Supernatural: Top 5 Season Six Episodes

Long time readers of this blog will remember last summer how I posted many a top 5-10 list centered on my beloved Supernatural. But with so many lists already done, what's a girl to do when in the midst of another summer hiatus?

Make more lists, obviously. Or perhaps just update some of the other ones? Assuming I have the motivation and the time, which, in all honesty, may not be the case. But! Do not fret! Today I bring to you a brand new list, featuring the best episodes of season six.

Now a lot of people didn't like season six, and I can understand that. I was a bit skeptical for a while too, but I think it found its groove eventually, and still produced some quality episodes, as you'll be reminded of below.

As a note, each title is a link to a favorite clip on youtube from the featured episode. Enjoy!

5. The Man Who Knew Too Much (6x22)

The finale of season six seemed to cause some major dissent among viewers, but I lean toward the good rather than the bad on this one. The first half of this episode was particularly strong, as we got to see Sam slowly come to grips with his memories of Hell. I honestly wish we had had more of that, but there's only so much time in an episode, right? We can only hope that his memories will still be an issue come next season. Of course, the other big issue of the episode was a certain angel's descent into crazytown. Castiel gobbled up a bunch of souls and seemed to lose his mind in the process. Absolute power corrupts absolutely, it appears. Will they be able to bring the old Cas back? Time will tell.

4. Weekend at Bobby's (6x04)

Perhaps not an episode that jumps to your mind at first when you're thinking of your favorites from the season, but heck, it should. The episode pulled an extreme focus on the hunter who has been a surrogate father to our Winchester brothers for years now. We got to see just what he goes through to help them out all the time, and that he's got his own stuff to deal with besides just them. This episode also happens to have been directed by Jensen Ackles, who did a fine job, too. While the episode did have its dramatic moments, it was all laced with a certain comedic overtone that worked really well.

3. The Man Who Would Be King (6x20)

Now, you're either a Castiel fan or you're not, and for those of you who aren't, you probably hated this one. And maybe even some of you who are hated it too, seeing your beloved angel doing not-so-nice things. But I thought it was structured very well, jumping back and forth between the past and the present to show us what Cas had been doing about the war in Heaven throughout the season. And that he was the one who brought Sam back from Hell. Though, admittedly, not all of him. Plus, Crowley! Crowley is always a crowd-pleaser, yes? Yes.

2. Frontierland (6x18)

Supernatural goes western! Though the logic about using time travel to get some supposed weapon is a little bit fishy, come on. They wore cowboy hats, and Sam rode a horse! Dean became the sheriff and had a showdown in the town square. Not to mention the numerous references to Back to the Future (the package at the end!). This episode also featured the first real hint that they would find something to defeat Eve, the Mother of All, so, you know, it had plot progress too. I promise. And wenches with gross diseased mouths. Gross, but hilarious.

1. The French Mistake (6x15)

Now you may think that I should've picked an episode that was larger on plot and less on comedy, but I just couldn't do it. This episode makes me bust a gut every single time, even just looking through screencaps to make the graphic. The acting scene alone! I defy you not to laugh the whole time. I may also be biased because I saw the outtakes from that scene when I went to the Paley festival this year, but whatever! It was quality! The Winchester boys were sent into another reality thanks to Balthazar, and this reality just so happens to be one where they are actors on a television show called Supernatural. What! That is some serious breaking of the fourth wall. But hey, go big or go home, right? I would just like to also note, as this seems to often be a search that leads people to my recap of that episode - NO, that was NOT Jared's real house. Okay? Okay.

What about you? What was your favorite episode? Vote in the poll below!

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Supernatural 6x22 "The Man Who Knew Too Much"

Whoa. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. I believe that is the appropriate saying at this here juncture, uh huh. But I'll get to that. We have some other things to discuss first.

The episode started off with Sam running through the streets, past this Castle Storage sign that I know I've seen on this show before, so that should've been my first hint that all was not as it seemed. He ran ran ran away from some police cars into a bar, where a comely lass played by Erica Cerra of Eureka fame greeted him with skepticism and mild alarm. He quickly informed her that he was without memory of who he was and what he was doing. She tried to convince him that he should go to a hospital, but he was sure that would be a bad idea, that he had somewhere he needed to be. He gets a quick flash of memory after spying an HP Lovecraft book in the bar (another hint - who just has his books lying around), and because she doesn't want this handsome amnesiac to go off on his lonesome, she drives him to the hotel he saw in his memory flash.

At the shady Nite Owl motel, the room is covered in hunter paraphernalia, and Sam gets another flash, this time a longer one of when he was last with Bobby and Dean on the hunt for purgatory. They were meeting Ellie, the former resident of purgatory, you remember, only she is mortally wounded, thanks to Crowley and Castiel needing her blood for a ritual to open up the door to purgatory. She dies, and Cas shows up, telling Dean that he'll save Sam once all is said and done. Save Sam? What does that mean? Cas then puts his finger to Sam's head and --boom!

Back to amnesiac Sam, who now remembers Bobby's name, along with his own, and finds a book with Bobby's address in it. At this point the girl wants to bail (did we ever find out her name?) but after they get shot at, he forces her to come with. And who shot at them? Someone who looks just like Sam? What?!

Okay, this time we go back to the present day, and it turns out Sam's in some kind of dreamscape zone in Bobby's basement, with Bobby and Dean watching. Bobby wants to continue the hunt for purgatory, but of course Dean is hellbent on fixing Sam. Bobby reminds Dean that Cas wants Dean to be thinking exactly that way, so Dean concedes that Bobby should go figure out where this ritual will be taking place.

Back in dreamzone, Sam runs off to confront this other Sam, and we find out that this other Sam is a broken off piece of the Sam whole. The soulless piece, in fact. And he wants to take over the whole shebang. Luckily, even though soulful Sam is not as heartless as soulless Sam, he is able to overtake him nonetheless, and gets the white light soul-ness from soulless Sam back inside him. Whoa, that was confusing to write. In any event, he remembers everything, and it turns out that bar girl was someone he had sacrificed back when he was in his soulless year, so she disappears now that he remembers it all. He heads on for Bobby's place.

In the real world, Bobby comes back with Balthazar, who tells them where Castiel and Crowley are holing up. Dean is reluctant to leave Sam, but leaves him with the address in case he wakes up. They head off. Meanwhile, at Che Wherever, Castiel had informed Crowley that he was basically reneging on their deal and would be taking all of the souls for himself. He used the phrase "flee or die" a lot here. Crowley fled. Balthazar goes to check in with Castiel, because remember he's being a double agent, only Castiel senses that he's lying, that he's no longer really with him. And he kills him! Cas!

Back with Sam in dreamscape. Once he makes it to Bobby's place, he comes face to face with the last piece to the soul puzzle. The bit of him that was down in hell, the bit that he's been blocked from remembering for some time now. In order for him to wake up in real life, he's got to reintegrate that part of his soul, though hell soul tells him this is not a great idea, and that he won't be able to handle it. But Sam is determined (because he's got to come to Dean's aid, naturally). He takes him in, and does some crazy seizing in real life.

As Bobby and Dean arrive at the angel-fortified huge house place of Che Wherever, a giant cloud of demonic smoke comes battling through the sky, sending them inside the Impala tumbling. Impala! Oh no! Not again!

Inside, Crowley shows up with Raphael, his new partner. Now it's Castiel's turn to be scared. He hands Crowley the jar of blood needed for the ritual and bops away. Crowley and Raph get to ritualizing, with a momentary interruption by Bobby and Dean, who managed to hobble out of the overturned Impala into the place, but don't have any luck stopping them. Once they complete the ritual, however, something is wrong. Nothing's happening!

Cas pops back in, with a strange sort of grin on his face. And Crowley immediately gets it - he gave them the wrong blood before, and already did the ritual himself elsewhere. Cas does the weird grin again, and Crowley gets out there lickety split. Which leaves Raphael to look crazy scared. And then what does Cas do?! He explodes him with a snap of his finger! Just like Lucifer did to him! What! Cas!

Cas then turns to Dean, who also looks freaked out. With good reason, I mean, really. He tries to get Castiel to see sense, that he needs to let loose all of the extra souls, because it's making him not think straight. But Castiel is tired of listening now that he's got all of this power. At this point Sam makes his grand entrance and attempts to stab Castiel with one of the angel-smiting swords. It goes through, but nothing happens.

Why? Castiel then explains - it's because he's not an angel anymore. He's their new God. And he straight up demands that they kneel before him and declare their devotion! Or else. Gulp.

And.... cliffhanger!!

Random Thoughts:

-  I wanted sooo much more of dreamscape Sam stuff. That all seemed to happen pretty quickly, considering.

