“If the apocalypse comes, beep me.” - Buffy

Meet Me at the Honky Tonk
by Sylvia Bond
Supernatural Review, Season Two - Episode Three
“Bloodlust”

Watching the Impala on the road in this episode is a whole lot like watching the Food Channel when you’re hungry: it turns into a kind of pornography. Because when you’re hungry, anything they’re making looks good. In the same vein, when you’ve been cooped up at work, nothing looks better than a sleek black muscle car oozing over miles of open road. The chrome trim and glossy paint job don’t hurt to look at, not to mention the two lads who are driving. They’re pretty, pretty, and the fact that this particular sequence goes on and on means that whoever filmed this knew exactly what they were doing. It hurts as bad as watching Paula Deen saying, “Saute the coh-orn in buttah,” as she turns the sizzling works in a frying pan as it does to have Dean behind the wheel and Sam at his faraway land.side. My mouth is watering. Yours will be too when you see this: Dean whooping with pleasure because his baby is running so fine, and Sam peeing on his parade because he can and because that’s what he does. The Impala burbles, the sun shines, and all’s right with the world. Besides the fact that it makes me want to profess that I watch the show only for the MOW (REALLY), it’s a wonderful beginning to a fabulous episode, and I’m ready for it. Get out the maps, tell me where we’re going, and I’m gone.

This episode gives us boys in disguise, first as young reporters for the Weekly World News (now sadly defunct), and then as young doctors in the morgue. I rather adore them in both modes, which surprises no one. As reporters, their suits are a tad mismatched, and they are outgunned by the local sheriff who understands “what gravity does,” but Sam’s hair is looping and whirling around his ears, and Dean is sweet when he fumbles the name of the newspaper. What’s not to like? As young doctors, it gets even sweeter because I do believe (and feel free to disagree with me on this, though I know that you won’t) that Dean looks VERY good in a white lab coat. Sam looks good too, on account of that hair, but white (at least this shade) is not quite his color. He’s playing Dean’s straight man in this scene, making faces and pretending to want to puke while Dean does lines from Silence of the Lambs with far too much enjoyment for Sam’s comfort.

Also in this episode, we’re introduced to Gordon Walker, a hunter of extraordinary gifts, according to Ellen, but with whom you do not want to tangle, schweetie. Walk away fast, she tells Sam. Every hunter got into hunting somehow, usually for personal reasons. For Gordon, it was because a “fang” (vampire) took his sister away. At first we learn that Gordon hunted the fang and killed him and it’s good for you buddy, that’s the way we like it. But then we learn that because the fang turned his sister into a vampire, he killed her too, without even batting an eyelash, to hear Gordon tell it. It’s through this wonderful technique that we get Gordon’s back story, and what we learn turns him from potential ally into danger, danger, stay away stranger. Gordon’s story must be comforting for Dean because he stays for every installment, as rapt with attention as I am when watching Anthony Bourdain’s mouth water before he tucks into yet another strange, back country dish in some faraway land.

Ellen makes a return in this episode as well, but she’s stuck at the Roadhouse, though I’m sure she’d rather be on the road with the boys. Or maybe it’s just me. Her job, it seems, is to look wise and answer the phone when Sam calls to ask about Gordon. Apparently many hunters have Roadhouse connections, though it does seem strange that Sam even thinks to call Ellen - a woman with whom he had no prior relationship, of whom he had no knowledge until recently, and with whom his father had a falling out. Not someone you’d easily be able to recommend yourself to, but Sam, he’s got the stones, her number, and a need to find out who Dean’s become transfixed with. But I like Ellen. She’s sensible and smart, runs her own place, and I am forever in love with that little lisp she has. It keeps her sweet in spite of her gruff exterior.

The boys hook up with Gordon, and learn that The Dad had big shoes that Dean and Sam are apparently filling quite well. The word has spread about the Winchester boys, Gordon says, but I’m distracted by the idea of shoe sizes. I want to know is it true what they say about shoe size and height? Or about hand size and shoe size? At the very least, tall men have big feet, and all the Winchesters are TALL, so I think I can easily assume that The Dad wore a size 13 at the very least. Those are big feet, dude! And you know what they say about men with big feet. Okay, stopping now.

