This is one of those outings… not a lot to say good or bad about it.
Final Score: 
I will admit this one does kind of give us that sense of where our beloved brothers got their “team free will” motivation from. There was always an undercurrent of a defiance of destiny to John Winchester – especially if you read some of the comics about him. This is one of the better episodes where you can almost see where Sam and Dean would come from in both nature and nurture.
This is one episode where the lack of guns felt extra egregious. I mean do you know what a shotgun can do to a head? Do you know the head explosion scene from Scanners? No that’s not a metaphor either:
Drawing on his technical expertise, special effects supervisor Gary Zeller told everyone to get into their cars, then he lay down behind the [fake] head and blew it up with a shotgun. –Source
So yeah, just FYI in your own life – but shotguns make effective anti-vampire weapons.
This is where part of me wonders if this show is being colored by Jensen’s experience on Rust. Note that I am not making any comment on the incident, just that after it, I wonder if he is insisting on The Winchesters avoiding the use of guns in the show.
I do enjoy quality stunt work and will admit the action this episode was at last well filmed, you can still just feel the tension being undercut by these little things I mention.
I did also enjoy the head vampire’s scene chewing. You got to love an over-the-top villain now and then.
Thanks as always for the screencaps, courtesy of Raloria@livejournal.
Hunting Muses 
It could be an exploring other options in terms of weapons and fighting styles. I don’t have much truck with it. It was however a bit sloppy, they didn’t have a plan B for the hair swish thing!
Holding in mind, so often we take things for granted in our long in the tooth show, there was the commonly held belief SPN didn’t find it’s stride and best identity until episode 12. I’m curious if that will happen?
Millie and John were strong together, they are clicking solidly. We needed more of them together.
Yeah I mean I love the idea of weaponizing the hair – but we couldn’t have gotten it in an episode with some demons? Or a new monster with some kind of liquid weakness?
You know just between us on here (since you’re the only one who reads this blog lol) – like I know how it is as a writer. You’ll have this arc idea, and as you write you’ll be sure to drop in clues and signposts as to the ending.
But that’s where my distinct between first and second drafts come in. Because on that first draft the clues are often pretty clunky and obvious. Then when you go back and do a second pass through, you’ll start seeing, “Oh I could put a clue in spot. – Hey with a minor adjustment this scene could be foreshadowing. – If I swap out that character with this one, the ending will have more impact.” And of course the more you go over it, the more and more you’ll see that until it’s [nearly] perfected. That’s when a story becomes a great reread for the audience.
I will be curious when Winchesters is done how the “planting” of clues will look. So far just what I’ve seen on the initial watch they all look obvious like on a first a draft. Now I am prepared to be wrong, the more subtle clues are hard to notice until you go back and rewatch with the answer, But the writers haven’t always filled me with hope.
You raise a very solid point, there’s definitely indications of inexperience written across many episodes, things that needed more polish, more tweaks that could have raised the game.
I still firmly believe it will work better on binge watch mode because its easier to spot and connect the little things, the touches that are purely visual, for example the peacock style Jacket Loki wore and the matching Peacock style bedding in Roxys big episode, not a coincidence I think.
I think, and to be fair the writers may not have reasonably known this because they have to trust casting, a little more time built into the story with the ‘adult ‘ characters, Ada, Millie and Samuel would have helped shape the show into something stronger and more elevated. In my opinion, they seem to draw out the very best performances from the young cast, this isn’t always happening where the older cast members are missing from episodes.
Having the benefits of seeing quite a few episodes now, I question how much prep time did they have? How long did they ponder on the bigger picture? It feels a bit rushed in places. Did they tske a risk and settle for just a flavour of what it could be, hoping for those back episodes to flesh things out which they now can’t have?
I’m wondering if the sometimes very simplistic approach is to draw in a new audience? If so, I think it’s a mistake. With the benefit of time and distance and the completion of the story, many loyal viewers love the complexity of the early years SPN the best ( even the late arrival binge watchers) A story that Kripke shaped and refined over a lengthy period getting it as good as he could. A story which, for the most part, has stood the test of time.
I’m not sure, as much as I am enjoying the revisit to the world and the characters, that seeing new relationships among characters and getting some context on our main protagonists is enough to make it weather every storm and its very much at risk of running out of time to finish building and strengthening its identity and fixing/ compensation for its weaknesses. It might have been worth investing in a couple of the named, much loved writers from back in SPN’s golden years if they could to support the writing staff , not just Robbie.
I have an I’m bursting to share, but WFB isn’t working for me right now, so here I am, before the thought goes outta my head.
What are your views in the possibility of a nest story for our Narrator?