galathea | Review for 5x11 'Sam, Interrupted' (Reply)

Sam, Interrupted by Andrew Dabb and Daniel Loflin is a solid standalone episode that finally took some time to explore Sam and Dean’s current mindset. It may not move their character arcs forward quite as much as I hoped for, but it still shows us some interesting new angles to the brothers’ internal struggles, which was urgently needed in general, but especially after the personal and 'professional' blow they had to take in Abandon All Hope. While I had issues with a couple of minor scenes, overall I enjoyed it a lot. I just hope that from here on the writers give us a more steady focus on Sam and Dean. I don’t think I could stand another extended period with a lack of character development this season.

The basic set-up for Sam, Interrupted pretty much exactly mirrors the set-up for Folsom Prison Blues – the brothers deliberately admitting themselves to a closed institution to help one of John’s old hunter buddies – just with a role reversal for Sam and Dean. While it had been Dean who pushed a highly uncomfortable and anxious Sam to go to prison in order to help Deacon, it’s now Sam who drags his protesting brother into a mental institution, because he feels they owe John’s friend Martin. Sam makes no secret of the fact that a great part of his motivation to take this case is rooted in his worry for Dean, who apparently closed himself emotionally off again after losing Ellen and Jo. It’s not uncommon for the brothers to bury themselves in the distraction of the hunt when they are overwhelmed by their personal issues, grateful for anything that gives them a reprieve, however short. Still, it’s good to see that Sam is back to paying close attention to his brother’s state of mind, concerned for his well-being, a character trait that sadly took a backseat in the past year, when Sam was high on blood and power.

The opening sequence, where Sam and Dean admit themselves to the hospital via a fake transferral from Dr. Babar was fabulous. Am I the only one who instantly thought that wee Sammy had the Babar books and drove his big brother crazy with the demand to read them to him over and over again? Anyway, while using the absurdity of their own lives to convince Dr. Fuller that they are certifiably insane was played for its humorous note here – and for once the comedy worked very well for me, I might add – their statements still held a lot of very interesting insights. Despite Sam and Dean’s agreement in Fallen Idols that they both share equal blame for starting the apocalypse, Sam still feels he bears the main responsibility for their current situation (as does Dean, as we learn later), and it’s telling that it is Dean who makes justifications for Sam’s actions by pointing out that he was an addict at the time. "He’s not evil. He was just high!" I thought this was interesting, because back in When the Levee Breaks that particular distinction was crucial in Dean’s argument of why he can’t trust his brother’s judgment, when Sam begged Dean to support him. It was important to Dean that Sam acted under an external influence, that his decisions weren’t entirely autonomous, because that allowed him to see the brother he loved behind the lies and deceptions. So, I like that Sam doesn’t use his addiction as an excuse here, while Dean uses it as a means to reconcile himself with his brother's actions.

I think one of the biggest strengths of the episode lies in its depiction of Sam and Dean’s very different reactions to the wraith’s MO to amplify their current internal issues. While Dean turns inwards, retreating within himself and focussing on his feelings of guilt and grief, Sam directs his emotions outwards, transforming them into anger and channelling them into aggression. Sam externalises, Dean internalises and that’s a very consistent characterisation for both of them. I don’t think either coping mechanism is particularly recommendable though, as both are self-destructive to an extent. While Dean’s strategy leads to crippling self-doubt, Sam’s strategy impedes his judgment, and that’s not the best combination, especially considering who they are up against, because Lucifer will have no qualms using either against them.

Hallucination!Cartwright: "The truth, Dean. You got Ellen and Jo killed. You shot Lucifer, but you couldn’t gank him. You couldn’t stop Sam from killing Lilith. And oh, yeah, you broke the first seal. All you do is fail."

