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Supernatural |
Sam Winchester - Jared Padaleki Dean Winchester - Jensen Ackles Bobby Singer - Jim Beaver Castiel - Misha Collins 
OTHER SUPERNATURAL SEASONS Season 1 Season 2 Season 3 Season 4 Season 5 Season 6 Season 8 OTHER DEMON HUNTERS Buffy The Vampire Slayer Angel Demons Strange 
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Meet The New BossCastiel has decided that he is the new God and since he has all the souls in Purgatory to power him, there's nobody to stop his campaign of smiting the unrighteous. The Winchesters, however, aren't know for giving up easily. The question is, how do you kill God? SUPERNATURAL is back to sort out the mother of all cliffhangers and it starts exactly where it left off. There is so much plot in this episode that it whistles by and anyone trying to come in at this late stage is going to find it hard, even impossible, to keep up. The plan to deal with Castiel is ingenious and in-keeping with the show's now-extensive mythology, but it still has time for some trademark character moments between the brothers and sets up some of the plot arc with Sam suffering hallucinations as his control starts to slip. There's also a plot arc introduced around Castiel's worsening condition and the signs are that the patchy quality of the last season has been mended and this season is going to really fly. It's good to have the boys back in town. TopHello Cruel WorldThe Leviathans leave Castiel and create havoc in a small town. Sam and Dean travel there to deal with matters, but find the newcomers harder to kill than they could know. This second episode picks up right where the last one left off and has a shock twist early on that would destroy us if we thought that it was for real. Apart from that, it's business as usual as the brothers track down the bad guys and try to destroy them. It's good SUPERNATURAL but not necessarily great SUPERNATURAL. Also, the CGI around the Leviathans' eating habits is pretty awful. TopThe Girl Next DoorPeople are being killed off and Sam thinks he knows why. In fact, he might be responsible through an act of kindness from his youth. Dean, is less nostalgic about it. A youthful love story told in flashback? Do we really need this? The answer is no, but the story itself is sort of sweet with a few nice touches (girlfriend opens fridge stocked with body parts) and doesn't grate too much. Where this episode really scores, though, is in its depiction of Dean. The cold-blooded way he deals with the situation that Sam let go of is chilling and his exchange with the young boy at the end is awesome. TopDefending Your LifeEgyptian God Osiris is in town and he's judging people. Their innocence of guilt is not his to decide. He judges people on whether they feel guilty about their crimes. Dean is next up in court. Whether it's an individual or a whole species being forced to defend themselves against the judgement of a higher being, this is a tired old story that has been done many, many times before. Fortunately, the strength of the brothers' characters and the events of the last episode give it enough freshness to get it by, but only just. It's nice that the show can find the time to take a whole episode to consider the effects of its storylines on the main characters and both Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki are up for the challenge. If only they had been given a more original story to do it in. TopShut Up, Dr PhilHell hath no fury like a woman scorned, or in this case a powerful witch taking revenge for her husband's straying. Sam and Dean find that force isn't always the solution. This dip into past-monsters-of-the-week is enlivened by the stunt casting of Charisma Carpenter and James Marsters from The script gives them some fun lines and they make more of them than is actually there, but the plot is weak and we are used to so much better from the show. TopSlash FictionSam and Dean go on a murderous crime spree that makes them the country's most wanted. Of course, it's Leviathans in their shape and so the boys must avoid capture for long enough to kill the doppelgangers. The evil Sam and Dean are a nice twist and suggest a better episode than the one that arrives. Sam and Dean have to go off the grid, but that seems to mean nothing more than changing their clothes and their phones. They then wander around as normal until they are inevitably captured. Fortunately, everything has a weakness and the supposedly indestructible Leviathans can be dealt with. Sort of. TopThe MentalistsSomeone, or something, is killing off the psychics in Lily Dale, the country's most psychically gifted town. Sam and Dean need to figure out who is next. This episode goes right back to the show's monster-of-the-week origins and setting it in a town full of psychics might have provided enough juice to make it feel fresh if the script had played with the idea a bit more, but it really is just another monster-on-the-loose story and one of the most unoriginal monsters at that. The trying to cheat death gimmick of having the victims see their own death beforehand adds a little frisson, but it really is at the lower end of the SUPERNATURAL quality scale. TopHow To Win Friends And Influence MonstersSomething is eating campers in the woods. Sam, Dean and Bobby investigate, but it might be something that's being eaten that's causing the eating. SUPERNATURAL takes a big step back to form with this episode. It starts off as just another monster of the week, but throws in a really gory, witty autopsy scene (yes, really) before morphing into something very different. By concentrating on the main season plot arc and moving that forward, it is more interesting and the script is much better than the last few weeks. Then, to top it off, there's a big, big cliffhanger shock. TopDeath's DoorBobby is in a coma and a reaper is in his sleeping mind with him. Desperate to get the last bit of information he has to the boys, he races from memory to memory, looking for a doorway back to consciousness. The script has enough sense to