Supernatural: Jus In Bello

Rocky Mountain Hell
by Sylvia Bond
Supernatural Episode Review, Season Three – Episode Twelve
“Jus In Bello”

Take Colorado. (Please!) It’s not smack in the middle of the country but it’s enough in the center to be on the way to a lot of places. Troublesome ones. And, for the number of bad things that take place in Show’s Colorado, it doesn’t take much to figure out that it’s not a place the Winchesters should go to. First there was the Wendigo. The boys killed that, and came out worse for wear. Then there was the vampire nest, and Sammy almost bought it, remember? Now, here we have a town full of demons, demonic FBI agents, and a turncoat demon (Ruby). Just, like, stay away boys!

But our intrepid hunters are after that wacky Bella who stole the COLT, for crying out loud, and why isn’t she dead yet? It’s like she’s some kind of mouse in a cupboard and when the boys see her, with her little pink nose, trembly whiskers, and adorable EARS, it messes with the boys and they let her GO. Each and every time. It makes me want to throw something, but maybe this time they’ve learned their lesson. Because not only does she steal the demon-killing gun, she’s set a trap, and the boys get arrested. For this alone Bella should die. Slowly and horribly. Say you’re with me on this. Say that you are.

Because this time, they really get arrested. They’re forced to the ground and trussed up like two very attractive turkeys. And while they’re down in the submissive position, in walks (bum, bum, bum) Victor Henricksen. After they give us their best “aw, crap” expressions, he throws them into jail. A place with walls and bars and locks on the doors, armed guards, and hand and leg cuffs on the boys. Quirky me, I enjoyed the boys hobbled and bound like this, and I asked around, because I was wondering if I was alone with my prison/handcuff kink, thinking that what I enjoyed was only one step above cage wrestling or something. Turns out, I’m not, because there’s others like me. Don’t believe me? Yeah, okay. Raise your hands, anybody who did NOT see The Shawshank Redemption and enjoyed it enough to tell ALL your friends and then bought the DVD so you could watch it over and over and over. And then one more time after that. See? No hands. (I could add to the list many more movies like Cool Hand Luke, Escape From Alcatraz, and Midnight Express but I think you get the point.)

This is not a funny ep, there is too much happening for it to be outright hysterical, but the scene where the boys first arrive in their cell is funny! Maybe it was just me, but when Sam walks towards the door, and Dean walks towards their bed, they each get three-quarters of the way and then wham! The chain hitches up and neither can go another step. Dean falls and Sam huffs and I’m giggling, thinking, oh boys! Dean, says, “Sit?” like he’s talking to a dog, and Sam acquiesces, and they do a darling chain gang shuffle around each other to finally collapse shoulder to shoulder on the rickety cot that bends under their combined weight.

Here’s me looking for some symbolism, and, voila, there it was within hand’s reach. The boys aren’t just chained together physically, they are attached at the hip by chains you can’t even see. They keep each other close, out of need and memory, and gosh darn it, it just works better for them that way. And I’m not the only one who notices this. Henriksen says, later, to Dean, “You’ve got no home to go to but Sam.” Like, DUH.

Henriksen delivers a wonderful taunt, you know, the kind bad guys give when they’ve locked the good guys behind bars. And it’s a long one because Henricksen’s just had a bad day and a good day. Good in that, with Bella’s tip-off, he’s able to place the Winchesters behind bars. His bad day starts when he phones his boss (Groves) who is coming to take over the job he is sure Victor will botch beyond all recognition. Victor, like most of us, is resigned to the fact that his boss is a big, fat horse’s ass, but to keep his job he keeps his mouth shut about it. Groves chews Henriksen a new one. Whereupon, Henriksen turns around and chews on the next guy down, which is Dean. This only proves that Henriksen is a fallible human, but Show does it in the right way, showing him being susceptible to pride and anger, rather than giving him a parade of crocodile tears (Bella), or an unhappy past (Ruby, Bella).

