Hmmm.... Okay I did not get the bromance I was looking for in this episode in the way that I was expecting, but what actually happened might be better. Let's look at the plot first, though.
Sam and Dean are taking a break to recuperate after the whole Demon!Dean ordeal. However, Dean is restless. He notices something that looks like a string of werewolf killings, and he tells Sam that he needs the hunt. Sam makes Dean promise to tell him if he starts to lose it, and Dean agrees.
They investigate the killings, and, using different witness accounts, they trace a woman back to her hideout, only to see that it's Kate, from "Bitten," a Season Eight episode. They tie her up and Dean prepares to kill her, but Sam says that maybe he should be the one to do it, because Dean's not ready. At this point, Sam gets a call saying that there's been another kill, very recently. So... Kate can't be the guilty party. Kate escapes, but Dean had grabbed her cellphone earlier, so they can use that to track her down.
As they try to find Kate again, Dean questions why Sam would try to stop him from killing Kate. Dean wonders if Sam is ready to be back on the hunt, because of what he did to Lester. Dean speculates that there might have been other people that Sam condemned to Hell, but Sam says Lester was the only one.
The Winchesters track a woman back to a motel, and then follow her into the woods. Turns out, it's not Kate. This second werewolf starts to attack them, but Kate shows up and tells the other woman to stop. She runs off, and Kate reveals that this second werewolf is her sister Tasha.
Kate then tells Sam and Dean the story: after Kate became a werewolf, she left school and made herself scarce. A while later, she heard the news that her little sister had been in a terrible car accident. Kate goes to say goodbye to Tasha at the hospital, but then has an idea: she can turn her into a werewolf, and they an be together, and look after one another! However, Tasha fell off the wagon pretty quickly as a werewolf, and Kate hasn't been able to get her back on track. Kate knows that she's lost Tasha, but she doesn't know what to do.
Dean lies and says that there's a werewolf cure, and that if they can get to Tasha, then Sam and Dean can cure both sisters. On the car ride to where Kate says Tasha will be hiding, Sam and Dean have another talk. Sam says that Lester wasn't the only person he hurt... although the others were demons. He tells Dean how hard it was for him to watch Dean die and then just have him vanish like that. Dean says that the whole thing is embarrassing, and he thanks Sam for bringing him back.
When they arrive at Kate and Tasha's hideout, things don't go as planned. Tasha has two werewolves with her: part of her pack. They grab Dean and force Sam to drop his weapon. Kate, escaping from where Dean trapped her in the car, comes in and tries to reason with Tasha. The two other werewolves take Sam and Dean out of the room, while the sisters talk. Kate realizes that Tasha is too far gone. As Sam and Dean easily dispatch the two werewolf cronies, Kate sadly kills Tasha, knowing that she can't get her sister back. She flees.
As Sam and Dean leave, they discuss whether or not to go after Kate. Kate calls Dean, and Dean says that as long as she doesn't start killing humans, they won't have to cross paths again. Kate says she'll do whatever she can to stay good, but of course the experience with her sister has taught her that it's difficult not to give in to your inner darkness. Dean tells Sam that maybe he wasn't ready for this hunt after all, but he was just so eager to do something good, since he feels like he keeps doing the wrong thing.
My complaints are minor, for the most part. There was a flashback of Lester in this episode, which was entirely unnecessary. We just saw this stuff in last week's episode! I've been noticing that a lot this season, actually. Maybe I'm sensitive to it because I'm the sort of fandom geek who obsesses over details and sees gifs of things things a thousand times on tumblr in between episodes. But even casual fans probably don't need quite so obvious a reminder of Lester, I shouldn't think.
The other flaw, if it can be called that, is that the parallels between the Winchesters and the two sisters were just a bit too on the nose. I'm getting a bit tired of C-plot episodes were the moral of the story is: "there are good monsters!" Again, this could be a side-effect of thinking about this show a lot more than the average viewer ever would, but still. I feel like they're laying it on a bit thick.
The BIGGEST FLAW EVER is the fact that Sam and Dean didn't mention Garth at all. Not once! In this whole episode! I can't believe they didn't tell Kate about Garth's family and suggest that she go learn how to live a normal life! That's complete crap, I tell you!
Let's talk about the good stuff, though. Kate survives! Yes! A female C-plot character actually makes it through a second appearance. So thrilling! But on a more serious note, I'm really glad she lives. It's important, I think, for the Winchesters' continued understanding of who the real monsters are, that they don't just off the good guys. And this story, as much as it was about Sam and Dean, was really about Kate and Tasha too. Kate is a likable character, and the actress does a wonderful job portraying her. I love how she calls at the end to clear the air with the Winchesters, and how even though she would never have given Tasha up to them, she was able to do the job when she had to. Of course, we know for a god-damn certainty that Sam and Dean wouldn't do the same thing in Kate's situation, even if they would prescribe it to others.
And let's talk about that, shall we? While I mentioned earlier that the parallel between the two brothers and the two sisters was a bit strong, I still think there were a lot of useful comparisons being made. For one, when Kate says that Tasha wasn't her sister anymore, it reminded me of all the times Sam and Dean have lost each other to the darkness. Sam wasn't really Sam anymore when he was soulless, or when he was possessed. Dean wasn't really Dean anymore when he was a demon. But did either of them even consider killing the other? No. Should they have considered it? Honestly, maybe. Then there's "turning your sibling into a monster to save his or her life." Kate does this, and it backfires. Dean did this to Sam, and it backfired. But whereas Kate learned her lesson, I think it's pretty clear that Sam and Dean would still do incredibly stupid things to save one another, no matter the consequences. The effect of this episode's parallels is to show us how not okay the Winchesters are. They're not going to be okay for a while yet.
So, I said at the start of the review that I didn't get the bromance like I was expecting. What I got was something really glorious, though. They're trying to over communicate. They're checking in on each other like they've been to couple's counseling and need to practice sharing their feelings. They're tiptoeing around each other, because they want to forget what happened, and they want things to be alright, but neither one of them could possibly delude themselves into believing that they are.
I love how Dean and Sam both say they're "not trying to start anything" when discussing if they're really ready to hunt. And when Sam tells Dean that he tortured demons, Dean doesn't judge him at all, merely says thank you for what happened. My favorite brotherly moment was when Sam told Dean about what happened just after he died. He's quite calm and collected as he recounts carrying his brother's corpse to his room and lying it down on the bed. Then, for Dean to just disappear... gosh. I love the way Jared delivers this speech. It's absolutely perfect. Dean's announcement that he's "tired of doing the wrong thing" was also a highlight for me, because he could be talking about so many different things, all at once. He did lots of wrong things as a demon, but he also did wrong things before that, when he had the Mark of Cain. Or what about the Gadreel thing? And lying to Sam about it? There are a lot of complicated layers to this simple statement.
I think I'll finish up with my favorite silly lines of the episode. Both of them come from Tasha, who was endlessly entertaining in her evil ways, even though her demise was rather tragic. The first was when she called Sam "Paul Bunyan." The second was this little gem: "I'm not scared. I'm scary." That is the perfect catchphrase for a new monster. I loved it.
We have to suffer through no new episode next week, but two weeks from now is the 200th! I have no idea how it's going to go, but I'm sure the reaction is going to be huge, either way!
8.5/10
No comments:
Post a Comment
I'd really appreciate hearing what you think!