Supernatural 8x16 "Remember the Titans"

The last time we had an episode with gods in it, things did not go so well. As in, the episode was not so much with the being good. While I can't say this episode wowed me, it certainly wasn't terrible. Just kinda there. Can I be totally honest? I was kinda falling asleep again. I mean, this is sort of my curse lately in general, the falling asleep while watching things, but man. It needs to stop!

Signature smolder.

To business. Sam and Dean are holed up in the batcave, waiting for Kevin to finish translating the tablet. Not sure why they don't bring him there as well, but then again, if Dean was hounding him all the time, as he surely would be, he would probably take longer to get things done. In any event, Dean is chomping at the bit to get out and do something. Sam just so happens to find them a case where a dude was found on the side of the road, dead, then a few minutes later stood up and walked off into the woods. Not weird at all!

The dude who saw that happen is sure that the guy in question must be a zombie, but when the boys go to investigate, and find the guy dead again, they know something else is up. Particularly when they test the guy, who re-alivens while they're there, with silver and holy water and such to make sure he's not a demon or a shifter or any other number of things. So what the heck is he, if he keeps dying every day, and doesn't remember anything before some years ago when some people found him atop a mountain in Europe?

Things become clearer when a woman shows up with her young son in tow. She knew the dude, Shane, back when he was first found. They got friendly, hubba hubba, and oh my, nine months later, her son Oliver showed up. Of course, she never told Shane because he kept weirdly dying and coming back to life, so she took off. But now Oliver has started to do the same thing. The boys figure it must be some kind of curse.

Archery is so hot right now.

And boy is it. It turns out, Shane is none other than the Titan Prometheus, cursed to die every day by Zeus after he gave humans fire, blah blah. He's not supposed to be able to get off that mountain, though, so how did he? Oh yes, a hot woman shows up and looks annoyed when he doesn't recognize her, fights a bit, vanishes into the ether, and wields some kind of special god knife. She's Artemis, the goddess of the hunt. Or, maybe, hunters? Yeah, sure.

They decide the only way to try to break the curse is to summon up Zeus himself and ask him to do it. Or force him to. Per usual, things don't quite go to plan. Zeus is a sneaky son of a bitch and uses the kid against the mom, who ends up letting him out of the devil's trap of sorts they've got him in, so he can basically just wreak almighty havoc. Artemis shows up to watch it go down too, presumably because she's mad at Prometheus for not remembering her. Way to be mature, girl.

Sam uses some reverse psychology on her to get her to go against dear old dad, Zeus, and she whips out her signature bow and arrow to put a stop to his punishment of Prometheus and the kid. Only she accidentally ends up shooting Prometheus for reals dead this time. But he manages to also push her arrow back into Zeus too. I'm not sure if that means Zeus is also dead, because he disappeared whereas Prometheus stayed a body for them to burn. Hmm. In the end, the kid's curse is broken, though his dad is now dead.

Meanwhile, Sam is still bleeding from the mouth and hiding it from Dean. By the end of the episode, though, he's wondering if maybe he was naive in thinking he can beat the trials and come out okay. Dean plays it off, but in the end he does his version of praying to Cas, asking him to keep an eye out for Sam. Getting some major deja vu for some of this stuff.

The show's on a mini hiatus now until March 20th, though you'll be happy to know that it was already picked up for season nine. Unless you think it should end, then I suppose you're rolling your eyes. I have a feeling, personally, it's going to go for the magic ten number like Smallville, because why just go nine when you can go the round ten? Also, one last aside, on Friday I'll be posting an interview with the author of the newest Supernatural tie-in novel, so check back in then to see it!

Random Thoughts:

- I thought Artemis was supposed to be the celibate one of the Greek gods? Am I wrong? Granted, I am basing this information on fictional books I've read, so it's entirely possible I am completely wrong.

