S02E19 Folsom Prison Blues

Episode Summary

Sam and Dean are arrested for breaking and entering in Arkansas. Once they’re in the county jail, it is revealed that Dean planned being caught because their dad’s former army colleague Deacon asked them for help. Deacon suspects that a ghost from an old cell block kills people in the prison. Because Deacon saved their father’s life, Sam and Dean start to investigate as inmates – even though FBI agent Henriksen is keen on trying them for, among other things, murders and the desecration of numerous graves. A psychopathic killer from the old cell block that died from a heart attack, as all the victims do, turns out to be a false lead. After Dean is attacked by a ghost that looked like a nurse, the Winchesters start to look for other explanations. Through the help of a „regular“ at the prison they find out about a nurse called Glockner who was said to kill some of the prisoners she was supposed to treat. With the help of Deacon and their public defender Sam and Dean escape prison and salt and burn the bones of Glockner. The FBI, meanwhile, was sent to the wrong graveyard by Sam and Dean’s lawyer.

Commentary

I spent a lot of time thinking about this episode because I felt there was so much content between the lines and so many hints and hunches to follow. In the end, there were so many thoughts in my head that I couldn’t make sense of them anymore. I had to take a step back and look at the episode less closely and ended up repeating in my head what most episodes repeat at the beginning: the Winchester motto.

Saving lives, hunting things, the family business.

„Folsom Prison Blues“, more than any other episode so far, deals with the motivation behind Sam and Dean’s demon hunting activities. At the beginning of the series we learn about the deaths of their mother and Sam’s girlfriend but it is clear that there is more to it than revenge or even closure. It’s about saving lives, hunting things, the family business and, most importantly, what lies beyond.

First of all, the lives that are to be saved are often specified to be the lives of innocents. In „Folsom Prison Blues“, however, the innocence of certain victims is more than questionable. In fact, the ghost of nurse Glockner specifically targets people who broke the law, inmates as well as corrupted guards, thus guilty rather than innocent people. Her judgement, however, is doubted even before we learn about her, or before Dean becomes a target. While Sam calls Dean out on calling the victims in the prison innocents whose life they’re supposed to save – according to the family motto – Dean reaffirms that the victims of a vengeful spirit are (always) innocent. The family motto, then, is less easy or superficial than it sounds. Innocence is not as clear-cut as the law might make it seem sometimes and every life is worth saving (to a certain degree). Thus, the implied heroism in the first part of the motto loses some of its convincing motivational force which is to say, the Winchesters aren’t hunting things for purely heroic reasons and the rewards that might go with it.
A similarly loose rather than strict interpretation also applies to the second part of the Winchester motto that explicitly refers to the hunt, specifically the hunting of things. Sometimes, these „things“ they hunt aren’t things but real people, such as in S02E17 „Heart“, who cannot be saved and sometimes hunting spirits means freeing them, c.f., S02E16 „Roadkill“. And then there are the times where the „things“ become allies or business partners (S02E08 „Crossroad Blues“) or turn out to be your brother. Thus it becomes clear that the classic thrill of the hunt (that a lot of wealthy men and women seem to experience when shooting rare, captivated animals on the African continent) and the dichotomy of the hunter and the hunted is lacking from Dean’s and Sam’s adventures thus making it an unlikely motivator.
So far, neither the „public reward“ (often said to be the defining characteristic as well as driving force of heroism) of saving innocents and experiencing their gratitude nor the hunting-related adrenaline rush can fully explain why Sam and Dean do what they do. And so we continute to the last part of the motto, the family business, and its particular relevance for „Folsom Prison Blues“. This episode sheds light on what else drives Sam and Dean by highlighting what „the family business“ means – and especially what it means to Sam and Dean. Sam is clearly more sceptical of doing the family business according to Dean’s plan and has a hard time understanding why they should risk their lives (the FBI is following them closely after all) for an old and seemingly distant friend of their late father. Dean, on the other hand, stresses the debt they owe to Deacon because he saved their father’s life. One might argue here that John Winchester’s military education affected his sons, particularly Dean, on more than just a physical level. Semper fidelis, „always faithful“, the motto of the United States Marine Corps, the military unit John and Deacon served in, seems to shape Sam’s and Dean’s actions significantly albeit differently. While Sam displays a strong sense of family and responsibility for his relatives, Dean goes one step further by acknowledging his responsibility not only for his family but also for their debts, even beyond death – always, as in semper fidelis. The family, then, is what matters most and what drives them. Thus the family business is not just a kind of traditional profession but more of a set of ideals the Winchesters live by and some of those say they should hunt down those who hurt other people, that is, their extended, almost global, family.

Summing up the arguments above, „Folsom Prison Blues“ particularly highlights the last part of the Winchester motto, that is, the importance of family and friendship for the business. After all, they only succeed in this episode through the help of, more or less close, friends, namely Deacon and Mara Daniels, the defense lawyer. Thus it becomes clear that as solitary as hunters and their lives might seem, what drives them and what helps them fight the dark forces are their families – however those might be defined.