Surfing SF: Supernatural – “…And Then There Were None”

You don’t have a name for these Supernatural spoilers yet…

Well, huh. This week’s edition of Supernatural turned the drama dial to maximum and introduced some interesting concepts. It even shocked me so much that I was absolutely certain at one point that the episode was going to end with the “reset button” being hit somehow. Surely they wouldn’t do that. And yet, I’m not really prepared to give it a rave for a variety of reasons. For one thing, I’m not sure the show got what it wanted out of killing these three characters… and now they’re dead. For another, as much as I usually enjoy this show (and even though it’s currently run by a woman), it’s always felt like it has an uncomfortable current of misogyny running under the surface. There’s only so many times you can call somebody a “bitch” before it stops being funny. This week we killed off the lone remaining butt-kicking girl and spent some time with our apparent new villain Eve, who shockingly uses her hotness for evil.

I joked in the Roundup this week that the trailer made this episode seem like a rip-off of The Thing. Well, guess what? It totally was. That’s okay, though. It worked, at least for a while. Everyone was running around with guns trying to find Dean and I was yelling at the TV: “No, don’t trust each other! Somebody’s gonna get shot!” In fact, the episode wasn’t as much about paranoia as you would think. Nobody seems that worried that any of the others could suddenly turn on them at any time. Sure, they take a few precautions, but emotionally everybody takes everything pretty well. I mean, Sam shoots his own grandfather in the head and seems… kinda bummed? It was hard to tell. The emotional level here needed to be turned up a LOT higher.

As for this Eve/Mother-Of-All person, the idea intrigues me but the execution remains somewhat lacking. The actress only really had that one scene, but unfortunately she just made zero impression. Remember when Misha Collins walked on screen in the 4^th season premiere? This girl has not demonstrated any of that necessary spark. However, I like the idea that Eve is creating brand new kinds of monsters for our heroes to fight. While I love the fact that the show has created a specific universe for itself, the same handful of baddies were starting to get old. I just hope that in the future they’ll come up with something a little more original than the ear worm from Wrath of Khan.

Bits:

-Let’s pour out a shot of Johnny Walker Blue for Rufus. Actually, I was a little surprised that the end of the show took place at Rufus’ grave and completely ignored Samuel and Gwen.

-As a native of Northern Ohio, I found it a bit weird that the show staged its big recurring cast massacre at a cannery in Sandusky, of all places.

-When Dean shot Gwen I assumed that the show was going to tease out whether he’d really been under the control of the Khan Worm or if he’d done it because Samuel and Gwen pissed him off so much. However, the writers and hence the characters seem to completely ignore this and everyone just assumes Dean’s possessed.

-Samuel Campbell has just never really connected on an emotional level for me, which may have been part of my problem with this episode. Mitch Pileggi is great, but I just don’t understand the character well enough.

-Does electricity really work like that?

-The title is from an Agatha Christie novel that I happen to have read, and the connection to this episode feels tangential at best.

-On the plus side: “Why do you keep talking about herpes? “What, no I don’t. Shut up. Shut up!”

About Dan

Dan Joslyn grew up in Ohio but now lives in Las Vegas, NV with his lovely ginger girlfriend, Tiarra, where he works as an office monkey. He enjoys reviewing movies and television for the site, and over-analyzing such things. He may be the Chosen One… but he probably isn’t.

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