Last night's episode of Supernatural, "The French Mistake", chronicled the Winchesters' foray into an alternate universe (which we should probably call the "meta-verse") in which they are actors called Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki who star in a TV show called Supernatural. Now, to anyone who's not already a fan of the show, that plot might seem like a massive one-hour exercise in self-gratification for its creators, actors, and crew. But I was optimistic, because previous meta episodes have actually been quite good, and were also well-integrated into the overall plot of their respective seasons. How did this one measure up? Let's find out, shall we?
SPOILERS!
It begins on a dark and stormy night - really. Sam and Dean are in Bobby's library, discussing the weather and the fact that Bobby has gone out to get supplies (we're guessing alcohol of some kind). In a flash of lightning, Balthazar appears and starts rushing around, rifling through Bobby's things and muttering about ingredients for some kind of angel spell. The Winchesters can't really get anything out of him but ramblings about The Godfather, and about how Rafael is finally making his move against Castiel (who is apparently deep underground), and everyone who's ever helped him. Ergo, Balthazar and the Winchesters. At this point, we wondered about Bobby, but apparently he was safe as he was not in the scene, or mentioned at all. Balthazar uses lamb's blood and the crumbled bone of a saint to paint a strange symbol on Bobby's window, and gives Sam what looks like a locker key. A new, grim-looking angel appears (later we learned his name was Virgil, but we didn't catch it at this point) and throws Balthazar against the wall. Balthazar yells at Sam and Dean to run, and uses his angel mojo to fling them through the window. The brothers land on a stunt pad amid pieces of stage glass, and the director (Robert Singer) yells "Cut!" and compliments them on their scene.
Sam and Dean look at each other in confusion - what's going on? Why are they being addressed as "Jared" and "Jensen"? Dean is rushed off to make-up and Jared is flung into a chair and interviewed about the TV show. The two of them meet up later, after Dean is traumatized by the fact that he'd been wearing make-up - oh noes! Apparently they'd both rather face an angelic hitman rather than face that again, so they hold a small prayer meeting to get in touch with Castiel. Further down on the studio lot, they see a familiar figure in a trenchcoat and run towards him, demanding to know what the hell is going on. We (the audience) know immediately that this is Misha Collins, but Misha thinks that the Winchesters are trying to run lines with him. He replies as Castiel, using lines from the script (this is where we find out that the key Balthazar gave them is the key to where he's hidden the Heavenly weapons). Soon Sam and Dean realize that this person isn't Cas, and proceed to make fun of his name in disgust. Misha forces a laugh, thinking that they played a joke on him, and immediately Tweets about it. He Tweets the phrases "Mishamigos" and "J-squared", which was both a little amusing and a lot horrfying (I'm not one for teh Twitter).
Sam and Dean go into Jensen's trailer, where they discover an awesome toy helicopter, a salt-water aquarium, and a computer, which Sam uses to do a search (NOT with Google!) on their new names. They find out about Jensen's time on a soap opera. Dean is flabbergasted and insists that they try to use the same spell Balthazar cast to get back to their own universe. Here, monsters and demons and magic aren't real. There are no hunters. There was no almost-Apocalypse. They try to leave the lot in the Impala, which is one of many stunt cars and runs terribly. A skinny PA runs after them, begging them not to steal the props, and they get a ride from a guy named Carl or Cliff or something. They discover that they're not even in the U.S. anymore - apparently the show is filmed in Canada.
They are dropped off at Jared's house, where they find an alpaca in the backyard, some truly frightening examples of massively narcissistic art, and Jared's wife - the woman who played the demon Ruby in season four. She's off to go to an "otter-adoption" charity event, and Sam and Dean use the power of Jared and Jensen's credit cards to order some saint's bones off of the internet. They have Carl or Cliff drive them to the airport the next morning to accept the shipment, and head to the studio so that they can use the same set to cast the spell. Unfortunately, the director gets them to work before they can cast it, and what follows is a hilarious montage of Jensen Ackles acting like Dean acting like "Jensen Ackles" acting like "Dean", and Jared Padalecki acting like Sam trying like hell to even act. Misha is also in the scene, and his expressions of impatience and frustration are very amusing. During a break, he overhears Sam and Dean discussing their importing of human remains and Tweets that it's some sort of black-market organ or drug thing.
Sam and Dean finally get to cast the spell, and leap through the exact same set window that brought them to the meta-verse in the first place. It doesn't work. Frustrated, they start roaming around - maybe since there's no magic in this meta-verse, the spell won't work from this side. At this point, they notice Virgil skulking around set and immediately set upon him - he's powerless in this meta-verse as well. Virgil gets the key in the struggle. The stunt coordinator and a few of his guys break up the fight, which spurs a conference call between the director and some other guys with Sera Gamble, the current show-runner. This part was really strange.
Later, Misha leaves his trailer to go home, being very rude in passing to the poor skinny PA, and gets into his car. He Tweets, "Did you ever have that feeling that there's someone in the back of your car?" and then Virgil puts a knife to his throat. Misha bursts into tears. We're pretty sure that Virgil was asking him where Sam and Dean were, but whatever the case he forces Misha to drive to some alley somewhere. There, he slits his throat and uses his blood to communicate with Rafael. A homeless man overhears this conversation and lets the Winchesters know (when they show up later) that Rafael will pull Virgil back into their universe in the morning. They plan to intercept him and get the key back before it can get into Rafael's hands (this is the only point in the episode where they exhibit any concern for the real Cas). Unfortunately for them, Virgil is compensating for his lack of power by arming himself Terminator-style, stealing a pump-action shotgun and a handgun from a local store.
The next morning, Eric Kripke rolls in for damage control. He exchanges some insincere "Isn't it awful about Misha?" with Robert Singer, and is excited about working on his current project "Octo-Cobra". Virgil appears, and Kripke approaches him, glad for the chance to resolve the fight-situation. Virgil blows him away, as well as Singer and a few other people. At the set, Sam and Dean ambush him and manage to get the key (I think they may have killed Virgil, too, but I can't remember). All of a sudden, they start to feel Rafael's pull, but it's too late to escape, and the two of them are flung back into their own universe. There, they see Rafael, who has found a new female vessel. Dean taunts him about this, saying "Dude looks like a lady." Rafael's not amused (though we really were!), starts hurting them with his angel powers, and retrieves the key from Sam. Balthazar appears and interrupts him, saying that the key is useless. He needed time to find where the weapons really were, and so sent the Winchesters to the meta-verse not for protection, but as a diversion. The brothers are skeeved. Rafael is too, and prepares to blast Balthazar into oblivion. He's saved by Castiel, who appears like a badass and tells Rafael that he now has the weapons, and the archangel had better skedaddle if he wants to keep on living.
