Reaper: Recap of Episode 1.01
To Beck’s Devil’s Haircut [haha! get it!], Sam rises from bed and runs through that classic screen device, the musical montage. In this case, it’s a “morning ritual” montage featuring Sam’s getting ready along with the added touches of quick shots of the detritus of boyhood strewn about his room –knight figure, unframed posters on the wall, and lucha masks as decor. Then, of course, follows the steam-obscured shower shot, the close up of the name plate being placed haphazardly and crooked on his shirt, and the apron pulled over and tied on, while in front of the mirror.
As the music fades out, the montage ends with Sam’s going down the stairs where Mom and Dad are discussing something in moderately tense tones. To Dad’s inquiry about being up so early, Sam replies that he has a meeting. Dad wishes him a happy birthday. His mother, visibly nervous, and seemingly, at times, on the verge of tears, hugs Sam. She wishes him a wonderful day, “no matter what happens.”
Confused by his mother’s odd, and seemingly inexplicable behavior, Sam continues to the kitchen, where his younger brother immediately begins hazing him about his worthless life. Mom tells Kyle to leave his brother alone. As his brother goes on in the background, Sam overhears the TV news story of a suspicious fire that broke out the night before. Sam is visibly drawn into the report.
Broken out of his trance by Kyle’s smacking him on the back of the head. Sam immediately asks him if that was an envelope from Stanford that he saw, yesterday. This, of course, piques their parents’ interest. “You heard from Stanford?” His parents, obviously having much higher expectations for Kyle than for Sam, he is forced to tell them that it was a rejection letter. Sam feigns disappointment. Kyle tries to deflect back on Sam, reminding them that he didn’t even go to college. Mom defends Sam, saying that he did go. Kyle comments that it was only for a month, to which Mom says that they’re proud that Sam tried, and that college made him sleepy.
At this point, Sam’s best friend, Sock, walks into the house, and immediately, and evidently instinctively, joins in. He tells Kyle not to sweat Stanford, “Heard it’s only the fourth best university in the U.S. Is that right?”
Sam’s dad asks what the boys are going to do for his birthday. All along, his inquisitiveness about how GREAT of a time they’re going to have seems to go fit, strangely, with Sam’s mother’s near emotional breakdown. Sock tells them they should get a car, get some smack, and kill a hooker in Vegas. At this, Sam’s mother loses all control and rushes out of the room in tears. Sock, in a feeble gesture, ensures everyone that he would never kill a hooker in Vegas.
As they arrive in the parking lot of the Work Bench home center, Sock informs Sam that he needs to prepare for some serious alcohol poisoning, that evening. He recommends “puke-resistant” clothing. As they discuss the evening, and whether remaining at the Work Bench for years to come is a good idea, a terrier begins jumping up, barking at the boys through the passenger window of the car. After a few times of this, and dismissing Sam’s insistence that he exit on the driver side, Sock swiftly opens his car door, obviously, though not visibly on screen, hurting the dog. Dog whimpering immediately follows.
Walking across the parking lot, Sock is arguing to Sam that he should “ask her out.” Sam says that “the door is closed. We’re just friends.” He also says that he can’t just jump in after her dad died. Sock, “That was two years ago, Man.” Sock argues that she digs him, she’s hot, and she works “here”, what should that tell him. “She has low standards.” Exactly.
As Sock walks into the store, a shopping cart seems to pull up and stop behind Sam. As he reaches out to grab it, it continues as if repelled from by his grasp.
Sam and Sock saunter slowly into the staff meeting already in session. The manager greets them and chides them for arriving 15 minutes late.
Sam takes the seat next to Andi, who wishes him a happy birthday. Sam says, “Thank you.” Andi replies, “You won’t be thanking me tonight, when I’m hazing you like a sorority chick at your shindig.” This draws the attention of Ben, who is sitting on Sam’s other side. He jokes that they’re disturbing him as he’s “trying to hear Ted’s important lecture.”
Ted is now pointing to a chart, and says that everyone is doing great in the sales contest, except for “a select few who feel their time is better spent constructing beer bongs.” Camera goes to Sock, reclining in the back. Sock explains that he’s “biding his time, like a snake, waiting to pounce.” The manager responds that he makes no sense at all. He explains that the store is having a sales contest, the winner receives a spiral cut ham! “I’m Jewish!”, comes from the back. “Or a gift card for our Semitic and Muslim employees.”
As everyone else disperses, Andi gives Sam a birthday present in a small, manila envelope. She stops his opening it, and says she suffers from gift-giving anxiety. He puts it away.
Sam asks Andi what she’s doing Saturday, obviously –to us, not to her- prepping to ask her on a date. When she responds that she’ll be studying, Sam stumbles and doesn’t regain his momentum. Missed opportunity.
Out on the floor at the Work Bench, Sam is mesmerized by the images of fire on the multiple TVs around him. Ted comes over to him, and informs him that he doesn’t pay him to watch television… and that his name tag’s crooked. He informs him that he should work on his sales figures. “It’s not just about ham, it’s about self-respect.” He tells him that his attitude isn’t going to cut it, and that he’s on notice.
