Eight episodes in, and Supernatural Season 13 is still going strong. Last week’s episode, the oddly and ominously named ‘The Scorpion and the Frog,’ which I will probably always refer to as the Heist episode, kept the winning streak going. Some of my favorite episodes of this show are the throwback episodes that feel like the early seasons, especially the “monster of the week” ones that give the mytharc a rest and let Sam and Dean do what Sam and Dean do best – hunt. This episode was still mytharc-related, because Sam and Dean are motivated to undertake the heist in return for a Nephilim tracking spell, but it felt very old school. It was the Winchesters against the bad guys, and that was a lot of fun!
This season has been so dark (albeit with bits of humor tossed in that make it all so much more bearable) – that I think I started to feel a little beaten down just like Dean. So it was nice to see the Winchesters get some kind of win, even if it wasn’t the spell they were hoping for.
Perhaps even more importantly, for me at least, this episode felt like Supernatural. Sam and Dean felt like Sam and Dean. That’s my number one make-or-break point for this show, and Meredith Glynn writes my boys the way I see them. They talk like Sam and Dean, they feel the emotions that Sam and Dean would feel, they act like Sam and Dean. I recognize them; I feel like I know them. And it’s that familiarity that provides the emotional benefit that we get from our favorite shows. Without it, Supernatural is just another genre show. Glynn doesn’t make that mistake, and it makes all the difference.
We start with a little demon theft, and a double-crossing crossroads demon who immediately reminded everyone of Crowley. I’m assuming that was intentional, but I’m not sure it was a great idea – most of the reaction I’ve seen was the same as my own. TOO SOON. We’re all grieving the loss of Crowley and Mark Sheppard, so nobody who seems to be any sort of replacement is going to be welcomed. I’m having a similar problem with Asmodeus, but this character seemed even closer. David Cubitt did a fine job of making Bart a character with personality, and it’s not his fault that I couldn’t stop missing Crowley, but my reaction threw me out of the story a bit.