#spn s02e03 | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

destielshippingnews · 3 years ago

Text

Edvard's Supernatural Guide 2x03 Bloodlust

2x03 Bloodlust is the second episode in what some people have called the ‘Dark Dean Arc’, i.e. the three episodes following John’s death. Dean deals with his bereavement and the burden John placed on him in a self-destructive and sometimes frightening manner. I referred to episodes 2x03 and 2x04 in my previous review, saying that it was not until these two episodes that the severity of Dean’s distress and loss is visible. While I do not think that his behaviour itself is quite as worrisome and bad as some make it out to be, it is definitely indicative of a seriously troubled mind and an ailing spirit.

As for Sam, Sera Gamble shows she really is a Samgirl. She is very keen to present him as the morally upstanding counterpart to Dean’s brutish barbarity, the saint to Dean’s sinner, the Brain to Dean’s Pinky. This heavy bias was less apparent in series 1 when she wrote with Raelle Tucker on 1x12 Faith and 1x21 Salvation, but without her writing partner nothing holds her back. The reverse is true of Raelle Tucker’s solo work, as 2x20 What Is and What Should Never Be shows, but she does not take Sam to such an extreme as Sera Gamble does. She also does not seem to dislike Sam, which cannot be said of Gamble and Dean, but that is a story for another time.

First things first: look at his wee little outfit! (And look at him check that guy out.)

On to the episode, and this one is about vampires, the creatures who were supposedly almost wiped out but have now appeared twice within a space of six episodes. I will have less to say on the subject of vampires in this episode than I did in my review of 1x20 Dead Man’s Blood because I have already said most of it, but one thing worth bearing in mind is that this episode aired about three years before the Twilight films were released. Perhaps Gamble and Tucker had read the books and were intrigued by the idea of ‘vegetarian’ vampires (this would make since given how much Gamble’s writing in e.g. 2x17 Heart resembles soap opera melodrama), but at the time of the episode’s release this was definitely unusual in the vampire genre, Louis in Interview with the Vampire notwithstanding.

Speaking of vampires, the cold open of the episode shows a woman (later revealed to be a vampire) running away from a dark figure in the woods at night, only to end up beheaded on screen just before title card. The viewer is supposed to identify with the woman, because she is a woman running scared and we have seen this same scene in umpteen horror films. We are of course supposed to empathise with her, and her death is supposed to shock us and show us that the monster is monstrous. It is interesting that the ‘monster’ in the show is actually a human, and the victim a monster. This is the first time the show has really introduced this idea that monsters can be victims and the hunters can be the bad guys. It is relevant because Sam is on the road to becoming a ‘monster’ and John has burdened Dean with becoming the one to hunt and kill him. Who, in that situation, would be the real monster and who the hero?

This episode does not provide absolute answers, but instead focuses on grey area and nuance. But more on that later. First, context for those who do not remember the episode:

Reports of what appears to be cattle mutilations and exsanguinations draw Dean and Sam to investigate a case in northern Montana. The sceptical sheriff acts a bit shifty and appears to wilfully misinterpret Dean and Sam’s intentions with the case. They said clearly that the cattle mutilations could possible be a Satanic ritual, but the sheriff misconstrues this as them thinking Satan did it. Having been on the internet as long as I have, I have grown exceedingly accustomed to interacting with people with the reading comprehension capabilities of a cauliflower, but this took the biscuit.

It turns out that the cattle killings actually WERE Dean and Sam’s kind of case, but the cause was vampires who did not drink human blood, subsisting instead by exsanguinating livestock. A hunter named Gordon is killing the vampires on principle of them being vampires, disregarding their rejection of human blood. Dean is drawn over to Gordon’s way of thinking due to several reasons, but is eventually forced to change his stance and fight Gordon when he sees how much lead vampire Lenore fights against her vampiric nature. Gordon loses the fight, the vampires escape, and the episode ends.

Note the name of the newspaper Dean and Sam claim to be reporters for: World Weekly News. This is an actual newspaper which is referred to on various occasions throughout the run of the show, and which has featured at least one faux-article on Dean and Sam. It will be referenced again in episode 2x15 Tall Tales, the episode where a young man is repeatedly raped and we are supposed to laugh at it because a) he is a man and b) he ‘deserved it’. Would we be invited to laugh at The Trickster conjuring an ‘alien’ to ‘probe’ a young woman who ‘deserved it’? I think not.

