Review | 8x04 | Bitten

[galathea]

Robbie Thompson was, hands down, my favourite writer in S7 – every single one of his episodes were instant Supernatural classics for me – so, naturally, I was eagerly awaiting his first episode of S8. Unfortunately, Bitten proves to be the first interruption of his winning streak for me. Now, from a purely technical/narrative point of view, the episode is done really well. As usual, Thompson is exceptionally good at paying homage to his chosen genre – the 'found footage' genre in this case – and at playing with different visual styles. However, I think Bitten is the wrong episode at the wrong time, because it kills the momentum the season gained just last episode. I think I would have enjoyed the episode a lot more, had it come at a different point in the season.



I have to admit, I am rather puzzled by the opening act of S8 so far. From S2 onwards, it has become somewhat of a tradition that the first four episodes of a new season form a character-centric unit, thus building a strong foundation for Sam and Dean’s emotional arcs before the complication phase of the season sets in. For example, the first four episodes of S2 built a mini-arc that started with John’s death and ended with Sam and Dean finding common ground in their grief; in S5 the first few episodes explored the effect Sam’s betrayal had on his relationship with Dean, culminating in their first act of reconciliation; and at the beginning of S7, each episode picked up where the previous one had left off, resulting in an extensive introduction to Sam’s mental problems and Dean’s depression. In comparison, this season’s opening act feels disjointed. Moreover, there is an irritating lack of focus on the brothers’ storylines. I mean, in What’s up, Tiger Mommy Sam and Dean played second fiddle to Kevin and Linda Tran, and in Bitten the brothers have barely five minutes of screen time, thus effectively killing the momentum their character arcs gained just last episode. To be honest, this feels like a stalling tactic on the writers’ part. First, they set up the mystery about Sam and Dean’s time apart, and then they postpone giving the answers. I suppose they want to create suspense, but it has the exact opposite effect on me. Now, there is nothing wrong with breaking the normal format – I actually like the 'found footage' style, and I love outsider point of view – but usually these kinds of unorthodox episodes, like Ghostfacers or The French Mistake, air in the early second half of the season, i.e. after the mid-season resolution/turning point, and I think that serves the narrative flow of the season a lot better.

Sam: "Look, Kate’s right. She hasn’t hurt anybody. Well, anybody human, at least."
Dean: "Yeah, she didn’t choose this. Let’s give her a shot."

Thematically, Bitten raises several questions that have been present in the show from the very beginning – like, for example, what makes a monster a monster, and do monsters have the right to live – and Sam and Dean’s outlook on these issues has changed surprisingly little over the years. Usually, the brothers kill monsters without questioning the morality of it, and with good reason, as most monsters Sam and Dean encounter in their line of work have little regard for human lives. In the few cases that invite doubt about their course of action, Dean tends to take a hard line, but he is not entirely without sympathy. Similarly, Sam tends to take the viewpoint that monsters are not necessarily evil and deserve a chance to prove their 'humanity', but when push comes to shove, he is still willing to make the tough decisions. Now, I think that Sam and Dean’s individual reactions to Kate’s tale in Bitten fall into a pretty familiar pattern, even though it seems like the writers want to insinuate that they do not. I mean, I suppose we are to assume that Dean letting Kate go is based on his experience in purgatory – his friendship with Benny in particular – and it may very well be a factor in his decision. However, I would maintain that even before Dean went to purgatory, he would have spared Kate’s life with little hesitation.

As I already pointed out in my review for the season premiere, Dean may have always been more comfortable with clear lines between monsters and humans, but that does not mean that he is incapable of compromise. "Our job is hunting evil, and if these things aren’t killing people, they are not evil," Sam told Dean back in Bloodlust and that is a guideline Dean consistently followed throughout the years – as long as a monster refrains from killing, Dean will allow it to live. After all, being born as a 'monster' (or made into one) does not define who someone is, their choices and actions do, and Dean clearly understands that. I mean, back in Bloodlust he let Lenore go because she resisted her instinct to feed on humans; in Metamorphosis Dean gave into Sam’s demand that they refrain from taking action against the rugaru Jack, as long as he does not give into his cravings for human flesh; in I Believe The Children Are Our Future Dean refused to make an attempt on Jesse’s life because, despite being born as the antichrist, he was an innocent child at the time; in The Girl Next Door Dean killed Amy because she had murdered four people, but he let her son go because he had not harmed anyone yet; and in The Slice Girls he would have let his daughter Emma go, had she turned away from the Amazons’ custom of killing their fathers.

