In the Hunt: Unauthorized Essays on Supernatural

by Supernatural. tv,

  Dean’s deal with the Crossroads Demon at the end of season two, to save Sam’s life, puts the next year of his life into a personal and occupational tailspin. Touched by the underworld and the uncanny, Dean becomes reckless and hapless, to a degree that terrifies his brother. A real-world analogy with terminal illness (which Dean has faced before) is not out of place, given Dean’s personality and identity. An adrenaline junkie, as befits such an earthy, body-centered character, must never know when his death is coming. Dean does, and this-combined with his sudden new connection to the spiritual realm, sealed with a demon’s kiss-is a trap to which he responds like a wounded, cornered animal.

  At the show’s beginning, Dean’s connection to the supernatural is greater than Sam’s, given his association with the hunting world. In fact, an important trope for season one is the idea that the boys are following clues left in their father’s journal-a paternal grimoire of mysteries. But Dean’s feelings about his role fighting the shadow realm are no simpler than his feelings about his father, and the twisted hunter boot camp John made of both his sons’ lives. As a shapeshifter says, while in Dean’s form, “Maybe this thing was born human but was different. Hideous and hated. Until he learned to become someone else.” And later, speaking as Dean himself, “Deep down, I’m just jealous. You got friends. You could have a life. Me? I know I’m a freak. And sooner or later, everybody’s gonna leave me” (“Skin,” 1-6). We learn that Dean’s first love dumped him when she learned about hunting, and when they meet again, she still rejects his lifestyle and association with the supernatural.

  Dean spends the first episode of season two suspended between life and death (of note is Sam’s ability to sense his brother’s spirit). And while in the end his relationship with John is strengthened both by his father’s self-sacrifice and their shared knowledge of Sam’s destiny, while comatose Dean expresses his resentment for the ways his father’s lifestyle has changed him: “I’ve done everything you’ve ever asked me. Everything. I have given everything I’ve ever had… . What the hell kind of father are you?” (“In My Time of Dying,” 2-1). Because Dean glories in the violence of hunting, it’s easy to overlook his conviction that his childhood, and continued hunting, have effectively evicted him from the natural world, or the chance to succeed in it. He lives in the shadows, and each time he tries to leave this life-or bridge it-he is rejected. His resentment of the shadow realm thus takes him further into it, even as it marks him as its own.

  After John’s death, Dean reconnects with a secondary family of hunters, spending time at Harvelle’s Roadhouse and bonding with Jo over their fathers’ shared exploits and fates. He is strong enough to turn down the Crossroads Demon at their first meeting (she offers Dean ten years and the return of John’s life in exchange for Dean’s eventual damnation) even when she reveals that John is suffering in Hell. Mid-season two, Dean has advanced to the point that he can reveal John’s secret: that Sam may have to be killed, should he come into his birthright as one of Azazel’s “Special Children.” This move represents a new willingness on Dean’s part both to share John’s memory with Sam, and to soften his authoritative and protective stance toward his younger brother. The ongoing softening of Dean’s approach-even as Sam is becoming harder-is mirrored in Dean’s estrangement from and sometimes antagonistic interactions with the other hunters. As much of the season involves Sam’s growing acknowledgment of his own ties to the subconscious content of the narrative-in fact, as Dean helps him deal with it encroaching on seemingly all sides-it makes sense that Dean’s parallel development would itself come out of concern for Sam. Throughout the story, when one brother grows we can see a compensatory change in the other.

  This contrast and conflict, between Dean’s brave rejection of and assaults on the unknown and the shadow and his intensifying connection to it, are played out in a pivotal episode of season three, “Dream a Little Dream” (3-10). In what would have been, prior to the 2007 WGA strike, halfway through the season and is now two-thirds through, Dean is able to physically confront his fears through interaction with a dream-world demon double: Having learned from Ruby and Tammi that at least some demons were once human, twisted by their time in Hell, Dean realizes that he’s agreed not just to his death, but his eventual damnation. When Dean says that no one can save him, Sam responds, “No one can save you because you don’t want to be saved.”

