Review

Daniel Elkin, who’s like a latter-day Van Helsing or something, gets taken out by a gang of vamps dropping one-liners. Naturally Sam and Dean are all over this one, courtesy of Elkin’s name being mentioned in John Winchester’s diary of doom.

And lo and behold, John Winchester makes the scene, as Elkin was his mentor. So it’s family reunion time, with a few skeletons in the closet being shown the light of day. Jeez, Sam has some issues! Anywise, and to avoid rambling on, the vamps have got this old revolver which they nicked from Elkin, that apparently has the power to kill anything supernatural. Personal demon payback time coming up if the Winchesters can get that gun. A muddling episode ensues, with some plot arcs coming into play, and just to make it interesting, a whole new one. Ready to suck it up?

I’ll get my major issue with this episode out of the way first before rabbiting on about what I liked about Dead Man’s Blood. Regular readers would be aware that I had issues with Land of the Dead, primarily due to the character Riley deciding zombies just want a place to live. Fark me, they chow down on humans, dude – which part of this don’t you get? I had similar issues with this episode of Supernatural: aren’t the Winchesters like heavy supernatural hunters or something? Why didn’t they take down all the vamps? Personal agendas recognised, but if this is the best we can hope for in the fight against darkness then we’re rooted.

Eagled-eyed viewers would have also noted the snatch from the Brit Ultraviolet TV series, with the vamps having a right to exist. Earth to Winchesters: they feed off humans, so isn’t taking this sort of thing down like your main claim to fame?

Might have been overly critical there, but we call ’em as we see ’em.

Vampires make the scene, thankfully they are out and out predators

Well, it’s taken twenty episodes until the Producers finally brought out one of the major cards in horror’s deck, and I for one am freaking amped they did. Got to love a good vampire yarn, and the writers here deliver on that.

What I particular liked about the episode was the non-reliance on vampire lore, and taking a risk with some new hoodoo on the whole concept. In the Supernatural universe, vampires are not repelled by crosses, have an aversion to sunlight but don’t combust at the first sight of a sunny day, and a stake through the heart doesn’t kill them. They still retain a blood lust, the only way to kill them is via beheading, and the whole dead man’s blood concept rocked. Overall I was pretty fine and dandy over here with the vampire thing.

The second major aspect of the episode was the whole Winchester family dynamic and finally getting some closure on that. Sam and John are pretty much at each other’s throats from the get go, and Dean is caught somewhere in the middle. John wants to get the job done and sees following his orders as the safe option, but Sam isn’t one for blindly following orders. It all gets sorted in time for next week’s start of the two-part finale, and the resolution is interesting. I could see both sides of the argument, and Dean’s final stand surprised and delighted. Cool stuff, but can we quite with the emoting from here on in, dudes?

To add some icing on the blood-soaked cake, there was the whole gun concept. That was pretty freakingly awesome and wins some kudos from me. Originally made for some Western dude who hunted on horseback, you have a revolver and thirteen bullets exactly. The original hombre used up six, leaving us with seven. John clips one, which leaves six. You can kind of see that this will have bearing later, but I just wanted to keep a count happening of ammunition expenditure in case the Producers want to pull a quick one – you know, the never emptying gun from various Cowboy and Indian epics.

Man, has this review rolled off the keyboard quickly. Okay, still some ground to cover and am running out of space.

Director Wharmby has it all together and presents a pretty good show. Typical Supernatural atmospherics in places; the blue tinting, fog machine, and back lighting which this season is using to perfection. Some tension-laced scenes – loved the Winchesters penetrating the vampire nest – and good motivations all round. Uwe Boll will be green with envy as Wharmby pulls the perfect slow-mo bullet shot in Dead Man’s Blood. Why it works in this episode and not in Uwe land is because we aren’t sure if the revolver is reality or myth, hence the emphasis when John uses the hand piece for the first time.

A few final thoughts and we’ll wrap. Expect a reprise of the surviving vamps sometime in season 2, as once they have your scent they have it for life. Music-wise the episode has on the play list “Strange Face” by some duo called Tito and Tarantula, and Stevie Ray Vaughan jamming with “House is Rocking”.

I’m always up for a good vampire outing, and Dead Man’s Blood ensured I wouldn’t be disappointed end of day. A good take on the vampire legend with the writers not relying on standard plot devices to get the job done. Notably, this episode reinforces that fact that the Winchesters are not alone; there are other hunters out there, though we haven’t run into too many thus far. You get everything in this episode from the family dynamic, through some good gruesome vamp action, to the whole concept of the demon-killing gun. Hey, there’s even some chick on chick action – thank you, producers!

Guess that ends the regular season, with the two final episodes comprising one storyline. Not quite sure they can wrap all the plot arcs, so am expecting some to flow to next season, thus keeping us highly addicted to the whole fandango. Nice work to avoid all things demonic in the last few episodes, and save it all up for what promises to be the mother of all season endings.

Go watch the episode if you like vampire stories, and if you don’t, go watch it anyway. You will enjoy the tension, the thrills and spills, and there’s even stuff in there for chicks to get excited about. Supernatural scores yet another bull’s-eye.