Get ready for a brand new episode of The Winchesters tonight with our review and recap of last week’s episode…
The second episode of the Supernatural prequel, The Winchesters, is titled after a song I loved in the 70s even though I was too young to ever really be “into “ CSNY or see them in concert. Still, it brought back fond memories to actually hear it play in this episode.
As someone who was alive then, I enjoy this show being set in that time period, though sometimes it strikes me as an idealized TV version of the 70s, which was complicated and not all peace-love-flower-power. This episode lets the show really sink into the flower power part of the time, the monster taking up residence outside a commune. It opens with kids (okay young adults maybe, this is a very young show) singing and swaying around a campfire, wearing flower crowns, doing drugs, walking in the woods… It’s a 2022 version of 70s nostalgia, and a little less gritty than I remember.
In a typical opener of a Supernatural universe show, one kid soon sees what he thinks is his dad (in the middle of the woods inexplicably) telling him it’s time to go home – and then growing menacing looking tree vines from his arms and wrapping poor Barry up and spiriting him away.
The Winchesters logo pops up and sparks out just like the Supernatural logos have always done, and that makes me smile for some reason.
To Savannah, Georgia, as we get the Dean Winchester narration about family ties being complicated. (That is the most gigantic understatement ever for Dean Winchester to say!) They raise you, teach you what’s right and wrong – and in some instances teach you how to kill monsters. But no matter who you are, there comes a time when you have to break from them and make your own way.
I guess that was sort of Sam and Dean’s journey; John himself never had to break from his dad since Henry was gone.
Dean: And if you’re not careful, things can get pretty ugly.
Again with the gigantic understatement, Mr. Dean Winchester monster hunter!
Moving on to a pretty flashlit scene, the Core Four finding a bunch of dead zombies while Mary barks orders and Lata enthusiastically investigates a zombie’s dislocatable jaw.
Carlos: You are deeply weird and starting to concern me.
The weird is kinda the point though, Carlos!
The file cabinets are empty of any Akrida information, but Mary finds shotgun shells with “SC” on them – Samuel Campbell always signed his work. She’s convinced this is his way of contacting her. It’s very much a repeat of Dean always convinced that their dad was trying to contact them in Season 1 of Supernatural, insisting that he and Sam keep following his coordinates and his leads.
A few zombies, it turns out, are not dead, and they attack, the very convenient monster trapping box rendered unworkable for some reason (perhaps because it was too convenient). They’re all pretty badass fighters, including John, who ends up splattered with zombie guts. Drake Rodger is very good at the subtle comedy, so this is a running gag that tends to work.