The episode title always makes me think Pirates! But in this case it’s Vampires! You simply can’t make a supernatural show without “doing” vampires at least once and it was amazing it took until episode 20 for Supernatural to do it.
Pre-show notes
Vampires were huge in fiction, Buffy the Vampire slayer was busy saving the world, Underworld and Blade were making movie vamps sexy (before Twilight came along and neutered them). There had to be a Supernatural episode about vampires.
In the event, the vamps are not what’s memorable about the episode that features the return of John and the introduction of The Colt, as the series begins to build toward the season one climax.
Episode notes
Manning, Colorado. We see a man – Elkins – turning the pages of a journal that looks an awful lot like John’s. The bartender tells us he’s just a sweet old man who lives alone. A group of strangers come in and their presence disturbs Elkins. Very quickly, he’s gone. He drives home in a hurry and somehow the woman from the bar is already there, waiting for him. He stabs her in the heart, but it has very little effect. He runs for the safe, where he finds an antique revolver. He’s just got it loaded when others grab him and force him down. The woman takes the gun and tells her companions. “We’re eating in tonight.”
Sam has found a news report of Elkins’ death – apparently he was mauled to death by a burglar bear. Which is weird even for Supernatural. Dean recognises the name and pulls out John’s journal. They don’t know if it’s the same man, but it’s enough for them to check it out.
It’s dark when they reach Elkins’ cabin. They find salt lines at the door, and Dean finds his journal – confirmation enough that Elkins was a hunter. The cabin is a mess. The revolver case is there, but both gun and bullets are gone. Dean finds a message scratched into the floor, which leads then to a post office box. The box contains a letter addressed to John. Outside in the Impala they are debating whether to open the letter when John himself taps on the window.
Oh, John, you paranoid bastard, it’s so good to see you!
The letter reveals that Elkins had the gun and John clearly wants it badly. Since it wasn’t in the cabin, John realises Elkins’ killers have it. He tells the brothers they are vampires – and Dean instantly protests that there’s no such thing. (Famous last words, Dean.) John believed they were extinct, but clearly, he was wrong.
“Most vampire lore is crap. A cross won’t repel them. Sunlight won’t kill them. But the bloodlust – that part’s true. They need fresh human blood to survive. They were once people, so you won’t know it’s a vampire until it’s too late.”
JOHN
Why is it every modern vampire story has to start out by telling us how everything we think we know about vampires is crap? What the hell is wrong with the blood-drinking, shape-shifting, can’t cross running water, blood-slave creating, cross-fearing Draculas? It’s a classic for a reason, man!
The vampires hunt by faking a car accident. They abduct the couple in the car. When the cops find the abandoned car John hears about it on his police scanner. They head out to the road to pick up the trail. Sam wants to know how John knows it’s the vampires. It’s a reasonable question – until literally hours before, both Sam and Dean thought vampires weren’t real. Now they are hunting them. Asking for information is more than reasonable, but John is in a hurry and doesn’t feel like talking. Same when they reach the scene: Sam asks how John knows they’re on the right track. At least this time John answers, showing them the vampire tooth he’s found. (Which begs the question how did a vampire lose it? It’s not like that couple put up much of a fight.)
The vamps are holed up in a barn. The girl “looks interesting” to Luther, who is apparently their leader, but her boyfriend isn’t, so he becomes dinner (or is that breakfast? It’s hard to tell). Luther recognises the gun and it seems to disturb him. He’s also not happy that girlvamp killed Elkins because it’s going to bring other hunters looking for them (well, duh).
Sam is really pissed off that John isn’t giving them all the information. Dean seems to agree with Sam, but he’s playing peacemaker. When Sam provokes another fight it’s Dean who pulls them apart, twice. This has the feel of an often-repeated fight. John is angry that Sam left; Sam is angry John told him to stay gone. But we already know that John’s anger came from fear. And Sam didn’t really want that door left open: he wanted a “normal” life and he could never have had that with John in his life (well, he never could have had that, period, but that spoiler is for next season).
