Supernatural - The Werther Project - Review

Supernatural, “The Werther Project,” was written by Robert Berens and was directed by Stefan Pleszczynski. The two last teamed up on “Alex Annie Alexis Ann” from last season. The episode rather artfully sets up a situation that allows us to get a real glimpse inside both brothers’ heads for a change. The episode also finally capitalizes on the Men of Letters rich potential for stories as we revisit Cuthbert Sinclair (Kavan Smith). Smith clearly relishes the role as the eccentric Sinclair, and I’m glad to see them bring him back, even if only in a flashback. I also want to comment right up front about how much I actually enjoyed Ruth Connell’s performance as Rowena in this episode. She dialed back the delivery to make Rowena a more plausible threat rather than just a joke.

The episode begins with the usual introduction of the monster of the episode – in this case the Werther box. A huge shout out to Jerry Wanek and his crew for recreating the seventies in this initial scene from the clothes, to the colors – particularly that harvest gold washer and dryer! – to the music, and then aging the whole thing to 40 years later.

That said, the scene itself had quite a few logic problems. First, I realize that Suzie (Erika-Shaye Gair) was rebelling against being given the stereotypical role of washing the clothes, but why would she pound a hole in the basement wall? Of course, it did look like they must have been planning on doing it anyway because the sledgehammer was right there. However, the music wasn’t loud enough for nobody to hear her pounding on that wall. And if you time her knocking down that entire wall with the music, she does it in record time! Perhaps most glaringly, for an artifact that was supposed to be rigorously locked away, that’s a pretty flimsy wall – and why wall in the water heater too? And there’s a window through which anyone could have looked in – and gotten in!!! – at any time. Regardless, we see that whatever came out of the box, caused most of the family to kill themselves… and we’re off.

In the present, Sam (Jared Padalecki) makes a deal with Rowena. In exchange for finding and presumably casting the spell to free Dean (Jensen Ackles) from the Mark of Cain, Sam will kill Crowley. Rowena tells Sam that she is the only witch alive who can understand the old, dark magic of the Book of the Damned, but even she needs help decoding it. Thus sending Sam back to the Men of Letters bunker to Nadia’s codex. Again, Connell is quite good in this scene. I actually loved her remarking “So rude!” under her breath when Sam checks his phone at the table when Dean texts him. It’s subtle rather than over the top and thus a lot funnier.

Dean meanwhile has gone off to take care of a nest of vampires in Tulsa while Sam is out – unbeknownst to him – meeting with Rowena. When Sam arrives, he’s understandably pissed at Dean for not waiting for him before taking out the entire nest of six vampires by himself. Was anybody else disturbed by how carelessly Dean was cleaning his machete covered in vampire blood with his bare hands?? It’s always great to see Sammy’s bitchface out in full force though!

Ackles is excellent in this scene as we subtly (finally!) see a shift in his demeanor when talking to Sam. He’s very clearly riding the high of the bloodlust, when he tells Sam, “Only way I can take the edge off. I’m sorry I don’t always like to wait around for you.” Giving in to the Mark and feeding it is taking Dean farther away from himself. Like an addict that’s had a good fix, we see Dean sleeping peacefully in contrast to Sam’s running to his room last week when Dean was caught in a nightmare.

Sam hits the books, and eventually finds the clue he needs in the tape of Sinclair’s expulsion from the Men of Letters. This scene is also beautifully shot as we are transported back in time visually through the audio tape as Sam as we watch Sam listen to it.

We see the Men of Letters sitting around the board table not so differently from Sam and Dean – at least if they were dressed as FBI agents! The whiskey and cigarettes are laid out as the group decides the fate of Sinclair. We also get the clue on how to open the box. Martinez was found with his wrists slit next to the box – an apparent suicide. We’re told the box as 98% lethality – which we’ve already seen. Apparently, the 2% is the person knocked out when the box is opened. The name “Werther” is no doubt a reference to the opera of the same name based on the book by Goethe, “The Sorrows of Young Werther.” The story centers around a young man who falls in love with a woman who must marry another. He comes to realize the only way to solve the love triangle is to commit suicide. This certainly resonates with Dean’s own dilemma. The Werther effect refers to the phenomenon of copycat suicides that may follow a well-publicized one. However, these aren’t really copycats, so I think the real reference here is to the underlying work.

The scene in which Cuthbert tells off the other Men of Letters is great. It also resonates with how Dean has always seen the MoL. Cuthbert tells them, “We were brought here to do great things, to take risks. To bring the fight to the monsters of this world. And yet, to a man, you choose instead to molder in these stacks. You are not men. You are NOT men. You’re librarians. Nothing more.” Neither Dean nor Sam can be accused of being merely librarians, and perhaps they represent the vision that Cuthbert had – but with better balance! It’s also a nice little jab at The Librarians, don’t you think?

