In season
3, episode 5’s “Bedtime Stories,” the Winchester brothers come across a
vengeful spirit that is creating deathly fairy-tale scenarios in a small town.
Sam concludes that the murders center around fairy tales: “The Three Little
Pigs,” “Hansel and Gretel,” and “Little Red Riding Hood.” The boys discover
that a young girl is the specter, who is the comatose daughter of the hospital’s
doctor. She is reminiscent of a fairy tale herself, having been poisoned
by her stepmother. As the episode intensifies while Dean fights the “Big Bad
Wolf” to save an abducted girl, the doctor comes to terms with the true story
and loss of his daughter. He pulls the plug, ending the murders. Later on, Sam
sneaks out to find the crossroads demon who dealt with Dean and kills her.
Last week, in my episode review of
season 2’s “Tall Tales,” I proposed a few key purposes of the “monster-of-the-week”-style
episodes, holding that these styles of storytelling tend to entertain while
creating new plot opportunities and/or providing insight into characters’ perspectives
or dynamics. This week’s episode maintains this theory, providing us a new,
one-off narrative that successfully draws in the viewer and centers itself in
amongst the rest of the season. Sam is frightened and angry at Dean’s blatant
acceptance of his impending and doomed fate—a dynamic that is greatly explored
throughout the narrative of this episode.
As a whole, the episode is great.
It has the mix of the famous “once upon a time” tales combined with the Grimm
Brothers stories; angry, vengeful spirits; humor; and even some heartbreaking
moments. Especially well-done is the opening scene’s suspense and introduction
of an unseen monster, and a great bit of humor as Sam is forced to pose as an
FBI sketch artist, which he fails at miserably. The beautiful and heart-wrenching
parallel of letting go of loved ones after their time has been cut short is
made apparent. Sam is unwilling to let Dean accept his demon deal, while the
town’s doctor is unwilling to pull the plug on his long-time comatose daughter.
Indeed, there are a few unpolished
aspects to the episode. The surviving woman of the Hansel and Gretel story’s
admission that there was a young girl present at the cabin at the time of the
murder is both poorly done and a transparent plot device. More problematic,
however, is the awkward juxtaposition between Dean’s action-packed fight scenes
with the “wolf” and the quiet, mournful calm of the doctor’s office in the room
of the coma patient. These scenes should, at the very least, not leap back and
forth so excessively, as every new jump to the other scene proved this editing stranger.
We also get insight into both Dean
and Sam’s perspectives. Dean proves noble but hypocritical when it comes to his
family—he will do anything to keep Sam alive, as seen in the season 2 finale in
which Dean trades his soul (with collection in only one year) in return for Sam’s
life. However, he seems unable to understand and endlessly frustrated when Sam
does not stop trying to find a way out of the bargain. Conversely, we gain
perspective into Sam’s world. As the demon brutally points out in the last
scene of the episode, Sam feels he is being treated poorly by his brother and
is becoming increasingly frustrated. Even more worrisome is that even after discovering
that killing the demon will not affect the contract for the soul, he kills her
anyways, quite chillingly. This speaks to Yellow Eyes’ season 2 admission to
Dean that the life brought back by the demon may not be wholly Sam.
This episode foreshadows coming
problems and plotlines for future seasons: if individuals in a small town were
being horribly killed by a young girl in a coma, what can be expected to happen
if Sam attempts to hold on to Dean? Additionally, we are introduced to the
concept of a big demon boss that controls the contract of souls, who could
potentially be a new and more threatening character. The stakes are set high.
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