Supernatural: The Winchesters Experience A Mental Breakdown

November 18, 2009, was the last time we saw Sam and Dean Winchester as the two brothers failed to kill Lucifer and stop him from resurrecting Death in Carthage, Missouri. With the help of Castiel the brothers barely escaped with their lives intact. So after a wait of over two months and growing anticipation of what happens to the planet with the arrival of Death, I was met with a slap to the face. Viewers were greeted with another Supernatural monster of the week episode, which happens to contain no plot progression at all. While the episode did have a tendency to be a bit freaky, it overall felt like a letdown.

The episode opens up inside of a doctor’s office at Glenwood Springs Psychiatric Hospital in Ketchum, Oklahoma. Schizophrenic patient, Susan Fletcher, pleads with the doctor that there is a monster roaming the halls of the hospital and it is the reason for all the suicides. The doctor reinforces that her schizophrenia is messing with her mind and dismisses Susan’s pleas for help. Susan is later seen in her room as the nurses call lights out for that section of the hospital. It doesn’t take much to realize that the future of Susan Fletcher is about to come to an end. Without wasting any time the monster comes down through the ceiling vent in Susan’s room. The nurses ignore Susan’s blood curling screams for help as she pounds at her door hoping to put distance between her and the monster. A fellow patient across the hall watches Susan’s final moments as she is ripped from the door and silenced for good. Due to the abrupt nature of how the screams stopped, a nurse checks in on Susan only to find the body of Mrs. Fletcher in a pool of her own blood with her wrists slit.

As usual with the Supernatural format, we see the Winchester brothers in the same psychiatrist’s office that Susan was once in as they try to gather information on what was occurring in the psychiatric hospital. Posing as rock legends, Edward and Alex Van Halen from the rock band Van Halen, the brothers start discussing their everyday lives causing the doctor to admit both the Winchesters into the hospital. I definitely got a chuckle out of the fact that they posed as Edward and Alex Van Halen, but the doctor questions their referral, a Dr. Babar who is named after an elephant from children’s storybooks.

After a “thorough” checkup from Nurse Foreman, the brothers share an awkward moment about their experience. Soon after the funny banter between the brothers we find the reason they took time out from the apocalypse to stop at a psychiatric hospital. Martin, an old hunter friend of their dad’s, who’s been checked into the “loony bin” has a gut feeling something is in the hospital. Due to his current mental state he is not up to par with taking down whatever the monster might be.

The brothers are broken up as Sam is sent to a group session and Dean meets a new Dr. Erica Cartwright. Dean questions Erica about anything out of the ordinary going on in the hospital, while she questions him about his personal life. In the group session the patient, Greg, who witnessed the death of Susan claims he has seen the monster and begs what will be done about it. The psychiatrist tells him there are no such things as monsters and for him to quiet down. You would think multiple patients screaming about monsters might bring up the realization that something is quite wrong. Greg’s final words brought a chill down my spine as he screamed, “Listen to me. We’re all dead.”

Sam and Dean meet back up after their individual sessions where they decide to question Greg about the monster later that night. Unfortunately for the boys they enter Greg’s room seconds too late to find him hung from the ceiling with his bed sheets. With no clues to go on the brothers break into the morgue to inspect the body. After probing a hole found in Greg’s neck, which was pretty uncomfortable to watch, Sam discovers it leads to the brain. Sending Dean to act as a guard outside, Sam takes a saw to Greg’s head to see what the monster has done.  Sam realizes Greg’s brain has been sucked dry. How Sam knows so much about the anatomy of the brain and cut one open perfectly is still something that boggles my mind.

The Winchester boys bring Martin the news of the discovery allowing the ex-Hunter to come to the conclusion the monster hunting the halls is a Wraith, a creature who cracks open the skull and feeds on the brain. With a weakness of silver the hunters now must try to find the monster, which can disguise itself as a human. The only way to reveal the true identity of a wraith is with the use of a mirror.

The brothers spend the episode hunting down the Wraith, but the task becomes difficult as their minds start to slip away bringing them into delusional states. The episode becomes trippy as the mental states devolve. What seems real becomes a trick of the eyes proving over and over again that the mental state of Sam and Dean are one step away from a psychiatric ward as the fifth season of the show has a tendency to remind the viewers.

Sam becomes constrained to a padded room after his psychotic state brings out a state of pure rage causing the doctor to lock him away for Sam’s own safety. Dean on the other hand spends his time sitting in a corner in a fetal position trying to save what little control he has over his mind.

After investigating a scream Dean and Martin walk in on Nurse Foreman feeding on a patient. The Wraith escapes to Sam’s padded cell where Dean manages to kill her single handedly with a silver plated knife to the chest.

The end of the episode focuses on Sam and his realization that the anger he has built up in him is unnatural. To be honest it feels like the show is gearing up for the prophesied showdown in Detroit where Sam is supposed to say yes to the devil allowing Lucifer to take his body as a vessel. Dean asks if Sam is with him and gets what seems to be a half-hearted “I’m with you.”

With the show possibly on its final season it seems like this episode was more of an unnecessary reminder of the mental states of  Sam and Dean Winchester. In the end while the episode did have its moments where it got under my skin and made me feel uncomfortable, it fell flat with no plot progression and its constant reminders of who the brothers are and what they have been through.

For another take on this episode, check out Winchesters Checking In by Nicole C.

Season 5, Episode 11: Sam, Interrupted (original air date January 21, 2010)

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Photographs courtesy of The CW, David Gray, and Jack Rowand.