Recap: Supernatural, Episode 8.03 – Heartache

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Dean tries to understand why they’re at a Farmers Market. Sam explains during his year off he’s learned to enjoy the good things, like organic apples. More importantly though, they’ve got a job.

They head to Minneapolis where a man’s heart was ripped out. They talk to Jensen’s father…

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“Forgive me if I didn’t take him out back and shoot him.”

…who points them to Paul, the man last seen with the victim running in the park. He tells Sam and Dean about having a health scare a year ago and has since been taking care of himself. They find nothing spooky at his house, but Dean finds another similar murder in Iowa.

There they find Arthur who is currently imprisoned for also ripping out a heart. They talk to him in the interrogation room, but the only thing coming out of Arthur’s mouth is repeated indecipherable mumbling. Later that night, Arthur, still repeating what he’s been mumbling on about, yanks part of the bed frame off and stabs his eye out.

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At the motel, Dean says they should try playing the recording of Arthur’s mumbling to a new translation app he bought.
Language unknown.

They get a call and Dean heads to the hospital where the doctor tells him about Arthur having had an eye transplant last year, interestingly enough, the same eye he wanted to cut out. Dean asks the doctor to trace the organ donor.

Back at the motel, they find Paul also had a transplant. Having found a pattern of similar attacks from a year ago, they set off to Boulder, Co. But before that, Sam emails an mp3 of the mumbo jumbo to Dr. Morrison, the professor whom they had worked with before.

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Winchester Bro Emo Moment of the Week, Part 1
In the Impala, Dean says things are coming together, it’s all good. The last year has given him a new perspective; that he’s at his best next to Sam driving along on Crazy Street.

Sam though thinks otherwise. Maybe Dean doesn’t need him, that he’s better off not having to explain himself. And that they should make room for the possibility that they want different things.

Before Dean can respond, he gets a call from the doctor who tells him the organ donor was all-pro QB Brick Holmes.

Meanwhile in Boulder, Randa, a stripper, rips a guy’s heart out and later recites a spell over it before eating it.

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The Bros visit the home of Brick Holmes to talk to his mother. Sam’s a big fan. Brick had died a year earlier after an accident where he drove off a bridge. They ask if he was an organ donor and the mother says a lot of star athletes had signed on a few years ago to promote awareness.

The Bros’ line of question, about Brick’s accident, him being married and possible being involved with the occult makes the mother uncomfortable. She says she has to get to the university as they are naming a new athletic building after her son.

The Bros leave as the mother watches from the window. Randa comes walking down the stairs and reminds the mother, Eleanor, that they should remain careful. They must protect Brick since he gave her new life. His heart is beating inside her and because of that, she’ll watch out for Eleanor like Brick. As long as they keep this little secret, the “three” of them will be just fine.

Sam gets a call from the Professor who tells Sam the babble is a Mayan language saying “The divine god Cacao is born.” Cacao is the Mayan god of corn and maize.

While Dean gets an e-mail back from Phoenix police about another recipient of Brick’s organs, he also reads an e-mail for Sam from a university about admissions. Sam says he’s just looking at options.

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The Bros return to the Holmes mansion and look through the master bedroom’s closets. There’s one full of Brick’s stuff, but adjacent is a closet full of Eleanor’s stuff. They wonder if she moved into the room after her son died. But Dean insinuates that maybe they regularly slept together.

“Thanks Dean, now that image is permanently etched into my retinas.”

Dean stumbles upon a secret room full of sports memorabilia. But not just from Brick’s football career, from a wide range of other sports too. Sam fanboys until Dean finds a box of letters, old and new, addressed to Betsy and only signed “Love, me.”

The writer describes having to face off against such opponents as a legendary boxer and classic baseball teams. They bring the letters back to the motel and after some researching, Sam finds the names on the different trophies refer to men who look strikingly similar.

Reading from Papa Winchester’s journal (is it? We haven’t seen that thing in a long time), Dean says the Mayans were also into sports, putting athletes on high pedestals. They would make sacrifices to Cacao so they could get supercharged powers against their opponents.

“The mighty they fall hard.”

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Sam then notices something from an old photo of the Brick Holmes doppelganger and see the boxer’s wife was Besty, the same Betsy from the letters… and also the same woman posing as Brick’s mother tday.

They go talk to her and she tells them everything. She says she fell in love with him back then, but never knew about the murders and the heart eating sacrifice until she started getting on in years while her husband did not. His Mayan name was Iyo, a proud young athlete from 1000 years ago. He lived for sport and never wanted his “days in the sun” to end. He’d sacrifice twice a year to remain the warrior he was. But he changed as soon as he fell in love. And she fell in love too. They’d disappear then reappear with new identities, first she was his wife, then a woman in hiding then, now, his mother.

But he became tired and when he saw Betsy/Eleanor’s days were almost done, he couldn’t imagine life with her, so he killed himself.

“You must think I’m a monster.”
“No, just that you married one.”

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She tells the Bros that Brick would say the heart was the key, since that was the focus of the sacrifice. She points them to Randa and they head to the strip club.

“Smell that?”
“You’re gross.”

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Randa along with Paul from earlier and another organ recipient are ready to meet them. Randa is about to pull Dean’s heart out of his chest, but Sam helps and Dean manages to stab Randa’s heart and end the cycle. They go to Eleanor to tell her it’s over.

Winchester Bro Emo Moment of the Week, Part 2
In the Imapala, Dean is feeling good, they’re back in business. But Sam continues their discussion from earlier. He says he doesn’t feel like a warrior anymore, like Dean does now.

“Don’t ruin my buzz.”

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Sam says as soon as they wrap up Kevin and the tablet, he’s done. After taking a year off, he had something he’s never had… a normal life.

That’s just how you feel right now, Dean says.

Sam has a flashback to happy times with Amelia surprising him with a birthday picnic.

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Episode Thoughts
So what was up with that brass-heavy soundtrack in that flashback? I haven’t been looking forward to seeing some happySam flashbacks since I feel like Dean’s purgatory adventures are much more interesting.

But with the trumpets blaring over a brightly washed scene in the park, it almost made it seem like part of that TV adventure episode they had a few seasons ago.

I dunno. I guess the main purpose of this episode, which was kind of flat, though I commend Director Ackles on an episode that flowed well enough, was to show how someone could give up their whole life for love.

How beautiful…

We’ll how this plays out, but I’m not really looking forward to it.

Anyway, not one of my favorite episodes, though I’d like to see Jensen directing more in the future. And Papa Ackles’ scene (yes, he was in the episode!) was fun, though I didn’t realize at the time he was indeed Papa Ackles.


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0 thoughts on “Recap: Supernatural, Episode 8.03 – Heartache

  1. I absolutely loved this episode of Supernatural and I can’t wait for the next episode now! I finally got my coworkers at DISH to start watching Supernatural recently, but they need to catch up and see how the first few episodes of season 8 have gone. This is an incredible season, so I’m recording every episode with my Hopper, so that they can watch them all as soon as they catch up. I think that this season has been an amazing change in pace, and I love where it is going this year!

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