The Winchester Family Business

For the last two seasons, Supernatural has danced around the notion of Purgatory. True to form, the show takes the notion of the oft neglected realm in a different direction. Rather than being the place where souls are purged---hence the name---of sins as found in Catholic tradition, we learned through the Alpha Vampire that this is the destination of monsters when they die. When the dragons performed a spell, we learned that it can be opened, and something can be let out. They let out the Mother of All, Eve, creator of all creatures that stalk the night. But when, in order to defeat Raphael, the last remaining Archangel, Castiel opened the door to Purgatory to swallow its souls, he swallowed another creature far more dangerous: the Leviathan.

Death told the Winchesters, “I personally found them entertaining, but he was concerned they'd chomp the entire petri dish, so he locked them away. Why do you think he created Purgatory? To keep those clever, poisonous things out. Now Castiel has swallowed them. He's the one thin membrane between the old ones and your home.”

Once they escaped Castiel's vessel and spread through the United States, it quickly became apparent that Death was not exaggerating by any means. Clever and efficient, the Leviathan set out to not only assert their power but to subjugate humanity as their food source.

But they have a problem to deal with first---the Winchesters.
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Well, they’ve done it again. Every single season I think that I can’t be left in more suspense then I was the year before. And every season I’m wrong.
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Supernatural season finales, is there anything as exciting and harrowing? I must admit I spent the whole week sweating on it. I’d managed to stay relatively spoiler free. I didn’t read any of the preview articles. I didn’t watch any of the preview clips. Then the Upfronts came along and I’m afraid I’m weak willed and couldn’t stay away from Jensen in that grey suit, shiny tie and hiatus scruff…so bam...suddenly I knew more than I wanted to know about where the brothers were going to find themselves at the end of “Survival Of The Fittest”. Between Mr Ackles and his extra tall buddy, apparently masquerading as Grizzly Adams, I was spoiled rotten; both in plot possibilities, prettiness and the wonderful visual of the boys voting with their 5^th extremity. Thank you Jensen. That will forever be seared into my mind’s eye to muse over………………

 

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I did something I normally don’t do before writing my weekly review.  I went and read other people’s reviews.  I honestly wanted to see if I was missing something, if my reservations about the tired pacing, lackluster tension, and absence of originality in this episode were unfounded.  I even watched the episode right away after the first airing on Friday night just so I could confirm that I did indeed miss something.  Sadly, the impact from the second watch was no better than the first.  

I’m sorry, I tried.  I wanted to love this episode so much, especially coming off strong two weeks.  I wanted to give this the benefit of the doubt, since it did check all the boxes (which turned out to be a problem).  I just couldn’t love “There Will Be Blood.”  I couldn’t really like it either, but I think the status falls just below the line of like, still far from hate.  

Don’t get me wrong, “There Will Be Blood’ wasn’t a total waste.  There were some great individual scenes and parts.  The problem was, they didn’t come together great as a whole, which has really been a struggle for many of the episodes this season.  Why don’t I start with what worked?  

For all the latest Supernatural info and article links, follow The Winchester Family Business on Twitter at @WinFamBusiness

Deals on Supernatural never end well.
For all the latest Supernatural info and article links, follow The Winchester Family Business on Twitter at @WinFamBusiness

"Cut off the head and the body will flounder."

Let’s hope this little phrase means what we think it does because the boys have put all their eggs in Dick’s basket. In fact the whole episode revolved around collecting the materials they need to take Dick down. And all of it is based on the assumption that if Dick dies all his minions will follow. This makes me nervous because that’s not how it’s happened in the past. Killing an alpha shifter didn’t mean all the shifters died off. And killing Eve didn’t destroy all the monsters she created. But the tablet is all we have to go on and the boys are making their best educated guess. So there’s nothing else to do but go off to gather the three bloods. 

Thank goodness one alpha escaped the prison before Castiel destroyed them all. That’s not suspicious at all. Did anyone else wonder about whether or not Castiel actually took care of that situation? I had assumed he absorbed all their power in his quest to become god but how is the alpha vamp alive? Perhaps his miraculous escape was just necessary to the plot line and in all honesty, that’s fine with me. Taking liberties like that is sometimes inevitable. I’m just still feeling a little suspicious about that whole situation. Maybe I’ve still got some trust issues of my own with Castiel.

For all the latest Supernatural info and article links, follow The Winchester Family Business on Twitter at @WinFamBusiness

After the sometimes baffling and very complex episode last week, this week we were served a pretty straightforward, let’s just get in there and set up the season finale kind of episode. “There Will Be Blood” laid a lot of ground-work for the big shebang and while on the surface it didn’t appear to be particularly action packed, for me it was a satisfying hour of television that seemed to be over only minutes after it begun. We were reintroduced to a couple of well loved villains, got more time with Dick and his creepy henchman Edgar, witnessed further disturbing developments with Bobby’s anger management issues and were party to some thoroughly enjoyable brotherly interactions that were topped off by Dean’s no junk food freak-out. I’m with you Dean, you don’t win friends with salad.

 

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Yep, I’ve been staring at a blank page with a title for four days, exactly like poor Kevin Tran with his college essay.  Except, I’d much rather be writing a college essay.  That’s easy.  This episode has twisted my brain like a pretzel!  
 
When looking at the plot of the surface, “Reading Is Fundamental” a perfect mechanism to move the plot bunny along, finally making headway on this whole Leviathan story that has sat stagnant most of the season.  However, I do not think Ben Edlund had a simple Leviathan plot in mind when he devised this masterpiece.  Oh no.  Think Shrek and his onion layers.  Actually, even that is too simple an analogy. 
 
We’ve had so many great reviews about this episode on the site, so I’m avoiding plot this go around.  I think the Leviathan aspects of the story are clear.  Instead, I’d like to focus mostly on the character interactions.  That’s the true heart of the episode, and so much more happened than what appeared on the surface.  It think we’ll be talking about this one for years.  
 For all the latest Supernatural info and article links, follow The Winchester Family Business on Twitter at @WinFamBusiness