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Supernatural Season 8 Episode 5

Blood Brother

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AIRED: Oct 31, 2012

8.3

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Episode Summary

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Dean goes to help Benny, who has run afoul of vampires guarding his Maker. Left alone, Sam thinks about his year of retirement, but is soon called back in when Dean calls him for help.

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Supernatural "Blood Brother" Review: Yo Ho, Yo Ho, a Vampirate's Life for Me

By MaryAnn Sleasman, 18 hours ago

I've put a lot of stock in Dean's vampire BFF, Benny, ultimately being a baddie... but now that we've learned his side of the story, I'm not so sure.

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SUBMIT REVIEW

Benny Benny!!!!

9.0

By angim350, 17 hours ago

Much better. Much, much better than the preceding two weeks.

There was a hell of a lot to like about this episode, as we finally found out a bit more about Benny, who's shaping up to be a Bobby replacement and a brilliant ally for the boys. I'm a bit surprised they gave it all away so soon; we pretty much discovered everything we needed to know about him in one fell swoop. While the pirates vampire idea was damn good, Benny's actual backstory was a tad cliche. Ancient vampire forms a cult of worshippers. One of them decides they don't want to be in the cult anymore, because they've fallen in love. The cult then turn the love into a vampire, and she turns out to be an evil bitch after all that. But hey... it was still entertaining. It seems that Benny genuinely wants to do good now he's out of purgatory, and the creepy vibe that we were getting at the start of the season was a nice red herring. Then again, season 8 continues to twist, turn and surprise, so I'm not going to conclude Benny is a good guy just yet. It's very rare on Supernatural that a monster lives, no matter how much they try to change themselves.

So. While this was very much Benny's episode, the flashbacks into Purgatory continue to be an absolute blast. It was awesome seeing Dean (a master Hunter), Benny (a kick ass Vampire) and Castiel (an Angel) working together to survive in that place. Equally awesome was the welcome return of Leviathans. I loved how they shot out of the sky as goo, before becoming human like. If there was one thing that seemed a little forced though, it was how easily they overpowered Cas. Yeah yeah. Leviathans beat Angels (as we found out in the penultimate episode of last season... ie the season where Leviathans were the big bad (have I mentioned that this made no sense to me, introducing it so close to the end of the season?)) but how can you have super strong, super charged Cas getting overpowered so easily and then have Dean, who is after all just a man, easily taking care of his attacker. I have no issue with Leviathans being stronger than Angels... I mean after all it gives Cas something to fear on the show. Just consistency would be nice. Saying that though, I suppose the point of that scene was to show Cas and Benny starting to form an alliance. It is pretty tragic to see that they both know what Dean won't accept... Cas will probably have to be left behind.

So.... there is a weak aspect of the episode, right? Yes. You guessed it. Sammy.

Oh Sammy. I don't want to be this mean with you every week. But until your story starts making an ounce of sense, mean I shall be.

So. Your brother is trapped in Purgatory. Your best friends are dead. There is still an army of Leviathans out there now under the control of Crowley, who you know is one evil bastard. And... you take a year out? No. Not buying it.

This same Sam was driven insane by the loss of his brother. The superb "Mystery Spot" in season 3 showed us just how much these brothers will do if one of them is in need of the other. Like I've said before.... if Sam wants to retire he's damn well earned it. He was Lucifer's bitch for a century, he's saved countless lives... he's earned it! But to see him travelling around, fixing things in a hotel, flirting with the nearest hot bird, getting himself a dog.... all while his brother is rotting in Purgatory... it makes him extremely difficult to like. Even soulless Sam wasn't this bad! Take out the fact that Dean is in Purgatory and this storyline would actually be okay. As it is... weak.

Anyway. Thank you for a very good episode this week!moreless
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New showrunner Jeremy Carver seems to have forgotten the "No Chick Flick Moments" rule from back in the pilot.

7.0

By GabrielLoki, 19 hours ago

He's chick-flicking all over the place, between Sam and Amelia, Benny and Andrea, and Brian, Michael and Kate last week. At least the latter ones have vampires and werewolves thrown in, but the Sam and Amelia story doesn't even have that.