- And how is Sam going to deal with the Hell stuff? He seemed to be having a tough time of it. Is it going to get easier? Harder? I really hope they explore this next season and don't just shove it under the rug or something.

- Jared has had a lot of opportunities to play different versions of Sam, and he's done them so well. It really shows his range. Great job! But please get a hair trim. It was really distracting me tonight.

- Castiel's disturbing grins. Whoa. Castiel with too much power is definitely not a good thing. Will they be able to de-soulify him, or will they end up having to find a way to kill him? That's probably going to be one of the big questions of next season, I would imagine.

- I'm trying to think where this finale ranks among the others and among the season as a whole. Do I need to make some updated top 10 lists this summer hiatus?!

Quotes:

"I was with two guys. One was like a... male model type." - Sam

"You seem even more constipated than usual. Maybe get you some colon blow?" - Crowley ... is that actually what he said?

"We'll ninja our way in." - Bobby
"Awesome. Yeah, until they hear your knee squeak." - Dean

Previous Episode -- Next Episode

Supernatural 6x21 "Let It Bleed"

Full disclosure: I am writing the recap of this episode before I watch the second one, so I won't be having any back opinions on the two as a whole. I was informed that they're not really one long episode anyway, so we should be good. Why am I making excuses? Yeesh. Who cares! It's a blog!

But, seriously, how heartbreaking was the ending to this episode? The things Dean does for the people he loves, come on. Before I get too into that, though, let's start at the beginning. Dean, Sam and Bobby are on the trail of purgatory. I guess their plan is to figure out what is going to need to be done to open it, so that they can prevent it from happening? It turns out that a clue to this is in some Campbell's journal, a Moisha (I have no idea how that's spelled!), whose journal leads them to HP Lovecraft, he of the horror writing.

Apparently he wasn't just a writer, though, but also a looker-into-er of the blacker, witchcrafty arts. But before the guys can get too into their research, Dean gets a frantic call from Ben - some men have come to their house and taken Lisa (also killing the dude she was with, poor schmo), and are coming for him next. And it's not just any men doing this - it's Crowley! You see, he fancied himself a loophole in Castiel's warning that he not harm Dean and Sam. Well, he didn't say anything about not harming people they care about, now, did he? Crowley tells Dean they have to back off the purgatory stuff and Lisa and Ben will be fine.

While Dean and Sam go off in search of Lisa and Ben, Bobby sticks to the research. He tracks down a guy who has some old letters of Lovecraft's detailing a dinner party in 1937 wherein they tried to open a gate to, we presume, purgatory. It didn't appear to work, except that everyone who was at the party died within the year. Only one person survived, a boy who is now in his 80s living in a mental hospital. Bobby pays him a visit, and the guy informs him that it actually worked, their opening the door, only the thing that came out was invisible. The only reason he knows about it was because it went into his mom, and he could tell the difference. His mom, we come to find out, is Eleanor, who we met briefly once before back in the dragons episode. She was the woman who Dean got the sword from? Right, I would not have known who she was if we hadn't had the recap.

Bobby pays her a visit and tries to get her to tell him the secret to purgatory door opening, but she won't tell him, instead opting to go on her own, figuring she has a better chance of fighting off Cas if he finds her. Which he will, because he's also been on this trail the whole episode, almost always one step ahead of Bobby except for this last step, because Bobby conveniently already knew this woman and where she might be hiding. In the end, Cas does find her before she can make a getaway. Uh oh.

Back in the other storyline, Dean is frantically trying to get demons to tell him where Crowley is, but none of them are spilling anything but blood out of their guts. Dean gets a little sloppy and messes up his devil's trap, letting one of the demons come for him, but Cas shows up just in time to stop him. He tries to get Dean to understand his plight again and to trust him for a change, but Dean isn't having it.

How in the world are they going to find Lisa and Ben, anyway? Well, earlier on they asked for Balthazar's help. Balthazar was less than excited about the prospect, but after learning just what Castiel has been up to with Crowley and the quest for the souls, he decides to join Team Winchester and finds out where the demons are holding Lisa and Ben. He can't go in and get them thanks to some angel-proofing, so he drops the boys off to fend for themselves.

Sam gets knocked out pretty much right away, and locked in a cell, leaving Dean to go it alone. He does some badass demon-killing on his way to finding the two, but find them he does. Only once he unties them, Lisa's eyes turn demonic black and she puts a knife to Ben's throat. Yep, she's possessed. She throws some verbal barbs around the joint, at one point saying that Dean was actually Ben's father (the assumption, in the end, is that he still isn't) and how Ben's holding her back and all this crap. Dean manages to throw some holy water in her face, getting her to release Ben.

But now what to do? He can't kill Lisa. So he starts doing the exorcising latinizing. But DemonLisa is not happy about that, obviously. So what does she do? She stabs herself in the gut! I saw that coming, but whatever, still gut-wrenching (har har, pun!). But Dean doesn't stop the exorcism, sending the demonic smoke on its way, and Lisa tumbling to the ground, badly wounded. He gets Ben to man a shotgun to blast their way out of there while he carries her, and manages to free Sam along the way as well.

They get Lisa to the hospital, but things do not look good. While Ben goes off to sulk and be angry at Dean, Cas shows up, though Dean did not ask him to. Castiel heals Lisa, but Dean wants him to do one more thing. And even before it cut to Lisa awakening with Ben at her side, I knew what he was going to make Cas do, and how terrible to behold it would be. Dean stands there in the doorway watching them as Ben explains they were in a car crash, but they're okay. They eventually notice the handsome but sad gentleman standing there and Ben inquires, "who are you?" Yes, Dean asked Castiel to make them forget him and their time together! Weep! The most heartbreaking part of the whole thing was when Dean told them he was the one who crashed into their car, and he was going to let them get on with their lives now. Oh god, seriously. Dean!

Sam admonishes Dean for taking away their memories like that, as someone who knows what that's like, but Dean stonewalls him, telling him if he ever brings up Lisa and Ben again, he'll break his nose.

Random Thoughts:

- Those demons sure incapacitated Sam easily. That seemed a might too convenient for me, like it was done just to get Dean alone in the room with DemonLisa and Ben.

- It's possible that if Castiel takes in too many souls, he'll go nuclear, possibly taking out half the planet with him. Okay. I'm confused. What happens to the souls if they get angel-ingested? They just disappear? Or they end up in heaven that way? I don't get it. Since when can they ingest souls, and why would they only just be doing it now if they always knew they were powerful? I'm having to suspend my disbelief and questions a lot when it come to the soul stuff.

- The look on Dean's face when DemonLisa says Ben is actually his. Oof.

- I'm glad Lisa and Ben weren't killed, I was getting seriously worried there for a bit.

- Sam. Get a haircut. Jeez.

Quotes:

"Hi. Glad to meet ya. Bobby Singer, paranoid bastard." - Bobby

"Let them go now, or I swear..." - Dean
"Right right, you'll rip me a cornucopia of orifices..." - Crowley

"You know, trench coat, looks like Columbo, talks like Rain Man." - Dude

"I'm officially on your team. You bastards." - Balthazar

Previous Episode -- Next Episode

Supernatural 6x20 "The Man Who Would Be King"

This was quite a solemn hour of Supernatural, wasn't it? Seeing things from Castiel's perspective was really interesting, in my opinion. We haven't seen much of the angelic one this season because he's been off doing his own thing, and just what that own thing entailed wasn't entirely clear. Until now. So just what has our dear Cas been up to? Not good things, as it turns out.

I'm reminded of a certain saying that pops up in the last Harry Potter book here - "For the greater good." It's basically a saying used by Grindelwald to justify his actions and make them seem less horrific. I think we can safely assume that Castiel was adopting the same mindset, though he knew deep down that what he was doing wasn't exactly right. But was it entirely wrong? It's hard to say. Because if he didn't do what he did, then what would've happened? Raphael was intent on re-starting the Apocalypse, the very thing Cas and the Winchesters had just worked so hard to thwart. So what I'm saying is, I can see his side of the story. It's not so cut and dry, no matter how much Dean, Sam and Bobby tell him it is.

But I'm digressing a little bit here. Let's get back to the details of the episode itself. The episode was framed around Castiel telling his story to someone who we assume is, and later find out to be, God. I mean, as much as you can tell a story to God, since he's not actually there. Castiel's story takes us back to before there were humans, all the way to present day, and we find out just how long he's been working with Crowley, and what caused him to go to such lengths.

You see, after Sam jumped into the cage with Lucifer inside him, Castiel was brought back to life. When he returned to Heaven, the other angels were amazed and looked to him for guidance. What were they supposed to do now? Cas tried to tell them that they were free to make their own choices, but they were having a tough time wrapping their heads around that concept after millennia of being told what to do. Cas didn't get much chance to show him what it meant to have free will before being summoned before Raphael, who had other plans. He wanted Castiel to step in line and follow him as the new leader of Heaven - and restart the Apocalypse.

