Can someone make me a gif of Sam running around the forest after a high school student? Thanks.
The episode opens with Sam and Dean trying to figure out what their great big rock is. The plan seems to be to hit it until it does something. This is a terrible plan. The universe agrees with me and lightning and thunder warn the Winchesters to stop. They don’t (of course) and unearth some kind of tablet out of the rock with writing on it. Meg calls at that moment to tell them that Castiel has woken up.
Meet Kevin Tran, an overachieving young high school student, who is somewhat literally struck by lightning as the Winchesters break open the rock they stole from Dick. He drives to the hospital, not in full control of his actions, but knowing “what he’s supposed to do.”
- Insert Go’auld Joke Here.
Sam and Dean have arrived, and find Castiel somewhat changed. High, is the technical term for it, I think. He explains that they have unearthed the word of god. Dean and Meg start bickering and Castiel wigs out about all the fighting. He’s all rainbows and bumblebees now, so he’s not going to be of much use to anyone. Kevin steals the the tablet, or tries to, and leads Sam on a chase outside the hospital that is the highlight of the episode. Kevin can read the tablet, so when some angels come to take him away for his prophet walkabout, Sam and Dean kidnap him themselves. There’s info on the tablet about how to kill leviathan, so that could be helpful.
- I swear, every time I see the coat all I can think about is how it’s probably never been washed.
On the way to the safe house, Meg sees some demons and starts a little subplot, so good for her. Kevin is a keeper of the word, and so the angels are mandated to take him out to the desert to learn the word away from humans. They hole up in Rufus’ old cabin to let Kevin read the word to them. Meg goes out alone to face the demons she saw before, and kills them, because she’s awesome like that. This does alert the angels to their presence, however. They show up, and with Castiel out of commission Meg ends up killing one. They convince the other to allow them to get the information from Kevin before sending him away. They find a way to kill the leviathan (blood of the fallen) and Castiel gives them his blood before blinking out. Kevin is returned home, and it turns out the police who have been waiting with his mother are actually leviathan.
- This is just a funny picture.
This is not a very sophisticated response, but the word that kept coming to mind while watching this episode was: dumb. The Winchesters especially seemed to me to be extraordinarily dumb in this episode. Perhaps the better word here is obtuse. Starting with their decision to break open the rock without any knowledge about the consequences and moving to Dean’s lack of patience and general poor treatment of Castiel (not to mention his complete inability to even get anything done with Meg in the room.) It’s just frustrating to watch them blunder around without a clue. As for lobotomizing Castiel, I’m not really sure what the point was. He already wasn’t going to be any help in a coma. Why wake him up, send him to Woodstock and make him just as useless as before?
I think I’ve finally found my issue with this season as a whole. The boys have practically no stake in this fight whatsoever. Why are they trying to kill the Leviathan? It’s certainly not the culmination of an inherited lifelong vendetta, like with Yellow Eyes, or because they are chosen to be vessels in a final battle, like with Lucifer and Michael. It’s because it’s what they do, and that’s the only reason. So now we have an emotional detachment between them and the fight they are risking their lives to be a part of. It might be unreasonable to compare the show to BtVS, but it’s not hard to recognize the emotional connection that she had to each of the big bads throughout the series. The boys have been the same way, whether they are racing the clock to save each other’s soul or just trying not to drink any more demon blood, they have had a personal investment in every battle. Maybe if there were some other kind of drama in the show aside from the fight, it wouldn’t matter as much, but that’s never really been Supernatural’s style. It’s all about the war, because that’s all Sam and Dean are in the end. Unfortunately, their hearts just aren’t in it anymore, and it’s starting to show.
- As in, sorry I couldn’t be more positive about this episode, everybody.
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Julia Santo knows that she would never survive the Hunger Games or fighting monsters, but that doesn't stop her from being obsessed with genre fiction. She's the Operational Programming Director for GeekGirlCon, a nonprofit that celebrates and supports geeky women through events. 
They would have never known about that stupid tablet if Dick hadn’t searched for it. I mean seriously, who actively searches for instructions on how to get themselves killed. Morons, that’s who. So when the boys kill the Leviathans, it’s their own damn fault.
also, since when is Sam a moron? Even my husband, who doesn’t regularly watch this show was all like, “Why the hell would he leave the table behind when all he has to do it pick it up and take it with him?” I know, right? They just needed a reason for Sam to chase the kid around like a cartoon race.
Dumb is certainly the word I’d use too.
At least what they have stumbled on gives them a little bit of direction for the last couple episodes. Hopefully they will be a little more focused.
Ooooh, yeah, that bothered me too. I thought almost immediately, “Sam, why are you leaving the frickin’ WORD OF GOD unattended in the room of an insane asylum?” My very next thought was, Sam wouldn’t. He wouldn’t! I mean come on, he’s a seasoned hunter, he knows better. I could maybe see the naive and out of practice season one Sam doing something like that, but not the season seven, I beat Hell and Lucifer, survivor Sam. geez. This is part of the problem in the past two seasons; the PTB don’t seem to mind having S&D behave totally out of character if it serves the plot; Ick. Kripke would have changed the plot to suit the way that the characters are, rather than compromising them so badly. I hate it that they made Sam look incompetent and careless just so that they could have Kevin snatch the tablet and make Sam chase him down.
Great review – thank you! That’s exactly the problem this season – no emotional ties or conflicts for the brothers regarding the bad guy. We know they’re going to win, so – where’s the excitement?
And yes – how hard would it have been to have the kid somehow steal the tablet from Sam and run off, rather than leave the word of God behind on the overbed table? Geesh.
Thanks!
And I hate to be nitpicky about stuff like that, but when it’s so noticeable it detracts from the show it gets ridiculous.
