Supernatural: Metamorphosis
October 16th 2008 16:26
Remember how Sam was mysteriously absent last week? Well, now we get to find out what he was doing, and like Dean, we’re not going to be happy…
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Ruby stands by as Sam asks a demon where Lilith is. When the demon won’t answer, he uses his powers to exercise him, and for once the human guy is still alive afterwards. Unfortunately, Dean is standing outside to witness Sam doing exactly what he promised his brother he wasn’t doing.
Dean walks in and Sam freezes. Oh this can’t be good.
Sam: Dean, just hold on, let me explain—
Dean: Let you explain? You’re gonna explain this?
Why doesn’t he start with who the new girl is? What’s she doing there? Ruby welcomes Dean with a characteristic, “Good to see you again Dean,” and now he’s even more furious. “Ruby?” He looks at his brother. “Is that Ruby?” When Sam doesn’t answer, Dean slams Ruby against the wall, grabbing the demon killing knife. Sam intervenes and Ruby flings him away, pinning Dean to the wall. Sam tells her to stop and she does. He tells her to take the hurt guy to the ER. She leaves.
Dean stares at his brother a second.
“Dean…”
He leaves Sam without a word.
“Dean!”
~*~*~
Sam sits at the hotel table reading when Dean finally comes in. Without a word, Dean starts to pack.
Sam: Dean what are you doing? Are you leaving…?
Dean continues to pack. “You don’t need me. You and Ruby go fight Demons.”
“Hold on, Dean come on man—” Dean swings around and punches his brother in the face.
Sam stumbles a bit, then asks, “Satisfied?” Dean hits him again. “I guess not.”
Beyond furious, Dean asks his brother if he even knows how far off from normal, from human he’s gone. Sam argues that he’s just exercising demons, and Dean reminds him, “WITH YOUR MIND!”
Dean: What else can you do?
Sam: I can send them back to Hell. It only works with Demons and that’s it.
Dean grabs Sam by the collar. “What else can you do?!”
“I told you!” Sam shoves him off.
Dean stares at him a second, then answers, “And I have every reason in the world to believe that.” He turns away and Sam tries to apologize again.
“Look, I should have said something. I’m sorry Dean I am, but try to see the other side here.”
“The other side?!” Dean faces his brother again.
“I’m pulling demons out of innocent people!”
“Use the knife!” Dean shouts.
“The knife kills the victim!” Sam shouts back. “What I do, most of them survive! Look, I’ve saved more people in the last five months than we save in a year.”
Dean is not only angry, he’s hurt and worried for his brother. “Is that what Ruby wants you to think? Kind of like the way she tricked you into using your powers? Slippery slope brother, just wait and see.” Sam doesn’t say anything as Dean continues, “Because it’s gonna get darker, and darker, and God knows where it ends.”
“I’m not gonna let it go too far.”
Dean smashes a lamp off its stand in anger. “It’s already gone too far Sam!” He stares at his brother. “If I didn’t know you, I would want to hunt you.” (
!!) “And so would other hunters.”“You were gone,” Sam says. “I was here. I had to keep on fighting without you. And what I’m doing…it works.”
“So tell me, if it’s so terrific, then why’d you lie about it to me?” Sam doesn’t answer and Dean asks, “Why did an angel tell me to stop you?”
This catches Sam’s attention. “What?”
“Cass said that if I don’t stop you, he will. So you know what the means Sam? That means that *God* doesn’t want you doin’ this. So you’re just gonna stand there and tell me that everything is all good?”
The brothers stare at each other both near tears. Sam’s phone interrupts the intense moment and he tries to tell Travis that this isn’t really a good time, but—“Okay, just give me the details.”
Talk about bad timing. They both know that this conversation is going to have to finish later. There’s work to be done.
~*~*~
Carthage, Missouri
A man named Jack is eating like he hasn’t eaten in weeks, stuffing his face so fast his wife is worried he’s either stoned or has a tape worm. He insists that he’s just hungry. He’s never felt better.
Later when Jack is brushing his teeth, he suddenly doubles up in pain as his spine suddenly moves very Hulk-like. After is passes, Jack sands up, wincing and looks at his back. It looks normal. Weird…
~*~*~
While driving, Sam and Dean discuss the fact that their mom was a hunter. Sam still can’t believe it. Dean tells him that she almost took him down!
Sam: How’d she look? I mean, was she happy?
Dean: She was awesome…Funny and smart. So hopeful. You know, dad too…until of course…
Sam lets out a frustrated breath.
