Supernatural: Live Free or Twi-Hard

Filed under: Recaps & Reviews

She was a human. He was a vampire. Their love was never meant to be. Then he lures her into an alley to be bitten by a fat, biker vampire.

With the success of Twilight, it isn't a surprise the vampires have decided to take advantage of their sudden rise in popularity. Unfortunately, when Sam and Dean split up to take down some vamps, things take their usual turn for the worst and Dean ends up on the losing end of a fight but rather than kill Dean, the vamp decides to turn him. The good news is that there is a cure, the bad is news is that if Dean has even one drop of blood, he will remain a vampire forever. With the clock ticking, Samuel, Dean and Sam are forced to choose between saving Dean's life or preventing him from taking another.

To say "Live Free or Twi-Hard" was a disappointment would be to give this episode far too much credit. Considering the title is an obvious play on the Twilight franchise and the numerous references throughout, the humour was flat with little wit. It's clear the Winchesters aren't fans of Robert Pattison, but when all they can do is call him a douche bag, I'm not impressed. This episode could have been a well-crafted parody of the Twilight Saga, poking fun at silly werewolves and overdramatic romances. Rather than continue the parody throughout the episode, the joke ends after the first scene which places Twilight on the same level as Supernatural, which did not seem to be the intended affect.

Over the seasons, fans of Supernatural have grown accustomed to excellent writing but thus far, season six has failed to deliver. Resurrecting Samuel Winchester was a bold move, but turning a hunter into a vampire has already been done before down to the affected vision and hearing. Writing "alpha" demons into the story for shape shifters and now vampires when Dean and Sam have never heard of them before is shoe horning a plot line to fit. What is even worse is that Dean's classic one liners even seem tired when he barely escapes with his life every time. At the end of "Live Free or Twi-Hard" when Dean is about to face off with a super vampire the scene ends and until we find out Dean managed to cut his head off. What happened there? Just when things are about to get good the show focused on Sam and Samuel rather than give us the vampire showdown; it just doesn't make much sense.

It becomes increasingly difficult to find the good in Supernatural when the series has done so badly in the past few years. Even a credible villain has not been around since the YED (Yellow Eyed Demon) and I know I am right when Dean had a nightmare vision of him in the season opener. After six episodes, this season still appears without direction besides the inevitable heart to heart chats between Sam and Dean. With the season already a quarter of the way through, the finale may just be sloppily thrown together like the last few years with little effort. Supernatural is a show that has been at its best when featuring season long story arcs like they had before in seasons one, two and three but without that direction, the show wanders aimlessly with good episodes hidden throughout the horribly bad.

Hopefully we will get some answers and direction in next week's episode, cleverly titled "You Can't Handle the Truth".

Tags: Supernatural, Dean Winchester, Sam Winchester, Jensen Ackles , Jared Padalecki

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