So, overall, I think that, even outside the context of his time in purgatory, Dean letting Kate go makes perfect sense. Kate may have had no choice when Brian turned her into a monster, but she did have the choice of how to deal with it – and she chose her humanity. I think that is something Dean would always have respected. Now, I have no doubt that Dean’s friendship with Benny has a moderating effect on Dean’s hatred for all things supernatural and further facilitates his ability to sympathise with monsters, but I think Dean’s understanding for Kate’s situation is not the best way to show it. In fact, I think that last week’s episode underscored the change in Dean’s attitude towards monsters way more effectively than Bitten does. I mean, Dean clearly sympathised with Betsy, a human who protected a monster and knowingly turned a blind eye to the fact that said monster practiced human sacrifice. That is something I think pre-purgatory Dean would never have tolerated, and I suspect that his relationship with Benny is the decisive factor in his tolerant attitude. I mean, Dean knows that it is in the nature of vampires to feed on humans and Benny does not strike me as the reformed kind of vampire at all, so I think Dean has every reason to suspect that Benny resumed feeding on humans after they escaped from purgatory, and yet he chooses to ignore that possibility, just like Betsy chose to ignore her husband’s need for human hearts.

As for Sam, I think it is interesting to note that, even though Sam’s expression after watching Kate’s video indicates that he sympathises with her and has no desire to hunt her down, he suggests to go after her anyway, simply because he assumes that Dean wants it – an impression that is further substantiated by Sam’s visible relief when Dean proposes to give Kate a shot at proving herself. I find this interesting because, in the past, Sam would have instantly struck up an argument with Dean; he would have tried to advocate Kate’s right to live and convince Dean to give her a chance to prove that she will not stray from the straight and narrow. At present, however, Sam simply anticipates Dean’s position and goes along with it, and that reminds me of Sam’s rather passive reaction to Dean’s more radical behaviour in What’s Up, Tiger Mommy. I assume that Sam’s overall passivity is the result of his reluctance to return to the hunt in the first place. He has lost his enthusiasm for the hunt, and it shows. I think, essentially, Sam and Dean find themselves in the exact opposite situation than at the beginning of S7, where Sam was the one eager to hunt, while Dean was barely able to get up in the mornings, and I am curious to see where the writers will take it from here.

What else is noteworthy:

(1) Even though Sam and Dean are barely in the episode, we do get a couple of interesting titbits about the brothers. For example, Brian’s statement that Sam and Dean spent the majority of their dinner talk discussing their year apart, tells us that the brothers continue their open and honest exchange about their different experiences, and I find that heartening. Granted, it frustrates me greatly that we have been excluded from that particular conversation, and the moment Brian mentioned Sam and Dean’s conversation, I really could not care less about the guest characters’ problems, but still, it is good to know that Sam and Dean are constantly communicating, even when we are not privy to it. Similarly, the fact that Dean accuses his brother of being rusty, when Sam states that there is no real case in town, indicates that Dean is still not done needling Sam about his retirement from the hunt last year, and while I understand where he is coming from, I really wished he was a little less aggressive towards Sam. On a more positive note, I love that Sam never grows tired of complaining about Dean’s unhealthy eating habits, and Dean shooting his health-freak of a brother down with a Friday Night Lights reference makes that little exchange even more delightful. ♥

(2) There are a lot of interesting layers in the episode that are well worth exploring. Like, for example, the way the visual style of the episode supports the story of Brian, Kate and Michael; or the fact that the episode reflects on different facets and origins of monsters; or the parallels between Brian and Sam, who both made bad choices because they felt weak and betrayed their best friends/brother in the process; or the similarities between Sam and Kate, who were both physically changed by a monster and fought for their humanity ever since; or the parallels between Dean and Michael, who both abhorred what they had become and who struggled with the loss of their sense of self, all of which undermined their outgoing, optimistic nature. However, unlike with last week’s episode Heartache, I do not feel inspired enough by the episode to dwell on the different aspects of the story at length, so this short overview has to suffice. Let’s just hope the next episode appeals more to my meta muse than Bitten does.

In conclusion: While Bitten is an excellent example of the writers’ ability to work outside of Supernatural’s usual format, the episode simply feels like a waste of time at this point in the season. It would have fit a lot better in the second half of the season. Moreover, I think the writers’ effort to illustrate Dean’s changed attitude towards monsters somewhat misses the mark, as his decision at the end of the episode does not really differ from the decisions he made in similar situations in the past. Also, the fact that I have little reason to care about the one-off characters makes it difficult for me to feel truly invested in the episode, no matter how well done it is. I really hope that, from now on, the writers will focus more on Sam and Dean’s storylines, because I fear my patience with this season is beginning to wear thin.

