Supernatural season 9, episode 12, “Sharp Teeth,” aired tonight, featuring the return of Garth and some major Winchester tension.
The episode opens with Garth being chased off a farmer’s property into a road, where he’s hit by a car. Oops.
Daytime. Sam pulls up to a hospital in Beacon Hills Wisconsin. The receptionist points him to Garth’s room — where he finds Dean. The temperature plummets with the brothers in the same room, but they both want to figure out what’s up with Garth, especially since he abandoned Kevin.
Dean’s about to inject Garth with some adrenaline to wake him up, but Sam, in an un-Sam-like move, just clocks him. Garth greets the brothers then sprints to the bathroom. Sam and Dean give each other the Cliffs Note version of the previous episode while they wait. Sam cares about the mark of Cain for about two seconds, but when the bathroom goes quiet, they realize that Garth fled.
The brothers divvy up the leads. Sam talks to the farmer whose animals Garth was targeting. It turns out, animals have been dying recently, and they’ve had their organs taken. Hm, where have we heard that before?
Dean, for his part, got security footage of Garth getting into a car and driving off, but he lies about it. When Sam catches the lie, Dean says that them not hunting together is for Sam’s own good. Sam agrees — but only after they’re done with Garth.
They track Garth to his room, but a female werewolf (Bess) bursts out of the closet. Garth protects her from the Winchesters and reveals that he too has become a werewolf. He and Bess have been married for four months since she stopped Garth from killing himself after he was bitten on a hunt.
Bess, it turns out, was born a werewolf. She says Garth controls his lycanthropic instincts remarkably well, and tonight’s werewolf mythology has been brought to you by Teen Wolf. Sam’s also pretty unaffected by Garth’s situation considering his own history with a werewolf lover, but hey.
Garth invites Dean to visit his new pack so he can see things are on the up and up, while Sam checks in with the local sheriff. The local pack is made up of a church congregation, with Bess’ father, the Reverend, as leader. Dean arrives just in time for some hymns and lunch. He’s very confrontational, much to Garth’s chagrin, and doesn’t make any friends.
He also notices the wolves are wearing silver bullets around their necks, and they explain that they are reminders of their fragility. The Reverend’s first wife, Bess’ mother, was killed by a hunter, but he preached peace rather than revenge and ended up remarrying. Meanwhile, the sheriff assures Sam there’s nothing sketchy about the congregation.
Dean snoops around the house, but Garth calls him out on his bad attitude. Dean doesn’t believe that things can be as good as they seem — but he’s also angry at Garth for dropping off the face of the Earth. He also has to tell Garth that Kevin’s dead, and our hearts break all over again.
That night, Sam and Dean meet up. Sam points out they’ve come across friendly monsters before, then gets a a call from the sheriff. It ends up being a trap, though; the sheriff’s an unfriendly werewolf. Ruh roh.
He’s no match for the Winchesters, though, and they find a familiar silver bullet on his body. But, the sheriff’s bullet is engraved with the word Ragnarok, the Norse end of days. Dean leaves Sam on clean up duty while he heads to the church.
Dean finds a wolf diary in the church that mentions Ragnarok. Some googling leads him to the Maw of Fenrus, a werewolf cult all about killing humans. Dean confronts the dear old Rev, but it turns out he’s innocent. He’s got love in his heart and no Ragnarok on his silver bullet.
Meanwhile, Sam heads over to Garth’s, but it’s empty. Naturally, he’s ambushed and knocked out. The fact that he doesn’t have brain damage yet from all the head shots is a miracle.
In a barn, Sam joins Garth and Bess in being tied up and having to listen to Stepmama Werewolf’s villain monologue about not wanting peace between people and lycanthropes. Stepmama Werewolf is going to kill Bess and Garth and blame Sam.
Sam buys some time by using his Jolly Green Giant legs to kick the gun from Stepmama Werewolf’s hand. This gives Dean enough time to show up and kill her and her cronies.
The next morning, Sam and Garth share a hug, then Sam leaves because he’s not allowed to have friends. Garth offers to return to hunting, but Dean says that he’s got something good with the non-crazies of the pack and not to let it go. And, of course, they hug it out as well.
The episode closes with an unsettling Impala talk. Dean says that the night he left, he was messed up. It’s not really an apology, and Sam’s not letting Dean off so easily. “Something’s broken here, Dean,” Sam says, and Dean agrees. Solution? Get back to hunting.
Nuh uh, says Sam. They don’t see things the same anymore (though they haven’t exactly seen hunting the same since the pilot, so huh?), and Sam can’t trust Dean the way he should be able to.
When Dean plays the family card, Sam says that can’t just be a cure-all. He’s ready to work alongside Dean, but the brother thing is something else entirely.
Still, he gets into the Impala’s passenger seat and they drive off.
