Recap – “Swap Meat”
It’s raining (shocker!) and the Impala pulls up in Gary’s driveway. Gary isn’t at all pleased to get home. So Sam goes into some strange speech. “Gary, take it from someone who knows, shut up man, your life ain’t that bad.” Gary points out Sam met his parents. “Yeah, so what? It’s your life. If you don’t their plan for you, tell them to cram it. Rebel a little bit in a healthy non-satanic way of course.” Gary looks at Nora, who just wants to go inside because it’s raining and everyone’s getting wet. Oh, but Sam’s not done yet. “By the way, you want to know why Nora’s into witchcraft? She doesn’t like Satan you moron she likes you.” I can buy that. Boys often need to just be flat out told these things. Gary doesn’t believe it, but Sam says he knows. Yeah, Sam and every other person on the planet. It’s pretty obvious.
“Trust me kid, I wish I had your life.” Oh, this is just wrong. Sam Winchester giving advice to a teenager on how to control his life. Yeah Sam, how did that go for you? How is the fact that you rebelled against your dad and he died before you had a chance to set things right go for you? Gary asks if he does and Sam nods. Oh, Sam is so lying. I know that face. Gary smiles and goes inside finally. Dean, who is giving Sam that look as if his brother still isn’t there, tells Sam that was a nice thing to say. “I totally lied. Kid’s life sucked ass.” You see, this is where Dean should be laughing or something. Instead, he’s really bothered again. Gee Dean, you didn’t like Sam different and now you don’t like Sam normal? Bazinga!
They climb into the Impala. “All that apple pie family crap, it’s stressful, trust me. We didn’t miss a damned thing.” “Or we don’t know what we’re missing,” Dean says. Okay, so we go full circle. Sam doesn’t want a family, Dean does. Second verse, same as the first. Dean starts the car and Bob Seger comes on again. Sam winces and tells him to turn it down. So the music wasn’t blaring when they got there? Maybe Sam was humoring Gary and Dean on the way. “Welcome back Kotter,” Dean says, not exactly sure if he’s pleased Sam is back. They pull away and roll credits.
Huh, that’s pretty disappointing. Way too sunny an ending for what just happened. For one, Gary got off too easy. After all, he just caused the death of his really stupid friend not to mention almost got Sam and Dean killed. Anyone devastated, or even remember the fact that Trevor is lying in a pool of his own blood in the basement? Anyone getting upset over what’s going to happen when his parents get home? Bazinga!
Now that this poorly done parallel of normal vs. abnormal family life is done, can we get to the freaking teenage free apocalypse? Pretty please?

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.
Great review! I laughed as much here as I did when when Sam was telling Gary’s dad to cram it (or whatever he said).
I too wish that we had seen Jared as Sam doing the scenes with Dean and the lady at the bar…that first scene was GREAT and it’s sad we didn’t see more of Jared’s comedy acting! (no matter what Jared says, he is good at comedy!!)
I have to say, for me, this ep just pushed Bugs out of the number one spot for worst episode! Sooooo many holes in the plot I actually cringed in a couple of spots. And like you, I think they really missed the boat with not having Jared portray Gary in his body. Every time Dean or anybody for that matter looked DOWN at Sam it was just so wrong.
I watched it again this afternoon but it was actually worse because I kept picking out more holes in the plot. Seriously, enough with the sophomoric scripts!
I haven’t seen The Song Remains The Same yet since we don’t get it until Wed in Canada on Space but I hear it’s miles better! Here’s hoping…
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Great recap. All the goofy face Sam pics are awesome. I did enjoy this episode. Honestly I don’t really care about plot holes in this type of episode. If it was one of the big myth (or whatever you want to call it) like this weeks I would but this was just entertainment. I did wonder why Dean wasn’t checking his phone but that was really the only one that jumped out at me besides Sam sounding like Sam on the phone. Maybe I was just missing Castiel too much to notice the others. lol I do agree that there wasn’t nearly enough Sam as Gary in it. He was hilarious.
Oh, Alice, that’s a load of rich, creamery butter. Randal hates when people talk in the third person.
When watching this, I noticed the holes (the worst for me: The Yes tied to body alone? Oh, Plato), but the funny parts, even if awkwardly done in spots, made me chuckle enough to suspend even more disbelief. Now that they’re listed out, all I’m going to notice in the future are the plot holes. So yeah, thanks. 😎
Re: black smoke. What’s funny is that we didn’t see any way back in Devil’s Trap when the mailman (I think it was a mailman) got possessed in the crowd, then zapped a fireman. It’s Kripke’s fault!
Teenage wasteland: to be an advocate in a devilish sort of way, the Winchesters were fighting monsters whereas Gary’s dad looks like a CPA.