  A nightmarish version of Dean, with a demon’s black eyes, speaks to him directly about his fears, his sense of worthlessness, his self-hatred. It points out to him that all he has in the world is his brother, whom he is failing by dying; his father’s feelings for him amounted to the respect due a good soldier, or cannon fodder; and John loved Sam more than Dean. If all of these are worries and neuroses typical of the classic masculine hero, what does it say about Dean that they are eventually transcended? Dean finally calls his father an obsessed bastard who couldn’t protect his family, who let Mary die, and who wasn’t there for Sam when he needed it most. He acknowledges that he didn’t deserve the burdens John raised him to carry, that he mourns the life he never had, and maintains that he doesn’t deserve to go to Hell. Although this dream experience drastically changes Dean’s waking relationship to his own salvation, the episode ends with a terrifying image: the nightmare double, snapping his fingers as though to suggest Dean’s dream of escaping his deal is just that-a dream, a fantasy. And while Dean can be forgiven for assuming the worst, there were few viewers prepared for this last vision to be proven true.

  IV: THE CAR, THE COLT, & THE KNIFE

  (Two men sit behind the wheel of an immaculate black ’67 Chevrolet Impala, arguing over the radio.)

  Being uncomfortable with overt emotion or affection, as is the wont of the Western Hero, much of the show’s most important emotional content is expressed through objects: the Car, the Gun, the Knife. Just as the objects in a Tarot deck express more than their simple use, or proper names, these objects spend as much important time onscreen as the boys themselves-almost characters in their own right, certainly more than mere props or MacGuffins.

  In Dean’s case, the Impala is a symbol of masculinity, both as a virile signifier in its own right and as a sign of the family’s legacy of protection and violence. The story begins with the car, as John holds his sons tightly in front of it while their mother and home burn. The car provides continuity, comfort, and movement from place to place; these are also the things Dean provides, as a brother and father figure, for Sam himself. Provided by John, it also signifies Dean’s alpha status: in the absence of their father, Dean is the authority figure. He’s the driver.

  Dean’s acceptance of his fate-and of Sam’s right to independent manhood-is made explicit when he ends a season three episode by teaching Sam to repair and care for the Impala, showing the transmutation of his protective role into a more guiding paternal approach. If Sam must carry the family name on his own, once John and Dean are both dead, then he will be the true heir, both of the Impala and of the Winchester Hunt. It’s both touching and generous, one of the most emotional scenes for both men’s stories, and a serious redefinition of the roles of both characters, and of the rules of the show itself.

  (A boy trains a pistol against the darkness; behind him stands the spirit of his father.)

  Even as the Impala represents Dean’s role in the family and his connection to John, the Colt has come to be associated with Sam’s own approach to the hunt: objective, hands-off, investigative. It’s an intriguing reversal: A car is not necessarily lethal, and in fact provides comfort and transportation, and sports cars are fetishized sexual objects, phallic and feminized at once. In contrast, guns are made to do one thing only. They are the prime phallic object, in fact-as we’ll see, even knives are made to do more than kill, and have ritual and mythological ties to the feminine that balance their obvious phallic qualities-and yet while Dean is responsible for the Impala, it’s Sam who is the owner, for all intents and purposes, of the Colt. (Consider that the inventor of the Colt ha
ndgun was another Samuel!) In both cases, of course, they are passed down from John, but the reversal is informative, as the objects are externalized parts of their respective owners’ less-developed masculine qualities.

  Dean’s story is that of a lone wolf, damaged by childhood, rootless, who through caring for his brother and humanizing his own mission grows to be more nurturing and accepting of intimacy and love. Sam’s story represents an earlier part of the classic Hero story: that of a young man coming into his own sexual and masculine power. John has given his sons just the tools they need to become the men they need to be: Dean a roving home for his family, and Sam the destructive capability he’s only now developing, to complement his own sensitive and intuitive powers.

