I always love the chance to screen something early. It’s a great way to know what’s going with a show before it airs, and to ensure I won’t be spoiled later on. So, I’m very thankful to have had the opportunity to review tonight’s episode of Supernatural.
This is probably one of the most anticipated episodes of the season thus far, as it brings in two Buffy the Vampire Slayer favorites – James Marsters and Charisma Carpenter – to play a married couple in the show. I think I read somewhere that this is almost like a supernatural “War of the Roses,” and that description works well here. I was also excited to see in the credits posted in the episode description that this installment is written by Eugenie Ross-Leming and Brad Buckner, who were the showrunners of Lois & Clark in its final two years in addition to being the creators of Scarecrow & Mrs. King. If anyone knows how to write married couples, it’s them.
After seeing the episode, I have to say that in some ways it reminded me a little of a Lois & Clark episode under their watch – “Don’t Tug On Superman’s Cape,” which guest starred another famous couple in Jonathan Frakes and Genie Francis. And like the earlier example, there’s a lot of camp, and not necessarily in a good way. Marsters is cool, calm, and collected; Carpenter is a bit over the top. Maybe she was over the top as Cordelia too and I just didn’t notice as much, but at least then, there was the added factor of “Cordelia is awesome.” Here it’s a bit silly and beyond what I normally expect from Supernatural.
I’m a bit hypocritical in pointing that out, perhaps, because the best moments of the episode are usually some funny lines from Sam and Dean. There are quite a few quotables that will have people laughing. The plotline of Dean hiding what he’s recently done continues here, and there are some parallels to the main story. I like that the show has gotten a bit more “back to the basics” with mostly “done in one” stories like the old days. There are continuing plotlines, including one that surfaces in this episode, but it’s largely standalone without being procedural, and I like that.
Also, I’m sure others will point this out too, but frequent calls to an offscreen Bobby in this episode just make me think “obvious missing Jim Beaver is obvious.” I don’t know if he was meant to be in this episode and they decided to save him for later or what, but the one-sided telephone calls were a little distracting.
If you’re a die hard Buffy fan, you’ll probably love seeing two icons from the Whedonverse here. If you’re not, there’s still some fun, and Sam and Dean get to do some cool things.
Supernatural “Shut Up, Dr. Phil!” airs tonight at 9PM on The CW. Here are some extras from tonight’s episode that you may enjoy:
