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Supernatural - Episode 9.19 - 'Alex Annie Alexis Ann' Review

24 Apr 2014

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I think we just got our first Sam-centric episode this season. Yes, on the surface it appeared to have more Jody focus than Sam focus, and you have to be very familiar with Sam’s history and dig a little to see the connections, but the whole episode was written as a parallel to Sam’s role in his family and his struggles with the codependence of his and Dean's relationship.

Like in the earlier episode Purge, we saw a parallel-heavy case, in this instance brought to Sam and Dean’s attention when their old friend Sheriff Jody Mills calls them about a girl she suspects ran away from vampires. It doesn’t take long before the anvils start dropping with the similarities between the girl, who goes by Alex now but who was Annie before she was kidnapped eight years earlier, and Sam. Alex has now come to think of the vampires as her family, but she’s not really one of them. Her family hunts humans, and she helps them by luring humans into traps for them to feed on and kill. But she feels guilt about it because she was never fully turned, and tries to escape her vampire family.

Sam has always felt on some level like a monster. We learned back in season 5 never felt like he fit in with his family either (Lucifer referred to Dean and John as Sam’s foster family in Swan Song), and on at least one occasion, ran away from home. Whereas Alex was a human living in a family of vampires that hunted humans, and on a basic level identified with humans even though she loved and felt guilt over her family, Sam instinctively understood that he was a monster (because of the demon blood), living with a family of humans who hunted monsters, often over-identified with the monsters, and has been plagued with guilt.

Shifting Perspectives

The episode, written by Robert Berens, tells this story through shifting perspectives. Although not seen through Sam’s eyes, the story starts by being told with parallels to how Sam sees his family situation, and how he felt like his own individuality was held hostage by his family who forced their bloody, hunting way of life onto him, and would always come after him whenever he tried to break free. I have to admit, I cracked up laughing both time watching this scene, thinking about the characters of Sam and Dean saying these lines:

Sam: “Okay, you care about them, but Alex, there’s a reason you decided to ran away.”
Alex: “It was time. To move on and get out on my own.”
Dean: “And how do you think that decision is going to sit with the rest of the nest? One of them already pursued you. You think when the rest of them find out that you left, they’re just going to shrug and cut their losses?”
Sam: “You lived with them for years. They’ve tasted your blood. They have your scent down cold. How far can you run, and for how long?"
Dean: “You didn’t think this out, did you? What would happen? Who might get hurt? Your brother, for one.”

Sam: “You’ve got two options – them or you.”

And then we get Dean’s perspective on Alex/Sam. He often vacillates between feeling protective of his brother, admiring his brother, and resenting him. Here he is speaking with Alex’s foster big brother:

Dean: “Vamps, they kidnap kids, well, (pulls out knife) I’m going to enjoy putting you down.
Dale/Vamp: “Of course, I knew this was about Alexis. I warned Momma that girl would screw everything up for us one day.
Sam: “Momma, as in one vamp turned you all?”
Dale/Vamp: “Well, all of us but little sis. She was too good to turn. Momma couldn’t bring herself to, no matter what we said, no matter how bad Alexis got.”
Dean: “Bad?”
Dale/Vamp: “Let me guess, you never had a teenage sister. Dragging her heels. Whining. Near constant about everything,  but more and more about the blood, like she’s somehow above it. Like she’s better than us cause she don’t feed on people.”
Dean: “She is better than you, you dumb ass!”
Dale/Vamp: “Her moping. That teenage crisis of conscience crap. It’s annoying as hell, but it’s just an act. When the chips are down, she’ll always choose us over humans.”

What’s interesting here is that when the perspective shifts for the second time to the final third portion of the episode, with the focus on Jody’s motherly perspective, both Sam and Dean seem to agree that Alex is too far gone and can’t be saved. I’m not surprised to hear this from Dean. Part of him has judged Sam harshly for quite a long while, at least on a subconscious level if not a conscious one. I struggled with Sam reaching this conclusion though, in part because the series has a long history of Sam and Dean being in similar situations – with a monster as a proxy for Sam – and Dean wanting to put the monster down and Sam wanting to save it. Maybe this is about where Sam is now – dreams of his normal life beaten out him and convinced that he will never be free from the monster part of him. It was sad to see that Sam didn’t even put up a fight in Alex’s defense.

There’s a symbolic scene were Sam is captured by the vampire family, tied up, and being drained of his blood – the demon blood being the thing that always separated Sam from the Winchesters and a primary source of his individuality. Like Sam being drained of his blood, Alex also chooses to give up her the physical part of her individuality and be turned into a vampire.

