Supernatural Season 8 - a limited recap because overall I really dislike this season.

Hum.  This is the season I remember zoning out of when I watched it, and when I think about it I remember it's all about the trials, which I thought was done really poorly, and Naomi, signifying the start of the angelic accountants, and then the end has the angels falling from heaven giving us more dreary bank managers on earth.

Gah.

So I am most definitely being selective in the episodes that I rewatch.

Ep 1 - We need to talk about Kevin
So Dean comes back from purgatory.  Sam has been living with Amelia and didn't look for Dean.  Poor opener for the season...

Sam not looking for Dean feels really out of character.  Like it was put in there just to get Sam a domestic life.   It feels like the writers don't care about the motivations or history of the characters they are writing...Sam is not convincing in the conversation about his whereabouts. Dean is. But I can imagine it would be easier to play Dean's hurt rejection.

Ep 2 - What's Up Tiger Mommy

We did not get enough of Kevin's mum in this show.  She is bloody fabulous and saves the dreariness of it.

Ep 8 - Hunteri Heroici

I remember this episode being really dull, but on rewatch it's not. It's pretty damn solid.  The comedic stuff and the case stuff.  Cas deciding to be a hunter feels shoehorned in for laughs, but I can forgive it that.  The deaths are nicely gross too.

7 out of 10.

Ep 12 - As Time Goes By

This episode is FULL of ship fodder.  Sam is so jealous of Benny it hurts. We feel you Sam, we do.  

Dean is so emotionally close to Benny. I can agree that they may not have fucked in purgatory but the relationship is portrayed so tightly, with such intensity I do not see how Dean and Benny cannot be seen as having an queer-platonic-romantic relationship. It's as intense as him and Sam's relationship.  Christ, Dean warns Benny about his over protective brother, like a teenage girl in a high school show would warn her boyfriend about her over protective older brother.

This episode covers so many betrayals - Sam and Amelia, Sam and Dean, Dean and Benny, Benny and Elizabeth.  It's a messy minefield. So much emotion. So much love and so much hurt.

9 out of 10.

Ep 13 - Everybody Hates Hitler

I assumed from the title that I liked this because it featured Nazis being beaten up.  Not so!  This is the golem episode and the one where the boys find the bunker.  I adore golem stories. I adore Nazis getting defeated stories.  This episode is wonderful.

Made better by Dean getting freaked out by a gay bloke.  I love you Dean, but you are such a twat at times.  Especially when you consider your decidely un-heteronormative relationship with Benny and Sam. I don't think you are in the closet, I think you just fall head over heels for 2 men and you don't even register it as unusual.  It just is.  

Great episode, 10/10, would watch again.  The old-married-couple-settling-in -in-the bunker brothers scene at the end pushed it up from 9 to 10.

Ep 14 - Trial and Error

This is the one where Kevin deciphers the demon tablet and works out the trials.  Dean and Sam set out to kill a hellhound.  Sam kills the hellhound.  It's better than I remembered but I'm not sure I care to watch it again.

5 out of 10.

Ep 15 - Man's Best Friend With Benefits.

Dreadful.  A witch's familiar is a dog.  The boys know the witch.  It's dire.  Really not worth watching.

1/10.

Ep 16 - Remember the Titans

I planned to watch this and then...didn't.

Ep 22 - Clip Show

The penultimate episode.  The boys discover what the last trial is - to make a demon human.  Avaddon escapes, that's a pretty good scene - gross and delightful by turns.

Castiel is tricked by Metatron and believes he is performing angelic trials to close the gates of heaven.  Cas has made a lot of stupid decisions since the end of Season 5.

8/10.  I quite enjoyed this one.

By the way, the second trial was to take a soul wrongly held in hell and return them to heaven.  I cannot start to explain how stupid that idea was.

Sacrifice

Worth watching for the wonderful brothers scene in the church where Dean confesses his undying love to Sam and they decide not to seal the gates of hell because Dean can't cope with a dead brother.

