Supernatural Review: Episode 7.04 “Defending Your Life”

Supernatural seems to be all about breaking my heart. Most of the time I want to give poor Sammy a hug, because he’s been through so much: being one of Azazel’s special children, becoming addicted to demon blood, having to deal with being a ‘freak’, going to Hell for a million years, losing his soul, remembering all the bad Lucifer stuff down in the cage, and the ever-expanding sideburns. That’s enough to drive everyone crazy.

But then I remember Dean. Brooding, stalwart Dean, who keeps going no matter what is thrown at him and prefers to suffer in silence with his alcohol problem. Dean has always carried his guilt differently than Sam has. Sam is the type of man who likes to proactively try to repent for his guilt. Dean is the type of man who lets it fester until it consumes him to the point where he feels it actually defines him.

Weighing the Guilt In Your Heart Against a Feather

This week’s episode of Supernatural was essentially a sequel to last week’s episode. The boys are fresh off the Amy case, but are clearly in opposite corners. In one corner you have Sam, who thanks Dean for believing in him and letting Amy go. In the other corner you have the lying liar known as Dean, who most definitely did not let Amy go. In fact, he killed her and hasn’t told his brother about it.

The brothers head to Dearborn, Michigan to investigate a series of murders. They quickly realize that the victims are not exactly what you would call upright citizens. One of the men, for example, caused the death of a young girl, while another shot a couple during a robbery. Who was killing them? The short answer is ‘ghosts’. The long answer is ‘the Egyptian god Osiris’. Osiris is the type of god who weighs the guilt in your heart. If he – and the guilty party – feel that the guilt outweighs the good things about a person, they are killed.

Dean, of course, is carrying around a veritable mountain of guilt. Case in point: when Osiris puts Dean on trial (with Sam stepping in to act as his lawyer), he calls Jo’s ghost to the stand. But while Osiris wants Dean to accept responsibility for Jo’s death – which Dean, of course, believes is true – Jo insists that Dean is not really the reason she got involved with hunting and ended up dead. After all, Jo was always really drawn to the life, what with her father being a hunter. And when she and Ellen died, it did give the Winchesters a chance to ultimately beat Lucifer, even if they couldn’t kill him with the Colt shortly after the women sacrificed themselves.

Failing Sammy

Next on the stand is Sam. Immediately Osiris understands Dean’s feelings of guilt regarding his brother. It’s not just about Dean feeling that he’s failed Sam on so many occasions (failing to protect him at any given time, or stop him from becoming bad or losing his way). It’s actually about Dean feeling like every bad thing in Sam’s life can boil down to that night when Dean went to Stanford to drag Sam back into hunting.

But Sam isn’t as prone to blaming himself, or others, for things they didn’t do. Sam quickly called Dean to the stand and got him to admit that Dean couldn’t actually have known everything that would happen that night he asked Sam to help him find their father. He couldn’t have predicted – and most certainly didn’t hope – Jessica would die, their father would give up his life for Dean, and Sam would one day end up in Hell. In fact, if you believe Lucifer and Azazel, none of what happened is Dean’s fault because everything that happened to the Winchesters was essentially set in motion long before either boy was ever born. Of course, free will comes into play, but that’s a discussion for another day. The point is, Dean should not feel guilty for what has happened to Sam.

But when Osiris was prepared to call his final witness, Dean knew the jig was up. Dean did have something that he knew he was guilty of: lying to his brother about Amy. Instead of letting the truth come out, Dean accepted Osiris’punishment.

An Eye for An Eye

This is where things get interesting. The big question is why Dean didn’t want Sam to know about Amy. Is it because he feels guilty for actually killing her? I don’t quite think that’s it, because I think that Dean truly felt it was the right thing to do and was born out of his own feelings about his path and his depression about everything that has happened to him in the past and recently. Did he not want Sam to know because he felt Sam would be disappointed in him? Dean can live with many terrible feelings, but we’ve always known that his worst fear is not being loved and needed by his loved ones. If Sam knew, would Dean feel like he had let down his brother like he’s felt so many times in the past (even when it hasn’t been truth)? The point is that Dean was prepared to die so that Sam didn’t have to know that his brother lied to him.

The brothers return to their hotel and Sam soon set off to find a weapon that could (temporarily) kill Osiris. Dean remained behind until Jo’s ghost came around to set up an explosion. Unfortunately for Dean, Jo was being controlled by the god. But she also managed to tell Dean that he carries around so much guilt and pain that he’s simply not responsible for. He believes that he is responsible for the things that happened to her – and, more particularly, to Sam – because he was selfish for not wanting to hunt alone. But there’s nothing actually wrong with that. No one wants to be alone. In the immortal words of Angel on Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, ‘loneliness is about the scariest thing there is’. Ultimately, Sam was right. Dean may have been weak (and, more simply, human) in not wanting to hunt alone, but he could never have predicted – nor did he take joy in – the things that ultimately happened.

Paying Your Dues

In the end, Sam was able to kill Osiris before Jo killed Dean. But Sam displayed a tremendous amount of maturity as the boys did their ‘drinking by the side of the road” pitstop. Sam is often ruled by his emotions and baser instants – sometimes moreso than Dean is. But Sam generally displays more maturity and levelheadedness. Like I said, Sam prefers to face his guilt head-on and try to make amends instead of bottling it up. As Sam explained, he feels that he’s paid his dues. Hell was a horrible punishment for him. Even more than being trapped in Lucifer’s cage for 100 years, the Winchesters have paid so terrible a price for sins real and imagined time and time again. And Sam would prefer to accept that he has paid a significant enough price to have the slate wiped clean. But even more than that, Sam understands that he needs to accept what’s happened in their past in order to move on and not become a crippling alcoholic or manic-depressive.

Dean is not at the point where he understands where Sam is coming from, because the brothers are not – nor have they ever been – similar. It’s not difficult to believe that Sam has accepted that he’s paid his dues and wants to live his life. But if Dean just up and believed that I think most fans would be shocked.

The point is that Dean is not there yet. I don’t know if he will ever be there and it makes me sad for him. Because Sam is right, these boys have paid their dues. But I hope one day Dean can make peace with himself.

Fortunately, it looks like next week’s Supernatural episode will be more lighthearted and less introspective. Which is good, because I’m exhausted and can’t take much more angst. To tide you over until next week, you can view the trailer and photos for the October 21 episode, and the photos for the October 28 episode.