The final part is mostly focused on Jody, motherhood, and actions of the two mothers (Jody and the vampire mother) who are both filling the void of losing of a child by mothering Alex. But even though the focus is more on Jody, Alex’s point of view is Sam's. Alex tells Jody, “When momma offered, I just, couldn’t disappoint her again. I have enough to be ashamed of as it. Jody, I’ve done things.” These statements mirror many of Sam’s own comments – his guilt about things he has done and his feelings of being a disappointment to his family.

My initial reaction to the Jody insertion at this point in the season was that the timing was wrong.  Jody's loss happened four or five seasons ago, and we're in the final five episodes of the season. But reflecting more, the Sam/Dean conflict needs some resolution. And the choice of bringing in Jody for this is interesting.  Bobby played a surrogate father figure, mostly to Dean, throughout his run on the series. As Jody started to reappear in guest slots, she was initially paired with Bobby and seen by some as a potential mother figure to Sam and Dean. She’s had more interaction with Sam than Dean, and I wonder if what we saw in this episode – Jody through her mothering instincts being the person who can see through the family dysfunction in Alex’s life and save her – might be set-up for what is to come with Sam. This episode seemed to make that point that Sam is too far gone to do what he once did - which was break away from his family on his own.  Jody might be in a position to help Sam reconnect with the his independent spirit he once had that seems to have become deeply repressed over the years – the repression starting with Jess’s murder and incrementally growing with everything else that has happened to him since.

I’ve been critical lately of the lack of Sam point of view and connections to understanding Sam now with what has happened in his past. This episode was a good start in addressing some of those issues. The final test will be seeing what, if anything, comes out of it. Insight and parallels are all well and good, but there needs to be progression in the development of the characters.

Nitpicks

A final point - I had a few nitpicks about the continuity of the episode (minor, really, but we wouldn’t be Supernatural fans if we didn’t nitpick):

- When I saw the vamp with the rifle in Sam’s back, my first reaction, is “We have this!” In season 2, Jo put a rifle in about the same place in Dean’s back. Dean replied she shouldn’t so that, because he can do this - and then he did a swivel thing and got the rifle away from her. Since Sam has been hunting with Dean for what must be close to 20 years now, if Dean knows how to get out of that situation, it’s certain Sam does too. And that was a memorable scene.
- The vamp mother tells Alex that her guilt and feelings of humanity will drop away once she’s turned. This contradicts the portrayal of Benny the good vampire from last season and Lenore, who had retained their guilt and moral compass long after they were turned.
- Why did the vamp not know Sam was close enough to hit him with a shovel when vamps have super hearing, and I think super smell?

So what did you think of the episode?  There was also development with the Dean/Mark of Cain story too, which I didn't get into here because I'm sure it will become more of a focus in upcoming episodes.

13 comments:

  1. Mama saying Alex would lose her human emotions didn't bother me that much. In Dead Man's Blood we saw the girl that was turned by Luther and Kate immediately become part of the nest. None of the newly turned vampires in Live Free or Twi Hard acted as if killing humans was a moral concern. It was enforced by the head of the nest who was keeping them off the radar and who was working to increase the ranks of vampires. Lenore admitted that her nest started being "vegetarians" because vampires had been hunted so they were nearly extinct and eating animal blood started as a way to stay under the radar. Benny fed until he fell in love with a human and stopped. I tend to think the human emotions are dulled at first and only come back after a long time and even then it only happens rarely.

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  2. Thanks for the comment. I interpreted the vamp experience as best portrayed with Gordon. After he was turned, he was still Gordon but he had an insatiable hunger for blood that made it impossible to focus on anything else. I can't remember if Gordon had fed though. I remember he killed his friend, but I don't remember if he had taken that step of drinking human blood. To your point though, I suspect the hunger would dull a little over time, or vamps might become better able to manage it with motivation.

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  3. The only parallel I saw in this episode was Jody and Mama Vamp on their feelings of loss and emptiness. I made no connection between Sam and Alexis, because Sam was supposedly "purified" of his demon blood and his sins in Sacrifice. Sam went on to confess his guilt over repeatedly
    disappointing Dean and Dean reassured Sam that he was and always would be the central person in Dean's life. To now say that the show is going back and addressing Sam's mixed feelings about family as the drivers in Sam's story and behavior this year is to say that the viewers are to believe that Sam does not put Dean central in his life, did not commit to hunting when Dean gave him the choice of "both feet in or out," and when he accepted the bunker as his "home" in Slumber Party.

