Supernatural Station

Good God, Y’All

Supernatural Season 5, episode #02.
Airdate: Thursday September 17, 2009.
Written by Sera Gamble.
Directed By Phil Sgriggia.

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• Synopsis: Click here to read the episode summary.

  The Winchesters are with Bobby in the hospital when Castiel drops by. Castiel says he is now a fugitive, isolated from heaven and unable to heal Bobby’s paralysis. To stop Lucifer and the apocalypse, he wants to find God who he thinks is on earth and he needs Dean’s bull amulet, which glows in God’s presence, to do it. At first, Dean refuses to give it to him, but then hands it over when Castiel changes his request to an order. Then Bobby’s phone rings and it is Rufus calling for help.

  The Winchesters drive to an isolated town in Colorado to rescue Rufus but instead, find Ellen Harvelle and a small group of survivors hiding in the local church. They tell of a town overrun by demons with everyone who isn’t dead being demon possessed. Ellen says that she got separated from Rufus and her daughter, Jo, soon after they got into the town.

  While Dean prepares the survivors for fighting demons, Sam and Ellen go out to find the missing hunters. But Sam is captured by a demon-eyed Rufus and Ellen barely escapes being choked by her own daughter, who also has black eyes. Sam is tied to a chair and confronted by Rufus and Jo, quoting latin. Then the “demons” splash Sam with holy water and pour salt down his throat. Sam realizes that something is wrong…his captors think that he is the one who is demon possessed, yet it is they who look like demons. Back at the church, Ellen tells Dean that Jo called her a black-eyed bitch and they too realize that they are no demons.

  War, one of the 4 horsemen of the apocalypse, created the illusion of demons to turn the townspeople against each other. He boasts of this to captive Sam, then he makes Dean and Ellen appear like demons in the church, forcing them to flee for their lives when the survivors turned on them too.

  Dean and Ellen work together to capture Rufus and Jo and convince them that there are no demons. After they do this, Sam is released and Sam and Dean go hunting for War as the townspeople launch another attack on each other. The Winchester find him as he is about drive off in his classic red Mustang. Unable to kill him, they cut his ring finger off and this dissipates the illusion just in time to prevent Ellen from being killed.

  Later at a highway rest stop, Sam and Dean talk about the lack of trust between them. Sam suggests that he stops hunting for a while and Dean agrees. Sam takes his duffel bag from the impala and hitches a ride with a truck driver, leaving Dean behind.
  The end.

• Praises: The Winchester brothers were back doing what they do best: roaring into town in the Impala, stopping a scary supernatural baddie, saving people (a beautiful girl), with snarkish humor and machismo (Dean), plus angst and drama (Sam), while listening to classic rock and looking really hot (both). Simple right? Not anymore. Kripke ramped up the stakes when he started the apocalypse in the season premiere. Now, the supernatural beings are even badder and almost impossible to kill, the brothers are out of sync as a team, and Sam is fighting his own addiction demons. And that made this episode was both exciting and interesting.

  There was angst, there was tension, there were scary moments, there was humor and snark, family moments, and even a hug (from Ellen). The scary part was not the supernatural being, but how easy it was for neighbor to turn against neighbor, for an entire town to become unraveled, based on appearances. As bleak parallel, we saw the Winchester brother’s relationship also unraveling. Like the townspeople, arguing, fighting (almost) and lack of trust has replaced their once tight bond. Their relationship has deteriorated so badly that for the first time ever, Dean did not immediately try to rescue Sam when he was captured by demons. To make things more complicated, Sam Winchester is still drawn to the superior power and strength that demon blood gives him and almost surrendered to that temptation after killing a couple demons.

  On a less bleak side, the show brought a new addition to the show’s mythology, one that I welcomed. Dean’s bull amulet necklace is not only sentimental, it has the unique ability to glow in God’s presence. This means that at some point God will probably make an appearance on the show…cool. I can’t wait to see Kripke’s take on big G himself/herself. The amulet scene also reminded us that Dean is a military man at heart, that even when he does not want to do something (give up his necklace), he will obey a direct order from a superior he trusts (Castiel). Dean’s daddy trained him this way and I am betting that this will probably have some significance in a future episode.

  As usual, the stars’ acting was on the money. Sam’s struggles and emotional appeals to the deaf ears of his captors was amazingly done by Jared. I loved Misha’s intensity and anger when Castiel talked about Dean’s failure to stop the apocalypse and being a fugitive angel, and Jensen’s subtle expression of guilt. Jim did a nice job showing Bobby emotionally lashing out because of his paralysis. Steven Williams was great as the hard headed old hunter, Rufus. Samantha Ferris epitomizes tough and affectionate, Ellen. And Titus Welliver was quite good as “War” a god-like being with a sense of style and humor, and enjoying the “game” of manipulating humans like toys.

  Supernatural season 5 has continued it’s great start and I am looking forward to seeing the rest of the story unfold.

• Nags: Though, I liked that this episode brought back characters from past seasons, it failed to address some issues related to those characters that fans like myself are chomping to know about. For example, the near rape scene between Sam and Jo in season two’s ‘Born Under a Bad Sign’ was one of Supernatural’s most shocking scenes, ever. I expected that there would be some fallout from it when they finally met again. So when the writer or director didn’t bother to make it an issue, I was disappointed.

  Also, both Rufus and Ellen knew about Dean’s deal from Season 3, yet both accepted his presence a little too easily, making no demands for an explanation of why he was not dead and in hell. Perhaps, Bobby had made up a story for them, but I’d have like to heard about it for consistency’s sake.

  Thankfully, these were minor faults in an otherwise great episode

• My Rating: Great episode. 4 out of 5 stars.

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 18th, 2009 at 5:17 pm and is filed under Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.