I agree about the lack of emotional ties but to me the most serious problem with this season is still the distance between the brothers. OK, I sound like a broken record, but I can’t help it. I was at the Rio de Janeiro Con last weekend (which was AWESOME) and several people complained and asked questions about that particular subject. Fans are missing the old relationship and they want to know what the hell (no pun intended) is happening to something that used to be almost romantic in its intensity. Jeremy Carver, I’m looking at you. I mean, do something!
Speaking about last episode, some people say that the main reason behind Dean’s difficulties to forgive Castiel is the fact that Castiel hurt Sam. While I’d love to believe that, I still have to hear the words from Dean’s mouth. To my taste, Dean has been strangely apathetic regarding the whole Sam story. I get it’s his pal Castiel, but seriously. The Dean of old would give a hard time to anyone who touched Sammy. Gordon, anyone?
As for the boys looking like morons, the many secondary characters in the show these days must have something to do. The consequence is that Sam and Dean can’t find their own elbows (to quote dear Sylvia) without “help”. What else to expect?
Don’t worry about being a broken record, it’s still true; and I think intertwined with the point I was making about the lack of emotional stakes this season. Those *were* the emotional stakes–the threat of losing each other. And honestly, it all comes down to a lack of compelling storytelling.
Hey Everybody!
I agree as well. I’ve said it before, and so have many of you… there is nothing at stake really for the boys to keep doing what they are doing. I think the fact that Dick Roman killed Bobby is supposed to be the personal hook for this season, but it’s a flawed reason, it doesn’t seem to be working very well. Revenge as a motive never works or holds water as a motivator as its generally perceived to be wrong by most people. Several times this season I have asked myself, “why are they even doing this job any more?” To get revenge for Bobby doesn’t really work because it won’t change the fact that Bobby is dead. In other seasons, the motivators were so much more intimately connected to the boys; Find Dad, Sam’s Visions, Save Dean, Stop Lillith, Stop the Apocalypse and provided ample opportunity for Sam and Dean to connect and work out their relationship with one another. No so in recent seasons: Season six’s Mother of All story line was not really connected to the boys in any meaningful way, and this seasons Leviathan story isn’t either; it’s actually much more interesting in relation to Bobby than to Sam and Dean, it’s intensely personal to him, but… well… he’s dead, so there’s not much he can do about it.
And I agree with Andrea, the boys are still not connecting very well, but we haven’t been shown that this is a problem on the show, so it just comes off as stale somehow. In the first five seasons, all plot points lead back to the way in which Sam and Dean functioned as brothers. The season long arc’s were there in a way to highlight their relationship. I don’t see that any more. We’ve gotten some nice scenes of them together lately, laughing and joking, but they don’t get personal with one another at all, and the lack of personal connection is not addressed as a problem between them in the story either, so it’s not like we are supposed to notice it. But we have, we have, I say! Yes, I too am holding out great hopes for Jeremy Carver: Fix This, Dude!.
EEPS!, Andrea, you were at RioCon?!! Wow, I’ve seen some vids and pictures. Jared looked stunning…absolutely stunning. How was it? (dumb question) Did you get to meet anyone? I especially appreciated how over the top enthusiastic the Brazilian fans were when it came to Jared; with all of the unpleasantness going on in the fandom, I think it was well deserved. They treated him like a rock star, shrieking and screaming at every move he made. He seemed surprised and pleased and a little overwhelmed.
Oh yes, I was there!!! I’d been waiting for this for a whole year. I never ever thought they’d come to my country, but they did!! I live in the South so I flied to Rio last Friday and came back home this Monday. It was a dream come true, pure awesomeness. Jared was at his most charming and the public went mad. Despite some problems in the organization of the event, it was a huge success and everybody here is so happy. Our enthusiam was a little over the top at times and I think it scared the guys a little in the beginning. We almost made Julie – their manager – crazy. But I believe they were happy with the reception.
Yes, I met all of them and I got their autographs. And I took a picture with Jared!!! I always thought Sam is handsome but Jared is drop dead gorgeous.
And they’re all so sweet. I really loved them all, especially when they tried to speak Portuguese, LOL! All in all, a wonderful, unforgetful weekend.
I kind of liked this episode. The only thing I didn’t like was Meg. I still think that after she killed Jo and Ellen, there is no earthly reason that Sam and Dean would find it in their hearts to work with her for any reason. Her continued existence in their presence makes absolutely no sense. (And I can’t even speak coherently on them leaving her to watch over a comatose and vulnerable Castiel.)
I hope that they wind up the Leviathan storyline in the next three episodes, because I want to move on to better, more interesting enemies.
Hi!
Yes, I liked it too despite all my griping about stuff above. I liked Kevin, he was ‘us’ in a sense; a normal every day kid, and I found his reaction to Sam and Dean and his situation refreshingly freaked out. Lets face it, to the average person, Sam and Dean are scary dudes. I liked seeing Sam connect to Castiel; Sam has always been the more forgiving brother and it would be nice to see resolution to their current problems coming from that willingness to forgive. Although, having said that, I don’t think that Dean is out of line at all. He has a right to be pissed; I just think that if he’s gonna soften up at all it will (hopefully) be because of Sam. Also, there is a job to do and Cas isn’t exactly being helpful, and least not directly helpful in a way that Dean can understand at the moment. It does make me wonder though, if Cas’s current “enlightened” state is critical to solving the Leviathan problem. That would be in line with what I know about Edlund’s capabilities as a writer; he’s cryptic, clever and can divert the story off in a direction I would never have guessed at. Perhaps the boys should follow the bees? A lot of this episode felt like exposition, but not in a bad way. I found it quite interesting. It felt like bits of a mystery being dangled in front of us with a challenge to try and put together all of the pieces.