Review for 5x14 'My Bloody Valentine'

[galathea]

My Bloody Valentine, Ben Edlund’s latest instalment in the series, wasn’t as tightly written, well structured and executed as his previous episodes for the season, but overall I can say that I loved it, mostly because I really, really enjoyed the character work here, which ultimately always determines how I feel about an episode. Furthermore, I thought the Famine plotline was fascinating and creepy, gore and all. However, I think that the mythology implications of the episode finally torpedoed the already fragile mytharc beyond salvation for me, and I find that most regrettable. It didn’t distract me from my enjoyment of the episode though, so that’s a good sign I guess.



First off, the characterisation in My Bloody Valentine smoothly followed from last week’s The Song Remains The Same. When we left the brothers last week, Sam was full of doubt, questioning his ability to withstand the pressure put on them, afraid that he will succumb to his weaknesses again, while Dean tried to uphold the confidence that they will continue to have the strength to resist. So it was all the more devastating that the events of My Bloody Valentine hit both brothers exactly at those points, as Famine forced Sam to succumb to his weakness and at the same time tore down Dean’s façade of confidence in one swift stroke. I really loved how nicely both episodes resonated with each other, something we didn’t have often in this season.

There have also been a lot of nice little brother moments that continued last week’s display of a renewed closeness between them. I really loved that Sam was so concerned about Dean’s lack of enthusiasm for his Valentine’s day ritual and about his rejection of food, and I think that concern has two facets: Firstly, it’s of course a sign that Dean is in emotional distress, and I am happy that Sam’s re-found attentiveness to his brother’s moods this season continues. Secondly, Dean’s habits are rituals, patterns, slices of normality in the ever increasing mess that is their lives, and I think the few normal things - things that have constancy - become increasingly important to both of them, and so Dean rejecting 'normal' was especially worrying. I also loved the tentative way Sam and Dean both breached the topic of Sam’s addiction. Sam can’t even bring himself to say the word 'blood' in front of his brother and Dean’s mix of concern and exasperation speaks volumes, too. It’s apparent that they avoided to talk about the uncomfortable topic ever since their reunion. Still, Dean doesn’t even try to argue Sam’s point, trusting that his brother knows when to draw a line and supporting him without hesitation. Dean’s little encouraging clap on Sam’s shoulder and the concern they share in their parting look have also been nice brotherly touches. ♥

I think it’s worth noting that it became increasingly clear in the last couple of episodes that Sam and Dean’s battered selves are as far from healing as it gets, they simply slapped a band-aid on their wounds and barrelled on. Both brothers obviously make an effort to maintain whatever passes as normality nowadays, because that’s how they manage to function, but the hits keep on coming and seem to push the brothers to the absolute breaking point step by step. From Abandon All Hope to My Bloody Valentine there is a clear direction for the characters towards capitulation and that shows that after the dissatisfying drift of shallow episodes that followed the brothers’ first reconciliation in The End, the writers are back on track with their story. Maybe the writers intention during that odd middle part of the season so far was to show that Sam and Dean didn’t actually mend at all, hence the all-over-the-place characterisation, however, I still maintain that if that was indeed their intent, it was poorly executed.

Sam: "I think it got to me, Dean. I think I’m hungry for it."
Dean: "Hungry for what?"
Sam: "You know."

Personally, I found Sam’s story in My Bloody Valentine deeply satisfying. Granted, I am not the biggest fan of the blood addiction storyline, but since it is canon, I prefer the show to actually address it, instead of just pretending that it doesn’t exist anymore. Anyway, ever since his confrontation with his addiction in Good God, Y’all and his subsequent 'rehab' in Free To Be You And Me, Sam has been pretty stable, where his addiction is concerned. Now, we have to bear in mind that Sam wasn’t subjected to a lot of temptation these last couple of months. They rarely dealt with demons lately, and as far as I recall, Sam didn’t come near demon blood at all, even in the few cases where demons have been in his presence. So I think it’s reasonable that Sam didn’t show any signs of an active struggle with his addiction on a regular basis these last couple of episodes. However, like every chemical dependency, Sam’s blood addiction is a permanent affliction, which has just been waiting to come to the forefront as soon as the right circumstances present themselves.

Sam’s behaviour in My Bloody Valentine worked as a nice contrast to his actions in Good God, Y’all, where he became impatient and aggressive and denied to have any problems at all, when confronted with his addiction problem. Here and now though, Sam takes all the right steps of a recovering addict: He openly admits to his support group that he has a problem and deliberately removes himself from the temptation. I was really proud of how Sam handled the situation here, as it clearly showed his character growth this season. However, no amount of strength and resolve could have prepared Sam for the onslaught of hunger Famine created in him. There was absolutely nothing he could have done to prevent himself from succumbing to the bloodlust, once the demons showed up in the motel and freed him. Sam was not at fault here. I think especially Castiel’s complete regression, i.e. his full submission to his host's desires, demonstrated that Famine overrode his victims’ self-control completely.