Dean’s state of mind is mainly explored through a series of conversations with the psychologist Dr. Cartwright, although unfortunately it’s not entirely clear if she is a figment of Dean's imagination right from the start or if she is a real person. On the one hand, she doesn’t interact with any other patients or personnel, and it seems unprofessional that she would hold a therapy session in the common room, instead of a closed office – what with patient confidentiality and all – or approach Dean for a casual private chat in the hallway. On the other hand, Dean first meets Dr. Cartwright very early on, when neither he nor Sam show any significant signs of an hallucinatory perception. We see that the effects of the wraith’s 'poison' become progressively worse, the longer the brothers are at the hospital, so it seems unlikely to me that Dean would have such a complete mental disassociation so early on. Also, I’m not quite sure if Dean would think of himself as a "paranoid schizophrenic with a narcissistic personality disorder and religious psychosis", even if we assume that he knows the terminology. However, an outsider would take one look at Dean’s statement of being responsible for saving the world and attest him delusions of grandeur. So, overall the evidence isn’t quite conclusive, but I tend to think that maybe the first conversation is, in fact, real, while the following two are not. In any case, it’s fascinating that Dean shows a high level of self-awareness in all of his conversations with Dr. Cartwright. It's one more sign of how much he matured in these last couple of years.

Although, part of their first conversation doesn’t sit all that well with me: If the show wants Dean to have a drinking problem, then they damn well better show it, instead of having the character claim it, without any evidence in the show to back that statement up. Unless the writers wanted to suggest that Dean’s lack of sleep and abuse of alcohol is a recent development, caused by his grief over the events in Abandon All Hope, they did a poor job conveying Dean’s problems in the matter. Over the course of the past four and a half seasons we have seen Dean drunk exactly once, namely in Yellow Fever, where he was under the influence of the ghost sickness, and while he hit the hard liquor more frequently last year around midseason, when he was struggling with the impact of his hell memories, that habit was only temporary and vanished as fast as it appeared. In S5 Dean didn't drink any heavier than usual though, and the occasional beer hardly gives any cause for concern. Similarly, apart from the one instance in The End, where Dean complains about a lack of sleep, he didn’t show any signs of disrupted sleeping patterns either. So, for the sake of a consistent characterisation, I’m simply going to assume that the recent loss of Ellen and Jo and their failure to kill Lucifer resulted in Dean’s current problem with sleep deprivation and alcohol.

Anyway, it was heartbreaking to see Dean stripped off all of his usual defences, openly laying out the impossible pressure he is under. His quiet confession that he doesn’t know how he manages to get up in the morning, reveals how close to breaking he really is. His burdens are crushing him, but he can’t walk away from the situation, not least because he feels responsible for causing it in the first place. It’s not surprising that he additionally takes on the responsibility for other people’s actions and decisions as well, as Dean always had a tendency to carry guilt that isn’t his to begin with. I think his self-flagellation roots in the sentiment that if he hadn’t made the deal for Sam’s life and subsequently broken the first seal, all the fatalities that came after – Sam’s fall, Ellen and Jo’s death, Bobby’s paralysis – might have been avoided. The fact that Jo made her own decision, when she stepped in the line of fire for Dean, just as it was Ellen’s decision to sacrifice herself and Sam’s decision to trust Ruby instead of his brother, holds no consolation for Dean. On the contrary, it adds to his already existing feelings of self-doubt and guilt. And yet, Dean is stronger than he gives himself credit for. In the end he pushes through his hallucinations and finishes the hunt despite being severely handicapped, and that excellently visualised his inner strength and determination in the face of overwhelming obstacles. ♥

Hallucination!Dean: "It’s not the demon blood, Sam. It never was. The problem was you. It was always you. The lies. Your arrogance. The black spot on your soul."

