Supernatural: Hunted

They Shoot Sidekicks, Don’t They?
by Sylvia Bond
Supernatural Episode Review, Season Two – Episode 10
“Hunted”

During the scene where Sam meets Ava, I’m digging it, although I would like to have a few choice words with Sam-I-Am about going off on his own without even leaving so much as a note for his brother Dean. At any rate, Ava tells Sam her story about dreaming things before they happen and so forth and Sam says, “This is crazy!” Of course Ava misunderstands and thinks that he thinks that she’s crazy. So she starts spouting off, and Sam says, “No, you must be one of us. One of the sidekicks. Like me.”

Now, in spite of being lambasted by Samgirls for paying too much attention to Dean, I wanted to protest on Sam’s behalf that he’s not a sidekick! He’s an integral part of an amazing team. Then, naturally, being raised on musicals, my mind went there in order to prove Sam’s worth by pointing to other essential and historical sidekicks. The most famous and foremost of which was Sancho Panza, who, as you probably know, was the companion to The Man of La Mancha. Sancho delivered earthy wit and wisdom and looked out for his master. Because he was the MOLM’s squire and friend, I figured Sammykins was in pretty good company so I didn’t need to defend him for being in this glorious and longstanding occupation.

Then Sam and Ava keep talking and I realize that he’s saying “psychic,” not “sidekick,” and boy, did I feel foolish at having made such a mistake. There’s a term for this; I looked it up. It’s called a “mondegreen” and it’s what happens when you hear “excuse me while I kiss this guy” rather than “excuse me while I kiss the sky,” or “we don’t chat at a lighthouse,” instead of “big ole jet airliner.” You get the drift. Most of you could probably have laughed this off and moved on. Sadly, for me, I had the word in my head for the rest of the episode, and the idea that Sam was the sidekick kid trying to prove himself worthy of the hero he’s traveling with. I even heard Dean in my head asking, “What do you mean you’re a sidekick, Sammy?”

So yeah, sidekick kids was the name of the day in this episode, which created a break from tradition, or rather two traditions. First, the MOW was not anything specific that the boys could chase after together. Instead the MOW was a nebulous man with yellow eyes (hereafter referred to as the Yellow Eyed Demon, or the YED), and an even more nebulous prophesy about sidekick kids (wow, they really start young, don’t they?) who are being tested/trained/gathered for a coming war. This story arc will follow Show for the rest of the season, bringing plenty of dark angst and reasons for Sammy to drink himself sick over worrying about it because, apparently, being a sidekick kid is not much fun. 

Second, Show starts a horrible trend of having the boys not sharing much screen time. In this ep, particularly, like I said, Sammy goes off on his own, leaving Dean to wonder and worry and fret about where he is. (Doesn’t he know that sidekicks need to stay with their heroes?) I can understand why Sam felt he needed to be on his own to research this particular mess, but to leave Dean hanging is naughty and cruel. I mean, really. Would it have KILLED him to leave a note? Or to have called much earlier than halfway through the ep? Who knows how many days it was before Sammy did call or what Dean did to try and find him; I can imagine that Dean’s fingernails were chewed to the quick by the time he did. 

We are also reintroduced to Gordon Walker, a hunter with a heart of stone, because, as you’ll recall, he killed his own sister because she was a vampire. In this ep, he’s going after Sam, gunning for him actually, with a super duper rifle with a special scope and special hollow bullets. Gordon’s whacked-out goal is to kill all the sidekick kids before the demon war can begin and he’s starting with Sam. (Part of Gordon’s problem is that he doesn’t understand sidekicks, probably because he doesn’t have one of his own.) I know I’m not supposed to like Gordon, and I am rather miffed at him for hurting Sammy and for wanting to kill him, but Gordon is so icy cool about everything and so focused on his goal, that he draws my eye to him in spite of me. Plus, during the roof scene he got the drop on Dean, which almost never happens. AND he tied Dean up, so props to Gordy. 

Now the scene in which he does this makes my heart go rabbity fast. Gordon has laid a trap for Sam, and Dean is bait. Dean is forced to talk to his brother on the phone to tell him to come hither and he manages to clue Sam into the fact that it’s a trap by saying the ever-famous “funky town” line. (I adore the whole unseen back story as Sam tries to explain to Ava who made this phrase up and how it came to be – because in spite of Sam’s mockery, he indulges his big brother by agreeing to the phrase. Wish I could have been a fly on the wall for that conversation.) At any rate, Gordon is on to the boys and lays two trip wires set to explode hand grenades. The second wire is because, as Dean says, “Sammy is never going to fall for that (the first wire).” Neither will he, one presumes, fall for the banana in the tailpipe, and Gordon knows this as well. 

