Supernatural (TV series)/Recap/S01/E14 Nightmare

Season 1, Episode 14:

Nightmare

Sam has another premonition, this time of a man being murdered, but when they investigate the brothers learn that the death has been listed as a suicide. They eventually learn that the victim's son Max was responsible: after being abused by his family for years, Max discovered telekinetic abilities and used them to kill his father. Sam has a second vision of Max killing his stepmother and in the process of stopping him, it's revealed that Max's real mother died in exactly the same way as Sam and Dean's. Max uses his telekinesis to lock Sam in a closet while he tries to kill Dean, but Sam escapes using previously-unknown telekinetic abilities of his own and stops Max, who takes his own life.

Tropes

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• Abusive Parents: Max's father and uncle, while his stepmother did nothing to stop them.
• All Just a Dream: The sequence where Dean goes up against Max and ends up with his brains blown out turns out to be one of Sam's premonitions.
• Driven to Suicide
• Eye Scream: In a dream, Max is shown killing his mom by telepathically plunging a knife into her eye.
• Foreshadowing: Sam discovers that he has more powers than Dreaming of Things to Come, and Dean reassures him that as long as he's with him, Sam won't become like Max.
• If You Kill Him You Will Be Just Like Him: One of the arguments Sam use to try to stop Max.
• Impersonating a Priest
• Make It Look Like an Accident: Max makes the first murders look like suicide.
• Mind Over Matter: Max, of course, but also Sam.
• Missing Mom: One of the similarities between Sam and Max.
• Not So Different : Max is what Sam could have become if, after his mother's death, his father had become an abusive wreck instead of a caring if obsessed hunter.
• Off with His Head: One of the victims gets killed by a window-guillotine.
• The Reveal: There are more people with powers like Sam.
• Starts with a Suicide: Played with. If it wasn't for Sam's premonition, everybody would have dismissed the first murder as a suicide.
• There Are No Coincidences: After failing twice to stop the deaths he has foreseen, Sam asks himself what the purpose of his premonitions are if he can't change what he see in them. He then not only ends up stopping the two following foreseen murders, but also finds out that Alex's mother was killed by the same thing as his and Dean's mother.
• With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: Max.