photo: cw
Live Free Or Twihard
Original Air Date: Oct 22, 2010
Alyssa Silva – TwoCents Reviewer
alyssa@thetwocentscorp.com
Warning: No Castiel Sightings.
What the fang just happened? To quote Dean, what the hell?
Before I start my little opinion piece, let’s go over the plot. Which was pretty much a hefty sense of snark aimed towards the current vampire trend. Don’t get me wrong I’m not against vampires. Angelus and Spike were champions (figuratively and literally) and The Vampire Diaries has kind of become a guilty pleasure. But Supernatural picked the one fad I wish would die a horrible, decapitated death – Twilight.
I cannot even begin to describe the clichéd awesomeness that was the opening few minutes. The guy they got to play Robert was spot on, and together with Kristen, stay true to the breathy definition of teenage vampire life Stephanie Meyer has foisted upon us. The actress playing Kristen also stars as Green Arrow’s protégé in Smallville, but sadly Justin Hartley didn’t swoop in half-naked to save the day. I know. Little sister and I were devastated too. Instead the girl gets cornered off and then feasted upon by Robert and his boss Boris, who has the worst perm known to man and non-man alike. Turns out this little nest of vamps have been recruiting attractive young girls and boys with bad poetry.
Dean gets turned into a creature of the night and Gramps rushes in with a cure. A key ingredient is Boris’ blood so Dean infiltrates the nest and hacks off the creepy, perverted dude’s head. He then proceeds to down the cure, hack up suspect blue and black liquid, and go back to normal. Well, as normal as it gets in this slice of reel.
Now my rant. Samuel Winchester, where do I even begin? First there was Ruby and the demon blood. That we could kind of handle considering the rather adverse reaction Dean had to you having demon blood in your system and all. But this? Knowingly letting your brother ingest vampire blood? The aspect of this that freaks me out is that despite his brother’s…quirks, Dean has still been able to put his life in Sam’s big hands. This new calculating, cold edge to Sam can’t be blamed on anything but himself. That smirk he had on his face as he watched Boris force the blood into Dean’s mouth, and then later his feigned innocence when Gramps calls him out, is legitimately scary. What’s worse is that Dean gets sucked into the lie easily right until the end of the episode, when his memory flashes back during the purge and he sees Sam’s smirk for himself. So right now, the way this has been set up, we’ve got Dean slowly beginning to realize that his brother has changed completely while the other remains blissfully ignorant that his duplicity has been unraveled.
I was kind of disappointed that the writers didn’t explore Dean’s feelings about being turned into a vamp. Aside from the fact where he spouted off about how he was a monster who was better off dead, I just felt it would have been interesting to see whether Dean would have harnessed this experience to see how his treatment of Sam in the earlier seasons was kind of douchey. Perfect opportunity for a “Walk A Mile In My Shoes” experiment left wanting.
Another thing that struck me was how organized the vampires were. They had a plan in place from an Alpha to amass an army, one in which recruitment was prized. These vampires are doing this, ironically, without killing humans (this is apparently against company policy). Instead, in homage to Damon Salvatore, they steal blood from the blood bank and feed off those. The biggest difference between the demons in Season 6 and those from earlier ones is that they’re no longer afraid of Hunters. Which doesn’t bode well considering demons aren’t exactly going according to script now.
Quote of the night:
“He’s watching her sleep. How is that not rapey?” – Dean in reference to a best-selling novel, in which the vampire watches the brown-haired girl sleep on the cover.
What did you think of tonight’s episode? Did you enjoy the parody? What are your thoughts on Sam 3.0? Where’s Cas? Why did they call Gramps and not Bobby to deal with Dean’s turn to the sharp side? Give me your TwoCents!
Next Week: You Can’t Handle the Truth
TheTwoCents 
Great review. You are right about this being a missed opportunity for the writers to explore how unsympathetic Dean had been to Sam in the past. As for calling Gramps before Bobby, that made since considering Sam knew he had a cure. Looking forward to next week’s episode to finally get some answers about what is up with Sam!
I thought this episode was awesome, Dean kicked ass as a Vampire, killing the entire nest on his own. Sam’s actions had me screaming at the screen. Even started liking Samuel more, although I still don’t trust him.
About your remark about Dean walking in Sam’s shoes with the blood. I’m sorry I didn’t have any problem with Dean reaction to Sam SUCKING blood. He chose to do that, even though, even Chuck told him it was wrong. While the YED might have given him his first drops as an infant, he never had problems with it until he sided with Ruby over Dean. Dean didn’t chose to get turned. His brother let it happen… This is so not the same
I really don’t get any sort of similarity between Dean being a vampire and Sam drinking Ruby’s blood. Sam was choosing Ruby over Dean because he loved how important she made him feel and loved her liquid red crack, drinking because he wanted to. Dean was involuntarily converted, refused to drink blood and would rather die than hurt his loved ones rather than become a monster. I’d say Dean comes out looking a whole lot better even if there was a comparison thing going.
Actually I was referring more to pre-Ruby Sam, you know when he discovered his powers? He kept acting like Sam was diseased or something, unnatural even.
Sam with Ruby on the other hand, I have no problems calling him a bit of a douche. But, to play devil’s advocate, Sam did think his brother was dead. And we never really got to see what happened with Sam during the time Dean was in Hell…perhaps something traumatizing? All we got was bits and pieces throughout really.