'Grey's' Isn't Going Anywhere
'Red Widow' Gets The Axe
'Supernatural' Season 6, Episode 5 Recap
by Maureen Ryan, posted Oct 25th 2010 10:15AM
['Supernatural' - 'Live Free or Twihard']Well, that was odd.
'Live Free or Twihard' was certainly radical a change from the comedically-inflected, very enjoyable 'Weekend at Bobby's.'
And I'm not sure 'Twihard' worked, for a number of reasons.
I think this is one of those episodes I'll have to think about for a while; part of my brain is still scrambled by the surreal/freaky elements of the episode. All things considered, though, 'Twihard' wasn't quite substantial enough to warrant the amount of time it spent on Dean's melodramatic trip to vampland. There was something overheated about the episode, and tonally much of it didn't feel like it belonged in the 'Supernatural' universe.
Normally I'm OK with the show's tonal or storytelling experiments, and we can all name a dozen 'Supernatural' episodes that tried something different and ended up working. Yet this one seemed to offer a lot of sizzle and not much steak. Story-wise, it didn't add much to our overall store of season 6 knowledge, it merely expanded a bit on things we already knew, and in return asked that we accept a lot -- Dean as an Insta!Vamp and Sam as Very Different!Sam
Of course, we did learn one fairly substantial thing -- in the episode's last scene, we saw that Dean does not trust Sam at all anymore. That could be an interesting development for the future, but it could also be dangerous. Yes, I've been the one pleading for more substantial development of the brothers' relationship. But will that be satisfying if one of them is, as far as we know, not himself?
We already knew that Different!Sam is, you guessed it, different. Still, it was a surprise to see him looking on with keen interested while Dean got vampified, instead of helping his brother. Sam certainly allowed that to happen on purpose, just as Samuel guessed. And for a Campbell to call someone out on cold-blooded behavior, you know that had to be an icy move.
So we in the audience, and obviously Dean, got confirmation that, without a doubt, Something Is Up With Sammy. Before I get into a discussion of the episode, it might be worthwhile to discuss what that Something is. Or rather, who Different!Sam is working for.
Again, this episode wasn't exactly chock-full of new information, but we learned that, as is the case in the rest of the supernatural-creature world, something big is going on in the vamp camp. They're on a recruitment spree and they're taking orders psychically from a big-time Alpha bloodsucker. Given that it's been well-established this season that there is major weirdness affecting all or most supernatural creatures, this wasn't that revelatory.
As to how this relates to Sam, let's suppose -- and we have no reason not to -- that all the creature clans are taking orders from one entity or working from the same source of information. That source, of course, knows what his/her/its goals are, and therefore, it does not need someone to gather intel for him/her/it. Therefore, it might be the case that Sam gathering information for the other side -- quite possibly the non-Devil/non-demon side?
Here's a theory: Someone (possibly Lucifer or Satan or a fallen/rebel angel) allied with the demon/vamp/critter world is assembling an army and planning something big, and the other side (perhaps heaven, Michael, a faction of angels, etc.) freed Sam from the cage in order to have him gather intel on what the enemy is up to. There's no reason that Michael and Lucifer can't continue their cage match, whether or not they're inside the cage, right?
But given all the unrest in heaven, it could actually be two factions from upstairs preparing for war (and that would parallel the Brother vs. Brother theme in the Winchesters' world). Whatever's going on, it certainly appears that Different!Sam is on a fact-finding mission, and if he has to risk Dean's life to gather intelligence, Sam is OK with that. Sam got out of the cage all right, but he's not the Sam from before and he's clearly got an agenda.
Could Sam be OK with previously objectionable things because he doesn't have a soul any more? I've been wondering about this for a while now. Perhaps a de-souled version of Sam was returned to Earth: That would account for his coldness and his lack of objection to the danger that Dean was in, the torture of the kid, etc. And as we saw in 'The Third Man,' souls are quite valuable and have uses we haven't been told about yet.
One more question: Is it possible that Sam himself doesn't fully know he's gathering intel for someone else? Perhaps his strings are being pulled in some way. But again, does that make his journey less interesting this season -- if he has no agency and he's not really himself, does the character's journey actually have stakes that we can care about?
That all remains to be seen, and all of the above is speculation, of course. All we really got in 'Twihard' is confirmation that those on the front lines are mere patsies for players with big plans. And it's early in the season: I'm reserving judgment on Sam and Dean's individual journeys and where the brother relationship is going. I still feel we need more information before we can assess how all that is playing out and whether it's satisfying or not. I'm actually intrigued by some of what's going on between the brothers, and interested to see where that goes. But I'd like to insert a warning here: I've had to shut down comments in the past because people were incensed about this or that piece of Sam or Dean character development and how it was handled. I don't want to have to do that here, so please be considered and thoughtful in your remarks about what transpired in 'Twihard.' I don't want to have to shut down comments, but I will if things become overheated or strident.
