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Supernatural: Proverbs 17:3

"Wouldn't it be great if everything was just planned out for you?"

I used to find the meta stuff funny. Not anymore.

Let's start with the suspiciously easy case of the week: the "lumberjack twin" werewolves Andy and Josh May. One was evil, and the other was hanging on to his humanity. Sounds a bit like the vampire case last week, huh?

Also heavily emphasized was the distinct message that the Winchesters have been hunting for way too long. Dean and Sam used the Ford and Hamil IDs back in the third episode of the series, "Dead in the Water." I've mentioned before that I don't care for the old guy thing. Dean and Sam are not old. Although I'll readily admit that Ashley Monroe looked way too young as a love interest for Dean. In fact, Ashley looked about as wide-eyed and little-girlish as an adult woman could; she was even wearing a pseudo-girl-scout outfit.

Anna Grace Barlow did a good job as both the baby-faced Ashley Monroe and as Lilith; I particularly liked the visceral reveal with the antlers. Her early lines were all very "let fate decide" a la Chuck, a big clue that she wasn't what she appeared to be. Her chosen seduction victim this time was Dean instead of Sam. I like to think Dean would never have let it go that far, but he seems to be in denial that he is getting older... or maybe he isn't. Dean isn't stupid or delusional about himself. Maybe the "we're not getting old" thing has just become a game he plays with Sam.



So Chuck pulled Lilith out of the Empty to set up the easy case of the week, with his ultimate goal getting the "Equalizer" out of the Impala's glove box. (The boys really should have done a better job of hiding it.) Lilith did manage to melt the gun before vanishing, to cause more havoc later in the season, I assume. But at the same time, Lilith was so impatient and bored with Chuck that she clued the Winchesters in about some things. Like what's going on with Sam's dreams, which are tapping into Chuck's imagination.

Chuck is obsessed with how to end his favorite show, and that it has to be brother killing brother, like this week's werewolves. The two dream sequences we saw this time were of Sam as Lucifer in the white suit killing Dean, and Dean with the Mark of Cain killing Sam with the First Blade. It doesn't even seem to matter to Chuck which brother kills the other.

Because of the Equalizer, Chuck has shown his hand and Dean and Sam know what they're facing. It's certainly intimidating that the boys have to fight God, but they simply can't keep running in Chuck's "hamster wheel" until they die – they have to fight, they have no choice. I loved that last scene of the boys sitting at the table in the bunker talking about this impossible situation, and then the pull back framing the two of them between a pair of red curtains.

This is Chuck's story. It is entertainment. But the boys are taking the narrative back from Chuck. Supernatural will not end with one of them killing the other. This is Team Free Will, and I have confidence that the Winchesters have got this.

Bits:

— Proverbs 17:3: "The crucible is for silver, and the furnace is for gold, and the Lord tests hearts." What do you guys think this means? My metaphor-translation-device is in the shop.

— Dean is texting Castiel repeatedly and getting no response. I want Castiel back. Soon, please?

— This episode's amusing moment was Dean eating ghost pepper jerky and Sam teasing him with the water bottle.

— That butchering room in the cabin was super creepy even for Supernatural, with the splashes of blood decorating the walls and the bones everywhere.

— How appropriate that Sam had the demon blade and Dean the angel blade.

— This week: Black Forest, Colorado. They stayed at the Sleepy Bear Inn, and the visual, with the big bear statue holding a welcome sign, made me laugh out loud. I also liked the very tacky animal wallpaper.

— Sam was Agent Mark Hamil (yes, I know it's spelled incorrectly) and Dean was Agent Dean Ford of the U.S. Wildlife Service. With two of the stupidest looking hats I've ever seen them wear.

— This episode was directed by Richard Speight, Jr.

Quotes:

Sam: "Just a… a bad dream."
Dean: "Another one? Why don't you tell me about it?"
Sam: "No."
Dean: "Come on. I'll Freud you. Keep me awake 'til we hit Colorado."

Sam: "Hamil and Ford. Wow. That is a deep cut."
Dean: "Look at you. You look like a baby."
Sam: "Me? Look at you."
Dean: "I look exactly the same. Like, nothing has changed."

