Category: Episode Reviews: Supernatural

Supernatural Takes on The Thule

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This week’s Supernatural episode was by another new writer, Meredith Glynn, but directed by a returning fan favorite director, Nina Lopez Corrado. The Winchesters once again come up against the Thule, Nazi necromancers who are determined this time to resurrect Hitler himself.

The first half of the episode was a bit oddly paced and choppy, but it had some wonderful scenes. This season we’re getting more domestic Winchesters than we usually do, which makes me incredibly happy. Robbie Thompson was onto something when he wanted to show us more of the brothers’ lives in between cases. That lets us see the people they are, and lets us see the bond between the two of them in a different way than we see it on a hunt. We know they have each other’s backs, and that’s wonderful to see as well, but part of the reason they’re so close is that there are all those little moments in between – the little moments that bond all of us to the people we care about.

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American Nightmare – Classic Supernatural!

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This week’s episode was like a return to old school, classic Supernatural – and I am SO on board with that! I watched the episode while at a Supernatural convention in New Jersey with a fellow fangirl, which meant a lot of shared exclamations during the ‘THEN’ opening.

Me: OMG psychic kids!

Both of us: OMG baby Sammy with bangs!

Then the episode went very dark very fast, which should surprise no one who’s ever watched Supernatural. Some poor woman gets flayed alive by an invisible force in front of a horrified priest and churchgoers and once again I’m a little queasy. Supernatural has been even more graphic than usual this season and I think I flinched every time a new gash opened up on her back. OUCH.

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That’s My Show! Supernatural Gets Back to Basics with ‘The Foundry’

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While waiting for someone to get me off the internet (thanks to Jared and Jensen being unspeakably adorable and gorgeous at the EWPopFest this afternoon), I thought I might as well get something done and post my review of 12.03 here. I really liked it!

Last week my inflated expectations from the week before influenced my reaction to the second episode of the season. This week, I went into episode 12.03 nervous and crossing every available appendage in hopes that this one would get season 12 back on track. With writer Robert Berens and director Bob Singer at the helm, I was cautiously optimistic. And guess what? They didn’t let me down. That Show I love with all my heart and soul? It’s back. With bells on.

‘The Foundry’ was an old fashioned Supernatural episode, which is a very big compliment indeed. It was by turns creepy and terrifying and heartwarming and heartbreaking, all in 42 minutes. I screamed out loud, bit my nails, knocked over a chair in my excitement at one point, and used up half a box of tissues by the time it was over. And that? That’s Supernatural.

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Mamma Mia! Supernatural 12.02

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Warner Bros/The CW
Warner Bros/The CW

Last week I was bowled over by the return of Supernatural, with a season premiere that kicked ass in so many ways. That’s always a dangerous place to be for the next episode, so I really should have tried to rein in my expectations a bit. But hey, I was enjoying being in that heady space, so I just dove in without talking myself down. The second episode of Season 12 had more ups and downs than the first.

Alas, there was no Abba despite the title. Instead, the episode started out with the definition of a WTF moment. As in, I was screaming at the television screen, WTF????!!!!! Sure it’s nice to see Jared Padalecki shirtless from time to time, but the fact that he was rolling around the bed with that Nasty Crazy Lady took any possible hotness and extinguished it within a microsecond. Do you think I’m that shallow, Show? That I’ll take some shirtless Sam no matter what the context and not be bothered? That it won’t matter the circumstances?

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Look, I’m plenty shallow at times when it comes to this Show, but no. (Jared doing pushups in the workout trailer, on the other hand? Oh hell yes, shallow shallow shallow…) I vacillated between okay-calm-down-this-clearly-isn’t-real and but-omg-what-if-it-is because a redemption arc for Lady Toni is my nightmare right now. I might actually mean that literally.

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Keep Calm and Carry On – Supernatural Kicks Off Season 12!

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I came into this season’s premiere of Supernatural a little wary – the end of Season 11 brought with it a lot of changes to the show, including the departure of showrunner Jeremy Carver, some of my favorite writers, and even some long-time crew members. So I was guarded in my expectations, but hopeful because every time I talked to lead actors Jensen Ackles or Jared Padalecki about the new season, they seemed to be happy with the start of the season and where the early episodes were taking them. So, in I went, with tissues and pie and glass of wine at the ready.

Supernatural fans are a bit different than other fans – we’re a fandom that has been around for a long time, and we appreciate all sorts of little things that the casual viewer might not. Case in point:

a) The Show is now back on Thursdays, where it began on another network eleven years ago. That felt special to me, and added to the anticipation.

b) We love the crew of our show and the miracles that they work, so most of us were not only anticipating the show, but the new title card! And it didn’t let us down – I gave a little squee to see it.

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c) Music is important. Sure, sure, there’s no singing in Supernatural (untrue, btw…) but there has always been music. Great music. The classic rock that Eric Kripke loved and passed on to his fictional boys, Sam and Dean. This season kicked off with the sort of kickass classic rock montage that we’ve come to expect from Supernatural, ratcheting up the excitement and reminding me of what an amazing show I fell for.

