The Bad Script: Supernatural Review, Season 11 Episode 3, "The Bad Seed"

When star Jensen Ackles directs an episode, fans go into a frenzy of anticipation.  "Weekend At Bobby's" was one of the best episodes of the sixth season.  However, what's a director to do when he's working with a script written by Eugenie Ross-Leming and Brad Buckner?  The show might as well tied a rock around Ackles's neck and tossed him into the bay.  The episode is well done and there are some nice moments, but you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's anus.

Remember Demon Dean and how tasty that arc was, but it only lasted three episodes?  This season, it's Castiel and the attack spell, which isn't at all tasty and only lasts three episodes.  "Supernatural" has completely run out of ideas, so it recycles the old ones over and over.  Sometimes almost word for word. It's become the "Law & Order" of genre shows.  Nothing too unsettling, nice and comfortable.

The guys have so much fun at conventions, and no doubt they're making a shitload of money and drinking and saying swear words.  Then back to the old grind.  It shows.

THEN: 

Rowena turns Castiel into the world's least convincing attack dog; evil baby; the Darkness murmurs at Dean; Crowley makes off with Amara/The Darkness; of course angel torture since there won't be any torture this episode (insert joke here).

NOW:

Rowena lights a red candle and summons the last of the Grand Coven.  She announces that they will be the Mega Coven!  *snort*  She's so goofily enthusiastic about the name.  "Ah'm a forse ah nay-cher!" she announces later.  Has anyone else noticed all of her spells are Latin words that sound funny?


"I'm here to provide the only fun in this episode."

"The Bad Seed" was originally a movie in the 1950s, starring Patty McCormack as an angelic child who was actually a murderous maniac.  McCormack guest-starred in season 8's "Heartache."






Here's the thing--the best scenes are between Crowley and Amara, but they're stuffed with exposition and foreshadowing.  So much foreshadowing that Crowley comes off as a complete moron who can't see that The Darkness is totally uninterested in being evil or bonding with "Uncle Crowley".  By the end of the episode she's a testy teenager who demands, "FEED ME SEYMOUR".

We start in the bunker with Team Free Will.  Cas has  a blanket around him and occasionally sniffles and grunts to indicate the attack spell.  "It's getting worse," Sam mutters, referring to Cas's acting.  The effect of standing around being useless for three seasons is that Misha Collins has forgotten how to act.  Crazy Dangerous is clearly not in his toolbox.

Not only that, Castiel has a seizure.  Nobody should do seizures but Jared Padalecki.  He is the champion of seizures.

They exposition that  Metatron would know about the Darkness, being the Scribe and all.  I perk up.  METATRON!  I LOVE METATRON!  I might even watch an episode with Metatron.


Sam and Dean debate using Cas as a bouncy castle.

Sam ties tracking down accidents involving Cas's "crappy car."  Insulted, Cas asks, "You think it's crappy?" "Eye of the beholder," Dean answers. *snort*


"Who are you?"

"I'm you when you learn to tame those unruly curls.  And then take over the world."


Crowley tries to bond with Amara.  She is so obviously not having it.

Amara: God made a world where people have to suffer and then they die. But frankly, why would they want to live in such a world?
Crowley's all for the world becoming evil, but when she balks, he backs down.
Crowley: Actually, now I come to think of it, if everyone was dark and damned, it wouldn’t be much of a challenge. Watching a human reject the light and embrace depravity, yes, well, that’s where the gratification really is. It never gets old.
Amara: Good, evil, Heaven, Hell, people. It all seems so unimportant. (A/N: Uh-oh!)

Amara looks sad. I'm calling it now:  Amara is going to make the world over in her image rather than God's, which for some reason will be a terrible thing.  Perhaps lots more of nothing, so the whole world can be "peaceful".

In a repeat of a Season 5 scene when Zacharia bitches with an unknowing human about their crappy bosses, an angel and demon sit in a bar, bitching about their crappy bosses.  They talk about the lower ranks banding together and taking charge.  Who knows if that will be followed through? Or will it fall into the deep cavern of Dropped Plot Points?  Along with the Frankensteins, the escaped Thule, the bottles of souls all over the country--wait, couldn't Crowley find those and let Amara gulp them down?  Darkness fast food!

Sam and Dean find Rowena, handcuff her and convince her to remove the spell from Castiel.  This is a good thing in so many ways.


WHY DID WE ONLY GET FIVE SECONDS OF THIS?

There's a dungeon scene, more exposition, of course Castiel has broken free, because captives ALWAYS break free on this show.  Except Crowley.


