Supernatural: Death takes a holiday
Hey, Dean: Staring death in the face? It just a metaphor
Dean makes a deal with Death this week on Supernatural, which strikes us as a dubious proposition. But Death must have a soft spot for Dean, because even though our boy totally doesn't meet Death's terms, the incarnation of our mortality does him a solid. Is that a good thing? Sam sure doesn't think so. We sympathize, Sam, but, as you decided to kill Bobby (who is made of awesome), you kind of made Dean's case for him, you know?
At Death's door
OK, so demons and angels can't help him, so it's time for Dean to think outside of the box: He calls on Death (by killing himself temporarily, natch) to rescue Sam's and Adam's souls from Lucifer's cage. Death is kind of impressed by Dean's chutzpah, but says he'll consider saving one. Dean picks Sam's soul, even though he's aware that it's probably in pretty bad shape. Sorry, Adam!
Death agrees, if Dean can serve as Death for a day. If he can wear Death's ring, and do his job without hesitation, for a full 24 hours, Sam gets his soul back, and Death will wall up the nasty memories to keep him more-or-less sane. If Dean takes off the ring before the time is up, he loses.
Dean agrees, and at first, everything goes well, despite Reaper Tessa's disgust with him. His first charge is an armed robber who threatened a man and his kid, so Dean is happy to collect him (after letting him suffer a bit.) The second is a heart attack waiting to happen, and he even gets a rec for a good pizza place. This job rocks!
Read on for Sam's plot, Death's new deal, and more!
Meanwhile….
Sam objects to this plan, of course -- after all, it's his head that will explode if the drywall fails. But Dean won't take no for an answer, so Sam acquiesces. Sort of. After Dean takes off, he summons Balthazar, the angel who had been trading in souls. Balthy tells Sam that if he does something suitably horrific, he can render his body uninhabitable. The prescription? Patricide.
Slight problem with that (besides the moral objections): Daddy Dearest has been dead for years. Fortunately, Balthazar has a nice fortune-cookie aphorism that can help: "You need the blood of your father, but your father needn't be blood."
Bobby? Be afraid.
Actually, Bobby is too smart to be afraid -- he knows something is up, and foils Sam's attempts to incapacitate him several times. We have to love a guy who has trap doors installed throughout his house just in case he needs to incapacitate a murderous sorta-son.
Death dealing
Dean hits a snag in his Death work experience when he's called on to collect a 12-year-old kid with a heart condition. Tessa is unsympathetic: "What you thought it was all going to be armed robbers and heart attacks waiting to happen? " But Dean will not be moved: "I'm death, she's 12, and she's not dying today." Enter the miraculous cure.
But that means Dean has messed with the natural order, and someone else has to die. First to go: the nurse who was going to operate on the 12-year-old. Dean starts to realize the consequences of his action, but before he can take the girl, he needs to deal with the nurse's husband, who is distraught and looking to kill himself. Dean tries to stop him, but while he wears the ring, he can't effect anything. So he takes the ring off and saves the guy -- but dooms Sam.
Dean knows the deal is now void, but he still realizes he's not done. He puts the ring on again, returns to the girl, and does his duty. Why? she asks.
Dean: There's sort of a natural order of things.
Girl: The natural order's stupid!
Dean: I agree with you there.
Return service
After that last duty, Dean returns to Bobby's -- which is a good thing, because Sam finally has him tied up and is prepared to execute him. Sam! Dean cold-cocks him and they lock him up in the demon-proof panic room, which can now be renamed "Sam's bedroom."
But things aren't over yet: Death pays a visit to debrief Dean. Not so fun screwing without he natural order when you're the one who has to clean up, huh? Dean doesn't want to hear it -- this whole game was rigged! Death agrees (while telling Dean that he should really keep a civil tone when he's talking to Death, dude), but says that he thinks Dean learned something. And therefore, he'll go get Sam's soul for him. Dean is, to put it mildly, shocked. Why?
Death: You and your brother keep coming back. You're an affront to the balance of the universe and you cause disruption on a global scale.
Dean: I apologize for that….
Death: But you have use. Right now you're digging at something, intrepid detective. I want you to keep digging, Dean.... It's about the souls. You'll understand when you need to.
While Dean contemplates those marching orders, Death returns with Sam's soul. Sam is terrified, but Death is undeterred:
Death: Now Sam I'm going to put up a barrier inside your mind. It might feel a little itchy. Do me a favor -- don't scratch the wall. Because trust me, you're not going to like what happens.
