Werewolf time – one person eaten and a young woman,
Hayden, being bitten.
That’s a mission – Sam and Dean are on it. And they’re
getting Mick from the Men of Letters involved. Sam is playing nice but Dean has
a whole lot of contempt for people whose entire experience of the supernatural
is from books and they’ve had no field experience at all. Of course he’s also
pretty contemptuous of book learning in general
The fact that Mick’s book learning Men of Letters failed
so spectacularly against the vampires kind of gives Dean a lot of ammunition
here.
This doesn’t promise to be a good road trop.
Sam still wants to help Mick learn because, if they’re working
together, it’s better that the Men of Letters be more capable.
We also continue to explore more of the ways the Men of
Letters does things – including how they’ve wiped out werewolves in Britain…
Sam and Dean both speak up on that one. They’ve met werewolves who have been
able to control themselves – Garth
the Annoying is a werewolf after all. Slaughtering all werewolves
regardless of who they are, how they try to live or whether they’ve killed or
not is not ok. In fact, while it’s not common, the Winchesters have certainly
found the odd monster out there that isn’t entirely monstrous.
They put that aside and continue their journey –
including “roughing it” in a 3 Star hotel. This is luxury beyond compare for
Dean
It’s played for laughs – but it again shows the extremely
different contexts they work in. How the Men of Letters have made everything so
calm and civilised and safe that Mick is completely out of place in the more
desperate frontier of America.
They investigate – including interviewing the grieving
family and Mick doesn’t do too badly pretending to be a doctor… and he
discovers Hayden has been bitten and is due to turn.
They also discover Claire
is here, hunter Claire who they have a long history with. She’s here
without Jody’s knowledge because while Jody will take her hunting she then
tries to keep Claire in the car. Claire is much more of a lone wolf anyway. The
Winchesters aren’t a fan of this and we continue to have the whole big-brother
vibe: protective from Sam and jokey from Dean. It’s a bit paternalistic and
annoyingly controlling but they don’t try to stop her or completely remove her
choices. Perhaps criticise and be very involved in them – but ultimately they
do tend to leave them in her hands.
Mick also lies to the Winchesters about Hayden being
bitten – so he can go back without them and inject her with silver – killing her.
He tries to keep this secret but the next day as they’re
investigating (Claire with Sam interviewing Hayden’s friends and doing an
excellent job because she’s not a 30 year old man) he and Dean are interviewing
suspects while Dean pokes Mick’s actions. Mick spills his secret since Dean
already knows exactly what Mick’s done and is extremely not happy about Mick
killing a child and giving her no chance to prove herself. Dean
also refers to Magda – the psychic child who was horrifically abused who he
and Sam decided to save. And the Men of Letters killed.
Mick looks guilty and troubled and questioning of his
orders
But I’m more interested in Dean here. For the last few episodes – seasons even – Dean has been becoming harder. We even saw this brutally with the common cause he made with Arthur Ketch. Dean has been very much about killing the monsters and less and less focused on saving people. But, ultimately, to Dean and Sam it is about saving people and no matter how brutal they get. No matter how much of a killer Dean becomes, this is a line. It’s an interesting evolution: way back the beginning the Winchesters were much more focused on saving people and less death focused – but at the same time they didn’t hesitate to kill any monster. Now they’re more lethal and even more brutal – yet have a more nuanced view of what makes a monster.
I think it’s also a comment, again, of who has been on
the front lines. Mick hasn’t – and he has simple rules, lots of them, but
simple. He has policies he has to apply. Orders to follow. Which is all well
and good when monster hunting is on paper. While Sam and Dean work cases – they
have experience and knowledge, but each case is separate and approached on its
own merits with a knowledge that not everything is the same. Sam and Dean have
taken “rules” applied them to reality and found how often things are not that
simple.
When Sam learns as well he’s also furious – despite being
the pro-men-of-letters side he is officially done with them after Mick killed a
child. That’s a deal breaker.
Mick: “You’re angry”
Sam: “You killed a child. We’re done.”
I wish that were actually true
But while Sam tried to lecture Claire about her choices
she storms off and when alone gets bitten by a werewolf. Y’know her being attacked
by a werewolf is, I can concede, integral to the plot- can it not happen because
she stormed off in a temper. Let
it not be Spunky Agency that gets her attacked
Of course this means they have a turning Claire but
thankfully find an obscure cure (yadda yadda cure never works, no chance of it
working yadda yadda – this is TVlandia, a cure that has a 10% chance of working
and 90% chance of killing you horribly will ALWAYS work after the obligatory “oh
no they’re dead!” 10 second pause. It’s a rule.) which needs the blood of the
werewolf that bit her. Which Sam and Dean go looking for leaving Mick to guard
Claire despite his child murdering tendencies because Dean will kill him most
horribly if he does
The werewolf comes for Claire though and easily kidnaps
her because, again, Mick has no field experience. There’s another element here
which they don’t explore which I really think they need to: the werewolf
expositions his motives. He’s trying to rebuild his pack after the Men of
Letters slaughtered them and forced them to split up. Of course he’s self-serving
but it’s a note on how, again, the Men of Letter’s brutal slaughter is
disrupting the supernatural status quo can causing more trouble – just like
drawing out the Alpha Vampire
Among all the fighting, Mick shoots the werewolf. Which
apparently is redemptive because everyone’s willing to give him a second
chance? Which I’m not buying to be honest. I mean what did Mick do that remotely
make up for child killing?
More interesting is Claire – Sam and Dean would like her
to tell Jody, but let it be her choice. They respect Claire’s decision on
whether to tell Jody if she’s hunting or not: which Claire does and it’s kind
of beautiful
