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Supernatural: The Executioner's Song

"It's a fire sale. Everyone must go."

Cain is back, with a whole lot of hair and some very bad intentions.

At first I thought, hey, if Cain is taking out confessed serial killers, especially ones that are set to be executed in a couple of weeks, how bad can it be? But fields of bodies, wiping out entire families, killing one out of every ten of his descendants was a bit much. Then the later scenes in the barn convinced me that Cain was consciously committing suicide by Dean. He deliberately did something that he knew would attract the attention of the Winchesters, didn't he?

I'll admit that I'm tired of the Mark of Cain plot, but Dean is still my guy and Jensen Ackles did a exceptional job, as always. I actively hated seeing Cain beat Dean and toss him around, and was even feeling some distress that Dean could die again. Even though how much of a threat is death on Supernatural any more, with an angel of the Lord and the King of Hell waiting outside the barn?


After the very Star Wars Darth Vader dismemberment, Dean took out Cain, walked out of the barn and handed the First Blade to Castiel. No rage, no violence, but Sam knew Dean was in serious trouble. And Cain did finally say what we've always known. This Mark of Cain thing was always about Dean killing Sam, because that's what Cain did. Cain tossed in Dean killing Crowley and Castiel first, sort of as a warm-up for the final act.

I did really enjoy having Castiel and Crowley back, especially when the four of them were conferring and working together. It just doesn't happen often enough. Too bad Dean had to break his word to Crowley, although honestly, did Crowley think Dean would just hand the Blade back to him? Seriously?

The B plot was again about Crowley and Rowena. She did finally reveal what she wanted: to get Crowley to help her eliminate Olivette, the Grand Coven member who led the charge against Rowena. Actually, I'm certain Rowena wants to eliminate Crowley and take over as Queen of Hell.

At least he's very aware that she is manipulating him, or trying to – how could he not? Although someone should tell her that you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. Just in this episode, Rowena called Crowley a whiner, a chunky child, a bloater, a colossal numbnuts, the Winchesters' bitch, and my favorite, "wee sausage." I am waiting impatiently for Crowley to turn on her like he did on that poor crossroads demon who just wanted a good performance evaluation. Is that wrong of me?

Bits:

— Timothy Omundson was again terrific as Cain. He came across as unbeatable, especially when he was just throwing Castiel around.

— Sam was again much in a support role, but I'm okay with that. Most of the really big arc stories in the past have centered around Sam.

— Every time I see "Not Moose" on Crowley's cell, it makes me laugh out loud.

— This week: West Livingston, Texas; Illinois, Ohio. Dean and Sam were Inspectors Moore and Ranaldo from the office of the Inspector General. Google tells me that it's probably Lee Ranaldo and Thurston Moore, Sonic Youth.

Supernatural is on hiatus until Wednesday, March 18. They're moving to Wednesday. Have they aired on every night of the week now?

Quotes:

Dean: "Bass fishing, needlepoint, that's a hobby. Collecting serial killer stats? That is an illness."

Sam: "According to the news, he escaped from a locked cell on death row, this inexplicable Houdini-esque escape."
Dean: "So what are we thinking, some sort of a mass murdering magician?"

Rowena: "Whiners beget whiners. You can't reward behavior like that. It's why I never gave in when you asked for sweeties as a child, no matter how much you cried."

Crowley: "Next time you run a long con, let more than a few hours of suspicious, entirely uncharacteristic usefulness pass before making your ask."

Cain: "Have you never mused upon the fact that you're living my life in reverse? My story began when I killed my brother, and that's where your story inevitably will end."

Rowena: "You're not a mother. You can't know what that pride felt like, how huge it was. But can you try to imagine, for me? Now do you understand why it breaks my heart to see what a colossal numbnuts you've become?"

Supernatural has been my favorite show for a long time and I still enjoy watching it and reviewing it, but I'm not enjoying this season as much as I should. This was still a strong episode, though. How many wee sausages out of four?

Billie
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Billie Doux has been reviewing Supernatural for so long that Dean and Sam Winchester feel like old friends. Courageous, adventurous, gorgeous old friends.

22 comments:

  1. Was Castiel the Colette in Cain's reverse life scenario? Sometimes it's hard not to see where those fans are coming from if I'm honest.

