The Winchesters S01 E06 Recap: Art of Dying

This episode aired on Tuesday November 22nd on The CW at 8/7c.

Preamble

Lots to unpack from the previous episode (S01-E05), so lets get right to it!

• Samuel is still MIA.
• Mary wrestles with her lost childhood, and difficulty envisioning a life outside of hunting.
• Lata has some childhood issues of her own that haven’t been fleshed out yet.
• John is conflicted about wanting Mary to remain by his side as a hunter, and finding a new life for herself.
• They have the magical box, but it still isn’t working.
• The Akrida are on earth in great numbers, and continue to summon rare monsters so they can harvest their essence.
• Mary’s friend Maggie died some time ago, but her death is still shrouded in mystery.
• The Masters of War episode highlighted the depth and breadth of John’s war trauma.
• The Legend of a Mind episode highlighted the depth of Mary’s conflict about being a hunter.
• Ada has reconnected with her son Tony. Do we see a burgeoning romance between Tony and Lata?
• Rockin Roxy is Roxanne Gilbert, who the group have discovered is linked to the radio tower.
• The viewers know Rockin Roxy is with the Akrida.

What is episode six going to give us?

Episode Intro

Elk Falls, Kansas.  This episode opens with a woman running through the forest, being chased by something.  She emerges from the trees to enter a barn and begins to chalk some warding on the back of the door.  She hears something behind her and immediately grabs her knife from her backpack.  As she walks around the interior of the barn, the lights flicker, until suddenly she is sucked straight up to the ceiling, out of view, by some unseen force.  The next thing we see is a giant spill of blood from the ceiling onto the floor of the barn.  The amount of blood spilled is a clear indication that whoever this woman was, she didn’t survive the attack.

Dean Winchester:  Hunting has a way of changing a person.  After a while, right, wrong, good, evil… they all start to look the same.  And then it makes you start to wonder, who’s really the monster here?  Them or me?

Back at Mary’s house, we see a struggling Lata, trying to drown out noisy distractions so she can meditate.  When she hears Carlos and John arguing out in the hall, she abandons the effort in frustration and investigates.  John wants Carlos to relinquish his van to him so he can check the woods behind the quarry to look for signs of Roxy or the Akrida.  Carlos comes back at John with a “hard no, Amigo” reminding him that they already investigated the quarry, and in doing so almost cracked the front axle of his van.  Carlos also reminded John that he has a guy who works for City Hall, who will be supplying useful information regarding new land acquisitions, which will reveal the property purchase for the radio tower.  With that information the team will be able to find the Akrida.

This opening eloquently does two things that are pretty important in this episode; it highlights the inner work that is so prevalent in how Lata moves through the world around her, and it shines a spotlight on the ever-growing anger that John is experiencing.  The episode unfolds to move the story forward, but it also opens all the doors necessary to embrace character development.  Something this show does not shy away from.  Which makes for a richer viewing experience and really allows the fans to know the nuance of a character.  What’s more, it’s done with finesse.

Sidebar: Canon and Character Development

Before we dive headlong into this episode, it’s important to recap some relevant information from episode 04-Masters of War, because it plays directly into a part of John’s character development that is vital.  It is not an easy tightrope to navigate, but developing John’s character in particular, is a complex problem.  There has been much speculation amongst fans of Supernatural that John Winchester was/is an abusive father.  This writer believes that observation is both short-sighted and flawed.  You cannot examine that role in a vacuum.  The character of John Winchester is a lesson in topical relevance, norms and the cultural and social milieu of the day.  But what he was, without a doubt, was an angry man.  His angry disposition contributed considerably to being a stern father whose secret knowledge of a world where monsters roam, dictated that his responsibilities as a parent meant he had to prepare his boys for a world in which he would not be present to protect them.  The alternative was to train them to be hunters in his absence.  He pulled from his own history, to treat his boys as though they were soldiers, and with military zeal, his boys would not only be able to protect themselves but could walk quietly amongst ordinary people and save them from the evil that lurked in the shadows.  He raised heroes.  A little broken and flawed themselves perhaps, but heroes, nonetheless.