Cas and Balthazar exchange a nod, and Cas takes the Winchesters back to Bobby's. They demand to know what's going on, and why Balthazar used them like that. Cas says that sure, it was Balthazar's idea, but he would have done the same thing. Sam and Dean aren't happy about this, but Cas again tells them that if he loses the war in Heaven, then everyone loses. Everything. They want more details, but Cas vanishes. Sam and Dean have their post-adventure talk, and Dean asks Sam whether he regrets not staying in the meta-verse. Sam says that he doesn't regret it at all, because the two of them aren't even brothers in the meta-verse, and "at least we're talking."
Let us gather our thoughts:
You know when a good friend invites you to dinner with a few more of his/her other friends? You know, in a vague sense, who they are, but you don't know them well at all, and some of them you haven't even met before. So dinner is going well, and the conversation is interesting and engaging for most of the time. But then the conversation turns to "Hey, do you guys remember the time that we did that thing? Remember that guy we met? Remember the stuff that happened? That was hilarious!" And you laugh along with the others, because you can see that it really would be hilarious if you knew what the hell was going on. And on the inside, you feel a little lonely and left out, because no one takes pity on you to either steer the conversation back to familiar ground or at least try to provide an explanation?
That's what it felt like, watching this episode. In previous meta-episodes, like "The Monster at the End of This Book" or "Changing Channels", there were some interesting ideas being explored - like prophecy and fate versus free will. In "The French Mistake" there was only what seemed like a half-hearted conversation between Dean and Singer, about how "you can't make up your own words" or something, and that Dean and Sam mean something to their own universe, even if their lives are crap. If that's what the writers were going for, it just didn't come across as clearly as in previous meta-episodes.
Okay, Supernatural writers. I'm a reasonable person, and I think I've been pretty damn patient for this entire season. At what point are we going to have another episode with real Cas? I'll grant you that Misha had a big part in this episode, but it was Misha, not Cas. At this point I feel driven to do the math, which shouldn't surprise you, as I am a nerd. Observe:
Castiel has been present in six out of fifteen episodes, which is only 40% of the episodes so far this season. But wait! In four of those episodes, his total screen time was for fifteen minutes or less (and fifteen is being generous). So, assuming that each episode is 45 minutes (taking commercial breaks into account), Cas has only had approximately 102 minutes of screen time out of 675 minutes total of season six. That works out to be 15% of season six. 15%! And this math even includes his screen time in "Caged Heat", which I still loathe with a passion and try to pretend never happened. What the hell, writers? Is a freaking Civil War in Heaven not interesting enough to you to give the character a little more time?! Look, I realize that he's not an easy character to use, as evidenced by his "I'm going to find God" thing in season five. But at least he was showing up pretty regularly! I find it extremely disappointing to see Misha Collins' name in the opening credits and know that I'm probably not going to see his freaking character! In the same vein, having scenes take place in Bobby's house and never getting to see Bobby is rude. I hope you do better next time.
Next Week:
The Winchesters and Bobby meet up with Grampa Sam to hunt monsters. Rufus is there, too. Is the moment we've been waiting for regarding a Winchester vs. Campbell smackdown?
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Supernatural and the Case of the Haunted Kidney
Hmmm... Friday's episode of Supernatural, "Mannequin 3: The Reckoning" was - well, I'm not quite sure what it was. Perhaps by the time I've finished writing the recap, I'll have figured it out.
SPOILERS!
Last week's episode ended with Sam collapsing in a fit of Hell-flashback, and we saw him have a vision of fire burning his face off. This week started with Dean frantically leaning over his brother, who has stopped breathing (at this point, we were thinking that Dean would call Cas for help, but alas, he did not). Sam comes to, however, and brushes it off as no big thing. The two of them discuss it over coffee, with Dean saying "I told you so" and Sam saying "Bite me. You would have done the same thing." Dean stresses the importance of burying the memories of Hell beneath layers of alcoholism and violence - he knows this from experience.
At a small college, a janitor is cleaning up an anatomy lab after hours. He's alone in the room except for a life-size anatomy mannequin, which is creepy. Our feelings of unease are justified when the mannequin becomes animate - after a gash opens up on the janitor's forehead, the mannequin takes a scalpel and slits his throat.
Sam and Dean mosey on into the anatomy lab in their "FBI" suits, and Dean immediately starts taking organs out of the anatomy mannequin and cracking jokes. Sam pulls out their trusty home-made EMF meter, which whirs when it's next to the mannequin.
That night, a security guard at a sewing factory is making his rounds, shining his flashlight at the blank faces of the clothing mannequins in the building. He hears noises and thinks that his friend may be playing a trick on him - we, of course, know that he's just mannequin fodder. He's surrounded by three of them and skewered with a long metal rod.
The Winchesters discover a link between the two victims, which leads them to believe that they've been killed by the same ghost. What's strange about this case is that ghosts usually haunt places or objects, and this one seems to be moving around. The link turns out to be a woman who disappeared earlier that year, who was a co-worker of both the janitor and the security guard when they all worked at the sewing factory. They go to interview the woman's sister, who has nothing to offer them really, except that her sister was shy and socially awkward. And very giving.
Dean gets an urgent call from Ben, who says that Lisa is extremely depressed and won't even leave her room. Sam insists that Dean go to help, assuring him that he can handle this case on his own. Dean reluctantly drives to Lisa's place.
Sam finds out more about the woman who went missing by interviewing the people she used to work with. One guy acts incredibly suspicious, and Sam picks up on it, letting us rest assured that his bullshit detector is working fine. Later that night, the suspicious guy (who we'll call Dick #3) is alone in the factory, and mannequins come after him. Sam jumps in and saves him by keeping the haunted mannequins out of a small room with barriers of salt. He yells at Dick #3 and bullies him into telling the truth about the missing woman - it turns out that he and his dick friends thought it would be funny to trick her into thinking she had a secret admirer. When they set up a meeting between her and her "admirer", she entered the apartment and discovered that her "date" was nothing but a mannequin, and then the three of them jumped out and started laughing at her. When she started to flee in tears, one of the dicks grabbed her arm and she fell, hitting her head against the coffee table. Rather than report it, the dicks dumped her body in the woods. Sam heads out there to salt and burn the bones.
Meanwhile, Dean grimly walks up to Lisa's door, and is surprised when she opens it herself. She's all dressed up, because she's going out on a date. She and Dean fight - probably about Dean leaving them or Lisa telling him not to come back, but the dialogue makes it as clear as mud. Dean talks to Ben, who's angry at him for "walking out on his family". Dean puts on his sad face, but leaves again anyway.
Sam tells Dick #3 that he's in the clear, and the dick goes back to his crummy apartment. There, he starts talking to someone off-camera, saying that they have to leave town as soon as possible. It turns out that he's talking to a sex doll laying on the bed (EWWWWW!!!!). The sex doll becomes animate and kills him.
