The Men of Letters are moving against Dean and Sam – so first
send a message on Mick’s account to get them out of the Winchester Bunker
(We also have some acknowledgement that Castiel is
missing. Wherefore art thou Castiel?!)
So they get a mission for our monster of the week
episode. And I kind of like it because though it doesn’t add a great deal. But
it’s nice to see the Winchesters doing the standard day-in-day out hunting with
local monsters and small town disasters. This was the bread and butter of the
Winchester hunting and I think it matters more as we get to the ending theme
So I’m going to kind of brush over this episode as the
details don’t matter much. We have a small town with missing and dead people.
We have the usual staples of interviewing the local authorities who are a bit
confused at the fake!FBI’s presence, questioning people, Dean flirting with
waitresses (and, yes, his pick up lines are terrible. It doesn’t matter if you
look like Dean) and mocking Sam’s healthy eating choices.
We do have a little laziness in that Dean has kind of
taken the possession of the Colt to replace research – since the Colt does
pretty much kill everything. We do have a nice side note of one of the
underlying but not really examined themes of this whole series: disposability
of victims. If a victim is considered disposable (in this case because he
smokes cannabis so has been written off by the authorities) then the powers
that be probably won’t bother with them – which helps with monsters preying in
the populace.
Sam does lots of research for the monster –a goat headed
beastie with a hammer – and comes up with satyr.
Which is all well researched except it turns out to be a
man with a hammer in a goat mask. Aha, if you look for monsters all the time
you miss serial-killer-in-costume option. Kind of like reverse Scooby-Doo (who
always assumed a monster but it turned out always to be a rich guy in a mask)
In this case it isn’t the rich guy – though the Sherriff
whose family owned half the town does have a suspicious serial killer room in
his basement. They confront him in his serial killer room and he says that
while his dad, granddad et al had indeed being murdering random townsfolk to
feed to the god they had captured in the basement in exchange for lots of
wealth and prosperity (Moloch, god of sacrifice and big bad for Sleepy Hollow season 1), he most
certainly didn’t approve of their murdering ways and has started selling his ill-gotten
gains and hoping that the god monster in the basement staves to death
Of course there did have to be a supernatural cause.
Going to small town America and solving mundane murders isn’t Supernatural, it’s Murder, she Wrote. And now you can all either picture Angela
Lansbury as a hunter or Dean as Angela Lansbury. You’re welcome.
The problem is that the Repentant sheriff has a half
brother who is all bitter about not growing up in the Big House (Dean is
unimpressed given he and Sam grew up in motels and a car) so he’s going to use
the monster and save the town
I think more could have been made of this point if the town was more clearly shown to be in any way really struggling except for the local meat plant needing updating.
Of course, economic stimulus via murder is too ridiculous
even for pol-…. for most politicians. So
it’s time to have a battle to bring down evil little brother (who gets shot by
Sam to safe the Sheriff). Dean ends up locked in with Moloch but, I can only
assume the CGI budget has been cut, so it’s only a shadowy force being all
menacing and occasionally smacking Dean. It’s kind of disappointing because
this should have been scary but really wasn’t
Moloch gets colted and, yes, the Colt pretty much does
remove the need for lots of planning since it kills everything.
Case clear, sheriff left to clean up and mope over his
family legacy
Which leads us on to the end theme as Sam and Dean
discuss their own legacy – whether they will be remembered. Sam says no (which
I call nonsense – no way that the Hunter Community at least isn’t going to
remember them. If nothing else than as the brothers who nearly ended the world
a gazillion times. Plus, remembered 100 years from now? There are angels and
demons who will be cursing you still by then! GOD will remember you)
But Sam’s uplifting idea is their legacy isn’t about who
remembers them – but in all the people they save and, ultimately, that they
left the world better than they found it (except for all those apocalypses).
They seal this by thinking of the Winchester Bunker, who will occupy it after
them and leaving some table graffiti for future generations (with lots of cute
flashbacks to childhood vandalism)
Which is sweet. But also means they’re going to leave the
Winchester Bunker soon and/or it’s going to blow up. I bet the latter. Because
this is Supernatural and sweet happy
emotions need to be squished
Especially since while they were out god hunting, Arthur
Ketch (seen with obligatory delicate china cups of tea because American
depictions of English people require this) has taken the opportunity to raid the
Winchester bunker, looking for the Colt (which he doesn’t find), looking for
info about the Winchester’s (Dean’s porn – he still has paper porn? – and photo of Mary for him to get all drippy over)
and to leave a listening device
Dean also calls him a cut price Christian Bale. Which you
know has gotta hurt.
