“Bow before Todd!”
Ted Rami guest stars on another fun episode that gives us plenty of fun quotes. I’ve always been a fan of the “be careful what you wish for” morel (and one I always voice when discussing politics) so this episode was also a personal joy. If you haven’t seen it, I know some might be wondering if the trickster is back again (once a season?). As much as we all enjoy his character… no, he’s not. They do run with something new this episode and it’s fun trying to solve the mystery.
And of course, any episode that starts with a girl in the shower automatically gets one bonus shell.
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Spoiler Discussion:
The big deal with this episode is the first and last five minutes of it, where Sam and Dean discuss the latter’s experience in Hell. This has been a bit of a mystery through the season but in truth, I could never work up the enthusiasm for it. How could Kripke and Co come up with anything more bone chilling than Dante’s original? Hell is a trope that’s been done over and over, and always has a fundamental flaw- Whatever is most torturous for one person, won’t be for someone else. Thus, it always ends up falling short for someone. In the end, Kripke seems to have realized this and the episode closes with Dean admitting he does remember his time, but he is not going to talk about it. His drinking is more prevalent in this show, is he on the path to alcoholism? That’s where the real interest lies: not what happened in Hell, but how it’s affecting Dean.
Ted Rami’s guest appearance was a treat; I only wish they had gotten Sam Rami himself to direct this one in tribute. Ted plays the “everyman” better than anyone in Hollywood, and his tragedy in this episode is a bit painful to watch.
A few meta jokes in this episode: Sam writing a book titled “Supernatural” about legends through America, the “gore” shot of the bear shooting himself, they even showed the boys actually looking for their various badges and IDs (one wonders that it doesn’t happen more often).
The only downside is that this episode had a rather obvious solution. Why didn’t the boys just wish for the answer, or for the first wish not to happen? I understand that there might have been some difficulty with this (maybe coin rules prevent it) but it seems a little lazy of Kripke to not at least address the problem. Maybe that was the real downside of this episode, the story possibilities could have filled hours (what if the boys did wish for Lilith’s death? How would that have gone sour?). As this season addresses the “divine” implications of the Supernatural, we’re probably going to run into more and more questionable conflicts of interest (could they wish some of the seals unbroken? Undo Lucifer? Summon 10,000 angels? etc).
Hunt well till next week (yay! Another angel/myth show – with a redhead!)…
Hunting Muses 