Rowena is well aware she's the only entertaining part of this episode and overplays accordingly.

They go on the hunt for Castiel, who's lumbering like Frankenstein's monster, and snarling.  Jensen, are you pranking your co-star for our enjoyment?  'Cause it's working.


In which we discover the limits of Misha Collins's acting ability.

I don't know why director Ackles lets his co-star look so ridiculous, even if they were forced to do the 30,000th iteration of the "chasing random chick down an alley" scene.  Grunting, wheezing, lumbering, smashing a box for no reason, running after a random girl down an alley...it's pretty damn funny.  Random Chick pulls open the door to--what else--an empty warehouse.  For some reason Cas can't get the door open and Bangs Menacingly on it.  SUSPENSE! 

Castiel and Dean relive the smackdown in S5.  "Namaste!" Rowena commands.  Cas drops to the floor and has a seizure, once again taking over Sam's job.  "Conquistador!" she cries and the metal gate closes.

Back at the bunker.


"Let me love you!"

"No, you messed with the pretty.  I need to sulk."

"You two are adorable.  Seriously."

RANDOM

In Season 4, Zacharia said "God has left the building!" In Season 5, not only is there talk of the Apocalypse not being the first time God has given a "planetary enema" but also Joshua, the tender of the Garden of Eden, tells the Winchesters God feels that the Apocalypse is "not his problem".  So why should God give a fuck now?  Does God even exist?

Why is Crowley still in a men's room?

NEXT WEEK

The Impala.

Stuff and Nonsense: Review, Supernatural 11x2 "Form And Void"

When last we saw our heroes, Sam was locked in a closet with a black veiny monster virus and Dean driving Teen Sheriff and Killer Baby to Teen Sheriff's grandma's house. The brothers lie to each other about how everything's fine.

What they don't know is that Killer Baby eats souls and then grows older, like the Amazon teenager in Season 9, was it? And possesses cute little girls.

"A new leader for Azazel 's demon army has risen in the west. Her name is Lilith."

Oh shit, wrong season. Doesn't matter, Amara does the same crap.

Note to self: don't watch the good episodes of Season 4 before writing one of these.

NOW:

Sam captures another rabid guy with an elaborate trap and tasers him. Why he didn't simply wait behind the dumpster is beyond me, but it's still pretty cool.

Sam

Sam takes him to the hospital and chains him up. When rabid guy demands food, Sam tosses him pudding. Buh? Pudding? Why wouldn't the guy demand blood and guts? Rabid guy embarrasses himself by eating the pudding in a rabid way with his fingers.

Sam is apparently doomed to eating hospital food with his bare hands. Watch out fish sticks, nobody is safe!!

By far the best part of this mess is Sam being smart. Why does he go back to the hospital exactly? Oh, to get the touching scene we've seen in the previews of Sam praying. Go nuts in the comments, the best parts in "Form And Void" involved Sam being proactive rather than standing around gulping. Dean has the less interesting part, although Jensen Ackles does his best. He's mostly given reactions to situations, which is frustrating. Let the guy do what he does best.


"This is the most relaxing episode I've had in years."

Although he definitely gets the best lines including his description of The Darkness: “Who knows what was in that giant, crazy fart.” Hee!

Amarra the Soul Eating Baby From Beyond Hell goes full The Exorcist, placing blocks in the wall that say "Feed Me".


Thought this shot was more interesting.

Teen Sheriff calls Dean to come back. Grandma calls in a priest: Father Crowley. Again, revealed in the promo. When he and Dean recognize each other, Crowley remarks, "Dean was a rather scrumptious young altar boy." Oh yeah, I bet he was.


Dean has flashbacks to being caught without his robe

Crowley's shown up to check out Amara: “We have no idea what ancient, world-shattering evil we’re dealing with, but go right ahead, let him know we’re coming.” He and Dean have a cosy chat. Nice going, King of Hell, we thought you were all evil again, but here you are being Dean's bestie.

Teen Sheriff's soul has been eating by Killer Baby from Beyond Hell. So she's killed Grandma and is now breaking her china collection. Remember how much fun Sam was without a soul? Not a senseless killer, but smart. Somehow whoever steals souls on this show, whether it's Baby From Beyond Hell or Abbadon, the victims turn into killers without higher reasoning skills. Whatever. Crowley kills Teen Sheriff.

Then Crowley claims he's no longer Dean's sidekick. All he does is throw Dean into a closet and vanish. Oh Crowley, ye of little threat.

