SUPERNATURAL Season Finale Recap: ‘Let it Bleed’/’The Man Who Knew Too Much’

Well…now that was definitely a twist I did not see coming.  I guess it’s safe to assume that my wish that the show would be able to get back to its simple, monster-killing roots in season 7 did not come true.  I made a comment in a recent post that the only real next step the show could take with respect to the heaven and hell aspect of the SUPERNATURAL world would be to have God himself return from wherever he’s been hiding. Well, that didn’t happen, but it looks like “God” will be a major issue next year nonetheless.  But there is much to discuss before we get to that, so let’s start from the beginning.

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SUPERNATURAL Recap: ‘The Man Who Would Be King’

“Let me tell you my story; let me tell you everything.” What a great way to open the first ever episode of SUPERNATURAL from Cas’ POV, especially after a season that the angel has largely spent on the periphery of the action. I honestly didn’t know how I felt about this episode immediately after watching it; I had to sleep on it and reconcile the side of me that really loved the insight into Cas’s life and the new information we learned about his role in rescuing Sam from hell with the side that just felt like this was a lot of exposition, not much of it new, and that it was too close to the end of the season for so little action.

In the end, the side of me that liked the episode is winning out. If for no other reason than the fact that I really loved seeing the world through Cas’ eyes. I’m also very into the idea of Cas striking out on his own to do what he feels is necessary to win the war with Raphael, even if that means doing things like working with Crowley and lying to the closest people he has to family. Does anyone really want to see Sam or Dean working against each other again? I don’t; we’ve sort of exhausted the brotherly subterfuge at this point, right? But it’s always good for drama to have someone acting out of character and/or keeping secrets for the ‘greater good’, so I’m cool with it being Cas.

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SUPERNATURAL: Mommy Dearest

Well, wow. Perhaps I should have, especially given Rachel the lady-angel’s warnings last week, but I did not see the ending of this episode coming. At all. It was a great reveal, and I still don’t know what to make of it, but I’m excited to learn more. Before we get to the end though, let’s first discuss what led up to it, shall we?

Something about watching Team Hunter use an iPad just seems completely out of place, doesn’t it? I feel like these guys live in a world of corded telephones and dial up connections – not one where there may soon be a demon tracking app, you know (Demon Findr)? Maybe it’s Dean’s car and cassette player, but even when they’re using cell phones and surfing the net, there’s still an air of vintage about them that makes an iPad seem very out of place, especially in Bobby’s hands.

Technology quibbles aside, ‘Mommy Dearest’ turned out very different from what I expected. I went into the hour expecting that Eve was going to really step up her game and announce her big evil plan for the destruction of the world; thereby setting up the main thrust of the last few episodes of the season. Instead, she stepped up her game, toyed with the brothers’ emotions for a while, and then promptly bit the dust. Problem solved. Of course, Sam and Dean’s lives are never problem-free, and there is definitely trouble still brewing, but we’ll come back to that.

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SUPERNATURAL Recap: Frontierland

Right off the bat, things were looking very promising with the super cool new SUPERNATURAL opening credits. I recognized the concept, but had to do some research to determine that it was an homage to the old ‘Bonanza’ credits, which I’d never actually seen. I should also point out that apparently this episode was very similar to ‘Back to the Future Part 3’, which I’ve also never seen, so if you’re wondering why I don’t address it, there’s your answer.

The concept of the episode was really fun, but the story in terms of mythology was extremely simple. Basically, through research (in a hilarious book-reading montage backed by sultry blues guitar for some reason), Team Hunter determined that they needed the ashes of a phoenix in order to kill the Mother. But where to get these ashes? Well, Dean found Samuel Colt’s old journal, which luckily detailed the exact date and time that he shot and killed a phoenix with his gun, which I guess wasn’t called the Colt back then, because that would make Samuel pretty narcissistic.

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SUPERNATURAL Recap: My Heart Will Go On

It’s been a long six weeks, but the Winchesters are back for the final leg of the sixth (and hopefully not last) season. Ten seconds into the episode I was on edge due to the obvious foreshadowing with the shots of a garage door being propped up, a circular saw, sharp implements and general telltale items that would no doubt unify to form some kind of disgusting death trap. Oh, look at that – decapitated by the door. Nice!

I honestly don’t know what freaked me out more in the first few minutes: the image of Dean driving a Mustang, the sight of Ellen unpacking leeks like it was nothing, or the news that in whatever bizarro land this is, Bobby and Ellen are married! Also, it appears that the Cuban Missile Crisis never happened, because professional presidential birthplace investigator Donald Trump has a casino in Havana!
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SUPERNATURAL Recap: And Then There Were None

So, I didn’t hate this episode, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little disappointed, especially in light of last week’s excellent showing and the fact that this was the ep taking us into a long hiatus.

I really enjoyed the fact that it was basically one long Mexican standoff between the six (well, five really) main characters present – it’s always fun when a group of people who know each other suddenly don’t know who to trust among them. But overall, I had some issues with it. The powers that be decided it was time for some serious spring-cleaning, and two and a half major supporting characters (half because Gwen, while interesting, just doesn’t have the history that Samuel and Rufus do) were killed off. Yet the deaths lacked the punch and purpose you’d think would accompany the loss of characters of this caliber.

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SUPERNATURAL: The French Mistake

Well, that was really fun. As a long-time SPN viewer, I’ve come to expect that the sillier the premise of an episode, the more likely I’ll be lulled into laughter only to be hit with some serious heartbreak and drama. I was mentally preparing myself for something major, but it turned out to be just a really funny hour with only a hint of forward momentum for the bigger mythology.

