Friday, January 13, 2012

Supernatural 7x12 "Time After Time"

First of all, congratulations to Supernatural for winning not one, but two, People's Choice Awards this week for Best Network TV Drama, and Best TV Scifi/Fantasy! It's a shame that they were not there to accept the awards in person, but I'm not going to go into a rant about how genre shows always are treated like second class citizens in the TV awards world. Enough other people have already gone down that road this week! Now onto tonight's episode!

And what a zippy episode it was, right? Things moved at a very quick pace throughout... maybe even a little too quick? Well, let's not quibble.

Sam and Dean find themselves hunting some kind of something that has left some dead, shriveled up bodies throughout the years. They're not entirely sure what they're dealing with, but figure out it's been the same guy killing these people since at least the 1940s - a Mr. Snyder (played by guest star Jason Dohring). They track him down only to find him snacking on another person, so Dean goes into a full on sprint at the guy - and gets engulfed in a red light. And sent back to 1944. Whoops. You should be more careful, Dean.

Recap/review of Supernatural 7x12 "Time After Time" by freshfromthe.com
Rock those fedoras, gentlemen.
Luckily for him, after a run in with the local authorities, Dean meets a fellow hunter, the famous Eliot Ness (guest star Nicholas Lea). Ness also happens to be chasing after the very same monster. Time to team up, but first let's get Dean some time appropriate attire, because any chance to see Jensen rock a fedora and a suit is just not a chance to be wasted.

Meanwhile, back in the here and now, Sam is freaking out about what has happened to Dean. But he has some help too, in the form of Sheriff Jody Mills, onetime possible paramour of our late Bobby Singer. Since she turned the boys on to the monster in the first place, she wants to help. Sam has her go pick up Bobby's stuff, and they get to researching - and are able to find that the monster in question isn't even a monster, but rather a god. Kronos, the god of time. They find a way to summon him, but in order to get Dean back too, Kronos would have to be holding onto him. They'd have to know exactly what day and what time to call him back from. Needle. Haystack. Same. Difference.

Back in the '40s, Dean and Ness have also discovered that it's Kronos. They do have one advantage over Sam and Jody, however, in that they have a helper, a sort of female Bobby, who finds a way to kill him. Some ancient stick with some blood, you know, the usual. Of course, killing Kronos would mean Dean gets stuck in the '40s permanently, and unless he wants more randy older women coming on to him, then he's got to find another way. Being the movie geek he is, he remembers Back to the Future Part 3, and decides to get Sam a message through time.

In the message, Dean tells Sam about the girl that Kronos has been seeing, Lila. Sam and Jody find that Lila is still alive today, and she happens to have been there the night that Dean and Ness come for Kronos. All of the clocks stopped at 11:34pm. Well, guess you have your needle in a haystack time! Better fetch Dean before he gets choked to death by the lord of time!

Which, of course, they do. Ness also manages to throw the special twig of doom into the time vortex as well, so Sam is able to kill Kronos before he can do more damage. But Kronos won't just die with a whimper. Smiling through bloody teeth, he tells the boys he sees their future, and it's covered in black goo. That can't be good.

Random Thoughts: 

- Dean doing the math to figure out what year he was in was hilarious.

- Though of course seeing Dean in the past was great, I have to say one of my favorite scenes was a quiet one between Sam and Jody, when Jody finds the bottle with the note from Rufus. It's just a small moment in remembrance of Bobby, but I love those kinds of small moments.

- Another Back to the Future reference - Dean sending Sam a message through the years! You know how I love me some BTTF. Though I did think it was kind of odd for Dean to assume that Sam would sleep while he had gone missing, therefore being able to find the message in the first place. Minor quibble, to be sure. But then it wouldn't have really mattered when Sam found it, since he knew the right time to summon Dean from... ah time travel, you get so twisty and crazy.

- Did the ending feel a bit abrupt to anyone else? I felt like there should've been one more of the famous wrap up scenes at the end after the commercial break.

- What in the... the preview for next week!

Quotes: 

"Don't give me that dirty diaper look, I ain't callin' ya." - Dean

Sam: I can't believe I'm about to say this, but I hope you're watching cartoon smut, because reading Dick Roman crap over and over again is just self punishment.
Dean: It's called anime, and it's an art form.

"You gonna look up more anime, or are you strictly into Dick now?" - Sam

Sam: Wait a minute, what's our plan?
Dean: Don't die.

"Sweet merciful awesome." - Dean

Previous Episode -- Next Episode

5 comments:

  1. Wow where to begin with tonight's errr last night's hoorah! Although I fouund it entertaining there was still quite a few headscratcher moments and WTF ones I must address

    First off Why did the writers find it neccessary to recycle the same shot from the teasr 15 mins into the episode? Since we know Dean dissapears 1 min in we do not need to see that exact scene again, SHOT for SHOT! it's just unnecessary filler that could have been used to I don't know flesh out Mr. Ness' character or his cooky assisstant more. Plus I'm really starting to hate the "2 days ago" bit. It's not refreshing nor is it smart storytelling it's just lazy plotting to start out an episode with a great teaser and then after the titles flashback a couple of days it's really bad lazy writing. Also the constant use of 40's slang really made everyone sound like a moron. The words clashed with the "normal" dialouge

    One thing I did like though was the Jody scenes, besides the notion of her graduating from simple throw away character to a sort of mom to the boys being forced on us with her "mom voice" crack her scenes were quite entertaining and the highlight of the episode. Also the writers have proven the boys can very well survive without Bobby as their crutch. The research using and using their own intuitions to id their monster was brilliant and something that's been absent for quite some time Sam and Dean finally look like mature older hunters, and not kids asking for help from daddy.

    Before I go I have to ask remember when Dean and Elliot were talking about how Ness started hunting and how in Cleavland some vampire was turning people, well this may or may not have been inspired by the Cleveland torso murderer from 1935-38 where a serial killer decapitated at least 12 people and some of the bodies were multilated. The case was never solved and Ness never really recovered from it. What if Ness had decapitated those people because they were vampires and then covered his actions during the investigation could explain why the killer was never found, because the vamp was ganked, and death kept a secret. Great drama that could have been expanded on in that lil scene.

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    1. That's interesting about the Cleveland case! It's possible that it could've been something that inspired htem to make Ness a hunter.

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  2. Darren-- I prefer to think the vampire/Cleveland allusion as a reference to Buffy and the Cleveland hellmouth, lol. Probably not, but it's what I thought of anyway.

    Like Jody. LOVED Dean in 40s garb. Holy crap, he looked good. Big fan of the anime comment! I'm an anime geek myself... though not *that* kind of anime, haha.

    Time travel is my favorite sci fi trope, so they had me at the first hint of it.

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    1. I usually enjoy time travel stuff as well. If they do it right, anyway! I think Supernatural has had a pretty good history of doing time travel right so far.

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    2. Laura- The cleaveland hellmouth. I cannot tell you how hard I laughed upon reading that one. Now I think it is just coincidence but... if Ben Edlund had been writing I would have definitely have seen it.

      Some more Ness trivia. In 1944 Ness was actually working for a security company so his involvement in this episode wouldnt have been as a cop or FBI or whatever he was then again different universe maybe history is askewed and since his history beyond Capone and his Untouchables days are very vague to others but myself, I'll just let it go.

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