- How would one get Prometheus off the mountain, and why would it scramble his brain? Not that it matters, but it was kind of glossed over, his whole amnesia thing. Just seemed sort of convenient to make it harder for them to figure out what he was.

- Did Zeus actually die? Or did he just kind of poof away for awhile? Can he actually die by something coated with his own lightning, or would that save him in some way? Do we really care?

- Where's Cas been? Perhaps we'll find out when the show comes back since it looks like he's going to be in that episode.

- How will Sam survive the trials? Will you feel betrayed if he dies again? Honestly, too many deaths and it just gets ridiculous.

Quotes:

Dean: What's taking him so long? It's a book. Read it.

Dean: Damn straight I wanted to shoot some zombies.

Dean: What are you like, Kenny?

Sam: What do we know that has Jason Bourne fighting skills, dies a lot, and has a history with violent women?
Dean: I don't know. You?

Previous Episode -- Next Episode

Underappreciated Gems: Farscape (1999 - 2003)

Cast photo before Zhaan left the show. Sob.

I had some internal debate about whether this show should actually qualify as an underappreciated show or not. It did last four seasons and got a miniseries wrap up at the end. But, if you didn't see it when it was on, you probably have this notion that it's too weird and you wouldn't like it.

Guess what! It IS weird. And you probably WILL like it, precisely because of its weirdness. It's a wacky space opera with puppets and lots of prosthetic makeup that has the complex and hilarious human John Crichton at its center. You know, to give us an outsider's view of the weird, and the goal of him finding his way back home.

John and Aeryn are made of epic love stories.

I will fully admit this, however... the first season is really hit and miss. Like, don't watch half of those episodes unless you've become a die hard fan of the show, and even then there are some you should skip.

I found this rather awesome list that someone put together that lists which episodes are amazing, which ones you need to watch to keep up with the overall story, and which ones you should just skip altogether.

Check out the Complete Skip It Watch It Guide to see the list! I've also included a list of my personal favorite episodes at the bottom of this post too, in case you're curious.

I think what really sold me on this show, which I too thought was weird at first, is that it does such a great job of mixing the comedy with the drama. Apparently this is my TV show catnip, because I love me some fantasy/scifi dramedies like nobody's business. So if you're a fan of, say, Supernatural (which you prooooobably are if you read this blog much), then you know what? You'll probably like Farscape too. It was on SyFy back when it was SciFi, paired up with another of my favorite, sadly undervalued shows, The Invisible Man.

Season 4 cast, lots o' ladies!

Looks like the show is now streaming on Amazon Prime. But, I do have to warn you, if you watch it until the end, and you genuinely like the show and care about the characters, you're gonna be straight pissed at the cliffhanger. BUT GUESS WHAT! Do not despair! They made a miniseries to wrap up the series properly. Farscape: The Peacekeeper Wars.

If you're really hardcore, the entire series box set is also available on DVD and BluRay. The one quibble I have with the series set is that it didn't come with a booklet with all of the episode titles. You know what I did? I ended up making my own booklet with episode synopses and little symbols that indicate deleted scenes and commentaries. That's how much of a geek I am sometimes! If anyone wants it for their own personal use, let me know and I'll be happy to provide it for you!

Now, without further ado...

My Favorite Episodes!

• Premiere (1x01)
• A Human Reaction (1x16)
• Nerve (1x19)
• The Hidden Memory (1x20)
• Crackers Don't Matter (2x04)
• Out of Their Minds (2x09)
• Look at the Princess Pt 1, 2 and 3 (2x11-13)
• Into the Lion's Den Pt 1 and 2 (2x20-21)
• Die Me, Dichotomy (2x22)
• Green Eyed Monster (3x08)
• Unrealized Reality (4x11)
• Kansas (4x12)
• Terra Firma (4x13)
• Bad Timing (4x22)

Supernatural 8x15 "Man's Best Friend with Benefits"

Can I be perfectly honest? Is this a safe place? I may or may not have started to fall asleep during this episode, and I may or may not have not cared. Overall, honestly, kind of a throwaway episode apart from a couple bits touching on the arc of the season. I don't think you can say I'm wrong about that, but feel free if you want to do so in the comments.

