Diary of a Supernatural Virgin – Will brotherly love or evil Sam win out?

Season 2, Episodes 9 – 11

Supernatural continues to please; I gotta say, there’s not too much to be dissatisfied with in this series… so far, that is. Even Buffy let me down during some seasons.

But the writers have taken their cues nicely from the actors, and their brotherly banter shows their true friendship as well. We’re going deep with their characters too, and what motivates Dean to kill so easily, and what makes Sam worry about himself and how it affects their actions. All while providing a captivating monster of the week and then some… and by some, I mean a story arc that intrigues, with just enough to keep us interested but not to give too much away, either.

“Croatoan”

“That’s not school — that’s Schoolhouse Rock.” — Sam, to Dean when he asked if he ever paid any attention in history class.

I didn’t start out loving this episode. I thought it was a bit slow-paced, and they had teased us with the previews after the last episode, so I expected something really exciting. What I got instead was a slow build to some awesome story arc tidbits, and I got to watch the brothers grow a little closer too.

It was surprising how easy it was for Dean to kill the infected humans, yet he couldn’t kill the guy from Sam’s vision. Ah, the irony, since that guy turned out to be a bloody vessel-wielding possessed freak, like Meg, testing Sam to make sure he’d be immune to the virus, as expected. Hmmm… Sam seems a little more than just psychic, if you ask me.

When they think that Sam is infected, Dean stays with him, another testament to the brotherly love that is always so well-acted between the two. At the end of the episode, Dean decided his bond with Sam is more important than their Dad’s secret and Dean prepares to spill the beans…

“Hunted”

… although I totally thought we’d get something better that this! OK, I guess it’s major that he might have to kill Sam to save him, but I thought the big secret would be that Sam is the Devil’s son or something… oh wait; wrong Sam, wrong show (Reaper, people… follow along). But you know, something a little more detail-revealing.

What I can’t figure out is why only some of these psychic people fit the profile with their mother dying in a fiery blaze (just Sam, Andy, Max and the guy Gordon killed) — what’s that mean? Are those four somehow different?

Was anyone else thinking Heroes when watching this episode, and the previews a few episodes back? We’ve got a guy with electrical hands that can zap people (or at least cats), premonitory dreams and visions and someone who wants them all dead. When Sam starts flying, I’ll definitely be on to something… Heroes is actually less original than we all thought — is that even possible?

Liked Ava, hope she’s not dead and that she’ll be around for the Heroes reunion in a few episodes (if the previews are at all accurate, that is), but I didn’t quite understand Sam’s epiphany at the end when he found her ring in her house with her dead fiance. Is he thinking she was killed? Is he thinking she was possessed and she did the killing? I’m thinking she could be because her dream saved Sam from Gordon, so now Sam’s around to fight the demon war.

And one more question — do we believe Ellen, or is she the leak? Or does she at least know who the leak is?

“Playthings”

This episode didn’t move the story arc forward all that much for us, although who doesn’t enjoy a drunk Sam, or Sasquatch, as Dean called him? It’s interesting that Sam somehow feels that he’ll turn evil or something, and that after all this time, he’s still really trusting the dad’s and not Dean’s instincts. Does Sam somehow know he’s more than psychic, like I suspect? I wonder if Dean will have to keep his promise and kill Sam… yeah, I get that he’s not dead in season four, but I also know that Jeffrey Dean Morgan, professional dead guy, comes back as a corpse and Dean has already come back to life once, so anything’s possible on Supernatural.

I think we all learned a very important lesson from this episode, though; two actually. One is that dolls are really, really creepy, but no more so than little girl ghosts (see Provenance for part one of that lesson).

Two: Sam and Dean really need to play up the brother angle a bit more, lest they be mistaken for a gay couple antiquing. What made that even funnier is that Sam and Dean are pretty manly men, probably two of the last actors I would ever mistake for gay guys.

Still having fun and looking forward to my next Supernatural marathon….

Clacked by Debbie McDuffee
on Mar 07, 2009 @ 14:00 EST5EDT