Supernatural: Top 5 Season Seven Episodes

Looking at the list of previous rankings I've done, I've kind of run the gamut. But hey, if you have any ideas for new lists, please let me know!

Here we are at another summer hiatus season. Normally that means I do bunch of these ranking lists for Supernatural, but I must admit, I am running low on inspiration for new ones. As you can see in the

Anyhow, below I have my favorite episodes from this past season. You may possibly disagree with these choices (perhaps you were a fan of the time travel episode, but I thought it was more half-baked than badass), so feel free to let me know which were your favorites in the comments, and be sure to vote in the poll!

Per usual, the title before each picture montage is a link to a favorite clip from the episode in question.

5. Plucky Pennywhistle's Magical Menagerie (7x14)

Sam fights clowns. There's a unicorn with a rainbow shooting out of its butt, and we see Dean truly laugh for the first time in a while. Also? Ball washer.

4. The Girl with the Dungeons and Dragons Tattoo (7x20)

Um, no, no that's not an afterthought "s" added in there at all. Whoops! Anyway, this episode featured the wonderful Felicia Day and an overall fun plot. Bonus points if you get all of the nerd references.

3. Death's Door (7x10)

This episode probably would have ranked higher had it actually had as much meaning as it was supposed to have had. Since Bobby came back as a ghost later on in the season, it kind of ruined the episode posthumously for me. Nonetheless, it's a poignant episode anyway.

2. Repo Man (7x15)

When first picking out my top episodes, I have to admit, this one did not rank as high. But then I was reminded of it, and slowly I recalled how actually really good it was. Hallucifer always makes an episode more fun, but it was also the other previously possessed dude who wanted to be possessed again that really made the episode.

1. Hello Cruel World (7x02)

I have to say, when this episode first aired, it made me super excited for season seven. It was all so very promising. Not that I didn't enjoy season seven, but honestly the show has lost some of its magic for me. Interesting that I have two Hallucifer-centric episodes as my top two. Or perhaps not, because he really does elevate the show anytime he's on. This was also the episode we were first really introduced to the Leviathan and how awful they were.


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Supernatural 7x23 "Survival of the Fittest"

Finale time! And my, what a finale. Can you imagine the rage there would've been if they had, for some reason, not been picked up? It would've been epic, so very epic. But we all know that the show is coming back for season eight, and possibly more, and also moving to Wednesday nights. Tonight's episode was the last one written by Sera Gamble, who has been with the show from season one, and running it these past two.

Sam, you know you want a sandwich.

But let's get to the business of the finale itself. In the last episode, Crowley found himself devil's trapped by Dick Roman. We pick up there, with Dick working a deal with Crowley in order to screw over the Winchesters by giving them another demon's blood instead of his own. So, you know, their blood/bone concoction wouldn't work to actually kill Dick after all. He offered the entirety of Canada for the demon's taking, and for now it appeared that Crowley had agreed to the terms, even bringing out an eight foot long written contract to seal the deal. Of course, Crowley always has something up his sleeve, so we know this can't be all there is to it.

Meanwhile, Sam and Dean are on the search for the bone of a righteous person. Dean apparently had the idea to go looking for a dead nun's bone, and you must admit, that's a pretty good idea. So they get the bone of one Sister Mary Constant. Now it's just time for the blood of the demon king. They summon Crowley... only he doesn't show up, still being lassoed by Dick and all. But who does show up? Meg, followed shortly by Cas. Now, color me a little bit confused about why Cas decided to show up at this point. Just for funsies? I guess we're supposed to believe that he's just sort of been doing that randomly of late, but if he really did not want to be involved in any of this stuff like he said, then he could've just stayed away. Subconsciously he wanted to help? Maybe.

You know, just mixing blood, like one does.

In any event, while Meg and Cas are still both around, Crowley pops in. He'd like nothing more than to go medieval on Cas, but once he realizes that Cas is a bit loony tunes, decides it wouldn't be any fun. Instead, he hands over his blood to the boys, after telling them that the reason he was late in the first place was thanks to their friend Dick. They're less inclined to believe him when he says that this is his actual blood and not the fake stuff Dick wanted to give him, but are there many other options at the moment? Not really. He promises to catch up with both Cas and Meg later, because he's still got that grudge with Meg and all.

So the brothers prepare the bone and blood with the final ingredient, and it's not doing any sort of lightning magic to indicate it's for real, but what other choice do they have? Dean tries to get Cas to agree to help them out, since Crowley basically insinuated they'd need his help to take on Dick, but Cas would rather play board games. Meg points out that, duh, he can help because he once had all of the Leviathan inside him. Which means he can tell who is who. Because, oh yeah, it turns out that Dick? Has made a bunch of copies of himself, thanks to a bit of the real Dick's arm he kept. So, on their own, they can't tell which Dick is which. But can they convince Cas to help them? Or should I say, can Dean convince Cas to help them? Because obviously it would have to be Dean.

I'm in love with this leather jacket.

Anyway, while all of that was going on, Ghost Bobby was off possessing a poor woman's body to try to take down Dick on his own. I'm not sure what he thought his plan was, but when you're going full on vengeful spirit, I suppose you don't have one. The boys spot him inside the woman and Sam confronts him. He goes so far as to start choking out Sam, then comes to his senses and asks the boys to finally burn the damn flask, admitting he should never have stayed behind in the first place.

Now that that point is settled, back to the task at hand. Dean manages to convince Cas to help them, since he was sort of the one who started the whole mess to begin with and all. Meg comes along for the ride, but ends up getting yanked by a couple of demons, who are planning to take her to Crowley. Inside, Sam tracks down Kevin, who has still been trapped inside this whole time, and has been privy to some disturbing information. Namely, the Leviathan are creating a creamer that will basically kill off anyone thin, short, hemophiliac, and/or smart. They've got to blow up the labs!

It doesn't really matter, though, because Cas and Dean have tracked down the real Dick. They do a little fake out stabbing before doing a real stabbing with the blood bone straight through ole Dick's neck. And it's working! He starts kind of pulsating this translucent aura until SPLOOSH. Gone. But... but wait. He's not the only one gone! Dean and Cas are both gone too!

And that's when Crowley shows up, to basically gloat to Sam about how that was his plan all along, to get Dick out of the way and take control and such. Because that's just what Crowley does. He snatches up Kevin, which leaves Sam well and truly alone, with no idea where his brother's gone or what to do about it. Gulp.

Just where have Dean and Cas gone? It turns out - to purgatory. Because that's where Dick would go when he was killed, where all of the monsters go when they're killed. Cas states the obvious in that they need to get out of there quick, but doesn't offer any ideas in how to do so, instead leaving Dean alone standing in the middle of a forest with some red-eyed monsters surrounding him. Um, Cas? What!

Cliffhanged!

Random Thoughts:

- Bobby's second death was kind of anti-climactic. What was the point of bringing him back in the first place to just end it like that? I actually saw an interview with Jared where he said something about not wanting to annoy the audiences by making death trivial, which is something I believe I complained about not so long ago! It was also an interesting choice to not show him burn up at all, to just focus on the flask. Was that a creative decision, a monetary one? To make us wonder if he's really actually for realsies gone gone gone?

- Is one actually still alive when in Purgatory? Does Dean have a limited amount of time to get out, or...? I guess I'm not clear on the rules of Purgatory, which is obviously the point. I actually think this is kind of a cool development, though I suspect it will be solved too easily come next season, 'cause that's kinda how they do things sometimes.

- Do dead ghosts go to purgatory, or is it only monsters? I think maybe they said it was only monsters at some point, so maybe I just answered my own question. Will we be seeing any old baddies come next season, though? Will it pick up right where it left off, or will some time have passed? All things to ponder over the break.