Castiel wanted to go to Dean for help, but after seeing him in his new life, he didn't want to disturb him. And then, a new opportunity presented itself in the form of Crowley. He had a proposition for Cas - that they should team up, to look for purgatory and get more souls, thereby getting themselves more power. Cas was reluctant at first, but after some silver-tongued persuasion from the new King of Hell, he agreed to his proposition. Crowley would give him 50,000 souls to power up and take on Raphael, and later when they found purgatory, they would split all of the monster souls in there. They did disagree on how they would go about finding purgatory, though. Crowley wanted to put Dean and Sam on the case (we also found out that it was Castiel who brought Sam back from Hell, though he didn't realize at first that it was without his soul), but Cas forbade him from using Dean. So that's why Crowley brought Samuel back - so he and Sam could track down purgatory for him. With me so far?

Which basically brings us to present day for those two. Crowley is pissed at Castiel for letting the Winchesters kill Eve, the Mother of All, as she was their best chance of tracking down purgatory. Crowley wants to take out the Winchesters before they track him down, but Cas forbids him.

Meanwhile, Sam, Dean and Bobby are indeed looking for Crowley, and though Sam and Bobby are convinced that Castiel is working with him, Dean wants to keep his trust in Castiel intact. They track down a hunter demon who has been taking out nests of monsters and the like, figuring he must be getting his orders from Crowley. After some back and forth, they get it out of him that he gets his orders from the demon version of Bobby - this demon dude named Elsworth.

They go off to find this Elsworth, but it's too bad for them, because Castiel was listening in on this little conversation and goes ahead of them to kill Elsworth and his cronies. Thus, when the Winchesters and Bobby arrive at the place, they find it suspiciously clean. Sam and Bobby are suspecting Cas, but Dean decides they've got to just tell him that they've been looking for Crowley and see what his reaction is. Before they can do that, though, some demons appear and attack. Luckily for them, Cas was actually listening in this whole time, and shows up to kill the demons.

They finally tell him that they've been looking for Crowley, and Cas manages to at first lie his way back into their trust. But then he slips. He makes a reference back to the conversation they all had earlier about Superman going darkside, which he wasn't actually supposed to have been there to hear. The look on Dean's face says it all - he knows he's working with Crowley. They put together a plan to trap Cas in holy fire, and it works like a charm.

With Cas trapped in the ring of fire, they're able to confront him about what he's been doing. Dean basically says that they'll kill him if they have to, no matter what his intentions may have been. Cas tries to explain, but they aren't understanding his predicament too easily. Before anything can really go down, though, some demonic smoke starts heading straight for them, and Cas tells them to run for it, which they do. It's Crowley, come to set Castiel free from the holy fire, and give him some grief over the situation at hand, asking him just what he's willing to do.

Cas makes one last visit to Dean to try to make him understand. Dean asks him to just stop what he's doing, because it's him asking. He wants him to trust him. But Cas is at odds with this request. He's gone too far now to turn back.

In the end, as he finishes his tale, he asks for a sign from God. What's he supposed to do?

It's a good question.

Random Thoughts:

- This episode was written and directed by Ben Edlund. Great job!

- It was interesting to learn that Cas (and, it seems, Crowley) could just sit in and listen/watch people without them knowing they're there. I don't think we'd ever seen either of them do that before.

- Crowley's new version of Hell does seem pretty terrible. Waiting in lines is the WORST!

- Castiel was the one who brought Sam out of Hell. Did he know it was without his soul? It was implied that he didn't know, but he's being awfully shady, you know.

- I liked that Crowley actually gave the Winchesters their due after Castiel told him he didn't need to worry about them finding him. He basically said that they'd killed all these other demons, so yeah, he did need to worry. True, true.

- Even though Eve is dead, she's apparently still laying eggs, and when Crowley touches her exposed brain with a hot poker thing, it makes a vampire he has tied up go nuts. Interesting.

- Next week is an off week with the series finale of Smallville, but on May 20 we get a two part finale. Can you believe season six is already coming to an end?!

Quotes:

"He's the Balki Bartokomous of Heaven, he can make a mistake." - Dean (wow, super obscure reference)

"If I knew then what I know now, I might have said: It's simple. Freedom is a rope, God wants you to hang yourself with it." - Castiel

"Do I look like I'm joking?" - Raphael
"You never look like you're joking." - Castiel

"I know two eerily suited Teen Beat models with time on their hands." - Crowley

"You know who spies on people, Cas? Spies." - Dean

"Just because you can do what you want, doesn't mean that you get to do whatever you want." - Dean

Previous Episode -- Next Episode

Supernatural 6x19 "Mommy Dearest"

I feel like I have to apologize right off the bat. My brain was going a million miles an hour last night when I watched the episode, and now I feel like I was only half paying attention. I shouldn't be admitting that, right? I should just pretend I am all knowing and great! Oh well. I like honesty.

In any event. "Mommy Dearest" featured a couple of things I was not expecting. First of all - Crowley isn't actually dead! What! What in the world! And on top of that - Eve now is! She sure didn't last long. The pace on the show has been picking up lately, with new twists and turns that I haven't seen coming, which is refreshing six seasons in. This episode itself, however, had kind of a weird pace, in my opinion. But then, I was really tired, so it could've just been me.

The episode started with Miss Mother Eve stirring up some drama in a bar in some unknown place (later revealed to be Grants Pass, Oregon. Oregon shout out!). That drama being touching some people and making them go crazy, feeding on each other and being generally violent. We're left to wonder what exactly she was doing until later, but here's a hint - she was making some new monsters.

Meanwhile, the boys and Bobby are trying to figure out how exactly to find Eve now that they've got the Phoenix ash, which, if you remember, is the one thing that can supposedly kill her. They figure the best way to be able to do this is with some angelic help, so they call upon our favorite angel buddy Castiel, only he doesn't really know where she is either. The second best way? Call upon a friendly monster to help. In this case, that turns out to be the vampire Lenore, who we met many moons ago in season two. She's reluctant to give them such information, but does anyway. Then asks to be killed, because it turns out that Eve has a sort of constant radio chatter going on in her babies' heads, forcing them to do evil. Sam and Dean don't want to kill her since she wants to be good, but Cas just steps in does his hand thingy on her head, burning her out of there. Well. Goodbye Lenore.

They head off to Oregon, but things appear to be perfectly fine once they get there. That is, until Cas tries to use some of his angel powers to take a quick peek around town to see if that's really the case. Because, it turns out, his angel juice is not so juiced. He's powerless. They've got to check out the town on foot, and end up finding some weird crap. Like eight versions of one guy all dead and gross. What in the world, you ask? It turns out, Eve had created some weird shapeshifters gone wrong. And not just shapeshifters, either. She had created some other part vampire, part wraith, part shifter, creatures, that Dean decided to stupidly dub Jefferson Starships (because they're terrible and hard to kill).

They end up having to battle some of these starships, and capture one to ask it where exactly Eve is hiding in town. While Bobby and Cas do the interrogating (with Cas really getting down and dirty, I might add), Dean and Sam discover a pair of brothers whose family had all been killed, and decide to drive them out to their uncle's place, much to Cas' chagrin, since he didn't want to waste time on a couple of kids when the bigger picture was at stake. It would turn out that he was right in this particular instance, but it was cute to see Dean see the two brothers and remember him and Sam at those ages.

Once they get back, they head out to the diner where Eve is supposed to be, and find it crawling with the starships, and Eve herself. And this is the talky portion of the episode, where Eve gets to ramble on a bit about her plight and her plans, even turning herself into the image of Mary Winchester to give the boys the creeps. She informs them that Crowley is not actually dead, and is instead wrestling up as many souls as he can. The boys are naturally flabbergasted by such news, as they were sure they had killed him earlier in the season. Eve's plan to thwart said soul-grabbing is to create a world full of monsters, so the souls will all go to purgatory when they're dead, and will therefore be hers. Apparently souls are powerhouses, as we've been slowly beginning to understand.

She presents the boys with a deal - that they work with her to thwart Crowley, and she won't kill them. Dean, naturally, is all hell to the no, thinking they've got some backup outside with Bobby and Cas, ready and waiting with their phoenix ash weapons (oh right, Eve had confiscated the ones they brought in with them earlier). But, Cas and Bobby are dragged inside at this very time to show that they have no choice. At this point, Dean starts baiting Eve to just bite him and get it over with. It turns out he wasn't just being stubborn about not wanting to work with her, because when she does finally get too annoyed, she bites him right on the neck... only to start freaking out. Because, it turns out, Dean was actually a smartypants for once, and drank some of the ash with his whiskey, thereby making his blood poisonous to her.