Gordon goes after a fang, and the boys follow. The fight scene at the logging plant ends predictably, with someone getting important bits of them chopped off with the stationary chain saw. It’s a given as well that someone gets sliced into with the pike thingy. What’s unpredictable is the fact that the security guard turns out to be a vampire and the guy who stabs him with the pike thingy and decapitates him with the chain saw is Dean. There’s not enough I can say about this scene to impart the impact to people who haven’t seen it. Yeah, Dean can kill with his bare hands. Yeah, there’s the look on Sam’s face with an expression that seems to say that Dean’s finally gone and sold crack to kids on the playground, but that’s not even it. I guess I would say that the bit that sells it to me (huh, as if Show hadn’t already bought and sold me a thousand times already), is the look on Dean’s face as he looks up and catches Sam’s eye, and it’s as if he’s saying, “Don’t hate me because I’m horrible.”

For ages, you know, Sam and Dean have gone around saving people, hunting things, making little jokes to themselves (well, mostly Dean makes the jokes, and Sam gives up and laughs at Dean’s dark humor in spite of himself), putting up with the grinding boredom of never ending miles beneath the Impala’s tires, never getting paid or thanked, and they make it look EASY. They are practiced and sharp when they kill, they do it as quick as they can, they get no delight out of the destruction except to note a job well done and another evil thing dispatched to the beyond where it won’t bother any more civilians. But seldom do we get the kind of front row seat to gore as we do here.

My reaction to this scene feels almost the same as the time I found out where veal comes from. But being brought face to face with the facts, does it make me stop wanting and eating veal? Um, um, um. I plead the Fifth, man. Besides which, I’m not the first fangirl to make that GUH sound in my throat when the blood flies up and hits Dean in the face, spackles itself across his beautiful brow, and slides down the side of his nose with the grace of artistry. It’s killer and it’s horrible and beautiful at the same time.

How on EARTH can a man look so good with blood and ichor on his face like that? It’s bad enough that Ackles is already more beautiful than this Earth should allow; the blood, you would think, should somehow dehumanize him so that we can see the hunter within and be appalled by it. For I’m sure that’s what the scene is meant to do, what it’s supposed to do, and Sam’s look of HORROR just adds to this - we’re supposed to be up close and personal with the ugly, ugly mechanics of hunting and be worried or disgusted or put off. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Watch this scene and try to believe that. Better yet, sit next to a fangirl and listen as she watches this scene. You’ll hear it: GUH. It’s the sound of her lungs contracting, and her stomach clenching up, and her thighs igniting on fire, and maybe some other things too that I’m too polite to mention. That’s how good this scene is.

Dean does enjoy the hunt, he’s a hunter, so he should. He enjoys the kill as well, not out of some perverse sadism, but out of a job well done, no more ugly bad thing to kill Mr. and Mrs. Joe Innocent. All he needs is an attaboy and a hot meal at the end of it. Nothing much. But to see him exposed like this, is like seeing part of his reptile brain, that secret lizardy part of all of us that enjoys stuff like this. Me, I’m sad to say, I enjoyed the hard, brutal nature of this scene, and while I think my face has an expression much like Sam’s, I’m making that GUH sound too.

The pretty, pretty of the boys is all very well and diverting, but when Dean and Gordon and Sam meet later at a honky tonk to chat over cold beers and rehash the violence (as men seem wont to do), the episode takes a new turn. At first, they’re just reminiscing about the fight they just had, Gordon’s buying shots and beer as promised, Dean’s got all that blood washed off (sadly), and Sam’s sitting back with a pissy look as if they were discussing selling crack to kids and not rehashing a vampire killing. Decapitations aren’t his idea of a good time, but really, are they anyone’s? (To be honest, I would be Sam in this scene, not enjoying the smoke, the loud music, or the conversation, and can we please just go HOME?)

But in spite of Sam, you get something here, or at least I did, something I wasn’t expecting and that is a bit of perspective on Sam and Dean almost from Gordon’s point of view. Gordon makes the mistake of calling Sam Sammy - and we get the lovely retort, “Only he gets to call me that.” In spite of Gordon’s apology, up Sam gets, and Dean, after checking to make sure he’s okay (really, really okay), lets him go. Sam’s glower is one for the ages, a kind of holier-than-Gordon with those dark brows drawn together like he’s taking notes because later he’ll be kicking ass.