The Purgatory flashbacks were the stuff I love, but I need more than just a few cool flashbacks sandwiched between chick flick moments.
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Great vampire story, sucky Sam story, and too many stories

8.0

By Katiki, 21 hours ago

On the positive side, once again the show has made something new out of something old--in this case, something very old, vampires. The "vampirates" angle was new, and more importantly, pretty damn cool. Benny's backstory was interesting, and I loved the twist that though he had given up his evil ways for the love of a woman, her love for him led her to evil. I liked that he recognized she was no longer the woman he loved and refused to go back down that road with her, and was sad but understanding when Dean beheaded her. It's easier to see now why Dean befriended Benny (in spite of the whole fang thing): he was telling the truth in Purgatory, he really had stopped killing humans.

I also liked the Purgatory flashbacks. The dynamic between the three characters was interesting, the tension between Cas and Benny and Dean stuck in the middle, and the fact that for all he didn't want to get killed because he was hanging with an angel beacon, Benny did save Cas's life when push came to shove. I also love the look and feel of Purgatory, it is chilling and creepy and primitive. And the Leviathan goo bombs were super cool.

And now for the not-so-positive part. I am not liking the Sam storyline for so many reasons it is not even funny. Even putting aside the character assassination of having Sam desert Dean, Cas and Kevin when they were in mortal danger. They haven't even shown us that Sam grieved for Dean yet. There is nothing interesting about it. It's mundane. When Sam was fixing the fan in the motel room, I thought maybe Kevin had hidden something in there or something bloody would come out. But no. He's just fixing the fan. That's it. Dean, Cas and Benny are off having epic supernatural adventures, and Sam is fixing a fan. How is that supposed to be interesting? At the end when Sam rushed off to the rescue, I thought finally he's going to do something, but he only got there in time to catch the rope on the pier.

To top that off, as I've said before, I'm not interested in romance in and of itself (that's why I'm watching Supernatural instead of Gossip Girl), and I don't like it when female characters are there only to be the romantic interest for a male character and have no role of their own to play in the plot. To boot, I don't like it when the female characters are written to be bitchy. She was pretty horrid to Sam in the first episode, but I thought okay, just first impressions, let's get to know her better. The second time she was nice, she even baked him a cake, and I thought maybe I could like her. But now we're back to her being nasty and insulting to Sam again. With 85% of primetime TV writers being men (according to a study at San Diego State University), we still get too many female characters stereotyped from a male POV. And bitch is one of my least favourite ones, along with damsel in distress and sex object. They wrote Sam as calling her "angry lady" so they have to be aware of how they're writing her. Do they expect me to like her anyway? Do they expect me to feel sorry for her that she's all alone when they haven't first given me a chance to like her?

(At this year's Comic Con, Ben Edlund said he was going to put more effort into writing female characters equally to the male characters and I liked the sound of that. He wrote this episode, but the season is young. Edlund wrote the episode where it's Jamie who shoots the vampire, for which I will always love him, so I'm still looking forward to seeing what he can do with female characters he gets to create.)

Furthermore, we've done this story before, with Lisa. And I liked it the first time around, but there were key differences in how it was handled. I loved Lisa: she was kind and caring as well as being calm and strong even in a crisis. The Dean/Lisa story was always integrated with the Supernatural stories, with djinn attacks, Dean returning as a vampire, Lisa and Ben being captured by Crowley, etc. And the real heart of the story was how Dean was torn between hunting and being with Lisa and Ben, and how he just could not reconcile the two.

This Sam/Amelia storyline doesn't even feel like Supernatural to me, it doesn't feel part of the same universe or the same show. In the first flashback with Amelia, the picnic in the park, it looked like a scene from a Nicholas Sparks movie had been spliced into Supernatural. Blood Brother felt like two episodes from two vastly different shows--one a romantic drama and one a fantasy action drama--had been edited together. Sam fixed a fan. And then he fixed an AC. And then he fixed a sink. And then Angry Lady bitched at him. And then they talked about their feelings. How is that supposed to be a Supernatural story? Now that we've been told it's "straightforward," "what you see is what you get" and "a human story" I can't even hold out hope there will be a supernatural twist.