In the next episode they choose Crowley.  Mark Sheppard does pretty well in this.

The Metatron bits reminded me of how skin crawlingly vile I find Metatron.  Good acting, I'll give you that, but I cannot bear to watch him.

The church scene gets 10/10.  The rest... 4/10.

Supernatural Season 15 - episodes 14 and 15

It's back on air! *does a happy dance*

Episode 14 - The Last Holiday
This got a lot of criticism online for being out of character. I loved it.  I am determined to love it.  The boys discover a wood nymph, Mrs Butters, in the bunker who is a cliched 1950s housewife type of character.  She's been brainwashed by the Men of Letters to be like that.

She sets about making the bunker a home for the boys - lots of holiday celebrations and lots of home made food.  Her magic fires up the bunker properly and they discover they have a monster radar, amongst other things.  She goes bad and tried to kill Jack, because she thinks he's a threat to the boys, but they all talk her down.

It's funny, it's sweet, it's got Dean flashing Sam and Dean throwing Jack through a door to free themselves, some truly gruesome finger torture, Lots of Jack, and lots and lots of feelgood scenes.  It's ends optimistically with everyone happy.

Dean is happy through most of it - he reminds me of how he was when he had memory loss in Regarding Dean. I Have A Theory (we can work it ouuuuuttttttt).  Mrs B's magic includes a glamour to take the angst out of those around them, make them happy and smooth the rough edges in their mindset.

I'm not sure how well this episode would have come across seen straight after Destiny's Child.  that was a fun and frivolous one too.  I think the 6 month break helped this episode come across well.

I like this episode a lot.  10 out of 10.

Episode 15 - Gimme Shelter

The brothers head out to see Amara and convince them to join in their plan to kill God, but decide not to say that means killing her too.  Duuuudes....

I don't think that it's ethical to kill Amara just because Chuck is a bastard, but it's been a while since the show was ethical...

Cas and Jack take on a case about people froma  church being murdered. The Cas'n'Jack crime investigation due always makes me smile.  They get to be delightfully weird together.  I adore Jack.  For some reason a demon wants to ride in the car with them and that bit kind of goes nowhere.  Maybe a scene didn't make the final cut.  Maybe the writers decided to put some odd humour in there.  It doesn't fit.

Jack signs up to this church for research and puts his gender as N, i.e. No.  I love him.  I think I've mentioned that right?!  I have a note about there being a creepy doll in the ep but now I don't remember what that referred to.  There's some awful hand torture - bit too soon after Last Holiday for my taste.

The Pastor's daughter turns out to be the killer, which, to be fair I did not see coming.  the Pastor doesn't seem upset about this though, which is odd.  Bad writing or bad directing, you choose.

Jack reveals that he will die when he kills Chuck and Amara.  What a thing to lay on Cas.  Especially when he's driving and needs to keep his eyes on the fucking road.

Back to the brothers.  They sit on the hood of the car, in the rain, which turns to slushy snow.  No one does that. It's blatantly been done so we get to ogle them looking pretty.  The show didn't used to do that.  Then Amara turns up and Dean and her have a heart to heart.  My main takeaway from this ep is how beautiful Amara is.  She really, really is.

It ends with Cas hinting to Dean that Jack will die.

6 out of 10. Some solid bits but could do better.  I found the monster of the week stuff a bit dull but I enjoyed the character bits.

Supernatural Season 7 recap

Season 7 episode 1 - Meet The New Boss

Jeez I dislike Castiel as God.  He goes around punishing the wicked and smiting angels, and generally being quite unlikeable.  There's some bad scriptwriting where Castiel gets described as sexy by a witness.  Sam's Lucifer hallucinations start - Lucifer is pretty vile and has a little pot belly, which feels incongruous to how characters like him are normally seen.  Dean doesn't notice that Sam is hallucinating.  Crowley and Death gets summoned, those two are always a pleasure to watch.  Most of the ep is about Cas though, and it does nothing for me.  At the end the Leviathans take Cas over and Misha's acting just gets on my nerves.  That might be because I find Misha himself quite unlikeable.

