This week’s Supernatural is one of the “off the reservation” kind of episodes the show typically does very well. “Hunteri Heroici” is written by Andrew Dabb, who usually writes in partnership with Daniel Loflin. His solo effort gets a lot of things right, but also highlights where some of the issues of the season are. As we approach the fall Hellatus, those issues are beginning to cast a very large shadow.
The main story involves Sam, Dean, and Castiel having to deal with Fred Jones, an older and sick hunter who has retreated into his own mind. Problems arise because this hunter—guest star Mike Farrell—has psycho-kinetic powers of a magnitude that can change reality. And since Jones loves cartoons, he creates a bubble of cartoon physics around him. Hilarity ensues.
And for the most part, it does. The episode allows Jensen Ackles to show off his excellent physical comedy skills, as he dodges dropping anvils and runs into frying pans while chasing Dr. Mahoney, the nursing home thief who is tapping into Jones’ bubble of weird. Dabb weaves in many references to classic cartoons—he knows his Looney Tunes. It’s no small feat to make a talking cat (voiced by executive producer Robert Singer) work in a dramatic series.
Dabb also weaves in some emotionally potent scenes to balance the cartoon mayhem. Dean and Cas have a lovely scene where Dean not only tells Cas he is glad he’s back, he then looks past an angry outburst from his friend to ask what is really wrong. Instead of the kind of angry and often distorted communication we saw between Sam and Dean in “Southern Comfort,” Castiel shares the depth of his shame at his killing spree on Earth and in heaven. He’s cut himself off from heaven so he doesn’t feel driven to kill himself in remorse.
This is interesting stuff, because of course, Cas is not as cut off from his former home as he imagines. He’s an unknowing double agent controlled by mysterious angels in a part of heaven he knows nothing about. Cas ends the episode realizing he cannot escape his past, but not yet realizing he needs to escape Naomi’s clutches.
Article comments
1 - lil
I'm in total agreement about the flashbacks. I find myself rolling my eyes every time one is coming along. I don't care about the Sam/Amelia storyline at all. It adds nothing in my opinion. I hope we've seen the last of the flashbacks, but I suspect they'll drag out for another few episodes.
The communication between Dean/Cas is refreshing. Dean was never very good at the heart-to-heart talking thing, but they really seem to have found that now, and I like it. I hope Dean/Sam can also find that. We got a taster in the last episode when Dean was talking to Sam about seeing Castiel in the window. I like when they talk like that. I like when they communicate and support each other. It can't always be left unsaid.
To pick up on one of your earlier points. Maybe Olivia has a significant other who is not aware of the 'arrangement', and that would explain the sneaking around in motels part. Just a thought.
2 - aurens66
I agree with you on the flashbacks, while Dean's Purgatory story and Sam's backstory could be equally compelling, a lot of the momentum and tension in the narrative were lost with the flashback technique, though I am grateful to Carver and Edlund for showing us what happened in the time the brothers spent apart - rather than Dean's time in Hell and Sam's time in the Cage in previous seasons left out.
I'm hoping that the story now picks up steam and impetus, bringing Cas, the Trans, Garth, Benny and Sherrif Jodi for the ride.
3 - Gerry
Hi, great to see you, both! Lil, good point about Olivia maybe having a hubbie, too. I"m not sure a flea bag motel is a better option than timesharing someone's house (-: It's just a little nitpick, anyway.
I'm liking the communication between Dean and Cas, too. It really highlights how poor the communication is between Dean and Sam, though and it doesn't make me like Southern Comfort any the better. I hope the writers don't let that bitter and distorted fight stand over Hellatus.
Aurens66, I agree that flashbacks are a difficult way to tell a story at the best of times, because they stop the forward momentum of the main story. I think the Purgatory story line used the flashbacks really well, because every flashback informed us of something we were wondering about in the present, so the main story was always enhanced and moved forward.
For example, I wondered how Dean could have hooked up with a vampire to begin with. A flashback showed us. I wondered why he would trust a vampire to have his back. A flasback showed us. I wondered when Benny went from fellow foxhole inhabitant to friend. A flashback showed us. And the same with the Dean/Cas perception storyline. And all those story lines are being advanced in the present, so the flashbacks connect to the present in a way that is not linear, which is the best way for flashbacks to work.
Sam's flashbacks, on the other hand, don't have that sense of moving anything forward. They've only confirmed what I already strongly suspected--no reversal of expectations here. And Sam's personal arc is not being moved forward in the present, so there's a sense of moving backward with the flashbacks, but not forward and definitely not in a layered fashion with multiple connections.
So, they tend to bring the episode to an abrupt halt and not add much. That's not only a problem for the flashbacks, it's a problem for the episode as a whole and it's a problem in the pacing of the main story line. We haven't seen enough, in my opinion, of tablet hunt for that to seem like a driving force for the season.