namecheck ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND because the plot is obviously taken from that film, but it takes the plot and does something with it, creating an episode that deepens our understanding of the character whilst being blackly funny and exciting all at the same time. This is the show at its best, the fantastical nature of the plot feeding into the naturalness of the characters and providing a satisfying standalone idea that fits nicely with the ongoing plot arc. Jensen Ackles gets to give Dean some more depth, but this episode belongs to Jim Beaver as the stalwart Bobby Singer. TopAdventures In BabysittingSam and Dean go to the aid of girl whose father is a hunter chasing vampires and who believes herself to be at least as good as they are. This episode is a little schizophrenic as it half deals with the ongoing plot arc and half deals with the standalone monster of the week plot. For once, however, the standalone is strong enough to overcome the plot arc's needs. It's Dean once more who gets the character development through his relationship with the girl and this seems to be Ackles' season for the emotional journey whilst Sam is slightly sidelined. A solid, if unspectacular, episode. TopTime After TimeSam and Dean investigate freshly mummified corpses and Dean finds himself thrown back in time to 1944 where he tackles a similar case involving one Eliot Ness. There is an undoubted pleasure about getting to see Dean play gangbuster. Jensen Ackles is like a kid at Christmas as he gets all the period gear and shoots the breeze with effortlessly cool Ness (played by Nicholas Lea). Sadly, the rest of the episode isn't up to much with a tired plot that hasn't got anything to add to the time travel theme and keeping the leads apart reduces the chance for entertaining. banter. TopThe Slice GirlsThe Winchesters meet the Amazons and Dean finds that after only a few hours his teenage daughter is out to kill him. After Sam got all emotional over an old girlfriend and child in The Girl Next Door, Dean gets to do pretty much the same thing in this episode. Sure, this has a child growing up in a matter of a day or so, but the connection is only created to give Dean some angst before the need to kill is assuaged. Initially intriguing, this ends up fairly predictable and dull. TopPlucky Pennywhistle's Magical MenagerieSam has a clown phobia, which proves to be a problem when he and Dean investigate a child's play area which can make any child's nightmare real. Clowns? Seriously? OK, we admit that the shark attack in the ball pool is fun and the unicorn murder is at least original, but this is tired storytelling which even the usual Sam and Dean banter couldn't have saved if it was actually present. This is the kind of by the numbers storytelling that made the first season less than memorable. TopRepo ManSam and Dean investigate the return of demon they sent to hell and find that it may be after its old host body. There is an interesting idea at the heart of this episode, investigating the aftereffects of a Winchester adventure on the ordinary people that are caught up in it. They are suitably scarred and messed up and that gives an interesting insight into an otherwise ignored side of the mythology. Apart from the strong central idea, it's a bit 'been there, done that' with some torture porn thrown in to try and hide the fact. TopOut With The OldSam can't sleep because of the vision of Lucifer in his head. This makes dealing with cursed objects and Leviathans trickier than ever. The Leviathans are back and not before time. The re-emergence of the season plot arc ties things together a bit more and makes what is actually quite a mediocre episode feel that much better. There are hints about what the Leviathans are doing and Sam's tortured mind continues to be a feature. TopThe Born Again IdentitySam's mind is collapsing and he is locked away in a psychiatric institute. Dean hears of a healer that might be able to help, but the demons are also on his track. Old friends return in a storyline that takes the subject of Sam's torment to as surprising conclusion. There's no cop-out here and the return of Meg the demon is a welcome surprise. It is also great to have Misha Collins back as Castiel, though the arrival is a surprise and the climax even more so. TopParty On GarthA would-be hunter calls on the Winchesters to help him with an asian demon that can only be seen when drunk. SUPERNATURAL brings a bit of RINGU into the mix, but following the drama of the return of Castiel in the last episode this fails to be more than just another monster-of-the-week tale and is pretty uninspiring. The drunk thing is a nice twist, but not enough to carry the whole story. The coda at the end at least provides a bright moment. TopOf Grave ImportanceBobby's spirit tries to help the boys when they take on a very powerful ghost who is using a haunted house and its inhabitants to prolong his existence. The spirit of Bobby is back and it is this that enlivens a plot that would have been amongst the best in the early seasons, but which now seems dated and somehow irrelevant. The set up is good and the house and its inmates are suitably creepy, but the ending is rushed and the threat is never really used to its full potential. Still, Bobby is back and that's what matters. TopThe Girl With The Dungeons And Dragons TattooThe gang find a hacker working within Dick Roman's empire and ask for her help in finding out just what the Leviathans are up to. This is essentially a heist story that happens to take place against the backdrop of the Leviathans' headquarters, but it doesn't suffer too much because of it. There is a lightness of tone and a sense of fun about it that has been missing for a while throughout this season and this episode gets things firing on all cylinders again. The greatest credit goes to Felicia Day who makes the hacker into a great fun character to be around and everyone else rises to her challenge. We would quite happily see a lot more of her. Top |
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