A couple of chuckles but basically crap. The brothers switching bodies would be funnier and involve fewer weedy spotties and their toast rack torsos clogging up the screen … Enough of the fluff, now bring on the gloom, doom and buckets of blood. We’re here for the Apocalypse, not Sam and Dean’s Bogus Journeys! :roll::
Bazinga’? – you rock, woman! Loved this! The way you pointed out the holes (yeah, unfortunately there were some, but, hey what the hell?) made me die from laughter, so here’s a ghost talking to you (no, no, don’t send them after me… moment of thought…. Oh, do send them after me!)
Don’t mind me, I’m dead tired, that biz trip I had to take was exhausting. I’m not good at professional politics and small talk…
This episode was fun, nevertheless (and just like you I would have loved to see Jared in that scene with wannabe-domina). I loved how Jared played with his handsome appearance here, making a nice fool of himself. Loved that.
Thanks for an ever fun-to-read recap and the screencaps!!!
Cheers, Jas
Randal… watched Kate & Leopold a bit much?
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Alice, I agree that Sammy looks older than his 26, but in a positive way. I mean, he looks more manly than ever. Can you believe that the lanky and cute college boy from Season 1 turned into this “stunning looking man”? Dean was manly from the beginning, but it’s as though “darling little Sammy” just grew up.
Here I am, being very shallow again. I apologize to the gentlemen on this board. 😉
Hi Alice
Loved the recap…all the Bazinga’s had me laughing.
Although this episode could have been better, ok a lot better, it still had some good moments. I could be wrong,but I get the feeling you took great enjoyment in being able to use “Bazinga” as many times as you did.:lol:
I’m starting to think that maybe Julie Siege really doesn’t know or understand Sam and Dean’s characters as well as she should. I found both this and Fallen Idol had some real continuity issues.
Funny Recap Alice. Thank you for not completely blowing this one away. I liked it, but I know many didn’t.
Yea…the episode has holes, but it was so funny they can be overlooked. And when people are looking to be uplifted from a show, ‘holes’ get pushed to the background. I much prefer this episode over the sad ones we’ve seen lately. The fans need some light stuff once in a while. Maybe they just wanted the fun stuff and really didn’t care much about continuity. Really I laughed so much at some of the Sam/Gary parts I was crying! I really LOVED Gary backing the impala in to the can. I laughed so hard!!! It would have been fun to see Jared in that scene instead of Gary…AND of course the bedroom scene
The sad part is that a lot of those ‘holes’ could have been addressed easily in the script and without much extra dialog. Yea…the throwing away of ALL cell phones was a story flaw…in fact Gary even through away John’s phone from the glove compartment. SO BAD!!! I guess we can hope the boys went back and recovered them. So much is done off screen in the series because of the low budget
As for Sam going to school as Gary, I didn’t know others thought that weird. Gary was the only link he had so I can see why has would have to follow Gary’s life. No other choice. And as for teenagers being that moronic…..I REALLY hope not.
As for Dean, I think at first he just let some things go because he is more into his own sympathy world right now. He is still reeling from the guilt of Jo and Ellen and feeling very sorry about everything. But when he did realize it, I agree with you, he REALLY needs his brother to play the little brother role right now. (No matter how old Sam is, and no matter that they both agree Dean needs to let Sam do his thing, to Dean, Sam will always be a ‘little’ brother, and I really wish Sam would play that role for Dean for a while, it would really help his brother cope, and that, in turn, would help Sam) So it was nice for him to have his brother like he wanted for a while and he just let it go…and that was disturbing to me. In their world, that kind of indulgence can be dangerous, and indeed it turned into that.
I also found it disturbing when Dean was being beaten by Nora!demon that he looked to Gary. He already knew it wasn’t his brother, but, I think, that just brought back to Dean the reality, that the fun he had with this ‘Sam’ wasn’t real, and how much he missed.
Wow! I really agree with what Sablegreen said. Especially about Sam being Dean’s little brother again for a while. It looked like Dean really enjoyed for a while having his little brother back even if it wasn’t him. I thought Dean was really hoping that Sam was really Sam there for a bit.
I enjoyed the episode for what it was and the only thing I would have changed would have been for Jared to have played the part of Gary. I keep thinking how much fun that would have been to see.
I am also one of those “It didn’t suck” -people. Kinda for the same reasons that Sablegreen above pointed out. It was a really funny eppie and the plot holes didn’t bother me, ’cause I was enjoying myself. Bugs is a perfect example of a eppie that doesn’t work (for me atleast) in practically any level ’cause the whole package was ruined. This one had a few hiccups but that won’t stop me watching it again 🙂