Review: Supernatural Episode 1516, “Drag Me Away (From You)”

The latest Supernatural episode features a tense trip into the past, and hints at trouble for Sam and Dean’s relationship in the future.

The Winchesters reinvestigate an old case they thought they’d solved as kids and Billie pays Dean a visit to issue a dire warning in “Drag Me Away (From You)”, which relies on young Sam (Christian Michael Cooper) and Dean (Paxton Singleton) flashbacks coupled with present-day scenes.

With so few episodes left, I’m perplexed that the writers chose to focus on an unrelated, standard hunt, because time is running out to satisfactorily tie up all the loose ends and build to a climactic finish. The Supernatural writers have always had their finger on the fandom’s pulse and it appears they knew the fans would question their decision. They had Billie voice my exact concern by asking, “Working a case? Now?” when there are far more cataclysmic events to be concerned with.

That said, I enjoyed “Drag Me Away (From You).” The nature of the hunt, the obnoxiously decorated motel room and the emerging trope of wanting to live a normal life versus the terrifying, violent life of a hunter were very reminiscent of the early Supernatural seasons. The episode dredged up and confronted old ghosts of the past, not only to show how much the Winchesters have sacrificed, but to demonstrate how much they’ve changed. It also felt like an attempt to justify Dean’s behavior.

In the interest of not jumping back and forth, I’ll unpack the flashback storyline first. John Winchester, though not shown, drops the boys off at the Rooster’s Sunrise Motel where they meet Caitlin Johnson (Kelsey Crane) and her younger brother Travis, played by Liam Hughes. Sam’s desire for normalcy — a theme that was particularly prominent in the earlier seasons — is once again highlighted when Dean discovers he’s been looking at a college guide. Characteristicly, Dean shoots down the idea that they can live a normal life.

Soon after their arrival, Travis becomes the target of a sinister female entity. He thinks he’s crazy, but Dean believes him and explains that hunting monsters is the family business. Dean asks Caitlin if there’ve been other strange occurrences. They learn that three children have gone missing in the space of a few months and that the abandoned Wadsworth Cannery is close to all the abduction sites, including the motel where Travis was attacked.

Supernatural — “Drag Me Away (From You)” — Image Number: SN1516B_0242r.jpg — Pictured (L-R): Christian Michael Cooper as Young Sam, Elle McKinnon as Young Caitlin, Paxton Singleton as Young Dean and Liam Hughes as Young Travis — Photo: Colin Bentley/The CW — © 2020 The CW Network, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Without the guidance of John, who is two days out of range, and without years of experience, they neglect to conduct any research and don’t know what they’re going up against. Dean, flushed with the bravado of youth, decides to investigate on his own. Caitlin follows and joins him at the cannery. She points out that he’s sweating and appears tense and scared, but Dean adamantly denies it. He discovers the entity’s nest, and something that he uncovers in the pile terrifies him. When Caitlin asks what it is, the brave facade goes back up and he insists it’s nothing and that they should leave. We learn what he found in the present day.

At the motel, Sam and Travis play Boggle and write down words that form anxiety-inducing phrases like “kill you now” (this is the part where I would run). The table starts to shake and the boys look terrified (this is the part where I’d flee the country). The entity appears and tries to snatch/strangle Travis. Fortunately, Dean’s timing is impeccable. He arrives just in time to cut her fingers off and stab her. She collapses in a cloud of black smoke, but a ring remains on the floor which goes unnoticed.

Supernatural — “Drag Me Away (From You)” — Image Number: SN1516B_0400r.jpg — Pictured (L-R): Elle McKinnon as Young Caitlin and Paxton Singleton as Young Dean — Photo: Colin Bentley/The CW — © 2020 The CW Network, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

The day appears to be saved, Caitlin thanks Dean and he leaves their number in case help is needed in future. When Sam asks Dean if he ever found the other kids, he says no. Dean adds that even though Sam wants to go to college, he has to admit they make a good team.

In the present, an older Travis (Ryan Alexander McDonald) checks into the motel where he clearly does not want to be and enters room 214, which looks like the last thing on Earth he wants to do, even though he specifically requested the room. It’s apparent he’s trying to face his demons and convince himself that his experience was all in his head. “It wasn’t real, it was never real,” he says as the cupboard begins to open and the very real figure of his younger self steps out. The menacing figure approaches Travis with his broken whiskey bottle neck and we hear his scream. I surmise things didn’t go well.