Sam and Dean reunite and are confused about Dick #3's death - the bones of the ghost were salted and burned, so how was she able to get her revenge on the remaining dick? They go back to her sister's house to see if there are any objects she might be attached to, and find out that the sister has one of her kidneys. That's right folks, a haunted kidney! Sam and Dean are at a loss - they can't destroy the haunted kidney without killing the innocent sister, so they have a short brainstorming session and come up with hoodoo. Just then, Dean's Impala roars to life, and Dean yells at the ghost to "leave my baby out of this." The car zooms toward Dean, who dodges it. Dean is fine, but the Impala drives through a plate glass window, and one of the shards kills the ghost's sister. The ghost is laid to rest as the sister dies.
The brothers have their post-job conversation as Dean repairs the damage done to the Impala. This case doesn't count as a win, but they're still alive. Sam thanks Dean for getting his soul back. The End.
Questions that still need answers:
If you think that my snark is a little less present in this recap, you're absolutely right. This episode was "meh", and it seemed as if even Supernatural's writers thought so, too. It was "filler".
Is this all we're going to see of Sam's Hell problems, or should we expect more?
Is Dean's relationship with Lisa and Ben finally over for honest-to-goodness real this time? We sure hope so, because dragging it out isn't doing anything for his character development, and just pisses us off.
Next week:
We enter the ultimate meta-verse as Sam and Dean are transported to an alternate universe in which they are actors named Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles who star in a TV show called Supernatural. This could be really good, or it could be phenomenally bad. Whichever it is, it needs more Cas.
SPOILERS!
Last week's episode ended with Sam collapsing in a fit of Hell-flashback, and we saw him have a vision of fire burning his face off. This week started with Dean frantically leaning over his brother, who has stopped breathing (at this point, we were thinking that Dean would call Cas for help, but alas, he did not). Sam comes to, however, and brushes it off as no big thing. The two of them discuss it over coffee, with Dean saying "I told you so" and Sam saying "Bite me. You would have done the same thing." Dean stresses the importance of burying the memories of Hell beneath layers of alcoholism and violence - he knows this from experience.
At a small college, a janitor is cleaning up an anatomy lab after hours. He's alone in the room except for a life-size anatomy mannequin, which is creepy. Our feelings of unease are justified when the mannequin becomes animate - after a gash opens up on the janitor's forehead, the mannequin takes a scalpel and slits his throat.
Sam and Dean mosey on into the anatomy lab in their "FBI" suits, and Dean immediately starts taking organs out of the anatomy mannequin and cracking jokes. Sam pulls out their trusty home-made EMF meter, which whirs when it's next to the mannequin.
That night, a security guard at a sewing factory is making his rounds, shining his flashlight at the blank faces of the clothing mannequins in the building. He hears noises and thinks that his friend may be playing a trick on him - we, of course, know that he's just mannequin fodder. He's surrounded by three of them and skewered with a long metal rod.
The Winchesters discover a link between the two victims, which leads them to believe that they've been killed by the same ghost. What's strange about this case is that ghosts usually haunt places or objects, and this one seems to be moving around. The link turns out to be a woman who disappeared earlier that year, who was a co-worker of both the janitor and the security guard when they all worked at the sewing factory. They go to interview the woman's sister, who has nothing to offer them really, except that her sister was shy and socially awkward. And very giving.
Dean gets an urgent call from Ben, who says that Lisa is extremely depressed and won't even leave her room. Sam insists that Dean go to help, assuring him that he can handle this case on his own. Dean reluctantly drives to Lisa's place.
Sam finds out more about the woman who went missing by interviewing the people she used to work with. One guy acts incredibly suspicious, and Sam picks up on it, letting us rest assured that his bullshit detector is working fine. Later that night, the suspicious guy (who we'll call Dick #3) is alone in the factory, and mannequins come after him. Sam jumps in and saves him by keeping the haunted mannequins out of a small room with barriers of salt. He yells at Dick #3 and bullies him into telling the truth about the missing woman - it turns out that he and his dick friends thought it would be funny to trick her into thinking she had a secret admirer. When they set up a meeting between her and her "admirer", she entered the apartment and discovered that her "date" was nothing but a mannequin, and then the three of them jumped out and started laughing at her. When she started to flee in tears, one of the dicks grabbed her arm and she fell, hitting her head against the coffee table. Rather than report it, the dicks dumped her body in the woods. Sam heads out there to salt and burn the bones.
Meanwhile, Dean grimly walks up to Lisa's door, and is surprised when she opens it herself. She's all dressed up, because she's going out on a date. She and Dean fight - probably about Dean leaving them or Lisa telling him not to come back, but the dialogue makes it as clear as mud. Dean talks to Ben, who's angry at him for "walking out on his family". Dean puts on his sad face, but leaves again anyway.
Sam tells Dick #3 that he's in the clear, and the dick goes back to his crummy apartment. There, he starts talking to someone off-camera, saying that they have to leave town as soon as possible. It turns out that he's talking to a sex doll laying on the bed (EWWWWW!!!!). The sex doll becomes animate and kills him.
Sam and Dean reunite and are confused about Dick #3's death - the bones of the ghost were salted and burned, so how was she able to get her revenge on the remaining dick? They go back to her sister's house to see if there are any objects she might be attached to, and find out that the sister has one of her kidneys. That's right folks, a haunted kidney! Sam and Dean are at a loss - they can't destroy the haunted kidney without killing the innocent sister, so they have a short brainstorming session and come up with hoodoo. Just then, Dean's Impala roars to life, and Dean yells at the ghost to "leave my baby out of this." The car zooms toward Dean, who dodges it. Dean is fine, but the Impala drives through a plate glass window, and one of the shards kills the ghost's sister. The ghost is laid to rest as the sister dies.
The brothers have their post-job conversation as Dean repairs the damage done to the Impala. This case doesn't count as a win, but they're still alive. Sam thanks Dean for getting his soul back. The End.
Questions that still need answers:
If you think that my snark is a little less present in this recap, you're absolutely right. This episode was "meh", and it seemed as if even Supernatural's writers thought so, too. It was "filler".
Is this all we're going to see of Sam's Hell problems, or should we expect more?
Is Dean's relationship with Lisa and Ben finally over for honest-to-goodness real this time? We sure hope so, because dragging it out isn't doing anything for his character development, and just pisses us off.
Next week:
We enter the ultimate meta-verse as Sam and Dean are transported to an alternate universe in which they are actors named Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles who star in a TV show called Supernatural. This could be really good, or it could be phenomenally bad. Whichever it is, it needs more Cas.
Saturday, February 12, 2011
I Know What Replicant Sam Did Last Summer
Wow. Sam Winchester is a bad, bad man without a soul. Last night's episode, "Unforgiven", explored some of soul-less Sam's activities while he was hunting with Grampa Samuel, before he reconnected with Dean at the beginning of season six. So let's see just how naughty he was, shall we?
SPOILERS!