Eep!
Highlights, thoughts and odds and ends
We loved seeing Reaper Tessa again. Too bad she was so pissed about being saddled with Dean: "Wow. They just let any slack-jawed haircut be death these days."
We were also quite happy about the return of Death -- although we were also happy to have him at a distance. Face it: Death is a scary dude.
Tessa warns Dean that the newly deceased might want answers from Death. "
"What, like how did Betty White outlast me?"
When Dean is confronted with his first what's-it-all-about question, he improvises:
Dean: Everything is dust in the wind.
Dead guy: That's it? A Kansas song?
Dean looks honestly disappointed that the dead guy didn't appreciate his insight. Hee!
Again, if it weren't for the whole killing-Bobby part, we'd be quite sympathetic to Sam: "Dean doesn't care about me, he just cares about his little brother, Sammy, burning in hell. He'll kill me to get that other guy back." But Bobby has a point: "Look, I know how scary that it. But you know what's scarier? You, right now. You're not in your right head, Sam. You're not giving us much choice here."
Now that Dean understands about the whole natural order thing, he's slightly abashed:
Death: You and your brother keep coming back. You're an affront to the balance of the universe and you cause disruption on a global scale.
Dean: I apologize for that….
So, will Sam survive his soul implant? What's this mysterious issue with souls that Death wants Dean to check out? Do you find yourself wanting to hire Bobby to redo your house so you can have trap doors for any occasion? And what the hell are you going to do until the end of January with no new episodes? Talk about it in the comments!
Comments
Sarah, you forgot one huge detail on this episode. Forget all the drama and emo nonsense, we had Robert freakin' Englund on the show! Freddy Kreuger himself gracing our humble show. Total fanboy moment upon seeing him
Posted by: jeremy | May 19, 2011 1:17 AM
Barbara,
Fans like you won't be satisfied until Dean is completely off the show so that Sam doesn't have to share even a smidgen of attention from the audience.
You just keep up your whining and just like with every other thing Sam fans have demanded, no doubt Gamble and Kripke will pander to you on this as well.
Heck maybe they can send Dean off to Lisa and replace him in the Impala with Adam. Of course, then you would begrudge Adam his screen time and any bit of action or dialogue that takes focus away from Sam.
It seems Sam fans can only appreciate Sam when he is the only thing on the screen and TPTB, stupidly continue to pander to your tantrums by making Castiel all but disappear and givind Dean nothing to do but fret over Sammy.
Gamble has destroyed this show. They've already lost almost two million viewers compared to season 4 and still TPTB continue to Pander to JP and his fans. But then again, I guess the CW has absolutely nothing to replace the show with so why should they worry about retaining viewers with a high-quality product, right?
Posted by: Mella | February 21, 2011 3:23 AM
I previously posted a comment on another page about the season so far but will add a little more. Dean has always been the one taking care of Sam. No matter what happens or what Sam does wrong Dean is there to save Sam or clean up his mess. Soul or not Sam knows that Vampires are EVIL and yet he lets his brother get turned. Come on, WTF? He even smiled. How could he do that and work with him after that? As if working with Demons behind your BROTHER'S back and drinking their blood isn't bad enough now you let then take the only person ever there for you. I can't believe he smiled. Sam gives Dean the "truth" and says he needs help and knows he needs his soul but then tries to kill Bobby. He is crazy and honestly, I had been hoping Bobby would shoot him. We all know Bobby is too good for that, unfortunately. Someone posted something about Dean's time in Hell verses Sam's and stated Sam had suffered longer but, YOU ARE INCORRECT. If you watched the show you would remember that Sam didn't spend a second in Hell, he was pulled out immediately by Crowley so there was no suffering at all for little brother. True his soul has been left but Sam feels NOTHING. Not pain, not sorrow, not remorse, not empathy, not love and certainly not guilt. Otherwise, how could he do anything he has done this season? It has been mention on a few occasions that Sam is now the better hunter but I strongly disagree. He is just a sociopath who does not have to sleep so of course he has had more time to research, hunt and kill anything including innocent people "in the line of duty", my ass. Even when Dean was completely focused on the job he couldn't take an innocent life, which was the whole reason for saying No to Michael. Okay so Sam bit the bullet and jumped in the whole but, there was quite a bit of hesitation if anyone remembers. If Dean had not shown up there would have been a battle. Sam was not as strong as he had thought he was but big brother came through as always. So those of you dumping on Dean, take a stroll through the story one more time from the top before making your comments. Sam still had every intention on going back to school until the Apocalypse so, think real hard about his character. Even after getting his soul back I don't believe he will be as strong willed as Dean is and I don't believe that Sam will care for his brother as much as he is cared for by Dean. I think both Dean and Bobby better watch their backs for quite some time.