Sam’s state of mind is exposed by a variety of conversations (with Dean, Dr. Fuller and the wraith), as well as hallucinations. I think the most interesting reveal came in form of Sam’s hallucination of Dean – who scolds him for his arrogant and deceitful behaviour – as it shows a very distinct difference to his hallucination of his brother in When The Levee Breaks. In a combination of self-projection and genuine worry about Dean’s opinion of him, he feared back then that Dean rejected him, saw a monster rather than the little brother, because he was tainted with demon blood. While Sam’s conversation with Lucifer in Abandon All Hope shows that he isn’t entirely past that fear, obviously his self-perception - as well as his perception of Dean’s issues with him - has now at least shifted to a somewhat more accurate image. He finally acknowledges that Dean's resentment is rooted in his lies, rather than in Sam breaking the last seal. I wonder if his realisation is connected to the fact that his powers seem to have fizzled out, and with the addiction under control as well, he now has an unobstructed view on his personal failures, i.e. his hurtful behaviour towards Dean, as well as choices at least partially made out of hubris. With the supernatural aspect of his existence gone, he has nothing left to blame but himself.

I also liked the scene where Sam is high on medication, which lowered his inhibitions enough to express a couple of sentiments, he would never voice otherwise. I thought it was especially interesting how worried Sam seems to be about Dean’s general state of mind, revealing that he fears and/or expects for Dean to crack under his personal burdens at any time. Obviously Dean breaking to pieces would leave Sam entirely on his own, and given how that turned out last time, it’s no surprise that he is preoccupied with worry, not only for Dean’s sake, but also his own. I don’t think Sam trusts himself enough at the moment to face the situation alone. I thought it was also sweet that Sam outright states that he loves his brother. Although I think that Jared slightly overplays that scene – it actually reminded me of the drunk scene in Playthings – I appreciate the fact that Sam’s uninhibited reaction to Dean in distress is to express his affection for his brother, no matter what. Obviously their normal communication code would never allow for such sentimentalities.

Sam: "I’m mad at everything. I used to be mad at you and dad. Then Lilith. Now it’s Lucifer. And I make excuses, but it’s me. It’s inside me. I am mad all the time. And I don’t know why."
Dean: "So what if you are. What are you going to do? Take a leave of absence? You’re going to take all that crap and you’re going to bury it. You’re going to forget about it. Because that’s how we keep going."

The final scene between Sam and Dean is my favourite scene in the episode. It brings the themes of the episode to an elegant conclusion by circling back to the opening argument between Sam and Dean and turning it around. The episode begins with Sam voicing his concern about the fact that after Ellen and Jo’s death Dean started to hold his feelings in, repressing his hurt, like he always does, and he insists that his brother needs to deal with it openly, because that’s how Sam works. And yet, the episode ends with Sam agreeing to Dean’s suggestion to adopt the very same coping mechanism he disapproved of earlier. Nicely done, Show! The final scene also summarises where the boys stand at the moment, mentally, and it’s not a comfortable place to say the least. Both brothers struggle with their individual burdens, and once again they are both too damaged to properly support each other. However, unlike in S4, it doesn’t seem to drive them further apart, instead they close ranks.

The fact that Sam has severe anger management issues – especially when he is under emotional stress – has been emphasised in the show from the very beginning. We can track Sam’s lack of control where his anger is concerned back to as far as Wendigo, where Dean compared his emotionally unstable brother to a powder keg that is ready to go off at any minute. "All that anger? You can’t keep it burning over the long haul. It’s going to kill you," Dean pointed out to Sam in their private campfire talk, and that hasn’t changed in the last couple of years. While Sam is able to rein his anger in under normal circumstances, he is not only easily goaded into it - by pushing the right buttons especially - but he also tends to snap under personal pressure and/or emotional distress. The result is almost always an uncontrolled violent outburst. We caught a first glimpse at the extent of Sam’s anger – freed of his internal inhibitions and magnified through Dr. Ellicot’s 'rage therapy' – in Asylum, where it unloaded against Dean and urged him to shoot his brother! It was also uncontrolled anger that lead Sam to coldly put down Jake in All Hell Breaks Loose II, kill the crossroad demon (and her innocent host) in Bedtime Stories or strangle Dean in When The Levee Breaks, just to name a few examples.

