Baby's Rear View Recap: 11.13 "Love Hurts"

This post is about Supernatural 11.13 "Love Hurts," written by Eric Charmelo & Nicole Snyder and directed by Phil Sgriccia.

Happy Unattached Drifter Christmas!

In honor of the day, I have included a few (carefully selected for content and humor) Supernatural Valentines!

And my personal favorite:

I got all of these from this Tumblr, where there are plenty more to be found. Knock yourself out.

And without firther ado, here's the recap:

Spoilers to follow.

“College Girl Dies of a ‘Broken Heart’”

The episode opens with a nice-looking couple getting ready to celebrate Valentine’s Day. They’re kissing when—suddenly—the doorbell rings; it’s the babysitter. The husband meets the babysitter at the door and they share a kiss—turns out the husband is schtupping the babysitter. After the couple leaves and the babysitter is alone, the camera goes into creepy stalker-mode. Someone sneaks up on the babysitter, but once she sees who it is, she isn’t scared (it’s obvi the husband). For a second, she’s pleased. And then he punches out her heart.

“I can’t help it if I’m a hopeless romantic.”

“You got half of that right.”

Back in the Bunker, Sam is studying. Dean walks in barely awake, sporting a hickey. He stumbles to the fridge and proceeds to stuff his face with takeout, only to spit it back out again, as it has clearly gone bad. This is a fun scene; Dean is clearly celebrating Unattached Drifter Christmas right. Amid brotherly banter, Sam fills Dean in on their new case.

“Was it like an ironic werewolf?”

The boys interview the husband and wife. They find out the nanny-cam is missing, and the boys surmise that something is up with the husband—turns out he took it. Dean questions him and gets him to show him the video. (Side-note, Dean is really not impressed by this guy. He’s looking really tired and uninterested, almost like a real FBI agent.) The video makes it look like the perp was the husband himself, but the flashing eyes point to shapeshifter.

“I’m guessing it’s the wife.”

We cut back to the husband’s office, where he is alone at the end of the day. Someone is stalking him, and it turns out to be the dead babysitter. After a moment with her, the husband has lost his heart. Confused, the boys decide to question the wife next. Even though she admits she knew her husband was cheating, she denies being a murderer. The boys test her with a silver pen, but she doesn’t flinch. As soon as they leave, however, the wife pulls out a shoebox full of what looks like a spell. She then calls someone, asking for help. Later that night, the wife is drinking wine when the husband shows up.

“Hey, what’s a ‘Dad Bod’?”

Dean gets back to Sam at the “Too Tired Motel” (love this play on words, btw) after striking out at the bar. The wife turns up right after, having somehow escaped her dead husband. She explains that her hairdresser gave her a Return-to-Love spell, which may have somehow led to the broken-hearts murder spree.

“Kinda makes you nostalgic for good old-fashioned herpes.”

After looking at the spell, Sam explains that it’s actually a curse called “The Kiss of Death.” (A curse spread by kissing?! I like it.) The husband soon shows up, and Dean, seeing that silver bullets can’t stop him, kisses the wife to save her (my hero). Sam is very upset, and the three scramble into the impala to make their escape. As they peel out of the parking lot, we see the shadow of the husband morph into a woman.

“What kind of FBI agents are you?”

“The fake kind.”

Once they’re at a safe distance, Sam expresses his frustration to Dean. Good, Sammy, get it all out. He tells Dean that he shouldn’t try to be the martyr or the guinea pig, but Dean shrugs it off. Meanwhile, the wife is freaking out and the boys do an okay job at calming her down. After their talk she leads them to the salon where she met the witch, “The Art of Dyeing.” (“Can’t say she didn’t warn you.”)

“You punch her, you stab her, you drop a freaking house on her if you have to.”

The boys leave the wife in the car and get to work. While investigating the salon, the boys find a book of spells and read up on the one the witch used. It’s a Qareen, which presents itself as “your deepest darkest desire” and can only be stopped when its heart is destroyed. The catch is that its heart does not reside in the body.

“I finally get some face time with Daisy Duke.”