- The Impala is back! I know, I know, I didn't really mention it in my recap, but Dean brought back his baby to make a grand entrance at Sucrocorp, since Dick already knew they were coming. And he let Meg drive it. A demon driving the Impala, John must surely be rolling over in his figurative grave.

Quotes:

Dean: Dude, on my car, he showed up naked, covered in bees.
Sam: Yeah. I'm not really sorry I missed that.

Dean: Well. Let's bone this nun. ... Sorry.

Cas: Monkeys are so clever and they're sensible in that they leave the skins on the bananas that they eat. Is it really necessary to test cosmetics on them? I mean, how important is lipstick to you, Dean?

Crowley: You bore me, you know that? You have no sense of poetry.

Sam: Uh. Maybe it worked?

Cas: Do we need a cat? Doesn't this place feel one species short?

Dick: Little abrupt, but okay.

Crowley: Think if you'd just had one king since before the first sunrise, you'd be in a kerfuffle too.

Previous Episode -- Next Episode

Supernatural 7x22 "There Will Be Blood"

It's not polite to lurk, Ghost Bobby. Or to possess people.

In case you don't recall, the previously recap was so kind to inform you that last week we found out, thanks to the word of GAHHG on a tablet and the new prophet who could read it, just what can kill the Leviathan. Basically, it's the bone of a righteous man (as righteous and good as the Leviathan are evil and black, or something like that), dipped in the blood of a fallen angel, the worst of fallen humanity, and something else fallen that equals the blood of an alpha monster.

While the boys try to figure out what it all means, poor prophet Kevin has been taken by Dick Roman, who wants him to translate the tablet for him. Kevin resists at first, even when Dick tries to tempt him, but in the end it's just one of those bring-out-a-family-member-and-threaten-them deals that gets Kevin to cooperate. Though the Leviathan let his mom go in the end, Dick isn't ready to let Kevin go quite yet. Uh oh. Poor Kevin.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, aka Rufus' cabin, that they probably shouldn't be using if they're supposed to be keeping off grid by not using things they've used in the past, Ghost Bobby gets frustrated with the guys not figuring things out fast enough for his taste, and tells Dean that the fallen humanity bit of the word refers to Mr. King of Hell himself, our old buddy Crowley. They summon him up, and while he's pro sharing blood, he's not so much into sharing it with them right at that moment, but rather at the last second before it's needed. The good news, however? He happens to know that one of the alphas escaped death last season, and where he's holing up. To the Batmobile!

Everyone's favorite wise-cracking King of Hell.

Or to... whatever car they're driving this week. Impala, we miss you! In any event, the boys head off to somewhere and find a house full of dead vamps with sizzled faces. It takes the boys way too long to figure out that it's because of the new corn syrup Dick's been putting into the food supply, and thus into the humans the vamps have been eating, but I figured that out pretty quickly. I mean, duh. They only figure it out after they've discovered a girl in a creepy pink hidden bedroom. She's a pet of the alpha vamp, and she can help them figure out where he's currently hiding out while looking extremely shady-shifty in the backseat.

Eventually they arrive at a monastery, where the alpha vamp is holing up. While Dean is all ready to go in there, machetes slicing, Sam wants to take a calmer approach and plead their case through words. They do end up getting face time with Mr. Alpha, but only after being de-weaponed by some other vamps. And Mr. Alpha, it turns out, was expecting them, thanks to the girl, who was totally on his side. And he's also been in contact with Dick, who had assured him that he and his babies would be totally fine when they start Maui Wowing humanity. Before the boys can plead some more, second in command Leviathan Edgar shows up, requesting the audience of alpha dude.

This one's just to admire the beauty of the Winchesters.

Alpha dude gives him the benefit of the doubt, but of course the Leviathan plan is to not only make the humans complacent, but to wipe out all the other monsters in the process. The tainted blood will also take out werewolves, shapeshifters and zombies. Well, obviously Alpha is not happy about this, and proceeds to borax Edgar, but Edgar is just too fast with the healy. Luckily, Sam and Dean managed to escape their lockdown in the study with some needles from some bloodbags, and burst in to decapitate Edgar just in time. Alpha gives them his blood, and they leave for now, despite wanting to kill him oh so bad. 


While all of this has been going on, we've also had a side story revolving around Ghost Bobby, who has started to become less than nice in his ghostly ways. First he cracks a mirror when he gets minorly frustrated with Dean, then he goes crazy ghost on the hotel room when they leave him behind to go talk to the alpha vamp, going so far as to actually possess the cleaning lady. Okay, Ghost Bobby? Possessing people is not okay, dude.

Oh, and we also get one final scene with Dick, wherein he summons up Crowley and has him stuck in a devil's trap. Crowls, you probably should've just given that blood to the Winchesters earlier, yeah?


Random Thoughts:

- I was hoping that maybe Kevin would've done a fake translation of the tablet for Dick, but it doesn't look like that is the case.

- I was in love with Dean's brown leather jacket. Have we seen him in that before? Whatever the case, more please!

- Totally knew that Stockholm Syndrome girl wasn't legit, she was way too obviously shifty. Come on, boys. Get it together.

- "See you next season" from Alpha Vamp - quite possibly the least hidden hint ever?

- Now wait. Devil's traps work on Crowley, even though he's the king of hell? I confess it's been a while since I brushed up on my devil's trap rules, but it seems not so much with the right.

- Obviously the boys are going to have to get rid of Ghost Bobby come the finale, right? Or he'll have to get rid of himself.

Quotes:

Sam: That crap is in just about everything. Soda, sauces, bread...
Dean: Don't say pie.
Sam: Definitely pie.
Dean: Bastards. 

Crowley: Keep your friends close, your enemies... blah blah.

Dean: Man, I'm gonna go into toxic shock. I need my road food.

Dean: I can't do this. I can't live on rabbit food. I'm a warrior.
Sam: Dean, you'll be fine.
Dean: You don't know that.

Previous Episode -- Next Episode

Supernatural 7x21 "Reading is Fundamental"

In last week's episode, the boys were able to get their hands on something the Leviathan(s? I'm honestly still not sure what the proper plural here is, as it seems to be used both ways in the show) desperately wanted their hands on. A big piece of clay. Hmm. That seems weird. We better get to crack-a-lackin' that clay, right? Even when there are big thunderous thunders of lightning and doom when we do! As Dean put it, oh well.

When they cracked open the piece of clay to reveal some kind of unreadable tablet, however, things went a little bit mental throughout a good chunk of the country. Babies were born all over the place, this kid Kevin Tran got hit with some kind of lightning bolt thing that has made him start driving to points unknown to him, and, oh yeah, Castiel woke up.

Pull my finger?

Meg calls up the Winchesters to let them know about their friend's reawakening, so they drive on over to the hospital to check in. Well, Cas is awake all right, and seemingly chock full of angel mojo, but he also appears to be a little bit loopy, not entirely checked in with what's going on, and not entirely caring about it. He does, however, impart some crucial information to them about the tablet they're carrying. Namely, it's the Word of GAHHG (Great Almighty He Him God! I haven't been able to use this moniker in ages!). But, he can't read it either, it's not meant for angels.

Just who is it meant for? Why, none other than our new favorite character, advanced placement Kevin Tran, who has arrived just in time for Sam to act like a dope and leave the tablet in the other room while he chases after a stompy, indignant Meg, who's annoyed at being looked down on for being a demon and blah blah, demon prejudices and whatnot. I mean, Meg, you did do some terrible stuff, right? They have a reason to be wary.

Nonetheless! Kevin steals the tablet and a hilarious chase ensues, with Sam running all over the place to get to him. He and Meg finally corral the kid, find that not only can he repair a broken tablet if need be, but he can also read it. And it says something about the Leviathan! Oh me, oh my! Our literal Deus Ex Machina has arrived! But don't get too excited just yet, because Kevin's got some angels tracking him down after his lightning show. The reason he can read the tablet? He's a brand new prophet who must protect it and learn from it and whoa, that's a lot even for an AP kid to handle.