“What?”
“Nothing…It’s just, our parents and now we find out our grandparents too?” Sam asks. “Are whole family murdered, and for what? So Yellow Eyes could get into my nursery and bleed in my mouth?”
Whoops! Dean stares at his brother. “Sam I never said anything about Demon blood.” Sam won’t look at him. “You knew about that?”
“Yeah for about a year.”
“A whole year,” Dean mocks.
Again Sam tries to apologize, but Dean just cuts him off. “You know, you’ve been saying that a lot lately, Sam.” He gives him a fake smile. “But whatever. Anything you don’t want to tell me you don’t have to, that’s fine.”
“Dean…”
Dean drives in silence.
~*~*~
Jack goes down into the kitchen wondering when supper is. “I’m starving!” His wife tells him that he’ll just have wait.
Outside, Sam and Dean watch through binoculars as Jack continues to rifle through the refrigerator while waiting for his meal. What are they looking for? Sam tells him that Travis just said to look out for “anything weird.”
“Weird?” Dean raises his binoculars again. “Alright, well I’ve seen big weird, little weird, weird with crazy on top, but this guy?” He lowers the binoculars. “Come on, this guy’s boring.”
Sam just shrugs. “I don’t know Dean, Travis seemed pretty sure.” Sam raises his own binoculars.
Inside the house, Jack is getting impatient. He takes another swig of his beer, then goes back to the fridge. He finds some leftover chicken and dives in, stuffing his face. Now that he’s started eating, he can’t stop. He finishes the chicken and turns to look for more.
His gaze lands on some thawing hamburger…hmmm…
Jack tries a bite of the bloody burger and savors it. Yum! He digs in. No time for things like cooking or plates!
He finishes off the raw hamburger just as his wife calls, “Honey?” He suddenly stops, realizing what he’s doing. His mouth and shirt are covered in blood.
Sam and Dean lower their binoculars.
Sam: I’d say that qualifies as weird.
~*~*~
Sam and Dean meet up with Travis, a friend of the family who hasn’t seen them for about a decade. He asks Sam if he’s still a “mathelete”, to which Dean replies, “Sure is.” Travis tells them that their dad would be proud of them sticking together like this. Dean gives his brother a look, telling Travis, “There’s nothing more important than family.”
They sit down and tell Travis what they saw over at Jack’s house, and Travis isn’t surprised. “Boys, we have a rugaroo on our hands.” They have no idea what a rugaroo is, but Dean thinks it sounds made-up. Travis tells them that they’re nasty little suckers. Even though he may look normal now, he’s going to change. They all go through some metamorphosis eventually…
~*~*~
Jack’s back to looking through the fridge.
His wife accidentally cuts herself on a kitchen knife, and Jack swings around, unable to stop from staring at the blood seeping from her finger.
~*~*~
Travis tells them that rugaroos are hungry. For what? Everything at first, but then, “Long pig.”
Sam makes a disgusted face but Dean has no idea what that means. “Long pig?”
“He means human flesh,” Sam explains.
Dean: And that is my word of the day!
Travis continues to tell them about rugaroos and their fast transformation once they’ve had a taste of human flesh.
~*~*~
Speaking of human flesh, Jack can’t stop staring at his wife’s finger. She tells him she thinks she needs stitches and he just tells her that he has to get out of there. He runs out of the house.
~*~*~
“One bite is all it takes,” Travis explains. “Eyes, teeth, skin, all turns, no going back either. They feed once, they’re gone forever.”
How’d Travis find Jack to begin with? Seems rugaroos run in his family. Travis killed Jack’s father when he turned, but little did he know that the man’s wife was a “pregnant trophy wife”. She was long gone before he could catch up to her. He’s been tracking Jack ever since he found him, unable to kill a kid, but still afraid that someday he might turn too. Seems now he has.
~*~*~
Jack sits at a bar devouring peanuts, all the while thinking of the blood pumping in his wife’s veins. He downs his drink and asks for another. Oh and some more peanuts too. The bartender refills his glass and Jack stares at himself in the mirror.
At the end of the bar, a jerk is hitting on a woman who clearly doesn’t want to talk to him. Jack gets up to defend her, and when the guy won’t back down and tries to hit Jack, Jack catches his fist, smashing it in mid-air.
Jack is just as surprised at his strength as everyone else and rushes out of the bar.