My verdict? Meh.  No reason to watch again.

2. Hello Cruel World

At the end of Season 6 Cas broke down the wall in Sam's mind.  This ep we get to see the effects of it. There is a lot of Hallucifer, who is defeated by the power of brotherly love and faith.  That makes the show sound more wholesome than it is..  Honestly though, the scene where Deam gets through to Sam and grounds him in reality, giving him the strength to reject Lucifer is powerfully good shit.

Bobby's house is burnt down by the Leviathans, so they team ends up in a cabin in the woods.  There's a lot of Leviathan bollocks in this, and Cas dies at the start of the ep.

The brothers don't seem to mourn Cas much thouh.  It's not strongly felt, not like when Bobby dies later on, not when Sam deals (briefly) with Amy's death,

3. The Girl Next Door

Sam works out a kitsune (Amy) is in the area and that he met her when he was a kid.  John and Dean were hunting the ma kitsune, Sam and Amy date without realising who the other is.  Amy saves Sam from her Ma.

Now Amy is feeding, but to save her sick son.  Sam decides to let her go.  Dean pretends to agree then kills her, and lies to Sam about it.

I hate this decision from Dean.  It's cruel and it makes no sense.

4 - Defending Your Life

Osiris finds Dean feeling guilty in a bar and so puts him on trial.  Dean's witnesses are Jo and Sam, he declines to have the third witness be called because he knows it will be Amy and he doesn't want Sam to find out about her.

I felt a bit better about the depiction of Osiris on this second watch.  On first watch it felt a bit too clunky, a bit too Smallville-gimmicky for me.  Either I'm able to gloss over that now or I feel it works better now I have more context for this season.

At the end of the ep Sam says Osiris didn't go for him because he doesn't feel guilty about what he's done because he's paid his dues, what with being in the cage and everything.  That felt a little too easy.  There were no signs before now that Sam didn't feel guilt, and it wasn't neccessary to ensure that dean got hauled up to face trial.

No leviathans in this ep!

5 - Shut Up Dr Phil

I had this on my rewatch list but gave up partway into it. I don't care for James Marsters' and Charisma Carpenter's performances, and I don't recall the couples therapy session being anything more than a cheap joke.

7 - Slash Fiction

The Leviathans impersonate the brothers and go on a killing spree.  Given how much I hate the leviathans, it's surprising that this is pretty good.  Ackles and Padalecki give good monster performances.  They also have to abandon the car.  sobs.  It doesn't come back until the season finale.  double sobs.

At the end Sam discovers that Dean killed Amy and leaves.  For non SPN fans, this means he leaves his brother, which is tantamount to someone walking out on their 30 year marriage.

The bad thing about this ep is the dreadfully contrived way they discover the chemical mixture that hurts a leviathan. It makes me cringe thinking about it.

8 - The Mentalists.

It's the town where everyone is psychic! And it comes with two problems. There is ZERO mention of Sam's psychic powers, which is a big missed opportunity and incredibly aggravating. You'd think there would be one throwaway line or something.

The second problem is Sam forgiving and seemingly forgetting Amy. Bad, bad writing. BAD CHARACTERISATION AND WRITING. I understand that he'll see Dean's point of view. He shouldn't be forgiving him. It makes no sense for him to just change his mind completely, with us seeing no pathway towards forgiveness. It felt like the writers just wanted to make Dean be in the right. However the way they did renders Sam's anger about Amy null and void and misses an opportunity to see Dean grow and take responsibility for his actions. Dean deserves to be bollocked and to feel the guilt. If we know his character we know that killing Amy likely is eating away at him, but that should be explored. This plot started off as a really solid moral quandary/ethical dilemma and was resolved by 'Dean is in the right because he's our favourite'. This scene did both brothers a disservice.

