Supernatural 10×15 Review: The Things They Carried

It’s been a month. Granted, I’ve spent that time introducing a new fledgling to our ranks, and he’s very happy. As it happens, we’ve just started Season 2 today, and I think that Supernatural dug back into the the dark and creepy vaults of the first two season’s for tonight’s episode. “The Things They Carried” is definitely old school Supernatural. Wow, it kind of feels weird typing that…

We start the episode with the Sword of Damocles that has been hanging over the boys since last season, the Mark of Cain.Why Sam is still stuck on reading lore pertaining to the Mark of Cain is probably alluding to the eventual resolution of curing Dean. You know, that one obscure thing he happens to find right at the last possible minute… Never give up, never surrender, right? Dean has accepted his fate, but Sam isn’t giving up just yet. By the way, the cake moment. Sam was totally trying to keep Dean on ‘the straight and narrow’, but yeah… For the love of Chuck, Dean?! What are you, 5?! Who steals frosting like that? By the way, what happened to your preference of pie? There’s been quite a bit of cake this season. Again, it’s Dean just accepting his fate and saying what the heck.

This episode also saw the return of Travis Aaron Wade as Cole. I did kind of like Cole, but the overly familiar tone he had with Dean and Sam, I’m not a fan of that and I know I definitely wasn’t the only one. It was good to have what feels like a conclusion to that character and storyline, with things coming full circle, as Dean spared him (unlike his father). Cole now understands the “not natural” world he lives in and chose to return to his family. Again, he has accepted things and moved on. I feel like that may have been a bit of an underlying theme in this episode. With the soldiers, the mention of suicide and PTSD, with Cole, with Dean… definitely about learning to accept situations and just keep going. By the way, the book, “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien is well worth a read if you’ve never had the chance. I kind of got a similar feeling, which was most likely intentional on the writers’ part.

In the end, the MOW was some weird sand creature that came out of Cole’s mouth. So, I hate to go full-nerd on you guys, but did you ever watch the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “Conspiracy” (1×25)? This was like Season 1. I never saw the show when it first aired, but I remember seeing reruns. So yeah, it was a Neural Parasite. Kind of looks familiar. And then there’s that Ceti eel from Star Trek: Wrath of Khan. I knew they weren’t going to reuse the Khan Worm from “…And Then There Were None” (6×16), but cover both Star Trek parasites? I mean, a lot of S1 of Star Trek: The Next Generation, ripped off Star Trek: The Original Series, but I love that Supernatural took them both. I wonder what Dean was going to name this one? Maybe Strypers? (As he’s a fan of naming things after pop culture… **cough** Jefferson Starships **cough**)

This episode was over way too quickly. It started off strong, but then kind of… meh. I don’t know. I’ve been a fan of this season, but I just felt like there was something missing at the end. Still not sure what, but it just didn’t sit right with me. But, hey, next week we have killer nuns, and more importantly: CROWLEY!

Author: Bandit

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