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Supernatural: Prophet and Loss

"No rest for the self-destructive."

An exceptional episode on the brothers Winchester front. The rest of it? Maybe not so much.

The case of the man killing innocent people in gruesome ways made me want to change the channel: the drowning, the blood, the lighter fluid. "Once last case for the Winchester boys" indeed, and it was certainly one that only Dean and Sam could solve, since they were probably the only living hunters who could put together those particular puzzle pieces. Turned out that Donatello's coma screwed up the calling of the next prophet, a guy named Tony Alvarez, who thought God was giving him kill orders. (Like Chuck would do that.)

Eddie, the twin brother of one of Alvarez's victims, said, "Losing [my brother] is like losing a part of myself. I never knew it could be this bad." Sam could have said the very same thing. Because the prospect of losing Dean by burying him alive in a Ma'Lak box was too much for Sam, who spent most of this episode talking Dean out of it. What surprised me was that Sam succeeded. At least temporarily.

That opening nightmare was just too much: Dean in that claustrophobic coffin underwater, panicking and beating his hands bloody, screaming for Sam as his cell phone went dead. This would be a fate so much worse than death, since Michael could keep Dean alive and suffering for eons. It's even worse than the Cage, or going to Hell, and there has to be another way. There'd better be. I doubt they'd do it, but if this is how they leave Dean at the end of the series (if it ever freaking ends), I'll be incredibly pissed.

Seriously. Couldn't they just cuff Dean in the bunker so that he can have food, a bed to sleep in, the internet, Busty Asian Beauties? And pie?

As they were on their way to the case, Dean tried deathbed apologies on Sam, apologizing for not being a better brother when they were kids. I was so glad that Sam was having none of it, that he said that Dean practically raised him and was the only one who was always there for him. Go, Sam. The way Dean was forced to grow up so young and be a father to Sam still gets to me. I was even a bit shocked when Dean revealed to Sam that John would send him away when Dean pissed him off.

(Although technically, we already knew that; it's what happened in the episode "Bad Boys." I thought back then it was a one-time thing. Wow, John. No Father's Day cards for you.)

Near the end, we got an excellent Dean/Sam/Baby scene. Sam was so angry and in such despair that he punched Dean in the face in an attempt to get through to him. Actually crying, Sam hugged Dean and asked him why he didn't believe in the two of them. Ackles and Padalecki always do such a great job with these emotional brother scenes, but they really pulled out the stops with this one. Since they were able to save Donatello, Dean agreed to keep trying until there is absolutely no other way. And I'm betting that we'll eventually get Dean in that coffin, although I really hope that they don't go that far.


It was probably appropriate that Nick got an equally depressing B plot. After predictably freeing himself from his involuntary hospital stay with handcuffs, Nick went back to his former home in Delaware and wound up confronting Sarah, the ghost of his late wife. She never left the house because she has unfinished business, and could move on if Nick rejected Lucifer. Which I knew Nick would never do. Sigh.

Lucifer is really most sincerely dead, right? Both in Kitty Litter World and here? So how are they going to resolve Nick's storyline? Where can this possibly go?

Bits:

— Nick's wife Sarah was initially played by Bellamy Young (Mellie Grant in Scandal), back in "Sympathy for the Devil." Here, Sarah was played by Jaycie Dotin.

— I thought for awhile that Alvarez was being driven crazy because he was the next prophet to be called and could hear angel radio. Maybe they shouldn't have put the word "Prophet" in the title. It gave a lot away.

— Donatello still doesn't have a soul, but he can still pretend to be Mr. Rogers, right? I like Donatello.

— This week: Fort Dodge, Iowa; Pike Creek, Delaware; and the Happy Daze Nursing Home, wherever that is. Castiel was "Dr. Novak," his own host's name.

— The end credit card was white. It's usually black.

— The CW just renewed nearly everything, including Supernatural. Misha Collins posted this in response, which made me laugh out loud.


Quotes:

Sam: "What about Rowena?"
Castiel: "She went through the entire Book of the Damned and found nothing, and I told her to do it again to see if she missed something, and uh, well, the woman has a remarkable command of profanity."

Dean: "Wow. Enochian 101. Looks like a whole semester of prophet-speak."

Castiel: "Donatello is between life and death. I mean, perhaps the next prophet was activated before his time?"
Dean: "And went all Hannibal?"

Sarah: "Where are you going?"
Nick: "Wherever it's darkest. Wherever he is."

Sam: "We're the guys who save the world. We don't just check out of it!"

One star for the prophet as serial killer plot, which I found really depressing; two for Nick and his wife, also depressing; three for the return of Donatello, and four for everything Sam did to get through to Dean – especially that emotional Baby/beer scene at the end, which was one of their best. Doing the math… would that make it two out of four stars?

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.

6 comments:

  1. What if Nick's story is more important than it seems? What if it shows that having an archangel in your mind makes one infected, so not only Nick is turning a poor dark copy of the devil, but Dean also can one day obtain some traits of Michael the Megalomaniac?

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  2. Anonymous, that's a really interesting point. Chuck forbid.

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  3. Castiel got out of the Empty so why can't Lucifer do the same? Maybe Nick will be a vessel again.

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  4. Is it just that I've been away from the show for a while or is season 14 really depressing, even by Supernatural standards?

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  5. This episode was so dark and dreary! Made me cry of course and I felt pissed for Sarah because good Ole Nick just can't let go of his sick relationship! Talk about a creep! I too didn't care to see people murdered and the whole episode was just very stark. I did find the white card at the end to be a sign of hope and that gives me comfort.

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