Now we finally get the legend of The Colt. “Back in 1835, when Halley’s Comet was overhead, the same night those men died at the Alamo, they say Samuel Colt made a gun. A special gun. He made it for a hunter, a man like us only on horseback. The story goes he made thirteen bullets. This hunter used the gun about half a dozen times before he disappeared, the gun along with him. They say this gun can kill anything. Like the demon.”
So John isn’t here to kill vampires. He’s here to retrieve the Colt, because the Colt can kill the demon that killed Mary, and Jessica. Way to get Sam back onside, John. But now Dean’s the only one there with his head in the game. I don’t think this is gonna go well.
Dean and Sam sneak into the barn where the vampires are sleeping. John sneaks from a different direction. They do a great job of building the tension in this scene – all the sleepy vamps who might wake up, Sam finding the girl tied up and thinking she needs help. Dean finding what might be the cage with other victims… But it’s Sam’s knight-in-shining-armour instinct that spoils everything: the girl wakes up and screams just as John is really close to the Colt. Everyone wakes up and the Winchesters run for it. The vamps don’t follow – John explains that the vampires will follow their scent after dark.
John sends Dean to find a funeral home and steal some dead man’s blood. It gives him and Sam a chance to buy the hatchet. John says out loud what we already know: after Mary’s death he became obsessed with the evil out there, and he raised his sons as hunters so they would be able to protect themselves. He didn’t want Sam to leave because alone Sam would be vulnerable. He (almost) apologises to Sam for not respecting that they want different things. Sam tells him they are no longer different, but the thing is they never were. They are both alpha male personalities – so similar they were always going to clash.
They set a trap for the vampires, with Dean as the bait. They subdue and kidnap the female vampire, and John decapitates her lackey. John plans to exchange girlvamp for the Colt then take off on his own to hunt the demon. Sam calls him out on it, and this time I’m with Sam. They should finish this hunt together. The brothers have both earned it. John admits he expects to die trying to kill the demon, and he probably shouldn’t have said that. No way Dean’s going to let him go alone after that little titbit.
Of course, I know what’s coming and I understand John so well because of it. He’s totally right to want to go alone but the brothers are right, too. They have a better chance together – except they don’t really have a chance at all. There’s no right way, here.
Luther agrees to trade the Colt for Kate. During the exchange Kate fights back and now it looks like it’s John vs five vamps (that’s about even odds, right?). But the brothers show up and Dean has a crossbow (hey, he said way back that bow hunting was an important skill). Even so, the vampires seem to have the upper hand. But John gets his hands on the Colt and shoots Luther in the head. He dies and the others flee.
John admits he would have lost the fight if his sons weren’t there, and they are stronger as a family. So their next move is going after the demon – together.
Associations
Dracula had his brides, but I think it was Interview with the Vampire that first depicted (or at least popularised) the notion that vampires need family. Luther and Kate don’t have much in common with Louis and Lestat but there are bits and pieces throughout the episode that remind me, not so much of the novel, but certainly of the movie.
Final thoughts
Family is a big theme in this episode.
The Vampires are a family by blood. It seems more like a polyamorous marriage than a nuclear family, but the principle is the same. They live together, hunt together and have an intense loyalty to the group.
I suggested that the Benders were a twisted version of the Winchesters; in this episode the vampires are kind of their mirror image.
The Winchesters are fracturing: John and Sam simply can’t get along and Dean is increasingly frustrated with the constant fighting. The vampires, on the other hand, function perfectly as a unit. Kate goes after the hunters with her henchmen, instead of with the whole group but it looks like that was the strategy- they weren’t expecting the trap. When one of their own is threatened the whole nest joins together to get her back and wipe out the threat. So they have a lot in common with the Winchesters.
And then there’s The Colt. This is the second thing that’s genuinely unique to Supernatural. (The first being the manner of Mary’s death.) I don’t know anything about Samuel Colt, whether any of this might be derived from something real, but it’s a very American conceit, and it suits this show very well.
