Synopsis: “Sam (Jared Padalecki) and Dean (Jensen Ackles) tangle with the God of Time (guest star Jason Dohring), who sends Dean back to 1944, where he is immediately arrested by none other than the one and only Eliot Ness (guest star Nicholas Lea). While trying to figure out how to retrieve his brother, Sam is surprised by the reappearance of an old friend. Phil Sgriccia directed the episode written by Robbie Thompson.”
If you have not seen this episode yet and do not wish to be spoiled, do not continue reading!
Recap: The episode opens up with Sam and Dean tracking a mysterious male figure (Jason Dohring) in a residential neighborhood to an alleyway. They split up to corner him and Dean gets there in time to see the man hovering over a body with a red aura flowing out of him into the man. Dean makes an attempt to stop him by tackling the man and they both disappear as Sam stands bewildered, worriedly calling his brother’s name.
After showing a title screen portraying the words “Two Days Earlier,” we find the boys in Rufus’ cabin where they’ve been hiding out. Dean is continuing to research the big bad of the season Dick Roman. Sheriff Jody Mills, terrifically portrayed by Kim Rhodes, calls Sam to inform the boys about a grad student found dead and disturbingly mummified, sending them on their hunt this week. Sam says that he hopes Dean is watching his cartoons instead of stalking Roman.
The Winchesters show up in town and set up shop in an abandoned house to begin researching the case. They question a rather strange witness to the grad student’s attack. He compares the attacker to his grandpa due to his dressing style. Looking deeper into other similar cases, they notice that the described attacker was at crime scenes back in 1957 and that bodies seemed to come up in threes. They visit the little girl that discovered a body in 1957 to learn where the man lived. This is where we catch up with the episode’s opening sequence.
After Dean tackles the human Dolorean, he notices the attacker was wearing a special ring and the man takes off. Dean pursues onto a street with his gun out and is immediately taken into custody where he meets Mr. Untouchable Eliot Ness (Nicholas Lea) and learns he is in 1944. As they discuss what happened in the alley, Dean realizes that Ness is indeed a hunter looking for the same man. Meanwhile, Sheriff Mills contacts Sam and offers to help out after learning that Dean was jolted back to the 40s.
Eliot takes Dean to meet his own “Bobby” character, a woman named Des Remore. Dean gets some era-appropriate clothing and can only express his excitement with one word: Awesome. Jody arrives with a bunch of Bobby’s materials that she picked up in a storage unit of his, claiming that several boxes must have things that are alive in them. Sam and Jody get down to researching the man and discover a ring to identify him as the god Chronos.
Time is paralleled nicely here as both groups of hunters look for a way to find the God of Time. Dean and Eliot find a gambling record with future race winners that he kept track of for money and track a bookie named Lester Young to interrogate for information on Chronos. Sam and Jody learn that they can summon Chronos, but if Dean is not touching him at that exact time that he is called upon then the older brother will be stuck in that time period. Jody pulls out a bottle of liquor with a note to Bobby from Rufus and she and Sam have a nice moment, stating that it would be an insult to Bobby for them not to drink it.
Eliot and Dean find Chronos at a diner stalking Lila Taylor (Melissa Roxburgh) and discover that she is with Chronos, completely unaware of his true form. They go to her house. Eliot stays to watch over the house and Dean meets up with Des to get the weapon that will kill the god. Dean pulls a “Back to the Future Part III” and sends Sam a message by writing a note to him and lodging it in the wall of the room where they happen to be sleeping back in the future.
Sam finds the note, due to Dean scratching his name in the wall, after being forced by Jody to get some sleep. He mentions Lila in the note, so Sam and Jody find her to ask about that night. Lila tells them the exact time because of the clocks in the house mysteriously stopping that night and mentions that Dean gets choked to death that night. They rush back to the house to prepare the summoning process.
