Recap – “Unforgiven”
Oh, boy, I absolutely LOVE this next scene. It’s short but oh, so perfect. To think, so much is told in just two words. It’s night, Dean is driving, Sam has shotgun. They pull into this quaint town of Bristol, Rhode Island. How do we know? Why the giant sign with the cheesy/touristy logo and slogan. It comes with big lighthouse and an equal-in-size giant Octopus. Man, I hope Octopi are not really that size! Could you see an Octopus that size on the ice at Joe Louis arena in Detroit? No, because he only has 5 legs. You need 8 to carry on the Red Wings’ playoff tradition. I’ll tell ya, if I had pulled into this town, I would have stopped to take a picture of that sign. Now that’s how you welcome people!
Oh, but Sammy ain’t feeling the warm fuzzies. Not one bit. He sees the sign and sparks start flying in that Cro-Magnon skull of his. Which makes the slogan “Where Memories Are Made” about 8,000 times funnier. Something tells me these aren’t happy memories. Let’s see, a set of eyes close up (which we learn later to be Roy’s), a flash of a woman creature, Samuel, back to current freaked out Sam, the sign in black and white (indicating he’s seen it before, totally brilliant!), back to more current freaked out Sam, the sign back then up closer, current Sam, then Samuel, current Sam, old sign, then current sign. Â
The flashes stop but that’s enough to jolt Sam pretty good. Dean casually looks over in time to see his brother isn’t quite right. Here come our two words of dialogue. “What?” Dean asks. “Nothing,” Sam replies, but he is clearly covering something. Dean knows it, but files his brother’s panic under “remember that for later.” The Impala motors on. Â
They’re eating in one of those tacky seafood-themed restaurants, like a Joe’s Crab Shack. It’s a little too upscale for Long John Silver’s. Either way, I don’t recommend the Octopus. Dean’s going through the missing-persons posters and finds one of a brunette, Nicole Handler. He’s clearly having fun, for he notices just by looking at her picture she’s got a wild side. “It’s all in the eyes Sam, see it?” Dog. Right, later. Dean ends this conversation, but he’s gotta hit the “poop deck.” Yeah, that’s so bad it’s funny. I’m also having a hard time scratching that visual out of my brain.Â
Sam looks at the pictures and hears “Agent Roark?” There’s a flirty woman and her grumpy-ass husband. She seems pleased to see him, and the hubby doesn’t. She leans closer and asks if he’s back because it started again. The disappearances. Sam plays along, but it’s clear he doesn’t remember her from before. He will!  In the meantime, Dean emerges from the “poop deck,” taking time to flirt with a waitress on his way out. Aww, that’s the Dean we all know and love. He’s looking for fun at all the pictures of the crazy-ass people who have eaten a whole 72 oz Surf and Turf and gotten it for free. Given the amount of pictures, that’s quite a deal! Dean and his eagle eye instantly spot something.  Â
Back to Sam dealing with the cougar, and she asks where his partner is. You know, Sam, the bald-headed guy. “Sex rehab,” Dean answers, as he’s back now at the table. “You’ve heard of plushies, right?” Then he shivers. Ha! Too funny! “Plushies and Furries” is still the most disturbing episode of CSI I’ve ever seen. No, TV in general. Sam introduces Dean as his new partner, but doesn’t give a name. Not too quick on the draw today, are we Sam? Of course what he’s about to remember, I see why. The lady touches him as she leaves and we’re back to black and white mode. Â
RoboSam is wildly making out with this woman, in his suit and all. The shots are jagged, but it basically involves, in a fit of passion, him picking her up in a bathroom and taking her over to the sink for some business, her legs wrapped around him while his tongue is all over her. She undoes his tie and says in one very turned on voice, “Cuff me.” I just read a fanfic recently that graphically (and I do mean graphically) gives more detail on that scene. Yowza! Â
The lady flashes a wicked smile to Sam as she leaves, and Sam is now creeped out to eleven. “What was that? She just cougar-eyed you,” Dean notices. Sam, in his trauma, surmises he and Samuel worked a case there. You think? Dean produces the photo from the Surf and Turf wall to prove he is, indeed, right. Sam and Samuel are in the background as some schmuck celebrates.