It is easy for his enemies to use Sam’s anger to their advantage, like Ruby, who used Sam’s hate for Lilith to control him for her own purposes or Lilith, who insulted an indecisive Sam in Lucifer Rising, until he snapped and killed her. While it is a character trait that became increasingly pronounced in Sam, the more dire their situation became, it’s clear that he always had a temper, as we can see in After School Special, where the high school bully Dirk easily pushed a 14 yr old Sam into an angry fight by calling him a freak. It’s interesting to note in this context, that back in Born Under A Bad Sign possessed!Sam told Dean that he has uncontrollable feelings of rage and hate, which get worse day by day. He interpreted those feelings as a sign of an internal change, as a sign that he is becoming who he is meant to be. At the time I speculated if Meg simply made that up in order to agitate Dean or if these statements were rooted in Sam’s actual feelings, which Meg read from his mind. Sam’s confession in Sam, Interrupted that he tends to mask his anger throws an interesting light on that particular scene, since it suggests that the feelings back then might have been genuine, rather than a ruse on Meg’s side.

In any case, I think that Sam’s overwhelming internal anger – as well as his tendency to look for external causes for his actions – is rooted in the fact that most of the controlling factors in his life were heteronomous: Mary made the deal that lead to Sam's infection with demon blood; it was John who decided that Sam has to join the family business; the YED took Jessica from him, because she was an obstacle to his plans for Sam; Dean’s deal forced Sam back from the dead, and it was also Dean who decided that Sam wasn't allowed to use his powers in order to save him. Almost all of the formative events in Sam’s life have been controlled by other people, and no matter his own choices, in the end he was always forced back onto his path by their decisions. This pattern in Sam’s life is a huge part of why control and choice have always been so incredibly important to him, and his anger is simply an expression of that very lack of control. Sam’s anger might be destructive to him and those around him, and it surely is misdirected at times, but it is by no means unwarranted. In his current situation there’s the additional factor of anger at himself for failing so badly at making his own choices in the past year. In his blind pursuit of control he allowed himself to be manipulated into effectively surrendering it to Ruby. He let himself (and Dean) down in the worst possible way, and he has yet to come to terms with that.

However, by realising the extent of his own anger and admitting to the fact that he a) doesn’t know how to control it, b) misdirects it constantly and c) is unaware of the triggers/causes for his anger, Sam takes another important step towards self-awareness. It continues Sam’s initial self-evaluation at the end of Good God, Y’all. A couple of weeks back Sam’s view on the exact internal factors that guide his choices was obstructed by the immediacy of his addiction problem, but now that he has his addiction under control, he can look more closely at the various roots of his problems. To identify them is the first step, to explore and deal with them has to follow. Admittedly, I think it would have made considerably more sense, if this particular step in Sam’s self-realisation process had followed shortly after Free To Be You And Me, where he lost control over his rage, but Lindsey’s presence helped him regain it. The writers could have used the forward momentum from that episode and show a continuous self-reflection on Sam’s side, but, alas, they didn’t. To allow so much time to pass between these two steps gives the impression that Sam avoids to actively examine the motivations that lead to his questionable decision-making in S4 and needs to be forced by external factors – like in this case Dr. Fuller’s assessment of his issues – to look at them again. I think that undermines Sam’s redemption arc to a substantial degree and does the character a disservice.

Anyway, I think Dean’s advice to Sam to just bury these realisations is a disaster waiting to happen, because it will once again halt any further progress and increases the risk that Sam makes the same mistakes all over again. Sam’s only chance is to recognize the patterns behind his actions and learn how to control his anger, or it will turn against him and those close to him. The fact that Lucifer welcomed the rage within Sam, encouraged it even, should be enough of a warning sign for Sam to realise that he needs to resolve his anger issues sooner rather than later, if he doesn’t want to give Lucifer a chance to exploit them. However, since there is doubt written all over Sam’s face, when he hesitantly accepts Dean’s suggestion, I think it’s unlikely that his brother’s strategy will actually work for him anyway. It barely even works for Dean, and he perfected it over the years.