So, Eve's dead. That was quick. But, oh yes. I forgot this. Back when she was rambling on about her plans to create the perfect monster, she informed the boys that she had been experimenting up until she got it right - with one of the brothers they had saved earlier. That kid had gone crazy and bitten his brother, who also turned, and they killed their uncle. Cas strives not to shout "I told you so" at Dean, and they hurry over to the place to find it empty. The boys are on the loose! Except not, because they find them dead, with mysterious gunshot-looking wounds.

Just who killed them, you wonder? None other than Crowley, as we find out. The last scene of the evening had Castiel meeting up with Crowley in the diner of dead people. It turns out, the two of them have been working together! Wow, Cas is going to some great lengths to win his war, working with demons. Next week is the episode where we get to see everything from his point of view. Should be interesting!

Random Thoughts:

- I feel like the writers are deliberately making fun of the Dean and Cas relationship on the show more and more. Wink to the fans who are slightly demented, I'm sure. Um sorry, not to dis any fans, but I'm just not into that slash stuff.

- There was a lot of random technology featured in this episode. An iPad? Were they paid to put that in? And Sam using his phone to check for the shapeshifter eyes. The phone thing is more understandable, but an iPad? Oh well, I'll get over it.

- Though there has been a lot of mention of the power of souls, I do still wonder how they, meaning Cas and Crowley, for example, can harness that power. Is it once the people are dead and in Heaven or Hell? Do the souls get used up somehow? I guess we'll find out more about that next week.

- Speaking of souls, though, what about Sam's? His soul went through a lot down in Hell. I've heard we'll be revisiting that in one of the finale episodes.

Quotes:

"Why does it always gotta be me who makes the call, huh? It's not like Cas lives in my ass..." - Dean
Cas appears right behind him.
"Cas... get out of my ass!" - Dean

"I was expecting more Zombieland, less Pleasantville." - Dean

"Oh that's great, without your power, you're basically a baby in a trench coat." - Dean
Cas looks away.
"I think you hurt his feelings." - Sam

"I'm fairly unpracticed with firearms." - Cas
"You know who whines? Babies." - Dean

Previous Episode -- Next Episode

Supernatural 6x18 "Frontierland"

Well! You know what. Though many have been saying that season six hasn't felt like the same show as it used to be, and while I have somewhat agreed with that, I think it may be safe to say that the show has been really picking things up. And now I also think it may be safe to say that with this episode and The French Mistake, there are two new contenders for top 10 of all time material. Oh yes, I said it.

The episode started off in classic western style, a shootout at high noon in 1861 Wyoming. And just who was partaking in said shootout? None other than our very own Dean Winchester. I confess I already saw this part of the episode at the Paley Fest, so it was no surprise to me, and no surprise to probably anyone else who knew even the littlest bit about the episode. Just as they draw their weapons, BAM we go into the western-ized Supernatural title. Love it every time they do one of those for an episode!

Back in the present, Sam has taken Dean and Bobby to the Campbell's secret library lair in hopes that they have a book that will give them some hint as to how to kill Eve, the Mother of All (Evil Monsters). Luckily, they do find something. One of the books says that she can be killed by the ash of a phoenix. Or something. I confess, friends, I was so incredibly tired by the time I got to watch this episode last night, I may have missed some of the more detailed details. In any event, they then had to figure out if a phoenix even existed, and this time Dean was the lucky one.

While perusing some kind of journal with a child-like glee, he stumbled upon an entry in it that said the person had shot a phoenix and it left a pile of ash. And just whose journal was this, you wonder? None other than Samuel Colt himself, the very one who made the gun everyone now calls the Colt that can kill nearly anything. Dean's big idea? To get Cas to send them back in time to get the ash.

But when they try to call upon their angel friend, someone else shows up instead - Rachel, Castiel's lieutenant. And she has some fighting words for the boys, accusing them of only calling upon Cas when they need something for themselves (it's true, though, when you think about it) and berating them for not thinking about the fact that he's running an army himself and has his own problems. Before she can do anything drastic, however, Cas wings down there himself and tells her to shoo. She's not so happy about that, but she goes.

Cas agrees to the plan, but with a caveat - they have to return within 24 hours, or he might not have the juice to get them back. This is a classic thing to do in movies/tv, by the way. Giving something a clock automatically ups the stakes. So Dean gets dressed up in some sort of hilarious attire, while Sam just changes his shirt and adds a belt. And with that - whoosh - off to Frontierland, or, you know, Sunrise, Wyoming.

When they get to town, they are immediately witness to a hanging of Elias Finch, for reasons I have already forgotten, if they were even explicitly mentioned. They probably were. It's not so important. He warned them that he'd be back, but of course they were like MEH and hung him anyway. Sam and Dean go to the Sheriff to ask if they know Samuel Colt, and after they give them (mostly Dean) crap for his very clean and shiny outfit, direct them to the saloon owner.

The saloon owner informs them that while Colt was in town a few years ago, he since left, but supposedly has taken up residence about 20 miles outside of town. While they're having this chat, the most noble priest dude who was one of the ones to hang Elias, partakes in some saloon girl action, only to have Elias Finch appear in the room, stick his hand on his face, and burn him into a pile of ash. Have we found our phoenix? I think so.

Dean sends Sam off to find the other Sam (so many Sam's on this show lately! Was Samuel Campbell named after Samuel Colt?), staying behind himself to take part in the posse that's going to find Elias Finch in the morning. Time's a running out, so Sam's gotta be quick. The quickest way to travel in this time period? Horse. I bet these boys have never been on a horse in their lives (the Winchester boys, not Jared or Jensen, I bet they both have). So Sam awkwardly rides his noble steed over to see Samuel Colt, who has just dispatched a couple demons with his handy dandy special gun. But, though he does have the gun, and just finished making the devil's gate we saw way back in season two, he tells Sam he's done with the hunting trade. Sam tries to convince him to help out anyway, and demands he give him the gun even if he doesn't come along. We're left to wonder what he does as we go back to...

Dean. He shows up for the posse, only he's the only one there. Because it turns out that the Sheriff who was organizing the whole thing had also been killed by the phoenix dude. Who gets to be the new Sheriff? Why, none of other than Dean himself! He finds the third guy who was part of the group to hang Elias in the first place, figuring that's who Elias will go after next, and locks him up in the jail. They're running out of time, though, so Sam better get there quick. But Dean was right about one thing - sure enough, Elias comes looking for him, and we find out that the only reason he's so angry is that the supposedly noble priest, Sheriff, and Deputy all took part in killing his wife, even though they were living a normal, quiet life together. Though he is unable to do his hand-burny business on the deputy because he's locked behind iron bars, he decides to just shoot him. Yeah, Dean, you should've thought of that.

Dean runs for it, and lucky for him, Sam shows up just in time, the Colt in hand. The gun Colt, not the Samuel Colt. Dean takes it and steps out into the square, challenging Elias to a high noon shoot-out to solve this once and for all. Elias thinks he's got this one in the bag, but he doesn't know who he's up against, does he? Dean's the quicker draw in this round, shooting him square in the chest. It buzzes and blips and he slowly burns up into a pile of ash. The boys run for the pile, only seconds to spare on their 24-hour clock, and--

Time to head over into the subplot with Castiel! Muahaha. While the boys are off having their adventure, Rachel confronts Castiel about just what he's been up to in this angel war of his. She accuses him of doing some bad things, and thinks it's time to take him out of the top spot. They tussle, and she actually manages to stab Cas just a little with her angel-killing weapon. But Cas manages to get the upper hand on her, and ends up killing her good and proper, with the burned wings on the ground and all. But he's hurt.

He manages to make it to Bobby's, but he's not in such great shape. He puts some kind of blood symbol on Bobby's fridge before collapsing. Later, he comes around, and informs Bobby that the symbol was to keep other angels out. He also sadly informs him that he won't be able to get the boys back in his current condition. The only way to heal him quickly is if he can touch Bobby's soul and siphon off some of its pure energy. Only if he messes it up, he'll basically blow up Bobby. Well, delicate proposition, indeed, but Bobby steps up to the plate.

And when Cas gets all powered up, he goes back and snatches the boys - just BEFORE they are able to grab any of the phoenix ash! Of course! He couldn't wait two seconds more! They think they're completely SOL now, but then! Someone knocks at the door. They've got a package that's been waiting around since 1861 to be delivered to one Sam Winchester here at that address. And it turns out that Mr. Samuel Colt went and got some of that phoenix ash and set up the delivery! They've got some ammo against Miss Eve now!

Random Thoughts:

- Love the Back to the Future references! The ridiculous Western attire. Samuel Colt sending a package into the future to be delivered just when they get back. LOVE.