Meanwhile in the hospital, Sam has a vision, which of course involves blood and screaming. He finds Billie, a reaper who from some reason is the new Boss.


"I'm here so the fans quit bitching about the whiteness of the cast."

She says, "You are unclean in the Biblical sense."

UNCLEAN IN THE BIBLICAL SENSE? UNCLEAN IN THE BIBLICAL SENSE? HE'S BEEN UNCLEAN SINCE THE PILOT! HE WAS PURIFIED BY GOD. GO FUCK YOURSELVES, YOU LAZY SLOBS.

Could someone tell me what the point of torturing Cas other than to give him a plot?


Misha Collins ponders whether his residual checks from past seasons will pay for his new Mercedes.

Why is Castiel's curse so lame? He warns his brothers, but not much happens. Okay, he busts the chains off the chair while making "arf" noises, but then it's the usual angel blade fighting we've seen dozens of times. Hannah in her wonderful new body shows up, but is quickly dispatched.

Now THIS is going crazy!

Note: do NOT watch if you don't have a strong stomach!!!!


This is what Rick in "The Walking Dead" does when someone threatens his family.  He tears your throat out.

Come on, Cas, tear somebody's arm off! WHAT IS THE POINT OF ALL OF THIS? Oh right, torture porn. The angels spout some dialogue we've heard about Cas and the Winchesters, dozens of times, and slash at Castiel. By the way, there is a ton of screaming in this episode along with the torture porn.

Sam is seeing blurry which means the end is coming (does anyone care what happened by rabid guy? Not me). He staggers to the nearest laptop and discovers the cure is holy oil.


  Look! A horse's butt! Nice horse's butt, at that.

Does anyone remember when holy oil was, well, holy? And hard to find? No, I don't either. He roasts a marshmallow doused in the stuff, applies it to his shapely neck--Virus-Be-Gone! He traps another three zombies rabid people in a circle of holy fire and they're all cured. It's not explained how they'll be able to make a circle of holy oil around the entire town, but honestly I don't care.


 
"Hello, I'll be your designated evil little girl this season."

At the end Lilith little girl Amara comes to a limo, where Crowley steps out and invites her in, offering as "candy" a family tied up. Sam and Dean return to the bunker to find Cas on the floor. They forgot about the warding a few seasons ago, so why not? I bet the maid accidentally scrubbed it all off.

Random:
An angel can cure himself of being shot and stabbed, but can't cure psoriasis?
Since everybody can get into the bunker now, how long before they find squatters?
How soon does Amara become a hot chick so she and Dean can bang each other?
How soon do Amara and Dean bang each other so that Sam can give Dean a lecture?
Billie The Reaper has a lovely voice.

Next Week:

I forgot. Rowena shows up in a blonde wig. Is she more powerful than the witch who patched together Crowley's meat suit? We'll never know.

The Walking Darkness: Supernatural Review, S11 Ep 1: "Out Of The Darkness Into The Flame"

So, fans were wildly excited for the Season 11 premiere of Supernatural.  As you know, I wasn't expecting much.  And I got it.

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 ZOMBIE an infected guy who's pretty pissed.  Doesn't make any cool noises, just looks pissed.  Down he goes, shot from behind.

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 ripped off taken from The Walking Dead is the gore.  All of the dead people are so tidy.  Pools of blood, yeah, but how are they killed?  Bitten?  Shot?  Bitchslapped?  How?

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 zombie infected guy.  There's a baby crying on the other side of the door.  Sam, shoot him! Come on, man, there's a baby's life at stake!  Fortunately for everybody, the zombie rabid guy conveniently drops dead and Sam frees the hostages, a baby and her father.  Lori died but Judith's still alive--

Shit, wrong show.

Mother's dead, baby's alive.  The father is infected.  He hands off Judith the baby to Teen Sheriff.  By the way, there's a later scene where she diapers the baby because she's a gurl.  Didn't Dean become an expert at this stuff in Season 6? "Two Men And A Baby"?  Oh, forget I said anything...

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 zombie rabid, hands off baby saying, "her name is Amara," and drops dead.

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 zombie infected person in nurse's scrubs attacks him.  He slits her throat and she bleeds all over him.  A group of zombies infected people go for him. But then they sniff, and walk away.  He's infected!  Cool!



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 Zombie Infected Nurse the loud clacking teeth sound that The Walking Dead uses.  Without the actual big teeth and bloody face.

Crowley gets laid more than any of the other three leads.

NEXT WEEK:

Sam gets bloody...and shirtless. And there's other stuff.