But the whole Dean-tied-up thing. It should happen more often. I think that Dean is sadly under practiced in this art, whereas Sammy has it down to a fine, graceful dance. And I don’t know whether it’s because his longer torso is more suited to be criss-crossed with ropes, or whether he’s been tied up SO OFTEN (like all the time) that he’s become very good at looking both heroic and pissed off at the same time or what. (If Sam is tied up, it must be Thursday, as fangirls say with great relish.) Dean, on the other hand, is tied up much less often. And when he is, he fights it like a bull in a china shop, like an atheist in a church, like a…well, like Dean tied up! He doesn’t like it, he can’t abide the powerlessness, and he has no patience for being expounded to by the bad guy. He’s liable to spit in their eye than try to reason with them, as Sammy does. 

Dean and Gordon even have a dither over Sammy, and whether or not he will a) turn evil and b) deserve to be killed. What’s interesting here is Gordon’s attempt to shame Dean into doing things his way. He tells Dean that The Dad would have had the stones to do the right thing, and that Dean is not the man his father was because he won’t kill his brother. To me, this seems the exact reason why The Dad gave this task to Dean, because he knew that Dean would have enough heart and soul to NOT do it, something that perhaps The Dad felt he was lacking. We will never know of course, and even if Dean might understand what I’m saying here, the look he gives Gordon says it all: No one is or ever will be the man my Dad was. 

He’s so mouthy that Gordon gags him with a bandana, and even around this you can practically hear the curse words bubbling up through Dean’s lips. He’s like a rabid terrier dog who doesn’t know (or care) that he’s, um, outdogged. So that’s the setup, and in comes Sam (after noisily picking the lock) and Dean knows when this happens, which makes him froth at the mouth, wanting to warn Sam with a frenetic desire that is second only to his need not to be tied up. Bam, one grenade goes off, bam, off goes the other one. And you know what? Sam was wise to both on account of that Ava chick telling him all about that dream she had of him and places his gun to the back of Gordon’s head just as nicely as you please. Gordon and Sam battle it out, kicking and punching (as guys do), and in a very satisfying end, Sammy wins, enjoining Gordon to call him “Sam.” Then, blood running down his face, his breath thick in his throat, he stalks over to Dean to untie older bro. Even as he crumbles to his knees, the sidekick kid brother has become the rescuer and the hero.

But Dean, even as he’s being untied, still goes into big brother mode, which I love on account of it’s tender and gruff at the same time. As Sam collapses, Dean stands up, hauling Sam to his feet, checking his little bro over with careful eyes. He almost does that thing, you know the one, where he wipes the blood off Sam’s face with his thumb. For some reason, that’s the most gentle of gestures, the most caring, and when I see it I know that for all their fighting and lack of on-screen-together time, for all that Sam’s a big boy now and can fight his own battles, I can see how easily both of them slip into their respective roles. They’re more comfortable that way. That’s just how it goes: Sam’s covered with blood and Dean takes care of him. (At the same time, Sam doesn’t allow Dean to kill Gordon flat out, showing me that even though Dean is the big brother, Sam sometimes calls the shots.)

Then there is the skill and artistry of the Blood Artist (BA). Now, the BA is always excellent, but this week, there was a lot of blood, and thusly, a lot for the BA to do. First, in the opening scene where Ava sees Sam explode in her prophetic dream, we get blood splatter on the camera lens, which is gross, but effective. And then there’s the blood that falls from Gordon’s mouth after he cold cocks Dean with the rifle. Someone planned really well here. Gordon is in profile against the sky, and as he stands up, blood pours from his mouth like a waterfall. And yeah, it’s gross too, but really, someone understood not only how to film it so the sunlight glints off the blood, but also that blood and saliva mix together in funny, slimy ways; the consistency here is perfect. 

And then of course, Sammy, who bleeds as pretty as anything, usually from his mouth and nose. Here he also is bleeding from punches to the face, long, drawn slashes of blood that he completely disregards as he unties his brother. And lastly was the bloodbath of Ava’s fiancé. Now given that some time had probably passed before Sam and Dean discovered said finance (now dead), I would think that the blood would be dried to brown. Here, it glistens an unlikely (but effective) ruby red, there are pools of it on the mattress still, there’s even blood stippled across the wall. The BA is no amateur with a bucket of runny ketchup, no, the BA is a painter of the first water, trailing strands of scarlet and vermillion everywhere and to the best effect. I sometimes forget to say anything about it because I have grown used to the BA’s genius, so this week I wanted to make a special Thank You to the BA for the glorious work that shows the boys to such fine advantage! 

