Recap – “Unforgiven”
At the park, Roy waits, Sam and Samuel (that never gets old for me) crouch in the bushes. “Let’s hope this thing’s hungry,” Sam says. Samuel gives another “if looks could kill” stare but still does nothing. We should be calling him junkless. They watch, Roy hears something, and then something jumps out of the tree and gets him. Back to current-day Sam, who’s very upset over what he just remembered. Â
Back to the flashback, and Sam and Samuel rush out of the bushes but they’re too late. Roy and arachne are gone. Samuel is anxious to find them but Sam knows they’re already gone. He isn’t worried, he turned on the GPS on Roy’s cell. Grandpa, rightfully so since he died in 1973, wants that in English. “We can track them wherever she goes,” Sam answers rather excitedly. “So what, Roy’s some red shirt to you, spider bait?” Samuel says appalled. Where was that attitude ten minutes ago, gramps? Sam says no, but that’s a lie. He claims it’s his backup plan. “My God, son, you’re about as cold as they come, you know that?” Sam takes no offense and is ready to move on. Grandpa needs a rape shower. Â
They pull up to the warehouse in the opener, and it’s pitch black out. Man, I guess it took them longer to track it than they thought. Roy surely must be spider food by now. Sam casually steps out of the van and has his gun ready. I love how the director chose to do the long shot of Sam from the POV of the ground, thus showing how truly cold he is at this moment. As they get closer, the guns go away and the large head-cutting-off knives come out. Â
They enter, and there are thick spider webs everywhere. They find the one missing dude from the file current Sam was looking at. He’s unconscious, tangled in a web. Samuel undoes the web to show his face. “Poor bastard.” Then he gasps! So cool. A classic horror trick, but I jumped. Samuel falls backward and suddenly the other webs with guys in them start moving. There’s some close-ups on the moving webs just to add some horror to it, but I’m like RoboSam at this point. I’m not too freaked out.Â
“Help me,” comes from the other end of the room. Oh, boy, that’s classic Kafka, isn’t it? Anyway, Sam and Samuel rush over to Roy. He says he can’t feel anything, and they cut an opening for him. Sam is more interested in knowing where “she,” is and judging by Roy’s alarmed gaze, she’s right behind them. Sam turns around just in time to see an amped-up arachne throw him across the room and slam him into the wall. That’s where the bleeding shoulder comes from, from a hook hanging on that wall. She goes after him, and Sam kicks her off, slowing her down enough for Samuel to empty a round of slugs into her. Nope, doesn’t kill her. It makes her mad enough, though, where she tosses Samuel across the room. That gives Sam enough time to come up behind her with his knife and slice her head right off. With his bad arm. You gotta admit, this dysfunctional team of hunters can certainly tag team great during a kill. Â
Samuel starts to pull himself together. “Well, I guess decapitation works.” Good to know, huh? Samuel then goes back to Roy and promises to get help. Not so fast, Samuel. He goes to confer with Sam, and Sam coldly tells him, “He can’t be helped.” Samuel is stunned. Sam tells him he doesn’t know much about arachne, but he knows about spiders. The poison is obviously eating them alive. “They’re just dead men walking.” Samuel wants to know what he’s saying. “I say we put him out of his misery.” Come on, Samuel, you have a soul!! Stop Sam and get these guys some help. Okay, fine, it wouldn’t have done any good, but Sam is wrong here, too! He’s not thinking humanly. His plan won’t give the families closure. Â
Okay, in what is clearly the most chilling scene of the season, RoboSam pulls out his gun and calmly steps over to Roy. This is how sociopaths behave, just so you know. He stares down Roy, and there’s the close-up of Roy’s eyes, showing the full terror within. Roy begs, but Sam, without any emotion, tells him, “Killing this thing saved a lot of lives. We couldn’t have done it without you. You’re a hero.” Â
Roy begs more but nothing can be done. Sam raises the gun without hesitation puts a bullet into his brain. With those blank, uncaring eyes, Sam calmly goes to each man, and in systematic fashion, one by one, puts bullets into their brains. Samuel looks away, unable to watch. Sam finishes the job, clearly not bothered at all by what he’s doing, and then we get the clincher. “We can’t just leave the bodies here. Get the gasoline.” Close up on those cold, dark eyes. Yikes! Â
You know what’s really sad is Sam’s comment to Brenna earlier, “I’m sure he died a hero.” Did he say that out of comfort, or did he know something? Those words were probably in the script to muddy the lines between soulless Sam and Sam, show that it was indeed him in some way. The big difference, though, comes from the director in the close-up of the eyes. One close-up of both Sams, and they are clearly not the same person. Poor Sam can’t tell the difference, but we can. Â
So, how is current-day Sam taking this? Not well. He’s pretty shaken up now. He turns to a very concerned Dean. “I know what happened.” Cut to Brenna’s house, who’s sleeping on the couch. Suddenly she has a visitor. Roy? He looks like an arachne! Oh, so that’s what Sam missed. He was already turned. Roy tells her he loves her, but she’s scared anyway. A worried Sam calls, and Dean wants to know what Sam’s going to say. He tells Dean to relax? Um, Sam, Dean’s the calm one here. Sam gets hold of Brenna and tells her he’s checking in. She wants him to swing by. He agrees and knows that means she’s in trouble. Â
The Impala pulls up outside of the snowy house, and I’ll tell ya, that black beauty looks mighty fine against all that white. Sam goes for the house, but Dean sees the light on in the shed. Yeah, that’s probably something. They enter, and Dean says, “My Spidey senses are tingling.” Oh, bad line there Dean! Spider, arachne, get it? Anyway, there’s only five minutes or so left to resolve this, so time for jokes is over. Brenna calls out, and Sam rushes over to her. She on the floor behind a filing cabinet, she’s crying, and she asks if what he did to Roy is true. Sam’s sorrowful non-answer is all she needs to know. Dean’s heart is certainly bleeding for her, but that only sets him up to be the first one flung across the room. Sam goes next right behind him, and then Roy goes after Sam. “Answer the question, Sam,” Roy demands while holding him in a chokehold. Â
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