In the eighth episode of the sixth season of Supernatural, this episode is too much. Intrigued? Then it’s time for Mark to watch Supernatural.Â
Trigger Warning: For body horror and general grossness involving dogs.
Okay, Supernatural, YOU WENT TOO FAR FOR ME THIS TIME.
Look, dogs are my everything. They were an important part of my childhood, I adore them so much that I’m now known in my circle of friends as being that guy who shrieks at all dogs in public, and I’m made it clear that one of my life goals is to pet every dog ever. I am seriously considering adopting a dog once I’m able to have one. (I’ve not found an apartment complex that will allow me to have a dog and is affordable since moving to Oakland.) Dogs are my happy place, and I mean that in all seriousness. My dogs helped me with my depression when I was a living with my parents, and I tried to get a dog to help with my anxiety back in 2006 when I got my first studio apartment. It’s frustrating because I know BECAUSE OF SCIENCE that I would be a better person with a dog.
DOGS ARE MY EVERYTHING.
(I’m also a cat person, and I should also note that I’m just an animal person in general. ALL ANIMALS ALL THE TIME. Especially sloths and martens. UGH TOO CUTE FOR WORDS.)
I’m stating this because I am now very willing to strike most of this episode from my memory as soon as I’m done writing about this episode. I want folks to understand that I don’t hate it, I don’t think it’s poorly written, and I get it if other people like it. I’m not approaching this with any sort of critical analysis beyond this review. I am being ridiculous because I DON’T WANT THIS SHOW TO RUIN DOGS FOR ME. Oh my god, WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS TO ME. There are aspects of “All Dogs Go to Heaven” that I really want to address, but just know going into this that I’m busy deleting the hard drive in my head once I’m done with this.
CROWLEY. Let’s start with him, and IÂ do love that this episode (and this arc!) is framed around the Winchesters’ new loyalties. Hell, it’s weird even typing that. But the cold open of this episode demonstrates incontrovertibly that Crowley is in control and that he has been since Sam was pulled out of heaven. As he explains to Dean, this is akin to a hostage situation, not some deal worked out between interested parties. At any point, Crowley could pull Sam right out of all this and throw him back in the cage. (What’s going on with Adam, by the way? Are they not even going to address that their brother is in Hell, too?) So, the deal is this: bring Crowley an Alpha (who is still alive), and Sam gets his soul back.
Now, I personally don’t believe that Crowley will honor this agreement at all, but like Sam says following the cold open, there’s not much else that they can do at this point. Crowley is their only avenue to getting Sam’s soul back, so for the time being, their hunts will have to take on a new purpose. It sucks, and for Dean in particular, it goes against everything he believes in. The show long ago established that Dean has no interest in allying with demons, you know? But at the very least, Dean can still hunt. He can still kill evil creatures and save others from their fate. That’s something, right?
Of course, we’re misled by the “Previously On…” segment and the evidence in this episode to think that we’re dealing with werewolves. It was easy for me to assume that the boys would go after an Alpha werewolf and try to capture it, and “All Dogs Go to Heaven” was pretty cut-and-dry. It was Cal. Cal was a werewolf, he was probably changing off schedule and it caused him to lash out and kill others to protect his family, blah blah blah, this wasn’t terribly exciting.
Until Cal’s dog ate his heart and changed into some random dude.
WHAT THE FUCK, SUPERNATURAL. No, you’re not following the rules, what are you doing??? Is that a reverse werewolf? How would you even name that? Do you mean that the family dog, Lucky, has been a dude the whole time? For what it’s worth, the writers committed to this concept, and I know that’s why it’s so deeply upsetting. Lucky really was some random dude the whole time, and I guess you can admire that they don’t shy away from how uncomfortable this is. That’s also precisely why this is going to far for me. I mean, did we really need that shower sequence? Or the scene where Mandy said that Lucky was the best boyfriend she’d ever had? NO, I DID NOT NEED THESE THINGS. I NEVER NEEDED THESE THINGS. I AM ASKING YOU TO TAKE THESE THINGS BACK, SUPERNATURAL.
It’s creepy and unsettling, and then on top of it all, it’s extremely sad. When we find out that this guy is a skinwalker, we also learn that he was homeless when he was recruited. So this pack certainly exploited that vulnerability. (No mention of how the skinwalker myth was born out of indigenous cultures in America? Sigh.) He’s turned into one of these creatures, told to integrate into a family, and then told that one day he’ll have to pass along the curse to the family he lives with. All of this further supports the notion that there’s some reason all these supernatural creatures are increasing in numbers. What’s that about? A coming war? Over what? Purgatory? Hell? Heaven? IS THERE ANOTHER SERIALIZED MYSTERY I HAVEN’T FIGURED OUT?
Anyway, the whole reason any of these killings even happened was because Lucky the skinwalker appreciated the kindness his family showed him, and he wanted to protect them. Which… it’s kind of endearing? BUT YOU WATCHED THAT WOMAN SHOWER AND YOU’RE A DUDE AND A DOG AND I DON’T LIKE HOW ALL OF THIS MAKES ME FEEL. Even in the end, Lucky protects the family from the rest of the pack at great expense to himself, all to end up homeless once again. Now, like I said in the video for this episode, I am happy that the writers didn’t have Mandy suddenly be perfectly fine with her dog being a man, and her reaction to him returning to her house is exactly what it should be: disgust and mistrust. She has no reason to trust him. But everything still sucks for that guy, and probably will for the rest of his life. There’s no way he can win! He can’t join another family or be taken in because the second he does, he’ll be lying to them and deceiving them, and it’s so weird, and I’d really like this show to take this back, don’t ruin dogs for me.
And then there’s Sam. There are really only two side effects to the lack of a soul: a person has no need to sleep, and they have no need to care about anything other than their own safety or health. While Sam tries his hardest to be as much like the “old” Sam, this episode definitively tells us that he’s been acting the whole time. In a brutal (but necessary) scene at the end of “All Dogs Go to Heaven,” Sam admits his lack of caring about literally anything besides being good at hunting without all the guilt that usually comes with it. He can, at most, recognize that he has memories of a his life when he had a soul and that that life was one worth having. It’s worth pursuing a soul over. And it’s weird to hear Sam talk so clinically about his own soul because that’s patently not like the Sam we know.
That’s the point, though. Even throughout this very episode, Sam is a completely different person. He’s never played the bad cop dynamic during cases, and now he readily jumps into it with ease. He’s a jerk, openly so, and he doesn’t care. Now, I don’t think any of these things are necessarily bad in and of themselves. The problem here is Sam’s lack of guilt, which has led him to do things that the original Sam would find unforgivable, like killing innocent people to complete a hunt. That is the most vital reason for Sam to find his soul. Without it, he’s got nothing to stop himself from viewing the world as a playground for his unemotional logic.
So that’s what we’re stuck with. It’s all Dean and Sam have to go on. They have to hunt for Crowley or else Sam is taken away, or he’s left in his current state. THESE ARE CLEARLY GREAT OPTIONS FOR EVERYONE INVOLVED.
Now, I go back to a world where I don’t have to think that dogs are actually people.
The video for “All Dogs Go to Heaven” can be downloaded here for $0.99.
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