The boys split up to look for the heart (which must be possessed by the witch in order for her to control it. Why her possessions are in the salon and not on her person or in her house is not explained. Does she live here?) The boys play a rousing game of rock-paper-scissors to decide who goes where, which Dean wins for once (yay Dean! You’ve gotten so much smarter!). He’s so pleased with himself that he doesn’t even mind that Sam takes the upstairs anyway. Sam finds a likely looking locked box, but unfortunately, the witch has found him. And the Qareen has found Dean. As it turns out, Dean’s deepest desire is Amara. Should’ve seen that one coming.

“You’re practically a feminist.”

I don’t even know what to say about this line. On first watch, I felt really betrayed by this line. (Come on, Samantha, I thought we were soul sisters—do you not understand what feminism is?) Is he equating this witch with feminists? Because I am not a witch, thank you very much. After watching it a couple times, I’m beginning to hope that maybe Sam is being very subtly sarcastic. Maybe he’s making fun of the witch not because she is acting like a *ridiculous* feminist, but for erroneously thinking she’s a feminist (and by extension, he’s making fun of people who think that feminism is all about punishing men). The former is the impression I got from the scene, but the latter fits better with who I personally think Sam is. Either way, I think it was a pretty confusing and unnecessary joke and as a feminist, it alienated me because I’m not sure whether my beloved Sam is making fun of me or not (Oh, what did I do to deserve this!)

“I guess I’m just weeding out the idiots… and you’re next.”

Dean and Qareen-Amara have a heart-to-heart (pun intended) about Dean’s desire for Amara and his shame over it. She lovingly encourages him to give in. But when Dean calls her a cheap imitation, a fight ensues. Meanwhile the witch tries to kill Sam with a spell; luckily, the wife interrupts and Sam is able to hit the witch with some of his (aptly named) witch-killing bullets. Dean is just a heartbeat away from a violent death when Sam stabs the Qareen’s heart, just in the nick of time.

“We need to kill the Darkness… and I don’t think I can.”

In my favorite scene of the episode, Dean finally admits to Sam that he’s attracted to Amara, and Sam admits that he already knows. Dean expresses his fear of weakness and of being complicit in Amara’s evil acts. Sam commiserates with Dean and explains that he doesn’t blame him; he implores him not to beat himself up over it. Dean finally acknowledges that he must rely on Sam to see this through when he can’t do it for himself, and apologizes for putting it all on him. Sam takes it all on like a true brother and assures Dean that he will take care of it. Look at my babies all grown up.

Questions:

This episode was super Monster-of-the-week and didn’t tie into the plot much until the end. That said, the only question it really brought up was what is Sam going to do about Amara? Can he actually take the burden from Dean?

Conclusions:

This has not been my favorite episode of the season. I usually love holiday-themed episodes, but I thought the plot of this one was pretty “eh.” I love the idea of a curse spread through kissing, and I have to admit that I didn’t see it coming. But the whole setup with the cheating husband was pretty darn done. I didn’t care for any of the secondary characters at all, they were uninteresting plot-filler. However, Sam and Dean’s interactions together were extremely well-written and funny. That last scene was really beautiful, and shows some real character development.

There was a ton of problematic relationship issues not addressed to my satisfaction, from Dean’s shame over Amara to the wife’s sick devotion to her attempt to force him to love her to the husband’s affair with a tiny child. Gross and under-developed and PROBLEMATIC.  

And then there’s the feminist comment which I really can’t get over.  Just tell me, what was he trying to say?! The “f-word” just packs too big a punch not to be certain what you’re aiming at.

Also, the dad bod comment. I want to know the context in which Dean heard it. Because he does not have a dad bod. I’ve been hearing lots of discussion on this point and I want it settled.

Also, a canon question: why did the video show flashing eyes if the Qareen is not a traditional shape-shifter? And remind me—what are witch-killing bullets and why do we need them? 

Overall, I really enjoyed the jokes and the Sam and Dean, but the other elements of the episode fell a bit flat for me. While I will fondly remember some of the moments (Dean finally winning rock-paper-scissors) the episode as a whole is definitely not one of my favorites.