As we head into the return of new episodes of season 4 of Supernatural, I wanted to take a moment to look back at some of the various episodes we’ve already seen and that I think have left us a lot of clues about Sam Winchester (Jared Padalecki). I know that it seems in many ways like season 4 has been mostly about Dean Winchester (Jensen Ackles), yet as a view I have seen some things been thrown out there that may have provided us with interesting insights into the workings of Sam Winchester and where the writers might be headed with him. So I invite you the EclipseMagazine readers to check out what I’ve come up with based on some key episodes and let me know what you think: Agree or Disagree.
The first episode I’m going to take a ‘Sam Winchester’ look at is Yellow Fever. I think we learned a lot about Sam’s mind set in this episode based on his reaction to Dean being affected with the ‘ghost sickness’. In my opinion this is an episode where we as viewers get one of our first looks at how Sam has changed in some fundamental way because he isn’t affected by this particular kind of ‘ghost sickness’, in which those who have bullied or tortured others gets afflicted with a sense of paranoid fear so strong that they eventually die of sheer fright. We find out through Dean’s confession at the end about torturing souls in hell that this ‘ghost sickness’ may also affects those with deep feelings of remorse or guilt about what they have done. So how does all of this tell us something about Sam Winchester?
Well I know that most felt the reason he wasn’t affected was because of the demon blood/powers he has however I think it was because we are seeing a Sam Winchester who truly sees no wrong in what he is doing and therefore has no fear of it. I saw a Sam Winchester who remained unaffected by the ‘ghost sickness’ because he seems to have lost his sense of fear of his powers and what he can do with them and where they might lead him. This takes me directly to the pivotal moment in Sex and Violence where Sam and Dean, under the influence of the Siren, tear into each other not only physically but verbally.
Sam tells Dean that Sam thinks Dean holds him back because he is too afraid to go up against some of the demons that Sam and Ruby are busy hunting down. That Sam thinks this fear makes Dean weak. For me as a viewer this is a shocking revelation that Sam Winchester might possibly have lost his ability to fear the powers he has and the things he is up against. It makes me wonder if are we seeing a Sam Winchester who, through the perception that he is doing something a better way, had developed a certain arrogance about his choices that are blinding him to where these things are leading him?
Sam says he is the better hunter because he doesn’t have the same fears that Dean does and I believe we began to see the first signs of Sam having this contempt for Dean having what Sam seems to perceive as a weakness in the episode Yellow Fever. As a viewer those words spoken so contemptuously towards Dean in Sex and Violence gave me a strong clue that the writers were laying down hints of even more fundamental changes in Sam Winchester and where he is headed. It seem to be giving us a view of Sam that makes us wonder if what he perceives as Dean’s ‘weakness’ might actually be a strength that Sam Winchester has lost sight of in himself.
Dean has been down a path that led him to doing some dark and terrible things to other souls while he was in hell and even though they might have been damned souls like the demons Sam pulls out of possessed human bodies with his powers, and most might have deserved the torture they got, Dean has deep remorse over what doing those things and enjoying doing them did to him and how much it took away from his humanity as he thinks it should be. Dean knows that the darkness can be seductive and begin to steal your humanity before you realize it. Dean is trying desperately to hold onto his humanity and allow himself to feel things again. Dean might sometimes do this in what seems like him being overly fixated on sex, but that just takes us back to ‘Heaven and Hell’ pt 2 where an angel who fell to earth because she wanted to be human and have feelings told him that sexual desire is one of the positive human feelings he should remember to hang onto and one of the more positive things about having ‘feelings’. That it makes him human. And, as was heavily hinted in ‘Family Remains’, Dean didn’t see himself as quite human anymore.
Knowing all of this and what the loss of your own sense of humanity can do to you, gives Dean a healthy dose of fear for that darkness which is so easy to fall into and makes him cautious about where he allows that seductiveness to take him and makes him step back and look at everything and question everything. From all appearances and from the hints the writers seem to be laying down, Sam seems to have forgotten to look at the broader picture of what repercussions the use of his powers might have later on or on him.
This leads me to taking a ‘Sam Winchester’ look at the episode ‘After School Special’ which I believe held some very significant insights into where Sam Winchester is headed in all this in season 4 and why. On the surface, ‘After School Special’ seems to be about both Sam and Dean Winchester growing up, but on a much deeper level this story shows us a very significant character flaw in Sam Winchester that I believe is what will blind him to the dangers of the path he is on and that the things that were revealed to him in this episode were the writers showing us that this one final attempt by ‘the universe’ or ‘God’ to show Sam that flaw that is leading him into danger.