Sucks being the Chosen One, yo, I can relate.

Before the angels can cart him off to the desert (no, really, the desert), Dean does the bloody hand wall sigil thing and zaps them away. They cart Kevin off to Rufus' cabin to start translating the tablet so they can find out how to get rid of the Leviathan.

While Kevin works on that, Meg has got herself a demon trail. She goes to take care of them, only when she does that, it kind of signals the other angels to where they are, despite their making the cabin angel invisible. Whoops! We also were reminded that Crowley is still around, so obviously he'll be showing up again soon. Prepare thyself!

The angels show up, one of them, a blondie named Hester, gets a little bit punchy, so Meg's like screw that and stabs her with one of those angel-smiting swords, which can now apparently be wielded by anyone? I totally thought in the beginning only other angels could use them, but I guess Dean used one on Zachariah too, so WHO KNOWS.

Anyway, with that pesky Hester gone, we're left with a nicer angel dude who agrees not to take poor Kevin off to the desert, but rather back to his house where they can protect him anyway. Oh jeez, this will not end well.

Have some of my blood, no big.

But what exactly did Kevin translate for our Deus Ex Tableta? It's some recipe of sorts, the first thing required in it being some fallen angel blood, which Castiel is more than happy to supply in the handy bottle he keeps in his pocket, as one does. What else is required for the recipe or whatever it is? I suppose we'll find that out next week. And who knows what Cas will be getting up to, because he flits off to points unknown. What we do know? Crowley will surely know that he's back by now, and want his head for double-crossing him. The question is, will Cas start to feel stuff again, because otherwise he probably wouldn't care much about it. Actually he seemed to care more about Meg's well-being than his own. Bow-chicka-what?

But the episode can't end there, because that's not cliffhangery enough for episode 21. The angels take Kevin back home to his mom, who is lamenting to some apparent, obviously Leviathan, police dude about her missing boy. When he reappears in the kitchen with a couple suited dudes, though, all will be okay, right? Wrong, duh. Because apparently! Apparently, Leviathan(s?) can kill angels with a black goopy hand into the sternum. Dun dun dun!

Random Thoughts:

- Oh man, I miss me some Ben Edlund dialogue like this episode provided, I can tell you that much. My quotes section may be a little bloated this week because of it.

- Did you guys catch the radio commercial for the pie bar? Now that is the kind of bar I would be down with.

- I really liked Kevin, I hope he doesn't end up dead. Osric Chau did a great job.

- I'm kinda tired of Meg. Is she one of the only characters still around from season one? I think so. Man, how long ago.

- The show was picked up for season eight, which was kind of a foregone conclusion, but in case some of you didn't know. Now you know!

Quotes:

Dean: That sound like somebody saying "no, wait, stop" to you?
Sam: Uh. Yeah.
Dean: Oh well.

Dean: This one goes out to all the ladies.

Dean: So big daddy chomper lands here, he grabs himself some Dick...

Castiel: Did you now that a cat's penis is sharply barbed along its shaft? I know for a fact the females were not consulted about that.

Sam: Metatron? Are you saying a Transformer wrote that?
Dean: No. That's Megatron.
Sam: What?
Dean: The Transformer. It's Megatron.
Sam: What?

Castiel: You guys ate the apple. Invented pants.

Castiel: I'm surrounded by large, unhappy dogs.

Castiel: You seem troubled. Of course, that's a primary aspect of your personality, so I sometimes ignore it.

Previous Episode -- Next Episode

Supernatural 7x20 "The Girl with the Dungeons and Dragons Tattoo"

As far as guest stars go, I'd say Felicia Day is probably one of my favorites so far. I think any nerdy girl can agree, it's nice to see someone we can relate to, right? Especially when she uses her smarts to do some cool crap.

Would you like to play a game? War Games references FTW!

In any event, now that Ghost Bobby has made himself known to the boys, he is able to finally tell them what he had learned back all those episodes ago when he was shot. That the place for the coordinates was for a dig site. The Leviathans are planning to basically build human slaughterhouses, but first they will make everyone complacent with their turduckens, cure all of any ills, and once the people have been turned into mindless sheep, lead them to their deaths. Fun for all!

But before they can really think about that for anything more than a few seconds, they get a bing on the computer - an email from one late Frank Devereaux, who had set up a device to send Sam and Dean a warning that his harddrive was being hacked, and it just happened to have all of their information on it. But hey, they're able to locate the hard drive in question. Where is it? Um. In the middle of Dick Roman headquarters! Oh joy of joys!

And just who is cracking it? That would be one Charlie Bradbury (or whatever her real name is!), an employee there who happens to excel at hacking. Dick gives her the job, personally, of getting into that hard drive. Only, once she does get into it, her curiosity gets the best of her, and she opens up some of the files, leading her to all of the information on the Leviathans. Since she's semi-normal, she takes Frank to be a Loony Tunes McGee, but when she sees Dick's crony actually turn her manager into one of them before her very eyes, well, that's probably enough to convince anyone, right?

Just in time, too, because Dean and Sam have tracked her down. Once they get on the same page about what's going on, they've got a plan: Charlie will have to break into Dick's office from the inside in order to find the secret information on what the Leviathans have been searching for, or something, even though we hadn't really been made aware they were searching for something until now. She also needs to erase the hard drive, because obviously if Dick knows she could've seen what's on there about him, she would not be long for this world.

We're not here to hurt you. Just to look pretty.

Since the Winchesters are on every Leviathan's radar, they're stuck in a van while Charlie goes inside to get the job done. Bobby, meanwhile, has grown sulky, because the boys did not want to let him tag along to help with his ghostly powers. So what does he do? Uses his ghostly powers to swayze his flask into Charlie's bag. Why are the brothers so reluctant to let him come along? Because he could go vengeful spirit on Dick, and if he goes down that route, there won't be any getting him back.

Once inside, Charlie manages to maneuver herself into Dick's office via a hilarious flirting session with a guard, and they are able to access his email. It turns out that there's a delivery of a special package about to happen nearby, so Sam and Dean head off to intercept it while Charlie hangs back to finish her job. So just what is in this mysterious package? Some kind of red clay. What may be inside the clay is left for another episode. They switch the package for a Borax bomb.

Only Charlie did not have a chance to make it out of the building before Dick and the package toting crony get bombed. He locks down the joint and goes after her. Things don't look good for our plucky heroine, but Ghost Bobby comes to her rescue this time, knocking her out of the way (and, whoopsie, breaking her arm!), then going after Dick himself. Sam and Dean show up in time to whisk Charlie away, and also the flask, so Bobby can't go 100% vengeful.

They get Charlie's arm fixed up and set her up with a bus ticket to parts unknown to start over. I'm glad she survived, it would've been sad to see her go. But they are more concerned about this whole Ghost Bobby situation. But for now there's not a whole lot to be done about it. Que sera sera.


Random Thoughts:

- Okay. We get it. Bobby says idjits. He doesn't need to say it every single episode.

- The dude who plays Dick Roman has always reminded me of someone, and I've never been able to figure out who... until tonight! I figured it out! Gary Cole. He reminds me of Gary Cole, so good at the evil smarm.

- OMG. Sam talking Harry Potter to Charlie? LOVE. You know I'm a Harry Potter dork. Any of you out there on Pottermore? Not to get sidetracked, but I could really talk about that sorting hat test for at least an hour.

- Interesting use of splitscreen, reminded me of Ocean's 11 or something. Not so sure about using that "hours earlier" device twice in one episode, though I'm sure it was meant to all be part of that same break-in spy show vibe. I did enjoy the reveal of Sam and Dean in that airport scene. Jensen can rock a baseball cap, am I right?

