Supernatural season 6 episode 5 review: Live Free Or Twihard

This review contains spoilers.

6.5 Live Free Or Twihard

The episode starts with a young girl who has read far too many bad vampire novels meeting a very pretty vampire in a bar. She leaves with him, expecting a life of immortality and romance, only to find out her idea of a vampire is far removed from the truth as he lures her to a dingy warehouse where they are met by another vampire.

Sam and Dean are investigating the rise in the disappearance of teenage girls and they go to the home of the latest victim. In her bedroom they discover her fascination with vampires, the sparkly poetry variety. On the girl’s laptop they find messages from someone hinting that they are a vampire wanting to meet her at a local bar.

Elsewhere, a van containing donated blood is held up and the cargo stolen.

Sam and Dean head to the bar in the hope of finding the vampire, but have problems distinguishing between the real deal and the wannabes. Dean follows a likely candidate outside with a girl and Sam follows another one still in the bar. Sam is following a real vampire, who tries to attack him, but Sam dispatches him with ease.

Outside Dean stops his ‘vampire’ attacking a girl only to find out he’s wearing false fangs and is only using the look to pick up girls. Dean sends him running off. Before he can return to Sam, Dean is attacked by a real vampire.

Sam arrives to see the vampire beating Dean. He watches while the vampire forces Dean to drink his blood before interceding. The vampire laughs at Sam then runs away.

Back at the hotel, Dean is feeling the first effects of his transformation into a vampire. Sam has contacted Samuel to come and help and Dean is convinced that the only way he can be helped is to be killed.

While Sam’s back is turned, Dean escapes to go and see Lisa and Ben. He scares them with his behaviour, but leaves before hurting them. He returns to the hotel where Samuel is waiting.

Samuel tells the brothers of a cure, one of the components is the blood of the vampire who turned him. Dean heads off to the nest to find him. Alone with Sam, Samuel questions him about why he never told Dean about the cure. Sam denies all knowledge of the cure despite Samuel saying he had previously told him.

Dean sneaks into the nest. He discovers he was turned by Boris, the vampire seemingly in charge of the nest. Boris has been using the romanticized vision of vampires the modern world has created to lure victims. Dean attempts to attack him, but Boris is too fast for him and grabs him. Before he can act, Boris appears to faint, as do all the other vampires and Dean.

We see a confusing vision of what could be the alpha vampire, the father of all vampires. As Dean comes to, Boris sends his minions to attack him. Dean defeats them and is then left face to face with Boris.

Sam and Samuel enter the nest to find Dean waiting for them after defeating Boris. Samuel is then able to create the cure and gives it Dean. As the cure takes effect, Dean has a flashback that ends with Sam watching and smirking as he is turned by Boris.

There’s a lot going on in this episode, least of which is the vampires. When we had the teaser a couple of weeks back, I was expecting a far more humorous episode, almost spoofing on the whole Twilight sub-genre of vampires.

There are a few jokes, but these get swiftly brushed aside to take care of the serious threat of the real vampires and there are some truly bloody moments to help remove any romantic overtones of the creatures of the night.

Again we are brought back to bigger things occurring with the monsters on the rise and a powerful alpha in the background.

Samuel questioning Sam is an interesting point. Up until now I had assumed that if Sam was evil, or part of an evil plan, then Samuel was in on it, or maybe calling the shots. Now we are left with more questions regarding Sam. The obvious is whether he is evil or not. Now we are also left wondering whose plan he is following, or whether he is actually in charge. Or even still Lucifer.

Also this episode, Sam appears far more capable than Dean. It appears that Sam has grown into more of a hunter this last year, while Dean has gotten rusty and is distracted by thoughts of Lisa and Ben.

Of course, all this does depend on the big question of the moment, which is the truth behind Sam’s return. Even with the smirk, it’s still unclear as to Sam’s driving intention. Actual evil plan, or simply all about the hunt? Either way, this season is shaping up quite nicely.

Read our review of episode 4, Weekend At Bobby’s, here.