Robin’s Rambles: “Unforgiven”
Unforgiven
6/13
Robin’s Rambles by Robin Vogel
Bristol, RI – one year ago – As Samuel watches, Sam shoots bullets into four SOMETHINGS we don’t see, then they quickly leave what looks like a small cabin. “Are you OK?” Samuel asks–“how’s the arm?” “It’ll hold till we get out of town,” says Sam as they both rapidly walk away. “Just don’t bleed out, all right?” says Samuel. “Yeah,” chuckles Sam, and we get a look at the bloody mess of his arm. They drive off in Samuel’s black van, but are tailed by the deputy, who pulls them over and orders the two “agents” to get out of the van. He’s seriously agitated, complaining, “I can’t get Sheriff Dobbs on the phone–I can’t get anyone!” “We spoke to Dobbs earlier,” says Samuel, “maybe he’s just uh. . .” “Is that BLOOD?” demands the deputy. Sam looks at his shoulder without expression. “Look, there’s no need to get riled,” begins Samuel. “You’re comin’ with me,” insists the deputy. Samuel agrees to follow him back, but the deputy orders, “Get in my car, or you’re under arrest.” “You’re going to arrest two Federal agents,” says Sam, laughing, “really–have a good night.” “If you think,” says the deputy. “Hey hey hey hey hey,” says Samuel, but Sam is lit–he pretends to turn away, then hauls off and belts the deputy in the face, then proceeds to beat the crap out of the guy, leaving him bleeding and unconscious on the road. “You think there may be calmer ways we could have done all that?” asks Samuel. “Do we care?” asks Sam–“let’s go.” We understand why Samuel later tells us that he finds his younger grandson scary. They take off, only Samuel sparing a final glance at the unconscious, possibly dying man in the road.
Editor’s comments: By the end of the episode, we know that Sam has shot four Arachne and the bullets haven’t even killed them, but when we see him shoot Roy Dobbs, who begs him not to, we get a completely different view of Sam Winchester. To me, it was like he was killing Jake, who also pleaded for his life. Sam was sure these men were done for, without even bothering to have a doctor check them out. If he had, the doctor would have died, too, or been turned. And the Deputy? He was in the way of their escape, pure and simple. To Sam, he was a deterrent, and needed to be gotten out of the way. If he had accidentally killed him, it wouldn’t have mattered; the end justifies the means. It WAS soulless Sam, and there is plenty of evidence in this ep that he doesn’t give a crap about anything beside solving the case–through whatever means possible. Brrrrr!
Present Day – Dean enters a hotel room to find Sam watching TV. “So–Mel Gibson really took a turn this year, huh?” remarks Sam, who says he’s catching up. “Or he’s possessed,” suggests Dean, “seriously thinking about it.” He tosses Sam something from a bag, presumably lunch. “So I just got off the phone with Bobby,” continues Dean. “Anything else on this Mother of All thing?” asks Sam. “Nothing solid, he says it’s quiet,” says Dean. “Quiet like quiet, or quiet like TOO quiet?” asks Sam, going to check his signaling phone. “Just quiet,” Dean answers. “Right,” says Sam. “Hm,” he says, and tosses Dean his phone. “Coordinates?” says Dean, concerned–“where from?” “No idea,” says Sam. Sam calls the phone number but gets no answer. He shows Dean that the coordinates line up to Bristol, Rhode Island, where three women disappeared in the last week–the victims seemed to vanish into thin air. “Where’s the text from?” asks Dean. “I dunno, just get ringing,” says Sam. “What’s that about?” asks Dean. “Another hunter, lookin’ for backup,” suggests Sam, “it’s a case, who knows how many hunters I even met, workin’ with the Campbells, but I think we should go.” “Wait, we should just drop everything,” says Dean. “Dude, two minutes ago, you weren’t doing anything,” says Sam. “You got mysterious coordinates from a mysterious Mr. X leading to a mysterious town–that doesn’t throw up red flags to you?” asks Dean. “I dunno,” says Sam, “maybe, but that doesn’t mean we can just ignore a bunch of missing girls–right?” Dean is torn. “OK,” he says, “we’ll check it out, but if things get squirrelly, we dump out, OK?” Sam agrees.
