The Big Picture
- The intense body horror in Supernatural's "Time Is On My Side" is both disturbing and stomach-churning.
- The episode explores the existential terror of the characters, showcasing the lengths Sam and Dean are willing to go to save each other.
- The haunting and twisted nature of the episode serves as a reminder of the show's potential to deliver great horror.
It might be known mostly for its brotherly love story and mind-bending fourth wall breaks, but the sci-fi drama Supernatural is, at its core, a horror show. While said horror often verges on campy, whether due to Sam (Jared Padalecki) and Dean’s (Jensen Ackles) sassy commentary or the iffy CGI, one early Supernatural episode nails the terror and remains the show’s most disturbing. The long-running CW hit had its fair share of horrifying moments over the years, from Sam being bled out by his ghoul-brother to Dean hanging from meat hooks in hell, but Season 3’s penultimate episode, “Time Is On My Side,” combines nauseating body horror with existential dread to give us Supernatural’s most messed up episode.
Supernatural
TV-14ActionAdventureDrama Horror Sci-FiTwo brothers follow their father's footsteps as hunters, fighting evil supernatural beings of many kinds, including monsters, demons, and gods that roam the earth.
- Release Date
- September 13, 2005
- Creator
- Eric Kripke
- Cast
- Misha Collins , Jared Padalecki , Jensen Ackles , Jim Beaver
- Main Genre
- Action
- Seasons
- 15
- Studio
- The CW
Dean Winchester Is Headed for Hell in 'Supernatural' Season 3
Season 3 of Supernatural follows Sam and Dean in a race against time as they try to reverse Dean’s demon deal, which will find him being dragged to hell for eternity. After Sam’s tragic death in the two-part Season 2 finale, Dean traded his soul in exchange for Sam’s life and was given a year to live. By the end of Season 3, Dean has three weeks left to live, and the brothers are becoming desperate. Cue “Time Is On My Side,” when, in between interrogating demons for intel about Dean’s impending death, the Winchesters embark on another hunt for something that’s stealing its victim’s organs. While Dean is down for what he thinks is a zombie hunt, Sam quickly realizes that their monster-of-the-week is Doctor Benton (Billy Drago), a 19th-century surgeon who’s hacked immortality by using some weird science and occasionally stealing organs from civilians whenever he needs a tune-up.
“Time Is On My Side” Pits Sam and Dean Against the Immortal Doctor Benton
Now, on a show where beheadings and blood sacrifices are par for the course, a few missing organs really don’t seem like that big of a deal. However, this episode of Supernatural manages to kick it up a notch by not only having the Doctor steal people’s organs while they’re alive and conscious, but also, given his old-fashioned medical knowledge, he packs his victims' wounds with maggots, opting to either send them on their way or leave them tied down in his basement.
In one of Supernatural’s scariest and most disturbing scenes, Doc Benton kidnaps a young runner (Nathaniel Marten), and for the first time, we get to see where the magic happens. The runner wakes up shirtless and strapped to a table, looking around to see bloodstained walls, an assortment of medical instruments, and a big jar of squirming maggots. We’re then shown Doc Benton for the first time, who slowly approaches the runner, scalpel in hand, sporting clouded eyes and a face of patchwork skin sutured together (if it’s any consolation, he is also wearing a surgical mask).
He gently hushes the man on the table, and in a chilling scene that lasts longer than it has to, slowly slices open the young man’s skin and opens up the next layer with some surgical scissors before cracking open the runner’s rib cage and prying out his still-beating heart. A frantic beeping undercuts the whole scene as the runner’s watch monitors his quickening heartbeat until it flat lines, and his pained screams are accompanied by a sickening chorus of slicing and crunching noises as his heart is ripped from his body.
'Supernatural's Existential Terror Is As Scary as Its Monsters
While the body horror of this Supernatural episode is some of the show’s most intense, the existential terror of “Time Is On My Side” is just as disturbing. We learn throughout the episode that Sam wants to harness the powers of Doc Benton’s science to prevent Dean from dying and in turn going to hell. As we think about the potential of Dean staying alive by killing people for spare parts, it’s a reminder of the concerning lengths that the brothers will go to save each other, as well as a stressful reminder of Dean’s ticking clock.
1:23Wait, Are We Getting a 'Supernatural' Season 16?!
You can't kill the Winchesters.When Dean shows no interest in Sam’s plan, he leaves to track down the conniving Bela Talbot (Lauren Cohan) and the Colt (aka the Super Special Demon Killing Gun) on his own quest to save himself from eternal damnation. Meanwhile, Sam finds Doc Benton’s hideout and climbs into the dingy basement, only to find another victim. The woman (Kaleena Kiff) is strapped to a table with a huge strap of flesh cut off of her arm, the wound teeming with maggots as she writhes in pain and fear. Sam manages to save her and mow Doc Benton down with his car, but, of course, the doctor snaps his head back into place and is ultimately unharmed.
Cut to the doctor ambushing and chloroforming Sam in his motel room, and the young Winchester promptly wakes up on Doc Benton’s table with his eyes taped open. The Doctor proceeds with a classic monster monologue and tells Sam that he’s likely to survive this procedure before taking an eyeball scooper, sanitizing it over a Bunsen burner (at least eyeball-less Sam won’t have to worry about tetanus?), and getting to work. Sam’s inevitable rescue doesn’t come before the scoop is already behind his eye and drawing blood — accompanied by some lovely squelching sounds — but Dean bursts in shooting and intervenes before the deed is done.
Dean Winchester Refuses to Become a Monster
Once Dean tells Sam that he’s not willing to stay alive as a monster who has to kill other people, they resolve the case by chloroforming Doc Benton, locking him in a fridge, and burying him alive (alive-ish?) along with his book of immortal science. Now, the rules of immortality in this episode weren’t terribly clear. It’s said that Sam and Dean’s father, John (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), cut out the Doc’s heart in the past and thought that he’d killed him, but this obviously didn’t work, nor did Dean’s bullets or his knife. Without access to fresh organs, it’s unclear as to how Doc Benton could remain functioning forever, but given how much he screams and begs as they bury him and the way that Dean tells him to “enjoy forever” in there, it seems likely that he’s going to be trapped for, well, forever.
Although the villain undeniably got what was coming to him, this scene is still upsetting and claustrophobia-inducing as we think about him spending eternity imprisoned underground, frantically screaming for a release that will never come. It’s an unimaginably cruel existence for anyone, and is even worse given the ironic parallel that Dean is doomed to a similar fate down below. Some honorable mentions for this horrific bummer of an episode include gruff hunter Rufus (Steven Williams) reminding Dean over a glass of Johnnie Walker Blue that he will never get a happy ending, and the audience learning that Bela once made her own demon deal to have her presumably abusive parents killed, with everybody, including the Winchesters, thinking that she did it just for the inheritance.
The episode’s final scene is of Bela begging Dean over the phone to help her, him telling her that he can’t, and then Bela looking out the window as hellhounds come to drag her into the pit. Everything cuts to black with a horrible snarl, and with the unseen slaughter of one of Supernatural's few female characters, we’re left with an episode that was disturbing, upsetting, and pretty sickening. While “Time Is On My Side” is an episode that was certainly hard to stomach, it also stands as a reminder of Supernatural’s potential to pull off great horror. Between the gruesome body horror and the existential terror, this episode remains one of the show’s most f**ked up, and a haunting reminder of what people are willing to do to stay alive.
Supernatural is available to watch on Netflix in the U.S.
