Structuring the Pilot: Supernatural
Creating a breakdown of a television episode or movie can be great way to see how they work on a structural level. I started doing it years back when I first started to write and was trying to figure out a couple spec pilots of my own. It’s something I have always found valuable and continue to do when I feel lost at the planning stages of a new project.
I doubt everyone would do things the same way, but essentially how I do a breakdown is by creating a bullet point list where each scene can only be a single line. This means I really have to be precise about its purpose or most important beat without getting too caught up in the details. With this it becomes easier to see its function, and how it works within an act, or within the episode as whole.
With Supernatural starting up its final season, it felt like a fun idea to look back at its pilot and see how it worked. So, without further ado:
Act One: The Hunters
22 years ago. Baby Sam is put to bed by his loving family.
Mary checks on Sam, all seems good.
Mary discovers John isn’t the one in Sam’s room.
John is woken up. Mary dies, John saves himself, Dean, and Sam.
John, Dean, and Sam watch as their house burns.
Present day. Sam doesn’t like Halloween.
Sam nailed his LSATS, has an interview on Monday.
Dean arrives to talk to Sam about their dad going missing.
Sam isn’t happy they were raised fighting monsters after their mom died.
Dean mocks a normal life. Sam blames their dad not wanting him back.
Dean explains the case. Sam will go if he can be back for his interview.
Sam packs his things, lies to Jess about the situation.
In Jericho, Troy is convinced to go home with an attractive hitchhiker.
Troy and Hitchhiker get to the house. The hitchhiker disappears, he gets scared away.
Troy is murdered on a bridge by the hitchhiker.
Though not always true, even in shows that would go on to have a cold open or teaser, the pilot tends to skip over this and go right to the first act. On top of this, with everything that needs to be set up, the first act tends to be the longest in the first episode.
Here we can see Supernatural’s first act essentially comes down to three sequences. It starts off in a kind of prologue, showing the events of 22 years ago. We see how the mother of our two lead characters died by some demonic means.
After that, the bulk of this act is spent following Sam in present day. We get to know a bit about his life, meeting his girlfriend and a friend, hearing about how he’s doing in school, and discovering he isn’t close with his family. When Dean arrives back in Sam’s life, he brings with him the backstory to fill us in on what happened since the night their mom died. The two talk about being raised to fight monsters, a subject Sam is less happy about than Dean. Their father has become obsessed with finding the demon that murdered their mother, but now he’s gone missing.
Not only do we get to see that Sam really does care about his family, as he decides to help his brother find their missing father, but we also see he has a decent set of skills that came with the way he was raised (both with fighting, and knowledge of things like EVP). Sam agrees to come on this one hunt but sets the ticking clock of needing to come back to his normal life by Monday.
Now that we’ve gotten to know the characters, we spend the last section of the act in Jericho, the place where their dad has gone missing. We follow a young man, Troy, from meeting a hitchhiking spirit, right up until he is murdered by her. It’s the monster the boys will have to spend the episode figuring out how to deal with to prevent any more murders like Troy’s.
An interesting thing about structure here, is that in later episodes, we reach this point all by the end of the teaser. While in this episode it is crucial to spend the time building out who Sam and Dean are, and why they do what they do, there backstory is later covered enough in “previously on” segments, with the teaser focusing on the monster of the week in the way the final sequence of this act did.
Act Two: The Case.
Sam and Dean talk music and credit card scams.
Sam and Dean find a crime scene at the bridge.
Sam and Dean pose as federal marshals, learn Troy is thought to be just missing.
Sam and Dean find Troy’s girlfriend and her friend.
Sam and Dean learn about a local legend.
Sam and Dean search archives; identify of the hitchhiker.
Sam and Dean talk about Sam’s life choices, are attacked from Constance.
In act two the episode leans more on what will be its monster of the week style. There is a scene that continues to get into a little of the brothers just being brothers (which exists to call out exactly the kind of soundtrack the show will have), but then we are right into the case they’ll need to investigate. They stumble upon the bridge that Troy was killed on and pose as federal marshals to get information.
They investigate the case, but all under the assumption that since their dad was on it first, and so looking deeper into it would lead them to him. We get to know more about the how Sam and Dean approach things differently, with Sam being much more the people person and the Dean having a much more blunt, sarcastic approach.
This comes to a head as the two of them debate if it is doing any good. Dean is willing to follow any leads that could bring them to their dad, no matter what it takes. Sam reminds him about his interview on Monday. Sam doesn’t want this life anymore, he even brings up that this whole thing is really about avenging their mom, but he was so young when she died that he wouldn’t even know what she looked like if not for pictures.
The whole situation pisses off Dean to hear, but their fight is cut short as Constance finds them and the two are forced to jump off the bridge in order to avoid being hit by their own car.
Act Three: Escalation.
Sam and Dean are safe, but Dean is all muddy.
Dean is pissed about Constance; Sam tells him he stinks.
Sam and Dean go to a motel; find out their dad was there.
Sam and Dean break into John’s room, discover Constance is a Woman in White.
Dean leaves to get food.
Dean discovers cops outside; warns Sam off before getting arrested himself.
After a quick reveal that Sam and Dean both survived the attack, they have the new problem of dealing with how much Dean stinks from his time in the water. They go to the local motel and get their biggest lead yet: they find out their dad already bought out a room for the whole month.
The brother’s break into John’s room, but of course he’s not there. What they do find though is that he has completely covered the walls in research and seemed to be worried something might come after him. More important to the case at hand, they find out that their dad identified what kind of monster Constance is, a Woman in White.