Sheriff: "We don't get many big cats around here. A few bears, you know, but they don't do sustained attacks like this. I mean, unless the bear's psychotic."
Dean: "So your two theories are mountain lion or psychotic bear?"

Ashley: "Did you ever want to be anything else?"
Dean: "Jimi Hendrix?"
Was that a little homage to Jensen Ackles' new musical project?

Lilith: "Wouldn't it be great if everything was just planned out for you?"
Dean: "Let me guess. One of Chuck's lines."
Lilith: "Word for word. God? He is not exactly Shakespeare. He's more of a … low rent Dean Koontz."

Lilith: "I guess that's why you had to see the werewolf bros die the way they did, 'cause, foreshadowing."

Dean: "So what, we're just, we're stuck in his, in his maze still? And now Lilith's back? I mean, what's he gonna do, just throw our greatest hits at us?"
I swear that I was actually thinking that they're giving us Supernatural's greatest hits right before this line.

I liked this one better the second time I watched it, when I knew what was happening. What did you guys think? Three out of four psychotic bears?

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

12 comments:

  1. Yeah I’m hopping we get reinforcements from the empty

    Cause the season finale had death jack and the empty (it didn’t have eyes so it’s him) talking so I think billie is planning on killing god

    My theory

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  2. Matthew, I would LOVE IT if Billie ended up killing God, and not just because my name is Billie! :)

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  3. The first "Death" before Billie did say that he, at some point, would reap God. Foreshadowing indeed.

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  4. William Russell, Death did indeed say that. I hadn't thought about it, but Supernatural rarely introduces a significant piece of its mythology without using it later.

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  5. I wasn't as annoyed that they put the gun in the glove compartment. I WAS mad that they didn't put a simple Devil's Trap on the glove compartment to protect it. I mean, jeesh! millions of souls and demons escaped Hell and they don't take precautions that they were taking in season 1? It was sloppy writing and that bugs me. Better that Lilith lets Dean think he gets one over on her takes the gun out and THEN she takes it away. Oh well, They really can't have an all powerful weapon that can end this story easily hanging around, but they should have worked on a better way to lose it.

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  6. I loved it, even more because I really didn't like the MOTW in the past ep. I loved the opening scene (but I must correct you, Sam is the one texting Cas while Dean is doing grocery shopping), it was hilarious, loved the hats (no, they were awful, but funny), the 3000 bitchfaces in 30 seconds. I have a lot of questions at the end of this (which is good) and I miss Cas (which is bad).

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  7. percysowner, I'm clearly with you re: the gun.

    Louise, are you sure it was Sam's phone? I thought he picked up and looked at Dean's phone. I could be wrong, of course. OMG, have I been wrong before.

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  8. It was definitely Sam's phone. One of the messages was "didn't realize you were heading out" Dean was aware Cas had left, so Sam had to be the one leaving texts. Since Sam was the one to call him in the end, I don't think Dean has forgiven Cas yet.

    But I was annoyed when Belphegor said the Winchesters (plural) didn't really care for Cas and Cas agreed even though Sam had NOT rejected him or blamed him for Mary. It does track that Cas thinks that Dean is the only one who counts, but the show seems to be saying that Sam isn't mad at Cas and wants him around.

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  9. Regarding Lilith: We know she likes to possess little girls,No Rest For The Wicked is proof of that, so I think the deliberate little-girl-ness of Ashley was a call-back to that.

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  10. By the way, the Proverb is referring to the way that silver and gold are refined, and comparing that to the way that God purifies souls through suffering. It ties into the Bible's theme that suffering isn't necessarily a bad thing (ex. The "blessed are they" verses show this too), and it seems very in line with the themes of this episode.

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  11. My takeaway from this episode (on the heels of "Atomic Monsters") is not to take any straight-up Monster of the Week episode at face value. They may look and feel like good old procedural episodes, but they'll turn out to be Trojan horses for the season arc. And that is just fine by me, because this one was plenty fun (and the latest Lilith has been my favorite so far).

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  12. I had literally said this episode was weird, when Dean in the next scene said the exact same thing! The whole story was flaky...but now that I know who directed it that explains the "wacky" touches if you would. Specially the tacky hotel room wall paper and that tacky bear lamp base. Where did they find such tacky hotel rooms?

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