They pull up to the Bristol, Rhode Island sign, on which is painted a friendly octopus. WHERE MEMORIES ARE MADE! it promises, and Sam proves it right when he gets a bunch of black and white flashbacks–of Samuel, that same sign, an ugly woman–but when Dean notices Sam’s furrowed forehead and asks, “What?”, Sam says, “Nothing.”
At the sea and ship-themed Buccaneer Restaurant, Dean shuffles through the missing persons posters. “Freak’s got a type,” he grins, stopping at a brunette named Nicole Handler, turning her picture to show his brother, “whoa, this one’s got a bit of a wild side, it’s all in the eyes, Sam, see it?” “All right,” smiles Sam, eating his food, “aside from your little deep insight there, these women actually have nothing in common–different jobs, different friends, different everything–so what’s the connection?” Dean suggests to Sam that HE figure that out–“I’m going to go hit the Poop Deck.” (Yes, that’s what the bathroom is called!) Left alone, Sam chuckles and looks through the missing persons posters himself. “Agent Roark? Good to see you again,” says a pretty brunette, stopping at his table. “It is,” says Sam, not recognizing her. “You remember my husband?” she asks, pointing to the dour-looking man beside her–“Don.” “Of course, right,” says Sam, totally befuddled, “hi.” Don nods. “So, you’re back because it started again, right?” the woman says, leaning in confidentially– “the disappearances?” “Uh, yeah, right,” says Sam, “so if either of you hear anything, please let me know.” Sam exits the bathroom, smiling at a pretty blond going into the ladies’ room, who smiles back. He spots an “‘Eat a whole 72 oz. surf ‘n’ turf, get it free’ challenge on a nearby bulletin board and checks out the photos on it.
“Where’s your partner?” the woman asks Sam– “big bald guy? Agent Wyman, right?” “Sex rehab,” answers Dean, “you’ve heard of plushies, right? Brrrrrrr.” (Isn’t that a stuffed toy sexual fetish?) “This is my new partner,” says Sam. Dean shakes hands with the woman and her husband, then says to Sam, “So, AGENT, we should, uh,” “Yeah, yeah, of course,” agrees Sam. “Of course,” the woman says, smiling at Sam, “nice chatting with you, Agent Roark.” She leaves, touching his shoulder in a very familiar way. Sam flashes back to the two of them making out in the bathroom of this very place, then fumbling their way to the sink to have sex. She wraps her arms around him and whispers, “Cuff me.” The flashback ending, Sam turns to see her grinning at him, as if she’s reliving the same heated memory. “What was that?” asks Dean– “she was cougar-eying you.” Sam tells him he thinks he worked a case in this town. “Ya think?” says Dean, tossing him a picture from the wall. Behind a winner of the surf ‘n’ turf challenge sits Sam and Samuel! “Come on, let’s get the hell outta here,” orders Dean. The cougar and her husband, standing at the bar, watch them leave.
Sam’s doing computer research while Dean’s packing up. “Hop to,” he tells Sam. Sam doesn’t want to leave. A year ago, five men disappeared, and they never found the bodies–“That’s got to be the case me and Samuel worked, right?” “What difference does it make?” asks Dean. “A year ago, all these guys go missing, and now, all these women go missing,” says Sam, “something’s here, so either we didn’t stop it, or we only thought we did.” “OK, but why the gender bend?” asks Dean–“first it’s dudes, now it’s chicks?– totally different M.O.” “I don’t know,” says Sam, “the point is, something’s still here.” “Great–call Bobby, he’ll deal with it,” insists Dean. “Why? We can deal with it,” says Sam. “Are you serious?–Sam, there is a reason hunters don’t hit the same town over again–because we have a habit of leaving messes behind.” “I agree. . .” says Sam. “One of Dad’s rules,” says Dean, “never use the same crapper twice.” “Everyone uses the same crapper twice,” points out Sam. “Not us,” says Dean, and at Sam’s quizzical look, adds, “you know what I mean.” “This creature is still walkin’ around ’cause of me, right?” says Sam–“I let it go–Dad also said, ‘You finish what you start.'” Chuckling, Dean nods. “OK, I get it,” says Sam. “DO you?” asks Dean. “Yes,” says Sam, “you’re afraid I’ll stroll down memory lane and I’ll kick this wall in my head so hard, hell comes flooding through, right, and all of a sudden, I’m some drooling mess on the floor.” “It’s not a joke,” says Dean, deadly serious. “OK, I know,” says Sam, “but listen, “what’s happening here right now is because *I* messed up, somehow, in some big way, so every person who gets taken, every person who dies, that’s on me–I have to stop it–and you’d do the same thing.” Reluctantly, Dean agrees. “All right,” he says, “I’ll talk to the brunettes, you see what you get from the cops.”