As explained, the kink factor is already high, and Henriksen brings it up another notch, mentioning how glad he is to see the boys thusly restrained. (Me too, Victor!) Actually, it’s Dean who adds fuel to my fire with his, “Well, aren’t you a kinky son of a bitch, but we don’t swing that way.” (So, like, how many times has Dean denied swinging ANY particular direction and at the least provocation? When I know full well and good that he has to swing some way! Him and Sam both.) Henriksen just laughs and continues to take it out on Sam and Dean, to watch them squirm, because he can. And Dean and Sam, in hand and leg cuffs, can’t do a thing about it.

Henriksen tells them that they are going to an everlasting prison where they will never see the sun again. I love this bit because in spite of the threats of a cell for the boys that is no doubt unconstitutional, Sam and Dean aren’t scared. Sam is relaxed enough to slouch against the wall, snugged in next to his brother like Dean’s very own papoose. Until Henriksen says, “Take a good look at your brother Sam, because it’s going to be forever until you see him again.” It’s THEN that Sam reacts, now worried because the worst punishment he can think of is to be separated from his pain-in-the-ass, bossy, broken older brother. Dean, I’m sure, feels similarly in return. These two siblings are at each other’s throats all the time bickering. But try and separate them. It’s hard. You’ll have to stay late and work overtime. You’ll have to eat at your desk. And Saturday? We’re going to ask you to come in. Yeah. It’s like splitting the atom, which you can do, but then you destroy everything else in the process. So good luck with that.

Then Henriksen, blissfully unaware of the brotherly angst flying about like pheromones in springtime, starts again. Henricksen says stuff about John brainwashing his boys with talk of devils, and then he adds, “And no doubt touched you in a bad place.” I was shocked that Henriksen would sink so low, but he’s obviously casting aspersions upon John because he wants to goad the boys into reacting, and of course it’s not true. Incest? Winchesters? Perish the thought. Besides, The Dad didn’t swing that way. Dean only says, “You shut your mouth.” Whereas Sam sits up and takes umbrage at this remark, as righteous as a Victorian Spinster, and I can see him later, like a cricket going, “Dean,” and then “Dean,” and then “Dean,” and then finally, “Why didn’t you defend Dad?” Dean merely covers his eyes, because he’s simply not going to go there.

Then Groves comes in and shoots Dean. Dean rather than Sam, because Sam is slunk down behind Dean, sulking about being in jail yet again, which was not on his ten-year plan when he talked to his high school counselor. So based on this, it’s Dean who gets the bullet in his shoulder. AGAIN. The same shoulder that’s been burned by Pa Bender, and that Sam put a bullet in. His shoulder is like one of those blouses that you always get a stain in the same place no matter how careful you are. But you can throw away a blouse. Dean’s stuck with his shoulder that is, no doubt, going to require surgery.

Sam gets up and tries to tear the gun out of the guy’s hands, but it turns out he’s a demon, and then the fun starts! First, on account of the fact that Sam recites an exorcism from memory, rattling it off with nary a pause, unlike Dean, who can’t even do it WITH a book. And second, because Sam’s demeanor at the thought of someone shooting his brother is awesome. His hair is in his eyes, and I just love him that way. And he’s sexy when protecting Dean, but, in addition to that, I’ve noticed that a lot of the time when Sam is in Dean’s presence, he assumes the position, and by that I mean of the younger brother. The Littlest Winchester.

Yes, he’s an independent character and doesn’t like being bossed around. But the forward pull of his shoulders and the softness of his face often say, I’m the youngest and that is my role. But when Sam is away from Dean, especially when there is something to fight, his spine straightens up, his shoulders go as wide as an axe handle, his chin comes up, and he becomes dangerous. I think I saw this transformation most recently in Fresh Blood, where the brothers were separated by an impenetrable wall, and Sam was trapped with I’ve-become-what-I-hunt Gordon. Without a big brother to be a little brother for, Sam pulls himself fully erect and goes for blood.

So here, it’s interesting to watch him transmogrify in Dean’s presence. I’m sure to get angry posts for suggesting that Sam is never brave when Dean’s around like he’s the maiden to Dean’s knight, but that’s not what I mean. It’s the rarity with which he exposes his strength around Dean, drawing himself tall and showing his teeth. On top of that, when Sam pulls himself to his full height, grabs the gun and starts spewing Latin, not caring who is watching because his only concern is for Dean, he’s so incredibly powerful and, dare I say, masterful, that I’m left reeling a bit from the shock waves coming out from my TV.