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  2. I know a lot feel the same about the mark of cain. But I enjoy it:) maybe because it is something new, which is NOT easily solved and now have a connection too season 2 when John said he might have to kill Sam. Even if he possibly could not have seen This. It sort of leads back, or maybe I am just looking for something their is not their.

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  3. I'm enjoying this season more than seasons 8 or 9 (or 6 actually...) but that may be just because I'm watching it at a sensible pace for the first time!

    I assume Dean gave Castiel the blade because he thinks Cas will actually kill him if necessary (which Sam won't). I can't help thinking he'd have been better off giving it back to Crowley if that's the case, since I highly doubt Cas would really do it, though I suppose the risk is that Crowley might just demonise him again. Why Crowley thought he could trust them is a mystery, but then, so is all his motivation since the end of season 8. I'm sort of hoping Gavin comes back, that was Crowley's most interesting plot development in ages.

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  4. Cain's dead, woe me! Love the drama intensified, love Dean in tears and Sam in distress. And my heart goes out for Crowley who nobody wants to make friends with. I wish Bobby were with them now, he might've found a way out. As it is, the boys have no one for support but Cas, and the angel's logic is unpredictable.




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  5. I have mixed feelings about this episode. I was truly sorry to see Cain go, but I enjoyed seeing him go up against that feathered wretch cassbutt. Apparently a Knight of Hell is more powerful than a garden variety angel. Good to see birdy get handled.

    The scenes between Dean and Cain were very moving. I had the feeling that Cain was indeed choosing suicide by Dean. And I would really love to see Demon Dean come back and beat bird butt, but I'm not holding my breath on that one.

    I always ignore Rowena. Terrible character and I hope she leaves soon.

    I think one reason why the MoC "will he or won't he go dark" arc is getting boring already is because it's written in a very boring fashion. I would love to see Dean's baby greens flash black, would love to see a flash of Demon Dean in there. This is not a knock against Jensen. He always knocks it out of the park even with the dreck they give him. I think the show is wishy washy about Dark Dean, they don't want certain fans to hate him, but they have no problem using him as a tease and a hook to get people to watch. That worked the last time, and judging from the ratings, it's still working.

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  6. I feel like Crowley is epidemic of Supernatural's problem as a whole. The show used to feel dangerous -- everyone was on borrowed time, it was just a matter if they'd live one season or three.

    But Crowley, King of Hell, who many seasons ago outlived his usefulness to the plot (remember when he was killing people the Winchesters had saved and was an actual threat? No?), is being strung out simply because the writers like his character and don't want to let him go.

    And hey, I like Mark Sheppard a lot, too. But until Crowley dies, Supernatural's always going to feel like that safe TV show your aunt really loves. Nobody's in trouble. Everything's gonna be okay.

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  7. I don't mind them keeping Crowley alive, as he's a case of literally better the devil you know, but perhaps he shouldn't be a regular, as the only way is down when you make a bad guy a regular, unless you bring them fully over to the heroes' side.

    Did anyone else find Cas torturing and killing people/demons slightly off? I'm sure he's done it before, he's certainly asked Dean to, but it seemed a bit off somehow. And I do miss when they used to exorcise demons whenever possible, without killing the host.

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  8. Yeah, I wanted Cas to exorcise the host instead of killing that demon. I don't like seeing Cas hurt anyone.

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  9. In reply to Billie
    I thought so too. Maybe Cas knew that the man inside was already dead. I wonder where demons go after death? Wouldn't it be the whole new turn re-mythology if we learnt more about souls and their ways? My take is that demon's soul however corrupted still remains human, thus immortable and so can be utilized somehow.

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  10. Glad it wasn't just me! Do demons go to purgatory? I feel like the implication on the show so far is that demons and angels completely cease to exist when they die, but there's probably some wiggle room if they ever wanted to change it.

    (I should stop before I get distracted by my "Gabriel isn't dead because you can't kill an archangel with a regular angel blade" theory...)

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  11. Gabriel lives!
    But then, if nobody can be ultimately killed, where's the drama? I'm in two minds - I want SPN to keep its tragic pathos, they do it so beautifully! And I need EVERYBODY happy and together, forever LOL

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  12. Omundson is such a great actor. Yesterday I saw an episode of Galavant. Today, this. What a range!. I should watch some Psych tomorrow.