Dean and Sam have found some abandoned house to shack up in, and even in abandoned houses they have wireless! Go figure! Sam is on the computer researching, Dean is all about leaving town. Things have indeed gotten “squirrelly.” Sam finds that five guys went missing a year ago. They never found the bodies. That’s probably the job he and Samuel worked. Dean doesn’t get the difference. It’s simple; last year five guys, this year three girls. He either didn’t stop it or thought he did. Â
Dean brings up something we’ve always wondered about with hunters and what happens after they leave town. Dean wants to call Bobby and get him to handle it. Why? “Sam, there is a reason why hunters don’t hit the same town over again. Because we have a habit of leaving messes behind.” Sam tries to argue, but Dean starts throwing “John’s rules” out, like they actually follow those to the letter. “One of Dad’s rules, you never use the same crapper twice.” “Everyone uses the same crapper twice,” Sam argues. “Not us,” Dean retorts, confusing Sam a little. Sam thinks the creature is walking around because of him, and one of John’s other rules was finish what they started. John was always a walking contradiction, wasn’t he?  Â
Okay, pay attention CAREFULLY to this part. It’s important for later. “Okay, I get it,” Sam says. “You’re afraid I’ll stroll down memory lane and I’ll kick this wall in my head so hard that Hell comes flooding through, right? And then ALL OF A SUDDEN I’M SOME DROOLING MESS ON THE FLOOR.” Dean doesn’t think that’s funny. Yeah, you definitely won’t be laughing later over it. Sam won’t budge, though. He messed up, and every person that gets taken or dies is on him. “I have to stop it, and you’d do the same thing.” Nah, Dean can’t argue with that. Dean will follow up with the brunettes (notice how Sam definitely has a thing for brunettes?) and Sam will check out the cops. Oh, that’s a VERY bad idea.
I’m so glad you’ve decided to do more recaps, since I found this site I have gone back and read all of the ones you did for the previous seasons. I will take my time and read this one later as my laptop battery is about to die on me, but I’m sure it’ll be a good one. Catch you later.
Hi Alice. I thoroughly enjoyed your recap of this episode, much more than I enjoyed the episode itself, I’m afraid. I think I just have a hard time dealing with sociopathic RoboSam. He is so scary and really so very cold and unemotional in all his evilness. I believe Samuel would have tried harder to get through to Sam if he hadn’t been actually afraid of his grandson by that time. And, the way Sam was back then, he had good reason to be afraid he would get in Sam’s way and be tossed aside without a qualm. 😥
Anyway, again, loved your recap! 🙂
Sam is burning alive and laughter is heard in the background. Really??? I don’t remember the laughter, I’m going to watch it again.
wow you know?
on Sunday I was remembering that you did this recaps, and I was wishing you did this again, at least for the bests episodes and you did 😆
You don’t know how much I enjoy your Recaps.
Im going to quote Bevie here “I enjoyed, much more than I enjoyed the episode itself”.
I loved the scenes with Sam struggling with his memories and Dean trying to protect his brother but I don’t know why I didn’t enjoy a lot the arachne part, cause I love the Spiderman movies….
My favorite favorite episode of the season is 6×19 “The man who would be king” I have watched that episode a lot of times 😆
“Dean is at the box-wine lady’s house” hehe
“You can buy wine in that many gallons?” I would have thought someone in the set decorator made a mistake… so that’s a common size in Canada? wow 🙂
I was able to finally go back to the episode and get the shot of the box wine. I put it in the recap. It’s definitely a size only sold in Canada. Wow!
[img]https://www.thewinchesterfamilybusiness.com/images/Unforgiven/boxwine.jpg[/img]
I enjoyed the recap and revisit to what I consider one of the best episodes in season six. It was just very well put together and the mystery and the monster were cool.
I disliked them calling/considering the bathroom woman a cougar. What is she at most: 10 years older than Sam? The box of wine cracked me up, and of course I’m looking at the label, but wine is sold by the liter in the US. 750 mL is the standard bottle and 1.5 L being the big one. Boxes of wine are labelled by liter and I think the biggest is 5 L. So that was kinda weird for the set people to mark the box that way.
I love soulless Sam! I love the fact that, for the most part, soulless Sam is the closest thing to Lucifer there is. He is soulless and emotionally vacant and will do anything that suits his agenda. Sounds pretty much like the angels on Supernatural.
I think Grandpappy was way in over his head with that “boy”!
Well I finally read your recap and it was thoroughly enjoyable. I loved everything about that episode. I’m with AndreaW, I loved RoboSam. Jared played him so brilliantly and with such coldness, exactly like the sociopath he was without a soul. The cinematography was absolutely gorgeous, I love b&w movies and those flashback scenes were pure film noir. It gave me chills, especially the end with Sam on the floor burning in Hell. OMG!!!
I’m on vacation and away from home and I already miss my SPN DVD collection. I am so suffering from Supernatural Obsessive Disorder! Thank God I brought my PC with me so I can check into the WFB every day to get my SPN fix.
Oh wow, Alice. I never noticed the laughter in the background before. It’s very faint, but you CAN hear it if you put on some good headphones and listen closely. I honestly never noticed that before. Thanks for pointing that out! So I wonder if that Lucifer laughing at Sam? Hmmm… very interesting.
So glad to see you’re back recapping. It was kind of a case of ‘You don’t know what you’ve got til it’s gone’ with you!
Your narratives and jumping between thoughts as you write are such fun to read. It’s kind of like sitting next to you on the couch while you’re watching, after that box of wine….
