Fresh Blood (Supernatural)
The narrative follows the series' protagonists Sam (Jared Padalecki) and Dean Winchester (Jensen Ackles) as they have their final confrontation with hunter Gordon Walker (Sterling K. Brown), who has been turned into a vampire.
Brown, who was forced to leave the show due to commitments to the Lifetime Television series Army Wives, was horrified at Gordon's actions in the episode.
Mercedes McNab of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel fame made a cameo appearance, and was also busy filming the television series Reaper during the episode's production.
Hunter Gordon Walker (Brown), who believes that Sam Winchester (Padalecki) will one day turn evil and become involved in a demonic war against humanity, escapes from prison.
He tracks down Bela Talbot (Cohan)—a thief and frequent thorn in the Winchesters' sides—and threatens to kill her unless she reveals the location of the brothers.
Dean, however, reasons that Sam should know how to fix the car when his remaining time runs out, and also notes that, as his older brother, he should be showing him the ropes.
The character's story arc for the season was intended to be longer, but Brown's commitments to the Lifetime Television series Army Wives limited his return to only two appearances.
[2] The episode was "really hard" for the actor; though he was fine with the character dying, the idea of Gordon turning an innocent girl into a vampire was "horrific" to him.
[3] The writer of "Fresh Blood", Sera Gamble, also penned Gordon's initial episode and helped Kripke conceptualize the character.
She felt that she "lucked out" in being able to write the character's final appearance, and found there to be "something so satisfying about turning him into a vampire and chopping his head off with a razor wire".
[3] The actress was also working on an episode of Reaper during the filming of "Fresh Blood", and the Supernatural production staff was able to fit her into the shooting schedule.
Brown described Kubrick as a "well-meaning ...sweet guy", and noted that his wife had a "visceral response" to the character's death when later viewing the episode.
The actor found it "easy to rationalize what he did" because Dixon was at odds with how to start his own family as a vampire, and he maintains that the character had no evil intentions behind his actions.
Production designer John Marcynuk commented, "That motel room was essentially a killing floor for the boys ... and it was kind of a cold interrogation scene, so we tried to keep it not so friendly.
"[10] Marcynuk took a different approach for Gordon's death scene, utilizing green tones and a cool color palette to create a greater visual contrast with the blood.
For the aftermath, Brown laid down on the floor, and the visual effects department removed his head from the shot and recreated it as a three-dimensional model.
The department decided to "push it a little bit farther" by having the head rocking into place and the mouth twitching,[12] but Standards and Practices found it too graphic and forced them to remove the motion.
[12] Though the special effects makeup department used molds of the actors' mouths to create the fanged acrylic dentures,[1][12] McNab noted that it was very difficult to speak while wearing them.
[11][13] He feels that "people associate the sound of violins with vampires" due to the "connection with Eastern Europe and counts", and thus used a "very violin-heavy" score for the episode, avoiding woodwinds, brass, and piano.
He noted that the revelation that Lucy was just an innocent girl was a "nice twist", and deemed it a "great choice" to have Gordon turned into a vampire.
"[19] While Maureen Ryan of Chicago Tribune found the concept of Gordon hunting down Sam to be "inspired", she noted that "'Fresh Blood' didn't do much for [her]".
