable lying. I mean, he's the king of lying liars that lie, but that's only on the job, he hates lying to those he cares about. And I like Dean being Jo's "mentor" and I like how Dean is questioning his former love of the job and what it means now that John is dead and everything has become so personal.

Edited July 11, 2014 by DittyDotDot

[ElleryAnne]

It's not a particular favorite or anything, but it has risen in my eyes a great deal over the last few years.

 

 

That pretty much sums up my feelings on it, too.  When it first aired, I wasn't ready for an episode with so much of Jo, even though I knew that a big part of the reason she had so many scenes in this one was because Jared had to have that wrist surgery after breaking it in Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things.  But at the time it felt like Jo was being pushed too hard too soon.

 

Anyway, as I grew to like Jo more, I grew to like this episode.  

 

I think it might be now knowing they changed the direction of Jo and pulling back from her being a love interest for Dean. What I always liked about Jo is the little sister vibe she had with Dean and the young wide-eyed hunter wannabe factor.

 

 

This.  (Of course, I made that whole thing worse for myself. Back when Jo and Ellen were first introduced, I spent a few episodes thinking there would be a reveal that John was really Jo's father.  Of course, that never ended up being the case, but it always left me feeling like Dean/Jo would be a bit incestuous.  But I love her the way she turned out.)

 

 The scene that makes this episode for me is the knife scene - when Dean offers her a better knife than the "pig-sticker" or whatever he calls her knife, until he realizes it belonged to her father.  It's just a nice moment for the two of them.

 

The actual plot isn't one of the better ones. I agree that having them running around smashing up walls in an inhabited building is just silly.  It does have a couple of scary moments, though, and Jo comes across pretty well, overall.

 

The reveal about John's failure causing Harvelle's death was a letdown, though.  I know John was always meant to be much less than a great guy, but it drives me crazy that they always managed to find ways to make him just a little worse than before.  

Maybe it was practice for how they'd treat Sam and Dean, always giving them little failures that hurt people and chipped away at them.  Dean especially tends to have things in common with John.

[mertensia]

I always find myself rewatchng....and wondering how a dead guy could build secret passageways in a building built after his death. That said his attacks are quite creepy.

Dean and Jo bonding was nice- as was his trying to get her off the path to hunting. It's very in character for him.

[SueB]

Randomly popping in to comment on Random comments and add a few of my own

- Jo thinking she had this wired and getting a big fat does of reality - I really felt for her (truth in advertising - I idolized my dead Dad so I relate to her).

- I was actually glad it was Dean"s idea for the bait because it showed his priority to catch the bad guy AND faith in her. I think Jo pushing the issue would have felt too Mary Sue. I liked Dean essentially putting her back up on the horse.

- I was okay with John putting her Dad out of his misery, works with the harsh reality of hunter life -- which this episode was very focused on. And meant a lot that they worked together in the future despite this past.

- the double walls -- if my knowledge of that kind of architecture is correct, HH Holmes didn't build those walls, that was part for the course back when those buildings were being renovated. There's all kind of weird shit they did back then.

Finally, this episode and 'Born Under A Bad Sign'. provide unintentional foreshadowing retcon opportunity which was well leveraged -- specifically, Jo's Daddy had his guts ripped up by hell Spawn and was holding his own guts in his hands when John theoretically put him out of his misery with a bullet to the brain. Flash forward to Jo sitting on the hardware store floor, holding her own guts in after being ripped up by a Hell Hound...and it's Jo who comes up with the plan to use herself as bait and blow herself up. And of course Dean hands her the trigger mechanism. That was a nice bit of literary parallelism and of course rips out emotional guts out.

As a binge watcher I never felt Jo was forced on us and I was team Jo/Dean. Still am, truth be told.

ETA: I think I made all the fixes but iPad editing stinks -- and autocorrect is a bear.

Edited July 21, 2014 by SueB

[7kstar]

I've never understood this fandom dislike for certain characters, especially the female.  I've always liked Jo, but never saw that she would be a good love interest for Dean at least not in the earlier seasons.  She was too much too innocent and this ep brings out the protective streak in Dean.  She works in this ep really well.

 

There are moments that really shine as others have stated.  I liked that Dean forces her to get back in the game by being bait.  I don't see it as being mean but more like understanding that if she didn't address the fear right then it would cripple her.  I get this from this life experience.

 

I now have a fear of heights I can't over come.  I fell and hurt myself but didn't get back on ladders until much later.  Then I discovered how scared I had come even to the point of not being able to move.  I had a snow skiing accident and fell, yes I know that makes me sound really clumsy but I did get up and ski again and the fear was manageable.  Both are the short versions of the stories.  So I know from personal experience that being pushed to do something you don't want to do is actually kinder than waiting.  So I think it works.

