2x02 Everybody Loves a Clown

Supernatural
Season 2
Episode 2 “Everybody Loves a Clown”
The episode starts off with Sam and Dean crying over their father’s funeral. Then proceeds to them to the Roadhouse and meeting Ellen and Joe. Most importantly meeting the genius Ash who will be using their father’s data to track down Yellow Eyes. However, it will take 51 hours so they take a monster of the week job from Ellen. After killing the Rakshasa, Sam tells Dean that he is not okay but neither is Dean. The episode ends with Dean smashing the trunk of the car repeatedly in anger.
This episode sets up a lot of things for future episodes. The program that Ash made will track the Demon so when he gets a ping the boys will know. The roadhouse is introduced as a place for hunters to come and relax between jobs. Dean keeps what his dad had told him a secret from Sam, which will be addressed later. Ash’s character is shown as a drunk that lives in a roadhouse but is smart enough to make a program that can track the demon, of course he graduated from MIT. The actor portrays him masterfully and you instantly fall in love with the character. The regret he felt thinking that his dad died while he was still angry at him was talked about in depth at the end of the episode. The sadness Sam feels for not letting his dad know he didn’t hate him was beautifully portrayed. The episode overall was more so setting up for the rest of the season since in the last episode dad died. They couldn’t just jump back into looking for the demon and the Impala is still messed up. This episode was the in-between, and its job wonderfully. Of course they didn’t have to use clowns.
Growing up with stories about Hindu gods and Demons including the Rakshasas, the episode didn’t follow the mythology I am used to. Rakshasa is a broad term meaning demon or monster. So one Rakshasa can have different powers than another. However, that was never mentioned in the episode, which makes this episode a monster of the week episode. That upsets me because it closes the door on so many possibilities to use Hindu mythology. Of course the writers have changed the mythology for different monsters in the show before and it’s their show. As long as the story turns out well then nobody will mind. Even knowing all that, if they had set the Rakshasa up better than there could have been an entire season or two for the Hindu creatures.
Dean doesn’t tell Sam what his father told him in this episode. We don’t find out where the yellow eyed demon is either, we simply get a program that should find the demon wherever he shows up. We also don’t find out what kind of relationship John had with Ellen’s husband not do we see Dean and Sam interact with other hunters that pass through the roadhouse. All of which, should be addressed later on in the show.