But Henricksen, hearing the ruckus, rushes in, thinking that the boys are to blame for his boss’s death. Dean, sadly, is bleeding, but luckily I get to see a little first aid, which only leaves me hungry for more, but it’s cool just the same. Sam is pressing a cloth against the wound with his hand, and Dean is shaking, and Sam is telling him not to be such a wuss. It’s just lovely. (Why is Sam calling him a wuss? Dean is the least wussy of any hero I’ve ever seen. The line is for laughs no doubt, but I would rather have had more angst and sympathy on Sam’s part. But I’m greedy like that so, Show? You do what you got to do, okay?) Still, it’s this kind of intimacy that just gets to me, like I’m seeing a vulnerability that is normally behind closed doors. (And why does any demon need the Monument Sheriff’s department or the FBI’s help to get a shot at Dean?)

In pain, Dean, looking pale, is cocky, demanding snacks and cracking jokes about the demons having a contract out on them. Sam disapproves, going into Victorian Spinster mode with nary a twitch. He asks about Dean’s shoulder, which Dean replies is “awesome.” (Kudos to the blood artist because when Dean brings the cloth out, the blood looks fresh and hot.) And since Dean has quickly bled his way through whatever Sam could find, they need something more to help pad the wound. Like a towel. Sam spots our Nancy, hovering, the shy maiden come to spy on the dangerous (and therefore exciting) bad boys, something which no virgin worth her salt (or none that I’ve heard of anyway) can resist.

Let’s talk about Nancy and the towel, because towels and Sam have a history, and I think we can add to that narrative here. Sam coaxes her over as only Sam can, convincing her with his eyes, his voice, and his trustworthy hands. It’s worked a million times before and it works this time too. In addition, the lighting adds to the flavor of the scene in that we can’t see exactly what Sam is thinking, the half-darkness giving me a premonition that he’s up to no good. But Nancy, instead of just flopping the towel through the bars, foolishly puts her whole arm through. Sam, turning shockingly mean, grabs her arm and yanks. HARD. She’s slammed up against the bars, and I’m like, Evil!Sam is that you? Turns out he wanted her rosary, so that’s okay, but it was still rather unsettling to see him become brutal like that.

The sheriff wants to free them, but Victor arrives, and turns out he’s possessed. I didn’t see it, but I guess Sam did, because he dunks Victor’s head in the toilet that has now become a font of holy water, thanks to the stolen rosary. (The boys are nothing if not resourceful.) Sam recites his exorcism like a Latin teacher’s wet dream. Victor is exorcised, and when he wakes up he says, “I shot the sheriff.” I would like to imagine, and I don’t think I’m far wrong, that as Dean’s mouth hangs open for just a fraction of a second, fangirls across the country were ready and said it along with him, “But you didn’t shoot the deputy.” I howled at this, and at Sam’s silent scoff of disbelief that his brother would actually be SO cavalier when there were lives at stake! Oh, Dean, you are just a little predictable, but that’s what makes you so sweet. And I don’t think Sam really objected, he just knows his role as Dean’s straight man.

Victor agrees (finally) that Sam and Dean aren’t the bad guys and releases them from their chains. (I liked Dean being able to get his own back with Victor, with a nice dose of I-told-you-so pie.) While everyone else draws devil’s traps, Nancy tends to Dean’s shoulder. I was unhappily reminded of when Jo (oh, her) patched Dean up after Evil!Sam shot him, and wondered yet again, why can’t SAM do this? I’m sure he’d be much better at it, and it would be far more satisfying besides. Dean, in spite of the fact that his shoulder probably hurts like a BITCH, is very gentle with Nancy. No leering looks or cocksure comments, hell he doesn’t even ask for her number. Instead his voice is soft, and his eyes are tender and he’s just so damn edible I can hardly stand it.