And thank God you came back to such a gem of an episode! An investigative one into Sam, body and soul (though temporarily without memories) was always going to be good. And your heart can’t help but ache for Sam and Dean, both during the episode and after it because while Sam has to deal with Soulless Sam and the wall, he certainly won’t do it alone. Dean would climb into Sam’s soul himself and shoulder that wall for an eternity if he could.
Poor old Dean seems to be floundering in this one. His desperation at Sam’s desperation is palpable. It’s not that Sam won’t stop thinking about his time as Soulless Sam, I don’t think he can’t. How hard would it be to actively put something like that to the back of your mind? The more you deliberately don’t think about it, the more you end up thinking about it. Even if he and Sam had scarpered after they realised he was there before, it wouldn’t have done any good. I think the seepage through the wall would have been greater had they left, to be honest. This new, glued together Sam is something Dean doesn’t know how to deal with yet. In fairness, he hasn’t met his real brother for over 18 months and now that he’s back gung ho, he’s bound to be tentative around him.
My expectation before this episode (based on speculation) was that we’d learn things about Sam we didn’t known prior to it; how Sam and Samuel hooked up, the order of their relationship (and thank God we have season 7 to possibly address that), shit, even small things like how Sam arrived back topside. We had that amazing scene in Lazarus Rising where Dean dug himself out of a grave to see he was surrounded by fell trees, I’d like to know what greeted Sam when he got up, how he processed things in those first few weeks, months etc. Even Soulless Sam had to have had a degree of confusion there. Anyway that’s my wishful thinking list for today!
I know that we learnt nothing new about Sam but it didn’t make a blind bit of difference. Sam’s gradual realisation of what he learnt about himself more than made up for it. The dark of Soulless Sam makes Souled Up Sam seem to shine all the much brighter. Yaay!
Plus, given that this was the last we saw Soulless Sam before The Man Who Knew Too Much, I’m glad he got to such a big episode. He such a unique, complex character. I kinda want to tie him to a chair and say ‘Dude, whassup?
In regard to Sam, I think inwardly, Samuel was a wee bit scared of Sam. I mean, who wouldn’t be? A guy he’s never met but is his grandson turns up. We’ve no clue under what circumstances they met ie who approached whom etc (though it is on my top 5 list of things I want to see) The scene in Two and a Half Men kinda indicated to me that Samuel deferred to Sam, and Soulless Sam made it very clear that he answered to no-one.
It’s interesting that while Samuel obviously found what Sam did um… distasteful, he never once stopped him. Perhaps he kept quiet because he knew they did what they had to do, and he was relieved he didn’t have to make the hard calls.
I appreciate that we got the opportunity to see Samuel as a (somewhat) likeable man before he ends up selling out Sam and Dean. The way he speaks about his daughter shows how deeply he loved her and that does go some way towards explaining his actions in Caged Heat. He did what he felt he had to do, and somehow got lost in the enormity of it. He gradually chipped away who he was bit by bit and he did it for love; same as John, Dean and Sam. Guess the Winchesters and the Campbells aren’t too different after all.
On an aside, it’s good to know that while the puppy dog eyes are potent they’re not potent enough to have a woman, whose husband Sam set up to be turned into a big spider and then killed, twice (once right in front of her), forgive him. Maybe next time he should stick out his tongue and pant?
Re: the laughter. I hadn’t noticed it but when I rewatched there’s definitely a chuckle oh sweet Jesus, it ups the horror factor in that scene by a million. (Michael and Lucifer, you pups! What did you do to my boys baby boy?)
Anyway, thanks so much for this. Looking forward to your next recap (hopefully soon…..)
Hi Alice
Cant tell you how pleased I was to see one of your recaps back. They have always been one of my favourite things around here. I have really missed them and I know am not the only one.
It was very interesting to read with distance between viewing and the episode, I think it made it even better. It made me want to go and watch again.
I know they take a lot of time to produce but I do hope you intend to do more
Thanks Ju
I want to do them, but we’ll see how my time constraints go. I can at least get the next one started for Mannequin 3: The Reckoning. I love writing recaps for bad episodes. I have a lot of fun ripping into them with little guilt. Oh, but then there’s the French Mistake. I really ought to do that one too. Maybe I’ll have time on vacation.
Wonderful recap. I will anxiously await the next one, which is one of my favorite episodes (tho others disagree it seems) but I liked the flow from “I can fix this” to the futility of their jobs and the realization that sometimes there just aren’t any easy or correct answers; but there is hope.
Alice, basically there’s no need to tell you how much I love your recaps. I’ve told you countless times, eh?
That you took this particular episode on, despite your tight schedule, was a real treat. Thank you!
If you found time to do more of these in the future, I’d be frightfully happy… But only, of course, if putting them together remained fun and not stress… you’ve got enough of that at work (as do I). And we’re not stressing with things we love!
Hugs, Jas