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  13. Sorry to hear you're not really enjoying the show. Season 10 is one of my favorites, and this was a highlight for me.

    So much to love this episode! The cold open was creepy as hell. Rowena finally got some writing that hit hard and didn't require Crowley to act uncharacteristically unperceptive. Omundsen was brilliant.

    Four out of four for me.

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  14. Hi there!
    First of all, I couldn't find these reviews -- it was driving me nuts! (I finally spotted them next to the article on Leonard Nimoy (LLAP! You are very missed!) Is there a reason why this isn't posting on the Season Ten board for me?
    Regarding this episode, I think that it was the best episode yet for season 10. I acknowledge that the show is running into some problems -- Crowley is too fabulous to let go, and how could anyone not love Cass, so we now have these two extremely powerful characters as built-in safety nets.
    I don't know why they un-demonized Dean so quickly -- I feel like they dropped the ball there. Jensen Ackles has done marvelously well with the script, but this season seems really hit and miss for me. I'm hoping that the Cain and Abel storyline bears out; the writers have usually managed to pull the bacon from the fire, and I hope that they do it this time.
    I love Crowley's mother. I hope that the writers will give us some kind of (good) reason why Crowley has been so naive regarding her. (Finally, though, he responded to her duplicity with a snarky and knowledgeable response, so I'm hoping that's an indication that the plot will improve there.)
    I give this one a 3.85 out of 4 wee sausages. I'll keep going back and checking the Supernatural boards to see if this one gets added on my computer. If I don't see it, I'll check back to see if you have some explanation as to why I haven't found it. (Personally, I think that my computer is possessed.)

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  15. Hi, Anonymous - apologies, I forgot to post the link to this review on the main Supernatural page. It's there now. Is that what you mean?

    All ten seasons of reviews are here:

    http://www.douxreviews.com/2000/01/supernatural.html

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  16. Yay! I see you! (Thanks... I was missing all of your commentators, along with your review of this episode!)

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  17. Rowena's recommendation on how to punish the demon asking for credit for his work - slicing him in two halves and displaying the halves so other demons have to pass through them - is out of Herodotus.

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  18. It was a good episode, my only issue was if cain no longer had the mark how was he able to get the first blade to come to him. He also said to cas he killed people as the mark thirsts for all kinds, but he no longer had the mark so couldn't be influenced by it right ?

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    Replies
    1. Dave, Sorry this is years later, but Cain didn’t let go of the Mark. He just passed on a duplicate. He always still had the Mark.

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  19. I loved this episode! Man, Rowena is one cold-hearted itch!!! No wonder Crowley seems so unperturbed when dealing with her. But after her tirade and basically calling Crowley a "evil loser", what's going to happen with him? I think she was right he wants friends and "fun" people to hang with and that running Hell is lets face it a dullsville for him. So what are his choices now? I fear he doesn't have much of one... I agree Cain committed Suicide and its was a terrible thing to do to Dean because Dean can see this ending badly and he loves his "family " to much to destroy them but short of leaving, what can he do? He's screwed 6 ways to Sunday and it's heart wrenching.

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  20. I actually really liked Rowena at first, her looniness and the concept of a devil having to deal with his mom felt mad enough to be fertile ground for Crowley material, but now that she's turned into a mouthpiece for Make Crowley Evil again I'm less fond of her. I mean it was cool, and scary when Crowley was running out the Winchesters' old rescuees but that hurt to watch and I can forgive it one time but I really don't want to go through any equivalent again. I think it's unfair of fans to demand the show go back to that high stakes territory it maintained in its golden age... these writers can't do it and it just bleeds into confused misery porn. Did we really need Sam at the end practically telling the audience Dean's still in trouble? I preferred the "uncertain victory" air the last scene seemed to leave things at initially.
    But the main point is: Cain somehow remained such a BADASS! I don't care that they gave him an unforgivable twist, he was totally working for me. It was a really nice surprise seeing him because I thought he was gone from the show. So that was really great, and makes this an easy favourite episode for the season, at least for his scenes. He is so inspired and I know this is blasphemous but he feels like he has a stronger fatherly connection than both John (distant figure of authority, not even a real person imo even though he's criminally sexy) and Bobby (blessed uncle who picked up the slack) to Dean. Props to whoever came up with him... and of course his actor.

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