The monster of the week story was pretty good though.

8 - Time For A Wedding

Becky doses Sam with a love potion and they get married.  It feels like it's going to be played for laughs but this is evened out when Dean obviously has problems with it, and when Sam reminds Becky that she's planning to rape him.  Towards the end Crowley arrives and deals with the crossroads demon who is welching on deals.  Props to the actors for making this work.  It could have gone badly wrong.

Thought - Given how much of a fan Becky is, you'd think she'd have learnt right and wrong from the books.  She can't seem to understand that the boys are not things, they are real people.  I know she's a parody of the maddest kind of fan, but still....

11 - Adventures in Babysitting

I skipped Death's Door so it came as a shock to realise that Bobby had died in the previous ep... fuck man, the grief in this show really hits me hard.

One of Bobby's phones gets a call from a kid (Krissy) looking for Bobby.  She's not interested in talking to anyone else.  Nevertheless Sam goes after her.  She's a hunter kid and her Dad has been missing.  Turns out a Vetala has taken him (one of the Vetalas is played by Ruby from Once Upon a Time!). The kid and Dean bond, grumpily.  First appearence of Fraaaaaaank.

No real leviathan rubbish in this ep.  Great episode. 5 out of 5. 

12 - Time After Time

This is very much a silly, fun episode.  Dean is hunting Chronos and gets thrown back in time to 1944 where he meets Eliot Ness (who I hadn't heard of before watching this) and they take Chronos down together.  It feels like an excuse to stick Ackles in a natty suit and give Dean the chance to fangirl over someone.  Good shiz.

13 - The Slice Girls

Dean has a daughter.  I have certain moral and theological issues with this episode given that it posits the Amazons as evil.  On a rewatch, it's a good enough stand-alone episode, if you don't take the Amazon's depiction personally.  But I do.  Harrumph.

14 - Plucky Pennywhistle

Lots of clowns and creepy childhood nightmares.  Sam's fear of clowns is portrayed really well.  The unicorn killing someone with their horn is a favourite SPN death of mine.

Ep 16 - Out With the Old

There are lots of cursed objects - ballet slippers make a dancer dance her feet off, literally.  It gives us a particularly gory yet delightfully absurdist horror scene where the ballerina is lying dead on the floor, legs cut off at the ankles, in a pool of bright red blood.  The shoes are in perfect nick.  There's also a cursed teapot which gives a much ickier death scene, and a cursed gramophone.  Sam averts the gramophone death.

Dean wants the ballet shoes, that's amusing.

Sam is hallucinating Lucifer constantly.  Lucifer is talking to him all. the. time. so Sam is not sleeping.  The brothers are impersonating FBI agents and whilst all professional and courteous with the police, as soon as they get to the shop suspected to be selling the cursed objects, there is no charm from Sam. No grace, just sheer irritation at the objects being let into the wild and an impressive level of impatience to get the case solved.  I can't imagine this was scripted, I think it's all Padalecki's interpretation.  It works really well, it builds on Sam's character at the stuff happening in his head, and it makes him super real.  

Dean has a far calmer demeanour - he's unhurried and business as usual.  Sam's urgency makes sense in terms of sleep deprivation and the devil stuck in your noggin 24/7.

Ackles and Padalecki really make this show work - they put so much into the characters even when it's not in the script or the directions.  Their performances are solid and they tell so much of the story with their faces and body language, and it never looks contrived.  It's a wonder to watch.

The second half of the episode is Leviathan heavy, but interesting leviathans, for once.  The lady estate agent and her downtrodden assistant.  The scene where the assistant takes a taste of the boss from the sword, and the brothers' reactions, is telly show magic.  It's makes everything so much more real and draws you in and makes the bad plots worth it all.

17 - The Born Again Identity

Sam is checked into hospital because he's not sleeping as Lucifer is there all the time.  Padalecki gives a really good performance here.  Dean looks for someone to help him and comes across Cas, who has lost his memory and is now named Emanuel and is healing people.  Once Cas gets his memory back he takes Sam's pain and then he hallucinates Lucifer.  Good episode.  Really good episode.