Dean makes his way to Lila’s home to meet up with Eliot and he is attacked by Chronos. Eliot comes out holding Lila at gunpoint, forcing Chronos to explain his curse and desire to be in that time with her. Dean makes a move on Chronos that backfires as he begins to choke the elder Winchester. Sam performs the ritual in time and Eliot tosses Dean the weapon to kill him while referring to him as “Untouchable.”
They arrive back in 2012 where Sam stabs Chronos. Chronos then mentions that he knows the boys’ future and that it is covered in thick, black ooze. His final words to them are “Enjoy oblivion.”
Things I liked: What’s not to like?! This episode rocked! The storytelling was flawless and brilliantly executed. I loved the way each brother was racing to solve the case in a paralleled storyline. The writers did a wonderful job crafting this episode and perfectly placed more Back to the Future references (He’s using Biff’s strategy…) like they have been in all of Supernatural‘s time traveling episodes. I really like Chronos as the monster this week. I think they did a great job getting Dean back and forth in time without his angel pal Castiel there to assist him.
I loved that Kim Rhodes was back as Sheriff Mills this week. It was an awesome episode to include her in as she played a great help to Sam. Her character has come a long way since her debut in “Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid” back in Season 5. It was sad to see her pain when mentioning Bobby due to them growing closer recently. She has been through a lot of death herself and, though there were many things that she did not know about Bobby, there was a definitive connection between the two.
The acting was fantastic for the most part. All of the characters did a tremendous job. Jensen’s performance was untouchable! Kudos to everyone involved in the 1940s time period. The acting was truly entertaining and nicely executed. Nicholas Lea did a phenomenal job as did Jason Dohring.
The direction, set design and costumes were amazing! This episode had a very unique feeling to it. The crew nailed the era and I hope we get another time traveling episode in the future because of it. They knocked this one out of the park.
The episode had a lot of great dialogue, both funny and touching. Dean reacted exactly like I thought he would. The greatest reactions come from Eliot Ness. Every time that Dean would say something common in our society today, Ness would bluntly point out that it makes no sense. For example, the word “awesome” confused Ness and Des, so their reactions to it made Dean feel stupid. It was hilarious and did not stop with that word. Dean, per usual, had the majority of the funny dialogue. Sam had a fair share as well though. He and Jody had a nice reflective scene regarding Bobby and a fun mention to Rufus. This was one of my favorite scenes of the episode. The writers are doing a great job paying homage to Bobby Singer without making his loss the main focus of the show.
Some of my favorite quotes from the episode are as follows:
Dean: “How does paper beat a rock? It’s stupid.”
Sam: (while Dean is on a computer) “A little more anime, or are you strictly into Dick now?”
Eliot: “You look like a bingo stiff.”
Dean: “Stiff your brin… bin… What?!”
Dean: (sarcastically regarding how victims have died) “Awesome.”
Eliot: ” How does that fill you with awe?”
Ness: “… because that…”
Dean: “… is the Chicago way.”
Ness: “Who talks like that?”
Dean: “Sean Connery. I’ll never watch that movie again.”
Things I did not like: I have two very small complaints. First, I did not like the actor that the brothers interrogated together. He was intending to be comical, but it did not work for me. My other small issue is that the episode ended very suddenly. It was a really intense moment that just stopped dead as quickly as Chronos did. I cannot take away from the episode for wanting more. I just assumed we would get some dialogue between the brothers like usual. Now. we just have to wait a couple of weeks before hearing what they have to say about the God of Time’s prediction of their black ooze-filled futures. Neither of these can distract me from seeing the epicness that this episode is however.
Rating: 5 “rock” hand gestures out of 5
Jeff Holbrook is a graduate of Digital Media Design from the Steel City. Despite writing comedy for National Lampoon and sporting the Superman “S” on his chest, he enjoys watching Supernatural, Community, The Walking Dead and Spartacus among others. You can reach him at holbsproduction@gmail.com or on Twitter @holbsproduction
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