Hum. This is the season I remember zoning out of when I watched it, and when I think about it I remember it's all about the trials, which I thought was done really poorly, and Naomi, signifying the start of the angelic accountants, and then the end has the angels falling from heaven giving us more dreary bank managers on earth.
Gah.
So I am most definitely being selective in the episodes that I rewatch.
Ep 1 - We need to talk about Kevin
So Dean comes back from purgatory. Sam has been living with Amelia and didn't look for Dean. Poor opener for the season...
So Dean comes back from purgatory. Sam has been living with Amelia and didn't look for Dean. Poor opener for the season...
Sam not looking for Dean feels really out of character. Like it was put in there just to get Sam a domestic life. It feels like the writers don't care about the motivations or history of the characters they are writing...Sam is not convincing in the conversation about his whereabouts. Dean is. But I can imagine it would be easier to play Dean's hurt rejection.
Ep 2 - What's Up Tiger Mommy
We did not get enough of Kevin's mum in this show. She is bloody fabulous and saves the dreariness of it.
Ep 8 - Hunteri Heroici
I remember this episode being really dull, but on rewatch it's not. It's pretty damn solid. The comedic stuff and the case stuff. Cas deciding to be a hunter feels shoehorned in for laughs, but I can forgive it that. The deaths are nicely gross too.
7 out of 10.
Ep 12 - As Time Goes By
This episode is FULL of ship fodder. Sam is so jealous of Benny it hurts. We feel you Sam, we do.
Dean is so emotionally close to Benny. I can agree that they may not have fucked in purgatory but the relationship is portrayed so tightly, with such intensity I do not see how Dean and Benny cannot be seen as having an queer-platonic-romantic relationship. It's as intense as him and Sam's relationship. Christ, Dean warns Benny about his over protective brother, like a teenage girl in a high school show would warn her boyfriend about her over protective older brother.
This episode covers so many betrayals - Sam and Amelia, Sam and Dean, Dean and Benny, Benny and Elizabeth. It's a messy minefield. So much emotion. So much love and so much hurt.
9 out of 10.
Ep 13 - Everybody Hates Hitler
I assumed from the title that I liked this because it featured Nazis being beaten up. Not so! This is the golem episode and the one where the boys find the bunker. I adore golem stories. I adore Nazis getting defeated stories. This episode is wonderful.
Made better by Dean getting freaked out by a gay bloke. I love you Dean, but you are such a twat at times. Especially when you consider your decidely un-heteronormative relationship with Benny and Sam. I don't think you are in the closet, I think you just fall head over heels for 2 men and you don't even register it as unusual. It just is.
Great episode, 10/10, would watch again. The old-married-couple-settling-in -in-the bunker brothers scene at the end pushed it up from 9 to 10.
Ep 14 - Trial and Error
This is the one where Kevin deciphers the demon tablet and works out the trials. Dean and Sam set out to kill a hellhound. Sam kills the hellhound. It's better than I remembered but I'm not sure I care to watch it again.
5 out of 10.
Ep 15 - Man's Best Friend With Benefits.
Dreadful. A witch's familiar is a dog. The boys know the witch. It's dire. Really not worth watching.
1/10.
Ep 16 - Remember the Titans
I planned to watch this and then...didn't.
Ep 22 - Clip Show
The penultimate episode. The boys discover what the last trial is - to make a demon human. Avaddon escapes, that's a pretty good scene - gross and delightful by turns.
Castiel is tricked by Metatron and believes he is performing angelic trials to close the gates of heaven. Cas has made a lot of stupid decisions since the end of Season 5.
8/10. I quite enjoyed this one.
By the way, the second trial was to take a soul wrongly held in hell and return them to heaven. I cannot start to explain how stupid that idea was.
Sacrifice
Worth watching for the wonderful brothers scene in the church where Dean confesses his undying love to Sam and they decide not to seal the gates of hell because Dean can't cope with a dead brother.
In the next episode they choose Crowley. Mark Sheppard does pretty well in this.
The Metatron bits reminded me of how skin crawlingly vile I find Metatron. Good acting, I'll give you that, but I cannot bear to watch him.
The church scene gets 10/10. The rest... 4/10.