Posted by: Linda | January 14, 2011 10:03 PM
First, I'm both a Sam and a Dean girl. I LOVE them both.
Now, I agree with Barbara. For a long time the show has been about Dean's emotions. So the story might be around Sam but the focus was about how Dean felt. it's like things are form his pov not a bird's eye view as it was in 1st season for example. and that makes me feel sad.
Posted by: Rosy | December 23, 2010 5:37 PM
I think this episode was a perfect mid-season closer. As a whole, the first half has come together well. I've already gone back and rewatched all 11 episodes and when you pay attention to all the details, they all string together perfectly. So looking at it by average of all 11 episodes, each Dean and Sam get equal screen time. I also loved the one episode devoted to Bobby. 'Weekend at Bobbys' is on my top 5 favs for S6. Now, in the second half what I would really love to see is an awesome Castiel episode.
Posted by: Jenn | December 18, 2010 7:11 PM
"Death takes a holyday"? is it the wrong episode's name? It Appointment with samarra! anyway.. was a great episode! The best so far.
Posted by: Camila | December 15, 2010 7:14 PM
I loved the episode.
Death is an amazing character and he managed to show Dean things about how things work on a global scale. Because let's be honset Dean's never been the bigger picture kinda guy.
It was cool to see Balthazar again, but if he keeps doing these things Cas is really going to kick his a**.
Bobby was awesome! he is made of awesome.
Creepy, scary Robo!Sam is scary and creepy. I actually realized that I liked big puppy eyed, emo Sam after he turned into a sicko, so yeay. Now I like Sam, if he becomes normal again.
The episode was awesome and I hope we get to see Death again.
This season's storyline is great. Sera and the crew are doing awesome, just like the cast.
It will be hard to survive the Hellatus, but I'm excited about the rest of the season. Big time!
Posted by: Scyllaya | December 14, 2010 11:43 AM
sam's inner emotions? hes got no soul lol, watch the show
Posted by: brodie | December 14, 2010 4:51 AM
Response to Barbara, Sam doesn't have any emotions this season, thats the point. And the whole Dean Perspective thing is to parallel season one where we first saw Sam at college and followed him into the main story of Supernatural, getting his main perspective, while Dean was the unrelatable one with the most issues. Their roles have reversed this season, and Dean with his short span of domestic living is the one the audience can identify with, Sam is the one we need to be wary of.
Posted by: Lucy | December 13, 2010 8:24 PM
Barbara even though the episode was about getting sam's soul back dean got more screentime because he was the one that was trying to get sam's soul, not sam. and as u can tell from that episode sam does not want it back. dean was the one that came up with the plan. anywaysi love this episode. i cant wait 4 january 28th to c what sam will do. it going to be a long 6 weeks
Posted by: j2love | December 13, 2010 7:46 PM
Barbara, you are kidding right? This season has been all about Sam and Sam is the only one that has had a storyline, Dean has been all about Sam, and you complain because out of 11 maybe 2 episodes, counting this one, that was also about Sam, finally had Dean do something else besides wring his hands over poor woobie Sammy? It's not enough that Sam got Dean's hell story, that Sam was in hell and suffered much longer than Dean, just as the samfans requested. That even after the soul stuff, the story of Sam's soul is, unfortunately, still not over. You would actually begrudge Dean 1/2 of an episode that he did something active? Really? Why don't you just ask Sera for the all Sam Winchester Hour..oh wait, that's what we had for the first half of this season. I guess maybe that's not enough. I'm ready to give this show up. If the next half is all about Sam just like the first half, I'm totally done.
Posted by: strega | December 13, 2010 6:52 PM
Just wondering why an episode supposedly devoted to Sam getting his soul back was really all about Dean? He had more screentime (as always), better lines, more opportunity to show insight into his thinking and emotions, just moremoremore. I love Dean, but can't you please just feature a FEW episodes a year where we see Sam's inner thinking and his emotions?
Posted by: Barbara | December 13, 2010 3:46 PM