On top of that dichotomy, this episode also felt very disjointed because it kept jumping around to four different places and times. I was constantly being jolted out of a story and dumped in another one. I was like "Pick a storyline! Pick a year! Pick a genre! Pick a plane of existence! Just pick something and stick with it!" I'm all for them experimenting with flashbacks, but I think they should stick with one present-day storyline and one lost-year-storyline per episode--so they're only jumping between two stories, and not four. Like have a present-day story with Sam and Dean, and alternate flashbacks to Purgatory and with Angry Lady. And also make Sam's flashbacks better. A lot better.

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Does Purgatory make you closer than blood brothers?

9.5

By DeborahBlinde, 21 hours ago

Finally back on track after a slow tease for 4 episodes. Small hints about what happened in the year- hope Sam's life was more interesting than fixing pipes! Overall with this type of writing and acting, esp from Jensen- I'll keep watching for years, but the characters have to develop with their age appropriate relationships as the series continues to be about the brothers. Benny was enjoyable third character. I thought the greyness of Purgatory and the angle shots contrasted with Sam's color laden scenes were a great directing addition to great script. Did Benny drink Dean's blood in Purgatory making them "Blood Brothers"? When Ty was Eli in season 2 Dean stated he killed those things and then agreed with Sam not to' 'cause these vamps had changed- good memories of season 2 thread picked up here. Dean centric episode is Sam's coming as well?moreless
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Back on Form

10

By PurpleWeaver, Yesterday

Superb episode. Gorgeous sets, good characterisation, top class fighting on screen and off and exceptionally well cast actors- especially the 'Old Man'- not easy to give a convincing performance, especially in the current Twilight climate, but he really pulled it off.

Supernatural walks a delicate line between being able to take the mick out of itself and, conversely, dealing with relatively ridiculous subjects in a serious fashion. This episode exemplifies just how adept they are doing this.

Top marks and a bucketful of Thanks for making such great television.moreless
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Cast & Crew: STARS

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Jared Padalecki	Sam Winchester
Jensen Ackles	Dean Winchester

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Cast & Crew: RECURRING AND GUESTS

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Ty Olsson	Benny	Guest Star
Liane Balaban	Amelia Richardson	Guest Star
Patrick Stafford	The Maker	Guest Star
Misha Collins	Castiel	Recurring Role

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Episode Photos

Liane Balaban on Supernatural from "Bloo...

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Jared Padalecki and Liane Balaban on Sup...

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Ty Olsson on Supernatural from "Blood Br...

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Jared Padalecki on Supernatural from "Bl...

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Trivia, Notes, Quotes and Allusions

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TRIVIA (0)
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QUOTES (6)
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- Sam: Kid's like Rain Man.
  Dean: He's like a crappy little credit-card-counting criminal prodigy Rain Man.
  Sam: Well, he was in Advanced Placement.
  Dean: Shut up.
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- Castiel: It does present a curious curl in the metaphysics, doesn't it? If you murder a monster in monster heaven, where does it go?
  Benny: And this is the crazy aunt I want to take on the road?
  Castiel: I am not your aunt.
  Benny: What? Really?
  Castiel: I have no possible relationship to your sibling offspring.
  Benny: Now you're kidding me.
  Dean: Oh, you two are killing me.
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- Dean: Vampire pirates? That's what you guys are. Vampirates.
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- Dean: What the hell do you know about the value of life? You're a vampire.
  Benny: Yep. And I think we both know which of our kinds killed more humans.
  Castiel: Well, statistically speaking, that'd be your...
  Dean: Yes, thank you, Cass.
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- Sam: So, you think I'm creepy?
  Amelia: I think it's creepy that you buy all of your clothing at army surplus. White supremacists do that.
  Sam: Yeah, but I'm not.
  Amelia: Drifting serial killers do that.
  Sam: Fair enough.
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- The Maker: You're right. I've been here so, so long, Benny, seen all the outcomes, all the patterns a trillion times. It all means so little. This universe is a pyramid of despair, nothing else.
  Benny: A little dark.
  The Maker: I am evil, after all. At least I've had that much to keep me cold at night.
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NOTES (2)
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- Misha Collins is credited as Special Guest Star.
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- International Airdates:
  Canada: November 4, 2012 on SPACE
  Australia: November 12, 2012 on Eleven
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