Supernatural – Episode 9.12 – Sharp Teeth – Review

One of my least favorite guest characters on Supernatural came back into the Winchesters’ lives this week amongst Sam and Dean fighting, a cringe-worthy uncomfortable brother scene, and monologuing monsters.

Now for the shocker – I didn’t totally hate it, at least not on the second watch, and I even enjoyed the Garth part on the first. There are some things that the episode did well, which I’ll go more into further down, and some things that it did poorly. Some of what appeared to be major issues on a first watch made more sense and worked better for me on a second, and I’m a sucker for an emotionally meaty episode, even if it’s dark and messy – and in this case more implied than delivered.

So let’s start with the big conversation, and this falls into that category of parts that made more sense on the second watch than the first. On the first watch I was pulling my hair out at the lack of elaboration with Sam’s final comment, “I’m saying, you wanna work? Let’s work. If you wanna be brothers, well, those are my terms.” I have no issue with Sam being mad. Sam should be mad. What I had an issue with was what seems to be a sloppy habit of several writers on this show avoiding writing difficult dialogue by just not writing it. Sam’s train of thought doesn’t make much sense and he doesn’t elaborate.

But on reflection, I got over the maddening lack of clarity and focused on a thought that formed in the first watch, but became clearer in the rewatch, and that Sam wasn’t cutting off ties with Dean. He wasn’t the one to walk away this time. He forces himself on Dean during the search for Garth. He doesn’t quickly jump out of the car when Dean drives him back to his car. He doesn’t close the door to the idea of hunting together. In fact, if he were really moving on, Sam would have probably dropped hunting once he separated from Dean. What he does is allow continued communication, but with setting the condition that change is needed. He lets Dean know that he’s angry and not ready to trust yet, he’s not okay with Dean’s behavior, and he won’t go back to pretending that there’s a relationship there unless things change. We’ve seen the brothers at odds many times in the past, but things felt different this time. Sam seemed more serious about sticking to his resolve.

I took Sam’s comment that they wouldn't be family as a tie back to often repeated theme that originated with Bobby, but has been repeated in many forms since, and that is the question, what constitutes family? Bobby’s comment was that family doesn’t end with blood. You can take that one step further and say that blood doesn’t equal family. In fact, I believe in season 6, Dean said as much to Samuel Campbell. By saying they won’t be brothers, Sam is saying it’s the relationship that equals family – he’s not saying that family is bad – and he’s saying their relationship is broken. He’s not severing all communication, but he’s forcing change.

There were issues in this episode that I had trouble getting past. One was that while I can make the place where Sam landed work in my head, I feel like we fast-forwarded past the various stages in his reaction. I alluded to this a couple of weeks ago, in commenting that Sam seemed to jump past the stages of processing betrayal in a little over two minutes. Last week we saw Sam in pain – both physical and emotional – but we haven’t really seen Sam angry yet, and I need to see Sam angry to process this. It’s too late now, but this has been a major weak spot in this story, as has been the fact that the overly generic writing of the offense to Sam. Sam has a lot of personal history that directly relates to possession, but the theme of last week’s pain-fest – “it’s on me” – could have been said by Dean (and in fact was said by Dean this week), or Cas, or any other character that’s ever felt guilt. This week, with Sam and Dean reunited, we had another opportunity for the two to dig into their unique history, but we didn’t get it. This is the third episode in which Sam knew about the Gadreel possession, and we still have yet to hear anything about this that is about Sam.

Another issue I had while watching was that I had to keep reminding myself why Dean seemed angry and was trying to dump Sam throughout the whole hunt. I had to think back to realize that Dean wasn’t really angry, and his behavior stemmed from his notion that he’s poison to those around him. But then, if he’s in that state of mind, why was he the one at the end to suggest that the two could get past this? The writing around this seemed inconsistent.

Highlights

The story starts with both Sam and Dean separately and unintentionally meeting up at Garth’s bedside after Garth lands in the hospital. Garth gives them the slip, and they trace him to his new wife’s home, and learn that he has been turned into a werewolf, and has married into a hymn-singing, animal-heart-eating werewolf clan.

The Good

A good episode ties the Monster of the Week case with the soap opera that is Sam and Dean’s lives. What I alluded to earlier – the message about family not being about blood, but rather about the quality of the relationships – was mirrored in Garth’s new family. The family on the surface seemed strong, and even prayed together, and had a rich blood history. But the blood wasn’t enough. The family was broken, as the Winchester family is broken. There was even the parallel of the mother having been killed by a hunter, as Mary was killed by a demon.

Another plus for me was that although Garth has not been my favorite character, and his episodes are ones that I don’t go back to rewatch, for the first time I didn’t find Garth annoying. He seemed toned down this week, which I liked.

There were also some very good and funny moments with Sam and Dean on the hunt, among them Sam slapping Garth after being horrified that Dean was ready to shoot him up with adrenaline, and Sam trapping Dean in a lie about the finding nothing on Garth from the video footage. Yes, they know each other well.

Dean’s dinner with the werewolf clan was an entertaining scene. And seeing Sam and Dean back in middle-America countryside felt like a return to the older episodes that featured Sam and Dean on the road.

The Bad

I’ve already covered a lot of what I didn’t like about the Sam and Dean parts above, so I won’t repeat myself. but I do have a couple of things to add.

The writer for this episode, Adam Glass, is notorious for focusing more on Dean over Sam, and knocking Sam out or having him leave the room when it’s time for interacting with the guest characters. He’s never focused an episode more on Sam than Dean - not even Like a Virgin, which was the first episode after Sam’s soul was released from Hell. And sadly, this episode didn’t surprise.

Glass is also known for some really out-of-character and sometimes very damaging writing of Sam and Dean. The latest addition was Sam’s comment linking Dean talking him out of finishing the trials with his trust issues. Dean didn’t trick Sam in that instance, and Sam would know that. Sam’s comment was poorly stated, which is out of character because Sam is very capable at articulating his thoughts. The guy was training to become at lawyer at Stanford at one time.

On the mytharc side, there was inconsistency in the writing of werewolves, including adding a new ability to change when they’re angry. I’m aware is something that has already been hashed over in depth in the fandom, so I’ll leave it at that.

But what bothered me more (I’ve given up respect for monster canon as a lost cause) was the improbability that with the ever-increasing library of knowledge Sam and Dean have gained access to over the years, that if there was anything left to learn about werewolves, it would have been known by now. Just last week we learned that the Men of Letters knew secrets about angels, their grace, and their vessels, even though angels were hidden from mankind for thousands of years. But Sam and Dean haven’t heard of hunters coming across werewolf purebreds? You can’t have it both ways. You can’t have Sam and Dean finding secrets about Eve, the Mother of All Monsters, in the Campbell family library, but being unaware that there were families like Garth’s new inlaws – creatures hunters have been killing and documenting for centuries.

So what were your thoughts on the episode? Hit or miss?