Supernatural: The One You've Been Waiting For (12x05)

This was the first clunker of the season. It wasn't irredeemably bad or anything, but it also didn't offer all that much in the way of creativity or innovation.

Cons:

To make a long story short, the evil necromancers called "Thule" try (and succeed) in resurrecting Hitler by using a young woman who happens to be Hitler's descendant. They need his blood to resurrect him. Sam and Dean find out about all of this, and Dean kills Hitler.

I think my big problem with this episode is that it felt like it was trying to set something up, but I don't think it was. Hitler's great-great-grandniece, Ellie, was a fun enough character, but it doesn't seem like they were setting her up for a return. And the main bad guy's son turns on his father and his father's men, which could have been interesting, but I don't think we're really setting him up for a return either.

There's also the fact that Hitler was played for comic relief. That's not necessarily a problem in and of itself, but I always get a little twitchy when TV shows pull the Hitler card and can't do anything new with it. I liked the fact that there wasn't time travel involved, and instead Hitler was coming in to the present day. But all he did was laugh maniacally for about five minutes, and then Dean shot him in the head. Was it bad ass? Yeah, kind of, but I didn't really feel like he was shooting Hitler. It just felt like he was taking out a random baddie. Not the most satisfying of climaxes.

Also, other than a brief mention of how Mary still needs her space, this episode had absolutely no tie-in to the A-plot. No British Men of Letters, no Mr. Ketch, no Cas, Crowley, Rowena, or Lucifer, no Mary. That's the nature of a show like this, but I'm always happier when they can find one or two small ways to remind us of the A-plot, even if our focus is elsewhere.

Pros:

I liked Ellie quite a lot. She's flighty, but kind, and she's just learned that not only is she adopted, but that she's Hitler's descendant. That's a lot to take in. She handles it well enough, although she understandably tries to bail half way through Sam's insane pep talk about Hitler and Lucifer and all that. I like her, and I would like her even more if I'd gotten the sense she was going to stick around in some capacity. I sure hope we do see her again!

Comic-relief Hitler was decently entertaining, even if I might have hoped for more balance. The best part of the comedy here was that Dean got to shoot Hitler in the head, and then he just spent the rest of the episode saying "I killed Hitler!" over and over again, in utter delight. He even wants to go get pie to celebrate. Earlier in the episode, he'd rejected Sam's offer of pie, which is why Sam thought he was still moping about Mary. It's nice to see Dean happy, and it's also nice sometimes to have an unambiguous win, you know? Not really a lot of moral ambiguity in stopping Hitler from returning to torment untold masses of people.

I was also glad to see the brief return of Dean's "gay thing," the guy from the golem episode named Aaron. I wish we could have had more of him, but it was satisfying to see a glimpse of him nonetheless.

I feel like I usually write more about Supernatural, but I guess that's all I've got this week. Not a terrible episode, but not really up to the standards of the previous four.

6.5/10