To give you the heads up, it is quite possible that I will not be able to draft a review for the next episode. My sisters will arrive for an extended visit tomorrow and I will have little time to watch the new episode, let alone write a couple of thousand words of meta. So, I will probably have to postpone the review till the winter hiatus and just post a quick episode reaction instead.

Comments

[llywela13.livejournal.com]

You know, it was only when I saw this review go up that I realised that for the first time since I started watching this show, way back when S1 aired in the UK, I haven't bothered watching a new episode. Just haven't got around to it.

What happened to this season? It has taken my remaining investment and killed it stone dead! :(

I think I will allow myself to skip this one completely and see if the next is any better, then.

[galathea-snb.livejournal.com]

ROFL well, you didn't miss much. You can go straight from 8x03 to 8x05 without noticing that you skipped an episode. Still, it makes me sad to see you so detached from show. :( I miss the times where we could talk for hours about a new episode. /sigh

[llywela13.livejournal.com]

I know! I feel all bereft when I remember how I used to rush to dl new eps on a Friday morning, and then rush to get online on Friday evenings so we could talk over every tiny nuance that could possibly be extracted. :( I'd drifted away from that enthusiasm over recent seasons, but then this season...nothing. It makes me sad. There's just nothing about the approach being taken that captures my interest at all - there is so much that could and should be explored with these characters and the situation they were left in last season, but in the first three episodes (the ones I've actually seen), the focus of the writing seemed to lie in a different place altogether. That disconnect is furthering my detachment from the show, I think.

Maybe this week's episode will be really good and reawaken that dormant enthusiasm, and then maybe next week's will be even better and we can rush online and talk about it for hours then. Well, we can hope.

Have a fabulous time with your sisters this weekend!

[galathea-snb.livejournal.com]

in the first three episodes (the ones I've actually seen), the focus of the writing seemed to lie in a different place altogether.
Yes, I think that is the main problem. Instead of grabbing the bull by the horns and telling Sam and Dean's story and how it connects to where we left them in 7x23, the writers are stalling and putting their focus everywhere but the brothers - and that leaves us with a huge disconnect. /sigh

Well, there is always hope. We went through some rough times with the show before, we will get through this one as well. *crosses fingers*

Thanks! I am sure we'll have a lot of fun. *g*

[de-nugis.livejournal.com]

One of the feelings I get about this season is that the writers, to my eyes, are asking the wrong questions. I'm not liking the sense that conflict about Benny seems likely to play out as conflict about trusting a vampire, rather than problems with what the pull towards continued alignment with his purgatory self and experience, represented by Benny, might do to Dean.

And I think Carver has simply missed the mark in thinking that the problem with Sam is why he would choose to leave hunting, rather than his initial failure to investigate Dean's disappearance. I can see or fanwank that Dean would be avoiding the latter issue by focusing on the former, and that it is the unexplored hurt from that that is sharpening his response to the not hunting thing in unsympathetic ways, especially given that both Dean and Sam are being written as completely ignoring what Dean's attitude to hunting changed from: I keep wishing that one or the other of them would acknowledge the Dean who felt that hunting made him a killer, not a father, the Dean whose one moment of feeling like he'd saved someone last year was saving Krissy FROM HUNTING.

But, apart from the fact that there are some awkward and muddled plot problems in the Sam not investigating Dean's disappearance thing -- Carver, to my eye, was simply having difficulties welding the story he wanted to tell onto a 7.23 that was transparently setting up a quite different storyline -- the muddle is undermining exactly the human, non-superatural thing they are trying to do with Sam. Because in human, non-supernatural terms reacting to someone's death and reacting to someone's disappearance are extremely different traumas. Having tried to settle on both of the two stools of Sam having thought Dean was dead and Sam not having known where Dean might be and having felt at a loss for leads and resources, it now feels that they can't tell the emotional story coherently. And they are treating and teasing what I am pretty sure is meant to be an emotional storyline as though it were a mystery storyline. Having an emotional reveal 8 or 10 or 12 episodes in is going to feel absurd, not because the emotional explanation for Sam's actions is the wrong choice -- I actually think they would do infinitely better to go psychological than to go plotty -- but because they are using a structure that works for plot reveal and doesn't work for emotional reveal to tell Sam's story.

I think there's some promising material in the character arcs WITHIN s8, but even that is being undermined by a major failure to make the character development between seasons work. They're asking the wrong questions.

