There were many things I really loved about this episode, but also a few things I found frustrating about it.
Like Roadkill - in fact, more so, if anything - this one hits peaks of emotional intensity the series rarely has to date. At risk of making an unintentional pun, it was really heart-wrenching. Most of the twists in it weren't really quite as surprising as the writers might have hoped - I guessed the identities of both werewolves well ahead of when they were revealed, although I certainly didn't guess the eventual ending - but that really didn't lessen the impact.
And the acting, from both the main characters and the guest star, was really impressive - probably Jared Padalecki's best performance to date. Also - very, very hot sex scene. Very. As in, it's going to take a cold shower for me to stop replaying it in my head.
So what didn't I like about it? The ending - and no, not just because it was a tearjerker. I have no problem with difficult choices and epic angst levels, or killing off likable characters, IF it makes dramatic sense within the story. But the problem here is that - it DIDN'T.
Here's why: The whole episode took place over the span of one full moon. Usually that's defined as three days, although in this case I think they stretched it out to more like a week. But still, that's a relatively short time. Plus, they didn't figure out Madison was the werewolf, or that she didn't know she was and thus wasn't at fault, until a couple of nights into that period. So what you have is a span of barely a few days, during which we're supposed to believe that the brothers "looked everywhere" and "tried everything" and are ready to give up on there being any possibility of a cure, despite Sam's feelings for Madison.
Come on! Who the hell would write off the life of a loved one with that little time and effort? Particularly when it looked like they spent much more of the time on stakeouts and guard duty than on doing any actual research.
Even the idea of locking her up for the period of the full moon each month (a la Oz from Buffy) was dismissed on the basis that she'd probably eventually find a way out - but even if it wasn't a permanent solution, doing something like that could have bought them some time to search for a cure.
I could see Dean giving up that easily, since his usual response to anything supernatural is to kill it unless there's an excellent reason not to (and sometimes even if there is), but it just felt incredibly unconvincing to me that Sam would have, when he's not only by far the more compassionate of the two but also apparently in love with Madison. To me, that made the whole ending feel contrived - like the supposed necessity of killing her was really there not so much for any valid reason in the context of the story as because the writers wanted to crank out maximum angst from the episode by any means necessary, regardless of whether it actually made sense for the characters or the storyline.
Basically, it turned what was in every other respect a really outstanding story into a cheap exercise in emotional manipulation - and more so because they've done essentially the same thing before. The whole series started out with a double dose of what's variously been called the "Disposable Woman" or "Women in Refrigerators" trope - female characters who basically exist just to die horribly, thereby generating motivational angst for a male character. So having that device used yet again, and under such unconvincing circumstances, shattered the mood of what had up until that point been a really stellar episode, instead leaving me feeling "Oh hell, not THIS again!"
I'm still giving it a high rating, because of the overall intensity and the quality of the acting, but it could have been perfect if the writers hadn't decided to sacrifice logic and plausibility for a little more "Deus Angst Machina"...
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