Presumably a week or two later, Sam and Dean make their way to what they think is Travis’ funeral. Based on the conversation, they believe his death was a suicide. During the tediously long drive, Dean questions why they’re even going. Yes, Travis was a friend, but one they haven’t seen in 25 years. But Sam points out that they don’t have much else to do. (Really, writers, they don’t?)

He is also baffled by Castiel’s departure and can’t understand why he didn’t say anything before leaving, a clear indication that Dean hasn’t told him about Billie’s plan for Jack. Even after Castiel texts Dean to ask if he’s told Sam, Dean puts his phone away and keeps on cruising, a clear indication it’s intentional.

When they arrive at the motel, Dean notes that “it looks smaller,” to which Sam replies, “Yeah, we’ll we’re bigger.” For some reason, the exchange saddened me. The unspoken implication is that they’re not only bigger, but they’re also older and jaded as a result of the many hardships they’ve endured over the years. Dean’s aversion to returning, however, goes deeper.

Supernatural — “Drag Me Away (From You)” — Image Number: SN1516A_0342r.jpg — Pictured (L-R): Jensen Ackles as Dean and Kelsey Crane as Caitlin — Photo: Bettina Strauss/The CW — © 2020 The CW Network, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

They meet with Caitlin, now played by Kelsey Crane, who tells them about Travis’ tragic life after the incident. After finally taking her advice and seeing a therapist, he started doing better, until his therapist began to ask questions about his experience. The therapist encouraged him to confront his fear in order to heal, which is why he revisited the motel.

The Winchesters offer their support and help with the funeral, which is when they learn it’s already taken place. Caitlin lied as a way to ensure they would come. Why? She believes the entity is back. Dean feels the coroner’s report is conclusive and Sam can’t pick up on anything supernatural, but Caitlin is adamant that Travis didn’t commit suicide. Dean reasons that perhaps the immersion therapy and Travis returning sent him over the edge. He also believes the entity is gone because he killed it. “You’ve changed,” says Caitlin. “Back then, you believed him, even before I did.”

After that, Dean has an unpleasant run-in with a younger version of himself that wants him to commit suicide. Sam finds him dazed, confused and kneeling in the corridor. Dean admits that Caitlin is right. This time, their first step is to identify the entity. They know she toys with her victims and can take on the appearance of other people.

Knowing they need all the information they can get, Dean finally confesses he found children’s bodies in the creature’s nest when he looked all those years ago. “They were all about the same age we were back then. I guess she keeps them there and feeds,” he says. When Sam asks why Dean never told him, he says it’s because it’s the first time he ever saw anything like that. So after alerting the cops to the location of the bodies, he suppressed it, but it gave him nightmares for a very long time. This insight into one of many traumas Dean experienced from a young age shows the burden the hunter’s life has placed on him. “It’s okay, you were just a kid. We were both just kids. We used to keep a lot of secrets from each other,” reassures Sam. And still do, right Dean?

Supernatural — “Drag Me Away (From You)” — Image Number: SN1516B_0765r.jpg — Pictured (L-R): Lisa Berry as Billie and Jensen Ackles as Dean — Photo: Colin Bentley/The CW — © 2020 The CW Network, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Sam and Caitlin hit the lore books and Dean heads out to get food. While ordering, he’s visited by Billie. She questions why they’re out hunting and informs him she’s just come back from one of Chuck’s worlds, which he has decimated. “That was the last one. The last world, but this world,” she says, adding that Chuck will be back very soon and they have to be ready, no time can be wasted.

She points out that Amara is almost on board and she’s visited Jack to tell him what the last step of his transformation is. Dean asks how she talked Jack into this self-sacrificing act. “I told him the truth. Jack killed your mother and all he wants is your forgiveness. And I surmised that the only way he can get that is ending God and freeing you from the, what did you call it, ‘hamster wheel’?”

Back at the motel, Caitlin browses the lore on her phone and is astonished that this is the life they lead. “Don’t you ever wanna be, I don’t know, normal?” she asks. Sam’s answer is matter-of-fact: “Well, we help people, ya know, save ‘em.” His acceptance of the lives they lead is so far removed from the Sam who rebelled so passionately against being a hunter. Even after dropping out of his law studies and rejoining Dean, his craving for a normal life took years to work its way out of his system. But it was also Sam who, once he fully realized the importance of what they were doing, made peace with their lot in life.

