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Reaper: Recap of Episode 1.02 “Charged”

by Jonathan on October 4th, 2007

Sam awakens to his alarm and rolls over to find… a wooden box at his bedside. Griping out loud, he begins to open it, then shuts it, saying it was too early.

Jump to Sock, outside with toaster pastry in hand. “Morning, Linda Blair.” After a quick interchange about Sam’s ability –rather lack- to turn his head around, Sock asks what’s on Sam’s face. Sock touches Sam’s cheek releasing an apparently painful static charge.

They take off for the Work Bench. Sock asks about the box. Sock goes on about how he (and they) “kicked ass.” Sam keeps downplaying the coolness of what they’ve been through, since Ben got hurt in 1.01. Sock asks to open the box. Sam replies that it’s at the house, but Sock counters that it’s in the back seat. [Dude! I hate it when that happens! Bad Box!]

Sock knows what to do. They end up deep in the woods. They dump the box off and run, in an apparent attempt to ditch it. [Why would that work? It’s appearing magically. Not like it follows them by sight.]

At the Work Bench, Sam exits the car and trips over… THE BOX. [Dude! Again.] Sock is in love with the box.

Sam has put the box in a truck going to Delaware. The lights go out in the Work Bench, and Sam sees a scary glowing face in a mirror –in the dark. The lights come up, and Ben and Sock give him a hard time for being afraid of the dark. [They didn’t see the face.]

Sam is talking to Andi. She’s checking the duty schedule. She and Sam have “cart duty” all week –her favorite job. He is incredulous, but she explains that she’s seen several movies while on cart duty. She stashes carts in a neighbor’s yard to justify her leaving the parking lot to retrieve them. He is impressed with her slack.

Sock is tossing oil bottles up to Sam to stock on the upper warehouse shelves. They’re talking about Sam’s week of dates with Andi. Suddenly, the Devil’s voice startles Sam, “You’ve got a job to do, Sammy.” He’s on the other side of the shelf from Sam. Sock tosses up another bottle, but, distracted, Sam misses it. It flies over the shelves and hits a man on the other side. “Customer Services. We have a customer down in aisle thirty…”

Jump to Ted at his desk. Ted asks Sock and Sam what their punishment should be. Sock, “We work here, day and night.” Ted assigns them to night inventory shift, until they’re done, “which should take a year.”

Sock is angry at Ted, “I hate him!” Sam asks if he “needs to smash.” They’re behind the store, Sock taking his anger out on a patio table.

Sock and Sam go to Sam’s parents’ for dinner. Sam explains, on the way in, that he and his dad are lying to Mom about Sam’s commitment to Satan. Sock fumbles around when Mom merely asks how they are doing. Mom tells Sam, with an incredulous tone, that he received a package –the box- that day. She tries to get them to tell her the truth.

Taking the trash out to the garage, Sam sees a light glowing in the trash barrel. As he reaches for the lid, he is transported to a high spot overlooking the city. The Devil is talking to him about his obligation, and his lack of action on his second assignment. The Devil points out a lightning strike, and describes the doctor, an upright citizen, who was just killed. Sam tries to convince him that he could better serve him doing something else. Satan continues that he needs to do his job, or people will continue to die.

Sam finds himself standing at the trash barrel, holding the lid.

Next day –after commercial break- Sam is at the bottom ot the stairs in the house. He opens the box to find a radio controlled car. Dad interrupts to take him outside. He has bought him a new car, a hybrid. Sam tells him it must be to “buy me off”. Sam questions the wisdom of lying to his mom. She suspect something anyway. Dad is insistent that it’s for the best. Sam reluctantly agrees.

Sam is at the Work Bench showing his car to Ben and Sock. Sock says it’s a chick car. Ben asks Sam how he’s supposed to capture a soul with the r/c car; ram it into him? Sam doesn’t know. The lights flicker off and back on.

Sam and Sock are starting to inventory. Ted tells them to make sure they do it correctly. He says he’s off to deliver generators to the hospital. Sam offers to take them with Sock’s help. They arrive, with Ben, at the hospital. A doctor explains that the backup generator had failed at the hospital. Sam spots, under a lightning-struck piece of hospital wall, the letters “A… (f)er”. Sam is shocked, when he touches the wall. “You need a doctor.” They’re in a bar, getting shots. A woman –annoyed- denies Sam the use of her mobile phone, but she very gladly hands it to Ben. “It’s the hair.” Surfing the web on the phone, Sam reads about the Armstrong Medical Hospital, formerly the Arthur Ferry Medical Wing. The name was changed because he was arrested. The woman comes over and takes her phone back, obviously perturbed that Sam is using it.

