galathea | Review for 4x09 'I Know What You Did Last Summer'

Wow, Sera Gamble once again put the boys (and especially Sam) through the wringer in her script for I Know What You Did Last Summer. The episode is an intense emotional ride and left me hurting badly for Sam, so naturally I loved it. *g* The episode continues the so far exceptionally strong season and I can’t wait for the rest of it to come along!

It’s a common pattern for Supernatural to build up a conflict for the brothers over the first half of the season and then present a turn in the brother arc around midseason, and the 4.09/4.10 two-parter makes no exception here. Over the first couple of episodes we saw the brothers keeping secrets from each other and trying to readjust to their life together after their life-altering months apart. Finally it seems that they are willing to come clear, allowing the other in emotionally and trying to come to terms with what happened to them, by confiding with their brother. Sam takes the plunge first in I Know What You Did Last Summer and allows Dean (and us) a heartbreaking insight into his frame of mind in the first couple of weeks after his brother’s death.

Dean: "I’m not trying to pick a fight here. I really want to understand. But I need to know more. I deserve to know more."

Despite the fact that Sam refuses to open up to Dean in the beginning, rightly pointing out that his brother isn’t willing to share his experiences with him either, it doesn’t take much for Dean to get Sam to talk to him and that shows just how much Sam accepted Dean back in his role as confidant. Sam is bearing his soul and Dean simply listens and accepts Sam’s explanations without reservations. Dean is the last person to be able to pass judgment on bad decision making while grieving and I love their quiet and intense exchange in between the flashbacks, both of them steadily seeking eye contact with the other, Sam for reassurance and Dean to convey understanding.

I think Dean always knew that his brother loved him, but to hear Sam’s confession that he wasn’t any more able to live without him, than Dean was able to live without Sam, must be overwhelming in its directness. While Dean might have realised at the end of S3 how badly his death will hit Sam, I think he was still convinced that Sam was the stronger person of the two of them and would be able to cope on his own. When Sam admits that Ruby only got through to him because she said all the things Dean would have said, he basically affirms that he was only able to go on living by filling the void Dean left with something, anything that provided a however shallow substitute for his brother and in that sense Ruby actually did save him. The realisation how close he came to coming back from hell, only to find his brother gone, shows in Dean’s quiet acceptance and thoughtful expression.

On a lighter note, I loved how they broke the serious tone in the brother’s conversation by Dean being grossed out at hearing Sam’s erotic adventures. Too. Much. Information! It’s especially delightful since Dean is usually the one to tease his little brother with details about the 'beautiful natural act' and I adored how Sam got back at him here. Boys! ♥

Anyway, Sam coming clean is the first step in the right direction for the brothers, allowing them to find a new balance in their relationship, to get past all the lies and deceptions and develop a new trust and understanding with each other. I assume that Dean’s own confession now will follow soon as well, reciprocating his brother’s trust and putting them on even ground.

Sam: "I don’t want 10 years. I don’t want one year. I don’t want candy. I want to trade places with Dean. Just take me!"

Before I get to the flashbacks, one word first: Jared! Just wow! He completely owned this episode. His depiction of grieving, self-destructive, suicidal, rock-bottom Sam was powerful, raw and intense, easily his best performance in the show, even topping his possessed!Sam in Born Under A Bad Sign. His weary body language, his unsteady, drunken gait and the raw pain in his expressions and voice, completely sold this broken version of Sam in the immediate aftermath of Dean’s death to me. Kudos to Jared for a superb act.

The main pull of the episode clearly was the extensive insight into Sam’s time alone for me, encompassing the events of the first 4 weeks after Dean’s death. Sam was every bit as desperate and lost as I imagined him to be, utterly unable to cope with his brother’s loss. Dean was in hell, literally, but Sam was in hell as well. A hell created out of grief, self-loathing and rage. Where Dean’s grief after losing Sam was quiet and inward-looking, Sam’s grief is loud and turning outwards. Both are equally powerful, both equally self-destructive.

It was to be expected that Sam would try to strike a deal with the crossroads demon first thing. It’s interesting to know that after Sam killed the last crossroads demon, it was simply replaced, so his rash decision back in Bedtime Stories did indeed accomplish nothing at all. Anyway, drunken, desperate, angry Sam, trying to lay his life down for his brother’s salvation from hell was heart-wrenching to watch. He doesn’t even try to bargain with the demon, if only to be there to see his brother return and make sure he is okay. He just wants to end his misery quickly. He has nothing left to live for.

