Supernatural S06E06 - You Can't Take the Truth (2010)

Review

After four apparent suicides the Winchester Bros decide they need to check out what's happening in Calumet City, Illinois. While there yet another strange death occurs involving a Dentist, an over enthusiastic use of a drill, and a dental patient who has been extremely naughty. Seems some folk are under a curse where if they want the truth then they get the whole truth, and nothing but the whole truth. Naturally Dean is still somewhat concerned about who or what Sam might be, and confides in Bobby asking the crusty oldster to investigate. Meanwhile we find two of the victims visited the same music shop, Harry's House of Horns, where it's discovered that an antique horn had been previously stolen. Surprisingly Dean does some research and identifies the purloined music instrument as Gabriel's Horn of Truth; unfortunately Castiel can confirm the instrument wasn't the item causing the sudden rush of suicides.

After Sam discovers the bodies of the deceased have vanished from the morgue Dean hits the interwebs to see what he can discover and sure enough finds the goddess Veritas might be involved. The Roman deity is the goddess of truth but some research turns up the fact that she didn't partake of human flesh, which would be slight different to how she is depicted in this episode. Anyways the Boys naturally track down the errant Veritas to a local TV reporter but on entering her home discover that this goddess isn't going to go down as easily as some other deities. Time to get your cats and dogs in order let's check this one out before its walkie time.

Strangely I didn't actually find this one as entertaining as I thought I was going to, we're talking blood thirsty God, the whole who the heck is Sam actually, and the possibility of Dean having to put his brother down. What I got was an episode that split itself between plot lines, threw some false leads on to the table, and for once left a few ideas floating rather than being hit with a full stop. To be honest this one felt like filler rather than a solid enough episode to be getting my teeth into. There were also a few characters that we didn't really need to have spent some time with during this Winchester encounter session.

Guess every season throws on the odd poor episode, at least this one is done and dusted

The episode started positively with the usual mystery to solve, monster to face, and Dean ready for the one liners. Except this time around roles reversed with Dean doing the research to avoid spending time with Sam and Sam doing the action, well field work, role. While Sam remained remote through the first part of the episode he didn't actually become a force of evil he remained strangely unemotional, continuing his recent trend of the ends justify the means. Still the feeling was we were in a monster of the week episode so all is good with the Supernatural world.

Unfortunately even from the first intro scene, setting the atmosphere, we are confronted with what has to be the most misogynist episode yet through six seasons of Supernatural. We meet a waitress with low self-esteem who is driven to suicide by the harsh comments by her co-workers, said comments being pretty much about her appearance, the final nail in the coffin is her own sister who has to speak the truth. So low self-esteem due to her body and appearance, nice message being sent to any teen female watching, in the modern climes they should have thought this through more thoroughly. It gets worse later in the episode with a pretty much a throw away scene involving a woman who has got a boob job who apparently needs a lot of attention. Once again a woman defined by her physical assets, and Dean sure is consuming what is on show in a low cut top. Okay I admit we have gone a bit #metoo here, but hey there was some real anger from our female colleagues over this episode and its assumptions which meant I pretty much had to make comment.

Once again I have to point out before going much further that You Can't Take the Truth is restrained from going full metal to the flesh by television standards, that translates to the advertisers not waiting the delicate feelings of their potential customers upset by the nasty program that might cross some arbitrary moral boundary that no one gives a toss about being crossed which is driving people to the more intense streaming services. Television is eating itself, and that meal can't be particularly nourishing.

So the interesting point of the show, beyond attempts by the scribes to go completely off the reservation and potentially anger the fem element, is Dean is struck by the truth curse, everyone needs to tell him the truth, and fronts Sam about the whole standing back on the vampire blood thing last episode. Sam admits he froze but had no other motive, which seems to allay Dean's suspicions, though we are of course not so easily convinced. Later in the episode the Goddess Veritas is shocked when she attempts to get inside Sam's mind, claiming that he isn't human. Well that's fuel for the fire and provides a bunch of ammunition for the next few episodes.

On the bright side we do get a decent enough monster of the week in Veritas who curses people with the harsh light of truth, and then when they can't handle it and opt out consumes their flesh like some extreme ghoul. She also has a clowder of cats which makes her crazy cat lady! Oh and a blade dipped in dog's blood will gank her, I really hope Fido gave at the blood drive and Sam wasn't in his whole ends justify means thing.

Almost forgot to mention the loose ends tangling up this week's plotlines. In particular the Horn of Gabriel which has been stolen from the Horn shop, gets a whole thread to itself, and then sort of exits stage left. There's some other threads left dangling as well but you get where I'm going here, this isn't an enclosed episode with ideas clearly being held till a future episode.

Likewise we had a few characters that appeared to push the plot along and then disappeared into the mists without having any rebound factor. We get both Bobby and Castiel, but to be honest besides making a slight impact the scenes involving them were taking up space that could have been used for "chick" moments or something. So colour me viewing an uneven episode, gee I really am sounding like I hate this one really.

On the bright side all could be saved by a decent injection of mullet rock, oh wait it wasn't. Yes folks don't drop your linen and don't start your grinning zero tracks because that's what the people want! I'm talking geek rioting time kids; this simply isn't acceptable in any form and for sure doesn't endear this episode to yours truly!

Okay truth be told you can't like every episode of a show else it gets real boring and you simply fall into the fanboy, sorry ladies, and fangirl, frame of reference. So this was the episode that I found weakest thus far of season six and really hope is the lowest ebb we reach this swing around. There are loose threads, unnecessary characters, and to be honest taking the audience for granted with some unfortunate scene choices. No recommendation here, this episode can safely be consigned to the "it didn't happen" bin. I really can take the truth here, and the truth is Supernatural have thrown on a bit of a dog.