Recap – “Unforgiven”
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This is the part that I noticed that while Sam is setting himself up here for some very obvious and very hard failure, it is so wonderful to have souled Sam back again. It’s the old him, puppy dog eyes and everything. Okay, sure, he spends most of the episode looking like a kicked puppy, but still, a puppy is a puppy. RoboSam was a vicious attack dog.Â
Dean is talking with the roommate of the missing girl from the earlier poster. While he’s doing the standard line of questioning, he goes through a bowl with a bunch of business cards in it. Guess whose he finds? Why Agent Roark of the FBI! He asks where they got that. Nicole got it from “that FBI guy.” Dean confirms it’s Agent Roark and holds his hand way above his head “About yea high?” Ha, even Dean is making fun of his height now! Â
Yep, that’s him. One of the men that disappeared lived in their building. Agent Roark was around asking questions. “So he came by here,” Dean asks. “Oh, he came by a few times.” Now Dean is interested. “To, uh, speak to Nicole.” Now the roommate squirms a little. Dean knows something is up. “How would you characterize their relationship?” She denies a relationship. Wait for it… Dean goes for the nature or tone of it. “Well, loud…and athletic.” She nervously smiles but Dean isn’t laughing. Â
Sam arrives at the cop station in an old wood-grain Jeep wagon. Wow, he’s really slumming it, isn’t he? He couldn’t rent a nice Taurus or something? They’ve done it before! He innocently walks through the parking lot, and who should pull up in a squad car but the deputy. You know, the deputy whose brains RoboSam bashed in. The dude is furious, and he’s pointing a gun. Sam slowly raises his hands, and then it all comes back to him in another quick flash. Uh oh, he realizes he’s totally screwed. He gives the “there’s been a misunderstanding ” speech, but the deputy already has him cuffed by this time. Of course, I’m wondering if the deputy is now the sheriff. They didn’t make that clear. Â
The jail-cell door goes slam, and one very sorry-looking Sam is on the wrong end of it. “Man, you are as dumb as a sack of hair,” the deputy/possible sheriff says, in a berating tone. He’s figured out by now Sam is not an agent. Well, that’s some mighty fine detective work. Sam wants to explain, but he’s so not getting that chance. “Where are the bodies? Mothers want to bury their loved ones.” Sam is shocked to be asked this. He doesn’t know. “Where’s Sheriff Dobbs?” He doesn’t know that, either. “You run out of town soaked in blood, oh, and you bash my brains in to do it, and you really expect me to buy that?’ Buddy, you really don’t want to know what this guy has been through. “Would you believe that I don’t remember anything?” Yeah, right. Â
A dismayed Sam sits on the edge of the cot to think things through, and here again I love this reaction. It’s clear that something is poking at Sam really hard about this. As he gets lost in each memory, he becomes more and more emotionally unhinged. According to our resident therapist Jasminka, that’s a clear-cut sign that he’s suffered a horrible trauma. It’s both terrifying and fascinating to watch. Right now, I go with terrifying because we can’t imagine that wall in his head being stable. He’s only had it a short time. The mortar is still wet! Â
Light turns to dark, and Sam is stretched out on the cot, back against the wall, trying to sleep, but he’s likely still pondering what’s happening to him. What could be going through his mind right now? I’m sure it’s just a bunch of fragments and complete frustration. I also guess Dean hasn’t plotted that rescue yet. A woman walks in and doesn’t go for the pleasantries. She starts demanding to know what happened to her husband. Sam sympathetically tells her he doesn’t know. Â
“Don’t lie to me. I know who you are, Sam. I know what you do.” Sam is shocked to hear this, and he starts to play the full puppy dog. It’s really cool because it’s dark in there and full puppy dog is so much different in low light. It still works, but it’s different. Sam stares at this angry woman inquisitively and suddenly the flashes hit him again. He, Samuel, this woman and the sheriff are sitting in the kitchen talking shop. The sheriff goes through the story. They’re not Feds, and they “hunt things.” Samuel and Sam are both kind of smug, asking how could anything human take those guys. The woman thinks that’s impossible, and RoboSam wants to know why she’s there. She’s the sheriff’s wife, she gets to hear it.
This flashback is where the true “noir” feel really kicks in. Just like with all the other flashbacks, the scenes are jagged and often jump in the close-ups, but there are plenty of those close-ups at an off angle so you get the full effect of the story being told here. There’s little details, too, like the sheriff grabbing his wife’s hand as he defends her being there. I especially love the closing shot on just the sheriff’s eyes as he agrees to help. They’re earnest and believing. It’s quite sad, actually, considering what happens. The whole scene’s quite clever and a refreshing change from the norm on this show. Â
Back to Sam in jail, who’s even more shaken by this flashback. “Your husband, he’s the sheriff.” She reminds him “was” the sheriff. “Until he vanished, and you vanished. What was I supposed to think?” Uh, the big bad hunter killed everyone and skipped town, that’s what! She wasn’t sure if that thing got him or if Sam killed him. She just wants to know what happened. “So do I, believe me,” Sam says. Oh, careful what you wish for, Sammy. “Something happened to me. I have no memory of being here. Ever.” Her reply. “What is this, ‘Days of Our Lives.'” Ha! Jensen will never be able to live that down, will he? Â
Sam rationalizes with her. If he knew any of this, would he have set foot in the station? Okay, he’s talking sense now. He doesn’t even know her name. She calls him either incredibly clever or incredibly stupid. Sam, turning on the puppy dog eyes now, claims he’s telling the truth. He can find out what happened. “If you really know me, then you know it’s my job.” She ponders and then says her name is Brenna Dobbs. Sam apologizes for what happened to her husband, but promises he can find answers. Not in there, though. Brenna thinks about it, but who can resist the puppy dog? No one yet! She opens the cell door and then resolves they find some rope. He’s gotta tie her up if it’s going to look like a break-in. Good thing this wasn’t RoboSam. Tying her up might have gotten a much different reaction out of him.
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.
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