Supernatural: Gods and Monsters (14x02)

This episode was written by Buckleming. So.... eww. But it was directed by Richard Speight Jr. So... yay? Where does this episode fall?

Cons:

I actually thought this episode was really good, and did not fall victim to a lot of the flaws that most Buckleming episodes have. But there were still some Buckleming-ish problems. One of the things I always hate about their writing is that it's too plot-y. So much happens, all very important A-plot stuff, and it gets crammed in without a lot of time to let it breathe. Thankfully, this episode didn't follow that pattern, with the exception of the Sam, Mary, and Bobby story. Oddly, while the Michael and Dean situation is undeniably the show's main conflict at the moment, in the structure of this episode, the quest to find Michael took a backseat to the two other plots with Nick and Jack. We see Sam, Mary, and Bobby looking in to a bunch of dead people that were clearly dropped by Michael. We see them discover that these corpses are vampires, and learn that Michael is experimenting on them.

And then at the end of the episode, it's... Dean. Michael let him go. Obviously we're going to learn more about that going forward, but the fact of the matter is, this episode was all go-go-go for Sam and Mary so we didn't get any follow-up on the emotional beats from last week. Cas and Jack have some good talks about the morality of defeating Michael even if it costs Dean's life. We see the emotional toll of everything that has happened. But with Sam, the character whose inner life should be the bigger focus, we get exposition, exposition, corpses, and then Dean is back. Not very satisfying.

Pros:

Surprisingly, however, everything else about this episode worked really well for me. There are the smaller details, like the fact that the fight scene was miles better than last week's clunky premiere. There's some good old fashioned Bobby sass. There's an interesting mystery with what exactly Michael wants to do with these new super vamps.

And then there's the bigger stuff, like Dean's performance in the final scene of the episode. He's shaken, and confused, and clearly devastated in a way difficult for him to articulate. We see that Sam is bewildered, obviously overwhelmed with relief and hope, but also still terrified. The best moment was when Sam asked if Dean was okay, and Dean replied "no, I'm not okay." There have been plenty of other circumstances in the past when Dean Winchester would have lied, would have brushed off his own trauma and said he was fine. But he's been possessed, and he's vulnerable, and he tells the honest truth to his brother. He's not okay. He's been through something awful.

The rest of this review is really going to be about the Jack plot and the Nick plot, but real quick I do want to lodge one more concern/complaint. Obviously I expected that we would get Dean back relatively soon. I knew it was too much to hope for that we'd actually do something long-form with Dean being possessed. I also have hope that there's something more complicated going on. Did Michael hop into another vessel that's closer than we might think? Or did he trick Dean into thinking he had left, only to lie dormant like Gadreel did with Sam? Regardless, obviously Michael has big plans, and there's no way he's done using Dean to accomplish those plans. So I have hope. At the same time, I am a little bit miffed that we only got two episodes of Michael!Dean. That's even shorter than his tenure as Deanmon! At least we got Soulless Sam for a whole half-season. It just seems a little unbalanced. Once again, the A-plot is being sacrificed so we can get things back to something approaching status-quo and go back to some monster-of-the-week stuff. I understand that this is the formula for the show, and it has been for a long time. But maybe it's time to mix things up and forego the C-plot crap! We've got an ensemble cast to work with now. Let's work with it!

Sorry. Anyway. Let's turn to Jack. I'm so glad that we're focusing on his feelings and how he's coping with all of the trauma he's experienced in his very short, very complicated life. We see multiple good talks with Cas, which was just great. Jack is trying to figure out who he is, separate from his grace and his powers. How does he do this? He goes to meet his maternal grandparents. This scene was interesting because it could work on a couple of different levels. You could take it at face value, and say that Kelly's parents are kind but naive folks who are willing to accept anything this random stranger says about their daughter. Or else you could take it as they kind of know something weird is going on, but they figure they can't ask questions about it, or they fear the truth enough to avoid confirmation. I think it works well either way. It's so interesting to see an emotional scene where one person knows so much more than the others. Poor Jack really deserved that hug from his grandma, and it made me a little emotional!

Then there's Nick, who is really struggling with all of the things he did while Lucifer was possessing him. As his memories start to resurface, he remembers that his wife and child were murdered, and he discovers that even all these years later, the case remains unsolved. He seeks vengeance, and nothing Cas says can calm him down. He ends up going to confront a man who was a witness at the time, but who later recanted and said he didn't see anyone leaving the house. Nick goes a little berserk, and kills this man, which is... not a great sign. The prevailing theory, at least in my mind, is that Nick actually killed his own family, but blocked the memory out, and gratefully accepted Lucifer's offer in order to push away the horror of his actions.

The best moment of the whole episode was when Cas tried to approach Nick, and Nick, in a moment of anger and instinct, snapped his finger. Cas takes a step back, horrified, and the two just stare at each other for a moment. Nick doesn't seem to realize what he's done, or at least the significance of it, but that one moment just stole the whole episode for me. Lucifer's grace is still poisoning Nick's soul in some way, and there are instincts, actions, thoughts, and ideas that might have insinuated their way into Nick through Lucifer. That's creepy and it's perfect and I love it.

Castiel gets MVP for the week. There are very few episodes in the long history of this show (this is Cas' eleventh season!) that have given Cas enough to do. He didn't get to go on the adventure to save Dean, but he did get to have quiet, contemplative, interesting conversations with both Jack and Nick. I love that he is having a hard time being around Nick. You have to remember that Cas was also possessed by Lucifer, and feels that trauma as well. Sam obviously wins the "Lucifer messed with my head" grand prize, but Cas' trauma is also real and important. And with Jack... that scene where Jack says that they need to kill Michael even if it means Dean dies... that was such a great scene. Because Jack is, quite simply, right. And Dean would certainly agree with him. But the look on Cas' face... the very idea is poison to him. Think about Cas in the early seasons. He obviously cared for Dean pretty much from the start, but he took a much more logical, pragmatic view of events. Hell, he was essentially working for Michael back then. Now, he'd let the world burn to save Dean, and I think it's probably about time for Cas to wrestle with what that means.

I could go on and on, but suffice it to say, that feeling of dread I get whenever I see the Buckleming names appear on an episode, was actually pretty unsubstantiated. Yes, this was a plot-heavy episode with a lot of important moments, but there was actually plenty of space for some of the characters to contemplate their emotions, and I find myself fascinated by what's going to happen next!

Next week: Jody Mills!

9/10