~*~*~
Dean and Travis are preparing their flamethrowers—it’s the only way Travis has found to kill rugaroos. Dean nods. “Well, that’s gonna be horrible. That what you did to Jack’s dad?”
Before Travis can answer, Sam shows up. He spots the altered gas cans. “Not wasting any time are you?” Travis says that they don’t have much time. Once Jack takes a bite, they’re going to have to find him and fast.
Sam tells them that he’s been doing some research on rugaroos.
Travis: What, my 30 years of experience not good enough for you?
Sam: What? No, I just wanted to be prepared. Not that, you didn’t…
Dean: Sam loves research. He does, he keeps it under his mattress right next to his KY. It’s a sickness. *looks at Sam* It is.
Sam assures Travis that everything he said checks out, but he found a few stories about people who have the rugaroo gene. They start to turn, but if they don’t take a bite, they don’t fully turn.
Dean: So what, ‘Go vegan, stay human?’
Sam: Basically. Or in this case, eat a lot of raw meat, just not—
Dean: Long pig.
Sam: Right.
Dean smirks and Sam looks at Travis. He tells them that those are just fairy tales. Every rugaroo he’s ever heard of has turned. Sam wants to talk to Jack so he can know what’s going on and fight it.
“Fight it?” Travis asks with a laugh. “Have you ever been really hungry? I mean, haven’t eaten in days hungry?”
“Yeah!” Dean answers. He knows that all too well.
“Alright then,” Travis says. “Somebody slaps a big juicy sirloin in front of you, you walk away?”
Dean looks at Sam. Travis has a point.
Travis: That’s what we are to them. Meat on legs.
He’s sure Jack’s a good guy, but it’s sheer basic instinct to take that first bite. Sam is insistent that they’re not going to kill Jack until he’s done something to be killed for. Sam leaves.
Travis: What’s up with your brother?
Dean: Don’t get me started.
~*~*~
Jack scares his wife in the kitchen, and apologizes. She’s not happy for having to driver herself to the hospital. She was there until two! She asks what happened to him and he tells her that he doesn’t know. He just saw the blood and had to get out.
He promises that it won’t happen again and kisses her hand. She’s confused, blood’s never bothered him before. He tells her he’s changed and kisses her. She smirks. “This doesn’t get you off the hook you know. Think diamonds.” Uh-huh. He kisses her again and lifts her onto the counter.
“What has gotten into you?” she asks, enjoying the affection until it starts to get rough. “Jack, stop! STOP IT!” Pretty soon Jack is going way to fast and she shoves him away. What’s wrong with him?
“I don’t know…I don’t know!” He runs off.
~*~*~
In the car, Dean tells Sam that’s he’s down with talking to Jack first, “but I just want to make sure that if push comes, you’re gonna shove.”
“Meaning…?”
“Well odds are we’re gonna have to burn this guy alive.”
“This guy has a name,” Sam says. “And a wife.”
“Who we’re probably going to make a widow. You heard Travis, he’s gonna turn, they always turn.”
“Well maybe he won’t. Maybe he can fight it off.”
“And maybe he can’t, that’s all I’m saying.”
Frustrated, Sam tells his brother, “Alright we’ll just have to see okay?”
“This is what I mean Sam,” Dean tells him, finally getting to the heart of this tension between them. “You sure your emotions aren’t getting’ in the way here?”
“What are you talking about?”
“You know, nice dude but he’s got something evil inside him,” Dean answers. “Something in his blood, maybe you can relate.”
Sam can’t take it anymore. “Stop the car.”
“What?”
“Stop the car, or I will!”
Dean pulls over and Sam gets out, slamming the door behind him. Dean steps out too.
“You want to know why I’ve been lying to you Dean? Because of crap like this!”
Dean shuts his door. “Like what?”
“The way you talk to me,” Sam says, stepping around the Impala to face his brother. “The way you look at me, like I’m a freak!”
“I do not.”
“Or even worse, like I’m an idiot! Like I don’t know the difference between right and wrong!” Sam walks off towards the lake a second, then turns around to find Dean shaking his head. “What?”
“Do you know the difference Sam?” Dean asks, getting riled up himself now. “I mean, you’ve been kind of strollin’ a dark road lately.”
“You have no idea what I’m going through. None.”
“Then enlighten me!” Dean yells.
“I’ve got DEMON BLOOD in me Dean! This disease pumping through my veins and I can’t ever rip it out or scrub it clean! I’m a whole new level of freak!” Sam yells back.
Dean listens as Sam adds, “And I’m just trying to take this CURSE and make something good out of it…Because I have to.”