18 - Party On Garth

Garth leads on a hunt and asks the brothers in for help.  It's a Japanese Shojo that people can only see when drunk.  Much hijinks (for the viewer) ensues.  Dean's alcoholism has really ramped up this season, I feel it got worse in season 5 then increased in season 6, but by this point Sam is making lots of comments.

The ep starts off wobbly, but ends up excellent. 

19 - Of Grave Importance
Sam and Dean go to help another hunter - Annie.  She ends up killed in a house filled with other ghosts.  Bobby is haunting his flask so he ends up there too, and finally manages to get a message to the brothers.

The house ghosts (ghuests?) are being held there by a particularly mean boss ghost.  the brothers do their salt n burn business and it's all cool.

Notable for - it being revealed that Dean, (soulless) Sam and Bobby all shagged Annie (at different times).  Lucky Annie.

Ep 20 - The Girl with the Dungeons and Dragons Tattoo. AKA Where we meet Charlie.
I decided to rewatch this as it's the episode where Dean talks Charlie through chatting up a bloke.  It's an amusing scene, in quite a lot of ways.  I wouldn't have guessed that it was this late on in the season.  It did reinforce my previously held opinion that I don't like Charlie's characterisation.

She's written and portrayed so obviously.  Her geek credentials are shoved in your face at every opportunity, but they are such, sorry to use the word again, but obvious.  She was born in 1985, which makes her 12 when the first Harry Potter book came out, so I understand her being a Potter fan.  Choosing to make Hermione her hero is too easy.  Choose any of the other women.  Choose Luna.  Choose Mrs Weasley or Professor McGonagall.  The Lord of the Rings laptop wallpaper is too easy.  The Star Wars references are too easy.  It's like she's been written for people who aren't familiar with sci-fi and fantasy.  Given that the show is Super-friggin-Natural this is ridiculous.

After the boys have outlined the plan she agrees to join them far too quickly.  She's not freaked out at all.  Her love of adventure stories is cited as the inspiration, but come on.

She does something in IT  She's an amazing hacker.

She does not read as one-of-us, she reads as some twat's idea of what one-of-us is.  I think the term is Mary-Sue or Manic Pixie Dream Girl.  We are meant to identify with her, but I just can't.

Friends have talked about how she doesn't fit in tonally with the rest of the show. I agree.  She's just so damn chipper.  She's not properly weird, she's kooky weird.  She's a man's idea of what a cool girl is. It's so disappointing.

21 - Reading is Fundamental

Kevin Tran the prophet is brought in.    I have issues with bringing in another plot this late in the show. It does not make for smooth viewing.

Ignoring that, this ep is otherwise pretty good.  Solid performance from Chau as Tran.  Great performance from Collins as crazy Cas.  Meg is delightful.  All languid drawl and relaxed suggestiveness, all overlaid with such withering scorn.

22 - There Will be Blood.

The boys realise that corn syrup is the thing that the leviathans are using to subdue humans, so much to Dean's disgust they have to eat actual vegetables.

They find out that to defeat the leviathans they need angel blood, ruler of fallen humanity blood (Crowley) and alpha blood. so off they fuck to get alpha vampire blood.

All does not go well, UNTIL the alpha vamp realises that the leviathans are going to kill the vampire race through contaminating humanity's blood via their corn syrup, and then he helps the brothers.

Better episode that I expected.  Crazy Cas remains fun and far more watchable than regular Cas.

23 - Survival of the Fittest.

The finale!

The opening montage and Carry on Wayward Son get me in the stomach every time.  I am so sad this show is ending. 

The boys get the car back. They go to defeat to the leviathans.  Dean and Cas are shot into purgatory.  It's good shiz, but not the best finale.

Supernatural season 15 - a selective episode recap (6 to 13, more or less)

This is selective because I've only got a few episodes available to rewatch.  The final 7 episodes start again tonight. I'm excited. Very very excited. Even though it likely won't end how I want.  I'm not sure how I want it to end.  For the boys to be happy I think.  For Chuck to get his comeuppance.  I'd quite like lots more Jack screen time and some big explosions too.   Maybe not the big explosions.  That could go wrong.  I want the boys being badass but also soft and dorky.  Smart assed.  Capable and clever and competent.  I want them to remain relaxed with each other, and to trust each other.  I want them to enjoy themselves.  I don't think I want them dying.  I def don't want them going to the heaven where they relive their greatest moments.  they don't want that.  I want them to be treated with respect.  I want more fancyChesters too.

15 x 6 - Golden Time

From the credit montage of this just happened I can see that Rowena died in the last episode.  that was actually quite well done and made me sad.  The intro music and the cinematography is pretty good.

Dean makes a vicious circle joke and it's adorable.  The brothers seem so relaxed, so free of hang ups.  It's in their body language and their dialogue and relationship.  It's nice to see.

Eileen turns up as ghost.  I like Shoshanna Stern who plays Eileen, I respect her as an actress, I don't mind Eileen as a character, but I have issues with how she and her Deafness was portrayed when she was first introduced, and I have no idea why they chose to bring Eileen back over other characters.  It doesn't feel like virtue signalling, and maybe there wasn't anyone else it would have made sense to bring back, but nonetheless it's an odd choice.  Thankfully they had Sam learn some ASL. I have no idea if it's correct or not.  Sam becomes a witch and brings Eileen back to life.  Because otherwise she'd return to hell.  Fuck knows why she's in hell, according to the show's ethics she should be in heaven. Unless I've forgotten something awful she's done.

15x 7 - Last Call

In the recap we see that either Cas ditched the brothers earlier in the season, or that Dean ditched Cas. I can't remember which.  I don't want to google it in case I get spoiled for the next episode.

This episode is set partially in a rock bar, with an old hunter friend of Dean's.  Dean gets up and sings with the band.  I get the feeling the writers wanted to shove as many bucket list things in this final season as they could.  I'm all up for seeing Ackles singing, but when you consider how bad DemonDean's karaoke was this is another thing that doesn't make sense.

It turns out that Dean's mate is controlling the monster of the week. Dean kills the monster by cutting off it's head, but we don't see how.  He didn't have a knife or sword in the scene and we don't see the actual kill.  I have a note mentioning the key is for the door to Death's library, which strikes me as an obvious connection to L-space.

Back at the bunker we have the start of Sam/Eileen, in which Sam looks thoroughly uncomfortable and it's not pleasant to watch.  They have no chemistry.  Castiel probes Sam and we meet Sergei, Castiel's hitherto never seen before Russian friend that they have just thrown in with no backstory.  It's maddeningly hilarious.

I have another note saying that Lilith is back although now, a few days later, I don't remember the context.

15 x 8 - Our father, who aren't in heaven

The recap shows Chuck trying out different story endings for our boys.  It's a really lazy god plot with absolutely no subtlety or nuance.  It's a god as a spoiled, petulant child and it's dull.  The idea that you can't kill god without the balance of creation falling apart also irritates me.  Then the brothers decide they should lock god up somewhere... this is so far from the horror stories the early seasons told..

Donatello the soulless prophet comes back, and he's very entertaining.  More Donatello please.  But only in past seasons for me to rewatch, thank you very much.

Gaahhh... then the brothers just walk into hell... way to take all the mystery out of it.  Maybe it was meant to show they are such good hunters that they can do anything.  Maybe it was Chuck fucking with their brains and lending them the skills to do so.  It's bad writing whatever it is.  In hell they find Rowena as Queen.  She's not as warm as she was earthside, and she looks quite different with her hair up.