- Anyone know what her ringtone was? It was so quick I didn't really have a chance to figure it out!

- What's with the red clay? Is there something inside? What could it possibly be?

Quotes:

Dean: Baby?

Charlie: Is this real life?

Charlie: I should've taken that job at Google.

Charlie: I sing when I'm nervous, don't judge me.
Dean: Judgment free zone.

Charlie: I was drunk. It was ComicCon.
Dean: We've all been there.

Dean: This never happened.

Sam: Charlie, you're a genius.
Charlie: Yeah. It's a problem.

Dean: She's kinda like the little sister I never wanted.

Previous Episode -- Next Episode

Supernatural 7x19 "Of Grave Importance"

Oh look, a new episode! It's been awhile. I have to assume they'll be going nonstop to the finale now, right? RIGHT? Enough with the mini breaks, I say!

Anyway, the last new episode confirmed the suspicion that Bobby was still around as a ghost, and this week we get a full on Ghost Bobby episode. He's trying to get the boys to notice his tiny movements of the flask and drapes and whatnot, but his efforts are for naught at the moment. Instead, they get ready to meet up with another hunter named Annie, who we come to find out not only slept with Bobby, but also slept with Dean and soulless Sam. Girl's got some game!

Ghost Bobby is here, so his  poignant death earlier in the season now means nothing!

 She's in this town called Bodega Bay to investigate the Van Ness house, and asks the boys to meet up with her. When she doesn't show up to the meeting, however, they investigate, and that's when we go off into the ghost stories. Because once the boys show up, flask in tow, Ghost Bobby is able to see Ghost Annie, but seeing as they are both dead and, you know, ghosts, their reunion isn't all rainbows and puppies. Instead, they get some snarky ghost tips from another dude.

While this is going on, the boys are investigating the place, but finding nothing despite the many ghostly figures that we as an audience can see are everywhere. Thus stymied, they decide to go check on Annie's other research. Bobby is annoyed that he has to go along for the ride, though, because he wanted to stay with his hot ghost lady to figure out things from that side. Because, it turns out, while it seems like the gnarly large man was the culprit of all these untimely deaths, it was actually the namesake of the house, Whitman Van Ness. He's collecting ghosts from which he can draw power from, full on hand in the chest, burn 'em up style.

Back at the motel, Bobby gets zen enough to finally get the boys a message on the bathroom mirror. Well, if they had doubts before, they don't anymore. Ghost Bobby is here. They head back to the house, get some intel help from another of the ghosts, and hightail it out of there to find ole Whitman's bones to burn before he can do any more damage. Only problem? Whitman hitches a ride Bobby-style by leaving a key in Sam's pocket. And Bobby isn't there to help because he swiped his flask and left it in the house. Whoops.

While the boys rush off to the cemetery and nearly get driven off the road by Whitman's ghost, Bobby and Annie find his hiding place for all of the bodies. Yada yada, ghost fights, the boys burn the dude's bones just in time, etc. etc.

When they come back to the house this time, however, they are able to finally see Ghost Bobby in his otherworldly form of "flesh." Though it seems like he expects them to be happy about it, they're not quite there. Or, at least, Dean is especially twitchy about the whole thing, as it's not the natural order. I have to say I'm with Dean on this one. But since they already gave Bobby the hunter's funeral, they're not quite sure what to do now.

One thing is for certain: there's no way this ends well.

Random Thoughts:

- The Van Ness house really reminded me of the hotel they went to in season two's episode Playthings, particularly the outside.

- Same goes for the pier scene being reminiscent from Red Sky at Morning. Why I must notice these things and not just let them slide is a mystery.

- Seeing those ghosts just standing all over the place in the house the first time was perhaps one of the creepiest things I've ever seen on the show. CREEPY.

- I always find it a little bit convenient when they have these stories with random hunters that we've never heard of before with these involved backstories. All three of them got friendly with this Annie, and as far as I'm aware, this is the first time we've even heard her name, let alone met her.

- Honestly I'm not on board with the whole Ghost Bobby plot, but I'll try to refrain from complaining about it too much. I just don't like how trivial death has become on the show. It just lowers the stakes a lot.

Quotes:

Dean: She and I kinda went Hemingway this one time too.
Sam: All right. Well. That happens.
Dean: ... Wait, you too?

Annie: Wow. Dead. Ghost. Me. Three words you never want to use in a sentence.

Dean: We combed the crap out of this place. If we didn't find her...
Sam: It means someone didn't want us to.
Dean: Awesome. Let's walk right into that.

Dean: That's not odd.

Dean: Annie? ...Slimer?

Dean: I hate these indie films, nothing ever happens.

Previous Episode -- Next Episode

Supernatural 7x18 "Party On, Garth"

Well, it happened. I knew it was coming, and it came, and I'm not sure how I feel about it. For those who haven't watched the episode yet and don't want to know the big "twist" ending, avert your eyes, because here it is: Bobby is, in fact, a ghost. Traveling with the boys via his old flask that Dean keeps on him at all times, and responsible for all of the stuff we assumed he was responsible for. The missing beer, the appearing pages, and tonight, a moving Samurai sword.

And here's the thing about a show like Supernatural. Yes, it allows people to come back from the dead, and that's half the fun of the show, that you can always bring back someone. But that also becomes a problem too, because you can always bring back someone. Death is impermanent, and therefore not as affecting as it would be on nearly any other show. And the death of Bobby just felt so final to me, that I'm not sure how I feel about them already bringing him back. I think I kind of felt the same thing about bringing back Castiel too, but perhaps in an even bigger way, now that I think about it. At least the Bobby thing was hinted at, but Cas it was just like oh he's been here and we'll find him at just this right moment. Anyway, I'm not going to keep going on about it. Let's just get to the recap.

Party time, excellent!

A couple brothers end up getting killed by some apparent invisible monster. Garth, the hunter we met in an episode that shall not be named, thought he had killed the thing after the death of the first brother, but calls in the big guns when whatever it is apparently is still around and looking for more gruesome bloody kills. They get to investigating, and soon figure out that the thing in question is not actually an invisible killer werewolf, but rather something that requires you to be drunk in order to see it. But what in the world could that possibly be, we wonder?

It turns out that there's this whole backstory drama surrounding this beer company that brews Thighslapper Ale. You see, one of the former owners was ousted from the company when he didn't want to sell his stake to some uppity up types. He was pissed, so he decided to get revenge on his other two partners by using some bad mojo. Then he killed himself. I'm not sure why he killed himself before he could see his handiwork go awry, but who knows. Because whether he wanted it to or not, this thing he summoned into a Sake bottle turned out to be a Shojo, a kind of Japanese spirit that haunts breweries and such. Only this particular shojo goes after the thing that the suicide dude lost, his "baby" of the company... aka the babies of his partners.

Okay let's try to make that more understandable, because I feel like I did a terrible job. This dude loved the brewery like it was his baby, so when he was ousted, he decided to get revenge, an eye for an eye sort of deal, and used this Shojo ghost demon thing, only it takes the eye for an eye to mean that it should kill the other dude's babies rather than the dudes themselves. Because that's more poetic or whatnot. Alright, that makes a little more sense.

She's to your left! I mean, my left!

Anyway! Now that they know who the Shojo is after, they split up. Dean goes to get the specific weapon they need while Sam trails the sister of the aforementioned dead brothers, and Garth finds out that the other owner dude had a secret love child, so he goes to protect that guy. Only he has to be drunk in order to see the Shojo, so of course once she shows up and wants to kill the kid, he gets knocked out. Sam also shows up, and also gets knocked out. That leaves it to Dean, who has the killing weapon anyway, and who is also the only sober one, to kill the demon. Luckily, Sam wakes up in time to be able to tell him where the demon is, since Dean can't see it. Some fighting happens, the sword goes flying, and voila, it magically slides back across the floor to Dean, and he's able to gank that creepy Japanese horror movie villain. And everyone lives and Garth gives them hugs and it's just all happy happy, right? Or IS IT?!

