Back in “Yellow Fever,” some people wondered if Dean didn’t get sick because he was a dick. Creator Eric Kripke denied it, but now I think the genius did protest too much. After last night’s bombshell reveal that Dean enjoyed torturing souls in Hell, it seems slightly obvious that Dean is a little bit of a dick.
I’m not trying to tick off the legions of Jensen lovers in the Supernatural community, but this twist certainly puts some tarnish on the image of the show’s golden boy. Kripke went ahead and made one of the lead characters rather unlikeable and made him do something that is not easy to forgive. From a storytelling perspective, I find this utterly fascinating.
Dean fans may not love that their man took pleasure in causing others pain, but it’s a great move for an already strong show. Supernatural is now willing to go to much darker places than ever before and it’s not afraid to make the Winchesters flawed.
For most of the past two seasons, fans focused on Sam’s transformation and the fact that he was slowly turning over to the dark side. But this revelation instantly moved Dean well past Sam on that scale. We now have to reevaluate our preconceptions and figure out what’s good and what’s bad. What’s good and what’s evil?
That was essentially the premise of last night’s entire episode. Supernatural made a huge shift by dropping any supernatural elements. There were no ghosts, no monsters, no paranormal phenomena, it was just about two seriously disturbed individuals stalking and killing a family. As messed up as they were, they were just human beings, and Dean killed one of them.
There’s a big difference between killing a demon and killing a human, and those lines blurred last night. It’s not an easy place to go, nor is it pleasant, but it’s interesting and compelling, and I look forward to seeing how much further down the rabbit hole Dean will go before someone has to stop him.
-John Kubicek, BuddyTV Senior Writer
(Image courtesy of the CW)
Senior Writer, BuddyTV
John watches nearly every show on TV, but he specializes in sci-fi/fantasy like The Vampire Diaries, Supernatural and True Blood. However, he can also be found writing about everything from Survivor and Glee to One Tree Hill and Smallville.
