In the seventh episode of the third season of Supernatural, THIS SHOW IS SO RUDE. Intrigued? Then it’s time for Mark to watch Supernatural.
Sweet mother of god, I’m not okay. I’M NOT. And really, as exciting and thrilling and upsetting as “Fresh Blood” is, it’s how Sera Gamble and Kim Manners made this episode happen that I’m most intrigued by. LET’S TALK ABOUT THESE STORIES.
Bela
I definitely didn’t expect to see Bela so soon, so watching her interact with Gordon Walker??? PUT THAT ON THE TOP OF THE LIST OF THINGS I NEVER THOUGHT WOULD EVER HAPPEN. But I think that her scenes in “Fresh Blood” demonstrate just how well-conceived Bela’s character is. She does feel like a femme fatale-style character most of the time, but I’m endlessly fascinated by how consistent she is. Everything for Bela is a transaction. It’s how she interacts with Gordon. She never does something for nothing, and I admire how she’s always thinking of her best interests. Y’all, her life wasn’t enough for her; she had to get more than that from Gordon in order to give up the Winchester’s location. THAT’S KIND OF AMAZING.
But we see the exact same behavior from her later after Dean angrily tells her that he’s going to kill her for what she’s done. Yes, she doesn’t want to die, but notice how she frames it all as if she’s in debt to Dean. It’s a transaction once again, and I think it’s damn fine writing that she’s so frequently portrayed this way.
Gordon
I don’t find Gordon particularly sympathetic all the time, and it’s hard to like someone whose hardline philosophy involves causing people pain and suffering. That being said, this episode is absolutely crushing once you think about the implications of Gordon’s life. As wrong as we know Gordon to be, he doesn’t know he’s wrong. Hell, all the intel he has suggests that Sam really is the antichrist, set to lead the world into chaos. It doesn’t make him right. It makes him severely misguided. And his own desire for revenge fuels this journey for him, and he’s done some terrible things in the process! It’s easy to acknowledge this because it’s the point of his character. Gordon Walker has always been extreme.
But the terrible thing about his transformation in “Fresh Blood” is in the irony. He becomes a different kind of monster, and it’s the very one he was hunting all along. Kim Manners does some absolutely incredible work here to convey Gordon’s waking moments as a vampire, and it reminded me of Darren Aronofsky’s work in Requiem for a Dream. The harsh camera angles, the extreme close-ups, the rapid cuts, the blurring lights that seem painful… goddamn, y’all, it’s unreal. Some of the best work on this show. And it’s sad to watch because of the inevitability of this story. As soon as Gordon is turned, you know that there are very few endings left to this episode that are possible anymore. Gordon’s become evil, and so he devotes what little time he has to the last thing that consumed his life. And it’s scary to watch because he’s so dedicated. He kills Kubrick after telling his partner that he could still do good on this earth before he’s gone, and he says this right before he rips Kubrick’s heart out.Â
Gordon becomes a walking contradiction, and more than anything else, it’s fucking sad. He wants so badly to do what he thinks will save the world, but at the same time, he’s killing his friends and turning a random young woman and trying to murder someone who is NOT WHO HE THINKS HE IS. God, y’all, HE’S WRONG. And Gordon Walker died believing he hadn’t stopped the fucking Apocalypse. And it’s not just that. The fight that he has with Sam is brutal on a level that I AM NEVER GOING TO HEAL FROM. Gordon stares into the face of Sam Winchester as Sam decapitates him with barbed wire, and I’m fairly certain that Gordon was thinking about how he was staring into the face of pure evil while it was happening and THERE ARE NO GOOD FEELINGS HERE. NONE. Everything is disgust and sadness and pain.
The Winchesters
Who am I kidding? HERE’S THE WORST PAIN. Y’all, this episode is absolutely overflowing with UNFAIR SAM WINCHESTER FACES. Usually it’s Dean who drops an expression or a mantear and ruins me, but fuck this episode. I am not equipped to handle this shit. I’m not! Like, as soon as Sam started to talk about growing up with Dean, I was all TAKE IT BACK, REWIND, DON’T DO THIS TO ME. PLEASE DON’T. But christ, y’all. I mean, I suspect many of you were waiting for that first scene of utter devastation, cackling and rubbing your hands together malicious, because you knew it would hurt me. This whole moment had essentially been foreshadowed multiple times before, but I’m glad that Sam finally got the chance to spell out the issues he had with Dean’s behavior. Namely, Sam just wants his brother to drop the macho, apathetic act because it’s preventing Dean from being a brother to Sam.
Oh no, oh no. That’s not okay. That’s not an okay thing to do. Y’all, that moment where Dean realizes Sam’s serious and that he was wrong to act he was… no. NO. DEAN AGREED TO STAY BEHIND WITH HIS BROTHER. OH NO OH NO YOU ARE SO RUDE, SHOW. You are too rude for words.
“You ever felt desperate? I lost everyone I’ve ever loved. I’m staring down eternity alone. Can you think of a worse hell?”
NO, NOPE, STOP IT. YOU ARE THE WORST. STOP DOING THIS TO ME. YOU CAN’T GET WORSE.
At least, that’s what I thought until Dean decided to teach Sam about the Impala because Sam will need to learn how to do this stuff anyway in the future.
Hahaha NO. STOP IT. GODDAMN IT, SUPERNATURAL. STOP IT.
The video for “Fresh Blood” can be downloaded here for just $0.99.
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