The episode begins with a flashback (we can tell because it was in black and white, with odd camera angles and cuts. Oh - also there was a caption at the bottom of the screen that said "One Year Ago"). Gramps and Sam are in some sort of dark room, and Old Samuel is watching Sam move around the room, firing a handgun. Grampa's flinching every time his grandson pulls the trigger. Then it cuts to the two of them in the van, driving out of a small Rhode Island town in a hurry. They're stopped by one of the town sherriff's deputies, who pulls them over and demands to know where the sherriff is. He addresses them as "Agents", which clues us in on the fact that Gramps and Sam are probably using an FBI cover. The deputy notices that Sam's arm is bleeding, and tells them to get into the back of his patrol car so that he can take them into town for some Q & A sessions. Sam grabs the deputy's gun and then proceeds to beat the shit out of him, leaving him bleeding in the middle of the road (Come on, Sam - you can't even pull him to the side so that no one runs him over?). Gramps and Sam get back in the car and beat a hasty retreat, with Gramps looking visibly shaken over the cold beat-down he just witnessed.
Jumping to the present, Sam and Dean are packing up, preparing to leave another hotel room in another town. Sam's phone does its "bingley bingley bing" thing, and the mysterious text is nothing but coordinates. Using the power of the internet, Sam finds out that the coordinates spell out the location of a town in Rhode Island, where there have been a few recent disappearances. He immediately wants to go check it out, but Dean is reluctant - if it has to do with Sam's past, he wants no part of it. He reminds Sam about the Wall - don't scratch the Wall, Sam! Sam is undeterred, however, so they drive the Impala to Rhode Island. On the way there, Sam sees a billboard which has the town's name on it (and a poorly-drawn octopus, for some reason). He gets a flashback, and realizes that he's been to this town before. Dean notices Sam's reaction and asks him what's wrong. "Nothing," Sam replies, doing the shifty "everything's totally fine and I am absolutely not lying" thing. Dean does the "I can see that you're obviously lying but I'll let it go because you don't want to talk about it right now" grunt. That little exchange is typical of about eighty-nine percent of their communication. It was nice to see it again.
Dean and Sam start their investigation at a nautically-themed restaraunt, where they go over the "Missing Person" flyers - all of the recent ones are women. Dean heads off to visit the "Poop Deck" (I'm not making that up), and Sam is approached by a woman who seems to know him. She calls him "Agent", and seems surprised that Sam doesn't remember her. She re-introduces herself and her husband, then pats his shoulder as they say goodbye. This triggers another flashback - apparently she and Sam had sexy fun time in the bathroom when he was there before. Huh. As Dean comes out of the "Poop Deck", he notices the restaraunt's Wall of Fame for some "eat this and we'll take a Polaroid of you with a pirate hat on"-type contest. His gaze falls on one of the pictures in particular, and he takes it to show his brother - Sam and Gramps are in the background of the pirate-hat contest winner in the photo. To be honest, we were really hoping to see Sam with the pirate hat on.
The Winchesters continue investigating the missing women, and they discover that the reason Sam and Gramps had come before is that there was another round of disappearances - but those missing people were all men. Sam is even more determined to get to the bottom of this, because he realizes that either he failed to do the job the first time around, or he messed up and whatever is kidnapping people is back. Dean is all for putting the town in their rear-view mirror, but Sam refuses to leave. Unfortunately, he meets up with the deputy that he'd introduced to the asphalt, who immediately arrests him and throws him in jail. There, Sam is visited by another woman who seems to know him - but this isn't another former conquest. This woman is the old sherriff's wife. Her name is Brenna. She begs him to tell her what happened to her husband, who has been missing since Sam's first visit. She's not inclined to believe Sam when he tells her that he has no memory of what happened during his first time in town, but he pulls his sad puppy face and she decides to trust him. Brenna lets him out of the cell, and he promises that he will help her find out what happened to the sherriff.
Dean meets up with Sam at Brenna's house - she had her husband's old case files, which they were going over to try to jog Sam's memory or make some kind of connection. He does remember something - the monster that he and Gramps were after was an Arachne. Dean tells Sam that he discovered what all of the missing women have in common - they were all women that Sam slept with while he was there before. Remember the woman from the restaraunt? Yup. She's missing now, too, and Dean is convinced that this whole situation is a trap that someone set for Sam. Sam still refuses to leave, though, and he and Dean return to the hotel room to map out the case. To do this, they used a map and a lot of string (Get it? GET IT?! Arachne = Spiders, Spiders = WEB?!). Sam gets another flashback, a big one this time.
(In black and white) Sam and Gramps are explaining to the sherriff and his wife that they really aren't with the FBI - they're monster hunters. They're filling in the sherriff to get his help with the case. Later, Sam and Gramps are discussing the case over dinner in the restaraunt. The Arachne seems to be taking middle-aged men, and they need to draw it out into the open. Sam is too young, and Gramps is too old, so Sam sets up the sherriff as bait - without his knowledge. Gramps is taken aback by this plan, but Sam assures him that they'll be able to get the monster before anything bad happens to the sherriff. In the background, a pirate hat-wearing contest winner is having his picture taken.
Sam and Gramps stake out the meeting place and see the sherriff arrive. They watch his confusion as he realizes there's no one there to meet him. Well - not no one. The Arachne springs from her hiding place and attacks him, dragging him away before Gramps and Sam can do anything. They follow her to her lair, where they discover the other missing men mummified in spider silk. They realize that the men are all still alive, but have been poisoned by the Arachne. They find the sherriff, who has received the same mummfying-poisoning treatment. At that moment, the Arachne shows up. She attacks Sam and Gramps, who discover that bullets don't kill her. However, a machete slice at the neck works fine - her head drops off and she dies. Sam's arm was injured in the fight, but he's okay enough to stop Gramps from trying to rescue the sherriff. He says that the men are all going to die anyway, and that they should just put them out of their misery. So he shoots the sherriff (but not the deputy! Sorry, I couldn't help it) and the others, then burns the place to the ground.
When Sam snaps out of this flashback, he's horrified by what he did. He and Dean also get a frantic call from Brenna, and when they go to help her, they're ambushed by an Arachne. Not the same Arachne - this is Sherriff Arachne. It turns out that the female Arachne was kidnapping mates and poisoning to turn them into Arachnae, too, so Sam's bullets and pyromaniac skills did nothing to prevent that. All of those men are now Arachnae, and all of the women that Sherriff Arachne kidnapped have now been turned, too. Sam's actions spawned many more monsters than the single Arachne he killed, and Sherriff Arachne is out for revenge. He was the one who sent the text with the town's coordinates, and kidnapped all of the women who Sam had slept with. Fortunately, Dean escapes his spider-silk mummification and cuts the sherriff's head off. Sam tries to apologize to Brenna, which really made us scoff. Really - after setting up someone's husband as spider-bait and then shooting him point blank in the face, not to mention failing to realize that he was turning into a monster, what more is there to say?
