![\"d49\"](\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/d49.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n\nDirected by Tony Wharmby
\nWritten by Cathryn Humphris & John Shiban<\/i><\/p>\n
Nietzsche wrote,”When you look into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you.” I thought of that while writing the re-cap. “Dead Man’s Blood” is an abyss. The longer I look at it, the more it looks back at me, the deeper it goes. The associations are dizzying. To use another image, it’s a Hall of Mirrors. It works so well because the mirrors are so omnipresent that the endless reflections actually become reality (something that doesn’t happen in more awkward episodes). That dizzying effect could be seen as a metaphor for what it is like to live in the Winchester family. Are you seeing yourself in the reflection? Or are you seeing someone else’s version<\/i> of you? Are you you<\/i>? Or are you just an extension of your dad, your brother? The abyss quality of “Dead Man’s Blood” is reflected in the look of the episode which is often so dark you literally cannot see what is happening. It’s darker than the pilot<\/a>. Vampires are nocturnal. So are the Winchesters. The Winchesters may not be the “Undead” but they squint in the sunlight too. <\/p>\n The Winchesters fight all kinds of beings but when they fight vampires, things get twisty psychologically. You can isolate all of the vampire episodes and see that, down to the disturbing one in Season 9 (one of the sickest SPN episodes ever). Vampires are symbolic, in ways that other monsters are not. There are a couple of reasons why that might be, but I prefer to let it just swim around un-named in the abyss. Because I am still seeing things and finding things in the vampire episodes. They are still revealing themselves to me. I think one of the things that happens is that vampires were once human beings, so it’s not as easy to label them as “Other,” because they look and talk like us. Also they operate as families. They run in a pack. They have fierce loyalty and even love for one another. “Dead Man’s Blood” sets that up right away. Every time there has been a confrontation with a vampire on this show, it is impossible to ignore the fact that what we are seeing in the vampire world is just a dark mirror of what is going on in the human world. And Sam and Dean, alternately, get caught up in that Hall of Mirrors too. Repeatedly. Vamps reflecting your own past, your own pain. The concept of “watching” is used a lot in “Dead Man’s Blood.” “You like to watch, don’t you? Me too,” says a vampire to his victim. Looking on as violence occurs, looking on as sexual assault occurs, what it means to watch, what it means to be the watcher, especially when what you are watching is happening to a family member \u2026 it shows up repeatedly and disturbingly in “Dead Man’s Blood.” <\/p>\n I’m not a huge vampire person, although I’ve read Dracula<\/i>, of course, and recently had a lot of fun reading The Historian<\/i> (I love that the scared mom in “The Kids are All Right” falls asleep on the couch reading that book). I’ve read the Twilight books. I’ve read Anne Rice. And there are almost too many vampire films to count. F.W. Murnau’s 1922 film Nosferatu<\/i> is still terrifying today. <\/p>\n \n \nYou know Serge Ladouceur has seen Nosferatu<\/i>. I mean, that’s a “shadow”, isn’t it. That’s the Shtriga, too. <\/p>\n Vampires tap into a deep pool of desire and repulsion. They are scary, but not like werewolves or vengeful spirits are scary. Vampires bring with them sex, and submission, as well as the possibility of eternal life. Over the years, vampires have changed and morphed, as stories do, to fit the times. They became associated with Satanic forces (hence the idea that you could repel them by holding up a cross). But vampires are a reflection of the needs\/fears\/desires of people at any given time. You know us by our vampire lore, basically. So in Twilight<\/i>, they become a glamorous symbol of self-sacrifice and the difficulties of chastity (I mean, it sounds ridiculous, and it is, but there you have it). As Dean observes in “Twihard,” vampires like that are a little bit “rapey”. Vampires have always been a little bit rapey. They take down their victims by biting the neck, an erotic image, something that Twilight<\/i> dwells on explicitly. Eric Kripke et al. were conscious of the over-saturation of vampires in today’s culture but knew they wanted to include them in the series. So the challenge was how to make them “theirs,” to distinguish them from Twilight<\/i>, obviously, but also from other references. So how do they do that? Bluntly, with John informing his sons, “Most vampire lore is crap.”