Reaper/Original Pilot

Original Pilot
Season 1, Episode 0
Airdate	unaired
Written by	Michele Fazekas & Tara Butters
Directed by	Kevin Smith
— N/A	1x01 → Pilot
Reaper — Season One

Original Pilot is the original version of the pilot for Reaper. Sam Oliver is drafted as the devil's bounty hunter on his 21st birthday and is forced to go after the escaped soul of an arsonist.

Starring: Bret Harrison (Sam Oliver), Andrew Airlie (Mr. Oliver), Allison Hossack (Mrs. Oliver), Kyle Switzer (Keith Oliver), Tyler Labine (Bert "Sock" Wysocki), Nikki Reed (Andi), Rick Gonzalez (Ben), Ray Wise (The Devil), Valarie Rae Miller (Josie)

Plot Overview

It's Sam's 21st birthday and, by all accounts, he's been wasting his life. He has a lousy job at a building supply store called "The Work Bench," he dropped out of college and his parents are acting far stranger than usual. Only his brother, who vocally admits to Sam being a loser, and his best friend, who is intent on getting him black-out drunk, are acting their normal selves in that house. Meanwhile, strange things like fires, wild dogs and shopping carts that move on their own are happening all around Sam.

At work, Bert attempts to goad Sam into asking out Andi, a girl they work with who Sam has been stuck in the friends zone with for a while. She gives him a gift during a employee meeting, but tells him not to open it in front of her because she's embarrassed. She also opens the possibility of a date on Saturday, but Sam screws it up entirely and that window closes again. On the floor, Sam's birthday gets even worse when he trances out watching a terrifying fire on television and is put "on notice" by his supervisor for being lazy. When he looks back at the television, the fire is gone and it was replaced with baby chicks. Bert makes fun of him for apparently being afraid of chickens, but before he can come up with a comeback, he sees an air conditioner nearly fall on Andi. Without thinking, Sam leads through the air, knocks the box aside without touching it and lands in a stack of paper towels; an act which no one but Bert seems to see.

Sam retreats into the stock room and tells Bert that he didn't touch the air conditioner. It was too far away from him, but he moved it with his mind. Hearing this, Bert hurls a jug at Sam's head which he was, apparently, supposed to move with his mind. Shortly after, Andi finds Sam draped over a display toilet, nursing his head wound. He finally gets up the courage to ask her out when they're interrupted by a pack of dog snarling at them. He tells Andi to go and lets the dogs chase after him until Bert intervenes with a leaf blower to scare them away. He decides to call it a day and go home.

As he's driving, a man appears in the backseat of his car asking, "Did you like that in there, with the air conditioner?" He claims to be the devil, which comes as such a shock to Sam that he slams into a dumpster. When he gets out, he opens the passenger door and finds no one sitting behind him.

Sam recounts his bizarre day to his father that evening, but he's far less shocked than Sam expects him to be. Sam's dad explains that, before he was born, Sam's soul was sold to the devil in exchange for a cure to a disease he had. The price for this would come on the day of his first born son's 21st birthday. Sam takes this news with him to the bar where he downs an unearthly amount of alcohol before telling Bert what his father told him and that he believes it. After a long night of drinking, Sam goes back home, puts on the bracelet given to him by Andi and finds the devil in bed next to him.

The plot thickens when the devil tells him what exactly is in store for him. He's not going straight to hell, but he will be the devil's agent on Earth to round-up escaped souls. Whenever he picks up a soul, he has to bring it to a place that seems like "hell on Earth," like the DMV. Sam reluctantly asks what he needs to do when the devil tells him that, in the end, God still wins. So, the devil takes him to his first capture: a guy who was put in hell for arson who is, surprisingly enough, a fireman now. He points Sam to a wooden box and tells him that if he doesn't do his job, he'll take Sam's mother's soul in his stead.

At work the next day, Sam tries to get his friends to help him out with his box. They, of course, think he's insane and that there's no such thing as the devil. This is only exacerbated by the contents of the box being a Dirt Devil mini-vacuum. They take it back when the vacuum is powerful enough to move a semi trailer. The three go off in search of the arsonist that night, which they assume will go easily since they out number him by two. But then the arsonist lights himself on fire and turns into molten rock. Ben gets burned badly, forcing them to run him to the hospital before more things explode around them. Because Ben got hurt, Sam won't let anyone go with him this time, even if it damages his relationship with Bert and Andi. But, when he gets there, there's no sign of the arsonist.

Sam goes back home and reassures his mother that everything is fine and that they can treat him normally. He tries to go to his room, but is distracted by an odd light showing from under the door. He finds himself in a hockey rink with the devil, who tells him that not only does he have no choice in the matter, but failure will result in a grisly death, like the man driving the Zamboni who is sucked under in the hockey rink. The devil advises Sam that he do some research before throwing in the towel.

