Supernatural is a show known for its fan-service, and your opinion on the show most likely rests on your connotation of the phrase. Some love, some hate; I tend to fall in the middle. When I first started writing scripts and such, I loved breaking the fourth wall and being meta, but as I’ve gotten older it’s lost some of its appeal. Supernatural, to its eternal credit, has never laid the kind of egg that these sort of episodes invite, and while tonight’s episode started sketchy, it eventually evolved into something much, much stronger.
Let’s start with the facts.
A drama teacher overseeing a play about the “Supernatural” books is snatched up by a scarecrow monster. Sam and Dean go to investigate, and find the play. They are, predictably, shocked, and work with the teenaged writer/director/actor of the piece, eventually saving her from the muse goddess Calliope.
That’s the basic gist, minus a twist or two. Keeping that in mind, let’s run through some random thoughts:
I liked this episode, thought it matured very quickly after a very, very sketchy opening. Some really great one liners, too; “You ran tech, Wolverine,” was one of the funniest bits of the episode.
Some different camera work too, if a little predictable; a Dutch Angle to convey confusion and disorientation is a little film school-y but that doesn’t make it ineffective. The direction, overall, was pretty solid stuff.
Sam asking why “Destiel” isn’t pronounced “DEE-stiel” is now a legit problem because I have never considered that and that makes a lot more logical sense. The CasDean thing, while funny, was a little overplayed but that’s more than a little nitpicky.
Best part of the episode: Sweet Brave Selfless Sam. Literally laugh out loud funny. As a Sam stan and a (sometimes apprehensive) member of the Supernatural fandom, that is one of the top ten funniest in-jokes they’ve ever made. Wonderful.
The dude in the front row putting on the poncho after seeing Dean and the scarecrow monster literally made me cackle. I have no idea why that was so funny but dude was super-ready for some nonsense to go down.
They brought up Adam, which could mean one of two things: they plan on using him for something, or they wanted to throw us a bone to shut us up about. Let’ hope the former.
This episode was perfect for a big moment. Something about the casualness of it, and the absurdity, trying to make it feel like just a filler episode, really made me suspicious. And I was right! Chuck showed up at the end. I don’t know if he’s here to stay (if I had to guess [pessimistically] I’d say it’s just another episodal easter egg) but if he is, that changes the whole game. If they wanted to pivot into a Chuck-based storyline away from the path they are leading us down, fine by me. I miss the Kripke!Supernatural so much it hurts.
Really good, solid episode. The actors playing the all-girls school theater kids (don’t think for a solitary second that it being an all-girls school wasn’t a little bit of a message/playful jab) were really, really good. I kept waiting for them to fall apart (as most, ahem, “younger” actors do in Supernatural), but they really did well. Both the director and her counterpart (I can’t remember her actual title) did some really, really good work.
No Castiel again, which I still don’t mind. Both of these episodes have been really solid, and I haven’t missed Cas. While I do like Cas, when he shows up the momentum tends to ground to a halt. Not his fault, and it’s definitely not Misha Collins’ fault, but he’s like the harbinger of the show’s serialized plot returning, and I am just not up for more angels and demons shenanigans.
Next week looks like more filler, dealing with a sort of pseudo-Clue episode. That’s what the trailer looks like, anyways. Preview. Not trailer. Whatever.
Photo via The CW
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