Note also that Dean is the ‘stupid’ brother in the sheriff’s office and cannot remember the name of the newspaper. Yes, this is most certainly a Sera Gamble episode. Give me strength...

How adorable was it, by the way, when fanzines and faux-articles still existed? I saw a Smallville magazine from 2004 for sale on eBay, and searched my soul for whether I was willing to pay £24 plus p+p for a two-page spread about Jason Teague… As for the question ‘Why did Jason Teague go so bad?’, the answer is ‘because the writers of Smallville make the writing of Supernatural look competent’.

And back to the show…

youtube

Returning to the opening of the episode proper, what might be obvious to the viewer is how Dean’s mood is drastically different at the beginning of this episode than it was at the end of 2x02 Everybody Loves a Clown. A few weeks, perhaps a month or two, has clearly passed since Dean played whack-a-mole on the boot of his car. Now it is in perfect working order, and Dean’s mask appears to be very tightly on. He seems normal, chipper even, something which Sam feels it necessary to make a redundant conversation about. Is this what normal humans do? Constantly comment on people’s emotional state? I would feel like I am in a panopticon or something. Just let it go, Sam: not everything needs to be a conversation just because you constantly roll a Nat 0 on perception.

This scene is one of few scenes in the show where I can see both Jared AND Jensen acting, but the fault is not in their work, but rather the fact it is obvious the car is not actually moving at all. Instead, it is in front of giant but very convincing screens playing landscape scenes to look like the view from a speeding car. The car itself does not look like it is moving, however, so Dean’s hands on the wheel look strange and fake. Most people will not have noticed it, though, but I am cursed with knowledge.

Now that those who have forgotten have the necessary context, are up to speed, I can get onto the interesting part of the analysis. The main thematic takeaway from 2x03 Bloodlust is better understood as an informed viewer. Upon my first watch of this episode just after Christmas about 12-13 years ago, it did not stand out. I liked seeing Amber Benson on screen again but the story did nothing to interest me.

Knowing where the show is going makes a vital difference, though. Dean knows he might one day have to kill Sam because of Sam’s psychic powers, and is torn between two sides of himself – here manifested as Lenore and Gordon. Gordon is a weltanschauung of moral absolutes, whereas Lenore is nuance. Gordon is an extreme exaggeration of archetypal masculine traits – control, order and stasis. He is not interested in any shades of grey regarding monsters. They are not human, they are a danger, and so must be killed. In contrast, Lenore is a touch of the archetypal feminine – change and unpredictability. The vampires diverged from their inherent nature, electing to not be controlled by it so they can live in peace. This is analogous to the conflict in Dean; Sam could become a monster, and as a monster he will be a danger and must be killed. But can Sam overcome his nature and live in peace?

youtube

To add further layers to this, Gordon the human is the one who behaves like a monster, whereas Lenore and Eli act positively human and sympathetic. As Glory is a representation of the monster Buffy fears she will have to become if she fully embraces her slayer calling, so too is Gordon a representation of the monster Dean will have to become to kill Sam. Contrasted with this is the mirror of Lenore who is a ‘monster’ fighting her hardest to be ‘good’, as Sam might if he becomes a ‘monster’. What this is telling the informed viewer is that, in this situation, Dean might become the true monster.

Dean’s ‘flirtation’ (here not intended with sexual implications) with Gordon is Dean walking the path of deadening himself to his love for Sam, thereby learning to numb himself and dehumanise his brother in order that he may one day be capable of killing him. Gordon is a reflection of a part of Dean, and Gordon clearly says of monsters “They’re not human”, the unspoken denouement thereto being “...they’re monsters, so it’s necessary and good to kill them.” Dean intended wholeheartedly to kill Lenore because she is not human, and therefore a monster.

Lenore is also polysemetic mirror of both Sam’s future and Dean’s hesitation. As Lenore does not want to give in to her monstrous tendencies and become the thing Dean wants to kill, Dean does not want to give into his own monstrous urges and become something he will hate. The struggle is overwhelmingly hard for both, but it is one both are determined to fight at the end.