The real mission of the week took place entirely behind the scenes, with Cas and Balthazar making a power play to claim the celestial weapons stash, their only hope of beating Raphael. To do so, they had to occupy heaven’s weapons-keeper Virgil with a wild goose chase in order to give them the time they needed to pull it off. What we saw was the goose chase, and it was a ton of fun.

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SUPERNATURAL: Unforgiven

Last night we got a bit more insight into what Sam had been up to in the year between coming back from hell and meeting up with Dean, and it wasn’t pretty. We’ve seen Sam with no soul, we’ve even seen him use his own brother as vampire bait, but we haven’t seen him quite this cold before. Even Samuel thought he took things too far.

I figure that all of this must have happened before Samuel made his deal with Crowley, since he actually seemed to be primarily concerned with doing the right thing. He didn’t seem intent on capturing any alphas, even though they were dealing with a new and different monster, the arachne, a sort of spider-human hybrid.

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SUPERNATURAL: ‘Like a Virgin’

Can you believe it’s been almost two whole months since we last saw the Winchesters?  The wait has been cruel and unusual punishment for fans, no thanks in part to The CW pushing the episode an extra week.  I was so disappointed to come home and find my DVR openly mocking me with it’s emptiness last Friday. But we can move past all that now because the show is back and so is Sam’s soul.  Let’s discuss how it went down, shall we?

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CHUCK: ‘Chuck vs. The Gobbler’

Hey Nerdherders!  Kath is traveling, so I’ll be covering Team Bartowski in her place this week.  When we left off, Chuck had spent the hour trying repeatedly to propose to Sarah in front of some very unrealistic-looking green screens.  Alas, as Kath put it last week, he was rock-blocked at every turn, even when everyone including his intended bride was trying to help things along.

But despite all of their efforts, Sarah was swept away at the last second for a secret mission to infiltrate Volkoff’s inner circle, take him down and get Mama Bartowski back with her family.  Last night picked up a few weeks later with the bizarre scene of Sarah, in a black wig, kicking the living crap out of Casey.  In order to find out how things got to that point, we were taken back two days to retrace the steps.

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SUPERNATURAL: Appointment in Samara

Hey SUPERNATURAL fans! Please forgive my absence for the last two episodes, which were great incidentally (Cas kissed a girl!). I’ve said it before but I’m constantly amazing myself this season with how fresh the show still feels and how much I’m enjoying the new directions it’s taking. Well, maybe not so much with Crowley’s death – I really liked Crowley. But you never know with this show; he could turn up again. Last night was the last episode leading into the holiday break (if you can attribute a six week break to the holidays) and it certainly ended with a bang. But we’ll get to that.

Dean had a meeting with the always-excellent Robert Englund, or Dr. Robert as he’s known here. He’s an old friend of John’s, someone who used to stitch up Papa Winchester back in the day (*sigh*, am I crazy in my continuing hope that we’ll one day see JDM grace the SPN screen again?). Dean was undergoing a procedure in which he’s injected with something that kills him for three minutes, so he can get a meeting with Death.

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SUPERNATURAL: All Dogs Go To Heaven

Well, I could have done with a little less dog murder, but it was still an enjoyable, if creepy, episode. There wasn’t much that directly dealt with the show’s mythology, but we did get some nice moments, both brother-wise and monster-wise, that will continue to have an impact throughout the season. What this episode was really about was getting Dean on board with the “be Crowley’s bitch” plan in order to get Sam’s soul back. The season so far, while really enjoyable, has felt a bit aimless so I’m happy that we now have a specific goal established (restore Sam), and a means by which to attain it (capture a live alpha for Crowley).

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SUPERNATURAL: Family Matters

If you read last week’s recap, you will recall that I was a little miffed that the preview for this week’s SUPERNATURAL spilled the beans about Sam’s soul problem; it seemed like the kind of reveal you save for the actual episode. However, after all of the answers we got last night – to most of the questions we’ve had since the premiere – I’m kind of okay with it in hindsight. We now know the major arcs for the season, and who would have guessed that the big bad of season six would be the charming and dashing Crowley? A character that was once the pushover bad ass with a heart of gold is now the new Lucifer.
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SUPERNATURAL: ‘You Can’t Handle the Truth’

Hey SUPERNATURAL fans! Another pretty great episode last night, right? While you may not have gotten all of the answers you were looking for (what, exactly, is up with Sam?), we did get one very important one (Sam is going through more than a personality change since getting back from hell, and this is a good thing…I hope).

Things started off with a good and creepy cold open, which ended with a shot of a restaurant sign declaring it was “The Happy Place!” getting splattered with blood. Always a good way to kick things off.

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THE VAMPIRE DIARIES: ‘Masquerade’

Hi guys!  Kath is away, so I’ll be covering THE VAMPIRE DIARIES for her this week, which I’m very excited about.  I have to admit I avoided this show when it started, thinking it would be TWILIGHT TV, but I’m so glad I listened to everyone who was praising it, because it really is one of the most consistently entertaining hours on television every week, and last night kept the streak alive.

In “Masquerade,” there were three major developments: Tyler triggered his curse (but luckily Matt was spared), Katherine got what was coming to her when Damon locked her up in the tomb, and Jeremy looked INSANELY hot (oh, and started up a little flirtation with Bonnie).  Let’s break it down:

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