- There was all of this hoopla about the introduction of Castiel's second in command Rachel, and she lasted less than a whole episode! Ha. No need for such hoopla, I think we can agree.

- Dean was so giddy about the whole experience. I wonder how much of that was Jensen too.

- The saloon girl coming over to Dean, with that really disgusting mouth. OMG. So gross! "More germy than I pictured." Or whatever he said. Indeed. No real form of protection from STDs back then. Nasty!

- While I do appreciate the introduction of so many different mythical creatures on the show, I do wish that they didn't always look human. It's probably a budget problem a lot of the time, but even still. The dragons, and now phoenixes - all look like people? Then where did the stories of a giant red bird come from?

- The way Castiel was sucking on Bobby's soul made me wonder just what he may be doing with other souls. Can he suck them up and become more powerful, is that what Rachel was accusing him of? I'm guessing we'll find out soon enough.

Quotes:

"Either of you jokers ever heard of a phoenix?" - Bobby
"River, Joaquin, or a giant flaming bird?" - Dean

"Dude, no." - Sam
"Dude, yes." - Dean
"Well let me see it." - Sam
"Get your own." - Dean

"We'll Star Trek 4 this bitch." - Dean
"I only watch Deep Space Nine." - Bobby
"It's like I don't even know you guys anymore." - Dean

"Is it customary to wear a blanket?" - Castiel

"You know what that is?" - Dean
"Yeah, it's horse--" - Sam
"Authenticity." - Dean

"'Cause you know me, I'm a posse magnet. I love posse. ... Make that into a t-shirt." - Dean
"You done?" - Sam

"When you've done this job as long as I have, a giant from the future with a magic brick doesn't exactly give you the vapors." - Samuel Colt

"Well we can't just strand those idjits in Deadwood, can we?" - Bobby (doubly funny because Jim Beaver was on Deadwood)

"Yippee ki yay mother--" - Dean

Previous Episode -- Next Episode

Supernatural 6x17 "My Heart Will Go On"

Okay. First of all, the reason this recap is so late is for two reasons. One: my power went out last night. For the second night in a row. Which means my DVR did not record the show. Two: I had to take my car in this morning, and it took literally six hours, even though they told me two. SIX. And my phone died. And I finished my book. I was really on the verge of losing it.

But now that I've got all of that crappiness off my chest, let's get back to Supernatural.

This week saw the boys facing off against none other than Fate itself. Or rather, one of the fates. You know, the sisters who weave destiny and decide when you're going to die? Yep. Those fates. But how is fate mucking with the boys? Well. It's actually not her fault! Who do we get to blame? That old angel Balthasar. Or so we think.

When the boys find out that a bunch of relatives have all been killed in mysterious ways (like being beheaded by their own garage door - which, by the way, I was surprised we got to actually see that happen and not have a cutaway!), we as an audience start to notice some subtle changes. First of all, the boys aren't driving their classic Impala - they're driving a Mustang with their original Kansas license plate! But the biggest change by far is the fact that Ellen and Jo are alive, and Ellen just so happens to be married to one Mr. Bobby Singer.

Of course, nobody in this world actually notices any of these changes, because to them it's normal. Not until they figure out what the connection is between a bunch of people dying (Jo is investigating her own set of deaths on the west coast) that they start to figure out what's going on. It turns out that Balthasar went back in time and stopped the Titanic from sinking, thereby creating an entirely new timeline, with 50,000 extra people in it. And Fate? She is not so happy with these changes, and has been killing all of those who were never supposed to have been born. Apparently she does not have time travel capabilities.

Though the easiest solution would be to have the Titanic sink, when the boys find out that that would mean Ellen and Jo would both be dead, they decide they should figure out something else instead. They try to go and talk to Fate, but she tries to kill them. Luckily, Castiel angelically teleports them out of an explosion just in time. He tells them that the only way to stop her is to kill her. She has a sort of vendetta against them because of how they stopped the apocalypse, changing what was supposed to happen.

So, the boys decide to tempt fate, as it were, until she tries to kill them again. When she does, Castiel stops time to talk with her. And here we find out the truth behind the Titanic's save. Cas was the one who ordered Balthazar to do it, so he would have 50,000 extra souls on the planet. Because the souls somehow tip things more in his favor in his war or something. I'm not exactly sure what the souls do to be honest. But in any event, she basically told him that if he killed her (which was the plan, Balthazar was sneaking up behind her the whole time), then her sisters would go after Sam and Dean out of vengeance. Cas decides to put things back the way they were.

Though no one else will remember how different the world was, Sam and Dean both do, because Castiel wanted them to. Because they represent the choice for free will or something, which he still believes is something worth fighting for. He doesn't tell them the truth about him being the one to order the Titanic's saving, though, rather pinning it on Balthazar's whims instead. It seems as though this is just one small taste of what Castiel has been dealing with in the Heavenly war.

Random Thoughts:

- I really loved Sam/Jared's reaction when the annoying lawyer dude got hit by the bus. His face was priceless.

- Speaking of, Dean's smirk when he saw the sign on the back of the bus was pretty hilarious too.

- Poor Bobby. At least he won't remember. I assume. It was nice to see Ellen again, albeit briefly. I do like that she was sort of okay with the idea that they would be dead, rather than fighting against it.

- Would it really only be 50,000 new people? I guess that's a lot, but it seems like it could be even more.

- Next week! Looks to be epic, I think we can all agree.

Quotes:

"Now you wanna stand there and therapize, or you wanna get me some coffee? Make it Irish." - Bobby

"I mean accidents don't just happen accidentally. ... You know what I mean." - Dean

"You totally butterfly effected history!" - Sam
"Dude, dude. Rule one: no Kutcher references." - Dean

"Sorry, you have me confused with the other angel. You know, the one in the dirty trench coat who's in love with you?" - Balthasar

"Too soon?" - Dean
"Yeah, Dean, I'm pretty sure six seconds is too soon." - Sam

"What did she look like?" - Dean
"Kind of like... a librarian." - Sam
"Your kind of librarian, or my kind of librarian?" - Dean
"Well she was wearing clothes, if that's what you mean." - Sam

"Who you gotta kill to get killed around here?" - Dean

"Why are you having my dreams, dude?" - Dean

Previous Episode -- Next Episode

Supernatural 6x16 "And Then There Were None"

Wow. What an appropriate episode title for this one, right? I'm still a little in shock at how many people they just killed off. I had a feeling that Rufus was going to bite the big one after reading a couple of hints about upcoming episodes, but I didn't know they were also going to kill off ole Grandpa Campbell too! Spoiler alert, obviously, but if you're reading this, I assume you've already watched the episode. If not, um. Whoops?

The episode started off with a random trucker dude meeting our newest big bad - the Mother of All (Evil Creatures). She puts something in his ear that makes him go berserk and kill everyone in his path, including his family, though he has no recollection of doing any such thing. When Sam, Dean and Bobby come to investigate, they get their first look at big mama Eve, as she likes to call herself, and have no idea how they are supposed to battle her. No time to figure that out quite yet, though, because someone else has gone crazy.
Bobby heads off to investigate while the boys apparently watch some more videos instead of going with him, even though they've seen nearly everything they need to see on the video, so it makes little sense. But, in any event, when Bobby arrives at the place, he encounters Rufus, who has also arrived in town to investigate. They join forces and figure out that both the people who went crazy had some sort of goo coming out of their ears, and were both connected to the cannery. Off to the cannery!

They meet up with Dean and Sam and head inside, only to find that someone else is in town too! This is becoming a hunter party! Except that these other people in question happen to be Samuel and Gwen Campbell. And last Dean saw his Grandaddy, he told him he'd kill him. He wants to make good on his promise, but the others stall him and tell him to go cool off. Gwen gets up in Samuel's face, because she didn't know that he had tried to sell Sam and Dean down the river, and goes to ask Dean about it. And what does Dean do? He SHOOTS her! What! That was unexpected.

But not entirely, because he was infected with some kind of parasite thingy that goes in through the ears. Once they find him, he doesn't have it in him any more, but now everyone else is a suspect. It could be in anyone. Bobby suggests they all forfeit their weapons so they can't kill each other as easily, which they do for a time, until Samuel reveals himself to be the newest infected member. They re-acquire their weapons to hunt him down, only Sam gets trapped alone with him. Though Samuel tries to convince him that the parasite is no longer inside of him, guess what? Sam SHOOTS him! OMG!