    Sam spent the first half of S8 telling Dean that his ideal life did not put Dean as the central figure, or perhaps even as any part of his life. That desire for his ideal life was so strong that Sam abandoned Dean like never before, and he abandoned Kevin. We were led to believe that the reason for this was that Sam had found new "maturity" and walked away from the co-dependency, and part of
    that new maturity was choosing each other over the mission. I will be disappointed if we are again doing a rehash of Sam's "feelings" towards his family,

    What would be a new story is Dean figuring out what he wants from Sam and for them to clear up Dean's hurt feelings over Sam abandoning him. The brothers' conversation in Sacrifice was a powerful scene, but what Dean needed from Sam, gets from Sam, and Dean's hurt feelingswere not addressed. (And BTW, I am still ticked off about Sam's attitude towards Benny and he never acknowledged that Dean had to go against his basic moral principle of 'loyalty,' when Benny called
    him for help or asking his friend to let him kill him for Sam's benefit.

    I got that the vamp was talking about Alexis and the anvil for the viewers was to see similarities to Sam, but I did not see Dean’s reaction indicating anything about his feelings about Sam so much as the scene was to show more of the MoC’s affecting Dean. He is obviously getting physically stronger and less emotional.

    My view on the episode is that it was written for Kim Rhodes just to use the actor again. I don’t
    mind Sheriff Mills and Kim Rhodes is a good actress, but this was another episode that did nothing to move any of the stories forward. I really did not care if she is grieving or that Mama Vamp had a whole in her that could not be filled, so I did not enjoy the episode at all. I find myself losing all patience with the season not telling a compelling story and barely telling it at all.

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  4. I don't think the show has ever said that Sam didn't want Dean as part of his life. I think it's saying that hunting, and all of the blood and killing that goes along with it, was never the right fit for Sam, but he felt pressured into it by his family. The fact that he feels torn and guilt means that he does love his family.


    I'm not sure Sam every promised "both feet in" forever, but he broke up with Amelia as a sign that he heard what Dean said and didn't want to endanger her life by trying to do both. And while I don't think Sam is consciously thinking yet about reevaluating his choices (the fact that this episode wasn't from Sam's POV indicates he's not, and he seems too beaten down for that), I think the writers might be saying that maybe he should. If Sam felt confident in his relationship with Dean at the end of season 8, Dean's role in the Gadreel possession has most likely put all of that in doubt.


    As for the demon blood and cleansing, my understanding is that Sam was trying to clean the demon blood out of his system through the trials, but because he never completed them, he wasn't able to. And with Benny, if I recall correctly, Benny had the chance to come back with Sam from Purgatory but chose not to, so that's not on either Dean or Sam. Anyway, thanks for commenting.

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  5. Well, vampires have been shown to be able have emotions like love (they mate for life) and loss (the vamp that turned Gordon pretty much gave up after his new nest was killed), and even in this episode with mama vamp, she was dealing with the loss of her daughter with Annie.

    But most vampires still killing humans as food, and it's just survival to them. So they have no real remorse when it comes to killing. And what mama told Annie was a means to an end, to get to become a vamp willing by saying all of her remorse will wash away. It clearly didn't work with Annie, because she ended up saving Jody.

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  6. I got very invested in this episode. I also don't understand why Sam does not try to talk to Dean about what is going on between Dean and the Mark of Cain.
    One thing I noticed was when Dean got hit by Silent Hillbilly Brother he turned and got hit in the face. Hard enough to knock him out. Yet when he got up and started to take down the vampires there wasn't a bruise or anything blood on his face. But they managed to show Jodi's wounds quite graphically (the woman really DID look beaten up). Why no bruises on Dean? I have read speculation that the Mark of Cain brings Immortality. Is Dean now immortal? And he doesn't know it yet?

