In the fourteenth episode of the ninth season of Supernatural, my feelings have been trampled upon. Intrigued? Then it’s time for Mark to watch Supernatural.
I really feel like this could have been so much better, especially the Tran storyline. LET’S DISCUSS.
Bartholomew
I genuinely thought that Bartholomew would be around for most of the season, so I’m still sorting out how this is going to work. But even if I put that aside, I’m still very confused about the choice to have him killed off and to then sort of put Castiel in his place. There’s a lot of telling done here. What I mean by that is that through dialogue we learn things that are important for the story, but we don’t see/experience them. That tends to dilute the stories, and in this case, there’s not much here to build up the relationship between Bartholomew and Castiel. We hear of their battles together and Castiel’s prowess as a leader, but what does that mean to us? I could tell that we were supposed to be a little shocked that Bartholomew and Cas were once close, but it didn’t have quite the impact I think the show wanted.
On top of that, I’m just so confused as to how these characters are going to get what they want. We all know they want to return to Heaven, and the involves taking down Metatron… with… something? And in order to do that, Bartholomew had to maintain control so that… he could like… you know… wipe out the competition? But the main competition was definitely Metatron. Except for the Penitents, who are literally pacifist angels who don’t want to get involved. They’re important enough to be killed because… well. They’re not on Bartholomew’s side! Yeah, that’s right. Order! For… stuff!
Okay, so I’m poking fun at this a bit, but I felt like the character and story motivations here were so convoluted. How are we supposed to care about Rebecca if we never meet her? How are we to be horrified by the slaughter of the Penitents if we never see them? We’re told how to feel, and it makes this episode come off as rather stiff. I think Castiel’s decision to refuse to kill other angels to get to Metatron is noble and an important step in his character’s journey. But was this the best choice to get him there?
Captives
Look, I don’t necessarily have much more to add to my thoughts on Kevin Tran’s role in this show. Unfortunately, I have to now because even in an episode about finding his mother, this story ends up being about the Winchesters.
UGH.
Let me first state that like the story surrounding Castiel and Bartholomew, we are given very little context for the scenes in the storage facility. I think that we can assume from Ms. Tran’s importance that this is just a place where Crowley stuffed three different humans he needed to be kept alive. For what? Dean briefly mentions leverage (THE GREATEST SHOW), but leverage for what? Who is the third person? Why don’t Dean and Sam ever check the third storage unit to see who might be in there? Instead, the episode relies on the emotional trauma of seeing Ms. Tran upset and chained to a wall. Which is kind of cheap to begin with, but okay. I fell for it because I LOVE THE TRANS and this wasn’t at all fine.
But what does this story tell us? We meet a rather interesting demon in Del, who is nothing more than a whiny teenager, believing he is entitled to more than he’s getting. It’s different, sure, but it doesn’t really mean anything. The only part of these scenes that’s memorable and important revolve around Ms. Tran. I was heartbroken when she asked after Kevin; I was even more destroyed when she forcefully told Sam to take her to her son. Those scenes interested me. Lauren Tom is a fantastic actress, so it’s unsurprising to me that she’d be so great here. And look, I was definitely very happy that Ms. Tran got to kill the demon who kept her locked up! That was a good move!
However, I just feel so weird about the ending. We go from scenes where Linda is devoting herself to protecting her son (MY HEART IS BROKEN FOREVER) to Kevin lecturing the Winchesters to get over each other. Which is so unbelievably out of character that I can’t even understand it, y’all. Why would he say that? Surely he knows why Sam is so pissed off at Dean, so why would he try to invalidate that and tell Sam to get over it? Kevin is not that kind of person. Even when this episode should be about the reunion of two vital Supernatural characters, it ends up being about Winchester manpain.
Just stop it. Please give the other characters their own stories, I swear.
The video for “Captives†can be downloaded here for $0.99.
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