[llywela13.livejournal.com]

Carver, to my eye, was simply having difficulties welding the story he wanted to tell onto a 7.23 that was transparently setting up a quite different storyline
Butting in, because I think you've put your finger there on the biggest problem I've been having with this season so far - it doesn't follow on from where we left these characters at the end of last season. Even allowing for the fact that the show loves to do these big jumps forward and only slowly fill in the gaps, retroactively, there is still an enormous disconnect between the story that was set up by the season 7 finale and the story that has been picked up so far in season 8 - the emphasis of the narrative so far has been laid in all the wrong places - and that dissonence has been very jarring.

[de-nugis.livejournal.com]

Well, they are facing a major, major problem with Sam that is making his story much harder to handle than Dean's, in that they need Sam to have changed radically literally right after the closing credits of 7.23. I don't think they are doing the best job they could with changes in Dean's attitudes, but at least they are working with a changed Dean who is the OUTCOME of a year of transformative experience. A changed Sam is the PREREQUISITE for his year of transformative experience. I'm not sure that it would be totally impossible to get here from there; Sam's situation in s7 did leave room for a plausible complete breakdown or other instant, radical change, but I think to make what they are doing now work they should have shown us that, first, foremost, explicitly, and at reasonable length and depth. Telling us the Amelia story when they haven't given us the foundations that would make its premises make sense. At very least, they should have in their own minds an agreed on vivid and specific idea of how Sam reacted to the immediate aftermath of 7.23, and instead I feel like they have plastered it over and left it for Scrhodinger's fanwank, simply because they had an uneasy feeling that it was the weak point of their story and they hoped if they ignored it and threw a few mutually conflicting explanations at it and waited to see what would stick it might just go away and let them and the audience pay attention to other things.

[galathea-snb.livejournal.com]

And I think Carver has simply missed the mark in thinking that the problem with Sam is why he would choose to leave hunting, rather than his initial failure to investigate Dean's disappearance.
Well, I still hold out the hope that we will get a sufficient reason for Sam's seeming failure to investigate Dean's disappearance. So far the show has given us nothing about how Sam went from point A (where we left him off in 7x23) to point B (where he is now) and that is part why the season so far feels so disjointed to me - I can't truly understand this Sam, if the writers refuse to expand on his past year. And they quite deliberately, stubbornly refuse to do that for misdirected reasons, I think. I have to agree that having the emotional reveal about Sam's story in 8-10 episodes doesn't really make sense, that's why I think that they will go for a plot reveal rather than an emotional one. I simply don't trust these writers to be able to pull off a complex psychological story like Sam's in the current context, so I believe they will go with external reasons for Sam dropping his search and quitting hunting.

I keep wishing that one or the other of them would acknowledge the Dean who felt that hunting made him a killer, not a father, the Dean whose one moment of feeling like he'd saved someone last year was saving Krissy FROM HUNTING.
WORD! Again, like with Sam, so far the writers have given us nothing concrete about how Dean went from a clinically depressed alcoholic who came to resent hunting to this version of Dean. All we have so far is conjecture. I guess we will get that part of the story long before we get Sam's. I think at the moment I have far more problems with the way the season is structured so far than with the content for the characters since we are still completely in the dark about the characters and I find that immensely frustrating. :(

[de-nugis.livejournal.com]

I wish I had your belief that there is a plotty explanation forthcoming on Sam's nonsearch, or rather, since I would be happy with an emotional reveal, I wish I had your belief that the reason they are telling the story in a way that doesn't work for emotional reveal is because they were going for plot reveal all along. I think there MAY yet be, because however nobly or ignobly independent of fan opinion TPTB may be, I think the reaction to this storyline from the SDCC unveiling right through now would be hard to ignore; their little rift within the lute is about the size of the Grand Canyon. But 8.1, despite the Mysterious Figure (tm) didn't really leave me with the belief that they had anything in mind. Sam's conviction that hunting was what had got every member of his family killed, his statement that he'd had no one to call, the still weird conversion of a promise not to bring each other back into a promise not to look for each other, his account of fixing up the Impala and just driving: none of that came across to me as either written or played as Sam lying to Dean, and the inconsistencies in it aren't coming through as clues to a mystery.

I honestly think that if there is a reveal it's going to be damage control retcon, and that Carver genuinely didn't see that the problems of why Sam didn't search and the problems of how Sam could move on aren't identical for either the audience or Dean. From both interviews and scripts, my read on Carver's basic intent was to have us and Dean come to understand that moving on was a healthy and ultimately loving response to losing Dean, and he simply didn't see that to make that work he needed a situation in which Sam either had much better and clearer cause to believe Dean dead than canon provided in 7.23 or needed to know where Dean was and make the choice not to try to get him out.

