Series 2, Episode 20: What Is And What Must Never Be

It's been a couple of weeks since I saw this episode so don't expect a great deal of detail. My memory is shockingly bad!

Dean is hunting down a genie. Well it's a thing like a genie anyway. He finds it but the genie attacks him and sends him into a dream world where his mother never died and as such Sam and he never started hunting. Meanwhile the genie is draining the life out of him.

I've always loved "what if?" type stories so this was right up my alley. Dean is a little confused at first to find himself waking up in bed with his girlfriend and then also discovering that his mother is still alive. Seeing Dean living a normal life for a change is kind of heart warming and I don't think I've seen a man look so happy to be mowing his mother's lawn. That sounds slightly dirty to me for some reason.

However it's not long before Dean starts to discover that his new world is not so perfect after all. His relationship with Sam is not great. Having never been thrown together in the quest to hunt down demons then they have lived totally different lives to each other and the differences between their personalities has not allowed them to form the close relationship that they have in the real world where they are forced to work together. You see, the demons aren't so bad after all! They've brought two brothers together!

Things start to get even worse for Dean when he realises that all the cases they have worked on have now been all undone as they were never there to fix things in this reality. There was an episode of Doctor Who that was very similar where we saw what the world would have become if the Doctor had not been around to put things right and fight off the various alien attacks. 

Eventually Dean discovers the truth about this fake world he is living in and realises that if he kills himself in this reality then he will wake up in the real world. His fake family try to persuade him to stay, telling him that he could live his entire life out in this place and for a moment it looks like he might decide to remain. As I know that there are a least another 9 seasons after this one then it didn't take a genius to work out that he would most likely leave and come back to the real world. It makes me wonder what I would do though. It would be really tempting.

Overall I enjoyed this episode. It was a very Dean centred episode which isn't a bad thing. Although saying that, I have dipped my toe into the world of Supernuatural interviews and convention clips on YouTube and a particular clip has upset me slightly where it appears that Jensen Ackles comes across a bit of a homophobic prick to a young bisexual girl who is trying to ask him a question about his characters sexuality. Maybe he was just having an off day. I can't look at too many interviews in case I'm spoiled! I hope he's not an arse though!

Coming next; the two part season finale! 

Series 2, Episode 19: Folsom Prison Blues

Time for a bit of a marathon viewing session. I've scheduled to watch the final episode with Leanne this Saturday. It's kind of become a nice little tradition for us to watch the final episodes together. Well it's not a tradition yet as we've only done it once. But it will become one! 

After an abandoned section of a jail is opened up, a spirit escapes and kills one of the guards. 

Three months later and Dean and Sam are arrested after being found breaking and entering into, well I'm not sure what is was to be honest. Don't think it matters, the most important thing is that all of their previous crimes are coming back to bite them and it looks like they are going to be doing a long stretch in prison. Two good looking guys locked up with a load of other sex starved men...anything could happen!

One of the cops comments that it seems disappointing that after all their previous escapes that it comes down to simply triggering a motion sensor which got them caught. I'm guessing that they allowed themselves to get caught in order to get access to the jail where the spirit is. Good plan but I have no idea how they'd then escape afterwards! I'm fairly sure I'm correct because they seem very eager to find out exactly which jail they are going to be sent to. It's like Supernatural meets Prison Break! I imagine. I don't know, I've never seen Prison Break.

Check out that pouty face!

Dean and Sam are locked up in separate cells but fortunately the cells are exactly opposite each other so that they can still chat. Not so fortunate is that Sam's cell mate keeps giving him "funny looks". 

It doesn't take long for them to get themselves in trouble when Sam accidentally bumps into someone in the canteen. Is it called a canteen? That doesn't seem to sound right for a prison. Feeding hall maybe? Anyway, that's irrelevant. It causes an altercation whereby Dean and a big guy get into a fight and are thrown into solitary confinement. 

This prison's idea of solitary confinement is a little odd. Even though they are locked up separately, it's still possible for Dean and the other guy to see and hear each other through the windows in the cell doors. Not very solitary.

That being said, Dean's confinement soon becomes a whole lot more solitary when the spirit appears and kills his fellow prisoner. 

The brothers find out that the spirit is most likely the ghost of an prisoner who was beaten to death by guards in the old part of the prison. I can't quite remember how they found this out. Truth be told, I started to watch this episode yesterday and I've already forgotten parts of it!

The good thing about this episode is seeing how the brothers cope when all their usual helpful devices are taken away from them. They have no guns and don't even have anything to use to set fire to the blood stains in the abandoned cell. Fortunately Sam is able to steal some of these things when Dean creates a diversion in the canteen (feeding hall? Dining hall?) by starting a fight. Maybe he could have picked a less painful diversion! Pretended to be ill or something!

After being taken to the infirmary along with the big guy he was fighting, it's not long before the spirit appears again. Honestly, don't leave prisoners alone with Dean in this place! Especially if they've just had a fight! We get a better look at the ghost this time and in a slightly surprising twist, it looks rather feminine. In fact it looks very feminine! It's a lady ghost! A nurse by the looks of it. I'm now slightly confused.

According to one of the older prisoners, the nurse that used to work at the prison liked to kill her patients. What a charming woman!

Oh no! Now Sam and Dean have had a little fight in the exercise yard! (Yes I know the name of that one, there was a sign on the wall). They are taken away. Does this mean Sam is the next one to be targeted? Maybe the ghost has the hots for Dean.