Brood and stare and brood and stare.

Anyway, this episode is all about Dean's least favorite, or at least among his least favorite, things: witches. They get a call from some guy they've run into in the past, heretofore never mentioned as far as I'm aware, named James, who needs their help. I guess he was part of some case in the past, saved their lives, blah blah. In any event, it turns out that he didn't actually call them for help after all, it was rather a girl/dog named Portia.

Now if you haven't seen the episode, you're probably thinking bzzzzaaawhatnow? Turns out, after James' brush with the supernatural, he decided he wanted to take up witchcraft for himself. Portia is now his familiar, which is basically a fancy way of saying kind of super intense companion. That can also turn into an animal, in this case, a dog. Since James has been acting weird, she decided to call up the Winchesters for help.

Just how weird is he acting? Oh, you know, just having dreams about brutally murdering people, and the waking up and finding a bloody shirt in his trash. You know, no big deal. The running theory is that another witch could be controlling him, making him do these things, but no one has heard of any such thing being possible. So, duh, of course that's probably what's happening, and of course it's probably the other witch dude Spencer who says point blank he's never heard of that happening, and then looks extremely shifty. Oh, and his familiar is a cat/man that makes Dean sneeze.

Light 'er up.

The part about why Spencer was targeting James is where I get fuzzy, but honestly, do we really care? The point is, he didn't like him or wanted him out of the picture for some reason, and made him kill some people, and now the police have all of this evidence against him, so despite the Winchesters managing to kill Spencer with their special witch bomb, James and Portia are going to have to leave town anyway.

Really the only bits you need to know in terms of the overall season arc are these... Dean is still worried about Sam being the only one who can complete the trials. He thinks they should find another hellhound so he can join the ranks of trial doers, but Sam is pissy about that because basically he thinks Dean doesn't trust him to get the job done. By the end of the episode, Dean decides that he does trust Sam after all, apparently because of the visions that Spencer made him see during the fight scene, and he's good with the plan. But, then, Sam's mouth starts bleeding. Dean doesn't see it, because of course Sam hides it from him, but obviously this does not bode well for dear Sammy. But honestly, if either of them dies yet again, I don't know. That's just a lot of dying and coming back to life to handle. It's only credible for so long, you know?

Random Thoughts:

- Dean is apparently allergic to cats? Who knew. And also doesn't like dogs. Does he like any pets?

- Why were they so gung ho about going in to kill James after they had just discussed that it might not be him? I don't care that they found the shirt matched a victim's blood or that the witch dude told them there's no way a witch can control another witch, it seemed very poorly discussed and hasty decision making.

- When Dean is talking about being concerned about their plan, Sam immediately draws that he's concerned about his being the one to go through the trials. That was a pretty big leap, and rather touchy, and kind of dumb.

- Jared sounded like he had a cold. Random thought of random!

Quotes:

Dean: That was incredibly hot.
Portia scoffs
Sam: It was pretty hot.

Previous Episode -- Next Episode

Supernatural 8x14 "Trial and Error"

Are we actually smiling? At the same time?

Do you remember, back at the beginning of the season, when they found out that the demon tablet thing has instructions on how to close the gates of hell? Oh, no? Me too! It's just been so long since we've touched on the tablet storyline, I kind of plum forgot. It probably hasn't really been that long, actually, but things get spaced out and whatnot. ANYWAY. This episode we find out some STUFF.

In the ole batcave bunker of the Men of Letters, Dean is going domestic, decorating his own room for the first time ever and cooking burgers that even Sam will eat. What's this? Sam eating a burger?! Amaze. Alas, Dean's respite is to be short-lived, and I mean obviously because can you imagine an entire episode of just them hanging out? Anyway, he gets a call from Kevin, who has been holed up on that nasty ass boat trying to decipher the tablet. His routine is very sad and even gross, but he has figured out something! To the boat, Robin!