As for the episode itself, 'Twihard' was strange, and I think the strangeness might have worked better had things not taken a hard right turn as soon as Dean himself was turned. There was a rushed, fevered quality to the episode, which, on the one hand, reflected Dean's confusing transformation, but also reflected the fact that that transition got no meaningful introduction and lacked emotional impact.
First, an objection to the vamp turning itself: It was way, way too easy to turn Dean. I know it's been established in the 'Supernatural' universe that all it takes to turn people into vamps is the ingestion of a few drops of blood from a vamp. Well, that is just kind of silly (not to mention convenient). In most other vampire stories, it takes way more than that to turn someone, which seems appropriate for an activity that leads to eternal life (well, until someone slices your head off). And given that we got almost a whole season of lead-in to Demon!Sam two years ago, it just felt odd that Vamp!Dean arrived in about five seconds.
In any event, the turning of Dean led to a lot of surreal scenes that reflected the tumult that Dean felt as he changed and lived as a vamp, but the episode probably went too far in depicting things from his perspective, and it ended up being overly melodramatic. There were really two very different tones to the episode: The rather obvious, very 'Supernatural'-esque slam on all things 'Twilight' that we saw in the first few scenes, and then the overheated, Dean-as-vampire sequences, which were bloody, menacing and/or surreal -- though not especially substantial, in terms of information or emotional impact.
Between those two tonally different sections, there was no real transition to speak of -- in what felt like no time at all, we went from "Emo vamps suck!" to Dean's crazy, tripped out vision of the Alpha vampire. As was the case with 'The Third Man,' it felt like two different episodes, or two kinds of episodes, awkwardly jammed together.
Just from a plotting perspective, it kind of bugged me that Dean made a rookie mistake with the dead man's blood, which led to the bloody vamp slaughter, which seemed rather pointless. Also, the vamps were recruiting hot young men, who would then recruit pretty young women, who would then recruit hot young men, and so on -- and all of them lived on blood bank blood? None of them ever slipped and killed anyone? Like Sam, I don't quite see how that whole story added up, though I'll grant that there did appear to be the beginnings of an army in that building.
Still, was it really necessary to use the 'Twilight' moody-vamp approach to gather all those recruits? The vamps couldn't figure out how to write appealing emails or hit on prospective victims without the help of girls like Kristen? All in all, the vampire plot seemed jury-rigged to A) provide the show the opportunity to make fun of 'Twilight' and B) allow us to know that there's a powerful Alpha vamp out there somewhere. It didn't make much organic sense on its own.
If the show was going to look into the subculture of people who are attracted to vampires and their lore, it could have tried to match the "Buffy" season 2 episode that delved into some similar areas with more substantial results. 'Twihard' just took some cheap shots the more banal and mockable aspects of the 'Twilight' books; I kind of expected more biting wit, if you will, if the show was going to go there.
Yes, I've read all the 'Twilight' books and seen all the films, and I make no argument to them being great art, but I can understand (to some extent) their appeal. Now, let's not have a giant flame war about whether the 'Twilight' books and films are awful or good. Please, let's not. I'm merely saying it's disappointing 'Supernatural' was not especially creative in mocking that whole phenomenon -- and I'm the first to admit that there's a lot to mock there.
A few more notes:
• I don't expect every episode to be a laugh riot, but there wasn't much funny in this episode. However the line "News flash, Mr. Wizard: Vampires pee!" did make me laugh.
• The slapdash nature of the plot affected the Lisa part of the episode as well. I'm invested in Lisa as a character, but now I'm not even sure where she and Dean stand after his weird, "I'm Pattinson" trip to her house. We never did find out if Dean got through to her to tell her he was not, in fact, dead. And that scene at her house -- how'd he get there that fast? I actually wondered if that part was a dream sequence too, given how quickly Dean got there and how odd it all looked.
• It was mildly amusing to see, in the opening scenes, a very Bella-like character exchanging banal Bella - Edward dialogue straight from the 'Twilight' books. But again, how is mentioning Robert Pattinson, and partly mentioning Kristen Stewart and Tayler Lautner, effectively satirizing 'Twilight'? The 'My Summer of Blood' posters were the best they could do? I don't know, I was just expecting something wittier or more incisive, if you will.
• Anyone else get a "Playthings" vibe off those two little girls in Dean's vision?
• I liked Samuel calling Sam on what happened with Dean -- they may be taking Samuel in an interesting direction as a character. After all, Samuel himself was raised by the dead by someone -- I wonder who did that and why?
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