Nate Winchester’s Review: Supernatural 9.01 – “I Think I’m Gonna Like It Here”
Supernatural is back!
Hmm… new season, premiere and all that… I should do something fun. What to do what to do…
Oh thank you family for providing a game to follow along!
So let’s do this by running all 5 cards at once and see how the game plays.
“The road so far” recap does NOT count, otherwise we’re already done. So picking up with the boys in the car… Metatron gets a reference! (that’s 1) And the boys talking about death… I’m counting that for “Sam & Dean have an intense discussion”. Then we pull back, *gasp* it was all in Sam’s subconscious mind! The judges are still allowing the previous square even though it was a faux!Dean involved, however they are NOT allowing “Sam collapses and/or goes into a coma” as that is present tense, meaning we’d have to watch it happen. However Dean’s sorrow does give us “A brother has an emotional moment” for 4 squares before the title card!
Nice touch on S9’s card btw. The charred wings are probably my favorite since S3 & 4.
I have to admit, I like Dean’s little bit with the doctor. It’s pretty realistic that with everything they’ve gone through, you’d get paranoid that someone mentioning “it’s in God’s hand” might be up to something or trying to convey a message to you. A nice touch on how their lives have disconnected them from simple things we take for granted. Oh hey, then we get Dean desperate and resorting to praying (square 5!). Hmm… with all the angels running out to help Dean… I’m going to give that “a fallen angel becomes an ally” (6). Back to Sam’s mind we have Bobby appearing (7) yet not saying balls/idjit which I think may be a new sign of restraint for him.
Cutting to Castiel, he “gets into some sort of trouble” (almost run over – 9), “makes a new friend” (the truck driver – 10), “learns about human needs” (is warned he’ll need water – 11), and discovers the true meaning of pain” (skinning his hand, that hurts! – 12) which means at this point we have our first winners! Those who selected cards two, four and five – congratulations! You’ve won!
For the rest? Card one is the 2nd to eventually reach bingo with poor card number two being the last. Although the judges are still debating over whether “Death makes an unexpected appearance” counts since Death’s actor is the 2nd listed credit after Jim Beaver thus making it very expected.
So all in all how was the episode?
It certainly heightened the flaws that were in the season closer “Sacrifice”. It’s hard to get us to care about the fate of the angels when so much time has been spent making them dicks. Yeah I feel a little bad for the angels but Metatron so far seems to be right: the angels do need to spend some time walking in another’s shoes. Ezekiel so far is the only one we can really feel for at the moment purely because he’s the only one showing any likability (well that and Tahmoh Penikett is a decent actor).
Lorewise not much here. It is impressive that Dean can now draw sigils for memory. Remember way back when he couldn’t even recite the exorcism for memory? How far he has come. Some might ask how Ezekiel can possess Sam.
*deep breath* So angels can seem to possess pretty much anyone, but they need permission (demons get this possession skill from their angel side, the “regardless of permission” from their ghost side). But few can really “hold” the power of an angel for very long. The SPN RPG, mentions that with every thing angels have to do, they want a body that endures, thus the importance of “bloodlines” and seeking out “the right” people. They want someone who is likely to say yes, and can stand the proverbial heat. Sam, being of the Micheal Sword line and having once contained Lucifer can probably handle just about any other mundane angel hitching a ride without issue. I do like that they’re giving Jared a chance to stretch his acting muscles a bit more. Here’s hoping we get a few episodes of him having to rapidly switch from one role to another.
My biggest complaint? So the angels lose their wings (ok, no more teleportation, that makes sense) but they keep their swords? WTF? Those things should have also been lost, maybe even scattered in the falling to allow more tension to build up, to provide challenges for both the heroes and the villains.
All in all I give it…
Season openers for the show actually tend to be poor overall with 4, 5 and 7 being the strongest. So this one ranks about average which is a step up from the S8 finale.
(cross posted @ http://natewinchester.wordpress.com )
(P.S. from Alice – Nate has officially come on board as a Winchester Family Business writer. He’s only the second male writer this site has ever had! So give him a welcome, as well as a critique of the review!)
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Don’t ask me why but I think the truck driver was “god.”
I ASKED YOU NOT TO ASK ME THAT 😮
Welcome Nate. Come on down 🙂
Welcome Nate! It’ll be nice to get the male perspective. I personally liked the S8 opener cause I liked the purgatory scenes and the shocking Sam didn’t look for Dean. That was just so out of the box unexpected!
Is your last name really Winchester?
This thing with the angel possession is kind of bothering me. How dodgy does that consent need to be in order to be valid? If an angel holds up a word of the day card to a child that says ‘Yes’ on it, does that count?
I mean, we saw Ezekiel possess Sam where Sam might not have actually consented. Not only that, thousands of angels fell and they would all need vessels. Should we assume that, in each case, the first vessel they asked consented? (They’re lucky that none landed near my place!) Surely, some people said ‘No way, Jose’. In that case, shouldn’t there be reports out there about these mad things calling themselves angels asking for vessels? The Daily Mail would be all over that and it’s about as believable as a meteor shower with no evidence of meteorites.
I guess Dean drawing all those sigils from memory shows that he’s not a grunt, he’s a genius (ala season 8). Either that or he carries stencils around in his pocket….
Thanks for this, Nate, and welcome!
On an aside, the first time I saw the title card at the top of your article, I thought it looked kinda like a face. Seriously, it looks like Sam from the eyes up, with his mad, pointed Jack Nicholsonesque eyebrows!