Dean and Sam have their post-job discussion in the crappy hotel room as they start packing up. Dean tries to make Sam feel better about the whole situation by telling him that all of the things that happened when Replicant Sam was there before aren't his fault. Sam disagrees with him sharply, saying that it's all him. He goes on to wonder about what else he might have done, but collapses mid-sentence. He starts seizing and having a vision of Hell, where he's trapped in flames and his pretty face burns to ashes.
Questions that still need Answers:
Stop scratching the wall, Sam. Although we weren't terribly impressed with his vision of Hell. When Dean was in Hell, we saw him hanging from meat hooks - there was much blood. Sam's vision of CGI fire eating his face was a little "meh".
We're not sure if we really want the answer to this question, but exactly how does an Arachne "turn" somebody? They referenced "mates", and all of the female Arachne's victims were male. All of Sherriff Arachne's victims were female. This leads us to the disturbing conclusion that spider-monsterism is some sort of horrible sexually-transmitted disease. So - just one more thing to think about before starting a romp with a new partner, okay kids? Stay safe.
How much of Sam is his soul, and how much is not? I think that Sam's right when he says that everything Replicant Sam did is still on him. Remember in the third season when the Trickster killed Dean in order to show Sam what his life would be like once Dean went to Hell? Sam became a cold-hearted bastard, that's what. If you thought it was shocking for Replicant Sam to try to kill Bobby in order to sever all ties with his soul, then what about when the Trickster showed Sam that he'd be willing to go that far to get his brother back? And even though the Trickster did eventually bring Dean back and reset everything from that first day in Mystery Spot, we saw again what Sam is like without Dean at the beginning of the fourth season, when Dean comes back from a four-month stint in Hell. In that time, Sam managed to get involved with a demon, develop his psychic powers, and become addicted to demon blood. So really - Sam seems like he's on the brink of sociopathy, and that his tiny little abused soul is all that keeps him from going into full Terminator mode.
Next Week:
I have two words for you: Haunted. Mannequin. I can't wait!
SPOILERS!
The episode begins with a flashback (we can tell because it was in black and white, with odd camera angles and cuts. Oh - also there was a caption at the bottom of the screen that said "One Year Ago"). Gramps and Sam are in some sort of dark room, and Old Samuel is watching Sam move around the room, firing a handgun. Grampa's flinching every time his grandson pulls the trigger. Then it cuts to the two of them in the van, driving out of a small Rhode Island town in a hurry. They're stopped by one of the town sherriff's deputies, who pulls them over and demands to know where the sherriff is. He addresses them as "Agents", which clues us in on the fact that Gramps and Sam are probably using an FBI cover. The deputy notices that Sam's arm is bleeding, and tells them to get into the back of his patrol car so that he can take them into town for some Q & A sessions. Sam grabs the deputy's gun and then proceeds to beat the shit out of him, leaving him bleeding in the middle of the road (Come on, Sam - you can't even pull him to the side so that no one runs him over?). Gramps and Sam get back in the car and beat a hasty retreat, with Gramps looking visibly shaken over the cold beat-down he just witnessed.
Jumping to the present, Sam and Dean are packing up, preparing to leave another hotel room in another town. Sam's phone does its "bingley bingley bing" thing, and the mysterious text is nothing but coordinates. Using the power of the internet, Sam finds out that the coordinates spell out the location of a town in Rhode Island, where there have been a few recent disappearances. He immediately wants to go check it out, but Dean is reluctant - if it has to do with Sam's past, he wants no part of it. He reminds Sam about the Wall - don't scratch the Wall, Sam! Sam is undeterred, however, so they drive the Impala to Rhode Island. On the way there, Sam sees a billboard which has the town's name on it (and a poorly-drawn octopus, for some reason). He gets a flashback, and realizes that he's been to this town before. Dean notices Sam's reaction and asks him what's wrong. "Nothing," Sam replies, doing the shifty "everything's totally fine and I am absolutely not lying" thing. Dean does the "I can see that you're obviously lying but I'll let it go because you don't want to talk about it right now" grunt. That little exchange is typical of about eighty-nine percent of their communication. It was nice to see it again.
Dean and Sam start their investigation at a nautically-themed restaraunt, where they go over the "Missing Person" flyers - all of the recent ones are women. Dean heads off to visit the "Poop Deck" (I'm not making that up), and Sam is approached by a woman who seems to know him. She calls him "Agent", and seems surprised that Sam doesn't remember her. She re-introduces herself and her husband, then pats his shoulder as they say goodbye. This triggers another flashback - apparently she and Sam had sexy fun time in the bathroom when he was there before. Huh. As Dean comes out of the "Poop Deck", he notices the restaraunt's Wall of Fame for some "eat this and we'll take a Polaroid of you with a pirate hat on"-type contest. His gaze falls on one of the pictures in particular, and he takes it to show his brother - Sam and Gramps are in the background of the pirate-hat contest winner in the photo. To be honest, we were really hoping to see Sam with the pirate hat on.
The Winchesters continue investigating the missing women, and they discover that the reason Sam and Gramps had come before is that there was another round of disappearances - but those missing people were all men. Sam is even more determined to get to the bottom of this, because he realizes that either he failed to do the job the first time around, or he messed up and whatever is kidnapping people is back. Dean is all for putting the town in their rear-view mirror, but Sam refuses to leave. Unfortunately, he meets up with the deputy that he'd introduced to the asphalt, who immediately arrests him and throws him in jail. There, Sam is visited by another woman who seems to know him - but this isn't another former conquest. This woman is the old sherriff's wife. Her name is Brenna. She begs him to tell her what happened to her husband, who has been missing since Sam's first visit. She's not inclined to believe Sam when he tells her that he has no memory of what happened during his first time in town, but he pulls his sad puppy face and she decides to trust him. Brenna lets him out of the cell, and he promises that he will help her find out what happened to the sherriff.
Dean meets up with Sam at Brenna's house - she had her husband's old case files, which they were going over to try to jog Sam's memory or make some kind of connection. He does remember something - the monster that he and Gramps were after was an Arachne. Dean tells Sam that he discovered what all of the missing women have in common - they were all women that Sam slept with while he was there before. Remember the woman from the restaraunt? Yup. She's missing now, too, and Dean is convinced that this whole situation is a trap that someone set for Sam. Sam still refuses to leave, though, and he and Dean return to the hotel room to map out the case. To do this, they used a map and a lot of string (Get it? GET IT?! Arachne = Spiders, Spiders = WEB?!). Sam gets another flashback, a big one this time.
(In black and white) Sam and Gramps are explaining to the sherriff and his wife that they really aren't with the FBI - they're monster hunters. They're filling in the sherriff to get his help with the case. Later, Sam and Gramps are discussing the case over dinner in the restaraunt. The Arachne seems to be taking middle-aged men, and they need to draw it out into the open. Sam is too young, and Gramps is too old, so Sam sets up the sherriff as bait - without his knowledge. Gramps is taken aback by this plan, but Sam assures him that they'll be able to get the monster before anything bad happens to the sherriff. In the background, a pirate hat-wearing contest winner is having his picture taken.