But you see Dean’s exhaustion, the “he gets that way some times” explanation he gives to Gordon. But now Dean is telling Gordon secrets and fears that he won’t share with his own brother. His excuse is that he can’t, that he’s got to keep his game face on with Sammy, like Sammy was ten years old and couldn’t take it. Couldn’t manage that his brother is not superhuman and gets tired and confused like every one else. (Meanwhile, Ackles is the man of a thousand expressions. They filter across his face during this scene like he’s flipping through a card catalog. Not that I’m dismissing this as being easy; each and every expression has its own meaning, and each flicker of eyelash and twitch of his mouth tells me, the viewer, exactly what’s going on in Dean’s mind as Gordon spins his tale. I’ve never seen anyone do this as well as Ackles does here.)

My favorite bit is where Dean tells Gordon about his first werewolf kill, and his revelation at the age of 16 that hunting was what he was meant to do. It’s good stuff, and I know that the point of the scene is to learn about Gordon’s first kill of a fang and his second kill of a sister, and I’ll get back to that later, honestly I will. But what absorbs me is the fact that Dean’s telling me his history. He’s actually TALKING, and we get to learn about The Dad and him using that crossbow and a silver tipped arrow, and the fact that Sammy (aged 12) was waiting in the car. I’m totally distracted by what this all means, the huge back story that flutters in the wings like the smell of fresh brewed coffee before you are fully awake. And I’m like, more sleep or coffee?

In this scenario, I wake up and pick coffee because I want to know more, and what Dean doesn’t tell me, I make up. When Dean mentions the crossbow, I think that the boys had crossbow training, probably weeks and weeks of it. He mentions the silver-tipped arrow, and I’ve got visions of them either ordering it online (can you do that?) or, most likely, making it, melting the silver and dipping the arrow in. Then there’s Dean practicing in the woods somewhere, The Dad coaching him, Sammy wanting a turn because he wants to do what Dean is doing. But most of all, the thing that gets me more than anything is the image of Sammy (aged 12) waiting in the Impala. In the dark. By himself. Dean’s almost cavalier about this point, his casual air telling me that this was something that went on a LOT. Was Sam scared? Worried that Dean and The Dad might not come back? Was he sulking and pouting about getting left behind? Or were his sulks and pouts because he’d rather be playing soccer or watching TV than waiting in the dark like that? The stuff Show leaves out, I’m telling you, it slays me!

So about Gordon’s sister. Yeah, I didn’t forget. Gordon draws this out, you know he’s just been waiting for a chance to tell someone his story - to someone who would understand the brilliant sacrifice he made, and that someone is none other than Dean. At first Dean is all ears and eyes, he too enjoys the opportunity to swap war stories with a fellow hunter, and I’ll wager it’s not something he gets to do very often. I’m right with him, thinking, up to this point, that Dean has found a brother of the road, a new playmate, someone from whom he can learn. But then Gordon talks about killing his sister, because she was a fang, because it was the right thing to do. Dean looks like he’s about to choke on his beer and the parallel jumps out at me, snapping like bacon grease from a hot frying pan. I never saw it coming.

For Dean, you see, has been enjoined by The Dad to kill Sam if he can’t save him. When and how Dean’s supposed to judge whether Sam’s saved or not is another matter, fact is, Dean doesn’t want to do it. He’s up for killing a lot of things (anything evil as a matter of fact) but not brother Sammy. Up to then, yeah, he’s digging Gordon and Gordon’s digging him back, they almost giggle like schoolgirls when Sammy exits the honky tonk in a huff. But you can see it as Dean figures it out. To be like Gordon means being a whole lot of things, most of which Dean was on board with. However, being like Gordon ultimately means NOT being like Sam. Sam, as you’ll recall, still has his heart and his soul, both of which are still intact and at Dean’s disposal. Suddenly, for Dean, the idea of there being a grey area becomes a whole lot more palatable, and the black and white lines that Gordon draws all over his world become less than desirable. Dean comes away from it not exactly disagreeing with Gordon (he likes hunting too well to dismiss everything Gordon says out of hand), but, rather, understanding that there might be another way to see things. See them the way Sam is always (always!) blathering about.

