Supernatural: Breakdown (13x11)

A very subtle, well-done, character-driven episode of Supernatural. Really quite strong.

Cons:

Only the general complaints that I have about C-plot episodes - there are certain things that don't really make sense in terms of the season's pacing. Sam and Dean just spent several days in another reality, and that barely gets mentioned. Nobody's heard from Cas in a while, and that's not really brought up. Mary and Jack are still missing, and now Sam and Dean know where they are. Would they not be focused on finding another dramwalker to help them out? We see some of the emotional strands continue in this episode, but is it realistic that Sam and Dean would just be lounging around in the bunker after everything else that's happened recently?

Pros:

On the flip side of that, I do actually want to praise the beginning of this episode. Supernatural frequently has trouble with its setup scenes. They are very repetitive - we see one brother comment on the other brother's emotional state to establish everybody's mood, a case shows up and one of them narrates a bit of the A-plot and explains that since there's no new information, they might as well go off on a C-plot episode. It's pretty clunky. But here, we get a lovely example of showing instead of telling. Dean is out making pancakes, while Sam stays in his room. He's unable to sleep. He doesn't emerge from his inner sanctum until Donna calls and he forces himself out of his stupor. Dean tries to be there for Sam but it's not really working, and we watch this play out in a dozen small instances throughout the episode. Very effective.

Some of Supernatural's strongest C-plot episodes are the ones that strip away a lot of the fantastic and just focus on the horror of humanity. I mean, yeah, there were literal monsters in this episode for sure - we even got a surprise vampire twist. But the main bad guy was a human being, and the monsters were peripheral. Dean shot and killed a human man in this episode, but that human man was about to shoot Sam in the head, so... can't feel too bad about it. I like the fact that things felt grounded, small-scale, and that every character introduced ended up playing an important role in the story as it unfolded. I was not expecting the FBI agent to be a fraud. The fact that he was the secret bad guy was excellent, and it made so much sense how this guy was able to "hack in" and get the location of Donna's niece so quickly. Excellent twist.

We got to see a more grounded, less comedic side of Donna this week, and it did a lot to flesh out her character. Obviously last week was the Wayward Sisters backdoor pilot, but if Donna is going to be a big part of that show, we need to lay the groundwork for her character as well. We see a more serious side of her. Excellent acting from Briana Buckmaster, particularly in the scene where she's questioning the pastor.

And then you've got poor Doug, Donna's boyfriend. He's a nice, normal guy who really cares about Donna - but he gets turned into a vampire. Luckily, the cure is successful. Unluckily for Donna, Doug has had enough of the supernatural for one lifetime. It's always nice to see a slightly more realistic reaction to the realities of this horrifying world. Doug loves Donna, but she's a part of something that he can never belong to. This was a bad break for Donna, but I like that it serves multiple functions - it deepens Donna's character and makes us understand her better, but it also frees her to move to Sioux Falls if a certain network decides to pick up the pilot to a certain spin-off... fingers crossed!

Another detail I really enjoy whenever it comes up is that Sam and Dean are famous in the monster world. The bad guy is auctioning off human parts to monsters online, in a dark web bidding war. When he catches Sam Winchester, the bids go way up, because everybody is excited to be able to participate in the death of a Winchester brother. I just love details like that. Also, one good thing about the Winchesters both dying so often is that for a moment when the gun went off, I thought perhaps Sam really had been shot in the head. I mean, I knew they'd bring him back somehow, but I actually got to feel the genuine distress of that moment in a way that I normally wouldn't have.

Let's talk about the Sam and Dean character stuff real quick before I sign off. I want to start with a self-indulgent comment - at this point, there is no denying how much Dean Winchester loves Castiel. I mean, your mileage may vary as to the nature of this love, but come on. We saw Dean in a really bad place at the beginning of this season, due to the death of Cas and the apparent death of Mary. But ever since Cas' return, Dean has been all sunshine and rainbows. I'm not saying he doesn't miss Mary, but this show has been explicitly clear that Dean's very serious depression was mostly about the loss of Cas. And the show has been even more explicitly clear that Dean felt that loss much harder than Sam did. Even in this episode, Dean tries to cheer Sam up, and he says that Sam was there for him when he was in a dark place. Sam was grieving over Cas as well, but everybody could see that it was hitting Dean harder.

Okay. With that out of the way - let's focus on Sam Winchester being a lost puppy who is crushed over the continued loss of his mother, and the new loss of Jack. He kept the faith while Dean was struggling, but now he's having a hard time moving forward. I like that we're doing some drawn-out stuff about the nature of faith and strength this season. Sam and Dean lose people. They've gotten pretty good at it over the years. But Sam now thinks that there's no good way for this to shake out for them. That's always been Dean's line - that he didn't see a happy ending for himself. But you can tell that Dean is distressed to hear Sam say the same thing.

Obviously, we all know that somehow they're going to get Mary and Jack back. It would be a bad story move for them to never succeed in this endeavor. But even knowing that, it's interesting to watch how all of this loss and pain is affecting each of the brothers. I hope we can continue this season with the same level of introspection and thoughtfulness.

Great episode, great season!

9/10