Recap – “You Can’t Handle The Truth”
Back to Sam, who checks out the room, finds the obvious curse box under the bed, and we have a culprit. Of course that box contains a cat skull, so sadly we know what happened to Mittens. Sorry, the bitch deserved to die! Of course Sam isn’t exactly showing sympathy for the cat either. Come to think of it though, Dean’s always been the one who liked animals better.
Sam runs into Dean in the hall and asks where he’s been. There we go, RED FLAG right there. If Sam truly had been under Dean’s truth spell, the first thing out of his mouth would have been a straightforward “I’ve been sleeping with prostitutes,” and maybe “It stings when I pee.” Dean would never have to ask a question. Sam would have his confession “I watched that vamp turn you because I wanted access to the nest and thought you could handle it,” before they got down the stairs.
No, Dean didn’t pick up on this at all. He tells Sam they need to talk. So Sam asks what’s up. That’s a clue Dean, pick up on it! Sam wouldn’t have to ask what’s up. He’d already be spilling. Dean tells him he’s going to tell him the truth and Sam gives that automatic “of course” before jumping to the conclusion that Dean has triggered the curse. Dean admits he asked for the truth and he’s going to get it. Think again Dean! Dean tells him he has a few questions for him. Of course Sam just looks at Dean with that “You can ask me anything” expression. NO, NO DEAN, this isn’t how it works!
“When that vamp attacked me, why did you just stand there?” Sam hesitates, contemplating this answer. He tries putting sorrow and emotion into it too. Again, not right. It’s supposed to be a fast, mind controlled answer. “I didn’t.” Dean gives him the stone cold stare. Not good enough Sam! So he twists it some more. “I froze.” Dean doesn’t believe that one either. “You froze. You’ve been Terminator since you got back.” Sam goes for the shock defense and even tries to throw in his trademark sigh of despair, but it’s so off. Come on Dean, you wouldn’t believe him if there wasn’t a truth spell. “Then I was too late.” Sam looks at Dean who’s softening a little, so he goes for more. “I feel terrible about it. Believe me.” No you don’t!!!
“Dean, I, can’t, lie, here.” Oh, this is so sad. He so can and won’t admit the truth. I hate seeing Sam outright lie like this. “You really think I would let some happen like that on purpose?” Don’t do that to Dean, don’t go there Sam. He’s traumatized enough. Don’t you know you always get caught in your lies? Sam notices that Dean is still skeptically staring so he goes on. “You’re my brother. How, how could you-” Now Dean stops him. His eyes start getting glassy and his “okay” is slightly broken. Sam tries to do puppy dog, he really tries, but it’s not quite there.
Dean is clearly upset. “Sorry, I thought I saw something.” Yeah, you did. Your brother selling you up shit’s creek! “I guess I was wrong,” Dean says. Oh Dean, I wish I could assure you that you got all worked up for nothing, but you were right. Don’t fall for this! “It’s just been a really, really bad day.” Now that’s the truth! Take note Sammy. Sam closes it all with a whopper and I am so broken hearted for Dean right now. What did he do to deserve this? Sam pats Dean on the shoulder. “Hey, it’s okay, I’ve got your back, alright?” Sure you do Sam, so you can stab him when he’s not looking! “I always have.”
I don’t know, maybe I’m being hard on Sam. I think Sam wants to believe this, but he’s been on autopilot so long he probably has no idea he’s being insincere. That would make a good argument, except later when Dean’s waving a knife at him he proves he actually can be sincere.
Dean gives a broken “Thanks Sammy” and Sam gives him a half hearted reassuring smile, before turning around to leave and letting the cold expression take over again. Wrong, wrong, wrong! It’s just a totally messed up situation. I want my Sammy back. This guessing is getting so damned hard, not to mention heart breaking. Give poor Dean a break for Chuck’s sake! Sam too, although once he gets back to normal the trauma is just about going to crush him. Damn, I need more kleenexes! This is just plain tragic.
This part of the episode, albeit short lived, is actually refreshing. The brothers are relaxed and working as a team again. Dean is looking at the cat skull (cry!) and confirming it was the chick’s pet. Sam says she was obsessed. “I think you mean crazy,” Dean says. Got that right! Sam goes through the contents of the box. Cat skull, grains of paradise seed, and devil’s shoestring. Okay. Throw it all together with a summoning spell and you’ve got, Veritas, The Goddess of Truth. Dean asks if it’s a demon. Nope, God. Not the God, just a God.
So the gist is, girl couldn’t get truth from boyfriend, goes another way. Except as Dean so well put, this is a door she couldn’t close. I’m shocked she didn’t read about the suicide side effects and the fact that Veritas likes to eat people. Maybe she did but was too stupid and desperate. Needless to say, anyone who asks for the truth faces the wrath of this bitch. You kill yourself, she gets her tribute. Or as Dean put it, a Soylent Green situation. Yes, she eats people. So that’s why the bodies have been disappearing from the morgue. Sam points out they have to take her out or Dean’s on the menu.
Okay, so how do they figure out who this Goddess is? According to Sam, dogs are her achilles heel (those crazy cat people) and she was a pretty hands on Goddess back in her day. “She was coming down from the mountain to speak truth to the masses. She wanted more than tributes she wanted to be worshipped.” Now, some people think that Dean’s next conclusion is a stretch but I don’t. “An attention whore.” It would have to be someone local and TV news personality would be number one on my list. I doubt Calumet City is a mecca for movie stars. “And what is the 20th century version of speaking truth to the masses?”