So how do the writers build prequel John, that will adequately honor the John Winchester of Supernatural?  Tricky business.  There’s that tightrope again.  This episode touches on some of that complexity.  How do they help and nurture the prequel John character enough to keep him from buckling under his own trauma, the trauma that will manifest in the anger he harbors within as a father, while simultaneously, not helping him so much that his later iteration does not come to pass?

Episode 04 is a catalyst in that regard.  It triggers the deep-seated trauma within our young John, by taking his friend Carlos and using him as a stand-in for John’s army buddy Murphy, who was blown to bits from stepping on a landmine.  Not only did the monster-God, Mars Neto, flaunt Carlos’ life in front of him, he mirrored the circumstances to undo every attempt John made to bury the pain.  Once unleashed, John was changed.  That is the version of John that shows up in this episode.  And his friends are scared for him.

A Call For Help

The argument between John and Carlos, and witnessed by Lata, draws Mary into the room to see if everything is okay.  We hear a phone ring and the group follow the sound.  We all discover that Samuel Campbell has a “bat phone” in his study.  Mary takes the call, and the team are on the move.  Mary shares the details of who Tracy Gellar is as everyone rides in Carlos’ van.

Tracy is a friend of Mary’s mom and is practically an aunt to Mary.  She holds some real fascination, as Tracy is a hunter who got out of the life and has been enjoying her retirement for ten years.  Tracy called Mary for help.  An old hunting buddy of Tracy, by the name of Darla, was found dead in her barn.  Darla’s journal concluded with an entry that she was tracking a werewolf.

As they arrive at Tracy’s farm, the team are treated to hearing Mary’s nickname, Cricket.  Tracy lets them know that Darla’s body is still in the barn and the team go to examine the body.  They find claw marks on Darla’s body that are consistent with a werewolf attack, but Carlos finds a claw embedded in the barn ceiling and it is not from a werewolf.  No one seems to know what kind of monster the claw belongs too.  Their discussion is interrupted when Tracy announces that everything is ready.  John asks what is ready and they introduce him to the custom known as a hunter’s funeral.

Sidebar: A Hunter’s Funeral

In a moving scene, with the song “Joan of Arc” by Judy Collins playing in the background, Tracy cleans Darla and preps her body for burning.  It’s a tender act taken with great care to lay her body to rest with dignity.  The scene really pulled at the heartstrings.  I would hazard a guess that for many fans of The Winchesters, this scene triggered memories of the last hunter’s funeral they witnessed; Supernatural S15E20.  It prompted a re-watch.

Going back to re-watch the death scene (or rather, forward in the timeline of John and Mary’s sons) we then find a heartbroken Sam standing beside a funeral pyre, experiencing a gaping hole where Dean used to be.  We bare witness to all that Sam feels.  His equilibrium, ever altered, like his world shifted off its axis, while he beats back the loss that triggers waves of pain and emptiness etched onto his features for all to see.  Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki delivered an emotionally wrenching performance.  Their rendering of this scene was so poignant and beautifully executed that the grief was palpable.

Needle & Bone Taxidermy

After the funeral, the team is all together on Tracy’s front porch being treated to some homemade lemonade.  Tracy offers up her Harlequin romance collection to anyone who wants to read them, and Carlos is tempted.  John wants to capture the monster that killed Darla and use it to lure the Akrida.  Mary interjects that without a means to kill the Akrida, luring them would be unwise.  John seems eager to strike at the Akrida but identifying the thing that killed Darla is top priority.  Lata is missing her “Wilmont’s Guide to Monster Anatomy” that got left at home and suggests visiting a friend nearby who specializes in monster identification.  Carlos volunteers to drive her.