Sam and Gramps stake out the meeting place and see the sherriff arrive. They watch his confusion as he realizes there's no one there to meet him. Well - not no one. The Arachne springs from her hiding place and attacks him, dragging him away before Gramps and Sam can do anything. They follow her to her lair, where they discover the other missing men mummified in spider silk. They realize that the men are all still alive, but have been poisoned by the Arachne. They find the sherriff, who has received the same mummfying-poisoning treatment. At that moment, the Arachne shows up. She attacks Sam and Gramps, who discover that bullets don't kill her. However, a machete slice at the neck works fine - her head drops off and she dies. Sam's arm was injured in the fight, but he's okay enough to stop Gramps from trying to rescue the sherriff. He says that the men are all going to die anyway, and that they should just put them out of their misery. So he shoots the sherriff (but not the deputy! Sorry, I couldn't help it) and the others, then burns the place to the ground.
When Sam snaps out of this flashback, he's horrified by what he did. He and Dean also get a frantic call from Brenna, and when they go to help her, they're ambushed by an Arachne. Not the same Arachne - this is Sherriff Arachne. It turns out that the female Arachne was kidnapping mates and poisoning to turn them into Arachnae, too, so Sam's bullets and pyromaniac skills did nothing to prevent that. All of those men are now Arachnae, and all of the women that Sherriff Arachne kidnapped have now been turned, too. Sam's actions spawned many more monsters than the single Arachne he killed, and Sherriff Arachne is out for revenge. He was the one who sent the text with the town's coordinates, and kidnapped all of the women who Sam had slept with. Fortunately, Dean escapes his spider-silk mummification and cuts the sherriff's head off. Sam tries to apologize to Brenna, which really made us scoff. Really - after setting up someone's husband as spider-bait and then shooting him point blank in the face, not to mention failing to realize that he was turning into a monster, what more is there to say?
Dean and Sam have their post-job discussion in the crappy hotel room as they start packing up. Dean tries to make Sam feel better about the whole situation by telling him that all of the things that happened when Replicant Sam was there before aren't his fault. Sam disagrees with him sharply, saying that it's all him. He goes on to wonder about what else he might have done, but collapses mid-sentence. He starts seizing and having a vision of Hell, where he's trapped in flames and his pretty face burns to ashes.
Questions that still need Answers:
Stop scratching the wall, Sam. Although we weren't terribly impressed with his vision of Hell. When Dean was in Hell, we saw him hanging from meat hooks - there was much blood. Sam's vision of CGI fire eating his face was a little "meh".
We're not sure if we really want the answer to this question, but exactly how does an Arachne "turn" somebody? They referenced "mates", and all of the female Arachne's victims were male. All of Sherriff Arachne's victims were female. This leads us to the disturbing conclusion that spider-monsterism is some sort of horrible sexually-transmitted disease. So - just one more thing to think about before starting a romp with a new partner, okay kids? Stay safe.
How much of Sam is his soul, and how much is not? I think that Sam's right when he says that everything Replicant Sam did is still on him. Remember in the third season when the Trickster killed Dean in order to show Sam what his life would be like once Dean went to Hell? Sam became a cold-hearted bastard, that's what. If you thought it was shocking for Replicant Sam to try to kill Bobby in order to sever all ties with his soul, then what about when the Trickster showed Sam that he'd be willing to go that far to get his brother back? And even though the Trickster did eventually bring Dean back and reset everything from that first day in Mystery Spot, we saw again what Sam is like without Dean at the beginning of the fourth season, when Dean comes back from a four-month stint in Hell. In that time, Sam managed to get involved with a demon, develop his psychic powers, and become addicted to demon blood. So really - Sam seems like he's on the brink of sociopathy, and that his tiny little abused soul is all that keeps him from going into full Terminator mode.
Next Week:
I have two words for you: Haunted. Mannequin. I can't wait!
Saturday, February 5, 2011
While My Sam Gently Weeps
Supernatural is back, baby! After leaving us with the minor cliffhanger "Sam's been re-souled: will he survive?" at the mid-season finale, we're finally back to our regularly scheduled programming. If you recall, Dean had made a deal with the Horseman Death, who restored Sam's soul to him even after Dean lost their wager. Replicant Sam, not wanting to risk insanity and/or death, tried to sever all ties with his soul by killing his surrogate father, Bobby. Fortunately, Dean was able to stop him and Death was able to shove Sam's soul back into his chest, which is when the last episode ended. So what happens now? Please follow me to my recap of last night's episode, "Like a Virgin."
SPOILERS!
After a really long recap montage - so long that it almost made us wonder if the show's creators were acknowledging the fact that things have been kind of jumbled this season, plot-wise - the episode begins with a random scene of a woman and her boyfriend flying in a small airplane in the middle of a storm. Things don't look good, and the woman sees something huge fly past the window. Then her boyfriend is sucked out of the pilot's seat, and she screams as the plane starts going down.
Cas comes out of Bobby's panic room, rolling up his sleeve (this made us extremely happy - we didn't know Cas would be in this episode). Dean had called him to verify that Death was successful in re-souling Sam, but Sam is still unconscious. Dean demands to know when his brother will wake up, and Cas snaps that he doesn't know, he's not a doctor, and if Dean had wanted to kill his brother, he should have done it outright. He tells Dean that Sam's soul felt like it was "skinned alive", and he wasn't happy that Dean ignored the dangers that they'd discussed during their attempt to break into Crowley's monster prison. With that, Cas leaves, and Dean trudges upstairs to talk to Bobby.
Dean and Bobby start discussing a possible job - the incident with the airplane that we saw in the beginning has made the papers, and it's strange because the woman vanished without a trace, and her boyfriend was found seventeen miles away from the wreckage, burned to a crisp. Their conversation is interrupted by Sam, who's standing in the doorway. And what is the first thing that Sam does? He hugs Dean, his eyes filled to the brim with tears (WE KNEW IT!). He's full of questions as he moves on to hug Bobby, astonished to see him alive. Sam had felt Lucifer snap Bobby's neck at the end of season five. Dean explains that Cas brought Bobby back to life - "Cas is alive?!" - and that everyone is relatively fine. Dean then proceeds to ask Sam what he remembers after jumping into the hole with Lucifer, Michael, and Adam (which is exactly what Death told him not to do, correct?). Sam says that he remembers nothing, and discovers that a year and a half has passed since they stopped the Apocalypse. Sam immediately asks how it was that Dean got him back - he's worried that Dean made another deal (remember how that turned out?). He's concerned when Dean tells him that Death "brought him back", but Dean tries to reassure him that that deal is over and done with (more or less). Dean and Bobby don't mention that Sam has been walking around without a soul for a year and a half, which of course is the right way to do this. Things always work out when the Winchesters keep secrets from each other.
