Review: Supernatural S7, Episode 5

Warning: This review will contain spoilers. And opinions. Lots of them. (This review in particular also contains some graphic images.)

This season of Supernatural began with a bit of a bore. Cas dissolved into Leviathans, who are apparently generic monster-types whose only distinguishing figures are hilarious mouths and being invincible. For the first couple episodes, Sam was stuck having hallucinations of Lucifer (which were awesome), but now they've kind vanished. Much like any coherent plot. Thus far, Dean's personality has been completely maimed, Bobby's house has been burned down, the highlight of the season is the Egyptian God Osiris' personality.

Yeah, now let's talk about this episode...



Okay, I will admit there was some improvement this episode. It harkened back to the old days of Supernatural, with witches and people dying in really graphic, horrendous ways. This time, we were introduced to death by salon hairdryer, magical flying nail gun, and a decapitating silver dinner tray.

Wonderful.

The witches themselves were pretty amusing overall, but I still felt like the plot was being forced. It just didn't seem to resonate with the same realness that the older season's episodes had. But, enough of the glory days.

This episode starts out with Sam and Dean traveling (who could've guessed?) a small town in the middle of nowhere where a series of weird deaths have occurred. Such as salon hairdryer lady. The boys immediately discover some old, weird coins that Bobby links to an old Romanian currency.

Have fun at the salon, ladies!

"Hm, a coin. A not American coin."

 So, you know, witchcraft.

The hunt leads the boys to a man named Don Stark, who's currently separated from his wife (yes, he did stereotypically cheat). Dean and Sam start to piece things together. Hair dryer lady--Wendy--had an affair with Don. Her and nail gun guy and a guy never seen in the episode who died by boiling in his hot tub were all working with Don on a project.

Run, construction guy!  Run!

So, Don's witch wife got pissed and decided to kill them all.

Dean and Sam head over to her house and find her little witchcraft alter. Turns out Don's giddy assistant is the next target. They rush over to her house just as we are given a glimpse of what is quite possibly the grossest thing since the Valentine's Day cannibalism scene: cupcakes with beating hearts inside.

For your viewing pleasure. 8D

And, yes, poor little assistant Jenny bites into one. And then proceeds to cough up copious amounts of blood. Thankfully, Sam and Dean get there in time to save her. Unfortunately, Jenny proceed to have a like, totally freak out that made cringe a bit. A bit too much into the character for my taste.

Yep, this is the point at which you know things have gotten bad.

Anyway, an annoyed Don decides to gets even with his wife and ruins her art gala event, including killing her friend (that would be death by decapitating silver dinner tray). An enraged Mrs. Stark storms over to her husband's house...

Seriously, what the hell was that, boys?

...then Dean and Sam make an incredibly pathetic attempt to off them. Seriously, that had to be the worst attempt to kill a supernatural creature...ever...

The boys proceed to get beat up for the next several minutes while Mr. and Mrs. Stark talk about their hostile feelings. In the end, they reconcile their differences and let the boys go...Well, Don does. He's nice enough to stop by the boys' hotel room and remove the hex coins that his dear wife put there...

Yup, just came by to save you two from horrible deaths.

And oh, yeah! Leviathans!

They were actually in this episode. Well, one of them was. Nacho cheese guy was stalking Sam and Dean for the entire episode, and he shows up right before Don does and try to kill them. Then Don electrocutes him (which, of course, since Leviathans are unbeatable) just puts him out of commission temporarily. Don then says his goodbyes and leaves the boys to deal with their own problems.

"Yes, of course I've been following them around all episode!"

"But then...there was a slight snag."

Okay. This episode was a slight improvement. But I still feel like the main plot (if there is one) and the monster of the week stuff are sorely out of balance. They really need to reconcile this. I kind of felt like Leviathan guy was just stuck in there randomly. The episode would not have lost anything significant if his parts had been cut out (and that's a bad thing).

But, I did enjoy this episode a bit more, so I'll up the grade.

Overall Grade: B+