Yes, Kevin has managed to decipher part of the tablet, which basically says that in order to shut the gates of Hell, a person has to first complete three trials, the first of which is killing a hellhound and bathing in its blood. How does one find a hellhound without making a crossroads deal? Find someone else who has made a crossroads deal that is about to come due, of course! They seem to be able to find this info rather quickly, which I guess just proves their superior hunting skills? Anyhow, the plan is to track down the Cassidy family. They struck oil 10 years ago on farmland that would never have oil, so clearly something is fishy. (I just wrote struck gold first, you guys, I'm losing it!)

The boys travel to the ranch and end up getting jobs as farmhands, which is great for them so they can scope out things. They're pretty sure the person who made the deal is the woman who owns the ranch, Alice, but guess what! It's her chubby husband that's killed! He made a deal for Alice to fall in love with him, the poor sap. Whoops. Guess they have to find another dealmaker to get their hellhound!

Dean and his favorite, ole trusty demon killing knife.

Or do they? While Dean is ready to go all fake deal on a crossroads demon, Sam has a feeling something more is at work with the Cassidy family, and he is, duh, not wrong. The other members of the family come to the ranch to console Alice, and it's basically just a scene from Dallas, bickering sisters, the ranch manager who's been there forever, blah blah. The problem is, they don't know who among the group could've made another deal, and since you can't see a hellhound unless you're about to be eaten by one, that's sort of a problem. Luckily, Kevin has some more information: you can see a hellhound through glass that has been in holy fire. Dean fires up some glasses with some of the holy oil they still have from back in the olden days. Super specs!

After another of the family members is killed while trying to hunt down the "wolf" that killed the other dude, the Winchesters decide enough is enough and lock up everyone in the living room. Everyone except Ellie, the ranch manager, who made a pass at Dean, was given a raincheck, then said something like "this is the last night it can happen," which Dean does not realize AT ALL means that she obviously made a deal too, but ugh, whatever. I guess he was distracted by the pretty girl coming on to him. And also slightly flustered by it, which apparently is a thing now? He never used to be flustered by that sort of attention.

I fear things do not look good for poor Kevin long term.

Anyway, Dean wants to go gallivant off to kill the hellhound himself, despite Sam's protestations that he needs backup. Why is Dean so hellbent on killing the hound by himself, we wonder? Because, apparently, he believes these trials to be a suicide mission, and since he knows that Sam can see himself in another life, wants to take care of the closing the gates of hell thing on his own. Because that always goes as planned! Especially once you say it out loud!

Things decidedly do NOT go to that plan, even after Dean finds out that Ellie made a deal and even finds himself face to face with a hellhound. You'd think after getting torn to death himself by one, he might have more fight ready for the thing, but he ends up getting scratched and losing both the knife and the glasses, which is just when Sam comes in and, well, I think we can all see that Sam is the one who ends up killing the thing and getting doused in its blood, just like the trial commanded. And he's fine with that, because he plans to live through the closing of the gates, and he wants Dean to want to live through it as well. Aw. He does the little ritual, gets a glowy arm for a bit, and that's one trial down!

Random Thoughts:

- Sam, you still didn't pick up your garbage even after Dean gave you a look and you saw how much he cared about his room! How dare you!

- For me, a lot of the plot twists were kind of obvious in this episode. Oh well.

- Kevin's getting headaches and nosebleeds and isn't sleeping very well, not to mention maybe having a small stroke. Things do not look good for him in the long haul, I fear. Sam is worried about it, but Dean is all mission first. At least they got him to take a shower. Yikes. Poor Kev, too bad they can't bring him to the batcave.

- I wonder what the other trials are. Hmm. Also, do we think they will actually succeed in closing the gates? What would that mean for the show? It did just get a season nine pick up, after all. I have a feeling it's going to end up at ten seasons like Smallville.