 

There are some parts I wish they had taken a better route, like trying to destroy John seems like a real waste.  What I never could really get is they made John to be heroic only to destroy it at every single turn.  Yes he wasn't a role model for a dad, but they could have left him more complex and made him a much more interesting person.  I guess this is how I view him.  If he really was only awful, I really really doubt that Dean would have worshiped him so much.

[DittyDotDot]

I've never understood this fandom dislike for certain characters, especially the female.  I've always liked Jo, but never saw that she would be a good love interest for Dean at least not in the earlier seasons.  She was too much too innocent and this ep brings out the protective streak in Dean.  She works in this ep really well.

 

To be clear, I don't, not did I ever dislike Jo. I preferred her little sister vibe with Dean, though, than how they seemed to be pushing her as a love interest. Not that I have a problem with Dean having love interests--I loved Lisa--I just thought Jo and Dean weren't the right match, especially at that time. So the things that work better retroactively now is that little sister vibe between them in this episode. The first time I watched it it just seemed a little incestuous, where as in hindsight I can revel more in those really nice daddy-issue moments.

[7kstar]

@DittyDotDot - Just to be clear I'm talking about a generality, not you.  There are certainly many Jo/Dean fans as there are plenty of fanfiction for it.  I didn't get involved until Season 4 and I guess I just didn't see some stuff that those that watched it live did.

 

I do agree that Kripke didn't always know how to introduce some characters but some it really works better after watching it with the entire ep in mind.  This one will never be my fan favorite but I certainly see several things to like.

[DittyDotDot]

Sorry, @7kstar, I didn't mean to imply that you were pointing at me specifically. Just after I read your post, I thought I should clarify my statement above to make it clear that I didn't dislike Jo, just thought they didn't find the right place for her out of the gate. There's actually a lot to like about Jo in this episode if you peel away the love interest angle they seemed to be pushing early on. Jo was our outsider perspective, in this episode, even though she technically was an insider. Yeah, hindsight being 20/20 and all that.

Edited July 22, 2014 by DittyDotDot

[rue721]

I just don't know about this episode.

 

I like Alona Tal, and she always does a good job, but something about Jo just doesn't gel for me. She was great in those scenes in that dungeon place, telling the other girl to be quiet and clutching her knife and all that. And I always like her with Ellen. But when she's with the Winchesters, something just feels off. Maybe when Jo's also on the screen with them, it brings the scenes to that point where there's just too much prettiness going on at once for me to believe that they're all roughnecks, and the show suddenly feels like Zoolander with shotguns? :P

 

I still wish we could have seen more of Ellen and Jo hunting together -- I'd rather have had an episode focusing on the pair of them, than just Jo alone with the guys. Jo doesn't know either of them that well, so the "bonding" moments (or even the big betrayal at the end) don't pack as much of a punch as they maybe should have. Well, anyway.

 

I guess my complaints about this episode are:

-- Didn't like the color scheme. What was with all the red?

-- Boring MotW

-- It felt so slow and claustrophobic. They really needed a storyline outside of that apartment building, to break things up some.

-- Not enough jokes!

 

Good stuff about the episode:

-- Ellen and Jo's fight. (The dialogue is really vivid and fun, imo)

-- The B-plot, about Jo's relationship to her father and with hunting. (Lots of interesting, understated scenes).

-- Jo having so much grit when she got captured. Those scenes won me over w/r/t her as a character.

-- Dean and Ellen's phone calls, especially Dean's obvious lies.

-- The guitar riffs and everyone grinning like idiots when Dean pulls up with the cement truck.

-- That awkward drive back to the roadhouse.

 

So I guess, I didn't especially like the direction or the A-plot, but there was lots of great stuff about the rest of the episode!

[Hanahope]

So watched this episode just after the recent Timeless episode about HH Holmes, so I knew who they were talking about. 

[bettername2come]

Not a huge fan of the mystery of the week. I think an HH Holmes episode could've been better. But they save the victim, they find a creative way to stop the killer and I don't dislike Jo as much as I did the first time around when I really thought they were pushing her as the love interest to Dean. And Ellen, as always, is amazing. The scene where she tells Jo the truth is very well acted. Why isn't Samantha Ferris in more stuff?

[DittyDotDot]

27 minutes ago, bettername2come said:

Why isn't Samantha Ferris in more stuff?

That's a very good question!

[catrox14]

17 minutes ago, DittyDotDot said:

That's a very good question!

She's been pretty busy looking at her IMDB. She has a new series on USA coming up pretty soon.

[Zipper]

I've liked Alona Tal since Veronica Mars, so when I first watched it, I was just happy to see her in something else cool.  I got to pay attention to her performance a bit more this time through, and she did a solid job. The sunshiney part of her welled up a bit too much from time to time, like when she's trying to be a smart aleck it doesn't always land. But she had some good lines where she moderated that brightness, as I think is required of a newly minted hunter with any brains at all.  Clearly, she did the work and showed initiative, so she's no idiot.

