Bardic’s Descant: 6:16 …And Then There Were None – She Has A Message For You
But the thing about family is that those lines of love and responsibility run both ways, and I think that was Dean’s point in distinguishing between Samuel, his blood grandfather, and the members of his core and adopted families. Dean knows beyond need of proof that Sam and Bobby, along with John, Mary, Ellen, Jo, Lisa, Ben, and a number of others love or loved him for who he is, flaws, warts, and all. And he also knows that however imperfectly that love was expressed just think how often he’s misunderstood Sam’s feelings, and vice versa, or how misguidedly John burdened his sons with his own issues in his desperate concern to protect them there was never an intent on the part of those others to hurt him, or even simply to use him for advantage. They and he all made mistakes along the way, and some of them were doozies; and they all struck out at him sometimes in hurtful, reactive moments of their own pain and anger even as he sometimes struck back in his own bitterness; but underneath it all was love, and their desire that Dean be well and happy even as he tried to benefit them the same way.
We never saw that kind of concern or love from Samuel Campbell for anyone but his wife and daughter. What we mostly saw from Samuel was calculation, a weighing and estimation of how the Winchesters could fit into and be used in his plans. And looking back over this season, we saw essentially the same from him for all the other members of his little contemporary family of far-flung, distant cousins. He used them all in pursuit of the only goal he really cared about: getting his daughter back. While he dangled the concept of family before them as the reason and the model for cohesion, he never seemed to forge with them the two-way bonds we’ve seen among everyone in Dean and Sam’s immediate circle. The closest Samuel seemed to come was in his relationship with Gwen, in whom to judge from what she said to Dean during the early part of Family Matters, he saw reminders of Mary. It was almost as if, in the absence of Mary, he indulged in the comfort of seeing her partially reborn in spirit in the form of Gwen.
In the absence of love, however, all of Samuel’s talk of family rang hollow. He played on the theme of family without ever achieving true harmony, because all his family feeling ran only one way: he expected loyalty and obedience from everyone else, but didn’t give them the same. He kept secrets and used people without regard for the cost to them, all the while expecting them to give him respect and trust. In particular, he never accepted Dean, even as he courted him simply in order to use him.
So I don’t see it as a disconnect that, while offering blanket pardons and apologies to Sam and Bobby in the name of family for anything they’ve ever done, Dean determined to kill and never to forgive Samuel. Blood notwithstanding, Samuel was never family, not as Dean has always understood it; and he failed to meet that definition not because of anything Dean did, but because of his own choice from the outset not to accept and treat the brothers with the love and care that translates into the reality of family.
The truth is, the families we make from the chance-met people in our lives are often as or more important to us than the families to which we were born. Love is what makes family, family; love and trust and shared responsibility and caring for each other. However imperfect, however flawed, however awkward in expression, the people we love and those who love us back make us who we are. They are the family we’re committed to accept unconditionally, whose mistakes we forgive seven times seventy-seven times, and whose forgiveness we beg for our offenses against them.
I submit that in Dean’s eyes, love is how you earn being family, how you become part of an enduring unit able to live in the assurance of being accepted and loved. If you don’t give it, even as John did in the most stilted and convoluted of ways, you can’t ever get it back.
And by that measure, Samuel isn’t and wasn’t family, no matter that he was their grandfather by blood. He could have been family, and that’s the tragedy; he just never cared to be, being too wrapped up in his own obsession even to care for his grandsons as anything other than tools.
You Don’t Know Half The Things That I Know, Kid
I remain convinced we haven’t seen or heard the last of the Campbells. I believe there had to have been a reason Samuel, of all human beings, was brought back from the dead, and I believe it had to do not just with his blood tie to the Winchester brothers, but to the nature of the Campbells as an historic bloodline of hunters with access to information no solitary hunter born of a recent personal tragedy could hope to have obtained. I don’t know whether we’ll discover more Campbells yet alive, see dead ones turning up as ghosts or other spirits, or simply learn things either through Sam recovering memories of his year with Samuel or through the brothers discovering the Campbell cache of family hunting history (did Samuel have a stash somewhere like John’s secret storage unit, holding the accumulated Campbell family records and artifacts?). However it happens, though, I’m certain there’s more to the story than what we already know.
Samuel belittled Bobby and Rufus as children compared to him in terms of monster knowledge. He was being snide, but I think in a way he was also telling the truth. Think of the things we learned only from Samuel, knowledge carefully guarded within the Campbell family and never shared with other hunters outside their bloodline: a cure for vampirism, an antidote to djinn poison, even the knowledge unveiled here that Eve had last walked the Earth about 10,000 years ago, and was the origin of all the monsters hunters knew. What we didn’t learn, however, was how Samuel knew that, or whether or what he knew about how she had been consigned to Purgatory back then. He didn’t seem to know about the Mother during Family Matters, or have any specific knowledge of Purgatory, instead simply pursuing his information-gathering assignment for Crowley, but that’s not to say he couldn’t have taken what he learned then and applied it to achieve a new viewpoint and different understanding of obscure information already in the Campbell archives. Just think how differently Dean viewed the first sentence of John’s journal after he learned in Home that Missouri was the name of a psychic: “I went to Missouri, and I learned the truth” always thought he meant the state.