There's a lot riding on next week's episode to leave us breathless for more over Hellatus.
4 - shamangrrl
I actually wasn't going to comment on this episode, because it couldn't hold my interest (I read through most of the show, only looking up occasionally). To me, this episode felt like a complete waste of time. I loved the Dean/Castiel scenes, and I laughed outright at Castiel vs. Bob. And yes, JA is extremely gifted at physical comedy, among other things.
But I learned nothing new. Castiel staying in Purgatory to atone clued me in to the depth of his self-loathing and despair over what he'd done. It was nice to see him start to move on from that, with Dean's help. Castiel had an actual revelation. Sam is a whole 'nuther story. I learned in the Pilot, that Sam runs. It's been shown throughout the series. Sam only wants to hunt when there's a personal motivation. That's how the Pilot ended. Sam has an addictive personality - again, not new. Sam tends to find someone to cling to when he runs, and that person generally isn't the best safe-harbor. Again, not news. But I could get behind all this, if I felt that Sam had finally reached critical mass, and an epiphany ensued. But I didn't see that. And I'm sorry, but I don't watch daytime soaps. I'm tired of their tired and belabored tropes being shoehorned into Supernatural. I mean, do the writers remember the meaning of the word used as the title? Frequently, I think not.
And how can Sam go back to school, especially using his real name? Hasn't he been on the FBI's most wanted list for years now? Didn't the Levi's go on a very public killing spree, using Sam and Dean's likenesses? To me, the whole "return to school" thing is just another of Sam's delusions. And for as much as Show has Dean Tell Sam "I need you" and Sam Tell Dean "I don't need you", it continually Shows the exact opposite.
And yes, the pacing has been off this season. Out of 8 episodes, we've only had what, two that focused on the guys and three that focused on mytharc? If the writers want to make me care about the compendium of tablets, they need to push it in the writing. They don't seem invested, so why should I be invested? And if the Purgatory flashbacks are in fact over, they need to start writing the guys (instead of guest stars), and making them proactive. There's been too much emphasis on backstory and guest stars, with the guys in support roles. Make me care, writers.
Anyway, Dean and Castiel were written quite well in this one, and their relationship is showing that "maturity" Carver was touting pre-season. Benny is back next week, so I'm hopeful for that episode.
5 - Gerry
Hi Shamangrrl, I feel a lot of your pain, though for me, any episode that allows Jensen Ackles to show his physical comedy skills is worth the price of admission. And as you say, Castiel's story did advance in this episode, because he had a well set up epiphany.
I really liked seeing Dean move past Castiel's angry shout and just ask him to talk to him. Going into the Purgatory arc, I thought we might be seeing a "Lord of the Flies" type story for Dean, reverting to every man for himself. In fact, we've seen the opposite. Dean is as focused on his relationships as he's ever been and he's willing to talk, of all things, to keep them close. He may be battling a level of PTSD, but I think the purity of battling to survive in Purgatory allowed him to let go much of the guilt that was crippling him.
He still has guilt, of course, because I think he needs to talk to John to really let go his tendency to feel he's responsible for everything, but he's no longer crippled--and I think we saw more evidence of this moving forward in this episode.
Unfortunately, that does highlight the lack of movement between Sam and Dean and Sam's personal arc. As you say, we seem far from accruing critical mass there and little expectation of an epiphany next week. I really hope I'm wrong on that--a beautifully done epiphany on Sam's part on how he feels about both Dean and hunting would be a great send off into Hellatus.
Like you, I don't believe Sam at college is a story about his maturity and how he was only pulled into hunting against his will, as though he's a normal joe. He may well want that, but the driving force is that he is not and has never been a normal joe. He didn't fit at Stanford last time he want and I don't really see why he would this time, either. Pretending he's not Sam Winchester is never going to be the way to emotional health, in my opinion, and that's setting aside your very relevant questions about how he would enter mainstream society anyway.
I think the immediate question of a Winchester manhunt has been answered, because Sam and Dean have been declared dead. However, they still run the risk of being recognized and surely their strategy of stealing credit cards and burning them when they're maxed out wouldn't work on a sustained basis by a guy with a permanent address. And Sam would have to manufacture an entire history to get back into university; he can't use his previous application records due to the manhunt.
And that is without the issue of monsters and demons hunting him down because they either hate him or want something from him. Crowley is a constant danger to the boys--why would Sam risk involving anyone else in that when he's already lost Jess to demons and watched Dean have to walk away from Lisa and Ben because he couldn't protect them?
Really not seeing Sam's arc as a maturity arc or a wonderful love story and whatever it is, I wish it would hurry up and be that.