Alice Jester is the founder, editor-in-chief, head writer, programmer, web designer, site administrator, marketer, and moderator for The Winchester Family Business. She is a 30 year IT applications and database expert with a penchant for creative and freelance writing in her spare (ha!!) time. That’s on top of being a wife, mother of two active kids, and four loving (aka needy) pets.
Alice,
Great recap as usual.
So much about this episode has already been said, so I won’t reiterate.
The thing about Cas finding the boys. He doesn’t show up unless they call (pray) to him. Maybe they are invisible to angel eyes unless they go shouting angel names.
Dean has shown like for animals (rabbits!) but not Yorkies. And Sam did have that dog during his run away time. Equal like maybe? Well, not now Sam, but Sammy Sam.
Thank you ever so much for referring to Sam’s shirt as skimpy! Though I believe it unfair that in this show, that is what we get to call skimpy. *shallow sigh*. And I agree that the tub should have been full of hot, steamy water….*more shallow sighing* The pic you put up to mention Sam’s hair? Great, but I couldn’t stop looking at Dean! The expression on his face…heh.
Thanks again for the recap!
Hey Alice,
I am pretty sure our lovely Goddess is driving a 1960’s Jaguar XKE otherwise known as an E-Type (possibly a 1962 in specific). 😀
Also, I was thinking. If Sam’s logic chip was working, he would have realized playing the sympathy card (especially with no soul/emotion) would not work on Dean. Not this time.
A more honest answer from Sam would have been more along the lines of “I probably need help, but since I’m such a good hunter I don’t know if I want help.” I think Dean would have believed that over the unconvincing “I need help.”
Friday is almost here! I have my fingers crossed for more answers cause Sam really does need help.
Don’t hot dogs come with onions and tomato sauce … That’s two of your five-a-day right there! Also mustard is sort of plant based, at least in theory …
I think it’s cunning the way Souless Sam has inverted all the little things that used to define the character. His hair is perfect, he eats proper Man Food, he has actual sex, he’s altogether free from the ravages of guilt … He has become James Bond. Yuk. Bring back the old shaggy, finnicky, embarressed one that we know and love! ( but lets have a bit more angst and bondage first, because we’re worth it … ) 😉
Good recap Alice. Loved the calendar as 2010 too. Don’t need to be reminded that they kept the boys apart for a year.
Dean did resist his first impulse, which was to kill Sam. That was evident when he put the knife down. But there was no way Sammy would get off scot free. Sam’s plea for Dean to feel sorry for him saved Sam. Maybe Dean still has some brotherly bond with Sam, although after what Sam did, it can’t be much. As to the severity, you don’t poke a hornet’s nest with a stick and expect not to get stung! How Sam could have thought his brother was not going to unload on him I don’t know. Sam lost his feelings not his intelligence. Sam really should have really spent more time in having that beer with Dean!
Maybe after a year of lying to people and getting away with it, he thought it would work here too. It was a while before I believed Sammy was really telling the truth this time. And I have to wonder why he waited until he actually was caught red-handed before he told Dean the truth. Sam is lucky Dean didn’t kill him.
Chuckle, Alice, I too am an American made…or, well, Canadian made, American made…..OH you know what I mean, gal. I grew up in a 66 Cutlass Supreme.
However, I had a number of friends who were European car nuts so I learned my exotics too. 🙂
And hey, guessing is good – think of it this way, you were right that it was a European car!!
One of the things that bothers me the most about that episode was Bobby’s reveal that Dean is his favourite. I’d always have thought that Sam and Bobby had more in common, and Bobby seems to understand Sam, so I was kinda hoping….
Seriously though, is Sam anyones favourite? Makes me sad.
Also, the eating tongue thing? Wrong, on so many fecking levels. The dentist thing…. wrong. Anything to do with teeth, wrong….
Out of interest, what questions would people have asked Sam and Dean had they been in that situation?
Well, I’m glad that I’m not the only one to notice that Sam is no one’s favorite. Bobby, Castiel, Ellen, Jo, everyone prefers Dean. And as if it wasn’t obvious enough, now they have the characters say it aloud. I didn’t think Bobby’s words were funny. I was sad to hear them. I wish Samuel was “good” so he could make a connection with Sam rather than Dean, for a change.
In this case, don’t forget that Bobby’s words were inspired by a Goddess out to have folks committ suicide so she could eat them. Do NOT take Bobby’s words as TRUTH. He may have spoken the truth in that moment, but moments change.
To me, even what Dean said under the curse of truth was not!truth. There was an element of truth to it but it was truth pulled by Veritas with one goal in mind – to hurt someone else.
And if it makes anyone feel any better, BOTH boys are my favourite. 😀
Great recap Alice,
I think this episode should have been called ‘Somebody give Dean a Hug, He needs One’. 🙂
Goddess spells should have a declaimer on them:’side effects include suicide and becoming lunch’. 😆
You are right, when you side with the MOTW and not one of the starring characters there is a problem. 😆
Remember in ‘Time is on my side’, Sam told Dean that they were already on a case ‘Dean’s deal’, This episode Bobby tells Dean, that the case he is on is ‘Sam’.
I think that Sam (in the form of Colin Ford) is standing in the cage with Lucifer and Micheal/Adam, and he is holding on to Dean’s amulet, waiting for his big brother to come and get him. But that is just me. 😀
I just thought of something, when did Lisa ever see Sam and Dean together? In ‘the kids are alright’, she never saw Sam, in ’99 problems’, Dean was there alone. How does she know what kind of relationship they have or had? IMO she is just a jealous ‘female dog’.
I promise that this will be my last Lisa bashing. 😛