Somewhere in this muddle, I think, there was also operative the consideration that given either of those two more workable from Sam's end scenarios, Dean's anger and hurt would soon cease to make sense: I think that both Sam and Dean are quite sincere in the actual agreement not to bring each other back. That wouldn't prevent Dean from being initially and irrationally hurt that Sam had been emotionally capable of actually sticking with that, but I can't see that as a doable focus for long term conflict between them. Given that they are talking to each other, I think in those circumstances Sam could and would explain his data and his reasoning, and Dean could and would accept it. So they almost need the muddle to keep the emotional dynamic they've got set up going, but at the same time they need to keep distracting from the muddle by playing up the hunting conflict, in ways that are distorting plausibility through Sam and Dean's seeming oblivion to where they were each at regarding hunting last year.

Basically, I think it's a mess. I don't think it's absolutely irredeemable, because I do think they may do some retconny patching down the line and I also think that Carver is quite capable of building interesting character arcs based on his starting point, which may partially if not wholly redeem the unprofessional fudging he had to do to get his starting point. But for the moment I think the main thing saving the season from utter disaster is the acting. I mostly get annoyed with the whole "oh, the actors know the characters so much better than the writers" line of thinking, but in this case I really do feel that most of the subtlety and continuity we're getting is coming from Jared and Jensen.

(ETA some necessary paragraph breaks!)

[galathea-snb.livejournal.com]

I wish I had your belief that there is a plotty explanation forthcoming on Sam's nonsearch.

Well, I didn't have that belief before the season started either, but to me everything I've seen of the season so far reads exactly like that. This is the same set-up the writers utilised in S4 and S6 and we all know how much they love their symmetries. In S4 we didn't learn anything about Sam's 4 months without Dean before episode 9, and we didn't learn about his blood addiction before episode 16! Similarly, in S6 we only learned about Sam's soullessness in episode 7 and it was only resolved in episode 12. I see the same layout here in S8. The giant Sam-shaped hole in the narrative so far is a pretty big clue in itself for me that they have plans for a Sam reveal later in the season. Now, if it makes sense to postpone that reveal till midseason is a different question entirely, but I have little doubt that something is coming. And the fact that the Mysterious Figure is right there at the beginning of Sam's story this season tells me that it is pre-planned, rather than a retcon. Feel free to say 'I told you so' if I am wrong, but usually my 'vibes' about the show are pretty accurate. *g*

none of that came across to me as either written or played as Sam lying to Dean

Here's the thing: Jared and Jensen are usually just as clueless at the beginning of a season about what is going on with their characters as the audience is. At the beginning of S4, Jensen didn't know about Dean's torturer arc and he wasn't told that Dean started to remember things from hell (4x08) beforehand either. Hence he played Dean completely straight as amnesiac. You can see the subtle changes in his acting, depending on the new information he has on Dean. Similarly, at the beginning of S6 Jared didn't know that Sam was supposed to be soulless and that is the reason why Sam comes off as more emotional in the first couple of episodes of S6 than his soullessness would really allow for. Again, you can see the changes in Jared's acting from 6x07 onwards. I bet you that when they filmed the season opener Jared had no idea about where Sam's storyline would be heading later in the season, so he had no other choice than to play Sam's reaction as completely genuine.

Given that they are talking to each other, I think in those circumstances Sam could and would explain his data and his reasoning, and Dean could and would accept it.

Agreed! That is exactly the reason why I think that there is a plotty reveal coming further down the line. There has to be a more serious reason for Sam to hold back, instead of explaining himself to Dean in a way that will settle their interpersonal problems. If there were no further reveals beyond Sam's reasoning in the season premiere, Sam's story this season would basically be non-existent, and that is something I simply don't think the writers would do. I may have my problems with the way the writers made Dean the primary point of view these last couple of seasons, but I have never been one of those fans who think that they push one of the brothers to the sidelines. Sam and Dean always had very distinct storylines of their own, and I don't see that changing. :)

I also think that Carver is quite capable of building interesting character arcs based on his starting point

I know that most people think of Mystery Spot when they think about Carver, but these last couple of episodes I thought more about Point of No Return, because Carver did some amazingly subtle and effective character work for Sam in that episode, especially given the difficult starting point, i.e. Sam and Dean's relationship in complete tatters. So, I try to have some faith in that Carver. :)

I think the main thing saving the season from utter disaster is the acting.

I could never disagree with that. *g* Jensen and Jared do an amazing job with their characters, no doubt about it. I am pretty sure the fact that I totally sympathise with Sam, even though his story at this point seems so out of character, is entirely owed to the way Jared plays him.