Recap & Review: Supernatural #5.12 “Swap Meat”

In the Supernatural episode “Swap Meat,” we deal with body-swapping; specifically, the mischief descent into witchcraft and demonic summoning that befalls three high school students.

Gary is the focus, a nerdy teenager not best pleased with the ‘plan’ his parents have laid out for him. He seeks to rebel against them by cashing in on a demonic bounty put on the head, and body, of Dean. It seems that the demonic underworld is privy to Dean’s place in the Apocalypse, and it’s also likely that Lucifer realises how his chances of snaring Sam as a vessel are non-existent with Sam and Dean doing the old ‘last stand’ against the forces of Hell.

Gary, along with his friend Trevor and Nora, hatches a plan. They manage to take stock of the fact that Dean and Sam are in town (helping out Maggie Briggs, an old babysitter.) Using black-magic, Gary swaps bodies with Sam. He then uses human sneakery to cut off all ties between Dean and ‘SamAry'(to make things easier, ”SamAry’ is Sam in Greg’s body, and ‘GrAm’ is Gary in Sam’s body. So ‘SamAry’ is forced to live some time in high school Hell, while Dean slowly figures out that ‘GrAm’ is not who he says he is.

Notably, ‘GrAm’ is acting way too hyper in Sam’s body.

So ‘SamAry’ tries to unravel the plot of ‘GrAm’, in the process irking Nora and Trevor. They drug and capture ‘SamAry’ summon a demon to gain a reward, and the demon uses Nora as a vessel. Trevor is killed for being a moron and pushing the demon for too much. The Nora-Demon then tracks down Dean, and a fight ensues. Gary discovers the extent of what he’s doing, and comes close to meeting with Lucifer and becoming an inadvertant vessel… before he, finally, helps Dean exorcise the demon.

The episode ends with the body-swap reversed. Sam tells Gary to live his own life and avoid any ‘plan.’ In the Metallicar, Sam and Dean head off to their next adventure.

The Review

Body-swapping is an interesting, and much-used, science-fiction theme. In this episode, they use to explore the morality inherent within the Winchester Brothers that is often taken for granted. Notably, that Gary uses Sam’s body for frivilous sexual conquests, alcoholic consumption and enjoyment at hunting. These are things that Sam doesn’t do (too often), as he sees hunting as a job… a means to an end. It’s Sam not enjoying life (seeing life as a purpose rather than a nirvana) and someone else enjoying it in his form. Which is a parallel to what Lucifer wants.

If Lucifer gets Sam’s form, he’s going to harness all the power that Sam has for evil. Sick, twisted, delightfully enjoyable (for Lucifer) evil. Demons thrive on the seductive and corruptive nature of mankind, vices Sam has avoided ever since his little ‘blood as a loose connotation for drugs’ episodes.

But, the flip-side to that is a simple question.

What is worse – Sam being trapped in another body and knowing bad stuff is being done in his name… or Sam ceasing to exist while Lucifer carries out that bad stuff?

It’s a point the show hasn’t really mentioned. Where does Sam go when (I say when, because I doubt the show would tease it and then not deliver) Lucifer takes him over as a vessel? It’s an intriguing question, because if Sam ceases to exist then the moral ramifications also don’t exist. His psychology is interesting, having him be a ‘meat-suit’ only would be dramatically wanting. This episode, I think, is suggesting he’ll be somewhere else… but where?

Of course, past the deeper connotations of this episode are lines like

‘Crystal… I would love to have the sex with you.’

Mixing humour and pathos is difficult. In life, we can do it a lot (jokes at funerals… crying with laughter etc), but on TV it’s harder. Yet Supernatural does an exceptional job with it. It’s one of the funniest shows on TV, yet is also one of the most brutally dramatic. The cast and crew deserves props for striking such a great balance, lending ‘goofy’ episodes a point and purpose beyond making people laugh.

Then again, laughter isn’t a bad goal…

I found the way that the police picked ‘SamAry’ up to be a terrific moment of writing. Often times it can be bad-writing, a plot contrivance from A-B. But here, it just worked. ‘SamAry’ would buy that, if Dean called the police, he’d use an assumed name – so he doesn’t think twice about getting in the police car. While they have had some problems with the law, the number of aliases they have is frightening, making them both feel they can mingle with the law when the situation arises. It’s a nice way of reminding us that Sam and Dean are well-versed in subverting systems – necessary given their war with not just demons, but Angels.

Then again, what I didn’t care for was Dean not knowing who ‘GrAm’ was quickly.

I’m aware it’s a writing formula. You can’t have Dean know too quickly. And that it plays on how little they know about each other beyond the basics. But it’s still a little false. There’s so many tell-tale signs there early on that mark ‘GrAm’ out as not Sam. And these two guys have dealt with enough strange stuff to suss out quickly something is up. It seems to me that they wrote themselves into a hole, and while they weren’t completely submerged they weren’t exactly rushing to get out of the hole.

Of course, that is tempered by a slight knock at the old WB/CW trick of casting adults as teenagers. Here, we get Jared posing as a high-school student. Yes, it’s in the body of Gary… but that doesn’t stop it being rather hilarious to see Jared doing his best to fit into the basic mannerisms of a high-school student. It’s a fun reference for those of us who fondly remember Gilmore Girls, and (at the same time), have to sometimes roll our eyes at actors nearing thirty being asked to play sixteen years old.

Onto the seasonal arc, there are little moments of it creeping through.

The staging of the Nora-Demon – ‘SamAry’ – Trevor scene in particular. Supernatural does a great job of taking a simple scene (MOTW kills a moron) and making it tense and loaded with psychology. We have the human looking for his reward, the demon looking for a reason to taste flesh… and ‘SamAry’ looking on, powerless to stop it. It meshes beautifully with the trifecta of forces involved in the apocalypse. Namely:

– A human goes too far, which is a parallel to what the Angels are doing.

– A demon looking for an excuse (arguably Lucifer, who thrives on using the ineptness of human beings as a motive for his war against the throne.

and:

– Sam, in a God position, looking on and powerless to stop it.

* Granted the ‘God’ theory only works if he is, in fact, powerless to stop this war… but perhaps that’s the only way He can be a character on the show. Characters need arcs, and God believing he can’t stop the madness at first and then being swayed by Sam/Dean would be a nice little arc.

Which isn’t what Supernatural does, so I expect something much better.

Final Thoughts

To bring this review to a close, I think it’s a pretty good story given excellent execution by rich psychology. Each episode this season gets into the psyche of the Brothers Winchester. We’re not getting obvious arc movement (likely as a result of budget being saved up for later), rather we’re seeing their mentalities explored and their ‘MOTW’ being used to create a parallel with the bigger picture. Gary, as a guy over his head, is a parallel to both Dean AND Sam. He messed with darkness, but was able to escape it.

Sam and Dean can’t.

That simple point is being explored weekly at this stage, and this episode is no exception. Body-swapping, as mentioned, is a well-used storyline device, and Supernatural uses it to explore character rather than as a cheap gimmick. It does a great job with character against true character here. And it gets an extra point for hopping between demons and teenagers as the ‘MOTW’ (monster of the week.)

The Grade
B+

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