Well, the creepy factor hit a lot of buttons for me, so this was fun on the MotW level. Drippy black goo, crazy eyeball looking back through a hole in the wall, grimy hands poking out of vents, scalp-related souvenirs, rotting corpse complete with crawling bugs, and the claustrophobia of it all.  So much NOPE. Several moments where I blinked extra long. 

Ellen and Jo were awesome, both in the initial standoff and their fight. Both actresses nailed the tension, fear, and conflict. I totally get a sibling-ish vibe with Jo and Dean, so I didn't feel any forced pairing of the two-- they can appreciate the pretty, which I think they both do, without it necessarily being a coupling. Although her heavy-handed REO drop on the jukebox made me roll my eyes a bit. It's a high school era song for me, and her acting a little childish about that felt a bit "little sister who flirts with her older brother's friends" vibe. Nothing serious, just flexing the flirt muscles a bit to see if they work on handsome men, not just the dirty ones in camo. 

[hypnotoad]

Quote

HH Holmes didn't build those walls, that was part for the course back when those buildings were being renovated.

I read the book The Devil in the White City (which is excellent by the way) and according to the author, HH Holmes bought the building and then drew up the plans for the renovation to include secret rooms and hallways and so forth.

Overall, I like this episode. I liked most of the interactions with Jo and Dean. The story was sufficiently entertaining though:

Quote

Plus, it really aggravates me that they are wandering around this apartment building--that presumably other people live in--smashing in walls and pointing their noisy EMF readers all over the place.

Completely agree with this!!

[7kstar]

On 9/4/2018 at 5:37 PM, Zipper said:

It's a high school era song for me, and her acting a little childish about that felt a bit "little sister who flirts with her older brother's friends" vibe. Nothing serious, just flexing the flirt muscles a bit to see if they work on handsome men, not just the dirty ones in camo. 

Dean's too jaded to be paired with Jo...if they had made it little sister vibe all the way I don't think the fan base would have been upset with Jo so much.  JMV

[The Companion]

I like Jo, so this episode worked for me but it did feel a little convoluted. I also don't understand how the cement is supposed to keep the spirit trapped. Presumably the spirit can move through the cement if the salt gets disturbed. Also, how did it get the women to the sewers? It dragged them through the walls to an opening we didn't see? Did they just leave the body of the poor third girl? I don't know, I just found the entire thing a little messy after some of the tighter episodes in this season so far. 

[ahrtee]

3 minutes ago, The Companion said:

I like Jo, so this episode worked for me but it did feel a little convoluted. I also don't understand how the cement is supposed to keep the spirit trapped. Presumably the spirit can move through the cement if the salt gets disturbed. Also, how did it get the women to the sewers? It dragged them through the walls to an opening we didn't see? Did they just leave the body of the poor third girl? I don't know, I just found the entire thing a little messy after some of the tighter episodes in this season so far. 

I assumed the cement was to make sure the salt didn't get disturbed.  That's why Jo asked what happens if the salt line is damaged just before the cement truck showed up.  

[The Companion]

16 minutes ago, ahrtee said:

I assumed the cement was to make sure the salt didn't get disturbed.  That's why Jo asked what happens if the salt line is damaged just before the cement truck showed up.  

Right but that assume there is only one way water, etc would get in. 

[ahrtee]

I'd say the water content of the cement would dissolve the salt and it would become part of the cement.  But I don't think the writers were thinking of that.  😊

[Katy M]

On ‎11‎/‎8‎/‎2019 at 12:09 PM, ahrtee said:

I'd say the water content of the cement would dissolve the salt and it would become part of the cement.  But I don't think the writers were thinking of that.  😊

But, then would it still be salt?  Because if it's still salt, I think it works even if it's absorbed into something else.

On ‎11‎/‎8‎/‎2019 at 12:04 PM, The Companion said:

Right but that assume there is only one way water, etc would get in. 

Not if they filled the entire cavern (for lack of a better word) with cement. 

Edited November 11, 2019 by Katy M

[ahrtee]

35 minutes ago, Katy M said:

But, then would it still be salt?  Because if it's still salt, I think it works even if it's absorbed into something else.

Not if they filled the entire cavern (for lack of a better word) with cement. 

It's still salt, and so should still work.  Salt dissolved in water still turns the water salty, doesn't disappear.  (I don't think there was enough cement in that one truck to fill the entire room.)  

Edited November 11, 2019 by ahrtee

[Katy M]

17 minutes ago, ahrtee said:

It's still salt, and so should still work.  Salt dissolved in water still turns the water salty, doesn't disappear.  (I don't think there was enough cement in that one truck to fill the entire room.)  

Well, maybe we just didn't see it, but they drove the truck around to the other side and dumped some cement over there also.  

[The Companion]

2 hours ago, Katy M said:

But, then would it still be salt?  Because if it's still salt, I think it works even if it's absorbed into something else.

Not if they filled the entire cavern (for lack of a better word) with cement. 

I guess so long as the process didn't break the circle.