Dean goes out to get something from his beloved Impala, giving us nice clips of a boy and his car, and the sort of camera angle you got in the movie Twister, where the woman stands there and stupidly shouts, “It’s coming!” I worried for Dean here, thinking to myself that this was the first time in a long time I’d been scared. Once Dean gets inside, he gives everyone a charm to keep them from being possessed as the siege begins. When Nancy asks about Dean and Sam, they show everyone their tattoos. Sam looks sullen, and Dean looks pained, almost as if he would rather not have marred his beautiful skin. (Sorry, Dean, you tiger now.) “How long have you had those,” Henriksen asks, to which Sam replies, “Not long enough.” This might be a nod to Sam’s previous trials being possessed in Born Under a Bad Sign. (But he was so darkly sexy as Evil!Sam that I cannot help but be a little disappointed I’ll never see its like again.)

Tattoos. Loved them. But because of my whole boys in jail/chains kink, I had something different in mind. Even if they didn’t give each other jailhouse tats (using a razor and ink from a ballpoint pen), then I would have loved to see them go to a reputable tattoo parlor (now there’s an oxymoron for you). And since no tattoo parlor has tattoos for warding off demons, I would love to have seen the boys trying to explain the design to the guy. And, did they design it themselves? Did Sam sketch it out and then bring it to Dean for critique? Did Dean color it in with crayon, or did he use that ballpoint pen I spoke of earlier? It would be much easier if Show just gave us this information, because my mind is creating all sorts of lewd images about the tattoos, although I’m sure the boys wouldn’t have gone to someplace that didn’t have clean needles.

Dean and Victor bond while loading shotguns. It’s a guy thing. But let’s stop for a minute to watch Dean working with his hands, the way he does, half meditatively and half lovingly. Try not to get distracted (as I did) by the fact that knees of his jeans are worn to strings. Both of them. (Just what has he been kneeling on and why?) Try instead, if you can, to listen to the conversation between the two men. Victor’s statement about “the big, frosty mug of wasted my damn life,” is apt, considering that in comparison to the Winchester boys (and The Dad), he’s saved pretty much no one. Dean and Sam have saved at least one person per episode (56 thus far), and if we calculate in the additional people they saved because evil didn’t continue, then that number grows exponentially. But I’m a writer, not a mathematician, so enough about that. He asks Dean, “Do you think we can win?” And Dean says, looking rather like Kirk talking about beating the Kobiashi Maru scenario says, “The world’s going to end bloody, so I’m going to go down fighting.” He’s going after the ungettable get, and like Kirk, does not believe in the no-win scenario.

Ruby was snotty this week, wasn’t she? She comes in to the jail like a cat that’s snuck in the back door to get out of the rain and gets trapped in the devil’s trap. She stands there posing, like she does, like a cat that knows you’re looking at it. She is scratched up and not calm, demanding a breath mint, looking like she wants to hack up a hairball. It was cool watching her have to ask to be let out because this makes her pissy, and I like that. Sam does it, scratching his knife against the cement to cut a line through the trap. But when she steps out, her plan to save them doesn’t sound all that much fun. She’s going to kill herself (can she come back to life on account of she’s a demon?) and she needs a virgin to cut the heart out of.

Here’s where it gets funny. Dean says, “Look, I get it, you think-” And Ruby says, “I don’t think, I know.” And I screamed at the TV, “I don’t think you know EITHER!” I wanted someone else, Dean or Sam, to say it, but I laughed anyway. And then she mentions that there is another, more powerful demon rising, and that is Lilith. At Dean’s shock, she spits out the most oft-repeated line in exposition history, “Oh, Sam didn’t tell you?” Yeah, Dean is pissed now, but it’s Sam’s reaction that is interesting. For a let’s-talk-this-out kind of guy that Sam is, he has rather little to say for himself. As in nothing.

Our virgin is Nancy, the religious young secretary. Ruby’s willing to do it. Sam’s willing to allow it to be done (and, presumably to watch, if that’s what’s called for). And Nancy’s willing to BE it because her one death will save everyone in the jail, plus the thirty people outside, many of whom are her friends. She believes in the needs of the many. But Dean says no.

