

Supernatural: Golden Time

"I learned from the best."

Sam really did learn from the best, didn't he? Was anyone else thinking, "I happen to be a very powerful man-witch myself"?

I'm so pleased that Eileen has returned. Back when it happened, her death really bothered me. It felt like she had been set up as cannon fodder, and of course, Supernatural does have this consistently annoying habit of killing off strong female characters. Right now, the Winchesters need every good hunter they can get, and even dead, Eileen was still a good hunter – she found Rowena's secret stash almost immediately.

And I have to add that I've always gotten a sweet romantic vibe between Eileen and Sam. I was going "awwww" when he hugged her after her resurrection, with her naked and dripping in a towel, no less. We don't tend to get romantic or sexy threads on Supernatural, and I wouldn't be at all averse to a little Sam and Eileen goodness. Although I'm not expecting either of the Winchesters to retire from the biz at the end of the series and find love or anything.

Don't get me wrong – I am more than happy to have Eileen back in physical form. But does this mean that when she dies again, she must return to Hell?

The witch coven that was trying to burgle Rowena's apartment didn't do much for me. We spent way too much time with shy witch Emily in her little girl outfit, expecting that she might turn out to have some good in her and would respond to Sam's friendship overtures, and no. Although I did enjoy the Eileen versus Jacinda ghost fight in the hallway.

(At the start of the episode, I thought we were going to get Rowena back, and that didn't feel quite right. Rowena went out so beautifully and redemptively, not to mention heroically. Of course Rowena would boobytrap her apartment. And of course, she would make it safe for Sam.)

Of course, Dean came to Sam's rescue. He's still Dean. But he's also fighting depression, eating cereal and marathoning cartoons in his bathrobe. Dean's fatalism needed a kick in the pants, and I think he got some this time. The Winchesters do still have some free will. As Sam said, Chuck certainly didn't know Sam was going to shoot him with the Equalizer, right?

Speaking of Team Free Will, Castiel used to find hunting awkward and difficult, but not any more. During his fishing trip to Idaho, he felt just like a third Winchester, successfully solving the case of the djinn killings at a lake without so much as breaking angel sweat. (It was villain old home week, wasn't it? Three witches and a djinn?)

Doesn't it seem that lately, the Winchesters are giving civilians the "monsters are real" talk more often? Here, it was Castiel giving "the talk" to Melly and her son Caleb, who both seemed to be cool with all the blood as Castiel killed the djinn and then used his angel powers to heal Caleb's ankle. I particularly liked the bullets hitting Castiel and vanishing with an angelic whine. Have we ever seen that before?

Why did Castiel find it difficult to heal Caleb? Is something going on there?


— Loved the transparent flickering when ghost Eileen got into the bathtub without disturbing the water. I don't remember that room with the bathtub; have we seen it before?

— Headlines while Sam was browsing in the internet: "It's a Miracle! Baby Parts Lake Superior!" and on EdlundianTimes (lol), "Saint Mary Appears on Three Cheese Pizza!"

— Sam told Eileen he'd been practicing his signing. And then he only did it twice.

— Melly was played by Jennifer Spence, who played continuing characters in time travel serieses Continuum and Travelers. She also played a completely different character in season seven's "Plucky Pennywhistle's Magical Menagerie."

— And... Keegan Connor Tracy, the mama witch, played two other characters in Supernatural, in "The Usual Suspects" and "The Monster at the End of This Book." Is this "bring back actors we liked in other roles" season?

— It's hard to get a good total cremation going on a wood floor. Wouldn't there be a whole lot of body remaining?

— This week: wherever Rowena's apartment is, and a small town in Idaho near Grand Teton National Park. Castiel was special agent Clarence Worley, and Dean was Castiel's FBI supervisor, Assistant Director Kaiser, and loved the tangle of faux phones. No idea where they got the FBI names. Any theories?

-- In this week's hair report, the evil and noticeably bald djinn sheriff got his hair cut every week.