Bobby, having "of course" brought his cranium drill thing along, gets to work with Rufus on sawing open Samuel's brain while Sam and Dean wait outside. He was their grandpa, after all. Bobby tries to apologize to Rufus for something bad that went down in Omaha years ago, but Rufus is not having it. And it doesn't much matter anyway, because just as the drill/saw thing hits Samuel's head, he goes nuts, because he's not entirely dead! There's some scuffling between the three while Sam and Dean struggle to get inside. Luckily, though, Samuel ends up getting electrocuted, which causes the parasite thing to vacate his body.  Only they didn't see where it went.

How do they figure out that none of them have it in them? By electrocuting each other in turn, of course. That's healthy. Dean, Sam and Rufus all pass the test, but when it's Bobby's turn, he balks. Rufus advances on him, but it turns out he shouldn't have gotten too close, because Bobby whips out a machete and STABS him! Hunter number three down. And too bad, too. Rufus was funny. Sigh.

The boys manage to subdue not-Bobby and duct tape him to a chair to interrogate the creature inside. And the creature inside is more than willing to have a chat. It tells them that the Mother is back, and she's pissed, and she's going to be creating all kinds of new creatures to take over the Earth and outnumber humans. You know, just your typical evil villain plan, really.

But now the boys are faced with a quandary. How do they kill the thing inside Bobby without killing him too? They decide they've got to electrocute him long enough to kill it, and hope that Bobby survives. We're left to wonder through a commercial break, but they tried to fake us out by having the boys standing over a fresh grave once it came back from commercial, but I knew it was just going to be Rufus' grave and that Bobby would be okay. He confesses that Rufus was the one who helped him get started in the hunting life after his wife was possessed, and that they used to be sort of like Sam and Dean until whatever he did in Omaha.

Aaaand that's it for over a month! The preview for the upcoming episodes was so all over the place, too. Oh well.

Random thoughts:

- Dean had one of the biggest smiles we've seen on him in ages when he saw Rufus. Seriously, when was the last time he had a genuine smile like that?

- Every time Dean shouted "It's not in me!" I was reminded of the season two episode Croatoan where that dude was yelling that at Dean. Anyone else?

- I for some reason really loved it when Samuel brought up the fact that Sam was named after him.

- Whoa, Jim Beaver! Super creepy as the parasite worm dude. Did they ADR his voice, or did he just make it sound weird like that?

- I knew they weren't going to actually kill Bobby, because there'd be fan mutiny, but can you imagine if they actually had? I would've been totally flabbergasted, completely taken by surprise. As it is, I'm still surprised at how many people were killed. Though it does seem to be a trend that they kill people in bunches. Ellen and Jo, anyone?

- Was it just me or was Dean a little bit preachy in this episode about family? More than once he was going on and on. Particularly at the end. It just felt a little bit overkill.

Quotes:

"He's our grandfather." - Dean
"Oh, somebody needs a hug." - Rufus

"Why don't you buy me a drink first..." - Dean
"Second date." - Rufus

"Oh yeah, we're goo positive." - Rufus

"Well, I got a dump truck full of bupkis." - Bobby

"Just 'cause you're blood, doesn't make you family." - Dean

"Why do you keep talking about Herpes?" - Sam
"What? I don't. Shut up. Shut up!" - Dean

Previous Episode -- Next Episode

Supernatural 6x15 "The French Mistake"

Um. Can I just say? This episode is probably going in my top 10 ever. Yeah, I went there. I was cracking up for pretty much the entirety of the episode. This was perhaps the episode most like a love letter to everyone involved, from those who work on the show, to all of us fans out here in the world. So many little in jokes, I'm sure I didn't even catch them all on this first viewing. In short: awesome. Awesomesauce.

What happened to make it so great? You see, Balthazar, in attempt to hide the key to the storage locker of all the Heavenly weapons, decides to zap Dean and Sam off to an alternate reality with the key. The alternate reality just so happens to be one in which they are actually Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki, actors on the show Supernatural.

Let's face it, most of the episode was spent with Sam and Dean trying to navigate this new world and figure out a way to get home, so there wasn't a ton going on with the plot. And that was perfectly fine. After heading home for the night, they realize that Jared is married to Ruby - aka Genevieve Cortese, along for the ride - and that in this world, they have loads of money and apparently don't talk unless they're filming.

They decide the best way to try to get back to their own world is to recreate the spell that Balthazar did to send them there in the first place, which requires them to buy a lot of stuff rather shadily. But in this non-supernaturalified world, the spell doesn't work. Because there was no apocalypse, there are no hunters, and heaven and hell don't exist. Are they going to be stuck in Oz forever?

If so, they won't be alone, because the angel hit man Raphael sent after Balthazar, Virgil, has followed the Winchesters into this alterna-world. But guess what! He doesn't have his special angel powers here either! Though he does still manage to steal the key Balthazar put in Sam's pocket. But hey, how ever will they get home? Virgil has a plan. He follows Misha to his car and - gasp! Kills the poor dear, in order to use his blood to make a super special phone call to Raphael across the void. Somehow, this call works, and Raphael sends a message that he'll open up the portal in the same place and at the same time that Virgil originally went through. Luckily, a nearby homeless man saw and overheard all of this, so he was able to inform the boys of the plan.

They manage to intercept Virgil before he goes through the void, and grab the key from him just in time to jump back through themselves. Raphael, in a shiny new female meat suit, is there waiting for them, demanding the key. Balthazar shows up before he can do any real damage and informs Raph that the boys never had the real key, they were just a diversion. He already gave the key to someone else - Castiel! Cas pops in and warns Raph to get out of there pronto, before he gets all medieval on him/her. Raph and Balthazar both take off, leaving Cas to come clean that he sort of knew about Balthazar's diversion plan, and that he would've done the same thing. And even though the boys ask Cas to please explain just what is going on in heaven to make things so bad, Cas just says he'll tell them later and leaves.


Random thoughts and highlights:

- The "acting" montage. Dean doing an extra gruff voice - "that's how he does it" ..shrug. Sam not knowing what to do with his hands, so he waves them all over the place. Misha getting increasingly frustrated, and his tweet after that they must've been on a bender.

- The Days of Our Lives clip! OMG. AMAZING. Especially since I may or may not have watched Days back in those days.

- The pictures in Jared's house - especially the cowboy one on the horse! As Misha would tweet - ROFLMAO!

- 'Eric Kripke' coming on set to fix things after everyone thinks the boys are having a psychotic break. He's more excited about a Variety cover and his upcoming Octocobra than he is upset about Misha's untimely demise. Plus, that death scene. Ha. Great.

- An alpaca? Ha, ok. Apparently alpacas and otters are Jared's dogs in this Supernatural reality.

- Dean considers that it might not be so bad to just stay in this world and live these lives, but Sam points out that they're not even brothers here. Aww.

- The mention of the impala brotherly bonding scenes! HA!

- Also the mention of "not many people do" watch the show. Sad but true facts.

- So much more. What are your favorite moments?

Quotes... I really could've just put the entirety of the dialogue here, but here are some of my favorites:

"Aw crap, I'm a painted whore." - Dean

"Dude, they put freakin' makeup on us. Bastards." - Dean

"We landed in some dimension where you're Jensen Ackles and I'm something called a Jared Padalecki." - Sam
"So, what, now you're Polish?" - Dean

"I wanna go home. I feel like this whole place is bad touching me." - Dean

"Misha. Jensen. What's up with the names around here?" - Dean

"Dude, we're not even in America." - Dean

"What am I, Dracula?" - Sam
"George Hamilton Dracula." - Dean

"Well, looks like you did all right." - Dean
"Yeah. Yeah. I should figure out her name." - Sam

"What's happening?" - 'Bob Singer'
"An atrocity is happening." - ? Didn't catch his name

"Yeah that's right, the scary man killed the attractive crying man, and then he started to pray." - Homeless guy

Previous Episode -- Next Episode

Supernatural 6x14 "Mannequin 3: The Reckoning"

Um, I really don't remember the last time I have been so creeped out during a Supernatural episode. Seriously, what is it about dolls come to life that is so terrifying? Just that little eyeball moving of its own accord in the opening scene! Agh. AGH! Agh agh agh! I full on started whimpering, knowing it was coming. "Oh no, this is going to be creepy. aaahhhh... creepy!" may have left my mouth. Maybe.

Let's see how many times I can use the word creepy, shall we? Maybe I'll mix it up and use disturbing, freaky, eerie weirdness factor. Creepstermaximus. Okay. Sorry. But also? This episode had totally weird pacing/structure. I'm not saying it was necessarily bad, but it felt funky to me.  I suppose I have gotten used to things going a certain way. Mixin' it up, peeps.

The episode started right where the last one left off - with Sam down for the count on the floor. He seemed to be completely unresponsive, setting Dean's worst nightmares in motion. Luckily, he was only out for a couple of minutes, though to him it felt more like a week. But Sam appears to still be intact. At least for now, anyway. Dean encourages him to let the past stay in the past, so of course what happens? His past comes back to bite him too! How apropos. But that's getting a little bit ahead.