It was very interesting though, that once Sam’s immediate bloodlust was satisfied, he was back in control of it and able to make the active choice to stop drinking blood, although he had free access to it. Instead he chose to exorcise the demons and put Famine out of commission for good, saving Dean, Castiel and (presumably) the possession victims in the process. Now, back in Good God, Y’all Sam stated that his addiction isn’t really about the blood per se, it's about the power the blood gives him, about feeling strong and being able to save people, and I can’t help but wonder if that was his real hunger after all. That the bloodlust was simply a pre-stage for the actual craving of power, and that’s why he was able to resist Famine’s offer to bleed the present demons dry. Instead he chose to satisfy his hunger for power by demonstrating his superiority to Famine. It has to be said though that just like all the times before, Sam used his power for good and even achieved a major set-back for Lucifer here. By the way, it’s remains unclear if Famine was actually dead – which would quite frankly contradict War’s statement that the horsemen cannot be killed – or if he was simply depleted, but alive, and then vanished, like War did. In any case, it really bugs me that we didn’t see if Famine’s body was still there, so Dean had the opportunity to cut his ring off, else it would be very likely that this will happen all over again in some other town.

Anyway, no matter how little control Sam actually had over his addiction relapse here, it is to be expected that his recovery process will be set back a couple of steps. He worked hard to regain at least part of his self-respect and his ability to trust himself these last couple of months, and I can only imagine how much guilt and self-loathing Sam will load on himself for being 'weak' again. It’s absolutely heartbreaking. However, the fact that he subjected himself to another detox procedure – voluntarily I would suppose – shows that at least he didn’t waver in his decision to give up on his powers. I mean, considering that Castiel’s powers are waning and Sam and Dean are at the brink of a complete breakdown, 'Team Free Will' is seriously outgunned by their opponents, and to have Sam’s power at their disposal has to be an enormous temptation, despite the risk to Sam’s humanity, despite the fact that at least some possession victims would need to give their lives even. So, I am very happy that Sam stands steadfast in his decision.

Finally, I was very happy that the hints dropped earlier in the season, about Sam’s powers having been depleted when he killed Lilith, turned out to be a mislead, because that never made any sense to me. Sam’s powers are part of him, physically, so he is stuck with them for better or for worse, and while killing Lilith might have depleted the immediate boost he got from drinking Cindy’s blood, his original powers should have been untouched. Now, back in S4 the show never really explained how exactly the interdependency between Ruby’s demon blood and Sam’s powers works, but Ruby's words in Lucifer Rising suggested that the psychic abilities Sam displayed in S4 genuinely tapped into the powers Azazel gave him and that the blood simply provided a catalyst for him to access them.

We know that this is not how the powers were supposed to work though. "The learning curve is so fast, it’s crazy. The switches, they just flip in your brain," Ava explained to Sam in All Hell Breaks Loose and Jake later confirmed "Once you give into it, there are all sorts of new Jedi mind tricks you can learn." Ava and Jake learned how to control their powers through triggers in their brain, and it allowed them to effortlessly access and execute them. Sam never learned that, and it stands to reason that Ruby simply didn’t know how to teach Sam that ability. Furthermore, I think that Sam built a psychological block against his powers, because he knew they were demonic in origin and that barrier needed to be overcome as well. So, I think Ruby’s blood worked on two levels: Firstly, it gave Sam an external source for his powers, something not inherent to him, so his abilities became psychologically acceptable, because he could always stop. Secondly, the blood worked as a substitute power switch, so to speak. It fuelled Sam’s natural powers, like an accelerant fuels fire, and until the accelerant is consumed, the fire burns brighter, hotter, easier. So, given his lack of 'natural' control over his powers, it makes sense to me that Sam is only ever able to access them, if he artificially activates them through demon blood.

Dean: "I like to think it’s because of my strength of character."
Famine: "I disagree. That’s one deep dark nothing you got there, Dean. You can’t feel it, can you? Not with food, or drink, not even with sex. I can see how broken you are. How defeated. You can’t win, and you know it, but you just keep fighting. Just keep going through the motions."