Sam, having stalked out, is on his own for a bit. You can always tell it’s Thursday by the fact that Sam gets taken unawares. The vampires kidnap Sam (as they should do), AND they tie him up (and gag him!) which makes my fangirl heart go pitter-patter in the most amusing of ways. (That he’s wearing a black hostage hood on his head for a good length of time is just an added benefit. He’s really too powerful looking for it to make much sense that he could be so easily grabbed, except that it’s by vampires and there are two of him.)

Vampire chick has the good sense to KEEP Sam tied up, because he looks pretty pissed off. (And really good that way.) I like how Padalecki can have two emotions on his face at the same time. Sam is scared but snarky, throwing out snotty comments when at any moment he could become one of them and guess what? Dean would have to hunt him down dead and he knows it. Plus, his pretty, pretty forehead draped by those bangs of his, it’s almost better than a plateful of freshly cooked chocolate chip cookies

But okay, vampires, they’re the MOW this episode. And the whole vampire thing, I get it. It’s a metaphor because the vampires are there to represent supernatural things that aren’t evil and therefore don’t deserve killing. Show paints this with pretty broad strokes so that even I, distracted by pretty boys, can see it. But honesty, how does Show expect me to pay attention when Sam and Dean are stomping around like they do, looking fabulous and getting the job done all at the same time?

At any rate, the vampires manage to convince Sam that they aren’t evil and could he please get the other hunters off their backs. Sam, who is a man of reason, after all, returns to the motel to ask Dean to rethink the hunt. Dean disagrees, and once we get all the plotty stuff out of the way, we get Sam and Dean having a fight. Not a dither, but a full out fight. Sam, you see, knows what Gordon is up to, and what Dean is doing, and that is filling the hole that The Dad left behind. Yeah, I’m not blind to the fact that Gordon said almost the same thing, but he recommended filling that hole with the job, whereas Dean is filling it with a person. (And I note that for all Dean hates people (demons he gets) he’s pretty quick to find someone to cozy up to.) Sam’s best line here is the one about how it’s an insult to The Dad’s memory to try and make Gordon into a replacement for The Dad. This is not something that I’d ever thought I’d hear Sam say.

And Dean, you know, he doesn’t like being caught out like this. That’s what I like about him, when he’s cornered, he punches or expresses himself in some other violent and painful way. This week, he punches Sam, who, being Sam, doesn’t punch back. It’s not that Sam’s a better man necessarily (although he’s a very GOOD man), because had it been anyone else other than Dean, I have NO doubt in my mind, not at all, that Sam would have decked the guy and laid him out as flat and as cold as a smoked mackerel in a freezer. Seeing as this is Dean, however, and that Dean is obviously conflicted and in pain, Sam does not retaliate. It’s also lovely to watch because it’s done so well, and the look in Dean’s eyes says it all: “Sorry, sorry, sorry” and “too late for sorry, huh, Sammy?” and “please punch me back now so I don’t feel so much like the dog’s dinner.”

By the time the boys recoup and regroup, Gordon has gone off after the vampires, and we get super Sammy who can backtrace his path on a map to the vampire’s nest, even though he was scared, confused, and originally blindfolded when the vampires drove him there. Dean asks him how he did that. Sam looks at him with not quite disdain (he loves his brother too well for that) but more an incredulous expression that seems to say, “You honestly believe that I ignored ALL of The Dad’s training and can’t keep it together long enough to pay attention to where I’m being dragged off too? Besides, Dean, I LOVE maps. Maps are my best friend, next to you.” All he says though is, “I counted.” Go Sam! And fancy any of us paying attention like that. I would have peed my pants the first mile out.

Big showdown at the farm is up next, with Gordon trying to prove how humane he is (in spite of having tortured vampire chick for fun), Sam insisting that they need to let the vampires go, and Dean straddling the fence about whether might makes right and stuff like that. He’s not normally a fence straddler, he typically would be on one side or t’other, but here, we get conflict because he’s just Not Sure. His way has always been Gordon’s way, and, adjacent to that, The Dad’s way. And that way is to a) get the bad thing in your sights, b) kill it, and c) don’t ask questions.