While hunting this demon thing, however, Garth was astute enough to notice that their EMF meters kinda went weirdo whenever they were around Dean's flask, aka Bobby's flask. He surmised that maybe Bobby was actually still around, just, you know, ghostly. Sam also admitted that he thought as much back when that whole beer thing happened before, and tried contacting Bobby, but it didn't work. Now that this sword thing has happened, Dean is starting to wonder if maybe they're right, only when he tries to reach out, nothing happens. Maybe they're making it all up, like how normal people sometimes think they see their dead loved ones around too?

It turns out, no, they're not just making it up, because we actually get to see a glimpse of Ghost Bobby, who is apparently having a hard time making direct connection with the boys despite his attempts at indirect connections. He even calls them idjits and says balls, so you know his catchphrases are intact in the afterlife.

Random Thoughts:

- Despite what it may sound like, I actually quite enjoyed the episode, particularly all of the drunk stuff. Why is watching drunk people so funny? Even in real life, if you're sober, it's hilarious.

- I loved the consecration of the Samurai sword with the "running spring" of bottled water.

- Poison by Bell Biv Devoe, need I say more?

- Mr. Fizzles. The best was when he said he didn't approve of LIARS. Hahahaha

- So are Sam's visions gone forever? Will they eventually come back? Will Cas be able to fight off the hallucifer? Questions to be answered at a later date, I guess.

- Another mini hiatus until April 20th.

Quotes:

"You've been Garthed." - Garth

Sam: Have either of you ever heard of Thighslapper Ale?
Garth: Is that a stripper or a beverage?
Dean: Beverage. For douchebags.

"Beer's not food, it's whatever water is." - Dean

Dean: Wow. Party on, Garth.
Garth: I don't even usually drink beer. Messes with my depth perception. Especially when I skinny dip.

Sam: Can you even get drunk anymore? It's kinda like drinking a vitamin for you, right?
Dean: Shut up.

"Come with me if you want to live." - Garth, getting his Terminator on

"So your theory is, we're practically regular people about something for once." - Dean

Previous Episode -- Next Episode

Supernatural 7x17 "The Born-Again Identity"

Oh you do that research.

You guys, I have been having some serious DVR issues ever since I moved all of my stuff into the new entertainment center. For some reason, any time I want to record on The CW, the channel goes completely out. I checked it literally 20 minutes before Supernatural was meant to start to make sure it was okay, and it was FINE, then when I went to start it from the recording, there was the black screen of death AGAIN. WTF?! UGH. This happened last night with The Vampire Diaries too! And it's literally ONLY The CW that goes out. All other channels are perfectly fine! Epic frustration! Damn it all!

Anyway. The real question is, were you satisfied with tonight's episode, or left feeling as frustrated as I am when cursing at my DVR? I'm somewhere in the middle.

After last week's episode, Sam has officially really started to lose it. He can't sleep thanks to the Lucifer in his head, who won't let him. Somehow he ends up roaming the streets alone, or rather stumbling the streets alone, even goes so far as to try to buy some sedative-type drugs from a dealer, but it doesn't work. Instead, he ends up stumbling straight into oncoming traffic, kabang, kapow! To the hospital, then, Batman!

The hospital folk are, however, just plain baffled at his state, because no matter what they give him, he won't go to sleep, and from what Lucifer tells us, the longest a person went without sleep was 11 days. Sam's already at around four or five, I think, at this point. Things are looking rather grim, but Dean is determined to find a way to fix him, despite all odds stacked against them, and despite Sam kinda sorta accepting he was probably going to kick it because of this thing.

Rollin' with our old homies.

But, Dean eventually gets wind of this new healer on the market, a man who goes by the name Emmanuel. He tracks down the guy, only to be surprised to find that this Emmanuel is none other than our previously dearly departed angel Castiel. Only, he doesn't remember anything, not even his BFF Dean. Dean decides to keep him in the dark for now, hoping he'll be able to help Sam anyway. But on their drive back to the hospital, they encounter some demons who have also heard about this healer guy's suspicious powers. But before the demons can hurt our Dean, one of their own comes to his rescue, and it's just a past villain party up in here! Meg!

Yep, Meg is back. She wants to help Dean with Cas, because I guess she doesn't want Crowley to find out he's still around, because she and Crowley have a beef, though I don't truly remember what said beef is about, but hey, a beef they have, so she's on Dean's side. For now, anyway.

Meanwhile, Sam's mental state has been deteriorating, but not to a point where he can't help a conveniently haunted fellow patient rid herself of her ghostly murderous brother. And this is where I have to say the episode did not work for me. Was she actually real, or was she part of a hallucination? And if she was real, that was really way too convenient, and easy to do. Like, boom, that ghost was dead and gone. I mean, that bracelet? I said, actually out loud I said, "There's a bracelet on her wrist, dude, obviously the ghost can follow her because of the bracelet." I mean, jeez. ANYWAY. Right after they get rid of the ghost, the doc comes in and says they want to try something new on Sam since the drugs aren't working. Some kind of surgery. Hmm. That doesn't sound too good, does it?

Outside the hospital, the trio has arrived, only to find the place surrounded by awaiting demons. With only one demon-killing knife, the odds aren't so great. Except they are, because, as Meg so kindly reminds us, this "Emmanuel" character is actually an angel and can get rid of all those dudes snip snap. Only he doesn't know it, blah blah, more whinging about whether to tell him, except he overhears them arguing about it and the cat gets let out of the bag regardless of Dean's concerns.

So, Cas goes and gets to smiting, which also has the added bonus effect of triggering his memories. And boy are they some terrible memories to behold. He's all "What I did was so wrong, I can't ever fix it, why would I come back?" etc. etc. Dean's like duh, because you want to at least try to fix it, obvs. He even gives him his busted up trenchcoat that he'd been keeping in the trunk. You know, for old time's sake. Okay, fine, guess he'll go try to fix Sam.

Just in time, too, because one of the demons has Sam strapped down and getting some serious electroshock therapy. Cas gets rid of that guy and attempts to fix Sam's wall. Only, it doesn't work. It turns out, the wall has been crumbled so completely, there's nothing he can do to fix it. But, he does have another idea. And perhaps you figured it out as I did before he did it, but instead of fixing the wall, he took all of the crap going around Sam's head and drew it into his own. So... angels can have hallucinations? Hm.

But, hey, Sam seems to be all better. Good thing, too, because his fingernails were starting to fall off. Yuck. And guess what! They just leave Cas there in the hospital. That just seems like a real dick move, but I guess I don't know what else they could do either. Meg also stays behind to watch over him. For what real purpose, I'm not sure, but probably we'll find out soon enough.

Random Thoughts:

- A mention of Faith! So long ago!

- The magical "breeze" that blew out that business card for Dean, obviously we're meant to think it's Bobby's ghost. Honestly I expect them to go there, and I really don't want them to for some reason.

- Are you guys happy to see Cas again, or no? I feel like people are very divided on the subject.

- I'm not sure I was satisfied with this amount of crazy Sam. Hmm.

- I really liked whatever song that was they had playing as Cas smote the demons.

Quotes:

"Stupid Satan." - Lucifer

"Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Now this one I could have. Sets unrealistic goals, check. But, has trouble keeping healthy relationships? Not so sure about that one. Thoughts?" - Lucifer

"This silence is very uncomfortable." - "Emmanuel"

Lucifer: Lobotomy?
Doctor: It's okay, we're not talking lobotomy.
Lucifer: Darn.