And as for Evil!Dean… well, not for the last time, but three words come to mind. Such potential, Supernatural.

Having discussed ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ here, I did not intend to conclude anything as banal and trite as ‘the feminine defeated the destructive masculine’ because 1) I do not have time for that nonsense and 2) the exaggerated masculine archetype in Dean was intentionally overblown. It would need to be if a brother were forced to numb himself to future fratricide. The conclusion of the episode sees Dean fight Gordon, the monster he is afraid of becoming. The fight ends in Dean overcoming Gordon and tying him up, with Gordon defeated and silent.

youtube

Dean’s apology afterwards accompanied by his acknowledgement of the nuance can be read with more nuance than simplistic gender politics. Rather, there is a hint that equilibrium is being restored within Dean; the archetypal masculine is very much alive and well in him, but it is no longer as overwrought and negatively exaggerated as it was.

That just about does it for abstract, metaphorical analysis for this episode, but plenty remains for me to discuss more generally. One of them is Dean and Gordon’s relationship. Last episode, I mentioned Paula R. Stiles’s comment that Dean befriends people who turn out to be monsters. In 2x02 Everybody Loves a Clown, it was the blind man who was the rakshasa, and in this episode it is Gordon.

Their bond was based on trauma-bonding and a mutual experience of enacting violence on monsters. Gordon shared the story of his sister being bitten by a vampire, with the twist being that he found and killed his sister (or it would be a twist if that were not Gunn’s story in Angel, and similar to the abduction of Mulder’s sister in The X-Files). Dean actually felt comfortable opening up to Gordon about John’s death and how much he was struggling. Dean said he could not talk to Sam about those things I said last episode. In addition to everything I said there, Dean also has to be the parentalised big brother figure who keeps it together for Sam’s benefit.

Dean’s recent bereavement was almost definitely a contributing factor in his alliance with Gordon. Gordon did not doubt himself or his morals, and he provided Dean with an illusion of surety and clarity. Dean needed this after losing his dad, especially considering the burden of killing Sam. For the last few weeks or months, Dean has been scared, angry, lonely, doubtful, and grieving without anybody to support or help him. Then along comes Gordon who deals in absolutes and certainties. This would of course be an attractive chance to feel in control for Dean, so it is completely natural he cleaved to Gordon in spite of Sam’s warnings.

Having said ’bond’, ’attractive’ and ’cleave to’, some readers might be under the impression I saw romantic and/or sexual subtext between Dean and Gordon. I did not. The only male characters I have really seen Dean have romantic and sexual subtext with are Castiel, Lee (15x07), and the guy at the beginning of 6x01 Exile on Main Street who had been buying Dean beers for the last year. I do not see anything more than a ’brotherhood’ between Dean and Benny, nothing sexual at all between Dean and Henriksen in their five minutes of shared screen-time, and nothing between Dean and Ketch. I have been on the internet long enough to have seen all these pairings, but only Dean/Cas and Dean/Lee seem valid to me. I am not the arbiter of whom Dean did or did not pork or get porked by, but I am a man attracted to men and I just do not see it. And Benny calls Dean ’brother’ far too often for their bond to be sexual.

Returning to Gordon providing Dean with a clear direction and course of action, Sam is right to note that perhaps Gordon is an ersatz father for Dean, though Sam is perhaps wrong to claim Gordon is nowhere near as good a hunter as John. As far as I can tell, John and Gordon are quite a bit alike: other hunters eschew them, they think in black and white, and they are dangerous to be around.

youtube

Sam really should not have said anything about Dean and John in the car park scene, especially not when Dean was clearly so riled up by Sam’s pestering. The punch should not have happened, but given Sam’s incessant mithering and snapping in the previous episode, and his patronising, gauche attempt to psychoanalyse Dean in a motel car park, it is not surprising that Sam’s continued, whiney nagging ends with his face colliding with Dean’s fist at high velocity. ’You slap on this big fake smile but I can see right through it.” Well done, Mr Big Smart-Smart. At least you did not try the sanctimonious act again and claim Dean was insulting John’s memory to try to shame him about making a friend who is not Sam. Oh wait...

People who read my analysis of the previous episode might remember this quote:

[Sam] is a yapping chihuahua who has not learnt that yapping at a German Shepherd is a sure way to get a giant paw in your face.

