Supernatural: The Heroes' Journey (15x10)

This made me laugh so hard.

Cons:

I remember in the promo for this final season, they talked about how there really weren't any C-plot episodes in Season Fifteen. That's obviously not the case, but I do like that this episode felt like a part of the overarching story, even though it had a different tone. What I don't like is the way this show does exposition during its C-plots. It's so clumsy and badly written, and you would think after all these years they'd have found a better way of handling it. You have Sam literally saying "Cas is up in Heaven searching for information." He says that to Dean, who already knows. It's so lazy, and it wouldn't be that hard to fix!

Pros:

To start with the light and fun stuff... Garth! It was so good to see him. This final season kind of feels like it contains "curtain calls" for a lot of the show's beloved guest characters of the past. And even though I know what they're doing, I'm still loving it. Garth survived, which is an added bonus. They seemed to have learned their lesson about killing off characters just for shock value, and are instead respectful of using those deaths only when they have real narrative impact. (I'm hoping I haven't just jinxed it...)

Seeing Garth with a wife and three kids is such an important message for the show to have, here. First of all, he's a former hunter who actually settled down and is happy, living life with his family. I like the fact that even though he called in the Winchesters for help, this story wasn't a situation where his family was in peril or anything. They are doing just fine, and Garth is too. Secondly, Garth isn't just a retired hunter - he's a werewolf. Supernatural has been less than consistent about "monsters" and who it's okay to kill indiscriminately, vs. who can live a normal life. But they've come down firmly on the right side of the law, with characters like Rowena and Garth being contextualized and not just slaughtered onsite. That's the right move, and I'm enjoying seeing the fruits of that.

Also, Garth is just hilarious. I loved the exchange when he called Dean on the phone:

"Hey Garth."

"Hey Dean, it's Garth."

And then Dean makes a face. That was classic.

The general comedy of this episode was on point - it was a little silly, tonally more like some of the other fun comedy episodes we've had over the years, but it never felt too extreme or disconnected to me. Like it wasn't a bunch of slapstick over and over and over again. It was just a series of things that, if only one of them happened, you'd shrug your shoulders and move on with your day. Parking ticket. Ruined dinner. Car breaking down. Getting sick. Credit card declined. But all of them piled up together? That's "super natural." I loved that joke, and I loved the build to it.

It's also thematically interesting, rather than being merely a setup for comedy with no real bones behind it. It seems clear that Chuck is messing with them, causing them to be "normal" people, instead of heroes in a story. This means that all the little inconveniences of ordinary life, the ones that usually are passed over in a narrative, start happening to Sam and Dean. It's genius as meta commentary, because as we get down to the last ten episodes of the show, we've learned that our Big Bad is an author - a guy who wants to write a tragedy. And his characters are resisting him. So this silly setup, Sam and Dean being repeatedly inconvenienced, is actually part of the Big Bad's plan.

I also thought it was super cool that this week's "stand alone" plot leads into the next one. It's not a cliffhanger ending, or part of some epic split story-line. It's just that the wacky inconvenience that starts in this episode is not over when it ends. Sam and Dean now have to travel to Alaska, based on a tip from Garth, to try and undo the bad luck they've been saddled with. I thought this was such a cool bridge, and I'm excited to see how it shakes out in next week's installment.

So that's all! I missed Cas, of course. I miss Eileen terribly. But this was a really fun episode, with a good amount of comedy, an appearance from Garth, some nice classic Supernatural meta, and even some feels about the nature of Free Will. Bring it on - we're half way through the final season!

9/10