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Supernatural: Good God, Y'all

Dean: "So. Pit stop on Mount Doom?"

The townspeople of River Pass were seeing each other as the enemy when in fact, none of them was the enemy. Great big metaphor for Sam and Dean, huh?

That was a good twist, with the Horseman War playing games instead of a demon infestation. I guess I need to pull out my Bible and glance through Revelation to see what's coming this season. (No, on second thought, I don't want to get spoiled.) (I'm kidding. Yes, I've read the Bible.) And bringing back Ellen and Jo and Rufus Turner from previous seasons was like a party, only with evil and death and all. I particularly enjoyed the idea of Ellen and Jo hunting together. Shades of John and Dean, huh?

Castiel took Dean's necklace. An object that I always thought had some secret power we hadn't heard of yet, and bingo: God EMF. (How did that happen? Were the Winchesters important to God even when they were children?) Of course, Dean taking off the necklace also symbolized the breaking of his connection to Sam. I really don't like the idea of Sam as an addictive power-hungry megalomaniac barely in control himself. I really don't like the idea of Dean letting Sam go fight it alone, either. Dean seemed dispirited, pun intended, as well as emotionally exhausted. But it's not like the Apocalypse can wait until Sam gets control over his demonic delusions of grandeur.

(How long will they be apart? It's never good when the boys are apart, although yes, it's definitely easier on Jensen and Jared. What now? Will Dean spend more time with Castiel? Will Sam go check into Betty Ford?)

I really liked the scene with Dean and Sam sitting on opposite sides of a picnic table in front of a mountain. It was a visually striking way of illustrating their separation. In fact, the entire episode was striking, lots of scenes of isolated characters in a nice looking but deserted town in bright sunlight. Unusual for Supernatural.

Just had a thought about last week's. If being a vessel for an angel is in the blood, and Dean is the perfect vessel for Archangel Michael, would he also be a possible vessel for Lucifer? Of course, Dean would never say yes, but what if he were tricked or forced, somehow? For that matter, what about Sam? Is he vessel material, too? Okay, I'm now picturing Dean as Michael and Sam as Lucifer tearing up the town to get at each other. You don't suppose that's where they're going this season?


Bits and pieces:

— Bobby is not a saintly, cheerful sufferer. Definitely a crabby sufferer, like me. Castiel picked an inconvenient time to lose his healing powers.

— Will we get more Ellen and Jo? Or will this be it?

— Those x-rays of Dean's sigil whatever on his ribs? Awesome. Literally.

— It would be nice to believe that War is manufactured by a guy with a ring, and not by people's pointless aggression, stupidity and hate.

— Ellen threw holy water in Dean's face. Then she hugged him. Then she whacked him in the face. And that was nothing compared to what Rufus and Jo did to Sam.

— Finger. Ick.

— Dean offered Sam the Impala, which was unbelievably generous. Sam turned it down. Good for Sam.

— I don't tend to comment on music, but I just loved them using "Spirit in the Sky" the way they did. Especially considering Castiel is currently questing for God.

— This week, we went to River Pass, Colorado. And wherever St. Martin's hospital is.


Quotes:

Dean: "God?"
Castiel: "Yes."
Dean: "God?"
Castiel: "Yes. He isn't in heaven. He has to be somewhere."
Dean: "Try New Mexico. I hear he's on a tortilla."
Castiel: "No, he's not on any flat bread."
I love Castiel's complete lack of a sense of humor.

Bobby: "When you find God, tell him to send legs."

Dean: "Where'd you serve?"
Guy: "Fallujah. Two tours. Got back a little over a year ago. Takes one to know one. Where'd you serve?"
Dean: "Hell."
Guy: "Seriously."
Dean: "Seriously. Hell."

Guy: "So you think that all this comes from outer space?"
Dean: "This isn't X-Files, pal."

Three stars,

Billie
---
Billie Doux adores Supernatural which is a good thing since apparently, it's eternal.

19 comments:

  1. A nice twist on the ‘whole town is possessed’ scenario, something they’ve done at least twice before on this show. I’m wondering what the four horsemen actually are? War did not seem to be a demon, fallen angels possibly? Whatever they are I’m defiantly looking forward to seeing the remaining three, Famine, Death and Pollution. No, wait, that last one was Good Omens, sorry.