Sam Winchester has an innate sense of wanting to help people and to do it in the way that is least violent or to do it ‘his own way’. Now you’re probably asking why I, as a viewer, see this as the writers putting this in as a character flaw for Sam Winchester. Let’s look at ‘After School Special’ from the surface of the episode. On the surface we have a young Sam Winchester reluctantly attending yet another new school and despondent over the fact that he never gets to stay in one place long enough to be just a normal kid. Young Sam Winchester is also one ‘nerves of steel’ cool as a cucumber kid who, on his very first day in the new school, manages to stare down the class bully Dirk and become the friend of the nerdy class scapegoat Barry. Again on the surface you see young Sam Winchester make the obvious connections, Dirk is the class bully – Barry is the class scapegoat. Anyone who has ever been a ‘Barry’ in school wished for a friend like Sam Winchester to come along and be their friend and champion.
We see a young Sam Winchester who is unwilling to be like his father or his brother and use his skills to fight back when Dirk starts bullying him as well. On the surface this is something we admire about young Sam Winchester. It isn’t until Derek calls him a freak and pushes the wrong psychological button that young Sam fights back and wins reducing the once feared bully to the position of class joke, ‘Dirk the Jerk’. Sam finds himself to be a sudden hero to the school and finds that he fits in and makes a difference by using his skills. Years later when Sam and Dean Winchester return to this old school and new details come to Sam about Dirk and Barry it is then that the writers show us the flaw in Sam Winchester.
Sam finds out that there was more under the surface than the things he made his decisions on. Sam had the skills to defeat the bully, he had the good heart to want to protect the innocent, but he forgot to not take things at face value and to make sure everything was as it seemed. He got to know Barry as a friend, but Sam forgot to make sure what the larger picture was and get to know more about Dirk before Sam decided he was an enemy. Because Sam couldn’t stay long enough he really didn’t make a difference in Barry’s life and the boy still lost his battle with depression, but because Sam didn’t take the time to see the broader picture of the whole situation and by giving into using his skills and training when it suited him, he made a very detrimental impact on the life of Dirk. We as viewers see that the consequences of what Sam thought was the ‘right action’ at the time ended up creating something very destructive and innocent people far into the future of those events got hurt because of it.
Now, years later in his life, we as viewers see a Sam Winchester on similar path, he sees only the two sides of the issues and what he can do with his skills and powers, but he has gotten so fearless and so caught up in his own conviction, he isn’t pausing to see the bigger picture and what the possible dire consequences of his actions might be, no matter how good intentioned those actions are. Are the writers telling us that Sam Winchester is too caught up in being the hero on his own terms? That Sam seems to be allowing himself to once more be blinded by his fearlessness the same as when he was that young boy in school.
One final ‘Sam Winchester look’ at the pivotal confrontation scene between Sam and Dean Winchester in the episode ‘Sex and Violence’. In that confrontation, Dean tells Sam that ‘we used to work together. We used to have each other’s backs now you’re keeping things from me.’ To which Sam responds ‘you don’t need to know.’ It is that response that I believe shows us the viewers and Dean the most fundamental change of all in Sam Winchester—that he has turned into the very thing he once rebelled against, once had major issues with in relation to how Sam was treated by them. Sam has turned into John Winchester, who was a man who treated his sons –Dean most of all – like soldiers in a war whom he kept on a ‘need to know’ basis. Sam had turned into a man who shut down, shut up or shut out anyone who didn’t see things or do things his way and never treated his sons as equals. Dean, all of his kidding and his ‘being older so I say so’ attitude with Sam has, in my opinion, over the years since working with his brother instead of his father, grown to appreciate and feel a sense of belonging in the fact that they worked together as partners and equals. Now before him stands that same brother who seems to have turned into their father and I think that might scare the hell out of Dean almost more than Sam turning into some demonic or supernatural creature. Might scare Dean because he of all people knows that his father was an obsessed, stubborn, controlling man whom no one could reach and make him see the broader picture. A man who chose to keep his sons in the dark about so many things they should have known about and only tolerating one point of view or one way of doing things—his own.
So there you have it, my ‘Sam Winchester look’ at several episodes of season 4 of Supernatural and my take on some things I think the writers were telling us about where Sam is headed and why. To me there was a lot said about Sam Winchester and a lot of focus put on his character, but done is subtle ways so that we had to look for the clues and the threads of storyline being played out. As a viewer I am looking forward to what plays out next for Sam Winchester in the capable hands of the writers and presented through the amazing talent of Jared Padalecki. Oh and being the ‘Dean girl’ that I am, you can bet I a looking forward to more of Dean’s story in the capable hands of the writers and presented through the awesome talent of Jensen Ackles.
Season 4 of Supernatural resumes with new episodes on the CW Network this week and first up is ‘Death Takes a Holiday’ airing on March 12th at 9PM EST right after an all new episode of Smallville at 8PM EST. Meanwhile I look forward to reader comments, feedback and viewpoints. What’s your ‘Sam Winchester look’ at season 4 so far?
1 Comment
Comments are closed.