Sam says he’s going back to the Work Bench. At his car he sees lightning in the distance, and takes off in that direction. He gets out of the car, grabbing the r/c car, and passes a sign –[”Ferry (removed, but residual) School of Business”]. A man is in his charred car, dead, on the campus. Sam spies the soul of Arthur Ferry atop one of the school’s buildings. The figure disappears.

The weather forecaster on the kitchen TV is talking about nice weather. Sam is surprised by the Devil coming out of his bathroom. The Devil confronts Sam, briefly, about his lying to his mother. His mother calls him from across the house. The Devil disappears. She asks him about a charred pair of jeans, and tells him that he can tell her anything. He tries to cover and get out of the confrontation.

At the Work Bench, Ted is giving Andi a hard time about being $8.00 off on her register. Sam offers to pay the money. Ted refuses his offer. She has to pay. Andi tries to mouth off to Ted to get put on night shift.

Josie passes through, and Sam asks her about Arthur Ferry. He was arrested for stealing electricity from the city and selling to private companies.

Sam tells Sock that Ferry must be pissed that they’re taking his name off of buildings. Ben alerts them to a radio report about a lightning strike. They go to Sporting Goods to prep for the job.

Dressed in wet suits, they arrive at a dam. Ferry is at the dam, loading up on electricity. Sam guesses that he is planning on taking out the dam.

Sam prepares to confront Ferry, setting the r/c car in the street and sending it off. It’s immediately crushed by a passing car. While Sam’s retrieving the bits of r/c car, Ferry spots him. He asks who he is. Sam tells him, with strong bravado, that he’s there to send him back to Hell. Sam overplays it a bit. As he’s about to attack the boys, Ferry suddenly disappears in a bolt of lightning. The boys are relieved.

Back at the Work Bench, Sam is trying to put the car back together. The Devil† appears in the break room, giving him a hard time about the cars state, and his inability to fix a model car. He tells Sam that it would take three weeks and a lot of paperwork to get a new vessel. He tells Sam that he’ll figure something out, since the vessel is smashed. He also lets Sam know that the soul that he’s tipped off about himself is now after him.

Sam asks Ben and Sock what they’re going to do. Suddenly, lightning flashes, and they rush outside. Lightning strikes Sam’s new hybrid, and it begins to pursue them. They run diving into the store. For some reason, the car doesn’t follow them through the doors. [Why did they believe that diving through the doors and letting them slam shut would be safe? Rules of some kind? The car can’t smash through the glass door?] The phone, and the security locks are out, thanks to the lightning strikes. They duct tape the car back together, and prepare to confront Ferry again.

Power and garden tools start up. A lawn mower chases them. Nail guns shoot at them. Of course, only Ben is struck. [He must be their “Kenny”.] Sock is laughing. Sam explains that he laughs when he’s nervous. He apologizes for dragging them into this. He leaves Sock and Ben, taking only the r/c car’s remote control. He goes outside.

He calls Arthur Ferry out. Ferry appears in his messed up suit. He complains that they took away everything he did.

As Ferry “charges up” to attack, Sam extends the r/c remote’s whip antenna. He tells Ferry that it’s a lightning rod. Suddenly, Ferry disappears into a magenta bolt of lightning that is drawn into the remote control. Sam is knocked to the ground by the jolt, but rises to revel in his victory.

At the DMV, they give the vessel to Gladys [I still want to call her “Dolores”.] They put the remote on the mat, but she says that that’s not the entire vessel. So, they pull bits of smashed car from their pockets and place them on the mat. She places them into the carrier, and sends it to Hell.

Sam is home. Kyle is amazed that Sam has already trashed the car. Mom stops him. Sam comes clean to his mother about the deal with the Devil.

Ted is expressing his displeasure and questioning about why the store is trashed. Sam says he should fire him. Ted says he’s going to “teach” him. He puts him on garbage duty, obviously in his plan to teach Sam how to be responsible.

Satan shows up to congratulate Sam. He tells him that he’s done him a favor, and messed with Ted’s schedule. Sam is disappointed that he has Garden Center duty. When he gets there, though, Andi is there. She says she “allegedly” hit Ted in the back of the head with a shovel and was put on Garden Center duty, so, they’re “in Hell together.” They smile at each other, looking over the orchids that she was misting.

Satan fixes a flower in his lapel, and smiles proudly about his work.

†Does anyone else wonder why they almost always say, “The Devil”? Is it like Smallville’s non-use of a lot of Superman terms? Does Monsanto or Microsoft own the trademark on the more menacing, less hoky, more mature, and decidedly more classic “Satan”? They did, once or twice, use his pre-Fall name “Lucifer” in the pilot. I feel a “Mephistopheles” coming on!

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POSTED IN: Reaper Recaps, Television, The CW