Done with his rant, Sam goes silent, and Dean feels for his brother. Finally he tells Sam, “Let’s just go talk to the guy.” Sam lets out a huff, and Dean corrects, “I mean Jack. Okay?”
Sam gives him a slight nod, still trying to calm down.
~*~*~
Jack stands in his back yard, water hose in hand. He stares blanking at his garden as the water continues to rush over the same area.
Sam and Dean walk up and introduce themselves. “We need to talk.”
“About?”
“About you. About how you’re changing.”
Jack is confused. “Excuse me?”
“You’ve probably felt your bones move under your skin,” Dean explains. “And your appetite’s reaching, uh, Hungry Hungry Hippo level. So how am I doin’ so far?”
Jack stares at them. Who are they? “People who can help.” Sam asks him to just please give them a chance to explain.
~*~*~
“A what?” Jack asks after Sam and Dean have finished explaining.
“A rugaroo,” Dean answers. “Sounds made-up I know, but believe me it’s not.”
Jack admits to noticing some strange things, but he thinks he’s just sick. Sam tells him that his real father “was one of these things” and he passed it onto him. Dean tells him to skip the whole “you guys are crazy” speech. He’s hungry right? Hungry for long pig? Jack just gives him a confused look.
Dean: A little Manburger Helper? May have crossed your mind already?
Jack denies it and Sam tells him that he can fight it. Dean doesn’t deny that it’s going to be hard. “You’ll feel like an alcoholic swimming around in whiskey. But I’m telling you, you’ve got to say no.”
“Or what?” Jack asks.
“You feed once and it’s all over,” Sam tells him. “And then we’ll have to stop you.”
Jack orders them off his property. If they come back, he’s calling the police.
Sam: Jack, your wife, everybody’s in danger—
Jack: NOW!
Sam and Dean start to leave.
Dean: Good talk.
~*~*~
Jack sits on a bench outside listening to the voicemail from his wife telling him to come home. They need to talk. He hangs up the phone and notices a young woman in the apartment across the street getting ready for bed. Unable to help himself, Jack sneaks up the fire escape.
Sam and Dean jump out of The Impala and run for the apartments.
Jack watches the girl get into her pajamas, then tells himself “No.” Despite the hungry urge, Jack is able to stop himself and hurries away.
Sam and Dean break down the door, flamethrowers in hand. The girl screams and slams her bedroom door on them.
Dean: Hey! Uhh we’re here to—save you I guess.
Girl: I’m calling the police!
Sam: We should go.
Dean: Yeah.
They quickly back out of the apartment and Dean grabs the broken door to close behind them.
~*~*~
“Michelle? I’m home.” Jack looks for his wife and finds her tied up to a dining room chair and gagged.
Before he can do anything, a hand appears, gagging him too.
~*~*~
Jack wakes up handcuffed to a column in his house. He spots his wife next to him and tells her they’re going to stay calm and “give this man whatever he wants.”
Travis tells him he’s so sorry about this. This isn’t the way he wanted this to go. Travis takes Michelle’s gag off and tells him he’s already met his friends. Two brothers? Jack tells him that they said he could fight it, but Travis wearily points out that they all turn. Michelle wants to know what’s going on.
Travis: Tell her Jack.
Jack stares at his wife.
Travis: Tell her the truth, she deserves to know.
Jack begs him to let her go. “She’s not a part of this.” A part of what? Michelle is more confused than ever, and Travis regrets having to tell Jack that, unfortunately, she is a part of this. He turns to Michelle. “Tell him what you told me when I got here.”
Michelle hesitates, tears filling her eyes.
Jack: Michelle?
Michelle: I said…Don’t hurt me…because I’m pregnant.
Michelle starts to cry and Jack tells Travis to “just hold on a minute.” Travis tells him that he can’t make this mistake all over again. He won’t be around 30 years from now. “I know you don’t believe me,” Travis says. “But I’d give anything not to do this.”
As Travis starts to douse the room with gasoline, Jack gets more and more agitated. Finally, in his fury he snaps the handcuffs apart and lunges at Travis.
It’s too much. He can’t fight it anymore. As he begins to punch Travis, he ends up breaking his cast. The blood pushes Jack to the point of no return. He takes a bite out of Travis’s neck, sealing his own fate.
Michelle watches in horror as her husband eats Travis. He turns back to her and she gasps. He unties her and she jumps up. “Stay away from me!”
She runs out of the house, gets in her car, and drives away.