Adam is back earthside too... Michael is riding him but they have equal shares in the body.  I adore Jake Abel playing Adam/Michael.  He's wonderful.  He is the shining light in this episode.  Lilith is back in a very incongruous-to-the-setting meat suit.  She's all bubbles and brights.

Dean keeps trying to push Sam to Eileen and argh I want to shake him.  Sam is not into this Dean, so just stop it.

There's a bit in this episode where someone is talking and Eileen can't see to lip read, yet there's no acknowledgement that this is an issue or that she will have missed the conversation.  That infuriates me.  Eileen receives a case from an old friend who turns out to be Chuck in disguise, and he captures the two of them.

That's a quite a lot in one episode, but it worked.

15 x 9 - The Trap

In the recap we see dead Jack with those shades.  I love Alexander Culvert and I love Jack, in all his forms.  We also see the absolutely awful town of ghosts, walking in daylight.  The least scary thing I have ever seen. Awful.  I think it shows Jack taking lots of souls in and Cas probing him.

Sam is tied to a chair and Chuck is torturing him by making Eileen drive a knife into him.  Sam looks so kindly at Eileen while she's doing it.  Chuck has admitted he was pushing the romance angle between them, which might explain why Sam looked so unsettled with it all.

Cas and Dean have gone to purgatory to get a flower to incapacitate god.  There is a dreadful prayer from Dean begging for Cas forgiveness and saying sorry to him, and it just came out of nowhere.  Or I wasn't paying attention.  Either is possible.

Dean and Cas get back earthside and Eileen manages to call Dean's phone for help.  Dean shouts Eileen into the phone.  Repeatedly.  Dude, she's Deaf, she can't hear you.  There is nothing on screen to suggest a speech to text app on her phone so that is really fucking stupid.

15 x 10 - Heroes Journey

Oh christ. Possibly the worst episode they've made.  Everything starts going wrong for the brothers.  Dean get toothache, Sam trips, the car doesn't start, their credit cards don't work etc etc.  The in episode explanation, given by Garth, is that god has removed all divine assistance he has been given them all their lives.  Without that divine luck they cannot do anything.  That undermines the characters and everything we have believed in for 15 seasons.  It's insulting.

So my headcanon is that Chuck has cursed them and blessed Garth.  Garth is suddenly really strong, can do everything the brothers can't, and is somehow a qualified dentist.  Just... no.  Then there's a hallucination where Dean and Garth tap dance.  It's not cool, it's not iconic, it's not funny, it's terrible and it falls really flat.

And then Chuck shows Dean the brothers possible endings and Dean is turned into a vampire and he hisses.  It's awful. It looks like an outtake.

15 x 11  The Gamblers

The boys hear of a place where they can play pool for luck.  This feels like a bad rehash of the season 4 (?) episode where they gambled for years.  Fortuna is running the tavern and, I will give credit where credit is due, her explanation of god creating the world and humanity creating all other gods does sit right with me.

The gambling den serves as a lessons to the boys that they can be heroes without fancy skills or god's blessing.  Unfortunately the bit where this is proved to them, when the bar folk are released, is supremely unsatisfying.

15 x 13 - Destiny's Child

Now this episode is gold.  It's so much fun.  Things I like:

Dean's wtf reaction to Cas calling Sergei.  I know Dean, we don't know who the dude is either.

Our boys reactions to the FancyChesters.

Fancy Dean's love of the bunker life and FancySam's horror at it.

FancyChesters playing rock paper scissors.

FancyChesters' car.

EmptyMeg.

Billie.

Jack.

Jo's amazing green leopard print trews and gold lame top.

All the pizza in the opening credits, for one pizza reference later on.

World's being destroyed in the recap.

The whole multiversal shenanigans.

Savage Garden introducing the FancyChesters.

Hammy FancySam with his little finger out when he drinks beer, and his goreous effete manner.

Sam fighting the door! Alone!

Jack swallowing the occulum.  Soulless Jack is just darn good fun.

I like all of it. It's wonderful.  Best episode of the season.  Easy.

Bring on episode 14.