[quote]I mean, we saw Ezekiel possess Sam where Sam might not have actually consented. Not only that, thousands of angels fell and they would all need vessels. Should we assume that, in each case, the first vessel they asked consented? (They’re lucky that none landed near my place!) Surely, some people said ‘No way, Jose’. In that case, shouldn’t there be reports out there about these mad things calling themselves angels asking for vessels? The Daily Mail would be all over that and it’s about as believable as a meteor shower with no evidence of meteorites. [/quote]
If we are going by Jimmy Novak canon, there aren’t things asking for permission to enter a vessel. Jimmy heard voices in his head and said yes to it. So anyone who said no could think it was a daydream or being drunk or just be afraid they are hearing voices so they don’t tell anyone. Meteorites often burn up in the atmosphere, so I don’t think not finding traces of them is too odd. Or at least no odder than an eclipse that no one predicted when Death helped them open the portal to Purgatory to have Cas put the Purgatory spirits back. A quick news cycle about an unexpected meteor shower and scientists covering their behind to explain it and then on to the next story.
I haven’t rewatched, but someone said that it was mentioned that not all the angels have found vessels yet. So there may well be disembodied angels flying around.
Oh, welcome aboard Nate. It’s good to have you here.
Nolanola My thoughts exactly.
I thought that because Sam was so weak he could be inhabited more easily. It will be interesting to see if Ezekiel was trying to inhabit a stronger (more warrior like) vessel. As Hael indicated her vessel could not contain her. Sam can obviously contain a very powerful angel. Ezekiel may have taken the opportunity to grab the strongest vessel in order to rule the other angels. He probably originally thought of inhabiting Dean since Dean said in his prayer that he would owe that angel a favor, but found a better solution in Sam.
Or not.
Hi Nate. Welcome aboard the crazy train! I think it’ll be interesting having another perspective on the site!
Dean is a genius! We saw that in season 7 with the computer skills to hack into CCTV – he picked up those from Frank, and made Sam jealous! He’s just always needed a little more prodding to do it. (He’d rather rely on Sam, since Sam enjoys it).
As for the canon regarding angels…
1)Anybody can be a vessel, but not all humans are suitable – and don’t last very long. Sam is one of the suitable ones.
2) Regarding consent: I believe that angels must always have “reasonably informed” consent. Sam (as usual) agreed to go along with whatever plan Dean had for him. (And yes, I agree Sam didn’t really get a chance to understand the details of the plan, but he essentially gave Dean carte blanche to make the decision for him.) Dean’s “reasonably informed” decision was to allow possession by angel => done deal.
We’ll see just how Sam the wannabe lawyer analyzes that one! 😉
Hi Nate, welcome aboard!
“It’s hard to get us to care about the fate of the angels when so much time has been spent making them dicks. Yeah I feel a little bad for the angels but Metatron so far seems to be right: the angels do need to spend some time walking in another’s shoes. Ezekiel so far is the only one we can really feel for at the moment purely because he’s the only one showing any likability (well that and Tahmoh Penikett is a decent actor).”
I think that this is an important point and maybe a good reason to NOT have Ezekiel turn into a back-stabbing self-serving dick like all the other angels; we need to know that Castiel, while extraordinary, is not a complete anomaly angel-wise otherwise we’d want Sam and Dean to let them fend for themselves. There has to be a good reason for them to want to help the angels return to heaven, simply for the sake of balance in the plot. I am beginning to hope that Ezekiel stays on the up and up; although I still think that Dean will suffer mightily when he cashes in his favor regardless of whether Ezekiel turns out to be good or not. Your quote made me think though… have we seen even one other caring, honest angel with integrity OTHER than Castiel (and even he as waffled from time to time into “dick” territory!) Zachariah, Lucifer, Uriel, Michael, Raphael, Naomi, Metatron, Michael, Ion, Hael, all pretty much colossal dicks: Anna Minton, and Balthazar were borderline showing some good and some bad traits, Gabriel had some charm but could be pretty mean and ruthless as well, but ultimately came down on the side of the boys. Only Samandriel (aw, poor tortured Samandriel) and now Ezekiel have been shown to resemble the mold from which Castiel was cut. It would be nice to know that SOME of the angels care and can be trusted.
Welcome Nate.
So far I understand these for Angels on earth. Am I right? Am I missing something?
1. An Angel without its grace is different than an Angel who fell.
2. An Angel needs a vessel only to interact with humans that can’t see or hear their real form.
3. An Angel needs the permission of a human in order to use the vessel, since the human will no longer control their body. Everything will be thru prayer.
4. Anna was the only Angel who concealed her Grace and fell on purpose. She kind of forced a pregnancy to a lady who can not become pregnant in order to acquire a human vessel.
5. The second time Cass use Jimmy’s vessel was his decision too, before he die, since he didn’t want her daughter to be a vessel.
6. Now Cass is like Anna was on earth. A human with Angel radio.
7, The Angels now are circling around asking for vessels.
8. Now Angels are like Cass was before. They did not loose their grace but got damaged. We have yet to see what can or can not do. Everything depends on what Metatron did.
Wow! the last 2 made my imagination go crazy!! That is one of the reasons I gave the season 8 finale a 10 and another to the Season 9 premiere!!!
Thanks Nate. Great review.
I guess I’m in the minority but I don’t hate the angels. Not all angels are bad & even the bad ones aren’t usually all bad- similar to overly zealous hunters. They want to serve God but some are misguided. Unlike demons, I can see angels appreciating humans and even learning from them as a result of possessing them. I hope the homeless angels story line is about purifying the angels &/or weeding out the bad ones before they are let back into heaven.
Also, would Ezekiel have been able to possess Sam if he hadn’t been purified by the trials? I assume fallen angels (Lucifer) is an exception but can angels possess demons or even humans with demon blood?
Thanks #5 Cheryl 42
I only say that because TPTB keep bringing him in the storyline.
I really don’t like the fact that Bobby is supposed to be the Devil in this? GTFOH