And what do you know, the yappy dog finally got a paw in his face.

Whilst on this subject, it bears mentioning that Dean and Sam are adult brothers of roughly equal physical build, height, and strength. Neither has any (inherent) power over the other in their relationship, because being brothers is an equal relationship, at least in theory. I have laid into John due to the likelihood he used physical violence with poco!Dean, and held Dean hostage in a mentally, physically, and possibly sexually abusive father-son relationship. John had inherent power in that relationship, being the one in power over his son. He misused that power in many ways, and Dean’s lack of self-esteem, his self-destructive and suicidal tendencies etc are the natural result of this, as is his erstwhile obedience to John.

Some people critical of Dean like to claim that Dean is an abusive older brother, and I have referred to this line of criticism before. Evidence such criticism cites is the fact that Dean punches Sam on a few occasions in the show, and a tiny number of comments can be construed as implying Dean was a physically-abusive older brother to Sam. One such line appears in this episode shortly before said punch. In the pub after Dean beheads the vampire with the chainsaw, Sam gets all uppity and sanctimonious about decapitations not being his idea of a god time, then decides to leave Dean and Gordon alone while he returns to the hotel. As Sam makes his exit, Dean says “Sammy, remind me to beat that buzzkill out of you later, alright?”

This line has been taken to support interpretations that Dean is to Sam what John was to Dean. In their defence, this is something taken directly from the text, but that is the only defence I can offer them: one would have to think that characters always mean what they say and say what they mean in every single situation to think this supports such an interpretation. Yes, Dean says this, but does Sam act around Dean the way Dean acts around John? Does Sam act like Dean uses violence or the threat thereof to control Sam? Does Sam act like a battered husband around Dean?

Quite simply: no. In fact, as I have written many times, Sam is the narcissistic abuser and Dean is the co-dependent abused. ...Who occasionally punches when provoked. Dean’s punch was not part of a pattern of physically-abusive behaviour to control or terrorise Sam. It was just douchey behaviour from a pissed-off brother who appeared to expect Sam to punch him right back. To Dean’s credit, he looked ashamed of himself afterwards... which he should, see above RE: douchey behaviour. If Sam had punched him back, he would have deserved it.

Editor’s note: Remember Sam shooting Dean twice in 1x10 Asylum and never once apologising properly? I remember. Carry on, Dean. Additional editor's note: Dean did take on a huge part of the role of raising Sam, so their relationship is not simply two brothers. However, the show has shown us time and time again that Dean has no authority over Sam, and Sam does not treat Dean like an authority figure or a parent. It is notable that Sam did not punch Dean back here, even though he could have. I will have a bit more to say on this next episode, but I still think what I said a few lines ago: it was douchey, angry, riled-up brother behaviour.

To be fair to Sam, he WAS also trying to talk sense into Dean, and Dean needed somebody to do that, just not in the way Sam was going about it. ’Friendship’ with Gordon is easy for Dean because he is familiar as well as absolute: he shares many traits with John, but also with Dean. Dean is a ’good guy’, but he has an incredible propensity for violence and death and does not always do what a good guy’ should. He is heroic, but not a HeroTM. He is not a psychopath like Gordon, but he finds it easy to relate to people who are. Sam tried to be a counterbalance to this, but failed.

A quote from Paula Stiles:

Because they’re polar opposites, Sam and Gordon need a tie-breaker and that ostrich feather on Osiris’ scales is, naturally, Dean. Dean is the prize over which Sam and Gordon viciously fight to the death (that demon blood thing later on? Just a distraction). It would be easy to argue that’s because Dean’s so awesome and that’s…sort of…true. That is to say, both Sam and Gordon are loners and outcasts who have both only found one real connection (though Sam did have Jessica and Gordon did have his sister, once), that connection being the one hunter who’s even more of a freak than they are (and therefore, won’t reject them). But Dean, freak or not, can only have one BFF at this point in the series and so, Sam and Gordon have to duke it out.

But perhaps the bigger reason why this conflict, or triangle, or what-have-you is so effective is because Dean is the swing voter in Sam and Gordon’s moral war. Tolerance or intolerance? Relativism or absolutism? Dean waffles between the two, balancing on that knife’s bloody edge, which makes him the perfect target for campaigning from both sides. Who will win the war for his heart and soul (and isn’t it an irony that he ends up going his own way after all that?).