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  7. Considering that Sam gave up the trials for Dean it's quite probable that he gave up the chance of being clean. It's also interesting what you said about 'repeatedly letting Dean down'. That mentality is something that has been wholly enforced by Dean who seems to be unable to see Sam's actions for any more than how they affect him. However, Sam not doing what Dean wants him to do or expects of him is not betrayal. Sam wanting to leave hunting, a life that is destroying him, is not betrayal. He went with Ruby so as to stop Lucifer so that's not betrayal, except in Deans eyes. That Sam wanted to die so as to not 'betray' Dean any more is a form of traumatic bonding. It shows that Sam only sees worth in himself if Dean sees worth in him. And Dean only sees worth in Sam if Sam does what Dean wants him to do. Otherwise it's 'betrayal'. However, it's only betrayal if you consider that only one persons POV. And maybe, as soon as Dean starts seeing Sam as more than just a baby brother, and more of an individual, he'll be able to consider Sam's actions in a more impartial way. Sam is a big picture kind of guy. He has to be. He, like Alex, in this, knows that choosing 'family' is not always the best way to go, for themselves or others.

    That's not to say that he won't ever choose Dean. He has on numerous occasions, even if it wasn't the best thing to do. However, should Sam put 'family' over the lives of other people? Alex had that choice in this episode and she didn't.

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  8. Interesting review. I'm glad you wrote so much about Sam's role and POV in this. I will have to read it again.

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  9. Thanks. It's a minority view, I'm sure, but that's why I'm here.

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  10. Vamp!Gordon tried hard to resist it, but killed the guy in the car and presumably drank his blood. He didn't drink his friend though.

    Great episode analysis, Chris. With respect to Sam not disarming shotgun!vamp, the show has written Sam as piss poor hunter relative to Dean since S8. Season 1-5 Sam would have readily disarmed the vamp - we saw him do it at least a few times.

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  11. Thanks for the clarification. It's been a while since I've watched the Gordon episode. Sam and Dean getting captured by the vamps seemed a little lazy. They've been able to handle themselves in much tougher situations (with or without the mark of cain), so this is a recurring issue.

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  12. No problem. I really liked Fresh Blood because it highlighted Gordon's struggle not to give in to 'monsterstood' but once he did he thought he could his increased vamp speed, strength and reflex's to kill an even greater potential monster - Sam. Those were the days when both boys were smarter than the monsters and monsters rarely got the jump on them.

    Now both boys (and Cas) seem to have been dumbed and slowed down to serve the plot. For the last set of episodes, in particular, it IS a running joke as Sam and Cas have been taking turns getting kidnapped, restrained and hurt. In this episode moments after Jody said something like "You boys won't let the Vamps get the jump on you?" Sam lets the vamps get the jump on him and Dean enters the room just in time to see Sam's (being humiliated AGAIN!) captor and gets a hard whack in the head himself.

    Still I liked 919 better then some episodes this season - I really like Jody and Jody's saving herself is more realistic than Charlie beaning the Wicked Witch with Dorothy's magical shoe.

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  13. Fresh Blood was a good episode and Gordon was a great character. I didn't notice the line about vamps getting the jump on them . Thanks for pointing it out!

    I didn't talk about Jody too much in this review, and I probably should have more - the downside or writing these a little rushed as I try to get them out before work. Jody beheading the vamp at the station was a great scene. It was awesome to see her hunting.

    I really liked this episode because I felt like it was one of those episode where just about every line means was carefully chosen, and I don't often get that impression anymore. Too often lately I feel like the purpose of an episode is just to kill another hour.

    I have to say, I'm becoming impressed with what Robert Berens is putting out so far. There were so many layers in this one. There was obviously Jody dealing with her grief, and the parallels with the mother vamp. There were the parallels of Sam's past and feeling about feeling powerless (especially now after the possession), feeling like he disappoints his family because he's not what they want him to be, and feeling guilt and pressure to live a life he wouldn't have chosen. We desperately need more insight into Sam's POV. There were also parallels between the mother vamp and Dean. She buried the pain of losing a daughter by kidnapping a daughter and becoming a monster. Dean, I think, dealt with the pain of his mother's death by over-attaching to Sam, and is now becoming a monster with the Mark of Cain.

    There were subtle details in the filming too that led me to believe that Alex was the Sam proxy. There's the draining of the demon blood while Alex is being changed into a vamp, which I mentioned in the review. They also cut to a brief couple of seconds of point of view for both Alex and Sam during those scenes (we hear a heartbeat like a vamp does in the Alex scene, and when we rejoin Sam, the camera focus becomes fuzzy for a couple of seconds, like Sam would see the scene with his blood loss). They didn't cut to Dean's POV, and if it was a Dean-centric, they would have. And I always look to see who the camera tends to focus more after a scene for emotional reactions in trying to decide if the episode was supposed to be a character-centric episode, and they were focusing more on Sam's reactions on this one than Dean's.

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