Supernatural: Heartache
October 12, 2021 5:02 AM - Season 8, Episode 3 - Subscribe

Sam and Dean investigate a series of murders in which the victims have gotten their hearts ripped out.

Quotes

Jogger: Congratulations. You're fast.
Paul Hayes: I do a lot of cardio. [rips the jogger's heart out]

Dean: Wow. Guy goes to Purgatory for a year, all hell breaks loose. Check this out. Jogger in Minneapolis gets his heart ripped out.
Sam: I'm guessing literally.
Dean: Only way that interests me. And then, there's another article from six months ago. Same thing happens, also in Minneapolis. What's that tell us?
Sam: Stay out of Minneapolis?

Sam: So, he didn't seem like a guy who would be voted "most likely to disembowel"?
Dean: No, they never do.

Dean: Did you notice any changes in Brick before he died -- you know, anyone, anything new in his life?
Eleanor Holmes: No, no. I don't think so.
Dean: So, no new interests? Fly fishing, stamp collecting... the occult?
Eleanor Holmes: The occult?
Dean: As a "for instance".

Dean: Son of a bitch... It happened.
Sam: Come on, don't tell me someone had their heart ripped out here in Boulder.
Dean: All right, then I won't tell you.

Dean: Two hearts ganked: same city, six months apart. I mean, that's gotta be a ritual. Or at least some sort of a heart-sucking possessed satanic crack whore bat.
Sam: A what?

Dean: Man, look, I get it. You took a year off to do yoga and play the lute, whatever, but I'm back. Okay? *We're* back, which means we walk, kill monsters at the same time.

Dean: This is what we're looking for, is a thousand-year-old culture's god of corn?

Dean: Why would his mother's closet be in here? Are you sure?
Sam: Check this out. [takes out a woman's suit jacket] This is what she was wearing today when we talked to her.
Dean: Maybe she moved into Brick's room after he died. Or... [looks at the bed]
Sam: Oh. Thanks, Dean. Now that image is permanently etched into my retinas.

Sam: Brick Holmes, a heart eater. Who knew?
Dean: Yeah, sorry, buddy. The mighty -- they fall hard, huh?
Sam: Well, at least he wasn't sleeping with his mother.
Dean: Yeah, good, Sam. Find the silver lining.

Dean: I know where I am at my best. And that is right here, driving down crazy street, next to you.
Sam: Makes sense.
Dean: Yes it does.
Sam: Maybe you're best hacking and slicing your way through all the world's crap alone, not having to explain yourself to anybody.
Dean: Yeah, that makes sense, seeing as I have so many other brothers I can talk to about this stuff.

Trivia

This is the third episode of Supernatural directed by Jensen Ackles. This episode guest stars Alan Ackles, Jensen Ackles' father, as Detective Pike. Jensen Ackles, when asked about memorable moments for him, said that having the opportunity to direct his dad in this episode ranks high on his list.

This is the second episode on the show in which Jensen Ackles directed his father, Alan Ackles. The first one was "Weekend at Bobby's" (ep. 6.4), for which Alan did an uncredited voice recording of a newscaster. The father and son also performed together in the 2005 movie Devour.

Sam uses the false identity "Agent Sambora" in tribute to rock guitarist Richie Sambora.

When Dean and Sam are in the room full of sporting memorabilia, Sam refers to a cricket bat as a "cricket mallet". In countries that play cricket professionally, it is referred to as a cricket bat.

It's said in this episode that Arthur Swenson had an eye transplant and that it is the reason for his two different coloured eyes. There is currently no such thing as an eye transplant. Only corneal transplants are possible. The cornea is the transparent layer on the surface of the eyeball. The patient's own iris (the coloured part of the eye) remains in place.

The translation app (from 2012 at the latest) somehow picks up the chant perfectly, despite the speed at which Swenson is saying it, the fact that it is being played from a speaker into a phone, and the fact that even in 2021 the much-improved speech-to-text apps on a smartphone are known for making mistakes.
posted by orange swan (3 comments total)
 
Fun little moment with Jensen Ackles and his dad trying to outglare each other in some sort of alpha male pissing contest. After seeing this episode, I spent some time googling Jensen Ackles' family and trying to decide which of his parents he takes after. I think he's a blend of them both, that he got his dad's colouring and his mother's features. He doesn't look very much like either his brother Josh or sister Mackenzie, and I would say that while his immediate family members are all nice-looking people, he's the only exceptionally good-looking one -- but then I'd probably have to see photos of his parents when they were young to fairly assess them. I've seen some old Ackles family photos from the 1990s that suggest his mother was beautiful when she was young.

How would Sam be able to go back to university given that he's officially dead? It also seems disingenuous of him to claim that the year with Amelia was the only normal life he'd ever had. His four years at Stanford were pretty normal -- he wasn't hunting, never saw his father, and rarely saw or heard from Dean.

Surely Eleanor/Betsy would have cleared out her husband's clothes, given that he'd been dead a year.

I think Jensen Ackles must be at least a competent director. The episodes that he's directed seem about as well put together as any others.
posted by orange swan at 5:47 AM on October 12, 2021


This could've been a perfectly normal so-so episode but then it just comes up and SMACKS you in the face with the "ah yes, the Maya, corn and murder and torture 24/7" and like, of course this show's ignorance and racism are not new, they are extremely baked in, but jesus sometimes they just want to make REALLY sure you remember.

Of much less significance, it seemed so random that one of Sam's heroes growing up was some guy who was really good at football that I assumed for the next several scenes he was just lying to ingratiate them to Eleanor.

I wondered too about Sam's comment about never having had a normal life before, and the implication that he doesn't count Stanford. I could maybe make an argument for why he might not at this point--he spent those years disconnected from and lying to everyone about his background, he was unwittingly being groomed for Lucifer, plus all the normal ways being a student at Stanford has very little in common with normal adult life for most people--but honestly I think it's pretty hard to square and just sloppiness on the show's part.
posted by jameaterblues at 1:23 PM on October 12, 2021


In those photos you posted, orange swan, I see a lot of similarities between the Ackles brothers: same hairline, same nose, same mouth. I think it's mainly the differences in the eyes and the face shapes that make them look different.

This is another one of those episodes that seems like, on paper, it should have been better, but somehow it just doesn't hang together story-wise.
posted by sardonyx at 6:35 PM on October 12, 2021 [1 favorite]


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