Supernatural Favorites, Season 3

Season 3 was rough.  Would it have been better had the Screen Writers’ Guild strike not screwed things up?  Perhaps.  Yet, season 3 didn’t start with a whiz-bang episode, as seasons 1 and 2 did.  And then we had to wait out Dean’s death for a whole friggin’ year all friggin’ summer.  Gah!

Silent Night.. mumble, mumble, mumble.

Even jail can’t stop the Dean sass.

Let’s get to the episodes.  According to the rest of the world (at least at IMDB and TV.com), the best episodes were:

1. Jus in Bello (312)
2. Mystery Spot (31)
3. No Rest for the Wicked (316)
4. Bad Day at Black Rock (313)
5. (tie) A Very Supernatural Christmas (308) and The Kids are Alright (302)

Well Thanks, Arrow: The Climb

Take a viewer who started watching Arrow when it premiered, then stopped because all the flashbacks were a drag, then came back a couple times, only to be confused by all the new characters, so stopped again, was then drawn back in with the Flash/Arrow crossovers, and spent several days on an  Arrow-thon watching previous-seasons episodes.  What does said viewer get for all this newly-found fanning?  (Besides having to watch “The Climb” in SD because the cable company can’t keep a good HD CW signal to save its life?)

Only the most horrible, shocking ending EVER.  Yep, even worse than Supernatural‘s season 3 finale.  You remember, this one:

Supernatural: Agism Runs Rampant

The thing that really irks me about Supernatural is its blatant agism.  The writers constantly make unsavory jokes about the elderly.  It’s like they think they’re immune to the aging process.  They’re not.  Everyone ages.  And it’s a blessing to do so.  After all, consider the alternative.

One tuxedo…

That agism is rampant in two of this week’s three episodes, and is alluded to several times in the third.  (With that little mini-rant out of the way, let’s explore this week’s regularly scheduled reviews before we enter the blitzkrieg.)

Red Sky at Morning (306)

Considered one of Supernatural‘s worst episodes, most people blame the “ghost ship” as a lame spectral enemy.  The ship and its associated spirit weren’t the problem.  That honor goes to Bela Talbot, one of the worst conceived television characters ever.

Supernatural: No Rest for the… Taxi Driver

[This post originally aired at the New Stream of Conscience on June 29.  Its publication here completes the transfer of Supernatural reviews from there to here.  It seems as good a way as any to celebrate reaching 50 followers.  🙂 Thanks!]

Only two Supernatural episodes this week.  Tuesday on TNT was dedicated to a Rizzoli and Isles pre-season premiere marathon.  And the CW is once again showing Cult on Fridays. It should feel like a vacation, but this week’s episodes were pretty heavy, significant ones.

No Rest for the Wicked (316)

Season finale means “Carry On, My Wayward Son” by Kansas.  Always a nice way to start the show.  It also means “Written by Eric Kripke” and “Directed by Kim Manners.”  Oh yeah, and for season 3, we’re left with the most frustrating cliffhanger ever.

The Winchester way: Silent and stoic.

The whole season has been building up to Dean’s date with destiny, hellhounds, etc, and here it is.  Sam tells Dean at the beginning of the episode he’s not going to let Dean go to hell.  But, like so many Winchester promises, he fails.

Ruby’s comments to Sam turn out to be much more prophetic than we ever could have thought possible at the time.  She tells him his demonic psychic powers are dormant, not gone; that she can help train him to use them; and he is the only one who can stop Lilith.  Of course, she fails to mention it involves drinking demon blood, and that killing Lilith also signals the beginning of the apocalypse.  (But then, Dean hasn’t broken the fist seal to set the wheels in motion yet.)

Supernatural: Sin … and Geeks

Sin City (304)

Season 3 crept up on me.  It’s kind of a game changer.  Sam died, Dean sold his soul, the gates of hell opened and let out a slew of demons.  Three events played heavily in this episode.

Seeing favorite scenes from old episodes (such as this one) is like meeting an old friend again.

Two escaped demons wreak havoc on a town in Ohio by playing to human vices and desires.  Dean worries that resurrected Sam is cold-hearted and evil.  Dean views his crossroads deal as “liberating” since you can’t worry about the future if you don’t have one.

Supernatural Revisited: 309

Malleus Malificarum

• Written by Ben Edlund
• Directed by Bobby Robert Singer

If I’d had my choice of episodes to begin the ratings retrospective, it wouldn’t have been this one.  Of course, season 3 was not Supernatural‘s most stellar, given the writers’ strike, and other management-induced silliness.

Ruby 1.0 saves the day. Or at least Dean’s ass.

But even in a shortened and rushed season, this was not one of my favorite episodes.  It was more like one of my least favorites.  Which is kind of sad, considering this was supposed to be a ‘big, significant” episode.  …Wasn’t it?…  I mean, we learned that demons were once humans (and this was supposed to surprise us, I guess), and a new demon army leader was “rising in the west.”

Not being a favorite, I haven’t watched the episode in years.

Supernatural March Madness season 3 prelims

The season 2 poll is now closed.  Check to see how your favorite episodes fared.

It’s now on to season 3!

Please note: Since season 3 was cut short by the writers’ strike, you can vote for only 4 episodes instead of 5 this time around.

Supernatural once again, from the beginning

I’ve been watching one Supernatural episode per day, in chronological order (more or less) for the past several weeks.  I’d started posting my thoughts on each individual episode, but stopped because 1) sometimes I didn’t have much to say, and 2) no one really cared.  But last night I finished season 3 with “No Rest for the Wicked.”  You know, the episode that sent Dean to hell and traumatized millions of fans.  (Personally, I knew Eric Kripke, being the bastard that he is, would do it, but it was still unnerving.)

Over the course of the last couple seasons I’ve noticed a few things that played out in the fourth season.

1. Sam’s utter devastation without Dean.  In some ways, Sam’s devastation mirrored Dean’s when Sam died near the end of season 2.  We had hints of what would happen to Sam in “Mystery Spot.”  But in “Mystery Spot,” Sam turned his obsessive-compulsive nature towards hunting down the Trickster, and killing lots of supernatural things along the way.  (I just realized how much this mirrored John’s obsessive-compulsive nature in hunting the Yellow-Eyed Demon.  Fortunately, Sam didn’t have two young children to abandon in crappy motels care for along the way.)  Instead, Sam turned all his attention in trying to get Dean back.  At least until he hooked up with Ruby again.

Jared Pacalecki as Sam Winchester, looking particularly fine

2.  Ruby’s motivations.   All through season 3, the reasons she gave for helping Sam and Dean were the lamest in the history of lame excuses.  “I want to help Sam get ready to fight the upcoming war.”  “I remember what it’s like to be human.”  I can’t believe the Winchesters fell for it.  I guess she played on Sam’s desperation.   Interestingly, in “No Rest for the Wicked” Dean actually said of Ruby, “She could be working for Lilith for all we know!”   How right he was.

3.  And lastly, Jared Padalecki was extraordinarily pretty in those last final episodes of season 3.  I guess that means they were “good hair episodes.”

In other news, where is my review of this week’s Warehouse 13?  Remember when I said it wasn’t “must watch tv”? I haven’t watched it yet.