Supernatural Episode Review: Clip Show

Oh no. Did that episode of Supernatural actually happen? There was so much wrong with it I don’t know where to begin. Well, let’s just pick a place. How about the fact that they’ve gone back and fridged a bunch of the survivors that managed to avoid that fate the first time around? That sounds like good place to start.  But that’s really only the tip of the iceberg.

For those of you unfamiliar with the term (and if you’ve been following us for a while, you should have seen us use it by now), “fridging” is a term that is derived from the website Women In Refrigerators, which compiled a list of characters that had been killed, maimed, or depowered as a plot device for the protagonists. These characters are typically women dying for the furthering of the male protagonists plot. Supernatural has a terrible habit of doing this over and over and over again (see How Supernatural Fridges It’s Cast and Why It’s a Problem for some good examples). It used to be a joke among some of my friends that they didn’t do it every time, because look at Sarah.  She managed to be romantically involved with a Winchester and survive past her own episode. Well… now they brought her back and killed her. I feel like we doomed her by pointing out that she had the good fortunate to survive her first encounter with the Winchester. Maybe we should have kept our mouths shut and they’d have forgotten about her.

Moving past Supernatural’s epic fridging adventure, the next thing that bugged me was Castiel’s plot. I should be used to Cas getting the short end of the stick by now. Seasons 6 and 7 pretty much destroyed me on that front, but things had been pretty good in season GR8. Sure, the Naomi thing happened, but it had a satisfying resolution and plenty of wonderful moments with the Winchesters (especially with Dean). Overall I’ve been quite pleased with his story this season, even though we hit a few minor speed bumps along the way. But here we are yet again. Castiel is making morally ambiguous choices that are most likely very very bad. Hooray. Sure, that Nephilim is probably pretty dangerous, but I honestly believed that she was trying to live a normal life. Castiel could have chosen differently, but he chose to trust Metatron and kill a most likely innocent person. It’s hard to say what the ultimate outcome of that action will be, but something tells me that was most likely another bad decision.

And I hardly even want to touch on the lovers spat between Dean and Castiel. They’re fighting. Again.  This time it’s trust. Again.  All I want is for Team Free Will to get along for a while, but they’ve always got to be fighting about something.  I have a feeling this friction is created to make the story compelling, but this is territory that they venture to repeatedly.  It’s the exact opposite of compelling and I want something new. Team Free Will getting along, for example. Dean’s always mad at somebody. Usually it’s Sam or Cas. Usually it’s about trust. There’s lots of brooding involved. Even Sam seems a little frustrated with this particular quarrel. Dean says that if it were anyone else they would have stabbed him in the neck, but Cas got a free pass. Why? “Because it’s Cas.” You tell him, Sam.  This is Cas.  Get over it and start to work together.

The only redeeming moment of their little fight is Sam’s obvious discomfort at getting caught in the middle of it all. And, well, the romantic background music had me laughing a little bit. I can’t really use any other term to describe that scene other than “lovers spat” even after watching it three times to write about it. Seriously. That followed by Castiel being very intent on getting Dean his pie and I can see how there are some good moments in the episode. I hate seeing the boys fight, but if they’re gonna be adorable about it, that makes it at least somewhat tolerable. Almost.  Now we just need them to make up in the finale and I might be able to forgive it all.

Next week is the finale and I honestly don’t know what to expect. I’ve managed to stay mostly spoiler free (an unusual feat in Supernatural fandom for me, let me tell you), so it could be either fantastic or terrible. Of course when I do actually pay attention to spoilers on this show I’m usually way off anyway.  So why bother?  It’ll be interesting going into the episode completely blind.

Author: Angel Wilson

Angel is the admin of The Geekiary and a geek culture commentator. They earned a BA in Film & Digital Media from UC Santa Cruz. They have contributed to various podcasts and webcasts including An Englishman in San Diego, Free to Be Radio, and Genre TV for All. They identify as queer.

Help support independent journalism. Subscribe to our Patreon.

Copyright © The Geekiary