  But as we know, both John and Mary are familiar with Azazel, which the boys and the show’s explicit narrative seem to actively ignore. Psychologically, it’s a master stroke, illustrating the subconscious power of the parents, both as mother and father archetypes and as our strongest developmental influences. If it’s an especially male story that identifies the feminine with magic and the subconscious, it’s every story that does the same for parents. For Sam, season two is an exercise in striking out beyond those familiar connections, investigating his new “special” family and spiritual lineage, and thus he is unable to make a claim on either object, gun or car, throughout. When the Colt reappears in the end of season two, it’s Dean who uses the last bullet to kill Azazel, rendering it useless.

  It’s only Ruby’s reappearance, working with fellow surrogate parent Bobby to restore it, that gives Sam the chance to claim its power for himself. Ruby, representing feminine and supernatural balance, is able to repair the gun just as she facilitates a new relationship between Sam and the darkness itself. As he moves into a more protective and functional role, working to keep Dean tethered to this world, Sam is finally able to claim the gun. Bela, associated with Dean’s ongoing rejection of the supernatural, then makes off with the gun-after Sam is unable to kill Lilith’s servant demon Tammi with it, notably-and the boys spend the latter half of the season tracking her, and it. However, it’s not the gun that the boys bring to their final showdown with Lilith and her demons, but something much older, and darker, and carrying a much stronger feminine power.

  (A black-eyed angel holds out a wicked blade, point-first; behind her stand two boys, wreathed in darkness.)

  Ruby’s knife is not the first one we’ve seen. We see a curved blade in Sam’s overnight bag in the pilot, which he packs when he’s leaving his home in Palo Alto to join Dean’s quest. It is also seen in one of the first promotional images marketing the series. In the picture, Dean holds a sawed-off shotgun and faces the camera, while Sam stands behind him, looking almost over his shoulder behind us. The Impala shines its brights in the background, a large bag of salt propped against her front fender, symbolizing not only her role in the illumination of the darkness but also the safety she promises, and has provided since the Winchester house burned.

  Compositionally, the flashing bright headlight leads down across Sam’s backside, to the knife; the line then leads to Dean’s hand, holding the gun, and ends on his groin. The elements of the image are emblematic of the boys’ roles and characteristics: active Dean, confronting and attacking the darkness head on, while passive Sam’s relationship to the enemy, and his own power, are more questionable. Dean’s shotgun tells us that he is DIY, a soldier on the front; Sam’s knife speaks of an older, archaic or mythic connection to ritual. Together, they represent a lineage of hunters, from knife to gun, from spirit to body. It’s a powerful image, and one which rings true three years later.

  Before Ruby appears, Sam’s Colt is the only known weapon capable of killing demons. Its creator built the devil’s trap in Wyoming that keeps Hell at bay, and wrote much of the literature on which the Winchesters depend. Ruby brings with her not only a revitalization for the Colt-and Sam’s journey toward manhood, which it signifies-but another, less male weapon. When Tammi stops Sam’s bullet in midair, Ruby tries to kill her with the knife, and Dean-perhaps implying his own proximity to and growing connection with the supernatural and the feminine-takes up the knife and succeeds. Now that Lilith has escaped from Hell and established herself as a major player in the American West, the Colt is no longer as powerful as the men once thought it was. It is natural to assume that the stakes are higher: the Colt took out Azazel, the main antagonist for the show’s first two seasons, and yet does nothing against Lilith’s handmaiden. The Knife provides a third alternative, and takes center stage as the third season winds toward its conclusion.

  As we learn, it’s Lilith who controls Dean’s contract, and thus his life-and the narrative itself-throughout the third season. A totally male, totally human, hunter weapon like the Colt cannot be expected to hold its own when the universe of the story, and the souls of the boys themselves, are growing so comfortable with the feminine, demonic darkness. By claiming Ruby’s demon knife for the final fight, the boys are adding a third object to their arsenal of props-and without even considering whether there will be consequences for claiming and using a demonic weapon.

  They’ve crossed the line into acceptance of their own darkness and complicity with the feminine, come close to accepting Ruby as a member of their coalition, and know that they must combine all the assets at their disposal in order to save Dean’s life, and go on fighting. A compromise with darkness, after all, is better than being taken by it utterly. But the irony in any deal with darkness, as we see time and again, is the way in which it carries with it its own derangement. The back-and-forth with Ruby resolves in a terrible betrayal as even she is overtaken by the Lilith demon, and the hounds of Hell carry Dean off to his reward.