In yet another twist, it's now been revealed that one of the guards who has been giving them such a hard time is actually the man who put them up to finding the ghost in the first place! Dean and Sam knew this but I didn't! They shouldn't keep things from me like that! I get confused very easily! Anyway he lets them escape.

Hendrickson (he's the police officer obsessed with catching them, I probably should have mentioned him earlier) seems to smell a rat and suspects that they've been allowed to escape. I'm assuming he is going to be a recurring character. Actually I get the feeling he's been in the show before but I can't quite remember!

As Sam and Dean head for the grave of the nurse, they are being persued by Hendrickson after their lawyer lets slip that she was asked to research the burial place of the nurse. Or has she? No she hasn't. She's told the police the wrong cemertary on purpose. I like her. I hope she comes back. Next time I'll even try to make a note of her name!

A fairly good episode. There feels less of an overall story arc to this season compared to the last. The finale is just round the corner and at the moment I can't really see them building to anything. Isn't the yellowed eyed demon still around somewhere? 

Series 2, Episode 18: Hollywood Babylon

After having an absolutely filthy dream about Dean, I was reminded that I hadn't watched a Supernatural episode for a while and as I have a week off work it seemed a good time to get a few episodes watched. Well at least one episode at any rate. I hope this next one does something to take the bitter taste out of my mouth that was left there by the last dire piece of crap I was forced to watch (yes I'm still very angry!).

This is a promising start. At first the episode looked like it was going to be some kind of terrible Evil Dead rip off but as the first scene developed I could tell that something was slightly off about it. The acting was a little over the top and the background sky looked very fake. Just as I was about to lay into the episode, it was revealed that this was just a film set and the people I was watching were just in the middle of rehearsing a scene. 

One of the tech guys has a conversation with the lead actress (her name is Terra but I don't know how that is spelt so I'm sticking with that!) about how he thinks the set is haunted. Sure enough it doesn't take long for him to be found dead and hanging from the lighting gantry. Terra finds him and lets loose a brilliant scream, much to the director's delight who mistakenly believes she is rehearsing for the next scene. It's a good strong funny opening to an episode. Don't let me down now!

There was an inside joke! And I actually understood it! Dean and Sam are on a tour of the studios and the tour guide mentions that they will soon be passing the set of The Gilmore Girls and if they're lucky they may spot one of the stars of the show. At this Sam looks a little nervous and jumps from the tour bus. Jared Padalecki (Sam) also starred in The Gilmore Girls! I very much approve of this kind of humour. Brilliant!

I like it when things like that are aknowledged. I usually put too much thought into such things. For example, and I'm going slightly off topic here, I remember watching the movie Scream and in that movie there is a scene where a group of characters are watching Halloween. Now that's fair enough. However in Halloween H2O (a sequel to Halloween) there is a scene where a character is watching Scream 2. Now that got me thinking. In the Halloween universe, if someone can watch Scream 2 then they must also be able to watch Scream, at which point they will be watching a film where a group of characters are watching a film about them! Clear? Well it messes with my mind anyway so now it can mess with yours!

Anyway back to the plot. Sam has decided to take the trip to LA as a kind of holiday to get over what happened to Madison. I suppose it was made such a big deal of in the last episode that it had to be at least mentioned again but I just want to try to forget about the whole Madison incident. Dean mentions that he was expecting more sunshine from LA and that it feels more like Canada. This is another inside joke, because that's where Supernatural is filmed so they actually are in Canada! I'm on fire today! I'm so proud of myself!

Things are getting more interesting now. Dean and Sam have discovered that Frank (the crew guy that died) was actually an actor and isn't dead at all. It was all some kind of publicity stunt to make out that the studio is haunted. I was just starting to believe that this might turn out to be the first episode of Supernatural to not actually feature any supernatural elements...then a grey ghost lady turns up and hangs one of the producers. 

I'm not sure, but there might be another inside joke that I'm not quite getting. The director of the film (Hell Hazers 2) is being referred to as McG. Now I know that the main producer of Supernatural is McG. I don't think it's the same guy but I'm guessing they've used his name as joke. Adding credence to this idea is that when they show a trailer for Hell Hazers 2, it mentions that the director was also director of the Charlie's Angels movies, and the real McG was connected with those movies so maybe it's supposed to be the same guy.

All these references are making it more difficult to concentrate on the actual plot! Oh another person has been killed by the way. Sucked into a massive fan on the set...because fans can be set to suck apparently...and have the strength to drag a full grown man across a studio. That's ghosts for you!

The disgruntled writer of the movie has hidden actual summoning rituals into the script which has been causing the ghosts to materialise and kill people. Dean, Sam and one of the producers are trapped in the studio as the spirits surround them. Sam realises that the ghosts only show up on camera so he uses the camera on his phone to scan the area whilst Dean blasts any ghosts that turn up with a shotgun. Imagine a more adult version of Pokemon Go and you'll get the general idea.

Walter, the writer smashes the talisman he has been using to control the ghosts which lets them go free and they tear him to pieces. And all because he couldn't accept a few changes to his script.

And that's pretty much it. Except that the producer now introduces the idea of the camera phone into the movie which proves to be a hit and Dean randomly jumps into bed with Terra. (The bitch!)

Supernatural is back on top form! Although I'm a bit confused about Frank's "death" at the start. That took up a good 10 minutes of the episode and then it turned out to be fake and added nothing to the overall story. It felt like they'd realised the episode was under running by 10 minutes so they threw that in to bulk the story out. That being said, I still enjoyed it.