The producers said it would be like The Walking Dead, but they didn't say how much it would be like The Walking Dead. It was, but not in a good way. "The brothers are together again! Season 1 feel! New evil like none of them have ever seen!"
"New evil"? Um, isn't that most seasons, except maybe Season 5? Carry on.
The Road So Far: "Run To The Jungle" plays over the montage of last season.
Now: Dean's in a dark swirling cloud. Through the cloud, he espies a babe, a brunette with tumbling brown hair, fashionable dress (didn't get to see the shoes) and, curiously, bra straps. She turns and gives him A Look.
Seriously bad CGI
Bra straps? A bra? They had brassieres before God showed up?
As a woman, I can understand why being imprisoned since before the Dawn of Creation in a bra would be incredible torture. Looks like she had access to pre-Dawn copies of Vogue, too.
"Good evening and welcome to the Darkness. I'll be your designated evil babe this season."
Sam wakes up alone in the Impala, fetchingly bruised and bloodied. Damn, he looks hot. He finds Dean, they do some exposition.
This is just here because I have such hots for Jared Padalecki.NEW TITLE CARD!
It's the Season 1 title card, with some smoke.
Back To Now, With Occasional Visions
Time for the low-budget version of The Walking Dead! The brothers walk down the road, spot a road crew--all dead. Family in a car--all dead. Since this show doesn't have nearly the $$$ of its predecessor, there's six or seven dead people. A guy with black veiny stuff on his neck comes around from the back of the vehicle: "Stop! We'll shoot!" Guy keeps coming. Oh, shit,
A pubescent girl sheriff with amazingly blue eyes pops up from behind the police car armed with a shotgun. We last saw her as the Alpha's child in Season 7, "There Will Be Blood".
"I'll be menstruating by Season 11!"
She orders them to "show her some skin". While I scream with delight, the brothers pull open their collars (just their collars?).
This show can be such a tease. Excuse me while I lick Sam's neck.
It gets a little tricky. I only watched the episode twice. And it didn't keep my attention the second time around, so there will probably be mistakes. Somewhere early on the sheriff anvils, "I thought this job was saving people." Welcome to Supernatural, little girl.
Another of Dean's visions: Darkness feels more peaceful than she has in a long time, she purrs seductively. Oh for God's sake. Peaceful? What was she doing all these eons? Turns out she has a little Mark of Cain on the left shoulder. Duh-duh-dun!
I always picture Colin Ford in the gag reel whenever I write that. I miss Colin Ford.
Meanwhile, Teen Sheriff 's been shot, so they take her to a hospital to stitch her up. When they get there, the receptionist is dead. Out the boys go to Baby's Trunk O'Stuff, and excuse me for saying a loud FUCK YOU to the ever-deceitful CW PR monkeys:
This is the best promo image, and of course it never happened. Not enough $$ to blow shit up.
They come back with weapons and find more dead people, and lights flickering on and off. I expected to see two metal doors chained together with DON'T OPEN DEAD INSIDE but that probably would have gotten the show sued.
The main thing I wish they had
Something that jumped out at me--no, not a zombie--is that Dean killed Death and the Darkness doesn't know what Death is. So why are people dying? Shouldn't they be popping back up again?
Dean sews up Teen Sheriff while Sam stalks a rabid guy trying to break the door to the janitor's closet with a fire extinguisher. Pretty smart
Shit, wrong show.
Mother's dead, baby's alive. The father is infected. He hands off
Dean has more visions of the Darkness, but really, they're boring and the crappy CGI bugs the hell out of me. She murmurs: “We’re bound, Dean. We’ll always be bound. You helped me, I helped you. No matter where I am, who I am, we will always help each other.”
Dean's all for blasting their way out of the hospital, but Sam gets misty-eyed and says they've gotta change, stop doing the same stuff. Once again they've busted the world, and Sam loooooooves his brother:
And he'd do it again. Despite that meaning that millions will die, Sam says: “This kill first, questions later, what happened to us? Hunting things, we’re good at that, sure. We’re great at that. But that’s only half of the bumper sticker, man.”
Bumper sticker? Okay, cute little meta joke.
