Supernatural Recap: ‘Breakdown’

This week’s episode of Supernatural is back with the Winchester’s helping out our favorite sheriff, Donna and her boyfriend Doug. Supernatural is doing a great job slowly reintroducing these strong female characters that they plan to lead their new spin off, Wayward Sisters.

The episode starts off with a creep in a mask chopping off body parts to old school music. So, you know, typical freaky stuff. Switch over to Donna’s niece, Wendy, stopping to fill gas at a creepy gas station filled with truckers and creepers. The cashier is sketchy as eff and a real no. She clearly thinks so too, but gets the hell out of there. Shortly after she leaves though, her car breaks down and she’s attacked.

In the bunker, we see a very forlorn and troubled Sam lying awake in bed in the middle of the night. He’s not sleeping well, doesn’t get up until 10am, which is late for the most go-gettingest guy ever, passes on pancakes-seriously, who passes on pancakes?-, and Dean notices. But before they can get into it, they get a call from Donna asking for help finding her niece. And although she knows it’s not their normal case, she doesn’t have to go any further because the boys are on their way. Heroes. Men. Yum.

After meeting with Donna, and a not so friendly FBI agent, Dean decides to take page out of the old John Winchester journal and use trucker radio to reach out for help getting info. Sam seems not only skeptical, but damn near uninterested. In fact, he’s eager to foist the case on the FBI, especially since he doesn’t think it’s their kind of case. But Dean calls him on his recent case of the blues and in an interesting little bit of role reversal, Dean refuses to let Sam give up, promising to be there for him. Dean gets a response on the radio from a woman who wants to meet with him, claiming she has info about Wendy. Refocusing on the case, Dean goes off with Donna’s boyfriend, Doug, while Sam partners off with Donna and the FBI agent.

The FBI agent believes that this is the work of “The Butterfly”, a serial abductor he’s been tracking for twelve years. He hands Sam a huge binder on the Butterfly and all of the people he is believed to have abducted. The agent has his first lead in decades, having found Wendy’s bloody shirt in the van of a pervy traveling pastor who’s been on the agent’s radar for a long time. When Sam and the FBI agent question him, he refuses to cooperate, being real douchey while he’s at it. Just when it seems like they’re getting nowhere, Donna takes over the interrogation like a boss, and before long the pastor is crying and pleading with them to believe he’s innocent. Sam and Donna agree. He’s scum, but not the scum they’re looking for.

Meanwhile, Dean and Doug meet up with the female trucker who has information. She explains she saw Wendy at the creepy gas station, and again after her car broke down. She’s wracked with guilt because she just kept driving, leaving Wendy on the side of the road. Dean and Doug head to the gas station she talked about, where a window washer tells them the creepy cashier closed up and followed Wendy after she left. Dean slams his head into the counter, because that’s how they do things in the FBI, until the cashier caves. He shows them a disturbing website where the Butterfly’s victims are being sold off in auction, piece by piece to hungry monsters. Donna shows up just in time to see that her niece is up for auction next and they only have an hour before it starts. She also has to break it to Doug that monsters are real. He looks supremely unsettled. Something tells me this relationship is headed for a rough patch.

The FBI agent helps them locate the auction, and dragging the cashier along, they all head over there. Doug stays behind to watch the cashier, while Dean and Donna search the building, Sam circling the perimeter. Sam is surprised when the FBI agent shows up to help him. But the minute Sam turns his back, that sketchy bastard knocks him out. I knew it! No good can come from working with the Feds! He’s soooo the freaking Butterfly!

Meanwhile, things go bad inside too. The cashier turns out to be a vampire, who takes great pleasure is busting free, attacking and then turning Doug. Dean and Donna realize they’re at the wrong location, finding only a radio playing the music from the website. When they go back to the entrance, Doug attacks Donna. Dean shoots him up with dead man’s blood and promises they can turn him with the cure. Luckily, the main ingredient is still hanging around, cocky and stupid. He talks trash about the FBI being Butterfly and having Sam. Dean’s entire countenance changes, like it always does when Sammy is threatened, and boy is it hot. Too bad Donna doesn’t have time to watch Dean beat the vamp bloody. Instead, like the boss she is, she shoot out his knee cap and promises she can make his death as long or short as he wants it, but he’s going to tell her where her niece is.

While Donna is once again proving women really do things better, Sam wakes up strapped to a gurney, the gloating agent hovering over him. He explains that Sam and Dean take out the kind of monsters that are too stupid or too mean to pass for humans. But there are a lot more monsters than they think out there. Millions probably, and they could be your next door neighbor. Too many for the Winchesters to ever hunt, and thanks to the Butterfly’s service, they won’t have to. What a prince.

And then the auction begins. And as expected, the chance to get a piece of Sam Winchester is worth a lot of dough. Especially his heart, which is really just to precious for this world. And let me be quite honest. I would bid on him too. But like, a live, intact him, obviously. This agent is just giddy about his auction, and monsters bidding around the world are practically salivating at the chance to eat Sam Winchester- no comment necessary here, am I right, ladies?- and I just want Dean to take that smug punk out right there on camera. I’d love if he turned to the camera and scared the crap out of the monsters by threatening to find them all, sending them scurrying for their lives. But alas, I only get part of my wish. Dean shoots the agent dead before the agent can take out Sam. But no threats. Dang.

Meanwhile, Donna fights off the Butterfly’s demented helper and frees her niece just in time. Doug, who was given the antidote on the way there, is fully cured. Sadly, he’s also not about this life. He breaks up with Donna after acknowledging that even though he thinks she’s a freaking hero, he can’t live in this life. Sam gives the worst pep talk ever, basically telling her it’s for the best because it’s safer for everyone if she never gets close to anyone while in this line of work. Well, damn.

On the ride home, Dean calls Sam out on his insensitivity towards Donna but Sam stands firm. And he denies that he’s in a dark place, as Dean refers to it. He’s just being honest. “When has knowing us ever worked out for anyone?” Dean doesn’t have an answer. Because yeah, they save people. But they also get people killed. People like Kaia, who died trying to save them. Sam has just accepted that there’s only one way it can end for people like them. Bloody. Bad. And it’s official. Sam and Dean have switched places.

And I am all about it. It’s a nice change to see Dean having to hold Sam’s spirit up for once. It was also kind of cool that they touched on the fact that there are far more monsters out there than the Winchesters could ever know, living regular lives as humans. And would they even need to be hunted? And while the Butterfly’s method was cruel, it made sense that in a society where everything is a commodity, someone would stand to make a profit feeding the hidden monsters of the world. Disturbing, but believable.