Dean and Bobby prepare to drive to Oregon to investigate the disappearance of the woman in the airplane, intending to let Sam rest, but Sam is raring to go. Bobby, still uncomfortable with Sam because the soul-less version tried to kill him, bows out of the job and stays behind. They speak to the woman's sister about her disappearance - she only talks to them after Sam makes his "I feel your pain" puppy face, which is so Sam. Dean swipes the missing woman's diary, for which Sam chides him, and they make a connection between this woman and a few others who have gone missing: they're all virgins. Cue the "asshole" Dean - anything to do with sex always has this effect on him. They visit a woman in the hospital after she's attacked by a "giant bat" - she was walking home alone, and something large and airborne scratched her and stole her gold ring. The woman tells them that it was a purity ring, and Dean gets all smirky and asks her if she really should have been wearing it. The woman gets angry and tells them "that time in the barn didn't count!"
Sam reaches what he thinks is a dead end in his research, because all of the clues they have (fire, virgins, gold, flight) keep taking him to the same place: dragons. And we all know that there's no such thing as dragons, right? Dean calls Bobby to see if he can be of any help, and Bobby refers him to a local professor of Medieval Studies. Dean goes to see her, making Sam stay behind in the hotel room and continue the research. As soon as Dean is gone, Sam calls Bobby, but Bobby is evasive and quick to get off the phone. Then Sam calls Cas, and the angel pops down right away, glad to see him alive and well. He almost gives Sam a hug (awww!), but stops himself before things get awkward. Sam gets Cas to tell him everything, because Cas is (A) a terrible liar and (B) Dean hasn't filled him in on the "let's hide the fact that Soul-less Sam has been around for eighteen months" plan.
Dean meets up with Bobby's professor friend, who indicates that she and Bobby have some kind of history together, and she tells him that dragons did indeed exist, but they haven't been around for about 700 years. They can only be killed with a blade that was forged in dragons' blood (like Excalibur, apparently), and then the professor casually mentions that she happens to have one of those swords in the basement. It's set in stone, and she invites Dean to try to remove it. He gingerly approaches the sword, grasps it reverentially by the hilt, and fails to pull it out. He comes back with some plastic explosive. The professor isn't nuts about this plan, but she lets Dean set the charges and then detonate them. It was half successful - Dean managed to break the sword, which means he has the hilt and about a foot of jagged blade to work with.
Meanwhile, Sam figures out that the dragon is probably hiding in the sewer system, since there are no caves around. He and Dean take their half-sword and go dragon hunting. After wandering around beneath the city streets, they finally stumble upon the dragon's hoard - there's a pile of gold sitting right next to what looks like some kind of shrine. Sam grabs the book sitting on the shrine, and then they hear the cries of the virginal women the dragon has captured. They're locked in a cage, which has been welded shut by the dragon's fire. As the brothers try to release them, the dragon shows up (in human form, because of budget reasons, though we think that there were probably some design concerns as well). Dean goes after him with the broken sword as Sam tries to free the women. The standard struggle ensues, and things get dicey when another dragon joins in, but Sam kills one of them, though the other one gets away.
Back at Bobby's place, Dean cackles to himself as he goes through the dragon's hoard. Sam walks up and apologizes (with tears in his eyes, of course). Dean realizes that Sam knows the truth about the whole Replicant Sam business. Sam admits that Cas told him, and tells Dean that he has to find out about what his soul-less self did while it was topside. Dean is completely against this course of action because he's worried that the "wall" in Sam's mind will come down, but Sam's determined. The brothers go in to talk to Bobby about the strange book they found in the dragon's "cave", which turns out to be made of human skin (we totally called this). Bobby isn't able to translate everything because it's written in a very strange Latin dialect, but he keeps coming across the phrase "Mother of All". And the last page - the one that's missing, of course - holds the instructions to bring her into this world.
Meanwhile, the dragon that got away meets up with another dragon pal. Fortunately, this dragon has plenty of virgins. They take one of the women into a cave and perform the ritual, and toss her into an abyss. She rises in fire, obviously possessed by something. Apparently, Mommy is home now.
Questions that still need answers:
Okay, Sam is back! We're absolutely delighted that we have our weepy, emotional, Gigantor Sam back. And of course, we cannot wait until that "wall" comes crumbling down, because we all know that it's going to happen eventually - probably at the worst possible moment. So the only remaining questions are "How?" and "When?" We should probably start a pool.
Dragons? Really? In human form? We're actually surprisingly okay with this, but a little wary as to where it will go from here. Will the dragons stick around? Will we ever get to see them as actual dragons?
We're guessing that the "Mother of All" is some version of Echidna, who was the mother of all monsters in Greek mythology. That being said, we're wondering how her appearance has anything to do with the cryptic mission Death gave to Dean, which is all about souls. Are we talking human souls? Monster souls? What the hell is going on, and how exactly do Heaven and Hell fit into this anyway? Because I'm really tired of all of the epsiodes in which Cas appears for exactly five minutes and then is never heard from again. We need lots more of Cas.
Apparently virgins are only female, and only wear dresses - and white-ish ones, at that! Maybe that's how you can tell they're virgins. We were a little miffed about Dean's line that was something like, "Just goes to show you, there's no downside to being 'easy'." Just because a woman has a sex life does not mean she's 'easy', and just because a woman is a virgin does not make her stupid. It's kind of a personal choice. Now, Supernatural is the last place we would look for any kind of attitude toward women in general that was ever so slightly enlightened, but it bothered us all the same. But we're still going to watch next week.
Next Week:
Sam learns a little about what Replicant Sam was up to while his soul was still stuck in the Cage. We're guessing that it's not going to be flattering.
SPOILERS!
After a really long recap montage - so long that it almost made us wonder if the show's creators were acknowledging the fact that things have been kind of jumbled this season, plot-wise - the episode begins with a random scene of a woman and her boyfriend flying in a small airplane in the middle of a storm. Things don't look good, and the woman sees something huge fly past the window. Then her boyfriend is sucked out of the pilot's seat, and she screams as the plane starts going down.
Cas comes out of Bobby's panic room, rolling up his sleeve (this made us extremely happy - we didn't know Cas would be in this episode). Dean had called him to verify that Death was successful in re-souling Sam, but Sam is still unconscious. Dean demands to know when his brother will wake up, and Cas snaps that he doesn't know, he's not a doctor, and if Dean had wanted to kill his brother, he should have done it outright. He tells Dean that Sam's soul felt like it was "skinned alive", and he wasn't happy that Dean ignored the dangers that they'd discussed during their attempt to break into Crowley's monster prison. With that, Cas leaves, and Dean trudges upstairs to talk to Bobby.