Sock comes over. Of course Sock tells him, “So what? I live on notice.”
Suddenly, an air conditioner falls from a forklift right over Andi. Sam leaps over, seemingly pushing it away, and lands on a stack of paper towels. Sock is glee stricken. Andi and Sam both look around in disbelief.
Sam and Sock hurry through the door to the back room, Sock going on loudly about the feat. Sam tells him that he didn’t touch it. As Sam paces telling his perspective on what had happened, Sock grabs a gallon jug from a shelf and pelts Sam in the face with it. “You were supposed to move that with your mind!”
Andi, then, finds Sam draped over a toilet display. She thinks the welt on his forehead is because of her. He tells her it was because of Sock. She tells him he was very brave and thanks him. She pulls a packet from a display hook and puts it on Sam’s head, seemingly to sooth it. This is an obvious turning point in Sam’s “pursuit” of Andi. As he again begins to ask her out on Saturday, her eyes are drawn away from him and to something down the aisle –a pack of snarling dogs. He tells her to go, then they take off after him. Sock rescues him, wearing goggles, and wielding a leaf blower.
Sam tosses his apron at a co-worker, and tells him he’s going home “sick”.
Sam’s driving, when, suddenly a strange man appears in his back seat. He asks how he liked what happened with the air conditioner –his gift to him. Sam thinks he’s being car-jacked. The man jokes that there’s no way… maybe, if it were an Escalade. Sam goes on about how he can have the car. The man can’t convince him. The man ensures him that he’s not a car-jacker; he’s the devil; and, “Your name tag’s crooked.” Sam crashes into a dumpster (box). Sam climbs out of the car, looks in the back, and sees no one back there. Stunned, he ignores a woman’s offer for help.
Back from commercial, the camera focuses on Sam’s house, then a close-up of his house number –667. Sam staggers into the house, and his dad calls him into the living room. Sam explains that he thinks he’s going insane. “Got chased by a pack of dogs; moved and air conditioner with my mind. Oh, and, uh, the devil tried to car jack me, so, overall, not a great day.”
Sam’s dad tells him to sit, and tells him, “Before you were born, your mom and I… sold your soul to the devil.” “What?” “I was really, really sick.” The devil came and offered a cure. “In return, we had to give him our first born’s soul when he turned 21. [We] thought, ‘No problem. We just won’t have kids. Right?’ Then, a year later, Dr. Burke told us we were infertile. We thought, ‘Great!’”
He tells him that Dr. Burke had a gambling problem. The devil paid it off, and all he had to do was tell one little lie. “Next thing you know we’re pregnant.” It was actually very touching.
Out that night, Sam is slamming down a row of shots. Sock’s ex-girlfriend calls for more for Sam. She and Sock bicker. Sam asks Sock to go to the restroom with him. There, he tells him about his parents’ selling his soul. Sock is jealous. “You lucky bastard!” “What!” “Nothing cool like that ever happens to me, Man.” He explains that this is the change that he’d been wanting. He has special powers, and he can get Andi.
Suddenly back in his bedroom, Sam shuts the door, and pulls out Andi’s present. He opens it to find a bracelet with Sanskrit on it. He leans back on his bed, as pensive music fades in. “That’s really nice; not too gay, at all.” The camera pans to show Satan lying next to the surprised Sam.
Back from commercial:
Satan is cooking chicken fried steak in Sam’s family’s kitchen. “I’m so glad I don’t have arteries.”
“Do I have to go to Hell, now?” The devil explains that Sam is going to work for him on Earth, returning fugitives from Hell.
The devil transports Sam to the outside of a firehouse, pointing out a fireman that is really an escaped arsonist. He’d been in Hell for 50 years, before escaping. “Would you look at that tool? Go on! Capture him already.” Sam refuses, but Satan explains that, if he doesn’t fulfill the contract, his mother’s soul is his.
Satan reveals a box that holds the vessel that Sam needs to capture the fire man.
Back at the Work Bench, Sam is explaining to Ben. He opens the box to find a red mini-vac. Ben, incredulous, grabs the mini-vac, explaining that they sell those things. He turns it on. It pulls an 18-wheeler trailer toward them. He’s now convinced, and hands the vac back to Sam.
The three go to the firehouse to confront the “fire man”. When the fire man throws flames at them, Ben is injured after the blast hits a mail box. Sock and Sam help him to the car, and Sam takes off hurriedly, fishtailing down the road, and surrounded by flames.
Ben is in the hospital, and Sam and Sock are out in the hallway. Sam says he should have gone alone.
Andi arrives, and asks what happened. Feeling guilty, and unable to explain, Sam snaps at her. She goes in to Ben. Sock says they can go, now that she’s with Ben, but Sam says he is going alone. When he arrives at the firehouse, though, it’s burned down, with a huge crater where it stood.
