XI: Winchester Brothers Report “You got him, I need him, let’s make a deal.”

“The Bonnie to your Clyde.” “The Mallory to your Mickey.” “Sid and Nancy.”

“I couldn’t live with you dead.”

Well, then, how about Romeo and Juliet?

When I read the synopsis for episode 11.17 of Supernatural, “Red Meat”, I knew it had potential. Sam on the brink of death always makes for an interesting story because Dean has proven time and time again that nothing is too unreasonable, outrageous or insane when it comes to the things he’s willing to do to keep his brother alive.

My excitement was mounting, as the teaser showed scenes from “Mystery Spot” and “Appointment In Samarra”, two of the Greatest Hits from the ‘I Can’t Lose You’ Winchester Repertoire. I thought I was ready for “Red Meat”. I had to be revived a couple of times during the episode. Just when I thought the Winchesters couldn’t get any crazier…

Oh, welcome back, sweet codependency! Not that you ever went away.

* Warning: mentions of suicide *

Sam and Dean versus the werewolves: “We gotta get that bullet out of there.”

“Red Meat” starts with a bang. Two hunters and two werewolves square off inside a run down cabin in the woods. Bodies slamming against furniture, punches, kicks, glass shattering, two bloody knives, and one gunshot. Sam is bleeding from his stomach but he still gestures towards the two captives handcuffed to the ceiling beams.

First things first. “Just hold tight you two.” Dean rushes to his brother’s side with the first aid box, sterilizes a pair of tweezers with the flame of a lighter, places a roll of gauze into Sam’s mouth and reaches in to pull out the bullet. He’s fast, efficient, and even cracks a joke about keeping the bullet as a memento. After the couple is freed, the foursome flees the cabin. The woman’s wrists are infected, Sam needs immediate attention, there’s no cell phone service for miles and other werewolves are on the prowl.

Sam and Dean versus Corbin: “He won’t leave you.”

The phone they find at a nearby house is dead. When one of the victims, Corbin, concerned with saving his wife Michelle, suggests they keep moving and leave Sam behind because he’s slowing them down, Dean gets physical. “We’re going to carry him the rest of the way!” Sam tries to reason with Dean, but to no avail. When Dean storms out, determined to build a litter for Sam, Sam urges Corbin to take Michelle, and leave with Dean. Desperate, and aware that the only man who can help them won’t move without his brother, Corbin decides to eliminate the road block. He strangles Sam. “I’m sorry.”

Dean after finding Sam is gone: “Let ’em come.”

Finding Sam’s lifeless body doesn’t have the effect Corbin had hoped for. Dean’s response as werewolves drive toward the house is “Let ’em come”. He still wants to stay with his brother, but staying means they all die, so Corbin begs him to help them and he finally gets Dean to leave. Dean promises Sam he will be back for him. A flashback shows Sam, in a good mood as he’s trying to convince Dean that the hunt will be like a fun camping vacation.

Dean after getting the couple to safety: “I gotta get back to my brother.”

As soon as Dean gets the couple out of the woods and in the safety of the sheriff’s car, he’s ready to get back to Sam. He punches the sheriff when he tries to detain him for questioning but he gets taken down by Taser. When Dean comes to at the hospital, a grateful Michelle offers her condolences for his loss. He quickly ingests a dangerous cocktail of drugs in an attempt to talk to a “Scary, Crazy Death Machine”. He asks Michelle to get the doctor to revive him if she can but also tells her he is okay with the possibility that she might not be able to.

Dean bargains with Billie : “Look, you got him, I need him, let’s make a deal.”

Dean tries to appeal to Billie’s self-interest, telling her that Sam is the only one who can stop The Darkness from wiping everything off the map, reapers included. She sees right through him and observes he’s only pretending to try to save Sam for the greater good when they both know he’s doing it for himself. Dean begs, offers to trade his life for Sam’s but Sam is still alive and “the Empty, it’s waiting”. Just as Billie’s about to reap Dean, the doctor manages to jolt him back to life.

The Big W returns: “It took you long enough.”

While Dean was embarking on his journey to the beyond, Sam was awaking to find his refuge invaded. Weak and bleeding profusely, he managed to outsmart and kill the two remaining werewolves before hopping into their truck to reach the main road where the Impala was still waiting. After a quick phone call where he got his brother’s location but didn’t have time to warn him about Corbin before the signal went out, Sam raced to the hospital and arrived there just in time to shoot the newly turned werewolf dead, as he was strangling Dean.