And let’s talk about Ava. She’s a sidekick too, you know, particularly in the scenes she shares with Sammy. To begin with, she’s pretty, but in an ordinary, believable way; her lip-gloss, thankfully, does not shine bright enough to blind. I like how her clothes are rumpled as if she indeed did spend many hours driving from Peoria. Plus her hair is a little stringy and messy, which only adds to her wide-eyed and dimpled charm. And she’s one of those girls, those girls you and I both know, who spend the last months approaching their wedding day addressing envelopes and obsessing about the particular shade of white (or cream or champagne or whatever is in fashion this season) of their wedding dress. And all the while imagining that their wedding day will change their lives forever, after which, they will become a completely different person in a totally new life. This is so wrong; any married woman could tell her that the biggest change you will have after getting married is washing HIS underwear, and there’ll be lots of it and you will need bleach. But you can’t tell a young bride-to-be this, they won’t listen. Or they can’t listen, they’re too starry-eyed. 

My favorite thing about Ava, in addition to the lovely juicy way she pronounces her “o’s” and “ch’s” is her approach to Sam. She’s able to resist Sam’s charm and beauty and Samhair for reasons I can’t even begin to imagine, though it might have something to do with the fact that she’s happily engaged. She’s also doing her best to be a decent human being, even though she knows he probably won’t believe her. The fact that he does (because he’s a sidekick too) surprises her and this keeps her real. She’s Susie Average Off The Street, and like she says, “this is way off the map” for her. 

She’s thrilled to be involved when it means kyping some dead guy’s confidential files from the shrink’s office, (Sam trip along the ledge is tons of hysterical but too short – he’s obviously not afraid of heights and exactly how many floors was he above ground anyway?), but she’s less thrilled to be shot at. When she watches Sam do his sidekick stuff (like knowing exactly what kind of rifle and bullets were used to try and kill them both) she’s astonished and amazed, and wants to know, “who are you?” I don’t think she bought his T.J. Hooker excuse, but there’s nothing else he’s going to tell her. I’d like to think I’d be like her if I encountered the Winchester boys on a case: a little freaked but reasonable. Not running screaming for the hills, no. Not me. 

As to the Roadhouse and Ellen, yeah, let’s talk about that. I love Ellen to pieces and I always will. She’s no nonsense from start to finish and doesn’t suffer fools gladly. I want to have a drink at the Roadhouse and a chat with her like nobody’s business. The boys seem to think she’s someone they can talk to, as well, and both Sam and Dean interact with her in this ep. First Sam goes sashaying into Harvelle’s, and he needs information. His sweet eyes and charming smile allow him to sit at the bar, but what keeps this from being a saccharine scene is the fact that Ellen’s a little pissed about the fact that Jo ran off, and she feels the boys might be to blame. 

Both Ellen and Sam are crawling over painful memories during this scene (in particular Ellen’s memories about Bill and The Dad, wherein we STILL don’t have all the facts about how that went down), in addition to which, there’s stuff Sam’s not telling her and she’s not telling Sam. At the same time Ellen gives Sam access to her resident brain, and that is Ash. (Sam wants to know how many other sidekicks there are out there, you see. Ash’s research comes up with only four: dead, dead, dead, and just about to be dead.)

Ash seems like he has nothing better to do than linger about the premises, drinking the leftovers of other people’s beer and coming up with fantastic research at a moment’s notice. What keeps Ash from being a two-dimensional throwaway character is the sense that he’s got another life beyond the point when the cameras stop rolling. Watch the cut scenes for this ep and you’ll see what I mean. With his smoke-thickened voice and his blue-collar attitude, his idea of a terrific first date is to take a girl to the Waffle House, or, no, wait, The Olive Garden. (The Olive Garden I would not go to on a bet, but the Waffle House serves some mighty fine scattered, smothered, and covered hash browns, plus those cheese grits which will BLOW your mind.) Ash is happy to just hang out, and I think, secretly he enjoys being the smartest fellow for about a thousand miles. He’s king (or at least prince) of this very little pond, and it suits him. I sure as heckfire wouldn’t mind having a couple of brews with him, or a trip to the Waffle House. (Not that I’d want to cheat on my own true loves, but I find the idea of him saying to me, in that barroom voice of his, “Let me pick up the check, darlin’,” rather fetching, even if the bill only comes to ten bucks.)