Even with the new lead, Sam and Dean take a break so Dean can get washed up. Dean goes outside to find cops being pointed in his direction and has just enough time to warn Sam to get away before he gets captured himself. As the brothers got close to finishing things with Constance, things needed to get worse for them to keep the drama going.
Act Four: Two investigations.
Dean is in jail; is shown John’s journal.
Sam finds Constance’s husband, confirms theories, explains lore.
Dean is left alone, breaks out.
Sam and Dean update each other on phone. Constance gets in the car with Sam.
In act four, we’re shown how the series can take advantage of having two leads. It splits the two of them up and has each of them learn about a different aspect of the investigation. Or, in the case of this episode, different investigations all together.
Dean is in jail where he finds out the police know his real name and think he is responsible for the missing persons cases. All of this is because they have John’s journal, and even just the sight of it is enough to get Dean’s attention. A note has been left for him, “DEAN 35-111”.
While this is happening with Dean, Sam follows the best lead he has and goes to talk with Constance’s husband to learn exactly where she was buried. While there, he gets confirmation that John had already asked the same questions, making it even weirder that he hadn’t dealt with Constance yet. When it seems Sam has gotten all the answers he can, he tries a different tactic. He explains the lore of a Woman in White. This does two key things: one, it continues to show how Sam uses empathy with people as he tells the lore as a way to guilt Constance’s husband; and two, it gives an excuse to have the lore be explained for the audience. In telling it this way rather than through Sam having to do research and find it, or having Sam or Dean explain to each other, it keeps them both able to look like experts on the subject.
Dean manages to escape the jail because of a 911 call pulling all the police away. He calls Sam, knowing that he is the one that called the cops. The two take a moment to share with each other what each of them has learned, but it is cut short when Sam runs into Constance and she appears in the back seat.
Act Five: Confrontation and Reason to Continue.
Sam refuses Constance, but she takes over the car.
Sam is almost killed by Constance before being saved by Dean, drives into house.
Dean helps Sam; Constance is taken away by her children.
Sam figures out John’s clue, reminds Dean he has to get to his interview.
Dean drops Sam off, neither want to say bye.
Sam finds Jess on the ceiling; she dies like Mary did. Dean saves him.
Sam is ready to be a hunter with Dean.
Throughout the episode we, and Sam, have learned Constance’s MO. He knows taking her home would get him killed, so he refuses. But she controls the car, and has it drive on its own, with no way Sam could stop it (which was set up that she could do it back in act two). Even when they arrive at her house, Sam should still be okay, she only kills people that are unfaithful and Sam obviously wouldn’t do anything. Well, Constance continues to make her own rules as she forces a kiss out of him and uses it as enough of a reason start to rip out his heart.
Dean saves the day, sort of. He shoots at Constance. It doesn’t do much, she’s a ghost, but it makes her flicker away long enough that Sam manages the turn the keys in the ignition and drive right into her house.
Inside her home, Constance finds a picture of herself with her kids. Her kids appear up the stairs. They come down and hug her, and in that moment, she is pulled down to hell.
The monster of the episode was afraid to see her family again after what she had done, but when finally came home, they embraced her.
Sam has spent possibly years not talking to his family, after the choice of leaving to go to school had his father telling him not to come back. He was like Constance, afraid he could never return after what he had done (though, with less murder in his case…).
The brothers drive away, seeming more in sync with each other. Everything feels more natural between them as Dean drives and Sam finds out where the coordinates their dad left lead them. Dean’s ready to drive all night long to get there, but Sam reminds him that there is still his interview.
As the two avoid saying bye to each other, it is obvious to both that Dean is returning Sam to his real life, and this whole case together was never going to be the start of something. Though, they both of them seem to regret that fact. Dean eventually drives off, and Sam goes inside to be with his girlfriend.
There is a degree of mirroring happening between the first and last acts. Here we see the same three sequences all appear, but shorter and reversed.
Where the first act ended on a tease for the monster, this one began on the monster being killed.
Where the first act had Sam looking comfortable in his normal life at school only to have Dean come in and bring him back to being a hunter, this act has Sam looking comfortable as a hunter only to have Dean bring him back to his normal life at school.
Finally, where the first act begins on the events that led John to start his hunt for revenge, here we end on Sam doing the same, for the exact same reasons.
With Sam back home, he goes to rest in his bed, and blood drips down. It’s just like the first act, as Sam looks up to find Jess on the ceiling, fire igniting all around her. Dean comes into the room just in time to pull Sam out, but there is no way they could save her too.
The house burns, and the firefighters work just as others had on their childhood home. Sam makes the same choice his father did all those years ago.
“We’ve got work to do.”
Conclusions
Supernatural has a serial-episodic format, meaning with each episode it both completes an entire story, while also building upon a more overarching one that progresses through an entire season. This means that in the pilot it is forced into a type of balancing act in which it must live up to that promise, solving an entire monster of the week case, while also giving enough mystery and backstory that the larger arc is engaging.
The way this is accomplished is primarily through having its episodic side be more simplistic than it would usually be. Where the monster of the week would usually take up the vast majority of the time, here it isn’t even thought about into until the very end of the first act, and even when they are investigating it, they are using it as a means to find John.
There is also another thing this pilot does that isn’t exclusive to serial-episodic shows and many examples come up all over the place. The episode works on the premise that this will be a one-time thing, only promising more in the final scenes. Running through the episode are many reasons why the audience would want more, but the characters are convinced it won’t happen right up until the end. The episode could easily be the plot of a short movie if the end were removed. A horror movie about a brother realizing he doesn’t have to cut his family out just because he wants a different life than they have.