Supernatural: Season 11, Episode 13 – “Love Hurts”

Love hurts, love bleeds, especially on this week’s episode of Supernatural, and really on the show in general. Just about all of the show’s characters have experienced heartbreak and terrible relationships, beginning with the death of John Winchester’s (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) wife, Mary (Samantha Smith), and continuing on with Dean’s doomed relationship with Lisa (Cindy Sampson). It’s worth noting that only two characters in the series’ ever-expanding universe are currently happily married: hunter Garth (DJ Qualls) and his werewolf wife, Bess (Sara Smyth). So, it was easy to suspect that this Valentine’s Day-themed episode wouldn’t be the sort of thing you see in jewelry commercials.

In Love Hurts, every kiss ends with a “K”, which in this instance stands for “kill”. The beginning showed a typical married couple (Jim Thorburn and Luciana Carro) preparing for a Valentine’s date night. The twist is that the husband is sleeping with their teen babysitter (Zoe Fraser). The second twist is that he comes back to literally rip the girl’s heart out.

Back at the Winchester bunker, Sam comes across the case while doing his usual online newspaper search of odd deaths. Dean is happily hungover and bragging about the previous night’s “romantic” conquests. Naturally, they arrive on the scene as fake FBI agents and assume a shapeshifter is behind the murder.

After her husband is killed by what seemed to be the dead babysitter, the wife, Melissa, confesses to the Winchesters that she has been using witchcraft recommended by her “white witch” hairdresser, Sonja (Venus Terzo). Sam’s research indicates that they’re dealing with a quareen, an Arabic creature controlled by whomever holds its actual heart. This quareen is bonded to a “kiss of death” curse, in which it kills whomever the curse-er kisses, as well as can be transferred to whomever the curse-ee kisses. It’s a lot like the movie It Follows, or if you’re older than 25 years, Final Destination.

Confusing curse-logic aside, Dean takes the heroic risk of kissing Melissa so that the quareen will go after him instead. After hearing that it takes the form of “your deepest darkest desire”, the brothers rock-paper-scissors over it. Dean wins, and as Sam goes off to find Sonja, Dean finds the quareen disguised as Amara (Emily Swallow).

Like most loyal Supernatural fans, I’m sure you would LOVE to hear all about Dean’s strange bond with Amara, and how she can’t be denied (that’s sarcasm, of course), but let’s skip the specifics of that imaginary conversation and get to the point. Sam fights and eventually stabs Sonja, leaving him to break the curse and vanquish the quareen by destroying its black heart.

Dean, who was almost killed, finds the courage to tell Sam about his conflicting feelings for Amara. Instead of the usual “I can’t believe you hid this from me” argument, Sam is surprisingly understanding about his brother’s “condition” and they vow to work together on killing the Darkness. It’s a nice change of pace from the usual way in which these brotherly conversations turn out.

Other Observations

Next week’s episode, which has been described as Supernatural‘s “version of Das Boot“, will take place on an Navy submarine during WWII. Dean mentions time travel, but perhaps it has something to do with the Men Of Letters as well?

Did anyone think the quareen really was Amara at first? Does the next episode remind you of an old episode of The X-Files? Will Supernatural get to be on the cover of Entertainment Weekly? Discuss below.