In the end, Cuthbert refuses to help them diffuse the box, but he does give them a clue – Martinez was on the right track. Martinez was trying to use his blood to open the box, not kill himself, but no one MoL could do it on their own. In fact, the incantation says “our,” so I wonder if it would take the blood of all the MoL to open it – not all of one, but some of all? Luckily, all the MoL are Sam and Dean! In the past, however, the MoL determine to inter the box and keep in guarded in perpetuity, leading Sam to find the old MoL house in St Louis and Suzie (Brenda Bakke).

Sam sneaks off to get the codex, but Dean follows him, thinking he’s investigating the “St Louis Suicide House.” Sam isn’t happy to see Dean, but Dean assumes it’s just because Sam is becoming increasing uncomfortable around the “diseased killer puppy.” Sam explains he’s there because of the Werther box which is a ticking time bomb and their responsibility now that they are Men of Letters – it’s their legacy. I think I’m not alone in hoping that this is a move to following more of the Men of Letters’ cases.

It’s always fun to see Dean acting scared – and not going over the top with it. He manages to get into the house as “Neighborhood Watch” after Sam hilariously almost gets his “bits” blown off when he tried to break in. I loved Suzie’s description of Sam: “tall, white fella, pretty hair.” Yep. That about covers it! As Dean distracts Suzie, Sam sneaks into the basement. I loved Sam calling Rowena for a spell to break the enchantment and her wanting to help, telling Sam that “in inexperienced hands the incantation has a way of fizzling out.” And of course, this is exactly what happens. When Sam is distracted during the incantation, the flame goes out and he releases the curse.

This episode really had a season one vibe in its structure. Sam and Dean enter the house to try to save Susie from the monster, and it’s been a long time (or feels like it has been) since we’ve seen Dean tell a victim, “He’s my brother, we’re here to help.” I loved the immediate shift in Ackles delivery once Dean realizes Suzie is on to them. It’s a nice twist to see that Suzie has actually been guarding the box herself for the last 40 years, and it’s really only Sam’s interference that gets her killed. We see clearly that the curse has affected Dean and Suzie, but we don’t see it actually enter Sam. I have to admit that I thought Rowena was really there right up until Dean comes upon Sam in the basement.

The immediate effect seems to be limited to Suzie who immediately sees her dead family who all blame her for their deaths. As soon as Dean sees Sam, he blames Sam, saying “What did you do? You don’t have a plan! You don’t have a defense!” Dean wasn’t expecting Sam to try to open the box, and he has no idea about Sam’s advice from Rowena. Dean’s not wrong about not having a defense – Sam might have asked for one when he asked for the incantation.

Of course, the ghost of Suzie coming to Sam should be our first clue that Sam has also been zapped as she tells him, “There she is. The first casualty of your misguided mission. But what’s another human life to you? Anything’s worth it, long as you two make it our alive. And how’s that search goin? Any closer to a cure?” Sam tells himself she isn’t real (another clue that we should realize it isn’t real too – and I’m feeling stupidier as the evidence stacks up that I should have known!). She tells Sam what he’s been thinking himself all along – and this is beautifully paralleled by Dean’s conversations with Benny (Ty Olsson) in Purgatory.

Suzie goes on to say, “you thin Dean’s the wild card, the loose cannon, but don’t you see? Making deals with witches, opening Pandora’s box down there. You’re the reckless one. You’ll do anything to keep clinging to that doomed brother of yours. How many more will die, Sammy? The only one who can stop you is you!” While this is what fans have been wanting Sam to acknowledge for some time – and why they were so pissed off that Sam didn’t look for Dean when he went to Purgatory – this still sounds more like a Dean move. It’s not lost on me that they are re-writing the beginning to season eight in the episode that sees Dean return to Purgatory again – and he also gets himself out again on his own. But perhaps the point is that we are supposed to be seeing the brothers move closer together in how they deal with crises. Unfortunately, it seems they are both choosing the “damn the consequences” approach to saving each other. Sam’s addiction to demon blood and Dean’s breaking the first seal while in Hell apparently taught them nothing. Still, that’s not really the point of the episode.

Suzie would seem to be the rational part of Sam’s psyche, trying to get him to exercise caution – only to be banished by Rowena – it’s almost like he has an angel and a devil on his shoulder, telling him what to do. Rowena is a little too eager to tie Dean up when Sam doesn’t want to leave him. However, when they get back to the box, Rowena seems to cast the spell that illuminates the writing on the box – no doubt it is just the enchantment leading Sam to slit his wrists, but it seems like evidence that Rowena really is there. Clearly, the blood is working to open the box, but stops when Sam stops bleeding. It’s clearly another clue when Rowena tells him it wants it all – meaning all of Sam’s blood. Rowena wants the Codex, but she needs the Book of the Damned and is unlikely to get that if Sam is dead.