A doctor explained that Sam’s body went into shock after he was attacked, only giving the appearance of death. As for Dean, he chose to keep quiet about his self-inflicted tumble into the other side, telling Sam he always knew Sam wasn’t dead.

 

Overall grade: 9.5/10

Another week, another fantastic episode. As some of you may know, I love the hunters Winchesters; watching them on the job, chasing monsters, breaking and entering, researching, casting spells, the whole deal, and their hunter instincts were on steroids in “Red Meat”.

Starting with an amazing action scene, then Dean, uber efficient, dexterous, and cool-headed as an on-the-spot surgeon. It’s in moments like these that Team Winchester shines. They’ve been through this before. Communication is fast, they both know what to do, what’s coming, and they each play their role to make the other’s job as easy as possible.

Dean was comforting, showing a hint of pride (“Look at that, huh?”) at Sam’s ability to take it like a champ after earning another warrior scar, and he even allayed any fears Sam might have about surviving by projecting them into a future where they would both look back at the moment and laugh. Then Dean was in two places at once, racing between his injured brother and the two captives, doing everything in his power to keep everybody safe and calm.

Sam was heroic, putting the victims welfare above his own, even bandaging his own wound with shaky fingers so Dean could be free to assist others. He also used humor to keep his spirits up as he was doubled over in pain, comparing his wounds to an indigestion from that roadhouse chill he just knew was a bad idea. The hunter on steroid really kicked in when Sam woke up after he was attacked by Corbin. Even half dead, he kept on ticking like the Terminator, taking down two werewolves and driving to the hospital to kill the third one and save his brother.

As usual situations where the brothers are in danger heighten their protective instincts. What else but the fear of losing Dean kept Sam lucid enough to get his destination, shoot the monster, and only then collapse like a broken puppet on the floor. In these moments he gets “Mystery Spot” focused. Dean gets “Croatoan”, you’ll-be-dead-before-you-hit-the-ground bossy toward anyone who threatens Sam’s life. He started shoving Corbin when Corbin mentioned leaving Sam behind, and was even fighting branches as he was scrambling to build a litter to carry Sam. No brother left behind. He went “All Hell Breaks Loose” “then let it end”when Sam became unresponsive and still wouldn’t move as the werewolves started closing in on them, until Corbin’s pleas for help snapped him back into reality.

The entire episode was an emotional roller coaster. It starts with a high intensity action scene then there’s this moment where everything stops because Sam’s been shot. I’m nervously watching Dean patch him up. Tensions run high as everybody starts fighting over what to do about Sam and then things get sad. The idea that Sam Winchester, the boy who jumped into the pit for humankind could have been snuffed out by one lone victim he was still trying to rescue while he was at his weakest, injured and defenseless tore my heart out. Watching Corbin the fact that Dean wouldn’t abandon Sam as a reason to attack and suffocate him while Dean was out of sight was heartbreaking. Then to have to see the flashback of Sam smiling and trying to get Dean excited about the hunt that was going to kill him was the coup de grâce. I was already a mess when the sheriff entered the picture and I could have knocked him out each time he kept Dean from going back to Sam.

The most shocking moment was certainly Dean committing suicide. I thought I’d seen it all from that one. He seemed to have little fear, gathering and chugging down pills that were supposed to kill him because the worst that could happen to him already had. He was either going to bring Sam back, or he stay dead, and he was fine with it. Then the episode went full Romeo and Juliet. Romeo drank his poison and died, not knowing that Juliet was still alive.

And that’s when Sam gave me a joyous little heart attack as he gasped himself awake and called out for Dean. Of course, the relief was short-lived and I was stressed out all over again while he was being hunted by the werewolves, then beaming with pride when he prevailed. Another heart episode when he fell down in the stairs, as if he wasn’t injured enough my goodness, at the same moment Dean fell at the hospital (Winsync!).

I like Lisa Berry, and I was glad to see Billie again. She seemed to know all about Dean. Almost. She knows his love for burgers, TV marathons and the fact that he “can’t lose” Sam but she has it wrong on the “suicide-type” thing. Au contraire, my dear Billie, it goes hand in hand with his “martyr” thing. This is the man who said he couldn’t live with Sam dead and has proven that he meant it.

