Review

The impala is back on the road and the Winchester Boys have a hunt, all of which make Dean one happy slayer. They are off to a small coastal town to investigate cow mutilations and a couple of deaths. Local law enforcement isn't putting things together but luckily the Bros have joined the dots. While checking the body of the latest victims, Dean discovers retractable teeth – yep, vampire goodness about to go down.

Dean and Sam check one of the local shady drinking establishments to ask the usual questions: recent arrivals, only come out at night, etc and run into Gordon. The dude is also a hunter who specialises in vampires after his younger sister became a victim. Dean is immediately enamoured by the older hunter, but Sam has his doubts. Sam checks in with the Roadhouse to discover that Gordon isn't someone they should be working with. Is Gordon all he seems, and are the vampires the true villains of the episode? Finally a decent episode in season 2 ensues. Ready to grab the garlic and check it out?

Director Singer had me digging his beat from word go in Bloodlust. Some unknown chick is running through the woods with some half-seen dude on her tail. Just where this might be going given the episode title was pretty intriguing. The chick, named later, does the obligatory fall, but manages to evade her pursuer and hides behind a tree. Now that's just got to work, right? Well no, as her assailant is right there when she checks if the coast is clear. One sickle and a beheading later and we are into the titles. Good solid start, and well handled on the gore front – what you see and what you don't is pretty well done.

Side note before we get into the meaty goodness of episode three. How many times in a horror movie have you seen some chick fall down while some hulking dude is chasing her? One of those clichés that are a recurrent theme in horror that never fails to make me roll my eyes, especially if the chick in question is running through some forest in a pair of high heels. Now just how dumb is that? Actually took a point off the rating due to the inclusion of a trite development that really doesn't mean squat here. Actually before moving on, pretty cool nod to slasher movies.

What does work for Bloodlust however is the huge moral dilemma both brothers face individually as things unfold. Following Dean and Sam helping Gordon out as things go pear-shaped – anyone else think that was slightly trite as well? – Sam develops some concerns about what they are doing. There are clearly vampires in the mix but there are no human victims in evidence. Sam can't bring himself to celebrate a successful kill with Dean and Gordon and heads back to the motel. A quick phone call to the “Roadhouse”, introduced this season, elicits the information that Gordon may have a few of those Roos loose in the top paddock. Taking time out to grab a soda, Sam is abducted (just wanted to use the word due to cow mutilations) and finds himself in the vampire “nest”. It's here we get the full rundown from head “fanger” Lenore, played wonderfully well by Buffy's Amber Benson. The vamps are losing the war and this nest has taken to drinking cows’ blood to remain under the radar. Sam is released unharmed, and starts to question hunting the local vampire population. A subtext about prejudice is introduced, toyed with, and then discarded much to my personal disgust. Hey, if you are going to hint at this stuff then put your cards on the table, don't leave us hanging. A nice touch for mine was the fact that head discrimination dude was Gordon, a black guy.

Later Dean, who has sort of adopted Gordon as a stand in for John Winchester, also faces the same issue as he gets a demonstration that the vampires in question can control their “blood lust”, while Gordon is incapable of doing the same. Now you would expect Sam, college boy that he is, to have some qualms about killing everything in sight that might just go bump in the night, but for Dean to also question their activities really does bring a forceful statement. It's sort of the old “who watches the watchers?” adage. “What if we killed things that didn't deserve killing?” is the single most impactful line of Bloodlust and is the first indication that Dean may be starting to question their motives and activities. I put that down to Dean spending far too much time with the emo Sam to be honest.

Now that I have totally destroyed everyone's enjoyment of the show, themes and sub plots – what were they thinking? – on with how things look and feel. Director Singer throws another episode onto our screens that cried out for the atmospherics brought to bear in the great episodes of season one. Besides the prologue scene that has you wondering what the episode is going to cover, there's simply no atmosphere going down. At no stage did I feel the least bit of tension or got excited about the scene constructions. End of day, Bloodlust devolved into what was clearly a television outing and for once I was waiting on an ad break to go fix something to eat. Of course I could have simply paused the disc, but then I'm male and we're sticklers for the rules governing watching this sort of stuff. One of the down sides of DVD viewing. What kept me in Bloodlust was Sera Gamble's script that wonderfully mixed and matched themes with developments. One of those “talking” outings that have you straining to catch each and every line of dialogue, which is the true strength of the episode. The cracks are starting to appear in the Winchester hunting veneer, and this is one aspect I hope they don't jettison for the rest of the season.

Some deep themes going down, but the episode which nods towards greatness comes up slightly short

Already mentioned a good performance by Amber Benson, add in Sterling K. Brown's Gordon. The character is urbane and well-reasoned; as handled by Brown, Gordon is perfectly reasoned in everything, it's simply that the character is coming at it with a few brews missing from the six pack. The character of Gordon offers a mirror to what Dean and Sam may become if they don't question their motives. Brown freaking nails the whole thing, really enjoyed the dude in Bloodlust and am hoping for a character reprise later in the season.

One of the worries I had during the first couple of episodes was the introduction, and far too much development, of what looked like minor characters that we would never see again. One worry can be discarded as Sam uses his “phone a friend” option to ring the “Roadhouse” to get the skinny on Gordon. Clearly Ellen, Jo, and Ash are going to be appearing throughout season two. Good stuff, and the audience applauds. Also note the reprise of “dead man's blood” from season one. The Supernatural team aren't dropping the ball when it comes to the mythos developed.

In terms of “liberally” taking ideas from other horror outings I was at a lost to find a reference in Bloodlust besides maybe a faint hint of The Howling. Vampires trying to blend into the human population, already covered by the werewolves of Dante's most acclaimed genre movie. There's even a slight nod to “you can't tame what's meant to be wild”.

On the music front we get short changed with “Back in Black” by AC/DC and Journey's “Wheel in the Sky”. They really do need to focus here with this aspect of Supernatural. Surprisingly "Back in Black" works as we focus on the rebuilt Impala, a character in it's own right, take note Rob Zombie.

Overall Bloodlust presents us with a decent enough story, and you have to say some underlying themes. The episode once again sees season two of Supernatural not going to the well for some decent atmospherics and tension. I had a slight feeling things were maybe slightly too contrived for the episode's own good, but dug on down on the prejudice angle. Had some fun times in country but am still left with a feeling that season two is going to fail in comparison to season one. Something fresh is needed, the whiff of staleness is starting to percolate from the basement here. Still gave Bloodlust the best rating thus far of the episodes I've watched this season, mainly due to Sera Gamble knocking them dead with her script.

Someone asked me why I'm rating Supernatural episodes reasonably well considering the open blood in the water stance scaryminds.com is taking towards some cinema movies. Horses for courses comes into play here. Supernatural is mainstream television fodder and hence is restricted in what it can do and what it can show. Each episode is only fifty or so minutes long, hence a lot of development necessarily must be stilted and condensed to get things across in the time frame. For every decent television franchise there's another nine that suck the life out of the known universe, and quite possibly a number of parallel universes to boot. Cherish the ones that try something different, or you might face wall to wall Big Brother. Now that's for sure a true real life horror story.

For fans of Supernatural, dig in here, for sometimes viewers one to catch, anyone else can move on to other episodes. Bloodlust depends on the audience being totally aware of how the characters react, what's gone on before, and the whole Supernatural universe. A decent enough episode from the “talk” end of the spectrum. There's a full moon out this evening, you may not have your own blood lust excited by this episode.