~*~*~
Jack stands in his house staring at Travis’s body. He is now a full-on rugaroo. He approaches the body…
Outside, Sam and Dean arrive at Jack’s house and spot Travis’s car. They cautiously enter the house.
It’s empty.
They notice a major blood smear on the carpet and follow it around to the back of the couch, where they find Travis. Or what’s left of him. Sam sighs. “I guess you were right about Jack.”
Before Dean can answer, he’s attacked by Jack.
“Dean!” Jack knocks Sam out before he can light his gas can.
~*~*~
Sam wakes up in a closet, bloody nose and forehead. He jumps up, rattling the doorknob. “Dean?”
In the living room, Jack struggles to answer, “Dean can’t come to the phone right now.”
“Jack!” Sam pounds on the door. “If you hurt him I swear to—”
“Calm down!” Jack interrupts. He glances to Dean knocked out on the coffee table. “You’re brother’s alive.”
Sam collapses in relief against the door.
“But not for long if you don’t calm down!” Jack yells.
Sam tells him to just calm down. They’ll figure this out. Jack says not after what they just did. Sam is confused. “What?” Jack tells him that their friend tried to kill his wife. When Sam asks why, Jack realizes they don’t know. He tells Sam he has no idea why Travis wanted to kill his wife.
Sam grabs a hanger and starts in on the lock, assuring jack that he and his brother “never would have hurt her, alright?”
Jack stares at Dean and reaches a shaking finger out to dip into the blood on the coffee table. He hungrily licks it off. “I can’t ever see my family again,” Jack realizes. “You two, your friend,” he shouts at Sam. “YOU MADE ME INTO THIS!”
Still working on the door Sam tells him, “No one’s making you kill us. Listen to me,” Sam continues. “You’ve got this dark pit inside you, I know. Believe me I know! But it doesn’t me you have to fall into it. You don’t have to be a monster.”
Jack lets out a mirthless laugh. “Have you seen me lately?”
“It doesn’t matter what you are, it only matters what you do.” Sam continues to work the hanger in the lock. “It’s your choice.”
Jack winces in pain as the hunger increases. He slowly approaches Dean, unable to fight the urge. Dean starts to wake up.
Sam busts out of the closet. “Jack!” He gives him one last chance.
Jack doesn’t take it. He lunges at Sam. Dean wakes up groggily just in time to see Sam light Jack on fire.
Jack falls to the ground, screaming in pain. The screams slowly subside, leaving Sam with a pained look on his face.
~*~*~
Driving again, Dean glances over at his silent brother. “You did the right thing you know. That guy was a monster, there was no going back.”
Sam doesn’t say anything.
“Sam I want to tell you I’m sorry,” Dean finally says. “I’ve been kind of hard on you lately—”
“Don’t worry about it, Dean,” Sam grumbles.
“It’s just that uh, your psychic thing, it scares the crap out of me.”
“Dean if it’s all the same, I’d really rather not talk about it,” Sam says.
Dean gives him a surprised look. “What you don’t want to talk? YOU?”
Sam tells him that he just can’t explain it to Dean, and Dean tells him to try. Tired of trying to explain it, Sam just wearily tells his brother that “this thing, it’s not in you the way it’s in me. It’s just something I’ve got to deal with.”
“Not alone,” Dean reminds him.
Sam lets out a breath, staring at his reflection in the mirror. “Anyway it doesn’t matter…These powers…it’s playing with fire. I’m done with them. I’m done with everything.”
Dean glances over. “Really? Well that’s a relief. Thank you.”
Sam lets out a snort. “Don’t thank me, I’m not doing it for you. Or for the angels, or for anybody. This is my choice.”
They continue drive in silence.
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Wow, that was a depressing episode. I hate seeing them both so torn up like this!
But still, great episode. Those guys can act! And as heartbreaking as it is, I’m a sucker for angst. I have to say, although I can see where Sam is coming from, I was totally with Dean on this one. But I still felt really bad for poor Sammy! Like Dean, I felt guilty for being so hard on him by the end. 
I hope he's telling the truth that he's done with his powers though...As I've said before, I don't want Sam going to the dark side!! Good thing Sam and Dean are boys and can go from fighting one second and pretending it's all good the next... 
On another note, is it wrong that this episode made me hungry? Have no fear, there will be no long pig on my menu tonight. Or ever. LoL Whoever thought that my spell-check would ever catch “Manburger”?
Guess I'll be writing this again 30 years from now...
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