The next day, Sam apologizes to Bert and the two go down to the district attorney's office to meet with Bert's old girlfriend, Josie. Sam surmises that the fireman is burning down the same places that he was when he was alive and they need to see criminal records to figure out where he'll strike next, Sam is almost right, he failed at burning down those other places and only succeeded when he killed himself in the flames of his parents' home. It's not a house anymore though, it's an elementary school. Before the go, they suit up in the most ridiculous costumes they can take from their job and recharge the Dirt Devil. They find the arsonist on the roof of the school, trying to dismantle the sprinkler system when Sam and Bert show up. They get a minor victory when they spray him with fire-retardant goo. The demon turns its sights on Bert but Sam stops the fire with his mind and sends it back to him in a condensed ball. After it recovers from that, he sucks it into the Dirt Devil and takes it down to the DMV. The teller puts the vacuum in a tube, sends it down to hell and mocks Sam for having such a lame "vessel."

After these chaotic couple of days, Sam apologizes to Andi and they make-up as friends again. When the devil pops up in the hardware store, Sam pulls him aside and tells him to back off, but the devil only wants to give him his new vessel. He also shows his nice side by buying a bunch of crap from the store and giving him the sale, which wins him the ham from the sales contest. In the end, Sam decides that he wants to do this and his friends, including a somewhat heeled Ben, agree to help.

Notes

Music

• Devil's Haircut by Beck: When Sam wakes up, the song that plays throughout the opening sequence is "Devil's Haircut" by Beck, off his breakthrough album Odelay. In one interview, Beck explained the meaning of the song as "a really simplistic metaphor for the evil of vanity." It can also be interpreted as being about life on the road and the disorientation that comes along with it.

• (Don't Fear) The Reaper by Blue Öyster Cult: Although brief, a short bit of "(Don't Fear) The Reaper" by Blue Öyster Cult plays while Sam is watching the fire on television. The song is from the band's 1976 album Agents of Fortune and is also famously the subject of a Saturday Night Live parody in which Christopher Walken demanded that he needs more cowbell from the band, particularly Will Ferrell as fictional member Gene Frenkle.

• Such Great Heights by Iron & Wine: In several tender scenes of the episode, the first being when Sam was about to ask Andi out, "Such Great Heights" by Iron & Wine plays. This is an acoustic/folk cover of a song by The Postal Service, which is an electronic group fronted by Death Cab for Cutie singer Ben Gibbard. The song was released as a B-Side to the "Such Great Heights" EP.

• Devil in Me by 22-20s: "Devil in Me" by 22-20s plays when Sam and Bert are suiting up and waiting for the Dust Devil to recharge. The song is off the band's first (and last) self-titled album.

Trivia

Behind the Scenes

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  Nikki Reed playing the part of Andi.
  Casting Changes: The key difference between this pilot episode and the broadcast version is that the role of Andi was recast and her scenes reshot with Missy Peregrym instead of Nikki Reed.

Allusions and References

• Bruce Banner: Bruce Banner is the alternate ego of the Incredible Hulk. When Banner saved a young man from getting in the way of a gamma radiation bomb, he was transformed irreversibly into the Hulk, a green monster who emerges when Banner loses his temper. This is one of the rare moments when the character's actual name is referenced instead of "David Banner," which was the name used in the Incredible Hulk television series.

Bert: You Bruce Bannered that thing, man!

• The Omen: In the horror movie, The Omen, the Antichrist is in the form of a young boy. In the movie, Damien was shown to exert some amount of mind control and can cause people to do things, usually suicide, against their will. The wild dogs attacking Sam is also a nod to this movie.

Bert: You can make her go out with you, Damien.

• New Jersey Devils: Undoubtedly, the devil's favorite hockey team is most likely the New Jersey Devils. The devils were established in 1974 as the Kansas City Scouts and are based out of Newark, New Jersey. They are one of the top teams in the National Hockey League and frequently make it into the playoffs, including every season from 1996 to 2006. They were renamed the Devils when they moved from Colorado to New Jersey in 1982.

Devil: Wanna guess who my favorite team is?

Quotes

• Bert: That was wicked, man! It's like that thing where the baby gets stuck under a car or a bus or whatever and then the mom gets all pumped up with adrenaline and lifts it up over her head. You Bruce Bannered that thing, man!

Sam: I didn't touch it.

Bert: What do you mean?

Sam: I didn't touch it. It was too far away.

Bert: I saw—

Sam: No, it was too far away! It was like I moved it with my mind or something. And that's not the first time this has happened today. Something is really—

(Bert picks up a jug off a shelf and throws it at Sam's head)

Sam: Ow! What the hell, man?

Bert: You were supposed to move that with your mind.

• Sam: You know, I'm not really a ham guy, but this is really good.

Bert: That's because it's a victory ham.