Dean’s journey in My Bloody Valentine was absolutely bleak as well, as it continued the slow erosion of the little resistance he has left. Now, we know that Dean has been on the edge of a clinical depression in various stages ever since S2, and it seems that he can't catch a break. The show emphasised Dean’s ever increasing difficulties to keep his defences up and maintain a façade of optimism and confidence on various occasions throughout the seasons. From Dean’s early confession "I’m tired, Sam. I’m tired of this job, this life, this weight on my shoulders," back in Croatoan, where he felt unable to carry the burden of John’s sacrifice for his life and his father’s last order to kill Sam if necessary, to Dean’s more recent "I’m just tired. I’m done. I am just done," in The Rapture, where the accumulation of post-hell trauma, the threat of the apocalypse and the extent of Sam’s betrayal simply became too much to deal with. Dean pushed through his pain and barrelled on regardless time and again over the last couple of years, but it stands to reason that he has to come to a final breaking point at some point, and all signs indicate that it will happen in the near future. In Sam, Interrupted Dean already admitted that he is hanging on to the last vestige of functionality through pure will and by repressing his immediate emotions, and since then, the hits kept on coming. If Dean’s desperation and hopelessness at the end of the episode are anything to go by, their confrontation with Famine might have delivered the fatal blow.

I don’t think though, that we are meant to take Famine’s assessment of Dean’s state literally, because if Dean was truly dead inside, he wouldn’t suffer so much. On the contrary, one look at Dean’s desperate expression as he cries his plea for help towards heaven at the end of the episode clearly shows that, if anything, he feels too much. "I wish I couldn’t feel anything. I wish I couldn’t feel a damn thing," Dean stated back in Heaven and Hell, and I don’t think that feeling of being overwhelmed by his constant pain ever went away, even if he picked himself up again several times since. So I think what Famine actually saw when he looked inside Dean was that he has no earthly desires anymore – food, sex, attention, drugs, love, as Castiel exemplifies – that’s not what Dean craves. Just last episode Dean acknowledged that to never have been born is more desirable to him even than death. I think that Dean has only one overwhelming longing left, namely rest, peace for his soul, to not exist even, and that’s nothing that Famine could exploit through any form of physical hunger.

I have to point out here that although I think that Dean’s despondency in the episode makes perfect sense for his character, given the pressure and pain that accumulated over the years, I am not quite sure how to interpret it continuity wise: Just last episode Dean was shown to have an erotic dream, which would surely indicate that he still has carnal desires. Furthermore, in Swap Meat Dean still had quite the healthy appetite, so we cannot really argue that Dean’s acute depression is a result of their set-back in Abandon All Hope. Instead it indicates that the events in The Song Remains The Same were the last straw and depleted Dean’s energy reserves. It seems that Michael’s attempts to undermine Dean’s sense of self-determination hit him harder than he let on towards Sam. The façade of confidence designed to reassure his brother was flimsy and crumbled fast this time. In any case, last time Dean was at the edge of complete hopelessness, the angels staged an intervention to give him the opportunity to pick himself up. I don’t think he will be allowed that kind of luxury again.

One last thought: While it is not exactly news that Dean is damaged, I think it’s extremely important that the show actually continues to acknowledge that, otherwise it undermines Dean’s suffering, just like the lack of a proper PTSD arc for Dean in S4 undermined the magnitude of his pain. If anyone has reason to be in a perpetual state of suicidal depression, it’s Sam and Dean. That’s also why I find the show’s earlier attempts to either reduce Dean to a silly comic relief figure (I Believe The Children Are Our Future, The Curious Case Of Dean Winchester) or to sell the standpoint that Sam and Dean’s lives are more desirable than that of the average Joe (The Real Ghostbusters, Swap Meat), completely unacceptable. The writers need to respect their own past character work and allow the present Dean – and Sam, for that matter – to truly be a product of the accumulated pain he experienced over the years, heck, decades if we count his stay in hell. The show has always been exceptionally good at showing that grave events have lasting, life-altering consequences and they need to stick to that character approach, now more than ever, or they will do Sam and Dean a great disservice. In that regard at least My Bloody Valentine did right by the brothers, and I am more than happy about that.

Dean: "Why does heaven care if Harry meets Sally?"
Cupid: "Oh, mostly they don’t. You know, certain bloodlines, certain destinies. Like yours. The union of John and Mary Winchester? Very big deal upstairs. Top priority arrangement."

Now to the low point of the episode: Cupid’s statement that the angels enforced Mary and John’s union, so that Sam and Dean could be born and fulfil their destinies, not only contradicts Castiel’s assurance that angels didn’t interfere on earth for two millennia, it also contradicts Michael’s statement that Mary and John falling in love was the end result of a million of 'random' acts of chance that happened to play out according to God’s plan. Michael’s speech at least allowed for the concept of free choices, even if it questioned the value of said choices, Cupid’s reveal suggests though that at least in some instances the characters were externally controlled into actions that weren’t even theirs to begin with. And if that is true, it begs the question if there have been other instances in Sam and Dean’s life that have been tempered with, just so things go 'according to plan', like Dean making his deal or Sam falling for Ruby’s temptations and killing Lilith. It’s one thing to create incentive circumstances – for example, Castiel may have unlocked the panic room, but it was still Sam’s own choice to leave it – but it’s another thing entirely to force a person to act against their own inclination. It implicates that there is the at least the possibility that Sam and Dean bear no culpability for their own actions, because if the angels made them do it, the brothers had no true autonomy and that threatens to completely undermine the power of their story. Just like the angels enforcing a romance between Mary and John undermines the power of their love story. It just takes Uriel’s statement that angels are supposed to be the agents of fate to a completely new level, one that I am highly uncomfortable with.