While on their way to see her friend, Lata confides in Carlos.  Seeing Darla’s funeral was a staunch reminder that hunting is violent and she wonders if she is a liability to the team.  The demands of being a hunter are weighing heavily on her.  She prides herself on her ability to do all the science and lore research, but she is a pacifist and is therefore torn between two different worlds.  When the fight comes to them, will she be able to help her friends?  They pull up to the “Needle & Bone Taxidermy” which ends the conversation and has Carlos wondering if Lata’s friend is Norman Bates.

Lata explains that the taxidermy is the front-facing part of the whole operation, which her friend took over from his father.  We are then introduced to Anton.  Carlos seems immediately smitten and kind of loses his mind a little, babbling on about liking Psycho (the movie whose villain is Norman Bates) while Anton confesses, he likes “Rear Window” better.  For anyone who doesn’t know, both of these movies were from Alfred Hitchcock and are masterpieces of suspense and horror.  Lata shows Anton the claw they brought, and they begin to examine it.

The Soucouyant

Back at the farmhouse, Mary and Tracy are chatting in the kitchen while John is just outside the kitchen window.  They talk about Mary’s folks and Tracy asks if they are separated again.  Seems they were separated when Mary was little.  Conversation then turned to Mary and when she was planning on getting out of hunting.  Her plan is to find her dad and the Akrida and then she’s out for good.  Tracy asks what she wants to do and she is considering college.  When Mary asks Tracy if she has any regrets, she says the only regret she has is not getting out of hunting earlier.

Back with Anton, they were able to identify the monster as a soucouyant.  Lata calls Mary on the phone to relay the news and Tracy seems visibly shaken.  She confesses that she has hunted them before.  Tracy was part of a small hunting team of herself, Darla, and two men named Mac and Rob.  They travelled to Barbados to hunt the soucouyant and managed to kill three out of a band of four, who were terrorizing a small town.  They were holed up in a cave, so Mac went in after the remaining monster.  There was a cave-in, and both were killed.  Or so Tracy thought.  Now she isn’t so sure and is wondering if the last one has shown up for revenge.

Just as they have this conversation, the main front door to the farmhouse is burst open and the monster walks in.  It has a flaming hand and shoots the fire at the wall, burning off the protection sigil.  John grabs the fire extinguisher and hits the monster with it as it comes at him.  Mary hits it with the fireplace poker and when it runs outside, John follows it.  Mary grabs a machete and runs outside to help John.  The soucouyant cuts a deep gash on John’s shoulder and Mary comes from behind and chops it’s arm off.  It gets up and runs away.

A New Theory

Fearing that the soucouyant will come back for Tracy, they all leave and go to the Men of Letters clubhouse.  John presses Tracy for answers, confused how the monster got out of the cave.  The other member of their team who is still alive, Rob, called Tracy recently and said he wanted to go back and put Mac to rest properly by giving him a hunter’s funeral.  Neither Tracy or Darla heard back from him, so the new theory is that Rob was killed and the monster, who has remained alive in the cave for the last ten years, came to kill Darla.  The only way to kill them is beheading.

Again, John is pushing for action and wants to go back to the farm and hunt, but Mary urges him to be patient.  The monster has already successfully killed two veteran hunters and cutting off its arm didn’t seem to slow it down.  The really odd thing was that there was no blood, so Lata invited Anton to take a look at the severed arm.  John is agitated and goes outside to work on his shoulder. 

Anton and Lata are in the Men of Letters lab and are examining the severed arm.  When they used a bone saw to cut into it, blackish goo spills out of the cut.  Lata looks at Anton, “Is that what I think it is?”

Can we Talk?

Mary goes outside wanting to talk with John who is working out.  He’d rather avoid the lecture he thinks is coming, but Mary is genuinely concerned about him.  Mary tells him how worried she is and has noticed that he has been “off” for the past few weeks.  Everything that happened with Mars Neto didn’t help.  John tells her that being a part of the funeral for Darla really hit home and cremating a woman who used to be a hunter, just like Mary is, means it could be her.  If he needs to push himself to help Mary get out of this hunting life alive, then that is his plan.  Mary challenges that rationale and believes that John is using her as an excuse to avoid his own issues.  She brought up the fact that his mom shared with her that he regularly runs towards danger and has done so since he was a little kid.  He asked that she stop trying to psychoanalyze him.  Before they could talk more, Lata came out to let them know she has something they both should see.  Mary goes inside but John says he wants to cool down first.

