In the sixth episode of the tenth season of Supernatural, the Winchesters get trapped in a house with the worst people ever. Intrigued? Then it’s time for Mark to watch Supernatural.
Trigger Warning: For talk of homophobia, sexual harassment.
This episode is desperately trying to be something better than it is, and it’s so unfortunate. Y’all, I constantly talk about my love of whodunnits, of closed-room murder mysteries, of ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING THAT EVER REFERENCES THE CLUE MOVIE, ONE OF THE GREATEST CINEMATIC FEATS OF OUR LIVES. And yet? Somehow, Supernatural does all of this and never reaches the expectations I have for this kind of story.
Which sucks! I want to like this episode so desperately because it utterly skewers the kind of people who should be at the focus of this kind of murder mystery: rich white people. It doesn’t really work any other way, and it’s clear that the writers of this episode know that. There’s an element to “Ask Jeeves” that deliberately mocks these people, their sense of entitlement, and their greed, and I certainly appreciate that. So why does it fail so badly? Why doesn’t it entertain as well as it should?
The Characters
The primary problem is that there’s literally nothing appealing about a single character in this episode. Obviously, when you’re building an episode around WASP characters, they’re not really supposed to be likable. But since this episode so liberally references Clue (both the film and the game itself), I think it provides us a good framing to understand why none of this works. At least in Clue, the characters are entertaining and hilarious, even if we’re merely laughing at them. How are any of these characters genuinely funny? The writers understood the basis for an upper class whodunnit, sure, but they then made all of these characters walking stereotypes. From the oversexualized older women to the cocky younger siblings to the arrogant butler, they’re paper-thin versions of something we’ve all seen a million times.
There’s nothing wrong with sticking to tropes, but these characters don’t even interact well with each other. They’re either catty as hell or horny as hell, and there’s nothing in between. We’re supposed to value how that is juxtaposed with Sam and Dean, but it falls flat. It feels stale. Plus, the whole “older woman more or less sexually harasses a Winchester” thing is not even remotely funny at all. Actually… let’s talk about that.
The Humor
I am not going to say that the Clue film is without problems because practically no movie is. Everything produced in this world is a reflection of the time it was made in and of the person who made it. So why does this episode make so many jokes that are just so unfunny? Beverly and Heddy’s predation of Sam is so relentlessly uncomfortable and REPETITIVE. The show already did this joke before!
Then we’ve got Dash insulting someone because they’re older. Then we’ve got that Leopold and Loeb joke, which… jesus christ. How? How does this show keep thinking that they can get away with making jokes about gay people? Even worse, how are you gonna invoke actual murderers in this case? They killed a fourteen-year-old kid, y’all! How is this material ripe for a joke?
Ugh.
The Pacing
There admittedly was some fun in trying to figure out what was going on. Now I understand why the “Previously On…” segment cycled through so many different monsters. We were supposed to guess which one was at work here! I definitely guessed wrong multiple times, and I do think this episode deserves praise for keeping the identity of the monster – a shapeshifter – just out of reach of the viewer.
At the same time, the episode drags at points because there’s so much focus on characters who aren’t that interesting. Even the revenge plot feels repetitive. Didn’t we just have one of these stories in Cole at the open of this season? So, Olivia ends up feeling like an example of the show re-using a plot we just recently saw. She wants to avenge her father’s death (this time, at the hands of Bobby), so she goes after a Winchester. It’s really nothing new enough to keep me interested, you know?
I want Supernatural to experiment with the kind of stories that they can tell, so I do appreciate that this episode tries to do that. I really do! I am hard on this show, though, because I want the best. I’ve already seen the best it can do, and that excites me. It’s not like Supernatural is unable to provide entertainment and thought-provoking stories at the same time. So yeah, I’m fine holding the show up to a higher standard at this point because we’re ten years into this story. They can do better.
The video for “Ask Jeeves” can be downloaded here for $0.99.
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