Supernatural #9.4 “Slumber Party” Recap & Review

Summary: A ridiculously fun Charlie-centric episode utilizes its gimmick to great effect, even in the face of some messy storytelling.

If you have not seen this episode yet and don’t wish to be spoiled, do not keep reading.

Recap

In the past, the Men of Letters encounters a hunter named Dorothy, daughter of Man of Letters Frank Baum. She fights the Wicked Witch from the real Oz and is unable to be hurt by her thanks to a warding spell from one of the Good Witches, but still has no idea how to kill her. She decides to use a binding spell to keep she and the Witch bottled together in the base for years. In the present, Sam and Dean try to decipher to how use the magical computer in the Men of Letters base to possible track down angels. They call in Charlie’s expertise, but during the investigation they accidentally break the bottle containing Dorothy and the Witch, releasing them both. Dorothy explains that Oz is part of the fairy world, and that the Witch is looking for the key to Oz to go back and destroy it. During the search the Witch kills Charlie, and Dean calls on Zeke to bring her back to life instead of helping them find the witch. Sam questions who Zeke is, but Dean darts them, instead calling out Sam on his inability to call the base home. The witch possesses Sam and Dean to use them to kill Dorothy, but she’s able to fight them off long enough for Charlie to use the heel of the ruby slipper to kill the Witch. In the end, Dorothy invites Charlie to go on an adventure with her to Oz.

Review

This episode sounded terrible. In the process of writing the recap, it still sounds terrible. But somehow, Supernatural managed to pull it off with a remarkable balance of both humor and pathos. It’s far from a perfect episode of television, and is in fact fairly disjointed and unevenly paced. But it doesn’t take itself too seriously, and instead focuses on some of the fun, sillier aspects of the story while still keeping the concept on the down-low.

The key is the lack of overindulgence in this week’s gimmick. And make no mistake: this is a gimmick episode if there ever was one. Oz is huge now for some reason, with multiple networks including NBC and even CW itself developing some sort of Oz TV series. It didn’t seem like Supernatural should be doing it, especially not before Once Upon a Time. But, Christian mythology aside, the roots of Supernatural mostly lie in American folklore and urban legends. The Wizard of Oz weirdly fits into this; though it’s often grouped with fairy tales, it’s staunchly an American tale with a widespread mythology, and a surprisingly recent one at that. So, yeah, like the relatively easy explanation that Oz is just part of the fairy world the show already established, it fits in. Barely, but it does.

Oz itself, and many of the concepts, are used in small doses. That, in the end, is what makes it all work. The CGI Oz and the flying monkies are barely seen, and the show instead relies on building the tension of a claustrophobic thriller and quest with clever references thrown in here and there. The original Oz stories were packed with political commentary masked as Wonderland-esque concepts, so there wasn’t really anything the show could do aside from throw them in sporadically. But when we got them, they were either well-integrated into the world of the show (poppy bullets) or played for morbid laughs (the killer heel on the slippers.) They definitely cheat a bit–anyone can tell you that the slippers in the book were silver, not ruby like in the movies–but usually just to play up the iconic parts of the story. Supernatural‘s meta silliness reached its peak back in season 6’s “The French Mistake”, but “Slumber Party” takes it down a peg again, keeping it a little less “out there” while still being self-aware that this is all super ridiculous. We even get a reference to the show’s capacity to kill everyone all the time, as Dorothy treat’s Charlie’s death as no big deal. It’s a fun way to spin what’s otherwise the emotional climax of the episode.

Supernatural has this terrible knack for writing great female characters and then killing them off as quickly as they were introduced, so throwing in a quick death for Charlie to subvert it is actually quite inspired. But more importantly, Dorothy and Charlie have a lot to do in the episode. The casting director made a great find in Tiio Horn, who captured the suave 1940s vibe of Dorothy and sold her independent coolness without coming off as too obnoxious about it. The fact that Dorothy could presumably return is exciting, and her team-up of sorts with Charlie imbued some female-centric energy we haven’t seen on the show in a very long time. And honestly, if it Charlie hadn’t been in the episode, we surely would have gotten some “Winchesters save the day while Dean has the hots for Dorothy” stuff, which would have been disappointing. Making this Charlie’s story saves it from feeling like paint-by-the-numbers Supernatural, even with an already unique story.