- Dean was rocking those glasses, but Sam looked totally weird in his! Probably just the style of them. Random thoughts, I told you!

Quotes:

Dean: Memory foam. It remembers me.

Dean: Those bitches can be, well, bitches.

There were quite a few more than this that I enjoyed, but my brain was not in the mood for pausing and rewinding and writing them down. Feel free to put your favorites in the comments and I'll add them!

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Browned Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

I have a problem. A chocolate chip cookie problem.

No matter how many I make, I will always try a new recipe, even if there's one that I really like already. Why? I don't know. I mean, just let me list off the various ones I have tried (and enjoyed!): Jacque Torres, Molasses, Soft & Chewy, Otis Spunkmeyer style... I'm nuts! Except no, because I never put nuts in my chocolate chip cookies. Sacrilege! 

All I know is that I saw this recipe for browned butter chocolate chip cookies, and knew I had to try it. Browning butter is probably one of my favorite scents in existence. You can't argue with me on this one, you just can't. Them's the rules.

Browned Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients

• 2 sticks plus 1 Tablespoon unsalted butter, softened
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1 teaspoon molasses
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1 large egg yolk
• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 1/2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips

Cooking Directions

1. Brown 1 stick plus 1 Tbsp butter in a medium saucepan. When it's to that brown color, quickly dump it into another bowl to stop the cooking (you don't want it to burn!) and set it aside for the moment. Be sure to get all those browned bits, though, they are yum.
2. In your mixer, beat together the granulated sugar and the other stick of softened butter until they are light and fluffy, about 3 to 5 minutes. Add in the molasses and vanilla and mix until combined, then add in the brown sugar and the cooled browned butter, beating for about two minutes to combine.
3. Next, beat in your egg and egg yolk for about a minute. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, salt and baking soda, then dump that in your wet ingredients and slowly mix together. Once they're just combined, fold in the chocolate chips. If you want, add in nuts at this point, but I don't do that nonsense. Now, please, for the love of cheese puffs, stick this in the fridge for 30 minutes. You won't regret it.
4. While that's in the fridge, preheat your oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit, get your rack in the center of the oven. Line your baking sheet with parchment paper. After the 30 minutes are up, scoop out some dough onto your baking sheet. Bake the cookies for 12-14 minutes until edges are light brown, but the middle still a little light. Let those sit on the pan for 5 minutes, then remove to a wire rack to cool completely, or just shove straight into your gullet, whatever you so desire.

Recipe via Joy the Baker Cookbook

In photos:

Brown 1 stick plus 1 Tbsp unsalted butter. You do this over medium heat. It foams and pops and there will probably be some bits on the bottom of the pan when its done. Remove this to a bowl to cool while you start the rest.

Beat together the other stick of butter and the cup of sugar for 3-5 minutes until it's fluffy.

Add in the vanilla and the molasses.

Then add in your brown sugar and that cooled browned butter, with all the browned little bits!

Next up: the egg and egg yolk.

In a separate bowl, whisk together your flour, salt and baking soda, then add that all at once to the wet dough. Mix it slowly until just incorporated.

Fold in your chocolate chips, then stick that baby in the fridge for 30 minutes. While that's in the fridge, preheat your oven to 375F, and put some parchment on your pan.

Scoop out the dough onto your parchment-lined pan, and bake for 12-14 minutes until they look golden brown around the edges and still a little light in the middle. Let them sit for 5 minutes before you put them on a cooling rack or gobble them up direct from the pan. These have a crisp edge to them. They're not as soft as I generally like my chocolate chip cookies, personally, but the browned butter does give it a nice, slightly nutty, zing. It also seems to make them taste a tad saltier to me, so I suggested you use 1/2 tsp salt rather than a full teaspoon. Unless you like salty, then by all means go full teaspoon power!

Supernatural 8x13 "Everybody Hates Hitler"

There aren't many who can make Sam look small.