Watching Dean justify the continued existence of Colorado’s last virgin was like watching the Pharaoh of the Exodus saying to Moses, “Yeah, you can go. Really. You need this.” It’s just weird! I’m not saying he’s a horndog, but, you know, he is. First, it mystifies Dean that any adult over the age of consent is a virgin. Second, I’m thinking he sees it as a challenge, that he could teach her how fun it could be. You know. Having sex and stuff. Furthermore, it shows how Dean has become more like Sam, and vice versa. Sam is willing to have the virgin sacrifice, he understands that the needs of the many like he’s Spock to Dean’s Kirk. Dean, on the other hand, is adamant, no, no, and NO! He’s worried about the inhumanity of it. Such a gentle soul Dean has grown, while poor Sam has got calluses on his. I think part of this might be from his recent experiences in Mystery Spot, where Sam went three months (if not more) being completely Dean-less. It messed with his head, and made him inured to death, or at least other people’s. I think his motto is along the lines of: As long as DEAN lives, everything else can go to hell.

Dean has a private conversation with Sam, walking Sam into the hallway like a naughty schoolboy, to tell him he doesn’t want to kill a girl who hasn’t even been laid. For Dean, that’s half of it right there, isn’t it? Sam reiterates that one death will save many lives and he seems okay with that. Dean on the other hand, having cracked inappropriate jokes along the way, indicates that if that’s the kind of war it is, he doesn’t want to win it. Thus is incorporated the title, Jus In Bello, which is Latin for being concerned with whether or not a war is conducted justly. For Sam, the end justifies the means, but for Dean, it does not.

So no sacrifice, no spell, and Ruby is pissed. Mostly because she wants to make this grand gesture, only she doesn’t get to. But she’s got her revenge. Not only is she going to leave the boys to be hoisted on their own petards, she makes scathing remarks about having backed the wrong horse when she found that there was another power rising to lead the demon army. As in, not Sam. Then she asks to be let out, once again like a cat that can’t stand the fact that there’s a door between her and summer.

Then there’s Dean’s crazy plan. The boys and Victor each take a spot at an entrance. (Dean is hysterically cute with that bandolier slung over his shoulder, like he’s some kind of caballero.) At the signal (a deep-throated shout from Dean), they open their respective devil’s traps and salt lines, and let the demons in. They battle the demons until all the demons are inside, and then the secretary and deputy pour salt OUTSIDE the entrances, thus trapping the demons. (Rather like Night of the Living Dead in reverse.) It gets even more clever when Victor presses play on the tape recorder, from which echoes forth the mellifluous voice of our Sammy, reciting his ever loving exorcism, whereupon the demons exit their hosts and everything combusts there on the ceiling, leaving the hosts sprawled on the floor as if they are about to wake from innocent naps.

About that battle. Sam was intense. Normally, Sammy is my sweet-faced boy, but as he goes hand-to-hand with demons, he becomes Killer!Sam. Maybe it’s the jerky camera action that makes it feel this way, but watch him as he fights. He’s more pissed than scared, his eyes seem a little dark, and he goes at it like a scatter bomb. He’s the last guy I’d want to meet up with in an alley when he’s like this, especially if he thought I was the bad guy. Or, heaven forbid, that I’d done something to hurt his Dean. Not to cast aspersions by comparisons, but I’d rather go up against Dean than Sam, because while it would take them equally as long to put me out of commission (not very long), and it would hurt either way, I have a feeling that Sam would be a whole lot more intimidating. Dean brings his humanity with him when he kills. Contrast Sam, who seems to loose it. As the fight ends, Sam becomes sweet again, looking anxiously Dean’s way. I’m thinking he’s very concerned about Dean’s shoulder and how he’s holding up under the rough handling. (And really, this whole ep has included so many long looks between the brothers that I lost count.)

Victor comes through once he sees what the Winchester boys really do, like I thought he might. Anyway, there is hand shaking and goodbyes and the boys leave. While I’m ruminating over the fact that the boys being dead as far as the FBI is concerned might take some of the spice out of the equation, in comes a small child to the sheriff’s office. She wants to know about the boys and everyone thinks she’s adorable. My instinct for what Kripke can do with a small child screams BEWARE in my head, a silent scream that I can’t articulate before the child says her name is Lilith, and she goes all white eyed and slams a whammy on the place. Lilith, if you’ve not googled it yourself by this time, was the first wife of Adam. As in Adam and Eve. But she, apparently, refused to submit to the will of her husband and he divorced her. Dig deeper, and the story goes that she committed adultery with Satan and had his demon babies. Dig even deeper and oh, boy it gets messy. One of Lilith’s husbands was Samael, which has a real close spelling to Samuel, and I don’t even want to go there.