It’s funny how much Charlie is treated with reverence from the show’s perspective. There have been lots of a lovable characters throughout the show that have come and gone without much fanfare, but Sam and Dean–and the show itself–have presented Charlie as this beacon of light and purity that deserves better than to live in the dank world of Supernatural. When she leaves, it’s to “For Those About to Rock (We Salute You)” as her glorified anthem. It’s enough to easily turn-off some viewers, probably, and it’s something that occasionally happens to the real-life Felicia Day in the pop culture realm (which has in turn probably turned plenty of people off of Felicia Day.) But, again, the show only indulges in it as much as it needs to, and doesn’t present Charlie herself as a Mary Sue-type so much as it shows Sam and Dean with some pride and happiness. This is the good person that they made a Winchester and haven’t screwed up. Their first interaction with Charlie back in season 7 ended with her not being too happy with the Winchesters, and yet they’ve come out of it looking like a family. It makes Charlie’s death even more heartwrenching for Dean, justifying his decision to get her resurrected (as predictable as that may be.) Felicia Day isn’t always very good in dramatic roles, but when she’s plays her typical Felicia Day self, she shines, and this was her best episode since her debut in season 7.

The episode also functions by heavily addressing the Men of Letters for the first time in a while. There have been bits and pieces thrown out, but for the most part the whole Men of Letters mythology hasn’t been much more than a minor plot device here and there since its introduction. For the first time, we get a number of views in favor of and against them, and get some answers to the kinds of people they were and what made them tick. There isn’t as much mystery around the Men of Letters as the show would like there to be, but it’s a different-enough part of the show now that the potential for exploring it further is exciting. At worst, it’s a plot device/deus ex machina that makes story sense.

The major weakness the episode has is its sort of shoehorned-in “no place like home” theme. It would have been a missed opportunity to not find some way to incorporate that, but so much is going on that Sam’s issues with having a home only distract from the interesting. It doesn’t help that all conversations are rather awkwardly thrown in; Dean brings it up in the middle of a literal witch hunt, and even Sam notes “You’re bringing this up now?!” The witch is also noticeably underwhelming, with lots of talk about her power without much showcase of it. It’s notable that her killshot does actually kill Charlie, albeit temporarily, but it keeps the tension fairly low.

The other possible weakness is the aforementioned pacing, which is a little weird. So many plot points and explanations are thrown out at odd times that it’s easy to miss, and at times feels very muddled. For example, Dorothy had that helmet that looked to be for Toto (right?) implying that he “didn’t make it,” but then asks for Charlies help to find her “damn dog”…75 years later? But the way things play out, “Slumber Party” is plotted much more like a video game or tabletop quest than an episode of television–fitting, as it’s possibly Charlie’s swan song. The heroes are constantly searching for helpful items and have random encounters with the enemy on their quest, they get special temporary upgrades like the four poppy bullets, Dean has to make a choice between an powerful upgrade or reviving a member of his party, and they have to uncover a special major item to take out the final boss. It’s a weird decision for an Oz-centric episode, but a perfect one for a Charlie episode.

And in the end, that’s what it is: a Charlie episode. Like “The Girl with the Dungeons and Dragons Tattoo”, “LARP and the Real Girl” and “Pac-Man Fever” before it, we got plenty of humor, silliness, pop culture references while still bringing in new angles to the ongoing narrative. “Slumber Party” is another dose of lightness in the midst of a dark story, but one that doesn’t feel out of place in the season. There are tons of great one-liners (below), a phenomenal use of the thus far untapped Men of Letters set, and some solid performances from the guest stars. It’s an undeniably messy episode, but fittingly so for something so ridiculous. Now, the question is: who’s going to fix the computer?

Odds & Ends

• I’m both impressed and disappointed that we didn’t get more of a pun on Oz in the title.
• Remember the terrible one-off use of H.P. Lovecraft towards the end of season 7?  This is a way better example of incorporating a famous author into the plot.
• I didn’t mention Crowley, but pinning him up against the Witch was fun. The show’s made good use of his captivity.
• They put Kevin in a motel. At least they explained it this time.
• I like that Sam and Dean don’t answer when Charlie asks if they’ll be okay without her.
• We learn that Becky uploaded all the unpublished Supernatural books, meaning they’re likely all up to date through season 5. Which means the book series ended around the time the series was meant to. Fitting.
• CW. Please. Make the Windows 8 product placement stop.
• Supernatural spells fairy like “fairy” and not “faerie” right? I never took it for being too pretentious.
• “Saving people, hunting things, the family business.” Man, they are never going to get over that line.
• “Hello, Moose.”
• “Well, isn’t it the Scarecrow and the Tin Man?”
• “Stop ruining my childhood!”
• “There’s a garage in this place?! Oh boy…”
• “Seemed kind of tacky to wear a dead woman’s shoes.”
• “Am I a zombie now? Do I need to eat brains?”
• “Now heel!” (Okay, that one was terrible, but terrible in an affectionate awwww kind of way.)