    Glad to see Ellen and Jo back after so long, Ellen more than Jo. Really missed her, she’s essentially the stern mother figure for this entire dysfunctional surrogate family. Except now the family is starting to splinter. Can’t see them keeping Sam and Dean apart for long, two or three episodes at the most.

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  2. I love it that all the demons, angels and monsters of the week who can talk are as snarky as Dean. War was a pretty funny guy, but I didn't like what he said to Sam, even if he spoke the truth. It WAS a nice twist, having him see demons where they weren't any, just allowing peoples' love for violence come out when they were afraid. I felt awful for Sam when Rufus and Jo were torturing him, and even when it didn't work, kept ON doing it! Wild ride!

    I'm editor of SUPERNATURAL synopses at a new web site, Moogi.com, and I hope you and all your readers will go check it out, Billie. It's a unique site, with lots of little details and my play by play synopses of both new episodes and old (right now I'm working on the beginning of season 4 and finished the second half of season 3). Eventually, I'll go back and start at the beginning. Check out Moogi.com, and please, leave your comments and questions over there for me! I'd really love to hear from my fellow SUPERNATURAL fans!

    Love, Robin

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  3. Although it was sad to see the boys separate, I thought it was necessary. There's just too much awkwardness and tension between them right now for them to comfortably work and live together 24/7. They definitely need a break from each other to help them move past this.

    As Mark Greig said, I can't picture this lasting more than a couple of episodes, but it still needs to be in there. And as you said Billie, the Apocalypse won't wait for Sam to get over his issues. I get what you mean about not liking Dean letting Sam go fight it alone, but the problem is Dean is too hurt and upset with Sam to take care of him right now. What Sam should do is go stay with Bobby, but I guess we'll see what he ended up doing next week.

    In the meantime, looks like we'll be seeing a Dean/Castiel team up. (Conveniently, now that we finally have a 3rd cast member lol.)

    And yes, I was glad to see other hunters getting involved in the Apocalypse stuff. I hope they keep them recurring. (Although part of me thinks they should have been involved last season as well, since that was about preventing the Apocalypse from even starting...) Anyways, as always, looking forward to seeing where Kripke takes us.

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  4. I was prepared for this week to be a bit of a letdown after last week's outstanding episode, but we got another strong episode. I thought the introduction of War was great, and I loved the twist that no one was actually demon possessed. And of course, we got lots of good brother angst. It was interesting to see them calmly talk out their issues, then go their separate ways (for now). I'm not really bothered by seeing them split up for now. I think it will be more dramatically satisfying than seeing the constant fighting and mistrust between them. And, as the others have said, I'm sure it will only be for a little while.

    I really liked seeing Ellen again, but we didn't get much with Rufus and Jo. Hopefully they'll all put in a return appearance at some point.

    Billie, I loved your comment about Bobby not being a "saintly, cheerful sufferer." He's not saintly or cheerful when he's not suffering, so why should we expect any different now. :) Should be interesting to see how his character (and Dean and Sam) cope with what's happened to him as the season progresses.

    I was thoroughly delighted that they finally gave us information on what's so special about Dean's amulet. And the scene where he had to give it up was great. Just the start of letting Sam go.

    Castiel's line about the flat bread was so funny! Glad to see it made the quotes list.

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  5. I'm trying to decide if they're attempting to retcon Sam's motivations from last season (the meager amount they ever lowered themselves to give us in the first place) or if that's just War's POV and therefore not entirely accurate.

    If it's the former, shame shame shame on the writers! It's bad enough they treat Sam like a plot device/set decoration 98% of the time, but to do that, that's inexcusable. If it's the later, they need to clear it up, and fast.

    Splitting up is a bad idea, and I thought Dean came across as very cold in that scene. I was disappointed in this episode, aside from the fun of having Ellen and Rufus back. I leave Jo out, not because I dislike her, but because she didn't really do that much.

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  6. There was one thing, that makes me curious about the hole Demon-thing in town:
    When Sam killed the two teenager-pseudo-demons with the magic knife, there was no Sparkling and inner light come out the bodies.
    There was only blood, and they died. Like unpossessed humans.
    A clear sign, that this all are just hallucinations.
    And hey, in the last Scene, come on, the ring. In the second I have seen Dean holding the ring in the Air:
    One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
    One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them!


    And then Deans comment with the pit Stop to Mount Doom!
    I liked it.
    (P.S.: comment from germany, sorry about any mistakes ;-) )

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  7. Hi, Billie

    I'm very late in my comment because I just started watching Supernatural last month, and I've watched one episode after another compulsively.