As a side note: The demon’s adamant refusal to take a deal was interesting, especially his insistence that the demons are not interested in Sam’s soul and that Dean in hell is exactly what Lilith wants. I wonder if the reason why Lilith so desperately wants Dean in hell is the same reason why the angels want Dean out of it. His potential to prevent the end of the world. It opens the speculation again, what exactly Dean’s role is in the overall scheme of things and if it goes way beyond his connection to Sam.

In any case, we see Sam at the end of his rope here. In S3 the prospect of losing Dean slowly but surely lead to Sam losing his sense of self, trying to model himself into the type of hardened person he thought he needed to be to survive without Dean, and he only kept it together with his brother's help and the hope to be able to save him. With his brother’s death and the feeling of having failed him, it seems that he lost the last shreds of his identity and self-preservation. Dean has always been Sam’s grounding influence, his humanity if you will, and with losing Dean he had nothing to hold onto and fell completely apart.

In this context it is interesting to see the difference between Sam in Mystery Spot and Sam in this week’s episode. Sam after Dean’s permanent death in Mystery Spot was scarily focused and shut off from his own emotions, cold and automatic, his eyes on the target: The Trickster. Sam in I Know What You Did Last Summer on the other hand is an emotional wreck and unable to function, he has no goals, nothing left to live for. Of course that’s not the Sam we meet in Lazarus Rising. Sam in the season premiere is calm and focused, yet emotionally detached. So, what happened in the 3 months between the flashbacks and the moment Dean returns from hell?

I think two elements came into play with Sam’s recovery from his self-destructive behaviour. Firstly, I think it’s fair to say that when he set his mind on hunting down Lilith and take revenge on her, he was able to focus his emotions and find ground again. Secondly, and maybe even more importantly, I think that remembering his promise to Dean to carry on the family business and focusing his energy on saving people, where he couldn’t save his brother, pulled Sam back from the brink as well. I conclude that from the interesting observation that during Sam and Ruby’s early training sessions, Ruby simply kills the possessed victim without hesitation, not caring about the innocent host at all, although it would be perfectly easy to just exorcise him with a ritual. And Sam just stands by without protest, apparently not caring either. That clearly changed later on, maybe not to a small part on account of Sam honouring his promise to Dean to keep on fighting. This point is further emphasized by the fact that Sam doesn't wear Dean's necklace in the flashbacks, but we know that he decided to wear this tangible connection to his brother later on, maybe as a sign that he continued in his brother's spirit, at least in his own mind. While he knew that Dean didn’t want him to use his powers, they gave him a chance to carry on with the family business in his own way and I think that was enough to delude himself into thinking that he does the right thing and it took Dean coming back to shatter those illusions.

And since I mentioned Mystery Spot, I know that some fans feel that Sam comes off as cold and uncaring, because he apparently got over Dean's death in only four weeks time - with the help of a demon even - but I think it is important to remember that Sam already grieved for his brother not too long ago. We might not have witnessed the first couple of weeks/months after Dean's permanent death in Mystery Spot, but I daresay that Sam was every bit as devastated then as he was now, and he only survived losing Dean by focussing his energy on finding the Trickster. He spent six months without Dean before he got him back - not to mention that he had over 100 Tuesdays in a row in which he watched Dean die over and over again before that - and then he had only two or three months with his brother before he lost him, again. Sam was broken long before Dean died in No Rest For the Wicked; I don't think he ever truly recovered from the events in Mystery Spot. So I find Sam's relatively 'short' mourning period in I Know What You Did Last Summer not strange or uncaring at all, as he had already been in mourning for almost nine months before Dean's deal even came due.

Ruby: "Is it because you’re really scared to go there with a demon? Because it’s wrong and bad and we shouldn’t?"

I have to admit that back in Lazarus Rising, I was repulsed by the thought that Sam and Ruby were intimate with each other, so I was surprised that they not only found a way to make it work for me, without completely assassinating Sam’s character, but also used it as a visualisation of Sam’s need for self-destruction after Dean’s death.

I am glad that the writers acknowledged the serious issues that would arise out of Sam having sex with a demon who possesses the body of an innocent girl, forcing said girl to helplessly witness the abuse of her body. I am grateful that they went out of their way to get those issues off the table first. Sam’s outright refusal to even tolerate Ruby as long as she inhabited the body of a conscious person, forcing her to leave the body of the secretary and to look for an alternative if she wanted Sam to accept her, shows that he at least drew a line at violating an innocent person, despite his overwhelming grief. While the scene in the hospital, with the comatose Jane Doe flatlining and Ruby taking over in the moment of her death, was a tad contrived, it was absolutely necessary to show that scene, in order to rule out any speculation about Ruby simply manipulating Sam into believing her that the body was 'empty'. This turn in Ruby’s story doesn’t make the sex between her and Sam any less painful, but it makes it at least a lot less distasteful than the alternative.

