Supernatural season 11, episode 13, “Love Hurts,” was another strong monster of the week episode combined with an emotional brotherly bonding scene.
On the monster of the week front, there are some great twists that keep the episode from being too straightforward. The brothers investigate the murder of a babysitter who had her heart ripped from her chest, which points to a werewolf.
But when the Winchesters question the involved parties, they realize the husband, Dan, was having an affair with the babysitter. Dan stole the nanny cam, which featured both his kiss with the babysitter and the babysitter’s death — apparently at Dan’s hand. Literally. Through her chest. However, Dan was out to dinner when this happened. That combined with a lens flare in the footage indicates their monster is a shapeshifter.
However, things get trickier when Dan is killed by something in the form of the dead babysitter. Melissa, the widow, puts some witchy materials down the drain. However, her frantic call to another party indicates she’s not the witch in question. Dan then comes back to kill Melissa, so she flees to the Winchesters’ motel room and reveals the truth: She told her hairdresser, Sonya, about the affair and Sonya offered her a spell to bring her husband’s love back.
Wow. That was a lot of twists and turns to get to a witch.
But the twists aren’t done yet!
When Sam does some research, he realizes Sonya made up the spell herself, but it’s not a love spell; it’s a curse. It’s transmittable by kiss, which is why the babysitter was killed. The spell then transferred to Dan, the original target of the curse. And once Dan was dead, it would finish out with the source: Melissa. There’s an interesting twist we haven’t seen before.
Anyway, when Dan comes for her at the motel, Dean kisses her and takes on the curse himself. The brothers then take Melissa to her salon (The Art of Dyeing, clever) to look for more clues on the spell. In the basement, they find out that Sonya is controlling a qareen, which is a sort of djinn that manifests the victim’s deepest desire before killing them and taking their heart. They need to stab the qareen’s heart, which is kept separate from the body.
After a funny session of rock, paper, scissors in which Dean wins for possibly the first time in his life (much to Sam’s consternation), Sam goes upstairs while Dean stays downstairs. Sam finds the heart but is attacked by Sonya before he can stab it.
She reveals that she used to give women spells just for revenge against cheating men, but she got frustrated by the women who wanted the cheating men back. She changed the spell to target both the men and the women. She starts strangling him (poor Sam, always being strangled) but Melissa comes in and distracts her. This allows Sam to get free. He shoots Sonya before she can attack again, and he stabs the heart.
Meanwhile, Dean is confronted by his deepest desire: Amara. The qareen-as-Amara tries to seduce him before attacking. She’s just about to take his heart when Sam stabs the heart and the qareen disappears.
Later, in the best scene of the episode, Dean confesses to Sam that his deepest desire was Amara. Sam, however, had already deduced this. And he doesn’t blame Dean since Dean didn’t choose it. Dean wants to kill Amara, but when he’s near her, he can’t resist her. He’s not sure he’ll be able to do it when the chips are down, and Sam takes on the burden himself.
This is an incredible scene for a number of reasons. For one thing, it was refreshing seeing Dean come clean to his brother; his connection to Amara has become a distraction to the job, so Sam really did need to know. And it’s not his fault, so it’s good Sam could help him bear this burden and try to alleviate the guilt he feels.
Another thing that works so well is the fact that Sam already knew. He’s been paying attention to Dean since Amara appeared, and he’s put the pieces together. Plus, his capacity for empathy constantly amazes. He’s not angry or hurt; he’s just supportive. It’s exactly what Dean needed.
As always, the brotherly moments that close out these monster of the week episodes are the heart (rimshot) of the episode.
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