Meg: You're an angel.
"Emmanuel": I'm sorry, is that a flirtation?

Previous Episode -- Next Episode

Supernatural 7x16 "Out with the Old"

Well hi! What's this? We're back from hiatus? As Abed would say, cool cool cool. Oh sorry, I'm just happy that Community has also made its return to the airwaves as well. Yes, I like shows other than Supernatural, people.

But, let's get back to business! In case you've forgotten, the Winchesters have been dealing with these Leviathan baddies since the start of the season, and they've been getting some help from a crotchety dude named Frank who knows a thing or two about going off the grid. Also, Sam's helluciantions have returned, as the last time we saw the dear boy, he started talking to Lucifer again, which apparently opened the floodgate.

Which means now, in tonight's episode, Sam hasn't been sleeping much, because it's worse when he sleeps, though we find out it's also happening while he's awake too, he just doesn't talk about it much. Luckily, he appears to have been pretty forthright about all of this with Dean, rather than keeping it hidden. You know that wouldn't have been the case not so long ago!

Don't touch cursed objects, kids. Use rubber gloves!

In any event, Sam's dealing with it while they discover their next case, a seemingly regular one involving some cursed objects, since they can't seem to find any concrete information on just what Dick Roman and his leviathan hordes are planning with their land in Wisconsin. This cursed object business is happening in my very own hometown - Portland, Oregon! Also, there's all sorts of snow, which is kind of hilarious because it hardly ever snows much in Portland, EXCEPT this year it has snowed a lot, and only just this past week too! Craziness! Whoa, tangent alert!

Anyway, some ballerina died by literally dancing her feet off, so the boys go to find the ballet shoes that could be the culprit, wrestling them off a little girl who had just put them on. Unfortunately, Dean happens to touch them in the process, and starts getting an urge to dance out his little heart too. Lucky for Jensen Ackles, they are able to find where the shoes came from pretty quickly - an antique shop called Out with the Old, where the owner recently opened up a bunch of curse boxes his mom had previously hidden, selling a bunch of cursed objects to locals, including those ballet slippers. He still has the boxes, though, so Dean only has to suffer one longing look at them before they go back in the box.

They find more of the empty boxes, though, and have to go track down some other objects, including a creepy gramophone (I'm not sure why anyone would want that weird music playing in their house!), a tea kettle, and a, um, "gentleman's magazine." Yeah, I don't want to know how that kills someone either, though my mind can supply enough ideas easily enough. Yikes. They get them back and stick them back in their boxes. Done, right?

Not so much, because Dean notices that all of the shops, including the Out with the Old one, have been sold to the same real estate firm, which we come to find out is run by a pair of leviathans, Joyce and her assistant George. Why are they trying to buy up all of this space? Well, that's what the boys want to find out. Dean calls up Frank for some help and they find out that the real estate firm is owned by none other than Roman Inc.

Alas, they're not going to be able to surprise attack these leviathans, because Sam has a near crash incident while falling asleep driving, prompting him to stop at a coffee hut, where assistant George sees him getting a triple Red Eye (egads!). Joyce and George get the shop owner from earlier to fake that he opened one of the cursed objects, which brings the Winchesters running, unaware that the leviathans are there waiting for them.

A fight ensues, wherein George mysteriously helps out Sam by telling him where some of that cleaning agent stuff they hate is, and pointing him in the direction of a sword in which to chop off Joyce's head, which he promptly does. Once the dust has settled, they question him - why did he help? Just what is Dick Roman planning? Turns out George just hated Joyce, he's not suddenly on their side or anything like that. And though he doesn't know the big plans per se, he does know that what they have planned for this particular section of Portland is a research facility, in order to cure cancer.

Cure cancer? Cue the confused looks. George says they're there to "help," whatever that means. It's not clear whether they end up chopping off his head too, or letting him go, but in the end the brothers pack up all of the curse boxes and drive out to catch up with Frank, only to find that his trailer has been ransacked, with blood spatters all over the place. Another ally gone! They really just need to stop dragging people into these things. They always end up dead, right?

Random Thoughts:

- In case you missed it, this episode was co-written by Jenny Klein, who I was able to interview about her experience. Check it out here if you haven't yet!

- What is the leviathan plan, anyway? I guess I've just never understood the appeal of taking over the world.

- Um, I may or may not have found myself yawning after I saw Sam yawn. I didn't know that could happen by seeing people do it on TV and not in real life, but there you go.

- Dean's face when George licked that sword - priceless. Loved that reaction shot.

- Bad Moon Rising featured at the end of the episode, the same song that was playing when the car was hit by the semi back in the season one finale. You had to know things were going to end badly as soon as that song started up.

- Next week's episode features the return of someone. Whether they are the same as when they left remains to be seen, however! And, also, Sam's condition gets markedly worse. Sammy!

Quotes:

Dean: Dancers. They are toe shoes full of crazy.
Sam: And you would know this how?
Dean: I saw Black Swan. Twice. Hot tutu on tutu action. Come on, Sam, what's wrong with you?

Dean: Although, I hear they have good coffee in Portland.
Sam: Dude, that's Seattle.

"Pas de done." - Dean

"Oh what a dreamer you are." - Dean

Dean: I wonder how old porn kills you.
Sam: You probably don't want to know.

Previous Episode -- Next Episode

Supernatural 7x15 "Repo Man"

Now, see, this is what I've been waiting for. The return of the hellucinations! By far my favorite episode of the season was the second one when they were first introduced. I wish it hadn't taken so long for them to resurface, but hey, at least they are!

To the recap! We start off four years ago, which is when? Third season? Fourth season? I think it was the fourth based on the sketchy timeline of events in my head (edit: apparently we're meant to believe this is season three, must be between the last two episodes, things get confusing when you've got time jumps in between seasons is all I'm saying). The Winchesters were in search of Lilith back then, and had tracked down a demon possessing a guy named Jeffrey to get the name of one of her special lieutenants. They get the info after some pretty terrible torturing of said dude. Dean drops him at the hospital once he's free of the demon, and that's that.

Of course, that's not that. Flash forward to the present day, where some bodies have been turning up, killed in the same way that the demon in question used to do. Though Dean wants to focus on the leviathans, Sam insists this is unfinished business, and they go to investigate. And now we actually get to see a glimpse of what Sam has been dealing with in regards to Lucifer still being around in his noggin. In the past he's been able to rub the scar on his hand and get him to go away, and that sort of continues to work here too, but as we'll see, it doesn't work for much longer. Oops, spoiler alert! But it's sort of a duh, so, whatev.

Uh oh! Uh oh!

In any event, the boys go to see the woman who had previously helped them track down the demon before. She doesn't know much (or does she?!), but does lead the boys toward Jeffrey, the demon's onetime meat suit, as demons tend to be sentimental about the bodies they possess, often coming back for seconds. Jeffrey, it turns out, did not fare so well after his time with being possessed, and is now living in some kind of halfway house. But he did just get himself a cute doggy (at that point I said "oh no, they're going to kill a dog" and hoped I would be wrong. Alas! Whoops! More spoilers!), so he must be sort of turning things around, right?

Ummm. When the brothers check up on him, they figure out he's not possessed again. But he does remember a few things from his time - names on a list that the demon apparently kept in his head, those that he was going to kill next. And the women being killed now are following that same order. While Sam goes off to keep track of the next woman on the list, Dean hangs out with Jeffrey, who has another memory: there was a sort of hideout place that the demon used to go to when he wasn't killing people. Maybe he's there again now! Or maybe you shouldn't trust Jeffrey, Dean, because he's kind of weirdly shifty! But go to the mysterious warehouse they do, only to find a kid tied up to a chair. Dean tries to free him, but gets shot in the neck with something. Jeffrey! You mongrel! At this point we're wondering whether Jeffrey is actually possessed, or maybe he's just straight up crazy town. I was leaning toward crazy town, musing that perhaps he felt a connection to the demon and felt he should finish what he started. Close, I was, but not entirely correct!