Gordon was absolutely lusting after Dean trying to win Dean over to his side of the force. First he encouraged Dean’s despair, then tried to separate him from Sam (”Doesn’t seem like your brother’s much like us.”) This is a tactic used by abusers who want to isolate their victim, and it is telling that Dean apparently is so vulnerable to such manipulation by people he identifies with or cares for. After all, he has known little else than being controlled by a man not too different than Gordon. This manipulation is so powerful that Sam’s (lamentably poor) attempts at getting through to Dean with the nuance of ’the vamps aren’t killing people’ falls on deaf ears, or perhaps deafened ears.

As for the other star of the episode whom I have barely mentioned, Lenore also played a critical role in getting through to Dean. Other than Dean’s abject disgust at Gordon’s treatment (torture) of her, apparently for his own amusement (or misogynistic vindication, as Paula R. Stiles suggests), her staunch refusal to give in sways Dean away from the dark side of the force to the ...well, not the light side, really. Dean is definitely a Sith, but he is far from evil (Remember: the Star Wars films are Jedi propaganda). To avoid paraphrasing or Heaven forbid plagiarising her work, I will take a snippet from Paula Stiles’s analysis again:

But I should note that, despite the pretty-brutal misogyny that Gordon brings to the table (the murder of his sister is clearly cast as a sort of honour killing) and the way he treats Lenore, it would be missing the point to see her as just a helpless victim or Damsel in Distress. Lenore has a stronger will than perhaps anyone in the episode. She is surrounded by angry men itching for a fight, but even though she could probably clean the floor with Gordon, Sam or Dean, she risks her life under extreme torture to stick to her principles. And it’s really this that saves the day. If she had not shown that kind of fortitude, neither Sam nor Dean would have thought twice about letting Gordon kill off her entire nest. Amber Benson does a good job of playing Lenore as a different kind of Hero who controls her own bloodlust and influences two out of the three hunters she encounters to control theirs. That’s pretty impressive.

Lenore is indeed light-years away from being weak, but the strength she embodies is the opposite of the masculine strength Dean embodies (and Gordon negatively exaggerates). Her greatest strength in this episode is not her physical strength, but her strength of will, endurance, and her determination to change things for the better, and her caring for the wellbeing of others. This is an archetypically feminine kind of strength: it is quiet, subtle, discreet, but no less powerful than archetypical masculine strength.

Another fictional character who embodies this feminine strength is Galadriel. She is an incredibly powerful sorceress and enchantress who shielded and guarded an elven realm with her magic for millennia, but her strength lies also in her ability to nurture life, in providing a sanctuary to rest and heal, her self-control, wisdom, perception, and insight, and her refusal to surrender to her demons. Dean’s masculine strength is a potent force, but so is Galadriel’s steadfast perseverance. In The Lord of the Rings films by Peter Jackson, Cate Blanchette did an incomparable job of portraying this: she exuded an aetheral presence which demanded attention and could silence a room with a single glance.

youtube

Even in the disastrous The Hobbit trilogy, she has her moments of weakness but refuses to surrender. Without her presence at Dol Guldur, The White Council might not have managed to oust Sauron.

youtube

She almost certainly knew how to defend herself with weapons, but she did all this without once picking up a phallic symbol or punching anybody. Funnily enough, only two elves have been able to best Sauron in a one-on-one duel, and both were elf-women: Galadriel and her mentor Melian's daughter Lúthien, both of them using sorcery in different forms. Lúthien even bested Sauron's master Morgoth with her magic song and stole one of the Silmarils from his crown. Her uncle High King Fingolfin who challenged Morgoth to a duel and wounded him seven times, including a wound in his foot which never healed and caused Morgoth to limp forever, the cost being Fingolfin's own life.

That people think there are no 'strong women' in Tolkien's work is utterly risible to me. Quite apart from Éowyn, females in Tolkien's work are incredibly powerful, just not necessarily in the same sword-and-shield way as men.

youtube

Lenore lacks the powers of an enchantress and sorceress, yet she still did not have to lift a single finger to triumph over Gordon and save her nest. Considering this is a Supernatural episode and not Buffy, it is a pleasant surprise to have this amount of metaphor and interplay of different forces: masculine vs feminine, yin vs yang, light vs dark, absolution vs nuance, etc.