Meanwhile, we get some insights into what Dean is really thinking as he is reunited with Benny in Purgatory. Of course, Dean figures out pretty quickly that this isn’t the real Benny, no matter how glad he is to see his friend. He tells him that he’s “a figment, subconscious junk. Things my brain is throwing up to keep me from getting back to reality.” Benny symbolically keeps leading Dean in circles. Dean has been trying to figure a way out of his predicament and this is a nice representation of that fruitless search.

When Dean says he needs to get out of Purgatroy, Benny points out that need and want are two different things. He reminds Dean that Purgatory was his happy place, it was pure because it was killing with no consequences. The Mark wants the killing and Dean is increasingly unable to deny it, but Dean can’t live with the consequences. Purgatory would seem to be the perfect solution – liking killing nests of vamps. But Dean is tired of fighting, as we’ve heard him say repeatedly this season. Benny offers Dean a third way out – suicide – though interestingly, neither of them actually ever uses the word. But then, this is Dean really talking to himself.

Dean tells Benny that’s never going to happen. Benny assures him that there is purity and honor in doing it, but Dean tells him there is no honor in it. And then, as Suzie did to Sam, Benny throws Dean’s worst fears in his face. What if he loses control to the Mark or it kills him again, and then he kills a few humans? Or Cas or Sam? Benny goes on to say, “I forgot about your plan. Have Sam and Cas put you down. You really think they’re going to keep that agreement? And let’s say they do? Do you think they’ll ever recover from that” it will ruin them. It’s gnawing at you. You can’t leave that job to them.” Dean agrees.

Dean seems to be being swayed and says, “I always did love it here. As good a place as any to call it a day.” In reality, he’s gotten loose from the chair he was tied to and seems about to slit his wrists – or throat – with a broken bottle. Dean in Purgatory then seems to have a change of heart and says, “I’d do it if I really had to. I would. But the real Benny would never let me. This thing on my arm won’t let me either. The Mark wants me alive.” The Mark won't let Dean die easy but neither will Dean. And then he kills Benny, which banishes the enchantment for him. It’s impossible to tell if it’s Dean’s own determination or just the Mark which gives him the force of will to defeat the enchantment.

Dean naturally runs straight to Sam, saving him from bleeding out, and cleverly deducing that it just has to be legacy blood, not a single Men of Letter’s blood. Adding his own, breaks the enchantment, so Rowen goes up in a puff of green smoke and the box opens, revealing the codex. Then we get a pretty satisfying brotherly moment, naturally with the Impala. Dean gets it: as soon as they were separated by the Werther box, they were both in mortal peril. He tells Sam, “the universe is telling us something we should already know. We’re stronger together than apart.” Sam, however, continues to lie to Dean about the codex.

In the final scene, Rowena meets Sam to get the codex and translate the Book of the Damned. Luckily, we see that Sam doesn’t trust her and chains her up, telling her that all she’s going to do is translate enough to get the Mark off of Dean. Of course, it’s ridiculous for him to think she can simply read the part that deals with the Mark – want to or not. The whole point is that they don’t know what’s in the book so she will have to translate the whole thing, and then she’ll have all that magic at her disposal. Sam does tell her that he will honor both his promises: His promise to her to kill Crowley, and his promise to Dean to burn the book. One other problem that becomes immediately obvious is that once the Book is out of the iron box, it will call to the Mark and the Stynes. I guess we’ll see if that plays out.

This was a solid episode that gave us a decent monster of the week that also tied into the Men of Letters legacy and the mytharc – well done Robert Berens. We also get valuable insight into the brothers. Sam knows he’s playing with fire, and Dean knows that his plan is never going to work. Sam is willing to do whatever it takes, and Dean is never going to be willing to let Sam or Cas sacrifice themselves for him. Great direction and set design in this episode as well as more great smoke effects from the VFX department – really their specialty! Connell, Ackles, Padalecki and Smith all deliver excellent performances, with Connell getting the award for most improved! I hope this continues through the end of the season.

What did you think of the episode? Were you happy to get the insight on the brothers? I also really like how the episode touches on the theme of suicide when Ackles and Padalecki are running a charity campaign to raise awareness for mental health. You can find more on that here. Let me know your thoughts on the episode in the comments below!

About the Author - Lisa Macklem

I do interviews and write articles for the site in addition to reviewing a number of shows, including Supernatural, Arrow, Agents of Shield, The Walking Dead, Game of Thrones, Forever, Defiance, Bitten, Glee, and a few others! Highlights of this past year include covering San Diego Comic Con as press and a set visit to Bitten. When I'm not writing about television shows, I'm often writing about entertainment and media law in my capacity as a legal scholar. I also work in theatre when the opportunity arises. I'm an avid runner and rider, currently training in dressage.