-- We're getting a brief Thanksgiving break. The next episode airs Thursday, December 5.


Dean: "You know they still put jokes on the back of these things. Listen to this one. 'What's round and bad-tempered?' 'A vicious circle.'"
Gee, that's not relevant to their current situation at all.

Sam: "So I've been looking for signs of God or Lilith, and you've been in your room eating cereal?"
Dean: "And marathoning Scooby-Doo."
Dean eating stale cereal and then trying to eject the bits from his mouth was really funny.

Sam: "I haven't had a vision since Colorado. I think maybe they stopped."
Dean: "Oh, I doubt it. Not until Chuck gets his endgame. You know, the Winchester Bowl. Cain and Abel two point oh."

Dean: "You're like Rowena's protégé. You're a regular Ginger Junior."

Sam: "You ever feel like you're the punch line of some cosmic joke?"
Eileen: "Are you kidding?"

Mama Witch: "Show Death a loophole and she closes it."
Does everyone know that Death is Billie now?

Sam: "I get it. I have an older brother. When I was ten, he put Superglue in my toothpaste."

Melly: "The thing is, taking yourself out of the game doesn't really change the game."

Castiel: "It's always you. You selfish little men in positions of authority. You take what you want, you take *who* you want, and you believe your power will protect you. Well, it won't protect you from me."
Maybe Castiel could take a trip to Washington, DC?

Dean: "That's the thing, man. I don't know what's God and what isn't. And it's driving me crazy."

I liked this one. Mostly the Eileen part of this one. Three out of four abandoned apartments,



Patrick said...

For the FBI aliases, I assume Clarence is an "It's A Wonderful Life" reference, and my first guess for Dean is Keyser Soze from The Usual Suspects.

percysowner said...

Jodelle Ferland who played Emily is also a repeat guest star. She played the creepy murderous kid Melanie Merchant in season one's Provenance

As to the FBI names Clarence Worley is a character in a movie called "True Romance" I've never seen it, so I have no clue as to what that character is about. Meg also called Cas Clarence all the time, so I'm guessing that is a nod to her as well. Someone said that Kaiser was the name Bobby used when he pretended to be the FBI contact, so a nice nod to canon there as well.

Mikey Heinrich said...

Human bodies have a surprisingly lower burning temperature than wood, although you're probably going to spoil the finish, depending on what kind of varnish is on the wood.


Billie Doux said...

And this is why it's important to have a fire fighter on the Doux Reviews writing team.

blkoz said...

I liked the episode but I wonder if I missed something. If the boys recently learned that souls in hell can't go to heaven how do they explain John Winchester & Bobby Singer being released from hell & sent to heaven? BTW Clarence Worley in True Romance was the character played by Christian Slater.

percysowner said...

@bikoz They did a handwave explanation in the Kevin episode. Basically God was letting people who had been to Hell and didn't deserve it get into Heaven. Now that he's ticked off, the ban is back in place. The angels aren't going to buck the system and they are barely keeping Heaven working as it is.

Oddly, this has slightly more continuity than a lot of other things. When Sam and Dean went to Heaven, Joshua was fairly contemptuous to them and said he didn't understand why God kept LETTING them back into Heaven, so he seems to have taken a direct hand in getting people in all the way back in season 5. At the time it seemed like Joshua was judging their worthiness, b.ut it could have been something more

Billie Doux said...

percysowner, thank you so much! I remembered much of that explanation about the Chuck and Heaven situation but not all of the details.

Nick said...

Doesn't an Angel's grace come from God? Does this mean that Castiel is using up his grace, and God is not refilling it or something?

Mothra said...

Re. "Why did Castiel find it difficult to heal Caleb?", that seemed to follow up on Cas' comment in "The Rupture" that "my powers are failing". (I admit that when he said that, I couldn't remember other recent instances of that happening, or of his trying to talk to Dean about that as he said he did "over and over".)