Dean and Bobby start discussing a possible job - the incident with the airplane that we saw in the beginning has made the papers, and it's strange because the woman vanished without a trace, and her boyfriend was found seventeen miles away from the wreckage, burned to a crisp. Their conversation is interrupted by Sam, who's standing in the doorway. And what is the first thing that Sam does? He hugs Dean, his eyes filled to the brim with tears (WE KNEW IT!). He's full of questions as he moves on to hug Bobby, astonished to see him alive. Sam had felt Lucifer snap Bobby's neck at the end of season five. Dean explains that Cas brought Bobby back to life - "Cas is alive?!" - and that everyone is relatively fine. Dean then proceeds to ask Sam what he remembers after jumping into the hole with Lucifer, Michael, and Adam (which is exactly what Death told him not to do, correct?). Sam says that he remembers nothing, and discovers that a year and a half has passed since they stopped the Apocalypse. Sam immediately asks how it was that Dean got him back - he's worried that Dean made another deal (remember how that turned out?). He's concerned when Dean tells him that Death "brought him back", but Dean tries to reassure him that that deal is over and done with (more or less). Dean and Bobby don't mention that Sam has been walking around without a soul for a year and a half, which of course is the right way to do this. Things always work out when the Winchesters keep secrets from each other.
Dean and Bobby prepare to drive to Oregon to investigate the disappearance of the woman in the airplane, intending to let Sam rest, but Sam is raring to go. Bobby, still uncomfortable with Sam because the soul-less version tried to kill him, bows out of the job and stays behind. They speak to the woman's sister about her disappearance - she only talks to them after Sam makes his "I feel your pain" puppy face, which is so Sam. Dean swipes the missing woman's diary, for which Sam chides him, and they make a connection between this woman and a few others who have gone missing: they're all virgins. Cue the "asshole" Dean - anything to do with sex always has this effect on him. They visit a woman in the hospital after she's attacked by a "giant bat" - she was walking home alone, and something large and airborne scratched her and stole her gold ring. The woman tells them that it was a purity ring, and Dean gets all smirky and asks her if she really should have been wearing it. The woman gets angry and tells them "that time in the barn didn't count!"
Sam reaches what he thinks is a dead end in his research, because all of the clues they have (fire, virgins, gold, flight) keep taking him to the same place: dragons. And we all know that there's no such thing as dragons, right? Dean calls Bobby to see if he can be of any help, and Bobby refers him to a local professor of Medieval Studies. Dean goes to see her, making Sam stay behind in the hotel room and continue the research. As soon as Dean is gone, Sam calls Bobby, but Bobby is evasive and quick to get off the phone. Then Sam calls Cas, and the angel pops down right away, glad to see him alive and well. He almost gives Sam a hug (awww!), but stops himself before things get awkward. Sam gets Cas to tell him everything, because Cas is (A) a terrible liar and (B) Dean hasn't filled him in on the "let's hide the fact that Soul-less Sam has been around for eighteen months" plan.
Dean meets up with Bobby's professor friend, who indicates that she and Bobby have some kind of history together, and she tells him that dragons did indeed exist, but they haven't been around for about 700 years. They can only be killed with a blade that was forged in dragons' blood (like Excalibur, apparently), and then the professor casually mentions that she happens to have one of those swords in the basement. It's set in stone, and she invites Dean to try to remove it. He gingerly approaches the sword, grasps it reverentially by the hilt, and fails to pull it out. He comes back with some plastic explosive. The professor isn't nuts about this plan, but she lets Dean set the charges and then detonate them. It was half successful - Dean managed to break the sword, which means he has the hilt and about a foot of jagged blade to work with.
Meanwhile, Sam figures out that the dragon is probably hiding in the sewer system, since there are no caves around. He and Dean take their half-sword and go dragon hunting. After wandering around beneath the city streets, they finally stumble upon the dragon's hoard - there's a pile of gold sitting right next to what looks like some kind of shrine. Sam grabs the book sitting on the shrine, and then they hear the cries of the virginal women the dragon has captured. They're locked in a cage, which has been welded shut by the dragon's fire. As the brothers try to release them, the dragon shows up (in human form, because of budget reasons, though we think that there were probably some design concerns as well). Dean goes after him with the broken sword as Sam tries to free the women. The standard struggle ensues, and things get dicey when another dragon joins in, but Sam kills one of them, though the other one gets away.
Back at Bobby's place, Dean cackles to himself as he goes through the dragon's hoard. Sam walks up and apologizes (with tears in his eyes, of course). Dean realizes that Sam knows the truth about the whole Replicant Sam business. Sam admits that Cas told him, and tells Dean that he has to find out about what his soul-less self did while it was topside. Dean is completely against this course of action because he's worried that the "wall" in Sam's mind will come down, but Sam's determined. The brothers go in to talk to Bobby about the strange book they found in the dragon's "cave", which turns out to be made of human skin (we totally called this). Bobby isn't able to translate everything because it's written in a very strange Latin dialect, but he keeps coming across the phrase "Mother of All". And the last page - the one that's missing, of course - holds the instructions to bring her into this world.
Meanwhile, the dragon that got away meets up with another dragon pal. Fortunately, this dragon has plenty of virgins. They take one of the women into a cave and perform the ritual, and toss her into an abyss. She rises in fire, obviously possessed by something. Apparently, Mommy is home now.
Questions that still need answers:
Okay, Sam is back! We're absolutely delighted that we have our weepy, emotional, Gigantor Sam back. And of course, we cannot wait until that "wall" comes crumbling down, because we all know that it's going to happen eventually - probably at the worst possible moment. So the only remaining questions are "How?" and "When?" We should probably start a pool.
Dragons? Really? In human form? We're actually surprisingly okay with this, but a little wary as to where it will go from here. Will the dragons stick around? Will we ever get to see them as actual dragons?
We're guessing that the "Mother of All" is some version of Echidna, who was the mother of all monsters in Greek mythology. That being said, we're wondering how her appearance has anything to do with the cryptic mission Death gave to Dean, which is all about souls. Are we talking human souls? Monster souls? What the hell is going on, and how exactly do Heaven and Hell fit into this anyway? Because I'm really tired of all of the epsiodes in which Cas appears for exactly five minutes and then is never heard from again. We need lots more of Cas.
Apparently virgins are only female, and only wear dresses - and white-ish ones, at that! Maybe that's how you can tell they're virgins. We were a little miffed about Dean's line that was something like, "Just goes to show you, there's no downside to being 'easy'." Just because a woman has a sex life does not mean she's 'easy', and just because a woman is a virgin does not make her stupid. It's kind of a personal choice. Now, Supernatural is the last place we would look for any kind of attitude toward women in general that was ever so slightly enlightened, but it bothered us all the same. But we're still going to watch next week.
Next Week:
Sam learns a little about what Replicant Sam was up to while his soul was still stuck in the Cage. We're guessing that it's not going to be flattering.
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