[b]1. Now that you’ve seen souled and soulless Sam in the same episode, what do you think of the two Sams? How about Jared’s acting?
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Souled v soulless Sam? So different yet so alike. I’m kind of reminded of the Samifer – Sam conversation in Swan Song whenever I think of them. Samifer and Soulless Sam are quite similar, they both have logic in abundance, one of the things that differentiates them from Sam is how they apply this logic. (Sorry, this souled v soulless thing deserves more thought than I can give you this early in the morning!)
The acting = A1. I don’t think they even needed the black and white for the flashbacks because it’s like watching two different characters; the way he carries himself, the way he talks, what he says, his manner etc. Soulless Sam’s face seems a lot more… pinched and closed whereas souled up Sams’ is like an open book (one that Dean, especially, can read very easily) Soulless Sam just had an air of imperiousness about him where souled up Sam just invites everyone in.
[b]2. Do you feel that the Winchesters should never have chased this case? Would Roy’s death have made that much of a difference, given what it’s done to the wall in Sam’s head?[/b]
As the saying goes ‘If I knew then what I know now I’d be a wiser man’. I think they were always going to chase the case, just as the wall was always going to come down. They showed a loaded gun being put into Sam’s head during the first half of the season; they wouldn’t have done that unless they planned for it to go off at some stage.
[b]3. What do you think of the morality of soulless Sam? The womanizing, beating up the lawman, sending an innocent man, a friend, right into danger? Is the soul that responsible for how good we are?[/b]
Thing is, Sam was in a no-win situation here. Had he helped the men (not shot them, brought them to the hospital or whatever), odds are they would have died, only this time over a prolonged period, probably in agony (as soulless Sam believed would happen).
In a way, Sam’s choice was rather redundant, because he was damned if he did and damned if he didn’t. Was what he did ruthless? Sure. Was it the right thing to do…. (Wonder what Dean and souled up Sam would have done had they been in this situation)
However, (and this is where the show deserves a serious pat on the back, they blur the lines between ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ so well) Sam and Dean have used humans as bait before (Something Wicked and The Real Ghostbusters being two examples). They’ve killed monsters who were unaware of their um… ‘monsterhood’ before, they’ve beaten people up before, they’ve had random sex with strangers before (Dean might not have slept with half the female population of a town before but God knows, I’d say he’s like to give it a shot!)
So looking at it purely logically, what exactly is it, based on this episode, that makes souled up Sam so different from soulless Sam. We know he’s different but I find it hard to pinpoint exactly what it is that makes him different because most of what he’s done here, he’s already done before.
Sigh…. Show, I like you.
[b]4 Despite Dean’s insistence that they leave, Sam was easily able to talk him into staying. How have the dynamics changed between the older and younger brother? There used to be a time that what Dean said was what they did!
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I was thinking either (a) Dean stayed because Sam would just have bitched him into submission (just accept the inevitable Dean) or (b) Dean figured this case, if it wasn’t closed, would haunt Sam, thereby leading to more scratching, and therefore more of a chance of the wall collapsing. By staying around, maybe Dean hoped to have the case finished quickly enough that Sam wouldn’t need to scratch as much.