After getting the key to a secret Men of Letters bunker last week, the boys track it down to Lebanon, Kansas, where presumably it hasn't been opened for at least 60 years. Looks that way too, as things are all ham radios and other old timey things, despite there still being working electricity and water. While Dean goes off to check on Kevin and the tablet situation, Sam starts digging into the massive library to track down whether any groups the Men were affiliated with might still exist.

Meanwhile, we flash back to war-torn Europe in World War II, where some Nazis are taken out by some big dude. One of them gets away, however, working some magic. There's also this ledger book that's apparently important that he doesn't take with him. This ledger has traveled through to present day, where an old Jewish dude has tracked it down to a library, only he knows he's got someone nefarious on his trail, so nefarious, in fact, that said bad dude causes the old guy to spontaneously combust. Well, that's a way to ruin your day.

Golem? Necromancer? Neither sound too great.

Sam catches wind of this death, because it turns out this man was part of the Judah Initiative, a group of Rabbi saboteurs. Time to investigate his death, then! While Sam tries to find what the guy was looking up in the library, Dean questions those who last saw him, both feeling like they are being followed. Which, in fact, they are. By the old guy's grandson Aaron and, oh yeah, his giant talking Golem!

So, basically, the Judah Initiative created the Golem to take out this Thule Society of Nazis who were doing terrible magical, necromancer-style experiments on Jews, gypsies and the like. He managed to destroy the compound, as we saw, but there are still some of the Thule around in modern society, and they are looking for that ledger, as it has records of their experiments and who they managed to turn into necromancers. Aaron's grandpa hid the book in the library, so they go to find it, only to have one of the necromancers follow them. Lucky for them, they have a Golem on their team this time, and he easily dispatches the necromancers. Also lucky that they always salt and burn their bodies, as that's the only way to make sure a necromancer stays dead, apparently.

Just doin' our thing, wearing some plaid, holdin' some guns.

The boys are concerned about Aaron's control over the Golem, though, as he really doesn't seem to know what he's doing. Not much time to dwell on that, however, because some more necromancers show up looking for that dang ledger. I'm not entirely sure why the ledger is so important to them, but whatevs, they are clearly deadset on getting that thing. The head dude manages to disengage the Golem, because though Aaron woke him up, he apparently didn't claim him by writing his name on the piece of paper in his mouth.

In other news, Golems are weird.

Anyway, there's some fighting and all of that, and in the end these particular members of Thule are dispatched. Now that Aaron has seen the importance of his grandfather's work, he decides he should follow in his footsteps after all, and writes his name on the Golem paper. So we can assume they go off to hunt themselves some Thule Nazi bastards.

The boys head back to their new bunker, which both seem to be enjoying rather a lot. Sam for the vast amounts of knowledge, Dean for the free booze and a safe place to sleep, though we must remember that the last Man of Letters told them to close it up forever, so clearly it's not going to be a forever home.

Random Thoughts:

- OMG, that whole bar scene with Dean and Aaron... HILARIOUS. Mostly because of Jensen/Dean's reaction to the whole thing. The gay references on this show lately are getting more and more blatant.

- How long until some evil dudes find out about the secret bunker and either try to break in or successfully break in? Let's just say the Winchesters do not have the best luck when it comes to these things.

- Why was that ledger so important? It's possible I missed something, but it seemed sort of silly for them to care so much about it for the sake of secrecy.

- What if the Men of Letters had never gone defunct, John joined them, and Mary was working as one of their hunters, and they had this, like, forbidden romance? And then... ahem. Sorry. Sometimes I get carried away.

Quotes:

Dean: Sammy, I think we found the batcave.

Sam: You gonna take off the dead guy robe?

Dean: Okay... citizen... as you were.

Aaron: What, do two just break in wherever you go?
Dean: Our dad wanted us to have a solid career to fall back on, just in case this hunter thing didn't pan out.

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