Supernatural Ponderings
Nov. 18th, 2007 12:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vixaliciousComparing and Contrasting Faith, Season 1, to Fresh Blood, Season 3
Spoilers for everything that has aired in the US to date.
As I was watching this week's episode, I couldn't help but notice that it had some interesting correllations to a Season One episode, which I had also coincidentally just re-watched (as a bid for entertainment in a foreign country - TV not in a language you understand gets old quickly, so I'd brought along some DVDs).
In the first season episode, Faith, Dean is severely injured during a hunt, so badly that he only has a few weeks to live. Sam, in a bid to save him, tricks him into going to see a faith healer. Dean is chosen to be healed, but what he sees and feels during the process leads the boys to realize that this is actually something supernatural that needs to be stopped. In this season's episode, Fresh Blood, Dean and Sam are on the trail of a nest of vampires when they realize that they themselves are being hunted - by Gordon, another hunter with a vendetta to kill Sam. Dean's reaction to Sam being the hunted rather than the hunter leads to a confrontation between the two brothers about how Dean is dealing with his own mortality and the outcome of the deal he made with the demon in Season Two.
Both episodes deal with Dean's imminent death, and Sam's need to save him. In Faith, however, Dean is much more open to Sam's attempt to save his life: Sam's own doesn't hang in the balance, he hasn't finished his mission, and moreover, I believe he still thinks Sam needs him at this point. By the current season, he seems to think that Sam is strong enough to survive without him. It makes me wonder whether he feels that this change is due to Sam becoming a stronger person, or whether the events of the last two years have shaken his own ideals so much that he does indeed, as Bobby so eloquently put last season, "have that low an opinion" of himself. After all, hunting with Sam has forced him to look more closely at what he does, to struggle with his own definitions of Good and Evil, to look at the morality of each situation they face, to realize that life has shades of gray. It's enough to make even the most dedicated hunter tired.
Another moment I found intriguing was that Dean's attempt to put Sam off in discussing his impending demise was almost verbatim in both episodes:
From Faith:
Dean: Hey you better take care of that car, or I swear, I'll haunt your ass.
Sam: I don't think that's funny.
Dean: Aw, come on, it's a little funny.
From Fresh Blood:
Sam: I'm sick and tired of your old stupid kamikaze trick.
Dean: Whoa, whoa, kamikaze? I'm more like a ninja.
Sam: That's not funny.
Dean: It's a little funny.
That both episodes have the same writer leads me to believe that the phrasing isn't accidental. What's interesting to me is that in the first instance, Dean then drops the façade and talks to Sam honestly whereas in the second scene, Sam has to push him into it, to put their bond into words to make Dean understand that he doesn't want to watch Dean sacrifice himself.
And then of course, there's this season's underlying theme: Is Sam really 100% Sam?
In Faith, the boys realize that someone is controlling a reaper, using it to trade one life for another. They first suspect the healer himself, and Dean's solution is to take him out. Sam's response - "We're not going to kill a human being, Dean. We do that, we're no better than he is."
This time around? At this point, they have no idea Gordon has been turned into a vampire; he's not supernatural prey. But when they talk about dealing with his threat to their lives, Sam's reversed his position.
Dean: About that, when we find him, or he finds us.
Sam: Yeah?
Dean: Well, I'm just saying, he's not leaving us a whole lot of options.
Sam: Yeah, I know. We gotta kill him.
Dean: Really? Just like that? I thought you woulda been like [mocking] 'No, we can't, he's a human, it's wrong!'
Sam: No, I'm done.
Ominous,Sammy Sam. Really ominous.
And in a completely unrelated note, is this the only episode to have no classic rock in it? Or did I just miss it?
Spoilers for everything that has aired in the US to date.
As I was watching this week's episode, I couldn't help but notice that it had some interesting correllations to a Season One episode, which I had also coincidentally just re-watched (as a bid for entertainment in a foreign country - TV not in a language you understand gets old quickly, so I'd brought along some DVDs).
In the first season episode, Faith, Dean is severely injured during a hunt, so badly that he only has a few weeks to live. Sam, in a bid to save him, tricks him into going to see a faith healer. Dean is chosen to be healed, but what he sees and feels during the process leads the boys to realize that this is actually something supernatural that needs to be stopped. In this season's episode, Fresh Blood, Dean and Sam are on the trail of a nest of vampires when they realize that they themselves are being hunted - by Gordon, another hunter with a vendetta to kill Sam. Dean's reaction to Sam being the hunted rather than the hunter leads to a confrontation between the two brothers about how Dean is dealing with his own mortality and the outcome of the deal he made with the demon in Season Two.
Both episodes deal with Dean's imminent death, and Sam's need to save him. In Faith, however, Dean is much more open to Sam's attempt to save his life: Sam's own doesn't hang in the balance, he hasn't finished his mission, and moreover, I believe he still thinks Sam needs him at this point. By the current season, he seems to think that Sam is strong enough to survive without him. It makes me wonder whether he feels that this change is due to Sam becoming a stronger person, or whether the events of the last two years have shaken his own ideals so much that he does indeed, as Bobby so eloquently put last season, "have that low an opinion" of himself. After all, hunting with Sam has forced him to look more closely at what he does, to struggle with his own definitions of Good and Evil, to look at the morality of each situation they face, to realize that life has shades of gray. It's enough to make even the most dedicated hunter tired.
Another moment I found intriguing was that Dean's attempt to put Sam off in discussing his impending demise was almost verbatim in both episodes:
From Faith:
Dean: Hey you better take care of that car, or I swear, I'll haunt your ass.
Sam: I don't think that's funny.
Dean: Aw, come on, it's a little funny.
From Fresh Blood:
Sam: I'm sick and tired of your old stupid kamikaze trick.
Dean: Whoa, whoa, kamikaze? I'm more like a ninja.
Sam: That's not funny.
Dean: It's a little funny.
That both episodes have the same writer leads me to believe that the phrasing isn't accidental. What's interesting to me is that in the first instance, Dean then drops the façade and talks to Sam honestly whereas in the second scene, Sam has to push him into it, to put their bond into words to make Dean understand that he doesn't want to watch Dean sacrifice himself.
And then of course, there's this season's underlying theme: Is Sam really 100% Sam?
In Faith, the boys realize that someone is controlling a reaper, using it to trade one life for another. They first suspect the healer himself, and Dean's solution is to take him out. Sam's response - "We're not going to kill a human being, Dean. We do that, we're no better than he is."
This time around? At this point, they have no idea Gordon has been turned into a vampire; he's not supernatural prey. But when they talk about dealing with his threat to their lives, Sam's reversed his position.
Dean: About that, when we find him, or he finds us.
Sam: Yeah?
Dean: Well, I'm just saying, he's not leaving us a whole lot of options.
Sam: Yeah, I know. We gotta kill him.
Dean: Really? Just like that? I thought you woulda been like [mocking] 'No, we can't, he's a human, it's wrong!'
Sam: No, I'm done.
Ominous,
And in a completely unrelated note, is this the only episode to have no classic rock in it? Or did I just miss it?