This is all undone by the end of the episode and we're back to where we always are. Dean didn't tell Sam the full extent of his conversation with the Darkness; Sam didn't tell Dean he'd been infected. Wow, way to change-up, Supernatural! Dean goes off with Teen Sheriff and Sam stays behind. The usual ignoring things-go-really-bad-when-they-split-up trope.
Father turns
MEANWHILE:
Cas is under an attack dog spell, although he's a very well-mannered puppy.
"Once I kill Crowley my blood lust will subside and I will gladly fetch a stick."
A kid finds him in an abandoned cabin. Cas warns, "Don't make me hurt you!"
Looks like that pink-eye is clearing up.
But of course he won't. The attack dog has enough control to barrel out of the cabin into the nearby woods, without killing the kid or his brother and father. It would be such fun watching Rabid!Cas being part of The Darkness and wreaking havoc. Naw, too interesting, let's just have him captured by angels and probably tortured next week with the Angel Headpiece of Doom on.
Crowley's more fun because Crowley's always more fun. While Castiel was busy puncturing him like you puncture a steak before you stick in the garlic cloves, Crowley smoked out and possessed a woman's meatsuit. "She" enters her house to find her husband and an extremely eager couple waiting for her to have an orgy. It's the best scene in the show. It ends badly for everyone but Crowley. When his demons come to fetch him (they've patched up his meatsuit so that Mark Sheppard can keep working) one minion says, “You barely escaped assassination, you’re arguably on the run from the most powerful witch on Earth, not to mention an angel of Heaven. And you didn’t call for help until after the orgy?”
This woman is old enough to have menopause? Fuck you, Supernatural.
Turns out half of Hell is "freaking out" because screams came from the Cage. Michael? Lucifer? Adam? Congratulations, show, you got me to watch next week.
Like everyone stupid enough to lock themselves in a janitor's closet, Sam is Not Alone.
"Oh, no! I've turned into the woman at the beginning of most of our episodes!"
A
Oh God, I'm dying of the sexy
Somebody says at some point, "the baby eats souls." And wouldn't you know it, Amara has a teeny-weeny Mark of Cain on her shoulder! Some poor woman pushed out The Darkness!
"Get that bottle away from me and gimme your soul!"
That's all I can remember. Can I take my nap now?
RANDOM:
They give
Crowley gets laid more than any of the other three leads.
NEXT WEEK:
Sam gets bloody...and shirtless. And there's other stuff.
I wasn't expecting much from this episode, either, and I agree with a lot of what you've said here. Every once in a while, they come out with an episode that *is* good and is unexpected and it takes me pleasantly by surprise, but I haven't enjoyed their season finale/premiere pairs since the end of S7/the beginning of S8.
ReplyDeleteThe show seems to be rehashing the same things again and again. Once again, Castiel has misjudged how other angels will receive him. Once again, Castiel had a chance in that phone call to ask the Winchesters for help and he didn't. Once again, Castiel *and* Sam have both tried to make the right decision and have ended up making things worse (this time, worse for themselves). Once again, an angel is is going to be tortured with that damn head torture device thing. Once again, Sam makes an appeal to Dean in a grand speech to change their ways. Once again, Dean and Sam lie to each other right off the bat and withhold what will of course turn into very, very crucial information that the other Winchester really could have used.
I haven't seen the Walking Dead, but what this Darkness disease reminds me of is Croatoan. It's even passed on through an exchange of fluids, just like Croatoan. At least the Darkness victims die after awhile, unlike Croatoan.
I thought the Darkness's modern fashion sense was ridiculous, too, but at least that could be explained as being Dean's subconscious perception of her.
That being said, I did like some parts of this episode. It was good to see the boys fighting together (even if I thought Sam's plan was stupid from the get-go and I was proved right). Crowley's orgy side-storyline was hilarious (but I do wish he was the bad guy more often and that the Winchesters didn't treat him as a harmless irritant half the time just because he kills or kidnaps other people but leaves the two of them alone). Crowley's far more interesting when he's being evil. It was nice that Dean was actually willing to listen to Sam, and that Sam stopped him from stupidly charging after the bad guys...although I wish Dean had vetoed Sam's equally stupid backup plan where Sam acted as bait/decoy. I kind-of liked the deputy sheriff (although at the same time, her character and storyline aren't new to the show, either--after all, Sheriff Mills becomes a friend of the Winchesters and ends up adopting a daughter, just like this new deputy sheriff character).