Supernatural 11x13 "Love Hurts"

Supernatural has taken on holidays in the past, with their Christmas episode being one of my all-time favorites, and tonight's episode was another visit to Valentine's Day. But it wasn't about a cupid gone wrong or anything like that, but apparently the show's take on It Follows. Whoops, I'm giving some of the plot away! Oh well!

In a classic opening from the days of yore, a husband is cheating on his wife with the young babysitter. While she watches the baby, she gets her comeuppance in death by hand shoved through chest to retrieve still-beating heart. Yikes.

The boys catch wind of this suspicious death and head out to investigate. Husband acts rather skittish, so Dean gets him alone and he confesses to schtupping the sitter. And not just that, he stole the nanny cam that caught not just the kiss, but also the murder, on its little flash drive. Just who killed her? Oh my, the person looked just like the husband! But, he wasn't there... which means we must have a shapeshifter on our hands, right? They especially think so after the husband himself gets offed by what appears to be the already deceased babysitter. Dun dun dun!

The boys think it must be the wife, but she passes the silver test. What they don't see, though, is her frantically shoving some spell-making stuff into her garbage disposal before her husband-shifter shows up to kill her too. Luckily, she's not a complete wuss/idiot as some people on this show, and manages to get out of the place and go find Sam and Dean. Once she confesses what really happened - she got a spell from her hairdresser to make her husband love her again - they're able to figure out, well, not much, other than it appears that it's really a curse, and it gets passed from person to person with a kiss. The last person kissed is the first on the list, and once they're killed, it goes for the next, and the next, and so on.

It shows up there at the motel, so Dean quickly kisses the wife to take the curse on before they skedaddle out of there to the salon where the witchy hairdresser works. In more ways than one. She has a spell book in the basement that tells them exactly what they're fighting - a Qareen. Which is basically a shapeshifting killer thing that can only be killed by stabbing it in the heart, which is conveniently not in its body. Oh, and it takes on the guise of the cursed person's deepest desire. My, I wonder what Dean's could be?

Sam heads upstairs to look for the heart while Dean searches downstairs. Sam is luckier in the heart department, but before he can stab it, the witch shows up and tosses him around with some spells. Which gives the Qareen enough time to find Dean and taunt him a bit before trying to punch its fist through his heart. Luckily, the wife interrupts the witch trying to kill Sam in time for him to shoot her and stab the heart, just before the Qareen was going to rip out Dean's. And another bites the dust.

That leaves us with a final scene with the brothers, where Dean actually confesses who was his darkest desire. Sam is not surprised, pretty much at all. Score one for both being honest with each other and for Sam not being stupid. Dean is all angsty about it, like man, I won't be able to do it when I'm near her, but Sam's all "I got this." Carry on.

Random Thoughts:

- I know I don't always touch on the funny scenes in the actual recap portion here, but they are nearly always my favorite. It seems like it's becoming something of a tradition now, after the opening death, a funny/cute scene with the brothers in the bunker just being brothers.

- Also, we must comment on the rock-paper-scissors that Dean finally did not lose. Well, someone's growing! Why wouldn't he just do paper as his first thing, though, if he was sure Sam would do rock to beat him? Not growing enough, apparently!

- Is it sad I'd rather have these more standalone episodes now than the ones dealing with the overall plot? In the old days, it was almost always the opposite.

- You have to assume the writers have all seen It Follows. Incidentally, if you haven't, it's actually a really creepy movie that I recommend. One of the smarter and more interesting indie horror movies. Not that I've seen a ton of horror movies, but...yeah.

Quotes:

Sam: Is that a hickey?
Dean: And? It was Valentine's Day.

Dean: First, I need bacon.
Sam: No. First, you need a shower.
Dean: You're not wrong.

Dean: Hey what's a dad bod?

Dean: The Art of Dyeing. Well, can't say she didn't warn ya.

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