Though you’re right, Dean does seem to be maintaining a policy of appeasement towards Sam at the moment. He’s kinda treating him with kid gloves, probably because he’s concerned with the frailty of Sam’s mind. As was alluded to in Like A Virgin, Dean knows the memories of hell, he knows what they can do to a person, he doesn’t want that for Sam.
I love how this show can say ten different things with one look or one line of dialogue!
[b]5. Is this how it’s going to be for Sam, little episodes like the one we saw at the end, until he scratches so much, he punches through altogether and goes mad or dies?[/b]
I really hope not. Seeing seizures makes me uncomfortable. I guess a lot will depend on whether there’s a renewal for Season 7. Maybe there might be a few miniature flashbacks every once in a while but when and how, no idea. Plus, I don’t want Sam to go mad or die (cos I like him sane and alive….)
[b]6. What did you think of the Arachne? Creeeeepy eyes! I wonder if the mating business had anything to do with the Mother of All? [/b]
Spiders mating. Something else I could have gone a lifetime without thinking about! Those eyes were unnerving, all right. It’s hard to know if anything (everything?) ties in with Mother at the minute because what we know about her and Purgatory is still very much up in the air. (Though I really hope her plans for world domination amount to more than just ‘Go forth and fornicate’)
[b]7. The brothers seem tighter than ever. Isn’t it fantastic?[/b]
It certainly is. This was like early SPN with an added dimension. From the crappy room, to the maps (and I loved how they worked flawlessly together to set that up, like a well oiled machine), to the food (iced tea WITH LEMON!!), to Deans silent ‘How you doin’?’ everything really.
Thanks for the rambles, Robin 🙂
Loved this epi, love how the [i]early SPN episodes feel[/i] is coming through again. Yes, the brotherly bonding IS fantastic.
Yet two things bothered me in this story: after they found out Sam and Samuel were working a case here a year ago, why didn’t they just call Samuel to find out what it was all about? Would have saved them a lot of time and trouble, right? And second: Sam saw the web at Brenna’s house, a very unusual spider web, and didn’t do anything about it, just walked away? I dunno, doesn’t seem like our boys.
Those Arachne monsters were SO creepy, I get all itchy when I see monster eyes 😡 .
Jared was just AMAZING! The difference between soulless and souled up Sam – so convincing. Well done, dude 🙂 !
I love show !
Hi Robin
1. Now that you’ve seen souled and soulless Sam in the same episode, what do you think of the two Sams? How about Jared’s acting?
Jared was fantastic portraying both soulless and soulful Sam. You could really see the difference in both.
2. Do you feel that the Winchesters should never have chased this case? Would Roy’s death have made that much of a difference, given what it’s done to the wall in Sam’s head?
I think they needed to chance this case, more as a learning experience. Sam needed to learn just how fragile and dangerous this wall really is.
3. What do you think of the morality of soulless Sam? The womanizing, beating up the lawman, sending an innocent man, a friend, right into danger? Is the soul that responsible for how good we are?
Sam was pretty scary without his soul. It does make you think that if someone as sensitive and compassionate as Sam was can turn into this ‘monster’ then just how bad would I be without mine?
4. Despite Dean’s insistence that they leave, Sam was easily able to talk him into staying. How have the dynamics changed between the older and younger brother? There used to be a time that what Dean said was what they did!
I think this was showing that the dynamics are changing, that Dean was willing to let Sam learn for himself the dangers of picking at the wall.
5. Is this how it’s going to be for Sam, little episodes like the one we saw at the end, until he scratches so much, he punches through altogether and goes mad or dies?
I’m hoping that this experience will teach Sam that he has to stop scratching at the wall. But I think it will be a slow process until either the end of this season or will lead into season 7…if there is one.
6. What did you think of the Arachne? Creeeeepy eyes! I wonder if the mating business had anything to do with the Mother of All?
I hate spiders, have always been afraid of them so this was alittle easier to take, however they were still very creepy. I don’t think it had anything to do with the Mother of All.
7. The brothers seem tighter than ever. Isn’t it fantastic?
Yes I’m loving the brotherly dynamics…I have so missed it these past 2 ½ years.