Sam, meanwhile, has found the next victim at the library. He keeps a watch on her all while being constantly chatted at by Lucifer. Sam ignores him and ignores him and ignores him, until he surmises that Dean is probably dead since he is not picking up any of his phones. When Sam tells him to shut up, we can see the battle has just been lost by dear Sammy. Lucifer has found a way back in. Uh oh.

At first, he's helpful. Nothing has been going on with the librarian, and Luci points out that the answer is actually in the coroner's notes. This time around, all of the women were tranquilized. Why would a demon need to tranquilize women, one must wonder? Back to Jeffrey's! Sam combs the place until he finds some latin papers, which look like they came from the woman's place. Indeed, they did. Ms. Havelock was forced to try to come up with a summoning spell for the demon because crazy Jeffrey took her son, the boy we saw tied up earlier. The first spell didn't work, but she found one now that will, only it takes the blood of the exorciser. Namely, Dean. Better find him quick!

Dean, meanwhile, is getting an earful from crazy Jeffrey, who is, yes, crazy. It turns out he had serial killer tendencies even before the demon showed up, and felt free once he was able to do everything his heart of hearts desired. Now he just wants to get the demon back and feel whole again. Only when he performs the summoning, the demon decides to take up residence not in Jeffrey, but in the kid. Though the demon is proud of Jeffrey for fulfilling his terrible potential, he doesn't want to join back up with him. Obviously, Jeff is less than pleased with this information, so the demon gives him a slappy slap. Don't talk back to your demon, buddy, they don't like it.

Lucifer, I missed you. Wait. What?

The demon's about to turn his attention on Dean, but that's when Sam and the mother turn up. They trap the demon in a devil's trap (though I wonder why that was there? Did Sam and the woman have time to put it up? I wouldn't have thought so. And why would Jeff put it up?) and exorcise it, but not before Dean has to shoot Jeffrey down dead when he tries to kill the kid meat suit. Another demon in training sent down to hell, yikes. It won't be good when he comes out someday.

The boys head back to their motel suite. Dean flops onto the bed, but Sam is not so lucky, because Lucifer is still there with him, and now that he has acknowledged his presence, Sam can't get rid of him by rubbing that scar on his palm anymore. His bed fills with flames while Lucifer cackles beside him. Sammy!

Random Thoughts:

- Oh hi, Impala! We've missed you. Will you be coming back anytime soon? Or is this like the alterna-reality leading to that future where you're buried beneath a tarp and future Dean is all mean? Huh? What? That was season five. Get over it.

- Yikes, that forked tongue from Lucifer was freaky gross! Squick factor: extreme!

- I loved it when Lucifer called himself Luci. Haha, yes!

- You know someone is straight up evil when they kill a dog, especially their own dog. Damn you, crazy Jeffrey!

- The whole thing seemed to wrap up a little too easily after such a great build up, but I won't quibble when generally it was really good.

- Brain melt thought of the night: why does Lucifer manifest as the Nick version? Is that the version that Sam would've seen in hell? Obviously for budgetary reasons we can't see some mystical devil figure, but what if Sam saw Lucifer as himself sometimes? Jared was always great at playing him. Probably would get too confusing.

- The preview! OMG, the preview! Sam on a hospital gurney looking crazed! Misha! The awesome way they said the date of the return in that gramophone (March 9th, btw. Yep, we're in another mini hiatus)!

Quotes:
(I could just call this Lucifer quotes!)

"It's nice. Kinda like a men's room with beds." - Lucifer

Guy 1: I wanna talk about Cinemax. We're grown men. We pay rent. Why can't we get Cinemax?
Guy 2: Heh heh. Skinemax.

Dean: Sorry, just had to make sure.
Jeffrey: Make sure of what? That I peed my pants today?

"You're right. We just don't read anymore." - Lucifer

"I'm pretty sure this guy's the boring sort of chubby chaser." - Lucifer

"This is what I'm talking about, Sam, real interaction again, I've missed that. The rapier wit. The wittier ape." - Lucifer

"Hmm. Latin. Not suspicious at all." - Lucifer

Sam: A demon summoning. Why?
Lucifer: Why? To summon demons, jackass.

"Ay carumba! Mi cabesa!" - Lucifer

Previous Episode -- Next Episode

Supernatural 7x14 "Plucky Pennywhistle's Magical Menagerie"

Wow. Oh man. I have not laughed that much at an episode since probably French Mistake. Definitely one of my favorites of the season so far. Nearly every line leaving Dean's mouth was a winner; I haven't written down so many quotes in a long time. If you didn't laugh at least half the time, I'm not sure we can be friends.

Moving on to the actual plot! The Winchesters arrive in town after someone is seemingly killed by a giant octopus, which is decidedly not normal. They think, however, due to the weird bite on the guy's neck, that some vampire with an octopus fetish might have killed the guy. They decide to talk to the wife to see if there's any merit to this pretty wackadoo idea, and don't really get any leads on the subject until Sam talks to the daughter and finds out that she thought that a giant octomonster was hiding in her closet, and that's what killed her dad.

Behind you!

Still not a lot to go on, though, so it's helpful when we get our second death of the episode when a dude is literally impaled by a rogue unicorn. Yes, you read that right. A dude was running away from a unicorn, thought he got away by jumping over a metal fence thing, but I then yelled "Stabbed through the fence!" and wouldn't you know it? He got stabbed through the fence by the unicorn's horn! Of course, when Dean comes to investigate, it's not so clear that it was a unicorn horn quite yet, but he does find out that the dude's son had gone to a birthday party at a certain national pizza chain called Plucky Pennywhistle's Magical Menagerie - where all your dreams are good! Where all your dreams are good?! Oh man. What a tagline. Why is that such a good clue? Because the daughter of the other guy had also just been there. To Plucky's!

Actually, it's just Sam that gets sent to Plucky's right now, even though he desperately does not want to go since, apparently, Dean used to drop him there as a kid while he went trolling for chicks. Sam talks to some of the employees and finds out that the kids draw their worst fears for the wall, and the two from the other kids earlier are missing from said wall. He also is approached by the janitor, who wants him to come meet him after hours. Oh poor janitor, we barely knew ye. Because he never does get to talk to Sam. Instead, he's tasked with cleaning up the ball pit, only to be hunted by something swimming inside the balls themselves! Blood! Mayhem! Death! Bye bye, shifty janitor with secret knowledge!

Just what seemed to kill him? A shark! In a ball pit?! What! Yeah, something is definitely afoot at Plucky's. Sam decides to try to shake down the employees by going all bad cop on them, which was sort of hilarious because he really just said nondescript things like "are you really?" and such. The manager and the uber-happy guy both seem to check out, but when he talks to the guy in the lion costume, the dude freaks out and bolts out of there. Dean chases him down, as he was hanging out inside the place as well to check for suspicious behavior. But this guy was no evil genius, he's just a dude whose brother used to run a meth lab and may or may not have gotten high and played in the ball pit with the dearly departed janitor. But! He does have some valuable intel. There is a sub-basement beneath Plucky's, and he and janitor dude used to hear strange noises coming out of it sometimes while they were having their after hours fun.

Sam's worst nightmare: check!

Also, while Sam was doing his "grilling" of suspects, Dean was getting to know one of the kids who had to constantly hang out at Plucky's because his mom works there. She's generally being kind of mean to him because she's so overworked, and they seem like a prime pair for the next fear monster, despite Dean getting the kid to understand a little better what his mom is going through. It's too late, because the kid's drawing of a giant robot with laser beam eyes has already been taken by the culprit.