Furthermore, if Cupid tells the truth – and at the moment I don’t see why he wouldn’t – this reveal finally substantiates the angels’ various claims that it always had to be Sam and Dean, specifically, who were destined to break the seals, and if the angels deliberately enforced this plan, then Lucifer had knowledge of that fact and that means Azazel knew it, too. So, that pretty much catapults the YED’s 'psychic children' storyline into the realm of pointlessness, with no wiggle room to somehow successfully incorporate it into the overall mythology. I won’t even go into the consistency problems that are caused by the Cupid himself, like the sudden establishing of different classes of angels or the question why a lower class angel can simply become corporeal, while higher rank angels need human bodies to possess. Anyway, while for once I found the comedy aspect of the Cupid subplot actually funny and didn’t mind that it was a red herring, the deeper implications of his story are extremely worrying. I really can’t see any reason why it was necessary to retcon John and Mary’s story in this fashion, unless the writers wanted to set-up that Sam and Dean can be forced against their will into saying yes in the finale. Needless to say that I find the prospect of such a twist in the story truly disastrous.

In conclusion: It’s no secret that I haven’t been happy with the mytharc ever since the angel mythology crept into every crook and nanny of the story, but quite frankly, the careless way the writers messed with their own story here was the straw that broke the camel’s back for me. I am done with the mythology. I am done with the inconsistencies and the massive retcons and the contradictions. That doesn’t mean that I can’t still enjoy single aspects of the mytharc, like certain characters or the exploration of specific themes related to it, but as a whole it just lost all credibility for me. However, I refuse to let that ruin my enjoyment of the show. My love for Supernatural is rooted in the characters, in the family drama, and as long as the show delivers satisfactory and believable characterisation for Sam and Dean, I’ll dismiss my problems with the mythology. And I feel that the show is back on track with the character development ever since it came back from the winter hiatus – the exception of Swap Meat notwithstanding – which allowed me to feel more connected to the show again, and I already lost hope that that would be possible. I am sad that the writers lost all perspective on the mytharc when they became preoccupied with angels, and if there is a sixth season, I really hope they’ll return to a more varied mythology. I would really be okay with never seeing an angel (or demon, for that matter) in Supernatural again, ever.

What else was noteworthy:

(1) I’ve always assumed that when Raphael killed Castiel, Jimmy’s body and soul were destroyed in the process, and when Castiel was 'resurrected', God simply rebuilt Jimmy’s body - just like Anna had her old human body restored as well. However, in My Bloody Valentine Castiel reveals that it is his vessel, who causes his physical and psychological ("It makes me happy") cravings, thus implicating that Jimmy has completely been restored, body and soul. I really find that irritating. Firstly, it makes the infamous brothel scene in Free To Be You And Me even more repulsive, because it would have violated Jimmy, if Castiel had actually slept with the prostitute. Secondly, the fact that Jimmy’s soul was restored at least suggests that angels actually need a 'complete' human host to inhabit, and by that I mean a matching body and soul. That would certainly prove the demon in Swap Meat, who stated that Lucifer simply needs Sam’s body, but not his soul, wrong. Where that leaves Anna’s vessel/host/body is anybody’s guess though.

(2) I really loved the way Famine was portrayed in this episode – I enjoyed him a lot more than War – and I hope that we’ll get to see Death and Pestilence as well. I was also happy that Castiel pointed out that Famine was feasting on souls in order to get ready to march across the land, presumably with his brothers, as War had already hinted at in Good God, Y’all. That would at least explain why the apocalypse moves so very slowly and has only shown very localised effects on the world so far. I also actually liked that the storyline was milked for gore for all it was worth, because as long as Supernatural cannot afford to actually create an on-screen apocalypse, a carnage like the one Famine caused in that town was a good means to visualise the apocalypse on a smaller scale.

In conclusion: Despite the complete mess My Bloody Valentine made of the mytharc, I really loved this episode for its excellent character work. I am now immensely worried where the slow march towards complete resignation will lead the brothers. The thought that they might simply give up, is just a really devastating prospect.

And of course just when my investment in the show is restored, we go on a 6 week hiatus. Typical! But hey, at least I am completely unspoiled for everything that happens from here on. I don’t even know episode names or summaries, and I intend to keep it that way for the rest of the season.