Sam comes home. His mom is waiting for him, depressed looking. She tells Sam to tell them to come for her. He tells her that it’s over. He just had to do one thing for him.
As Sam goes into his room. It’s not his room, but an ice rink, complete with Zamboni.
The devil is there, in the seats, of course. Sam tells Satan that it’s over, he’ll just “go to Hell, or whatever.” The devil replies that it just doesn’t work that way. Satan tells him he “takes the path of least resistance” a lot. He tells him, before he gives up, that he should do some investigating. What motivates this guy, etc.
Zamboni stops, and driver gets out to check underneath. Devil tells Sam to watch.
Zamboni takes off over driver, evidently killing him. Satan says not to worry. He was a bad person –heavy drinker, wife beater. He didn’t fulfill his contract, either. “Word of caution: I don’t accept failure.”
[commercial]
Back at the Work Bench, Sam runs in looking for Sock. “I’m an ass-hat.” “Yes. You are.” “So, we’re cool?” “Yeah.”
Sam asks him if he remembers a guy from school, Ricky Schirmer, who kept burning down the gym.
“You know why he kept going back? Because they kept rebuilding it.” Sam says that the fire man is probably burning down the same buildings he burned down 50 years before, so they need to find criminal records that will lead them to his next fire. They head into the courthouse.
They are going up the stairs with Sock’s old girlfriend, Josie. She doesn’t want to help them, but Sam pleads with her. She finds the records. All the places that have been torched recently were the same places that Ned Schmecker tried –unsuccessfully- to burn down 50 years ago. The last place, where he finally succeeded, was his parents’ house, where he died in the fire. This was the only place that hadn’t been burned recently. Now, though, the house is no longer there, but is now an elementary school. Of course.
Sam and Sock take off. Sam says they have to go to the school right away. Sock says they need to make one stop.
The boys are in the Work Bench, putting on coveralls and other “supplies”. Sam says they’re gonna get killed, because the mini-vac still doesn’t work. Sock says maybe it just needs new batteries. They realize it needs to be charged. They rip open a box and charge the vac. They sit. Sit. And sit.
As montage music plays, children in costume arrive at the school. A sign hanging in front of the school says, “The Hobbit”. The fire man is taking his ax to a large pipe on the roof of the school. Sam and Sock arrive in Sam’s car.
The access door to the roof flies open. Sam and Sock burst out. Sock yells, “Hey, Schmecker! Meet the Schmecker Checker!” The fire man tosses the ax, and begins his “flame out” look. The boys hit him with foam fire extinguishers, seemingly putting him out, and knocking him down. As they’re gloating, though, the fire man reaches from off-screen, grabs Sam and tosses him away. Sam loses the vac. Sock stammers out some gibberish about weight-lifting. He falls to his bum. The fire man stomps sending a flame along the roof toward Sock. Suddenly, the flame stops inches away from him. It’s Sam. He’s using his hands to control the flame from a distance away. He draws all the flame toward himself, into a ball of fire, and pitches it toward the fire man. A blast blows the fire man through the roof.
As Sock gets up and gloats, they walk toward the spot on the roof where the fire man disappeared. Suddenly, the flaming fire man flies up into the air and behind them. Sam uses his telekinesis to get the mini-vac, and sucks the fire man into it.
The Department of Motor Vehicles building. Sam and Sock show up among the throng waiting at the DMV. The devil had told Sam that anyplace that’s like Hell on Earth is really… Hell on Earch. Christine Willes (Dolores Herbig from Dead Like Me) is a clerk. She motions to Sam, and raises her bangs, revealing small horns on her forehead. Sam walks over with the mini-vac. She brings up what looks a bit like one of those vacuum delivery tubes like at banks and old hospitals. He places the vac onto a desk mat, and the woman puts it into the tube, where it appears to go to Hell.
The clerk says she’s never seen “one of these before”, as she took the vac. Evidently, the vessel is different each time. She explains that the boss gives you the vessel he thinks you can handle. “You must be a real moron.”
Andi is checking out a customer at the Work Bench. Sam walks in, and she looks perturbed. Sam apologizes for being a jerk at the hospital. She smiles. He shows the bracelet. She explains that it says, “Bala”, the Sanskrit word for “Strength”. She thought of him when she saw it. She says he’s not a loser. He says nothing about her was pathetic. Satan appears, pushing a cart through the store, saying how touching it was.
Sam takes the devil aside. Satan congratulates him, and gives him a box with his next vessel. “So, I have to do this forever.” “You’re done when you die, right?” Satan tells him that he bought a bunch of crap and gave him the sale. So, Sam gets the ham.
As the boys are eating the ham, they ponder Sam’s new life. Sock says he could blow it off, but Sam says he thinks he likes it. It made him feel like a grown-up –responsible.
They ghoth
You are Neo! You’re the one!
I have never been so attracted to a man in my life. That’s not what I meant.
When the fire man comes back
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b5media - Pilots, Premieres and Reruns. Oh my!
Sep 28, 2007 at 10:54 pm
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