Which brings me on to a last few minor points of discussion. Lenore is the name of the dead wife in Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven poem, and indeed another poem bearing the name Lenore. The poem is about a man driven to ’madness’ out of grief for the fact he will never see his dead wife again. The raven in question is a metaphor for this despair and hopelessness, perched upon the bust of St Pallas above the narrator’s chamber door where its shadow lay floating on the floor. The looming, heavy presence of despair after the death of a loved one will not go away, but rather wears away at the narrator’s sanity. Other than the alarming comparison of Dean grief with that of a man grieving his wife, the rest is a fitting parallel, especially as the narrator does not even believe he will see his lost Lenore in Heaven.

youtube

Less pleasing was the claim at the end of the episode that ’Dad did the best he could’. I often think that the writers of this show are unaware of exactly what picture they painted of John in series one, or indeed over the entirety of the show. Other times I think they are aware of it and want to ret-con or fix their mistakes. Unfortunately, that ship has long since sailed, and no amount of apologism can fix it. I intend to watch The Winchesters when it comes out, but I have already written about Jensen’s apparent attempts to ameliorate the audience’s perception of John (Jensen, WHY?!). I do not intend to forget that just because The Winchesters wants me to like John. Whatever the reason for the ’Dad did the best he could’ line, I wish the writers had stopped trying to make us forget what we had seen with crap like this. John did not do the best he could, but I have gone over this in depth in this essay, so I will leave this for now.

Regarding Gordon for one last time, he said in this episode that Dean ’is a sadistic killer, just like me’, and Dean believes this is true of himself. It is not true, of course, but Dean believes it is because it is what he was groomed to be. The same episode tells us that Dean was killing werewolves with John at age 16 while Sam was safe in the car. 16 would be a very young age to be doing this, but at that age Dean had already been hunting with John for a few years, and had known how to fire a gun for about a decade.

On the subject of Sam, his ability to remember the way to Lenore’s nest based on the time elapsed, the direction the car went etc all while blind-folded was a little hilarious. I understand the show wants us to think Sam is Resourceful and Intelligent, but this stretched my belief a bit too far. The way he ’worked out’ that Gordon already knew the vampires were good was also quite the impressive logical saltation: according to Sam, Gordon killed his sister who had been turned in to a vampire, therefore Gordon knew the vampires were good. How Sam worked this out is anybody’s guess, because the show certainly did not tell me how.

The vampire named Eli is played by Ty Olson, the same actor who portrayed Benny in series 8.

Some people have tried to work out how this can be explained within the show, but Benny’s story before ending up in Purgatory does not match with Eli’s. Spatial-genetic multiplicity is the explanation I go with. As for Ty Olson, this is his second appearance on screen with Jensen, their first being in Dark Angel 2x11 The Berrisford Agenda.

youtube

Now I miss Alec again.

youtube

Moving on before this turns into a meeting of the Helsinki Chapter of the Jensen Fan-Boys society, one last thing before I finish this. Dean killing the vampire did not seem unduly violent to me. I have just re-watched 2x04 Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things, which features Sam claiming Dean is ‘scary while hunting’, but if this is the case, the show has not done a good job of portraying this. The vampire Dean killed was trying his hardest to kill him, and the only thing Dean did which was not necessary to kill the vampire was punching it twice. I am aware I am supposed to be horrified that Dean killed the vampire with the chainsaw, but I am really not. Yes, it was gross, but the vampire had just tried to do the same to Gordon and would have done the same to Dean, so… what is the problem? Yes, he was a vegetarian vampire, but only Gordon knew that at the time. As far as Dean knew, the vampire was the same as the ones in 1x20 Dead Man’s Blood, and he used what tools he had at hand to get the job done. He did look deeply shaken by it, though.

Was the horrific part the fact that he looked at what he was doing while it was happening instead of looking away? I really do not know. Maybe I have watched too much Hannibal and The Walking Dead to be particularly bothered by that death, so I do not understand why Sam was so uppity about it.

Thus concludeth my analysis of 2x03 Bloodlust.

25 notes · View notes