I found it particularly telling that while Bobby and Rufus called all their available contacts in search of any information on the Khan-worm or Eve, Samuel volunteered nothing and called no one. We don’t know when Samuel got possessed by the worm; it could have been immediately after it fled Dean, since Samuel and Rufus had split up in their search, or it may not have been until Samuel was alone again in the bathroom. His failure to contact anyone or volunteer any additional information in the time between those events may have been the worm exerting control, but I doubt that; I think it was simply Samuel operating in his normal modus operandi, relying on and ruthlessly restricting access to his own sources of information. Campbells didn’t hunt with outsiders and didn’t share information with them. Samuel said it flat-out back when we first met him during In The Beginning, in his very first attempt to exclude Dean: I don’t trust other hunters, Dean. Don’t want their help, don’t want them around my family. It was Deanna who made Dean welcome and forced Samuel to be polite. Without his wife’s tempering influence, the Samuel who came back from death was closed off from anyone outside his limited definition of family. He didn’t turn to anyone – and that was absolutely consistent with who he’d been before.
I hope there’s another chapter for us to discover in the Campbell family history. There’s definitely something more there for us to see, and for the Winchester brothers to learn and understand. I simply can’t believe or accept their story ended here with the abrupt deaths of Gwen and Samuel.
[b]Very well written!!! 🙂 [/b]
Good one.
I’m sorry to lose Roops and Grandpa too. The formers back-story with Bobby was starting to look really fascinating and Ol’Eyebrows and his mysterious-but-definitely-dodgy hidden agenda was the most entertaining thing about this season so far.
I can’t work up much interest in Eve … Standard SPN issue decorative monologing murder minx. I hope she dredges up some hidden depths soon or the rest of the run’s going to be a bit short of properly hissable baddies!
Bravo! This was well written and very enjoyable to read. I agree with your assessments. I hope that the Campbell history is not lost. Samuel’s journal and his grandfathers must hold a wealth of knowledge that Bobby, Dean and Sam could use. Someday, I hope that we get to know more about John and his family.
Another excellent article. You are so positive, even in your criticisms. I hope you are right about some explanation about the Sampa; why was he brought back, why and maybe even how he hooked up with Sam…some kind of explanation as to why the Campbells were even in the season. As it was left, it appears as of now that this was a lost opportunity to flesh out an interesting story.
I’m still disappointed that Rufus was killed, especially since death of any kind is no longer a surprise or suspenseful event in SPN. The show has taken death as something surprising or shocking off the table by bringing everybody and their grandfather back.
I did like the episode…especially dark Dean, who is oh so much scarier than that silly Eve…and sweet Sam…and the brothers working together. Two episodes of that now, but that is probably not going to last much longer.
Excellent review. I always love them.
“One of my absolute favorite memories from this episode will always be the four men meeting outside the cannery at night to hunt together; it’s been a long time since we saw such smiles and perfectly shared happiness”
I’m so glad you mentioned it! It was my favorite scene of the episode. It seemed so natural, like they were actually having a good time, even if it was just for a second.
Wonderful review, as always! See ya in two weeks! 😉
Loves your assesement. But I wonder about the Khan worm’s confession. I wonder if it told the boys what it did while there is something far more insideous. The trap set for the hunters inside that cannery…what if Eve set it up so she could see how Hunters; specifically the Winchesters acted when no one could rely on each other,knowing that any moment one of them could be possessesed; manipulating the others. And what if Eve was psychically linked to the khan worm? She could see how easily humans mistrust each other in the face of the unknown. Of course she might be discounting these 4 hunters experience and personal history.
Also…when Sam got seperated and he and Dean shouted out each others names several times it was like their own version of MArco Polo and their own way of letting the other know they were there and not alone.
Amy
Hi Bardic!
Your analysis of Rufus & assessment of his backstory made me love his character & mourn his loss as part of the extended Winchester family even more. I will truly miss him!
I mourn too for the relationship the guys could have had with their grandfather & the Campbell clan. Samuel certainly did destroy that with his obsessive desire to get Mary back. He was a pawn of demons, yet he used his grandsons & all of his extended blood family as pawns also. How did seemingly all the current members of the Campbell clan readily accept the reappearance & leadership of a man they had believed dead for decades? I agree that we need to see more of the Campbell clan; the history of a centuries-old family of hunters is too tantalizing a carrot to dangle before fans, then simply drop it without further mention.
I think your explanation of Dean’s definition of family is spot-on. His speech at the cemetery made me think about how trivial are some of the squabbles I’ve had with my loved ones, & how my own family doesn’t end with blood either.
Dawn
Wow Mary, well worth the wait! I think this is your best, most insightful review yet. And that’s saying a lot because I’ve enjoyed every single one of your reviews. Your analysis of Dean’s speech at the cemetery has me thinking of my own families and how I want to interact with them. Thanks for that, m’dear!
Cheers, Rose