Talking about Dean: It’s interesting to look at the contrasts between the aforementioned campfire talk in Wendigo and this last scene in Sam, Interrupted, because back then Dean gave Sam the advice to be patient and channel some of that anger inside him into the hunt. That’s how Dean vented a lot of his frustrations - by killing as many evil sons of bitches as he possibly can. Presently, Dean doesn’t have that kind of advice for his little brother anymore, he’s got nothing left to give. Where the Dean of old would have given Sam some kind of reassurance, would have tried to put up some sort of confident mask to stabilise a tailspinning Sam, in the present Dean does nothing to hide his own desperation and inability to deal from Sam. Dean might be back to his old coping mechanism of repressing his immediate emotions, but it has a distinctly different texture nowadays. Where it came with a cocky and reckless façade in the past, and with a tendency to deny that anything is wrong at all, it’s now nothing but honesty and open fatalism. Repressing stopped being an avoidance technique and instead became a survival mechanism that allows him to make it through the day.

Furthermore, as already pointed out, this time his repression comes with a high level of self-awareness about just how damaged he is, that much clearly shows in his 'therapy sessions' with Dr. Cartwright. It’s not that he doesn’t want to deal, he simply isn’t allowed to. In their current situation he cannot afford to take a time out and deal with any of the crap that happened to him (and Sam) over the years. It’s either Martin’s way of coping – to give up and turn himself in – or to soldier on regardless, and Dean always chose the latter. It’s heartbreaking that Dean even goes as far as following his 'advice' up with a barely concealed plea for Sam’s cooperation on this. I think it’s the closest Dean ever came to actively ask Sam to help him to hold it together, because he can’t do it for the both of them this time. And while I think repression is not the right solution for either of them, I love that Sam steps up and gives his brother the reprieve he asks for. In this context I can’t help but wonder if Dean’s admittance that, for the moment, he buries his feelings deep, also refers to his feelings of betrayal and anger towards Sam. If Dean simply forced himself to repress his hurt, instead of dealing with it, real trust between the brothers will be hard to achieve and the negative feelings are bound to resurface at some point. Although, at least it would explain the suspicious absence of an active reconciliation process between the brothers so far.

What else was noteworthy:

(1) I loved Martin, as he made an excellent (broken) mirror for the brothers. It’s clear that he underwent some severe trauma, but was unable to handle it, and for his own sake and that of the people around him he decided to remove himself from society. It’s really not difficult to see either of the brothers further down the line in Martin, Dean even points out that it seems kind of inevitable that with all they have seen and done, eventually they will break. Still, despite his despondency Martin was not able to simply ignore what happened in the hospital, and he not only took the initiative to do something about it, but also proved to be an invaluable asset to Sam and Dean. He might have lost any self-confidence, but in the end he overcomes his fears and chooses to have Dean’s back and confront the wraith.

(2) I wished the show would stop with the infantile humour already. Pudding?! Really? Okay, so I guess this was not the episode where the show starts to treat Dean like a 31 old man, instead of like a 6 year old child then. That was a really cringe-worthy moment in the episode for me. Actually, the whole scene that preceded that moment was really irritating. I thought Sam performing an autopsy in Fallen Idols was a random incident, but it seems that in S5 in general Sam suddenly morphed into a coroner/surgeon. When did that happen? Does anybody remember Bloodlust, where Sam almost threw up just because he had to examine the decapitated head of a vampire? I mean, I get that the brothers hardened considerably over the years, still, Sam opening chest cavities and sowing off head covers seems a bit far fetched to say the least.

In conclusion: Sam, Interrupted was the long overdue look at the mental status quo of our heroes and as such I loved it. If anything the episode demonstrated clearly how very close both Sam and Dean are to breaking under the enormous pressure that they are under, and since there is next to no margin for error in their situation, that’s worrying.