So, Sam goes to try to head off a possible robot while Dean heads down to the basement to find out what's going on. It turns out, someone has been working some seriously shady hoodoo down there. Who? I think we can all agree that it's no surprise that it's the overly perky one. You just can't trust people who are constantly perky. It goes against nature to be that happy all the time. He and Dean get in a standoff, and he lets Dean know that he didn't go after the kid after all, but rather has turned his attentions to Sam, who he sensed had a thing about clowns.

Indeed, a couple nasty clowns have appeared and start tormenting Sam. They get into some nasty fisticuffs while Dean uses cunning and smarts to figure out what the bad guy's own fear is, which turns out to be that he blames his parents for his brother's death. He throws some stuff into the hoodoo fire, and the guy's dead drowned brother turns up to make him drown out himself, which makes the clowns, who were doing some serious damage to our dear Sam, disappear into a poof of glitter confetti. Done and dusted.

In the end, Dean gets one of the best laughs he's had in awhile when he sees Sam covered in blood and glitter, as do we all.

Random Thoughts:

- Seeing the flashbacks to season two. Aw. Sammy looked so young!

- Always dig when they alter the title card a little bit. Glitter card!

- When that unicorn started spouting a rainbow out of its butt, I literally said out loud "this show is crazy!" Of course, that was a reference to a past episode (Houses of the Holy) where Dean says unicorns shoot rainbows out of their ass. Which at the time was a sarcastic remark, but hey, we've come full circle.

- I kind of loved it when Dean could tell Sam was freaking out about the clowns at Plucky's and he said "Sammy" to try to calm him down.

- Was wishing that we'd gotten some kind of flashback scene to whatever happened to Sam at Plucky's when he was a kid!

- Plucky's definitely seemed like a riff on Chuck E. Cheese. Somehow I think "where a kid can be a kid" is a better slogan than "where all your dreams are good" haha!

- Did the janitor guy also play one of the clowns? I may be making this up.

- Hoodoo versus voodoo. What's the difference?

- Dean wanted a giant slinky, and in the end Sam got him one, because they earned it. Dean's gift to Sam? A clown doll. I mean, he is over his fear of them, having had to face them head on, right? Clown, meet asphalt. Guess some things are not meant to be gotten over.

Quotes:

"If it bleeds, you can kill it."

"Hey, you spawn a monster baby, see how quick you wanna dive back in the pool." - Dean

"So what are we looking for? Octovamp? Vamptopus?" - Dean

"Mom. Dad. Nanny. That is a love triangle right out of Casa Erotica. Of course in those, the jealous wife tends to channel her feelings more productively." - Dean

Sam: Wait, now unicorns are evil?
Dean: Yeah, obviously.

Sam: They think the ball washer did it.
Dean: The what?
Sam: The ball washer.
Dean: The what?
Sam: The ball--

"Shark week, man. How do you not watch that? Whole week of sharks." - Dean

"Yeah, guy in his thirties hanging out at Plucky's by himself, that's normal. Not pervy at all." - Dean

"I'm sorry, you look like you got attacked by some PCP crazed strippers." - Dean

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Supernatural 7x13 "The Slice Girls"

It's been a while! Last we checked in with the brothers Winchester, Dean went through a little trip through time while Sam teamed up with Jody Mills. Now that they're both back in present day, however, it's back to what should be a normal case, since they've currently got bupkis on the leviathans. Dean is less than impassioned about their newest case in rainy Seattle, and jumps at the opportunity to drown his sorrows in his patented drinky drinks while Sam does some research.

Just what is Sam doing research on while Dean has himself the first one night stand he's had in a while? (At least, that's what I'm assuming, I could be wrong!) See, some dudes are being killed in a pretty dramatic and specific way - someone is cutting off their hands and feet, and also carving a symbol into their chests. Since their usual fount of information, namely Bobby, is now with the dearly departed, they are forced to do more research themselves, and call upon a local professor to get his help in identifying the symbol.

Meanwhile, however, Dean has realized that he had forgotten the flask of Bobby's he's taken to carrying around with his aforementioned one night stand, Lydia. When he goes to retrieve it, he notices she's got a baby. Wait a minute, she didn't have a baby the night before, did she? Indeed, she did not. We as an audience got to see the child in question gestated at a record pace. Dean also starts to cotton on that something is not quite right with this kid when he overhears the supposed toddler actually say "Who's that man?" Uh, what? Dean goes full on stalker and soon sees a now child-aged girl leaving the house, and follows them to some abandoned warehouse. Hmm, what could they be doing?

But daddy, you can't shoot me and my dagger.

The boys find out from the professor that the symbol they keep seeing is something to do with the Greek goddess Harmonia, who created the Amazons. You know, the all powerful women who don't need men... except to procreate. And then they kill them. They also find out that the children these Amazons produce happen to grow at an exponential rate until they reach a certain age, which would explain Lydia's kid. Which means, uh oh, since Dean slept with Lydia just the other night, that girl he saw? Emma? Yep, she's probably his.

Now that they know all of this, though, they're no closer in figuring out what to do about it. Do the Amazons die like regular humans, or do they have to kill them in some special way? They try to go through Bobby's stuff to figure it out, but end up in a bit of a tiff. At least until a wayward breeze seems to dislodge a particular piece of paper. The breeze could be Bobby's spirit, but Sam is quick to poo poo that idea because that's what they'd like it to be. They did apparently burn his body, which is usually good enough to get rid of a spirit. But what about that flask Dean's carrying around, hmm? Just a thought.

Anyway, nonetheless, the paper that was dislodged appears to be important since it's in Greek, so Sam takes it to the professor while Dean hangs back at the motel with strict orders not to go anywhere. Why they didn't both go, I can't quite fathom. Because the plot needed it? Okay!

So while Sam finds out from the professor that the mother Amazons don't kill the fathers, but rather the children themselves, Dean gets a visit from his very own Amazonian offspring, Emma. She's come to him with stories of wanting to get away and try to live a normal life, pleading with him to help her, but it turns out to all be a ruse to get his defenses down so she can kill him good and proper. Luckily, Dean is not dumb enough to trust her and gets his own gun out. But he's having a hard time pulling the trigger. You know, since it's his daughter and all. But, he doesn't have to do it after all, because Sam shows up and is able to shoot her even though she tries to turn on the puppy dog eyes on him. Sorry Emma, only Sam gets to wield the puppy dog eyes.

In the end we get our patented brother-car-chat, this time with Sam basically upset with Dean because his head is clearly not in the game lately. Which is, you know, true. Sam just wants him to stay alive, and the way he said it was so sad because it really made me think that perhaps Dean is the only thing keeping him sane at the moment, and when are we going to get more of that stuff, hmm? I've heard it's coming, and it's about damn time.

Random Thoughts: 

- The girl who played teenage Emma, Alexia Fast, really did look like she could be Sarah Canning's daughter. Or, you know, sister. Nice casting! Sidenote: Alexia also apparently played Missy Bender back in season 1!

- Was the breeze really Bobby's spirit? The "THEN" segment really seemed to want us to think so. I hate the heavy-handed previews, they make things so obvious sometimes. Honestly I'd prefer if it wasn't his spirit. Am I alone?

- This was the first sex scene we've had in a while on the show! When was the last one, anyway? Like season four? That's the last time my best sex scenes list has anyway.

- Raise your hand if you want more Sam hallucination stuff! Me me me!

Quotes: 

"Some guy with a foot fetish run amok..." - Dean

"'Didn't mention anything human' usually seals the deal for me." - Sam

"Nice decor. Very early Slaughterhouse." - Dean

Dean: News flash, pal, you're just as screwed up as I am. You're just... bigger.
Sam: What?
Dean: I don't know.

Here's a little interview Jared and Jensen did about tonight's episode for those who haven't seen it yet:

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