Gordon makes one mistake when he tries to prove that vampires are killers, and I’ll say it’s his first AND his last mistake because Gordon, well, he shouldn’t have threatened Sam like that, and he shouldn’t have sliced into his arm like that. Sam’s a big boy, yeah, he can take it, but the look on Dean’s face tells me that this was not what he was expecting. If he was doubting Gordon before, NOW he totally doesn’t like him, his objectives, or his methods. Not that he’s thinking in exactly these terms. More, I think his brain is making “Gordon, BAAAD!” noises as he aims his gun and tries to figure out how to shoot Gordon before he can make more slices into Sammy. As for Sam, he’s got this “You SEE? Do you SEE this, DEAN?” expression on his face.

Yeah, finally Dean sees the light. As Sammy hauls the vampire chick up in his (oh my) VERY strong arms, Dean stands between Gordon and the escaping vampires, and what I like best is the look on Dean’s face when he tells Gordon that Gordon will have to go through him first. You can see that he believes it and at the same time he can’t believe he’s saying it. Then the fight ensues. Dean even invites it, because that’s what he likes to do. (Next to loving.) Yeah, yeah, fight, fight. Dean “sweeps the leg,” Gordon decks him, but Dean wins. I saw that one coming, but Dean likes to fight and I like to watch.

When Sam comes back the next morning, Dean decks Gordon again and, please note, Sam doesn’t stop him or even remonstrate him. He even smiles at Dean’s antics, because apparently while it’s not appropriate to kill vampires (even self-professed, non-human killing ones), it’s totally okay to punch a helpless and tied up guy in the mouth. (What’s also fun here is Ackles’ timing, the way he waits several long heartbeats before saying, “I’m good, we can go.” It’s flawless. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Ackles has missed his calling; many a man could not have held that kind of comedic silence to its fullest effect. I also suspect that Ackles makes a mean omelet where a lesser man would just make scrambled eggs, if you get my drift.)

As they go out, Dean invites Sam to get his own back and punch big brother in the face. He says it’s a freebie, which invites all sorts of images in my head of laws of childhood that have stood for so many years between them. Stuff like the guidelines for “Dibs,” and the complicated dithering over how to divide the last pudding (one boy draws the line, the other boy gets to pick which side he wants), and the Rules for who gets to sit in the Dad chair and why. In spite of this, Sam doesn’t need a free one to deck his older brother, he’s insulted. Plus the fact that he probably thinks it’s demeaning that Dean feels Sam owes him a punch. That’s not how brothers are, and certainly not the brother that Sam has grown up to be. Dean should know better.

In the very end scene, Dean and Sam have their little chat (it’s a chat rather than a dither because they dither when they are trying to decide something, they chat when they are trying to conclude something) over the roof of the Impala. Man, the conversations that roof has heard, the smudged fingerprints, it’s a little like car porn, isn’t it? Anyway, the chat allows them to agree that not everything supernatural is evil, and maybe that not everything they killed deserved killing. AND that The Dad did the best he could, which, when you look at the whole of John’s history and every decision he ever made, pretty much sums it up.

The dialog is good, because it flows naturally and shows that Dean is earning himself a place in the hall of wise men. Dean doesn’t come to this easily, as you can see, he was fighting and kicking against it the whole episode long. But I’m pleased for him because it’s his first step away from blindly following where The Dad led. At the same time, I’m pleased for me, because I have a feeling that the decision whether to kill or not to kill will continue to come up and provide me with tons of angst and those Deanish expressions where he looks so durn cute you just want to hug him.

Sam, well satisfied with himself at having helped big brother learn something new, gets into the shiny, shiny car. Then we get the money shot, the sunrise shot, and I tell you what. I’m a pretty confident writer, I can write stuff that can make you cry or laugh or whatever. Heck, I could even have written the dialog for this scene with a little practice, some handholding, and a year-long course in screen writing. But never in a million years could I have directed it or shot it. I wouldn’t even have the vaguest idea where to begin, where to place the camera, how to tell Ackles to stand, and especially not how to get that sunburst in there so that it fits over Dean’s head like a freaking HALO. It’s not an accident, I’m sure. Even angels were human once, walking around in their thick soled boots, wearing leather jackets, and wondering about the sacrifices needed to save others, and the ethics of killing what must be killed. Yeah, I just compared Dean to an angel, go ahead and take a look at this scene and tell me I’m not right. Hell, look at the whole episode and you’ll see that I am.

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.

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