    I find it weird that nobody noticed (or comented) that both MArk Pellegrino and Titus Weller were prominent characters in the LOST finale and are appearing almost together again in Supernatural. One is a big coincidence, I mean, Jacob and Lucifer were much talked about characters before they appeared, and nobody really knows their agendas.
    But hiring both of them is starting to make me wonder if this shoutout to LOST is intentional.

    I don't know. Maybe I'm just rambling.

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  8. I, too, am late to the party, but what I found most interesting about this episode, mythology-wise, was that young Sam originally made it for his father, but gave it to Dean when John missed Christmas. Especially considering that John was supposed to be the one who lost his morals in Hell (according the Alistair in Season 3), but Dean lost his first.

    Perhaps this is all addressed in the next few episodes? I'm very close to being caught up.

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  9. Just a quick correction, Josie. Sam didn't make the amulet. If memory serves, Bobby gave Sam the amulet to give as a gift to John. No idea how Bobby got his hands on it.

    Still, as you note, it is pretty interesting that the amulet was originally intended for John but ended up with Dean, just as John's intended role as the first seal also fell to Dean. (Assuming Alistair wasn't lying.)

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  10. Yes, Bobby told Sam the amulet was special and gave it to Sam to give to John. I'm willing to bet that the writers didn't know *how* special at this point, since Kripke hadn't decided they were going to do angels, but they knew they were going to use it for something special eventually.

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  11. Ah, I see. I'd mentally removed Bobby from that gift-exchange entirely.

    Bobby, my apologies.

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  12. I only know because I did a rewatch during the summer. It completely zipped past me the first time.

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  13. See, again I misinterpreted. The Sam/Dean exchange, as I remember was:

    Dean: Where did you get the money to buy Dad a gift?
    Sam: Bobby gave it to me.

    I assumed Bobby had given him the money, no the necklace. And I found extremely improbable that Sam would buy the very necklace that can find God. Now everything seems much more plausible. Maybe Bobby had it and never thought there was use to it, like Giles in that S04 Buffy episode, where he had an very important item which was to be used to bring about (surprise!) the apocalypse lying inside a drawer.

    As I commented in my twitter, Supernatural is getting more and more similar to the best of Buffy/Angel as the Seasons come by. And I love it!

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  14. I agree with the above comments about Titus W. and Mark P. - they both are great character actors and am glad to see them.

    Was even better to have Ellen (and Jo...) back. Did anyone else notice how Ellen almost completely ingored Sam (she threw water on Dean's face, slapped him and hugged him...) It was a nice way of marginalizing Sam even more, making him want to assert himself later on in the episode.

    Imagine a halucinating hunter - black eyes everywhere. That's a very scary thought... How can Sam and Dean trust anything? Sam killed innocents in that store...

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  15. I am a big fan of the first four episodes of this season and I think they started out strong. Good to see Jo and Ellen again and I laughed at what they made Sam go through.
    Again, the last scene just saddens me.

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  16. If you get the chance to see this again don't miss Sam's caress of "Baby" just before he gets into the stranger's car. It showed his deep sadness and affection for the Impala (and the life with her and Sam).

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  17. I have very little to add as the review and all the comments have pretty much said it all.

    I did, however, think the always excellent music was absolutely brilliant this episode. Starting the episode with Foreigner's 'Long Long Way From Home' (the lyrics are perfect!) followed by Norman Greenbaum's 'Spirit in the Sky' was sheer genius. As Dean said on the bridge, "the hits just keep on coming!"

    Don't like seeing our boys apart, but it might be best for right now. They are the perfect example of the whole being stronger than the sum of the parts.

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  18. No real list of favorite moments, at least not in any particular order, but before we get to that, isn't it amusing that most people prefer Ellen to Jo? I don't know why, but it's not just on here that I've seen it. I personally don't prefer either over the other :)

    Ok, favorite moments: Rufus quitting his 'retirement' for the apocalypse that has been put into motion, thought that was a great touch. Ellen's moment with Dean was also great, and so was Sam's hesitation with the blood on his thumb.

    Perhaps my favorites, no surprise, involve Castiel. The humor of him having to call instead of just whooshing in and, of course, his perfectly delivered line. "No, he's not on any flatbread." God, that look of confusion on Misha's face, kills me every time.

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