  V: THE RUNAWAY & THE CROSSROADS

  (A boy turns his back on the darkness; he does not see the snake at his feet.)

  But if Dean displays all the conventional markers of heroic masculinity-his connection to the father; the Odyssean gift of gab; the ability to make stern and unemotional decisions-where do we find the masculinity in Sam Winchester? He’s not a damsel to be rescued, although he is often in need of rescue. He’s not identified with the supernatural in the same way as the episode’s throwaway female characters. He’s definitely male. How best to illustrate, in the mid-2000s, the concept of the spiritual male, as opposed to Dean’s physical approach?

  Sam’s relationship to the supernatural is all-or-nothing, and creeps from the inside. While Dean rejects the monsters on a case-by-case basis, killing them one by one, Sam’s first adult decision was to absent himself from the world of darkness altogether. Only threats to his family tempt him to cross the lines again. And once there, almost immediately, he is confronted from within. Sam reveals early in the first season his gift for premonitions, and admits that they began six months prior to the events of the first episode. He shares a kiss with Lori, the repressed girl whose own subconscious content summons the Hook Man-a very important theme for Sam, suggesting that connections to the shadow must be faced and assimilated, lest they control us, or hurt the people around us.

  Midway through season one-after once again leaving Dean behind-Sam meets Meg, whose connection to Azazel and Sam will determine the next season and a half. Next, Sam’s obsession with saving Dean leads them into a complex ethical situation wherein a faith healer is commanding a bound Grim Reaper. The boys begin to amass knowledge of other children chosen by Azazel, a story to which nearly every plot twist can be traced. Mary and Jessica’s deaths and the psychological implications of these for all three Winchester men, Dean’s quasi-death and John’s sacrifice, Sam’s death and rebirth, and Dean’s deal with the Crossroads Demon: all arise from Azazel’s selection of Sam.

  Sam’s mental or spiritual powers increase to include telekinesis in this episode, although it only arises from a need to protect Dean. Telekinesis is one of the few classic psionic powers that crosses the boundary from the entirely mental to the entirely physical: in terms of the mind/body dichotomy the boys
illustrate, Sam is using his Sam powers to effect a Dean change in the world, linking his passive mental abilities to the kind of physical movement, or violence, in which his brother excels. No wonder it’s painful.

  Leading up to the first season finale, Sam meets and mourns the lost innocence of a boy in “Something Wicked” (1-18) who-after being used as bait to tempt a demonic witch-will never be able to live ignorantly in a world free of monsters again. The feelings of resentment this provokes lead directly into the next episode, in which the boys finally rejoin their father. John retrieves the Colt, a magical gun and the only weapon known to kill demons, and saves Sam’s life, opening the door to their relationship’s rehabilitation. They bond over the identical deaths of Mary and Jessica, and the trio finally hit the road together. It’s a short ride: by the season finale, Dean has killed Azazel’s demon son with the Colt and Sam has shot his possessed father with it, and all three Winchesters end up in critical condition.

  John’s secret knowledge of Sam’s fate-that Azazel’s plan for him might necessitate that Dean kill his brother-is revealed halfway through season two, driving a wedge between the brothers just long enough for Sam to meet the next of the Special Children, Ava. Just as Dean was led to reconnect with his hunter family at the Roadhouse in the wake of John’s death, this final break and posthumous betrayal by his father leads Sam narratively to his magical family, the putative children of Azazel.

  Although Sam seems, in the aftermath of the Devil’s Gate, to have lost his powers, his association with the darkness has only increased. Azazel hints to Dean that his brother may not have come back “one hundred percent pure” (“All Hell Breaks Loose (Part 2),” 2-22), and early in the third season a demon refers to Sam as the “Boy King” of the demon armies. He also, most importantly, enters into a relationship with Ruby, a demon-self-described in “Sin City” (3-4) as “the little fallen angel on [his] shoulder.” It’s a new kind of interaction, in which there are promises made and loyalties presumed, that never could have existed in prior seasons.