 

Ode to the codependency

Which brings me to the reason this episode is the latest addition to my personal SPN Hall of Fame. I live for Sam and Dean’s codependecy, and in “Red Meat”, my cup runneth over. Not only did Dean not hesitate to catapult himself into the other realm to retrieve Sam (how do we like that “Safe House” foreshadowing), but even the guests characters seemed to know to some degree that Dean couldn’t lose Sam.

“He won’t leave you.”

It was so obvious to Corbin that Dean would never leave Sam that the only solution for him was to kill him. Digest this for a minute. This is almost on par with the Horseman Death demanding Sam dies to be sure Dean could be separated from him permanently.

Billie might have been surprised by Dean’s suicide but Corbin wouldn’t have been. He realized rather quickly that killing Sam’s death destroyed Dean’s motivation to live. “You stay, you die.” “He wants to stay”.

One thing Billie did see clearly was that Dean couldn’t live without Sam and was ready to say anything to get him back. “You can’t lose him”, “pretending you’re trying to save Sam for the greater good when we both know you’re doing it for you.”

Then they were all those references to other Greatest Hits of the Codependency Tour, like Dean asking, “Bring him back”, same words Sam told the Trickster in “Mystery Spot”, or, Dean saying “Take me”, which is what Sam told the crossroads demon in “I Know What You Did Last Summer”.

Corbin’s “He won’t leave you.” also echoes the “I’m not gonna leave you” from “Swan Song”, and Dean’s decision at the hospital, find a way to bring Sam back or die is what Chuck said he wanted to do back in ‘Swan Song”: “ Every part of him, every fiber he’s got, wants to die, or find a way to bring Sam back.”

Best Dean moments

Dean promises to come back for Sam.

Dr Dean to the rescue!

Best Sam moments

Terminator Sam.

Broken puppet Sam. finally allows himself to collapse now that he knows both he and Dean will be safe.

Best broments

No brother left behind.

Bruised, battered, but triumphant.

Final verdict

“You don’t have to do this.”
“Yeah, I do.”

Some are bothered by this aspect of the brothers relationship. I’m not. I love it. It’s not new either. It’s always been there. They’re getting a little worse every year, and that’s fine too. The Winchester codependency is part of the fabric of Supernatural and this episode definitely paid homage to what remains my favorite part of the show.

Sure, it hurts to watch Dean guzzle down poison without blinking, then see him seizing on the floor, ready to throw it all away if he can’t have Sam with him or at least Sam alive, without him, but I was also similarly bewildered when Sam offered to recreate the Thriller video or Death Becomes Her with Dean as two zombies stealing hearts and sowing each other up in “Time Is On My Side”, rather then lose Dean to hellfire.

I’m committed to the Winchesters in all their extravagance, messiness and beauty. No one love each other the way they do, and I don’t ever want them to stop. Perfectly imperfect, make-believe characters in a make-believe world where their particular brand of crazy is a fact of life. Horsemen, reapers, angels, humans, you name it, everybody knows you can’t keep those two apart for long.

A word on Jared and Jensen who did an amazing job with their characters, both in crisis and emotional turmoil, running against the clock to save one another. Gentlemen, take a bow while I throw red roses on the stage.

“Mario” & “Luigi”, Dream Team Bros moved up to the next level and earned themselves another life. Dean terminated himself for Sam and Sam went Terminator to save Dean. If they were the only ones in the episode, it would have been a 12.

Edited on April 1st 2016 : I used the wrong name for one of the characters in my review. It was Corbin, not Coleman. Thank you to Pollyanna_ish (IMDb forum) for bringing it to my attention. I appreciate it! Fixed 🙂

Merci,

Vee

 

XI : Winchester Brothers Report
11.01 “We Broke It, We Bought It”
11.02 “That Giant, Crazy Fart”
11.03 “And I have a fake badge”
11.04 “We’re home”
11.05 “That whole sensitive verbal massage”
11.06 “She overpowered me, end of story”
11.07 “What do you mean, killer bunny?”
11.08 “The family that showers together”
11.09 “If Sam’s not safe, it’s not happening”
11A Midseason Report Card “So, lock and key?”
11.10 “Sam can’t talk cause he’s waxing…”
11.11 “All that’s ever mattered is that we’re together”
11.12 “And when you mix it up with the potatoes and the beans”
11.13 “I can’t help it if I’m a hopeless romantic.”
11.14 “Non, je ne regrette rien.”
11.15 “Groupie, much?”
11.16 “I got ya.”

Gif credits