Supernatural Station

No Rest for the Wicked

Supernatural Season 3, episode #16.
Airdate: Thursday May 15, 2008.
Written by Eric Kripke.
Directed By Kim Manners.

In deference to my overseas visitors wish not to be spoiled, episode review posts and images are no longer being displayed in the blog index. Please click on the post link or go to the “Reviews” category to read a review.

• Synopsis: Click here to read the episode summary.

  There is just over one day left before Dean goes to hell and the Winchesters are at Bobby's trying to find a way out of Dean's deal. Bobby uses a tuning device to find Lilith, the demon who holds Dean's contract. But they have no way to kill the demon, so Sam secretly goes to Bobby's barn and summons Ruby. But Ruby refuses to give Sam her demon-killer knife. Instead, she tries to persuade him to use his dormant demonic powers. Dean interrupts them and deliberately starts a fight with Ruby. Dean uses the fight to snag Ruby's knife and trap her in a “devil’s trap”. Then the brothers leave and head to New Harmony, Indiana to go after Lilith with their newly acquired demon-killer weapon. They are followed by Bobby, who refused to be left behind in this fight.

  On the road, Dean discovers that he can see the true face of demons when a demon-possessed cop pulls the impala over. With only 5 hours left, Dean's closeness to hell has given him this ability and he uses it to locate demons protecting Lilith in New Harmony. Ruby shows up and the three of them sneak into the house where Lilith is, then separate to find her. Sam finds the child but she is no longer possessed by Lilith and time has run out for Dean. Fleeing a hellhound, all three lock themselves in a room that Dean protects with goofa dust. Ruby persuades Sam to give her the knife and he is about to when Dean looks at her and declares that she is not Ruby. Sam tries to stab her but her powers are too great and she pins him to the wall. Lilith-Ruby opens the door and lets in the hellhounds to attack Dean. Then she turns on Sam and tries to fry him with with her demonic power, but strangely it does not work on Sam and she backs away from him in fright. Sam advances and tries to kill her but she flees Ruby's body. He goes over to his brother and breaks down crying as he stoops to hold Dean's torn and lifeless body in his arms. Dean Winchester is dead. In Dean's unblinking eyes we see a horrific scene of him in hell, impaled by hooks and chains and screaming for help.
  The end.

• Praises: Supernatural's season 3 finale is an episode that fans have eagerly anticipated and dreaded. Dean's fate is going to be decided one way or another and the tension is high. The episode started off intense and kept the pace throughout, with a few splatterings of comic relief to break the tension. Then, when it ended, I was left reeling. I don't usually bring up the ending of a episode right away, but this one was so devastating that it colored my perception of the whole episode. It was such an unhappy outcome that had I been in a movie theater, there would have been dead silence from the audience after this show was over. But I guess that is the point. Kripke obviously wanted to shock us and he certainly achieved that.

  Jared, Jensen, Jim Beaver, and even Katie Cassidy's performance kept my attention riveted to the screen throughout this episode. The little girl who played Lilith is a very talented young actor. And the actors playing her parents and grandparent did a fine job of making me believe in that cute child's evilness. Dean was all seriousness and focused on preventing his brother from repeating the Winchester sacrificial cycle. It was Bobby who was the delightfully snarky one in this episode. I laughed out loud when he called Dean “hell's bitch”. I can see where Dean inherited his smart mouth. He didn't get it from his Dad, so he must have picked it up from Bobby growing up. Then the final scene happened…and all that went before was erased. Dean is dead and his soul is trapped in a Hellraisers' movie set.

• Nags: Whoa…Whoa…Whoa…WTF…Whoa…Whoa…Whoa. What kind of ending was that! That's not a cliffhanger. That's a show-ending-lose-half-of-your-fan-base kind of ending. Kripke, I can't believe you actually killed Dean! That ending didn't send a shocked thrill through me like season one did, or leave me with a satisfied feeling as season two. That ending left me numb. Seriously, I feel totally numb. Not upset, not angry, just a detached numb feeling. Maybe this is a stage of grieving, or maybe Supernatural has punched me in the gut one too many times that I no longer feel the pain. Maybe it's time to get away from my abuser. Hell…who am I kidding? I know Kripke loves me…he just gets these moods sometimes…

  Moving on…my other nags about this episode is that Jared is such a poor singer that he should be banned from ever singing on Supernatural again. The poor man must be hopelessly tone deaf. And, while Katie Cassidy had some good moments, when she switched from Ruby to Lilith, I could not tell the difference when the special effects wasn't there. Thankfully, the script aided where her acting did not. In conclusion, I find that I cannot score this episode…not right now, anyway. The ending was so disappointing that I cannot trust myself to be fair.

• My Rating: - no rating -

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 18th, 2008 at 7:12 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.