The boys end up in motel with two brass beds, and a décor that reminds me of a vacant lot in springtime, where the layers of green can make anything look nice. Sam is stretched out on the bed like the weight of the world has become too much for him. This tells me that Sam being willing to allow for virgin sacrifices has cost him. His soul might have calluses, but that’s because it’s raw and bleeding underneath. Plus, the knees of his jeans are worn to strings, which makes him sweet and scruffy, just the way I like them.

As for Dean, he’s okay. Sort of. His shoulder hurts, and he’s holding it the way you would if you’d recently had a bullet in it. But alas, in comes Ruby. She wants them to turn on the news. Guess who’s got the clicker? Sam, of course. He’s too tired to surf for porn, but he’s still got that sucker clutched in his hand. Watching the news, we learn that, to paraphrase Heavy Metal, he died, she died, everybody died. Then Ruby rages about Dean’s Stupid Plan, and how if he’d LET her kill the virgin, many more people would have survived. I want to tell her to SHUT up because by the look on Dean’s face, he’s beating himself up far worse than she ever could. For a guy who wanted war, the universe is a cruel place, because he’s getting exactly what he wanted, only not in the way he planned.

But is he wrong believing that if they had let Ruby sacrifice the virgin, then there might have been one death instead of many? But who’s to say that Lilith would have been within killing distance of the original spell? She might not have been, and everyone would have died anyway, and then Nancy’s sacrifice at Ruby’s hands would have been unnecessary and cruel. So Dean’s moral high ground here is in keeping with the title of this ep, because he believes that innocent lives should not be sacrificed in the Winchester’s battle against evil, let alone be used as weapons. I think he made the right choice.

Sadly, the body count includes Agent Victor Henricksen. I liked him. He was a good character and an excellent foil for Dean and Sam. He represented everything that the Winchesters aren’t, like rules and codes that are followed instead of disregarded. Ties and suits that are owned and not rented. But was it my imagination, or did Victor seem WELL on his way to becoming a hunter? I can see it. He’s got the mad skills and the training, and now, the drive to rid the world of evil. Besides, his demonic boss (and who doesn’t have one of those) is now dead, so why shouldn’t he. I don’t know about you, but I saw a light in Victor’s eyes that his life could mean something. Sadly, he didn’t make it out. Rest in peace, Victor, we’ll miss you.

In light of the fact that Show is getting rid of the boys’ resources, who or what is next? Henricksen is gone. The Dad is dead. Roadhouse, burned. Ash, uh, ash. Jo, useless. Ellen, sadly, gone. The Colt, stolen. Is Bobby next? Because he’s pretty useful. Maybe too useful, and his death would have a HUGE impact on the boys. Not that I’d want them to be that sad, no, of course not. And maybe it’ll be the Impala after that, as in, “One move and the Impala gets it!” (Oh, won’t somebody help that poor car?) All the boys can count on is each other. They’ve been left to their own devices, which is as it should be, because together they are their own best weapon. One final question, when will Ruby make herself really useful and get rid of Bella?

Sylvia Bond is a ten-year technical writing veteran with too many degrees under her belt to count. She lives in Colorado, but does not ski, preferring instead to spend her money and time at the annual Great American Beer Festival, taking road trips across the United States, and reading historical fiction from the comfort of her fluffy green arm chair. She has been involved in fandom since 1993 and been writing fanfic since approximately 1993. What she finds most amazing about fandom (besides the open heartedness of fans and the sheer amount of creativity) is how visible fandom has become. “In my day,” she says, “we had to hide behind P.O. boxes to get fanfic. But nowadays, people wear t-shirts that shout their affiliation and share their shiny toys on the internet.” It’s a wonderful world.Never miss an update. Subscribe to Pink Raygun by Email or subscribe via RSS

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