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Love Conquers All in Supernatural’s Season 11 Finale

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Sibling Love to be exact. This is Supernatural, after all.

Somehow I’m never really prepared for those first notes of Carry On to play in the season finale. It’s not that I don’t know it will happen, but I never remember right at that moment and then BOOM, I’m hit with a wave of love for this Show that is like an emotional hurricane. Add to that the recap of this truly epic Season 11, and I was already a bit wibbly going in. This turned out to be an unusual season finale, especially coming after some episodes that were real nail biters. ‘Alpha and Omega’ was comparatively quiet, slower paced than most finale episodes. There were some things that, at first viewing, didn’t work that well for me – and some things that I wished were in the episode but weren’t – so I waited until after I had time for a second viewing today before I wrote this. And I’m really glad I did, because I liked it much better the second time around. Maybe it’s because my adrenaline level wasn’t set to maximum with anticipation like it was on Wednesday night, so that it didn’t match the slower pace of the episode. After I calmed down and watched more thoughtfully, the quieter scenes and the more subtle emotional notes came through more clearly.

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Careening To Season End with Supernatural ‘We Happy Few’

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Warner Bros/The CW
Warner Bros/The CW

My perspective on this week’s episode was shaped by the context of watching it, let me say that up front. I’m in Rome, without much internet, and didn’t get to see the episode until Thursday evening (thanks to the generosity of fandom and a download link—thank you @mywaywardsonsuk!). We watched huddled over my iPad in our hotel room, but the download stopped and started and I confess I held my breath the entire time, not for the usual reasons, but because I was rather terrified that I’d get to see half of the episode and then I wouldn’t get the rest. What kind of torture would that be?? Luckily it all played, so here’s my quick-before-my-internet-craps-out mini review!

The reaction to ‘We Happy Few’, from the little I’ve seen since I’m not online as much as usual, was mixed. Some people enjoyed it and liked where the story seems to be going. Others hated it and hated that same trajectory. We knew it was a ballsy move to make God a character—this is Supernatural, after all, which means as soon as you’re a character you also have a likely expiration date. Apparently even if you’re God! I was prepared for that, so it didn’t shock me as much as it shocked some people, but I did still whisper, “They’re actually gonna kill God??” Apparently I’m not as unshockable as I thought.

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Supernatural Asks The Big Questions in ‘All In The Family’

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Tom Wright and Serge Ladouceur being brilliant
Tom Wright and Serge Ladouceur being brilliant

So much happened in this week’s episode, ‘All In The Family’ that it’s difficult to get it all down in a review that’s sandwiched between conventions. I just got back from the Ladies of SPN Con, where I met some wonderful actresses and some wonderful fellow fans, so my review is late – and most likely you’ve all read others while I was flying back and forth across the country. So I’ll make this one personal, and leave most of the deep theological ponderings to others. I watch this Show with a very personal lens – it’s the relationships that matter to me, more than anything else. Though of course the characters are embedded within a larger story, and it’s that story which shapes who they are.

We pick up where we left off (thank you for that, Show!) as Dean and Sam are reunited with Chuck and – predictably – don’t exactly say oh sure, you’ve been God all along, right. Instead, they’re skeptical, but their hunters’ skepticism is quickly erased by the sudden and unexpected (to me as well as the Winchesters) appearance of none other than Kevin Tran, looking as adorable as ever.

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The veil has been good to him, it seems – or at least not terrible. I was so shocked to see Kevin that I dropped the remote I was holding and it fell right into the delicious dessert we were all eating. Oops.

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It – He – They’re Back! Supernatural ‘Don’t Call Me Shurley’

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I’m in the middle of a family vacation, so this is a one-time viewing review. Forgive me if I mess up details – and feel free to correct me! I’m writing from the heart (which, let’s face it, is usually a large part of what motivates my writing about this Show anyway).

I loved this episode. It’s another one of those episodes that split the fandom, though I think there were more people on the squee side than the OMG NO side this time. I will admit right up front that at first I was skeptical. I’ve been skeptical ever since we’ve pretty much known that Chuck was back and he was going to be God. Kripke carefully didn’t “go there” because seriously, that is one BIG risk for a show to take. As soon as this episode began and Chuck revealed himself to Metatron, I got nervous. Oh boy, here we go – Show is really truly going there. I might have bitten my fingernails a bit.

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Love, Loss and Protective Big Brothers – Supernatural ‘The Chitters’

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It’s always interesting to me when reaction to a Supernatural episode isn’t unanimous. In my little corner of the internet, the vast majority of fans were squeeful about ‘The Chitters’. I wasn’t expecting to love it – the preview made it seem like a MotW episode, which are sometimes awesome and sometimes so so. But from the very first frame, I ended up leaning in toward my television, literally on the edge of my seat. Not because it was a bite-your-fingernails-and-tear-your-heart-out-simultaneously roller coaster ride like ‘Red Meat’, but because I was invested in the characters I was watching. And I don’t just mean Sam and Dean.

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