The Sacrifices of Hunting and Corporate America, Supernatural Episode 4.17, “It’s a Terrible Life”

Summary: In “It’s a Terrible Life,” Sam and Dean seem to have been thrown into an alternate life in which Sam Wesson is an IT guy unsatisfied with his life, working for a company in the same building as Dean Smith, a health-loving, workaholic, high-ranking manager. Sam dreams about killing ghosts with Dean but seems unable to make any personable connection with him. Meanwhile, underachieving members of the company receive emails to report to “HR.” Afterwards, they become extremely anxious and overachieving workers, to the extent that they commit suicide after they have made any error. Sam and Dean, the latter of whom is no longer able to avoid acknowledging that there is a ghost, learn from a Ghostfacers video valuable hunting information, and subsequently stop the monster. As Sam and Dean each quit their jobs, it is revealed that Zachariah the angel is the individual who set the brothers up in this lifestyle, with the purpose of proving to them that they will always choose the hunting lifestyle, no matter what scenario they are put into.

Review: “It’s a Terrible Life” posits to both the viewers and the Winchesters the theme of destiny. The episode underlines the key aspects of the characters’ personalities, as well as the reasons why we love them, by taking away their key traits in this alternate scenario and giving them characteristics in complete contrast to their normal mentalities. While this poses for the primary curiousness and enjoyment of the episode (which it certainly does—who doesn’t love a detoxing Dean who seems slightly terrified of copious amounts of blood, and brothers who suddenly love the Ghostfacers?!), it also serves a bigger purpose within the context of the season. This furthers the moral of the episode: not only will Dean and Sam always find their way back into hunting, they will fulfill their “destiny” even when their identities and personalities are the polar opposites of the Sam and Dean we know and love. Sam, who has, of the two brothers, tended to be the one who rebelled against his family and unsuccessfully attempted to run away from the hunting lifestyle previously, is presented with the normal life that he has seemed to always desire. However, even when confronted with the life he wishes he had had, he states that he feels as though there is “something in [his] blood” that makes him desire to fight ghosts, with Dean especially, and needs more than an ordinary and dull day job. It also demonstrates the intellectual brilliance of Sam, who hypothesizes that they have been “scrambled” in the brain by the same sort of ghost that they had just defeated. However, in contrast to Sam, Dean proves himself to be the voice of reason, bringing up the logistical lifestyle problems with hunting—living on the road, in a new motel every night, no health insurance, and more—highlighting the ways in which the qualities of the job that the viewers tend to view as liberating and adventurous are not all they are cut out to be, even with death, destruction, and pain aside.

This monster-of-the-week episode clearly has a bigger narrative focus than its forty-four minutes, and contextualizes itself well within the story arc of season four. “It’s a Terrible Life” reinforces to both the Winchesters and the viewers what the angels already seem to know: that Sam and Dean cannot escape their destiny, and that they must confront what they have been possibly preordained to do. The use of repeated scenes, especially those of the copy machines, phone calls ringing throughout the offices, pencil sharpenings, and cubicles demonstrate the monotony and mundaneness of their fake lives, which are the “average” lives of most normal individuals. This is the ordinary lifestyle the Winchesters could have had. The show tends to hone in on the negative aspects of hunting, of which there are undoubtedly plenty. However, this shows the way in which the opposite lifestyle, that of a corporate America that resonates with most of the viewers, is not fulfilling. As Zachariah states to Dean towards the end of the episode, “It’s how you look at it—most folks live and die without moving anything more than the dirt it takes to bury them. You get to change things, save people. Maybe even the world…. Look around—there are worse fates than yours.” Especially when it is considered that Zachariah did not merely construct the entire scenario, but rather dropped the boys in a real-life situation and company, this seems to be an obvious prodding towards the viewers in regards to their lives. This brings up the question, what is the purpose of this moral and theme on behalf of the writers? Possibly, it may be to either inspire the viewers into action in their own actual lives to pursue what will fulfill them, or simply just to provide a deeper level of insight into the pros and cons of the hunting world.