Supernatural Station

Malleus Maleficarum

Supernatural Season 3, episode #9.
Airdate: Thursday Jan 31, 2008.
Written by Ben Edlund.
Directed By Robert Singer.

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• Synopsis: Click here to read the episode summary.

  The Winchesters are investigating an apparent case of death by witchcraft when Ruby shows up. She tells them to get out of town because a badass demon was in the area and they were in danger. Dean reviles her and tries to shoot her but Sam deflects his aim. Back in their motel room, Dean suddenly gets sick and starts coughing up blood. After searching frantically for a source of the spell, Sam grabs the colt and goes after the witches coven by himself. He finds a demon in their midst and attempts to shoot her, but she stops his bullet in mid air then pins him against a wall, demon-style.

  In the meantime, Ruby saves Dean life by force feeding him a witches potion. When he recovers, he follows Sam and tries to kill the demon but, like Sam, he is easily stopped and pinned against a wall. Next Ruby shows up, but she too is quickly disarmed and set upon by this powerful demon. When the last surviving member of the coven uses a spell against the demon, this distracts her long enough for Dean to grab Ruby’s knife and stab the demon to death.

  Later when Dean is by himself, Ruby appears and tells him that she was once a human who sold her soul to practice witchcraft. She became a demon after centuries in hell and that he too faces the same fate. She tells him that she is a different kind of demon because she remembers being human and that she needs his help to turn Sam into a killer who can continue to fight the demon war when he is on his own.

• Praises: Like season two, episode #9 of season three is an episode focused heavily on Supernatural’s mythology. Sam changing personality, Dean’s impending demise and descent to hell, and the demon war were all touched upon. Plus new twists were thrown into the mythology to keep us fans guessing. The story was fast paced and at some points, heart pounding. I found myself drawn into it several times. Two things really stood out for me. One was that Sam felt strongly enough to forcibly stop his brother from shooting Ruby, a demon, yet was willing to kill humans because they practiced witchcraft…not a good sign about where Sam’s changing persona is going. The second was the badass witchcraft demon. She was the most powerful demon we’ve seen in season three so far. And she hid her viciously evil persona under a sweet, innocent facade called Tammy. Much like Meg did in season one. The pretty, petite actress did a great job of convincing me that she was an evil bitch demon. Tammy is an adversary I would like to see the Winchesters come up against again, but alas, Dean filleted her. Other notable aspects of the show was Sam’s frantic anxiety when Dean began coughing up blood…it was almost palpable, and, the demon stopping the bullet in mid air was an awesome special effect. I love it every time a Winchester fires the colt and effect is slo-moed to where we see the bullet actually traveling to it’s target. This time it didn’t make it all the way, but that made it even more startling.

• Nags: Kripke…What the hell???? Where are u taking this show’s mythology? Demons were once people? No Way!!!! If your goal was to shock fans, you certainly succeeded with me. People don’t have the ability to levitate, stop bullets or bring people back to life…how in heaven’s name are they supposed to get this ability once in hell. Ruby better be lying through her teeth, playing on Dean’s fears in typical demon fashion and manipulating him in her goal to turn Sam evil. Also, this is the second time that you’ve tried to make a demon sympathetic on the show, in this case, Ruby…and I’m not buying into it! I wish you’d just stop that because it ain’t gonna work…not with most of Supernatural’s audience and certainly not with the portion of fans, like myself, who grew up Catholic. Katie Cassidy got a lot of screen time in her role as Ruby, but she failed to impress. Her only good scene was when she and Dean were shouting at each other, otherwise she was just plain bad. The mythology in this episode was a lot more interesting than the story itself. I am rating it “very good” because it mattered enough to me to get worked up.

• My Rating: Very good episode. 3.5 out of 5 stars.

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 2nd, 2008 at 10:30 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.