A SUPERNATURAL Kind of "Heartache"

Episode 803: “Heartache”

[photos: James Dittiger & Jack Rowand/The CW]

Finally! Aside from Dean continuing to have no filter on his mouth and it being a “monster-of-the-week” one-shot, this was a really solid episode. And you know what? I really like that it was a good old-fashioned “Scooby Doo” type of episode. It’s where the show began, and it’s what the show does best.

You know what else? I hate most horror stuff. Why, then, am I watching Supernatural at all, let alone reviewing it? Because this is one of the few horror things I enjoy. It goes too far in the gore department for me sometimes, but I figure that’s for the 18-30 year old male demographic primarily who get off on seeing people eviscerated every week. But whatevs, because that’s not why I watch Supernatural.

It’s because of the Winchesters.

It’s because I care about them as people, as capable hunters trying to do the right thing, as brothers, and as two people trying to be a family despite everything. They love each other (no, not like that, I don’t read the slashfics). It’s strained, but we can see that they care about each other more than anything or anyone else in the universe. That’s what brings me back week after week.

I liked this week’s episode in particular because it was a classic mystery that was meted out in small bits until the final pieces fell into place at the end. I did figure it out a few minutes before they revealed who “Betsy” was, but some of it was still a real head-scratcher. Some (mostly) fresh blood in the writing department helped with that, I believe—something every show should do about every two to three years.

Brad Buckner and Eugenie Ross-Leming have been a writing team since 1976, all the way back to Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman and including Scarecrow & Mrs. King and Lois & Clark. You could see that experience in this episode, which was solid in every way.

The one thing I would have changed? Dean being a jerk. “That never gets old,” my husband quipped with a tired sigh as Dean bitched out Sam for the horrible crime of going to a farmer’s market. Okay, we get it, he’s become the perfect hunter and doesn’t care about the fun things in life any more. But this is just plain tedious to watch, and there are moments I wish Dean were back in Purgatory instead of putting Sam (and us) there week after week. It was softer this week, however, which made the episode a lot more fun.

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