Sam’s sojourn to the Roadhouse is a fairly happy one, but when Dean calls Ellen towards the end of the ep, watch out. He’s calling about the fact that Gordon said he was able to find Sam based on HIS Roadhouse connections and Dean is pissed to the max about it. No one betrays his brother, no one, and when he finds out who, what, and how, there will be buckets of blood spread from sea to shining sea. I always enjoy an Angry Dean, especially when he’s growling out his ire like this while Sam, once more in little brother mode, waits in the car. 

Sam must have done an awful lot of waiting in the car over the years. So much so that the car, the Impala, must feel like a second home to him. In fact, it’s the only home he’s ever known, and that’s a nice image, but a sad one. I mean, think of it. From the time he can remember, the only constant in his life has been that car, Dean, and The Dad. (C’mon, you knew I had to mention The Dad at some point, didn’t you? Cause, as you know, even when he’s not in an episode, he is.) Now that The Dad is gone, all Sam has is his brother and that car, and the car isn’t even his. It’s a wonder he doesn’t complain about it more, like he does everything else, but perhaps since it’s such a constant in his life (the only constant) he either doesn’t want to rock the boat or he can’t even see how little he has to call his own. (Or, even, he doesn’t need anything to call his own if Dean and the car are there.)

During their conversation, Ellen swears that there’s no way she told Gordon anything, nor did Jo, the Harvelles have always been loyal, yadda yadda. And then she starts expounding about hunters who come to the Roadhouse. In spite of my love for Ellen, Ash, and yes, even Jo (oh, her), this is where the whole Roadhouse concept jumps the shark for me. Lots of sharks. Ellen talks about hunters, how they’re cool and savvy and smart and there’s at least a dozen who could have put the whole Sam as sidekick kid concept together. As she talks, the camera pans the bar, where there are three or four hunters doing huntery things. One is drinking, another is cleaning his guns (at the bar!), while another is going through her Tarot deck. There’re more hunters in the background, and the whole thing reeks of obvious; it goes bad even before the expiration date of the end of the ep. 

I know, or at least I think I do, that Show meant to set up the Roadhouse as a meeting point for hunters. However, in my mind, hunters are more like moose than cattle. Cattle bunch together and don’t care who sees them do their thing; a bar like the Roadhouse would be perfect for them. Moose, on the other hand, like to be alone, to think their moosey thoughts and have a great deal of moosey private time and plan their moosey plans. Moose don’t want you knowing their secrets, right? I don’t think hunters would either. So if they did come to the Roadhouse, they should be skulking in corners. Like moose. So why on earth is Show having hunters DISPLAY their wares so boldly like this? They wouldn’t, that’s what. It is this scene, above all the other Roadhouse scenes, that made me dislike the Roadhouse so much.  

The ultimate scene in this ep, and yeah, I’ve saved the best for last, is actually the opening scene. The brothers are on screen together, which already makes it awesome, plus they argue, which makes it fun for me, though not for them. The Location Manager had his people find the most pastoral and picturesque locale for this particular scene, a lovely spot with autumnal trees loosing their leaves, and dark pylons contrasting against the glassy river and the smoky sky beyond. Anytime Show films the brothers in natural light is like waking up to the first day of school. Everything is bright and shiny and warm, the boys glow like they were lit from within, and the dampness from the river makes their skin moist and their eyes glitter. Sam’s hair flips up in the most Samhair manner possible; Dean’s eyes are as green as river stones. Show should do this more often. 

Throughout this ep, the camera work has been complicated. Each scene was filmed with a camera (or several cameras) that moved with the action in a graceful and unselfconscious way that gave each scene a dynamic feel. Nowhere is this shown off to better effect than here. We get close-ups and cutaways, faraways, and pullins and a whole bunch of other techniques I don’t know the name of. Plus, this is a fairly tight spot to film at with a steep bank leading down to the river and a narrow sidewalk that is edged with those pylons; add to that the trees and it can’t have been easy to manage all those camera placements. Or did they use a crane? No matter, the result is a complex scene that punches you in the gut once Dean starts talking. 

He finally, FINALLY, tells Sam what The Dad told him: that if he can’t save Sammy, he’s got to kill him. (Way to go, The Dad, for piling on YET another thankless and impossible task on your eldest!) Ablaze, Dean’s demeanor is telling. I’m not sure why he chooses this particular moment to reveal the reveal, but it’s not easy for him. He marches through this difficult task like he’s wading through blood. It’s in this scene that we begin to see how much of a burden it has been as Dean admits he’s worn out with “this thing screaming in my head all day.” Everything is spinning out of control, he says; watch as the cracks in Dean’s psyche start to appear.

