Supernatural Review: Dean Winchester, Hunter or Killer?

When we last left the Winchester brothers, they were being sent to Sioux Falls General Hospital after their encounter with one of the Leviathans. Luckily the next day Bobby (Jim Beaver) turns up and helps them escape Dr. Sexy and they hide out at one of Rufus’s old spots in Montana.

Dean’s (Jensen Ackles) leg is still in a cast and he continues to doubt Sam’s (Jared Padalecki) condition. Can’t say I really blame the guy after Sam’s most recent episode. Bobby leaves Sam and Dean at the hideout while he goes in search of his stashed copies of rare books, the originals having burned down in his house.

After going out for a food run, Sam notices a newspaper headline on a series of murders. He heads back to the hideout and eventually leaves a note for Dean telling him that he was going to be back in a few days. Meanwhile the Leviathans are still looking for the Winchesters and Sam’s use of a credit card alias clues in their location to the monsters.

Once Dean wakes up he is frantic, feeling that Sam has gone nuts again. He calls Bobby up but the elder hunter is more reasonable, telling Dean to give Sam the benefit of the doubt. Unconvinced though, Dean takes the cast of his leg himself and goes after his brother. This is a good thing though as one of the Leviathans was on his way to Montana.

We discover that Sam has gone off to pursue this case because he suspects the killer is a Kitsune he met years earlier as a teenager. The two of them struck a kinship of sorts, being two kids forced to live the life that their parents dictated. Amy up killing her own mother to save Sam’s life and so he tracked her down now to find out why she was killing. Turns out that she was doing it to save the life of her own son, who had gotten sick after not eating fresh brains. Amy (older version played Jewel Staite) pleads to Sam that she’s doing this for her son and that she’s working as a mortician so they can live without having to kill anyone. Sam ends up letting her go.

Dean finally tracks Sam down and confronts him. He tells his brother the whole story and Sam asks Dean to trust him. He understands that he’s a freak but he’s doing his best to manage it. Dean agrees and they make their way to onto another town to meet up with Bobby.

Unbeknownst to Sam though, Dean lies that he’s off to get more medicine while he actually goes off in search of Amy. He finds her and confronts her, saying that no matter what, she is who she is and she’ll kill again. It may take five or ten years but she’ll do it again. Then he stabs her in the heart with her son bearing witness to the entire thing. Dean doesn’t seem to be able to kill a kid, even if it’s a Kitsune kid. He asks him if he’s ever killed anyone and the kid responds that the only person he’ll kill is Dean. It was a very Kill Bill moment as Dean answers back with, “look me up in a few years, assuming I live that long.” Should Dean have spared Amy’s life? Or was he right in killing her?

We can clearly see the difference between Sam and Dean. Amy represents a part of Sam that didn’t want the life of a hunter and the belief that people can change. Sam lets her go because he believed in her. Dean doesn’t share that sentiment and is much more black and white in his views. But did killing Amy achieve anything but creating another possible killer in her son? Sam would probably say yes, but Dean may argue that it was inevitable that the kid would become a killer as well.

While this wasn’t an intense episode, it is much more to akin to the first few seasons of Supernatural and I’m enjoying the focus back on Dean and Sam’s relationship. Seeing them go through their trust issues looks like a can of worms and then some. I particularly liked the flashback of young Sam being the researcher while Dean and his dad did more of the physical work because its another insight to Sam’s character.

Will he prove Dean wrong though that his other shoe won’t drop and if so, will Dean learn to alter his own views? What exactly do the Leviathans want with the Winchesters? Do they just want them eliminated or is there a more sinister plan afoot? There is certainly never a dull moment on Supernatural.

Season 7, Episode 3: The Girl Next Door (originally aired October 7, 2011).

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Images courtesy of The CW and Jack Rowand