The scene where Ruby seduces Sam was very intense and raw. Sam’s initial disgusted reaction to Ruby initiating a kiss clearly shows that he knows that everything about having sex with her is wrong, but everything about his life ever since Dean’s death is wrong as well, wrong and numb and cold. Ruby whispering words about warmth and comfort in his ear, teasing him, challenging him, pushes Sam over the edge. When he finally gives in though, the sex isn’t affectionate or life-affirming; it’s Sam hitting rock-bottom, an expression of self-loathing, grief, desperation and rage and I can buy that. I think he hates himself and Ruby in that moment, as there was nothing remotely comforting about the act. The scene was visceral and uncomfortable for me to watch, but I think it was intended to be shocking, intended to show just how much Sam lost himself after Dean’s death.

Sam: "Ruby came back for me. Whatever you have to say, she saved me. More than that, she got through to me. What she said to me, it’s what you would have said."

In the end though, it’s not the sex that reconnects Sam with life or makes him trust Ruby. His cold and menacing behaviour towards her when she tries to stop him from going after Lilith, shows that it didn’t deter him from his wish to die or made him care about her. Ruby didn’t save Sam by being Ruby, but by becoming Dean in Sam’s mind. Two times Ruby attempts to get to Sam by trying to manipulate his grief over Dean to her advantage. First she tries the sympathetic route, assuring Sam that she can relate to his loss, because she went through the same once. Sam shuts her down though, doesn’t allow her in, so she turns to sex instead, seeking a physical connection where Sam doesn't allow an emotional one.

The second time, she uses Dean’s memory, reminding Sam that Dean died for him to live and wouldn’t want for Sam to self-destruct and that’s what gets through to him in the end. I think in that moment Sam only saw and heard Dean in Ruby’s actions and words and hence allowed her to play substitute. It’s the kicker though that by filling his need for Dean with Ruby, he opened himself up for any kind of manipulation from her side, because, despite all evidence to the contrary, I still believe that Ruby plays a clever game and simply uses Sam for her own goals.

Ruby: "We can’t bring Dean back, but I can get you something else that you want. Lilith!"

I agree with Dean’s assessment that Ruby took advantage of Sam’s despair, played mind games with him and used every means at her disposal to push him where she wanted him ever since she made contact with him back in The Magnificent Seven. We are still completely in the dark about her motives for wanting Lilith gone so desperately and it’s clear that she just cares about Sam’s ability to eradicate Lilith. Still, while Ruby suggested in No Rest For The Wicked that she could bring Sam’s powers to full effect roughly within a day, she now suddenly asks for patience and claims that Sam needs to be trained slowly and I wonder about that discrepancy. Sam was more than ready to use his powers as soon as she brought them up, and he would obviously have instantly agreed to flip the switches in his brain at once, if it got him revenge on Lilith. Why not use that and move quickly against Lilith if she wants her dead so badly?

I guess that either Ruby was lying in No Rest For The Wicked when she claimed she would be able to teach Sam how to defeat Lilith within 30 hours, hoping he would fall for the temptation because of the time pressure and knowing all along that it still wouldn’t save Dean or she is deliberately trying to protract Sam’s development here. In any case, it makes sense that she would need to win Sam’s trust on more than one level, because as soon as Sam is in full control of his powers, he would be independent from her. By only teaching him little steps, she stayed in control of the situation and gave herself enough time to make Sam dependent on her emotionally as well.

Especially her emotional hold over Sam has been seriously endangered by Dean’s return but she played it intelligently, stepping back, allowing for the brothers to re-bond, avoiding confrontation and hoping her investment paid off and it did. She offered no opening in her behaviour for Dean to build an argument against her and in combination with Sam’s honest conviction of Ruby’s sincerity, Dean is forced to step down and apologize. Although I loved that his awkward apology was all about the realisation of how close he came to losing Sam and not at all about generally trusting Ruby.

Another very noticeable point in this episode that convinced me that Ruby still plays a double-faced game was the fact that when we first meet Ruby in the body of the secretary, she just displays her old snarky and sassy self that we got to know in S3. Only when Sam kicks her out, she realises that she needs to approach him differently, if she wants to get through to him and when she returns in a 'socially conscious' body, she changed her act to empathic instead of snippy. In any case, I find the way she deals with the brothers this season clever and intriguing and would find it extremely disappointing if she would actually turn out to be what she claims to be, a good demon. It would really be a waste of a potentially complex and layered character. I take a clever, scheming and manipulating demon over a simple do-gooder any day.

Dean: "You talk to angels?"
Anna: "Oh, no, no way. They probably don’t even know I exist. I just kind of overhear them."