Not the Whole Story

Lata, with Anton’s help, finished examining the severed arm of the soucouyant.  She understands why it didn’t die.  The monster was already dead.  The black goo that oozed out when they cut into it, revealed ectoplasm.  Mary demanded answers, wanting to know what Tracy hasn’t told them.

Tracy said that the cave-in that killed Mac and the remaining soucouyant, wasn’t any accident.  They killed him.  She said that when her and Darla formed the team, they brought Mac in, but he was a dark soul from the get-go, but he was a good hunter.  He’d had a rough childhood, abused by his dad, and bullied as a kid, but hunting didn’t alleviate any of his pain, so he turned to dark magic.  Mac became more violent and more aggressive until all the black magic caught up to him and he snapped, turning paranoid he attacked Darla.  Too far gone and more powerful then the rest of the team combined, Mac went into the cave to kill the remaining soucouyant, so they set off some C-4 and caused the cave-in.  Lata admonished Tracy for not helping a friend who was stuck in a cycle of violence, and rather than helping him, they used him like he was some kind of weapon.  Tracy insisted they tried to help him, but he wouldn’t listen.

John Possessed

John goes back to Tracy’s barn looking for the monster, who promptly attacks him.  Mac, who happens to be the vengeful spirit inhabiting the monster shifts into John’s body.  Lata, Mary, Carlos and Tracy show up to find John possessed.  Mac seals the barn so no one can leave and makes it very clear he wants to kill Tracy.  The team do all they can to protect Tracy by fighting Mac, but when Tracy wants to shoot him, Mary begs her not too because of what it will do to John.

Lata steps in and puts herself in harms way to thwart Mac’s efforts to kill Tracy and talks to him about how violence isn’t the answer.  She relays a story from her childhood about what the war did to her father.  She tried to make herself smaller so the violence wouldn’t find her, but it did.  For the longest time it made her feel powerless, until one day it made her angry.  And that anger kept growing inside, just like it did for her father.  Lata acted on that anger for years until she hurt someone, and that’s when she knew she had to make the change.  Lata wants Mac to understand that he has a choice to make.  He can keep hurting those that have wronged him, keep living in that anger and violence, but it won’t bring peace.  Mac looked to Tracy to understand why his team gave up on him, and Tracy was able to bridge that gap, ask for forgiveness and encourage Mac to move on.  Mac released Mary, left John’s body and exited the barn.

Love, Growth and Going Forward

Once the crisis was over and an okay but unconscious John was loaded in the van, Mary said her goodbyes to Tracy.  Tracy vowed to right some of her wrongs by finishing Darla’s hunt for the werewolf.  Anton asked Carlos out on a dinner date.  Lata understood that her place on the team was valuable.  She proved herself an asset that had the ability to help when conventional hunting chose violence as the answer.  Carlos was especially proud of her.  When John awoke from his “hangover” he confided in Mary that their fight about what Mars Neto awoke in him was just part of what he was experiencing lately and that he has wrestled with anger his whole life.  He admitted that hunting was a way to hide from dealing with his issues, but that he is determined to not end up like Mac.  Mary vowed she would not let that happen to him because he means too much to her.  We see John reach out to Lata for guidance in navigating beyond the anger.

Dean Winchester: hunting is not for everyone. You have to be strong, stay sharp, make tough decisions, and it’s not easy. But then again, the righteous things never are.

And in closing, Carlos shares news with the team that his City Hall contact got back to him.  He spreads a map on the table and the red circle marks the spot.  They have found the Akrida.

Music

“Joan of Arc” by Judy Collins

Cast

Next Episode

Tuesday December 6th on The CW at 8/7c.