Sam, predictably, is pissed off at finding all this out. And I don’t mean pissy, I mean PISSED. Ready to chew nails (or pound them with his neck.) Sadly the only person he can take this out on is Dean. Which he does in his Sammy way, with that ever-sexy nose twitch of his, lowering those brows at that angle that makes him look quite demonic. He does a Sammy Spread, throwing his arms wide, making himself bigger and scarier than he already is. (Dean of course, is not scared. For all Sammy might go darkside one day, and for every demonic tendency he’s already shown, to Dean Sammy will always be little bro, and I guess since Dean’s wiped the kid’s nose and patched his skinned knees since Sam was little, there’s nothing to be scared of about that.)

Sam decks Dean with several verbal punches about the fact that Dean might have to actually waste him one day and how DARE he keep this from Sam. Once again he’s been placed in a need-to-know status, making him feel the littlest, most useless member of Team Winchester. I imagine that most of his anger is for The Dad, at this point, and who could blame him. He’s just been told several awful, awful things one of which is that he, poor boy, is bound to die. We might as well string him up and call him Tom Dooley as to let him wander around wondering when his deathdate will be and when big brother will deliver the killing blow. Plus, he must be remembering when he flat out asked The Dad whether The Dad knew anything about what the YED had to say about sidekick kids. In return, The Dad flat out LIED to Sam, and although Sam should be used to this type of prevarication, it’s obvious that it still hurts. Hurts bad enough to want to hurt back; in his eyes, you can see it. 

The only thing that stops him is Dean. His voice breaks as he begs Sam to understand, as he begs Sam to give him a little time to figure things out. And his gesture, when he points to himself, pulls at my heartstrings: it’s his last, most powerful weapon, asking Sam to go with it because it’s him, Dean, who is asking. Dean who never asks let alone begs. (And is this gesture in the script? Or was it Ackles himself who came up with it? I think the latter; Ackles seems the instinctive type of actor who pulls the character’s emotions from within himself.) Sam shoulders come down, the flash goes out of his eyes to be replaced with acquiescence. He turns away and takes a swig of his beer; still pissed, but doing it Dean’s way.

It’s such a powerful scene, so crisply shot and cleverly planned, that Show could have given us these mere three or so minutes, forgone the rest of the ep, and still have pleased us all immensely. For all this episode seems to be about Sam on his own, it’s THIS particular scene that moves the plot forward and flogs Dean’s main issue out in the open: That he might have to kill Sammy. What has that been doing to Dean to even consider it? What would it do to him if he had to go through with it? I’ve asked around, and my fangirl peeps to a woman said that if Dean had to kill Sammy, you’d hear one gunshot and less than a minute later you’d hear the second gunshot as Dean used the same gun on himself. There’s no way he could last much longer than that, and it’s to Show’s superb credit and development of these characters and their situation that I know this, that all the fangirls know this, in spite of the fact that nothing of the sort has been overtly said. 

The other great scene comes towards the end of the ep, as Sam and Dean drive to Peoria to check on Ava, who is not picking up her phone. When they get there, they discover Ava missing and her fiancé dead in a pool of his own blood. Yeah, I feel for Ava and empathize with Sam’s worry over her, but what’s cool is the drive itself. It’s quintessential Winchester, with lights and shadows flashing across their faces, talking as the camera captures all the little movements of their mouths and eyes. There’s tons of good dithering and back and forth, but my heart was taken by two particular pairs of bon mots. In the first, Sam says that Dean must bow to destiny, Sam’s destiny. Sam is bowing, and he (rightly) assumes that Dean will follow. He says, “You can’t protect me.” To which Dean replies, in a voice as whiskey soft as The Dad’s, “I can try.” And you know he means it; to his last breath he will protect Sam. 

Then Sam, to push the point home, says that since he, Sam, is going to continue hunting, Dean will have to stick around and watch his back. Dean says, “bitch,” and Sam says, “jerk,” rolling off the “r” sound like he’s announcing a circus act, and both boys smile. These words, as you know, if you are a True Fan, aren’t profanity or insults. Rather they are expressions of the deepest abiding love, the most sacred of emotions, and behind these two words are all the things Sam and Dean either have said or don’t need to say. I like to think of them like this, driving through the darkness on rain-wet roads, smiling in the greenish light of the dash: Sam with his dimples, his hair in his eyes, Dean concentrating on the road, relaxed and at ease because Sam is there and safe. Going where the job takes them. Willingly. It’s not about moose or sidekick kids, it’s about family and what you will do and how far you will go. Which, with the Impala to carry them there, is, I’d say, to ends of the earth.

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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