Because, see, their case this week? Super, wait for it, creepy. A janitor was killed in a science lab, and then a dude at a doll factory or some sort of factory also gets killed in the same way. That is, they get this mystery gash appearing on their foreheads, and some mannequins start following them around until boom - death. At first they don't see the connection between the two, especially since they happened in two different counties, but then they discover that they had actually all worked at the factory together, and during that time, a nice woman named Rose went missing.

Okay well technically, Sam found out most of this all on his lonesome, because Dean has been getting numerous calls from Lisa this whole time. He finally picks it up and lo, it's Ben, telling Dean that there's something wrong with Lisa and he's got to come lickety split. Of course, Ben is actually lying, which I think we all already knew, except for Dean, because when Dean shows up at their house, it turns out that Lisa's just about ready to go on a third date with someone, so Ben was just trying to get Dean back in their lives. Aww. I mean, it was obvious, but also obviously what a kid in his position would do. This forces Dean to confront the issue, and be reminded courtesy of Ben that he's being kind of a hypocrite. Because, you see, Dean is always spouting the importance of family, but fails to see that he had one with them. Dean being Dean, though, can't stay.

Meanwhile, Sam has been figuring out the case on his own. He starts interviewing people at the factory where Rose and the other dudes worked, and comes upon a very suspicious one, and might I add, also creepy-looking, named Johnny. I mean, seriously. That facial hair. That stringy long hair and trucker cap. Who was he kidding? Sam, however, cottons on to it right quick, and just when it looks like poor/terrible Johnny is going to get it, Sam saves him. And then makes him confess what actually happened. See, he and his buddies decided to play a joke on Rose. The joke being that she had a secret admirer. They revealed themselves as such truly awful pranksters one night, and Rose accidentally got her head smashed. Dead. Rather than call the police, they buried her body in some random forest. Gah-ross. Clearly these were not the really great guys the various people claimed them to be after their deaths!

Sam goes off to torch the bones, and tells Johnny he's free to go. Johnny heads back home to his triple disgusting real doll girlfriend, only she turns out to still be possessed by Rose, and Johnny gets his comeuppance after all. Ugh, that Johnny. One serious creepster.

Knowing something is not quite finished with the case, Sam goes back to talk to Rose's sister Isabelle, to see if anything else of Rose's is still around that is tying her to her mortal coil. It turns out to be rather a surprise - Isabelle has one of Rose's kidneys inside her. Now that is an interesting predicament they haven't ever really discussed the possibility of before on this show. By this time, Dean has made it back to town, and they are trying to figure out just what to do.

Before they can do that, though, pissed off vengeful spirit Rose possesses Dean's baby, the metallicar, and starts chasing him around the place. Dean is forced to make the Impala crash into a building, but a piece of the broken glass manages to fly into Isabelle's gut, killing her, and thereby Rose's spirit. Poor Isabelle. The boys have really had trouble saving people lately, haven't they?

At the end of the episode, we have the return of the patented round-the-Impala brotherly chat! What! I feel like we haven't had one of those in a while, but I could be extremely wrong. Dean is feeling morose about everything that's gone on, and how they seem to have more bad luck than good and you know, the general emo crap he usually likes to hate on. Sam tries to bolster him up by thanking him for giving him back his soul, and saying he'll always have his back. But you know what Dean's thinking? Sometimes, it's not enough.

Random thoughts:

- When Sam was getting ready to torch the body, I was thinking to myself - uh oh, that's a burning body in a hole. Remind us of something?? Apparently it was fine for him, since he's done it enough times.

- The montage of Dean, Lisa and Ben was so sad. Now it really feels like it's the end of them. Sniff.

- I'm not sure Ben won't eventually decide to follow in your footsteps anyway, Dean, no matter how much you tell him he shouldn't.

- I sincerely hope I do not have dreams about dolls coming to life. Ick. Way to ruin one of my favorite childhood movies. Seriously, other Mannequin fans out there?

- Oh. Man. Next week's episode! I hope it is as hilarious as it looks to be.


Quotes:

"Maybe we'll have a Snooki sighting." - Dean
"What's a Snooki?" - Sam
"That's a good question." - Dean

"So what, we've got a bunch of killer dolls, like Chuckie? I mean, come on. That's just... freakin' creepy." - Dean

"I don't like the way Kim Cattrall's looking at me." - Dean

Previous Episode -- Next Episode

Supernatural 6x13 "Unforgiven"

In case anyone was wondering just what RoboSam got up to with Grandpa Campbell before he tracked down Dean, wonder no longer. He was an overly logical badass who liked to have some sex with the ladies. Even Dean was impressed with how many girls he managed to shack up with in this particular town alone. Imagine how many he got with in a year! Whoa. Better get checked out for STDs there, buddy. Maybe your Herpexia ad will actually be true!

Yes, this episode took Sam back to his RoboSam days via flashbacks. You see, he and Samuel had previously been to this town in Rhode Island, pardon me for not remembering the name. I do remember the slogan had something to do with "memories," which is, of course, a hyuck hyuck nod to the general theme of the episode. In any event, Sam gets a mysterious text with the coordinates to said town, and he and Dean figure out that a bunch of women have gone missing there recently. Dean doesn't want to check it out, as it's definitely weird to get a mystery text, but Sam insists they must. Alas, he eventually will come to rue that decision.

Because, when they get to town, he slowly starts to realize that he had in fact been in that very town one year ago, hunting something that was also making people disappear. Only that time, it was men in their thirties. Suspicious! Why has it suddenly changed who it's targeting?! Did they not actually kill it the previous time? Full disclosure: I figured out the mystery pretty early on this episode. I said to myself: "it's targeting the ladies he slept with, duh." and then also thought to myself, "They aren't dead, she's turning them." Ring a ding ding, points for me! But I'm getting ahead of myself. It is my wont, I'm afraid.

Sam, after having gotten arrested for his past misdeeds, re-meets Brenna, the wife of the former sheriff, who went missing right before the Sams left town before. Sam has to convince her that he really doesn't remember what happened before, which he is eventually able to accomplish. By this time, Dean has figured out that all of the women who have now gone missing have a certain link to Sam - as in, they were linked. Physically. Being "loud" and "athletic" per one girl's former roommate.

Dean takes this as their cue to get out of town, since clearly the thing has lured Sam back there on purpose, but Sam, having his soul back and all, would not feel right doing that, so gets Dean to agree to stay and figure out what's going on. Yada yada, Sam remembers what went down. They had used the sheriff to lure out the monster - an arachne - only the sheriff got taken. They found the nest and killed the arachne, but all of the other men were already infected with her poison, so Sam shot all of them, and they burned the place down, thinking they were all done and dusted.

Of course, that's not the case, as the sheriff turns back up, having now been turned into an arachne-thing, set on revenge against Sam. He traps Sam and Dean, has a bout of monologueing detailing how the original arachne was breeding, and all those other dudes are out there somewhere doing the same, so Sam really only made things worse before. Dean manages to break free, Brenna frees Sam, and he kills the poor spidersheriff dead. By beheading, you know. Beheading usually works.

For their end of episode chat, Sam tells Dean that he was right - the second time in the episode too - that they never should have come there. He laments some more about the whole soulless RoboSam still being him and whatnot, Dean tries to cheer him up - and then! Then! I did not expect this to be happening so soon! Sam collapses to the floor with a memory of Hell seeping through - one of being burned alive. And... BLACK! Dang! I was actually surprised they already have the wall cracking. So quick! What's gonna happen!

Random thoughts:

- Spiders. Can I get a yuck? Yuck yuck yuck. Though, as with all Supernatural beasties, they basically looked like people. Gotta wonder what sort of monsters they'd envision with the right budget.

- RoboSam? Still scary, even in flashbacks. Perhaps more so, because he was acting more emotionless than we saw much of earlier this season when he was trying to hide his emotionless-ness.

- How far will the wall come down? Will Sam be able to handle it when it does, or will he really turn into a drooling mess, as everyone fears?

- I am jealous of any of you who may be at the LA Con this weekend! Sure, I live in LA, but that thing is dang expensive.

Quotes:

"So, Mel Gibson really took a turn this past year, huh?" - Sam
"Or he's possessed. Seriously, think about it." - Dean

"What was that? She just cougar-eyed you." - Dean

"One of dad's rules - you never use the same crapper twice." - Dean
"Everyone uses the same crapper twice." - Sam
"Not us." - Dean

Previous Episode -- Next Episode

Supernatural 6x12 "Like a Virgin"

After having to wait an extra week for the return of our dear Winchesters, I can safely say that I think the direction of the second half of this season looks to be picking up quite nicely. We got a cool "road so far" recap set to Back in the Saddle (how appropriate) and this week's case took the boys to somewhere near Portland, Oregon! Hometown shout out! And! I have to admit, I was more than happy to have the old Sam back. Robo-Sam was downright scary, even more so now that we have regular Sam back and can see the difference so easily.