The introduction of Anna was another intriguing twist in the story this week and I am very curious to find out what exactly her deal is. She clearly has psychic powers, but for obvious reasons she can’t be one of Azazel’s special kids. She is able to see the true face of demons, an ability only ascribed to people who made a deal and pierce the veil between hell and reality so far. She hears the true voices of angels, which is something that only few chosen humans are able to do, as Castiel admitted to Dean. The sudden emergence of her abilities, connected to the day Dean was resurrected, poses one hell of a mystery at the moment.

I loved her first encounter with Dean and Sam and her awe at meeting 'The Dean', which Dean totally can’t let slide without a remark. *g* I loved Dean’s gentle behaviour towards her and that she was quickly able to shake off the reverence and naturally react to his light jokes. I really liked the actress too, her somewhat ethereal appearance and the at times aloof bearing, matched her character well.

It was interesting that Anna mentioned that some angels think Dean will be able to save them and some of them don’t like Sam at all. That further shows a worrying division at the angel front, something that was already demonstrated by the arguments between Castiel and Uriel in It’s The Great Pumpkin, Sam Winchester. A trend that could easily turn out to be the stumbling block for the angels in the long run, when it comes to the war with the demons, especially if Dean would be chosen to take a leading position. Also, if only some angels perceive Sam as a threat to their plans, it seems that the overall verdict on Sam’s position is still open and by far less certain than Castiel made it sound in In The Beginning.

Another interesting addition was the demon Alistair. Sam’s inability to even affect him in the slightest with his powers was interesting, especially since we saw him take out the powerful and ancient demon Samhain, albeit with some difficulties. Even the knife didn’t really affect him, leaving the boys outmatched and outgunned, again. Alistair’s white eyes seem to indicate that he is at least at one level with Lilith and that makes me wonder why Lilith is still so afraid of Sam and falls back on trying to set poor traps for Sam instead of confronting him directly, if she is so interested in him. I guess I’ll have to wait for further information on that.

Anyway, Dean’s reluctant acceptance of Sam using his powers against Alistair further strengthens my impression that slowly but surly he seems to come to terms with Sam’s abilities and is willing to trust his brother for the moment. Dean recognising Alistair from hell and Alistair’s smug attitude towards Dean, seems to lend more troubling evidence to my theory that Dean might have faced more than torture in hell. I am really nervous by now and hope that the writers didn’t put a burden on Dean that’s hard to accept for him (and the audience).

What else was noteworthy:

(1) I totally loved that they packed a good deal of fan-service into this episode: I can’t count the amount of fanfics in which the boys patch each other up after a fight or hustle pool in some bar and I have to admit that for two and a half seasons, I really wanted to see this play out in canon. Now I got both and all in one episode, so I was one happy camper today. *g*

I always figured we would get to see Dean as the one to hustle pool, so I was pleasantly surprised that they went against viewer expectations here and played it with Sam as the active part. Their interaction in this scene was delightful, with Sam as the over-confident drunk and Dean as the concerned brother, together stringing their victim along, silently communicating via looks. ♥ It’s nice to see that both boys were trained equally well to pull the scam off and that we see Sam actively involved in securing their income. It also served as a nice contrast to Sam’s disapproving stance back in Bugs, where he scolded Dean for hustling pool and suggested to get day jobs. That Sam is long gone and I love how they manage to emphasise just how much Sam has changed in every little aspect.

Sam stitching himself up by himself, because his brother was incapacitated with a dislocated shoulder, again evoked memories of Mystery Spot, a parallel that made especially sense in the context of the flashbacks in this episode. Sam popping Dean’s shoulder with the old 'on three' distraction was great and I loved that both of them didn’t downplay the injuries in front of each other but were completely practical about it. ♥

(2) Oh and last but not least, the award for the most memorable cameo goes to Michelle Hewitt-Williams (and yes, I looked her name up) as maid!Ruby. She just took this small part and rocked it. She was hilarious. I nearly wished they would have kept her. ♥ Dean’s dumbfounded expression when she left the room was just priceless as well!

In conclusion: I Know What You Did Last Summer was an emotional roller coaster, heartbreaking and painful, yet exciting and powerful. It nearly made me forget last week’s dissatisfactory slip and pulled me right back into the story. I strongly assume that the continuation of this two-parter will focus on Dean and what he did over the summer and on the one hand, I can’t hardly wait to see how it plays out, on the other hand though, I am very anxious about what the writers have in store for Dean. To be continued …

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Did you know? In the scene where Sam and Dean jump through the church window they didn’t use stunt doubles. Jared and Jensen filmed that scene themselves. Jared admitted in an interview that he was nervous about that jump and that he wouldn’t have been as brave if Jensen hadn’t been there to go through the stunt with him. ♥