SUPERNATURAL: And the Truth Will Set you Free — Sometimes

Season 6, episode 6 (You Can’t Handle the Truth)

I owe the writers of “Supernatural” an apology. I feel like I failed by not trusting them about the Sam/Satan storyline. In my defense, I also watch “The Event” and I think my lack of trust in that show (which is richly warranted) affected how I view other shows.

However, I now and forthwith offer my sincere apologies to the “Supernatural” team. I should have known that you wouldn’t take the easy and expected road by making Sam an incarnation of Satan. Of course you wouldn’t. Other, lesser shows would. But not you guys.

And even more amazing, the writers at “Supernatural” knew that we would expect Sam and Satan to be one in the same, and they teased us with it. In last night’s episode Dean repeatedly said things like, “… or it’s fricking Lucifer.”

The episode was about strange suicides that have been happening in one town. The boys quickly figure out from witnesses that people are spewing out the truth even when they don’t want to and the truthees are killing themselves as a result.

In one scene, “Supernatural” had fun going gory with a dentist. (Don’t “dentist” and “gory” always belong in the same sentence?) The dentist, who had just used a big, long needle to give a sedative to the patient, is just about to get down to drilling when the patient confesses to molesting the dentist’s daughter. Even though what the dentist did in retaliation was cover-your-eyes bloody, as Sam says later, the child molester deserved it.

The boys split up and Dean heads to a bar. He chats with the bartender, telling her that he just wants to know the truth. Suddenly everyone is telling it to him, including a girl who admits she’s pushing out her fake boobs so Dean will take a look. Deans starts to walk away, but in a pure Dean move, he takes a step back for a moment of breast admiration. I laughed out loud.

Dean, realizing his new-found power, calls Bobby, who confesses to getting pedicures from Vietnamese women and watching “Tori and Dean.” Then Lisa calls Dean and her conversation with him isn’t funny — it’s expected. Lisa, still kind and sweet when forced to tell the truth, tells him they have to breakup.

Dean doesn’t have time for that to sink in before he hightails it to Sam to get him to tell the truth. They face off. Sam knowing that Dean trying to get him to tell the truth. But Sam says  what he has always said, “It’s me, Dean.” Sam can’t lie at the moment, but still, you just know he is lying.

Later, when the goddess of truth tells Dean that Sam isn’t human, Sam finally confesses his secret: He really is Sam but a psychopathic version of him. He doesn’t feel normal emotions. He basically has a serial-killer mind. No remorse. No humanity.

But isn’t that, in effect, the same way you’d describe Satan? Sam may not be the physical form of Lucifer, but he sure has his persona. Maybe all serial killers are Satans that walk the earth.

In the “Supernatural” world, the problem is, Sam may not want to change back to his old self. But will Dean give him a choice?

—Xtine