Sam learns the entity is a Baba Yaga, an ancient witch that feeds off the fears of children through hallucinations. And the ring is the source of her power. Caitlin tells Sam that their mother found the ring in the vacuum cleaner and gave it to Travis (weird, would’ve given it to Caitlin). The stone was cracked, but he liked it and wore it on a chain around his neck as a lucky charm. A few weeks before he died, he’d had the stone repaired.

Sam is mid-deduction, correctly guessing that the cracked stone only damaged the source of the witch’s power, when Caitlin rushes off to her car to look for the ring in Travis’ belongings. She encounters her dead brother instead.

When Dean returns to the motel, Sam fills him in on what they’re hunting, informs him that Caitlin is missing and that the Baba Yaga can be killed by destroying the ring. They realize they need to find her nest, and because the attacks took place at the motel, it’s likely to be somewhere in the establishment. They separate, and as Dean walks down a corridor, room 214’s door creaks open. “I’ve seen this movie before,” he says, and I think we all know what comes next.

Upon entering the room, he hallucinates. The Baba Yaga appears in the form of Travis and a scuffle breaks out, but when Sam enters the room, we see the scene for what it really is: the Baba Yaga attacking Dean on the floor while Caitlin lies passed out on the bed. Sam stabs her in the back before being flung across the room. When the Baba Yaga attempts to throttle him again, Dean manages to pry the ring off her finger and smashes it. Ding dong, the witch is dead.

As they leave the motel, Caitlin thanks Dean and takes the opportunity to ask: “Hey, that thing… were you scared?” Dean’s brutally honest response is given without hesitation. “Always am.” Caitlin points out that Dean really has changed, because that’s something he never would’ve admitted when he was younger. She goes on to say that as you get older, “you tell the truth more because lies, you know they don’t make anything better”.

Whether it was Caitlin’s parting words or Billie’s warning for him to get his house in order that changes Dean’s mind, I can’t be sure. But on the drive home, he finally tells Sam everything, from Billie’s visit to Castiel telling him about Jack’s fate. Justifiably, Sam is angry that such vital information was kept from him. However, Dean’s reasoning that he did it because Sam couldn’t handle it and that he’d ask the ethical questions is what pushes Sam over the edge.

“And I shouldn’t?” Jack’s gonna kill himself and I should just shut up about it?” Sam fumes, to which Dean shockingly fires back, “Yes! This is how we end Chuck. This is the only way we’ll ever be free. So I’m sorry, Sam, you don’t get a choice. We don’t get a choice.” Sam has his own rejoinder. “Oh, we?” he says, voicing my sentiment exactly. Not only is Dean unwilling to even question the morality of the plan, but he’s making decisions entirely on his own.

I admit, I’m struggling to accept Dean’s actions, even though this episode does what it can to make them understandable. I understand Dean’s singular need for Chuck to be destroyed. Their lives have been punctuated by loss after devastating loss, and this trip into the past reminds us that the fear and loss of innocence were purposefully and callously inflicted on them by Chuck as part of the story he’d created. I can’t deny Dean his rage or all-consuming need to be free of it. But even so, if you’re a Winchester, having an end-justifies-the-means attitude when it involves sacrificing the lives of others feels wrong and disheartening. Perhaps it’s simply because I hold them to a higher standard.

It’s one thing for Dean to lie to Amara, a deception that will cost her life. But can he truly go through with allowing Jack, his family, to sacrifice himself, or will he come to his Winchester senses? Doesn’t Jack’s willingness in itself earn him their forgiveness? Is Dean willing to withhold it from him for the sake of following through with the plan? And should it succeed, how will he be able to live with himself afterwards, assuming he survives?

It wouldn’t be a stretch to say Dean won’t have Sam or Castiel’s compliance or support. But has he lost their trust too? Where do Sam and Dean stand? When the next episode airs, will the brothers stand on opposing sides as they face the final battle? Soooo many questions, only four episodes left.

I know it’s naïve to wish for as little internal strife as possible, particularly in the show’s last season. And in order to achieve an explosive finale, tensions must be raised. However, whichever paths Sam and Dean must now go down, all a girl with a 15-year vested interest can ask for is that the brothers’ remarkable strength of character and bond are recognizable at the end.

Super highlights

I’m aware several actors have played younger versions of the Winchester brothers over the years. And while Cooper and Singleton do a decent job, Colin Ford and Dylan Everett, as Sam and Dean respectively, nailed the characters. I understand they can’t pass for pre-teenage/teenage boys anymore but, really, I’m impractical and unreasonable and don’t understand at all. I wish they could’ve reprised the roles instead.

Next. Review: Supernatural Episode 1517, “Unity”. dark

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