SUPERNATURAL: Live Free or Twihard

It’s hard to imagine an SPN fan out there that didn’t really, really enjoy last night’s installment. In one of my favorite signature SUPERNATURAL moves, the episode started out hilarious and then progressed to scary, creepy and finally, intensely sad. Dean has finally reached the point where he knows with certainty that something is wrong with his brother, and it’s not something he can ignore any longer.

The cold open was pretty genius in both it’s spot-on recreation of the Twilight phenomenon and it’s send-up of the very same. I’ve never seen the movies, but I did read the books (yes, even that especially dreadful last one with the painful sex and fast-aging hybrid baby). The shoe-gazing hesitancy of the characters, always underlined by the girl holding herself back from her own sexuality and the boy trying not to both ravage her and kill her, was spot-on.

The show was making a bit of a point here: these girls want a safe, sexy monster, and that’s just not something that exists in real life. It couldn’t get any more clear than when Boris, the head of that particular vamp lair, arrived and interrupted the Bella and Edward moment in the alley with his real, not-cute fangs and his un-restrained attack. Even his words “this is what you wanted, right?” were teasing her notions of a soft-hearted, swoon-worthy vampire.

And then Dean and Sam went to her house and saw her bedroom. There must be thousands, if not millions of bedrooms exactly like this in the world right now. And it was hysterical. I can only imagine that there is at least some crossover between the SUPERNATURAL fandom and the Twihard Collective, and I can’t help but wonder how all of the jabs went over with them. Those Twilight superfans are intense, dude. There was a video circulating the net not too long ago featuring a woman who had to be in her 40’s with a bedroom that looked exactly like Kristin’s in the episode, complete with Pattinson pillows and everything. It was more than a little disturbing.

On the one hand I’m resting comfortably on my high horse, laughing at all of the fun being poked at the Twilight franchise, but not an hour before I had been watching this week’s episode of THE VAMPIRE DIARIES, on the edge of my seat wondering what was going to happen next. Not to mention my TRUE BLOOD addiction. Of course, in my mind, I draw a few distinctions between those shows and Twilight, but in the end, I’m still lusting after hot vampires. However, I don’t have a Damon Salvatore or Eric Northman anything in my bedroom, so at least there’s that.

In case we’ve forgotten from previous SUPERNATURAL episodes featuring vampires, the best way to kill them in this universe is a nice, quick beheading. And the best way to turn someone is to make them ingest vamp blood. The rules are much more simple than they are in TVD and TB (I can’t recall the Twilight rules), which have so many steps and requirements it’s a wonder anyone even manages to do it properly.

Was anyone else holding their breath in shock when Dean was attacked and Sam just STOOD THERE? He seemed to be watching the entire scene with a detached sense of curiosity, followed by what was unmistakably a smile. Chills. We’ve all known since the beginning of the season that Sam was different, but this was a whole new level of creepy, and an unforgivable thing to do to his brother. It’s a good thing Dean didn’t see him there…yet.

Grandpa Samuel came to help out with the situation, and Dean wanted them to end him, right there. Did you guys see how quickly Sam grabbed hold of the knife on the table? Old Sam would have made Gramps leave his arsenal at the door to ensure his brother’s safety. He would have been on the phone with Bobby, or rifling through John’s old books, looking for a cure. He’d throw Dean in the trunk of the Impala if had to and scour the country looking for old friends of his dad to see if any of them could help. The only thing he WOULDN’T have done is pick up that machete.

But the machete wasn’t necessary after all, because Grandpa came prepared with a cure, and Sam seemed surprised. Only catch is, they needed some blood of the vamp who turned Dean, meaning Dean had to return to the nest. As soon as the older brother was gone, Samuel confronted Sam. They had discussed the cure previously, and he wondered if Sam let Dean get turned on purpose to get a man on the inside of the nest, knowing they could (probably) turn him back. So Samuel isn’t evil? I had thought all along that the two were in collusion, but clearly something else is going on.

Dean returned to the nest and confronted Boris. Things were going swimmingly until he gave away his motives and Boris attacked. And then, The Voice. Did anybody else think that was God, or at the very least an angel interfering? Telling them not to kill Dean, because he held some special significance to the world? Apparently it was just their Alpha holding some sort of overly dramatic company meeting about recruitment tactics. All of the vampires pass out, and Dean is treated to his very own Ring video. There are adorable twin girls, blood, and a man I assume is the Alpha. There’s nothing like putting pristine, well-dressed children in a dark, violent setting to up the creep factor.

Dean came to and proceeded to annihilate everyone in the nest, in a pretty amazing and disgusting scene (Samuel was clearly impressed too). I’m not complaining at all, because I love a good gore-fest, but it’s truly amazing what censors will let shows get away with in terms of violence (multiple beheadings, a lead male character hacking away at a pack of teenage girls? Okay, they were all vampires, but still). Contrast that with the comparatively prudish sex and language standards and it’s all very confusing.

Samuel’s potion now complete, Dean drinks it down and is treated to a flash of images of his brief life as a vampire spinning through his mind in rapid succession. That could not have been more perfect. The way they ended the vision on a freeze frame of Sam’s smile as he watched his brother being turned, followed by extreme close up of Dean’s freaked out eyeball. Well played, show.

It was such a quotable episode; here are some of my favorite lines:

• I can make my own decisions. I’m seventeen.

• These aren’t vampires. They’re douchebags.

• He’s watching her sleep. How is that not rapey?

• When’s the last time we had a beer together? (Notable not only because it’s sadly true, but also for Sam’s obvious avoidance of the question altogether)

• You take Efron. I’ve got Beiber.

• Oh god, I’m Pattinson.

• I’m okay. I killed so many people on the way over here, so…

• Those stupid brats are so horny they’ve reinvented us as Prince Charming with a Volvo.

• You’ve got my back. No matter what happens, I can always count on you, right Sammy? Yeah…of course Dean. (There was so much behind this exchange it almost made me cry.)

How did you feel watching Sam watching Dean? Any new theories now that we know that Samuel and Sam aren’t exactly on the same page? Are you missing Cas too? Head to the comments section to discuss!

Next week’s episode is called You Can’t Handle the Truth. Looks like we’ll finally be getting at least some of the answers we’ve been waiting for since episode one. We’re about a quarter way into the season now, so it’s about that time to throw a new wrench in the plot to kick things off in a slightly new direction. Hopefully a direction that both gets to the bottom of the Sam problem and takes them a bit closer to Cas – he’s been sadly underutilized so far and I want him back with a little more frequency. Here’s the promo for next week:

And since they showed some additional bits from the episode in the “Soon” promo from a few weeks back, here’s that too:

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