<\/p>\n The structure of the episode is full of mystery. It withholds information from us, from scene to scene to scene. Sometimes we go 4 or 5 scenes where questions are posed and NOT answered. Like the Colt, for example. The Colt hovers over the action from the teaser, and we have zero idea why, and the episode is patient enough to make us sweat it out. The characters, at all points, know more than we do. They also keep secrets from one another. But the overall effect, of information withheld, is disorienting. You want to know what John’s plan is. You want to know what he’s thinking. And, of course, isn’t that just how Sam and Dean feel? There’s a lot here about information itself: who has it, who controls it, who is in charge of it. This leads below to one of my “digressions” about cults and how they operate, an enduring interest of mine. <\/p>\n \n<\/p>\n \nThe episode is called “Dead Man’s Blood.” In Season 1, Supernatural<\/i> was pretty literal with its titles. “Bugs.” “Asylum.” “Scarecrow.” That is clearly no longer the case, the episode titles now being snarky literary-reference-heavy, pop-culture heavy, inside-jokey, clever. “Dead Man’s Blood” strikes me as a curious title. While vampires are the reason for the episode, the real point of it is the introduction of the mythical Colt revolver, a game-changer. But it’s not called “The Colt,” it’s not called “Vampires,” it’s called “Dead Man’s Blood.” In Supernatural<\/i> vampire lore, you can temporarily take down a vampire by injecting them with the blood of a dead man. Just riffing on that idea: the Winchester men have been “taken down” by the death of Mary. It has stunned them all, traumatized them all in different ways, and they have been staggering around like a stun-gunned animal ever since. You could also see it as a harbinger of what is to come, John Winchester’s influence on his sons, and the fact that he’s going to die in a couple of episodes. Vampires are susceptible to “dead man’s blood,” but we all are susceptible in different ways. Nobody is invulnerable. Nobody is a Terminator. There are chinks in the armor, things get to us, against our will, no matter our defenses. There is always<\/i> a “way in.” And so those ideas connect to the Colt. The Colt is a “way in.” The Colt may very well be the most effective “dead man’s blood” there is. <\/p>\n TEASER<\/big> Stevie Ray Vaughan’s “The House is Rockin'” leads us into the roadhouse. It’s a pretty funny song choice. Certainly a favorite of dive bars everywhere, but the lyrics take on a double-meaning, considering what goes down in the teaser:<\/p>\n Well, the house is a rockin’, don’t bother knockin’ And the vamps don’t bother knockin’!<\/p>\n \n \nNo establishing shot yet, we have no idea who it is but we already have learned enough to know a hunter’s journal when we see one. The man is in partial darkness, like the Winchesters often are. Gloomy, obsessive. The bartender has to say his name twice to get his attention. He looks ROUGH. This is Daniel Elkins (Terence Kelly). The bartender is kind, and when another customer jokes to her, under his breath, “I thought they caught the Unabomber” she says compassionately, “He’s a nice old man. He’s just a nut.”<\/p>\n As she pours him another shot, you can see Mr. Elkins sense something. The door to the bar has opened and a swaggering sexy group enters, led by a hottie biker chick. There’s an aggressive and self-congratulatory, self-regarding energy in the group. “Yeah, we’re here, we’re vampires, get used to it.” It’s like Roger Corman’s motorcycle gang pictures, or, even earlier, like The Wild One<\/i>, where Marlon Brando plays the head of a motorcycle gang who terrorizes a small town. <\/p>\n \n They take up a table near the bar, sprawling out obnoxiously. There’s a weird vibe. Elkins clearly senses it, but so does the bartender and the other customer. Vampires are “too much,” too intense. They seem like trouble. The bartender notices Elkins’ abandoned drink, and looks up to see the bar door closing behind him. He’s gone. <\/p>\n Up in the canyon, Elkins hurries into his cabin. It’s so dark you can’t see a damn thing. He, like Rufus, like John Winchester, shows the end result of a hunters life. It is where Sam and Dean are going. They’re still young, but they will become this. It’s a mathematical certainty. Once inside the cabin, he stops, again sensing something, and turns. Kate, the head honcho, played by Anne Openshaw, is standing there. <\/p>\n \n \n(Openshaw does a great job. She brings both a voracious hunger to the role, as well as a needy sort of blank-ness, the blank-ness of the predator who needs to feed, the blank-ness, too, of a creature totally in thrall to another. There are some interesting closeups of Openshaw later in the episode where we see her anxious almost Donna-Reed-housewife energy: “See what I brought for you, baby? Aren’t I a good girl?”)<\/p>\n Elkins knows what she wants. Her greeting to him suggests a history. They have crossed paths before. Elkins, knowing he’s a goner, runs into another room, barricading himself in. Flipping the combination on the safe behind the desk, urgently, quickly, his fingers can’t move quickly enough. We are about to welcome The Colt into the series, and I, for one, am in love with it. (I wrote about how aesthetically pleasing I find guns in the “Nightmare” re-cap<\/a>, a controversial opinion, but I’m trying to keep it real. So, naturally, the Colt appeals.) Elkins, frantic now, pulls out the wooden gun box, and starts to load up the silver bullets, all as she rattles at the door trying to get in. “Don’t bother knockin’, sister. Come on in.”<\/p>\n \n Then, two vampire Boondock Saints-types slo-mo crash through the windows in the ceiling. Slo-mo is not really the show’s style, but it’s impressive nonetheless. Elkins is then pinned against the desk, just as Miss Biker Chick pushes her way into the room, strolling forward like Marlon Brando’s lazy motorcycle gang leader in The Wild One<\/i>, who never hurries, is never worried. <\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
\nManning, Colorado
\nPresent Day<\/i><\/p>\n
\nYeah, the house is a rockin’, don’t bother knockin’
\nIf the house is a rockin’, don’t bother, come on in<\/i><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n