After three episodes of Demon Dean, Supernatural is back to its original recipe. The boys investigate a suspicious murder, there’s a monster-of-the-week, and the case has thematic parallels to whatever personal drama is brewing between the Winchesters at the current moment.
In this episode, there are two siblings. They’re both werewolves, but one tries to be good while the other doesn’t. Can monsters be cured? Can someone overcome their nature or their bad actions, whether it’s being a werewolf, a former demon or a Hunter who sacrificed people to save his brother?
No More Vacation
Sam and Dean are actually taking some much needed rest and relaxation after the demon cure, drinking beers by a lake. It’s a nice change of pace, but Dean is like a shark and if he stops moving, he dies. There’s a series of suspicious “animal attacks” where the hearts have been eaten (werewolves, obviously), so he convinces Sam to get back to work.
The investigation quickly finds them face-to-face with Kate, the girl who was turned into a werewolf back in the season 8 found-footage episode “Bitten.” She promised that she would only feed on animals and would never attack humans, so Sam and Dean let her go.
Now they have her and Dean is about to kill her, but Sam stops him because he doesn’t think that Dean is ready to do something like that. This gives Kate time to escape and the boys time to learn that there was another attack that Kate couldn’t have done.
Sibling Drama
Sam and Dean talk about their feelings, each worried that the other did some pretty dark things over the past few months. But while Dean has a good excuse (he was a demon), Sam’s dark side is more worrisome because it was just him, willing to let Lester sacrifice his soul to get information on Dean. Both of the boys basically became monsters over the summer, so can they really just get back to normal?
Speaking of sibling drama, Sam and Dean track Kate to a motel and follow her, but it’s not her. Instead, it’s Tasha, Kate’s werewolf sister. Kate is trying to be a good werewolf and not kill humans, but Tasha still gives into her animal urges, so her sister is trying to help cure her. Does any of this sound familiar?
Kate’s Story
After Tasha gets away, Kate tells Sam and Dean her story. Tasha was in a car accident, so the only way to keep her alive was for Kate to turn her into a werewolf. She did, and while Kate tried to teach her to be a peaceful, non-murderous werewolf, Tasha killed people and ate their hearts anyway.
The great part of this sibling parallel is that it works on two different levels for me. On one, Sam is Kate, curing Dean the same way she cured her sister, now worried that Dean isn’t completely healed. Will the Mark of Cain cause Dean to revert back to his demonic ways the same way Tasha keeps killing people?
On the other hand, Dean is Kate, bringing his sibling into the family business and causing him to change from the nice, sweet college student into a ruthless man willing to do anything. Are the things Sam did in order to find his brother forgivable, or did they change him into a monster like Tasha?
Wicked Werewolves
Kate leads the boys to a cabin where Tasha is hiding out after Dean tells her there’s a cure. It was a trick, but Tasha has also set a trap as she’s turned two dudes into werewolves to help her take out Sam and Dean.
While Sam and Dean deal with the dude werewolves (who get killed by Sam fairly easily), Tasha and Kate share a nice sisterly moment that reminds me of Wicked. Tasha goes on and on about much power they have and how nothing can stop them if they work together. Just as I suspect Tasha is about to burst into “Defying Gravity,” Kate agrees to go with her, but as they hug, Kate kills her own sister, realizing that she’s too far gone.
Like in “Bitten,” Sam and Dean are left in a house full of dead bodies while Kate, the good werewolf, is in the wind. In the epilogue, Kate goes off on her own while Dean admits that he wants to get back to work because he wants to do the right thing for a change after being a demon. So maybe there is hope that monsters can be reformed and cured.
Next time on Supernatural: The show is taking next week off for the midterm elections, but will return on November 11 with the big 200th episode musical extravaganza. Yes, there will be singing.
(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.