So what does it mean to have Sam re-souled? Apparently when Death put up that wall in Sam's mind to block out Hell, he also blocked out the memories of what Sam did while he was without his soul. The last thing he remembers was taking the big leap down below. Dean thinks it's pretty much a blessing, and doesn't want to look a gift horse in the mouth, while Bobby is less than enthusiastic about that plan, especially considering Robo-Sam tried to kill him not so long ago. Bobby also has the fortitude to tell Dean that Sam's going to find out eventually, and it should come from them. Voice of reason! Of course, Dean is like psha, I'll keep up the charade as long as possible! It's what I do! He may have said it more growly, I admit.
And without missing nary a beat, the boys are already back on a new case. What's happening this time around? Virgins are going missing, and all signs are pointing to a rather unlikely source... dragons. Indeed, dragons. After Community had an episode about Dungeons and Dragons last night, it's just a regular dragonfest on TV lately! These Supernatural-fied dragons, however, aren't quite like the ones in the storybooks. They can look like people, but sort of morph into bat-like thing with wings and hands that can heat up. And they still like to hoard gold. Typical.

While Dean tasks Sam with figuring out where the dragon in town is hiding, Dean goes off to talk to a Ms. Visiak. I'm not sure of the spelling, but oh well. She's a professor type friend of Bobby's who knows a lot about dragons, and apparently a lot about Bobby as well. Ooh la la! She gives Dean the lowdown on how to kill a dragon. In short, you need a sword forged from dragon's blood. There were only six ever made, and she just so happens to have one in her basement. It's not Excalibur, but it's just as stuck in a ton of rock as the stories of old, requiring a noble knight ready to slay the dragon to pull it free. Who's up to the task? Dean thinks he is, but finds he doesn't quite have what it takes to pull it out. Instead, he blows up the rock! Innovation! Only, he blows off half the sword too. Oops.

Meanwhile, Sam has cottoned on to the fact that Dean hasn't been entirely truthful about what happened in the last year or so. He tries to get some information out of Bobby, but when Bobby isn't that helpful, he turns to Castiel, who Dean was not smart enough to tell the plan to, apparently. Because Sam barely has to bait the hook for Cas to completely spill all the beans. And ah man, the look on Sam's face when he heard he was walking around without a soul? So sad.

But, he is able to table that particular discussion for the time being, because he and Dean have a dragon to kill! In the lovely and also really huge and spacious sewers. Seriously, are sewers really like that? I mean, I've never been in one, but it seems weird they'd be that big with, like, separate rooms and stuff. In any event, the boys venture down into the depths and find a whole mess of girls locked up, and not just one, but two dragons there waiting to try to kill them. They scrabble a bit, and Sam manages to kill one of them with the half-broken sword of Brunswick (I think that's what she called it, anyway). The other gets away.

After the dust has settled, Sam confronts Dean about the soulless thing. Only he's not angry, which was refreshing. Instead, he was apologetic, and vowed to right any wrongs he did when he didn't have his soul. Dean stressed to him that he shouldn't go digging up all of those memories because of what else might come with them, but you know what? I'm just glad they didn't fight at all in this episode. It was so nice to just have them be nice to each other, you know? A relief, really.

Instead of ending on the meaningful chat, though, the episode refocused on something else the boys found down in the sewers - a manuscript of some kind, fashioned from human skin, with instructions on how to open a door into Purgatory. But not for going in, for letting something out. What something? Mother. Mother of what, you ask? The Mother of all Evil, it appears. And that's what the virgins were for, though if they just needed to throw one off the cliff into the pit thingy to raise Mother, I'm not sure why they needed the rest. Perhaps she eats them? Or maybe she burns through them really quickly? Will this be touched on or simply waved away because I clearly was thinking too much into it?

All I know is, I'm happy to have the show back! 


Random Thoughts:

- The opening plane crash straight into the title card was pretty cool. Breaking glass and all.

- Everyone was wondering whether there would be a fabled Winchester hug in this episode - and there was! Did it fulfill all your hopes and dreams?

- Of course Dean likes a woman "with experience." Oh Dean.

- Loved Misha's "awkward" reaction with the non-hug with Sam. Ahahaha, too funny.

- When Dean was stretching to reach the sword through that grate, all I could think to myself was - go get Sam! He can grab it quick, he's got longer arms! Sure enough, when he went to get it, it was super easy for him!

- Jared could use a haircut, that's all I'm saying.

Quotes:

"What was that?" - Sam
"One part age, three parts liquor?" - Dean

"Looks like those other two missing girls both baked cookies for the Lord." - Sam
"What is that, code?" - Dean

"'I've decided, I'm going to give Stan my most precious gift.'" - Dean, quoting a diary
"Wow, that sounded really creepy coming out of your mouth." - Sam
"I think I delivered it." - Dean

"Shut up, I'm hilarious." - Dean

"Look, I would hug you, but..." - Sam
"That would be awkward." - Castiel

"You rocks think you're so smart..." - Dean

Previous Episode -- Next Episode

...Set: Supernaturally Six-y

Chirp, chirp.

Crickets?! There are crickets in here right now? Oh wait, yes. That's because I've been rather absent. Apologies, dear internet friends. I was back up in the great NW, freezing my tuckus off for a little over a week during the holidays, only to come back and have my apartment be just as freezing cold. The perils of being afraid of the scary gas wall heater and only using a small space heater.

But enough of that! I've come here today to discuss a very important topic. So important that you just better sit down and get ready. What is so important that I'm asking you to sit down, when in fact you are likely already sitting down?

Supernatural season six.

HA! Gotcha! So it's not that important, per se. But we are in the midst of what many fans call the winter Hellatus, and bam in the middle of season six, so I figure, it's time to get to brass tacks and discuss just how we're feeling about this somewhat divisive season. Divisive in that there seems to be a dividing party line - hate/love. I confess I am somewhere in the middle. I live in the grey area. The gray area. The greeaaay area.

Season five, in many respects, was a capper to the show. Where do you go after the apocalypse? How can you possibly top it? The entire show had been ramping up and up and up to that point, and then here it was. Bing bang boom. Season six has been striving to answer the follow-up question: how do you live after you've survived the apocalypse?

 We may be post-apocalypse, but our blatant promo imagery would 

have you believe that we're still in season five.

Being that this show is about saving people and hunting things, though (and since Jared Padalecki/Sam is the other half of this dynamic duo), obviously we can't just sit back and watch Dean try to deal with living in suburbia without his little brother. And thus, I'm sure, began the quandary of season six in the writers room. Dean can't just stay with Lisa and Ben, but how do you get him back on the road? How is Sam back from Hell, and what has it done to him? And what is going to be the overall story now that we're done with Lucifer and the apocalypse? Lots of tough questions.

I'm not going to just regurgitate everything that's happened so far, if you're behind, just go and read my recaps. My question is: are you satisfied with the direction the show has been taking? On the positive side, I thought it was very interesting that they completely changed Sam. He came back without a soul, and was not the same person in pretty much any way. Now that he has been re-souled, the question is: what will he remember, and how long can the wall that Death put in his mind keep the Hellish memories at bay?

Of course, with Sam being all robo-y, Dean got to be all emo and argumentative with him. While we certainly got some rather humorous moments thanks to Sam developing a demented sense of humor without his soul, he was also without moral compass, something that Dean, of course, could not handle. Which led to more brother fighting, the likes of which has become so common place that I'm glad we did not have to endure a whole season of robo-Sam.

 Sam: Why are you pulling a knife on me? Haven't we done this at least 100 times?

In terms of overall arc, we've got these lingering questions: what is with the hunt for the alphas of each monster species? What is with the search for purgatory, and why is it suddenly so important when it was heretofore never mentioned? Now that Crowley has bitten the big one, who will take over to run Hell? Castiel has been having his own problems up in Heaven - a civil war abrewin' - how much of that will we see, or will we continue to not see it?

Overall, while I have found this season satisfying and have enjoyed it for the most part, I will say that I've felt something a little lacking. Maybe it's the lack of brotherly love and all will be resolved now that Sam has his soul back, but I don't know. I have felt little urge to re-watch any of the episodes, which is usually a good indicator of how much I am liking something. Or not liking, as the case may be.

But now, for the peanut gallery - what are your thoughts on this season? 

How do you like season six so far?

• Looooove it!
• Like it okay.
• Ummmm....? Meh.
• Hate it. Hate!

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