Things between Sam and Dean have been a bit tense with each keeping secrets from the other. When the brothers have to decide how to deal with a man who has a demon inside of him, it leads to some unusual tactics from the Winchester brothers.
Right from the beginning, we see Dean watching Sam as he and Ruby exorcise a demon. Dean is furious about this, because Sam lied to him. There also seems to be a concern from Dean that by Sam using his powers that it could lead to Sam going down the wrong path and possibly turning evil himself. This is the same fear that Castiel and God have about Sam’s power, but like Castiel said, Sam’s future is unclear, so it could very well be a good thing for all we know.
The boys get a call from a fellow hunter named Travis who needs help capturing Jack, a man who has a Rugaru inside of him. A Rugaru is a flesh-eating demon… it’s mostly a tapeworm giving the person an insatiable appetite and driving the person to ultimately eating human flesh where they’ll transform. Rugaru might be one of the worst names for a demon that we’ve gotten on the show and it honestly sounds like a monster kids see in their closet or something.
Sam and Dean each have a different way of going about this. Dean wants to burn Jack and get it over with, but also to prevent him from hurting anyone and Sam sympathizes with Jack and wants to talk to him in hopes that Jack can control the demon inside of him. There was a lot suspense in this episode as we watched Jack try to control the demon inside of him and there were several times during the episode where it looked like he was going to attack someone. We sympathize with Jack, because he’s not a bad person and he tried really hard to control himself.
Jared Padalecki as Sam and Jensen Ackles as Dean
Travis feels unsatisfied by the boy’s wait-and-see policy and decides to take things into his own hands by attempting to burn Jack and his wife who’s pregnant with a child who carried the Rugaru gene. Travis is one of the hunters that we don’t sympathize with in this episode. We do understand where he’s coming from being an old school hunter and all, but the way he went about it was wrong. In a certain way you couldn’t help but be somewhat glad when Jack eats his flesh a little…
In the end Jack loses his family and ultimately his life, but it was definitely a sad moment to see him have to die. If Travis wouldn’t have taken it that far, Jack could have ultimately lived his life with his family.
It felt like the directors had a lot of time left over from their original script or something, because the first half of the episode is mostly the explanation of what the Rugaru is. It felt like it took forever for the boys to come and try to help Jack.
There was a lot of meaningful dialogue in this episode like Sam telling Dean what it feels like to have demon blood flowing in him. It’s also nice to see Sam standing up for himself and not afraid to tell Dean what he’s thinking anymore. It’s really a testament to the show how much Sam has changed and how developed his character has become.
I also didn’t get why Sam just couldn’t use his exorcism powers on Jack. He said in the beginning of the episode that it only worked on demon and this was a demon, so it would have been nice to have an explanation why Sam couldn’t exorcise this one. We’re also left wondering whether Jack’s wife is going to have the baby or if she’ll repeat the cycle over again by having a baby who could turn out like his father. I like to think that she probably went and had an abortion, but who knows several seasons from now Dean and Sam could have another Rugaru on their hands.
Ruby also finally got more then a couple of lines this episode, but not much more. The scene in which Dean meets Ruby again wasn’t as good as it could have been with Genevieve Cortese playing Ruby. While she’s nice to look at, she doesn’t nearly have the presence or attitude that Katie Cassidy brought to the table and every scene that should be interesting like Dean discovering that she’s alive doesn’t have that same effect like it should.
This was a good episode, but different from what we’re used too. It was nice for a change to actually sympathize with the supposed villain for once. It did feel like there was a lot of unused time though and it’s definitely not as strong as the episodes that came before it; but still it was an enjoyable episode.
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