Mallena’s Supernatural Musings: 4.09 “I Know What You Did Last Summer”

This episode introduces us to Anna Milton.  She isn’t a normal girl, like she appears, but is really an angel who fell to earth by her own choice.  We also get to spend some good times with Sam and Ruby and to take a journey down Memory Lane. 

There are many angels in Supernatural, of course, so I’ll focus on Anna this time.  She’s a great character, played memorably by Julie McNiven.  Fun fact:  I’ve been rewatching Stargate Universe and I just got to the episode that Julie appears in with Alaina Huffman who plays Abaddon on our show and Lt. Johansen on Stargate.  Watching “Anna” and “Abaddon” running around a spaceship together is kind of interesting.

The Road So Far

Sam and Dean are returning from Washington, where they have played with a giant teddy bear and dealt with the havoc from a wishing well.  At the end, Sam tries to get Dean to talk about his experiences in Hell, but Dean doesn’t think that Sam will understand and doesn’t want to talk about it, anyway.

Recap

Anna’s in a mental hospital because she hears voices talking about the coming apocalypse.  Anna is confronted by a demon, so she runs away in fear.  Sam and Dean are hustling pool when they receive a visit from Ruby who tells them that they need to save Anna before the demons find her.  Dean isn’t happy to do something that Ruby wants them to do, but he goes along with it.  After a tense talk in Baby about who is not telling the full truth about their experiences, a close-up on Sam dissolves to his memories of the six months before Dean returned.  He wasn’t having a good time of things.  Eventually, Sam and Dean find Anna and they try to keep her safe from harm, which becomes more complicated when Alistair shows up.  There’s a conclusion to this story in the next episode where we find out who Anna really is.  For the sake of brevity (and because I don’t have the time to review both episodes), I’ll just say that she was tired of being a silent watcher angel on earth; so, she decided to remove her grace, fall to earth, and be reborn as a human infant.  Castiel and Uriel try to capture her, but she regains her grace and escapes.

Review

This is a great episode that sheds some light on Sam and Ruby’s relationship.  I was never a fan of Katie Cassidy’s Ruby.  She was too snarky and I had a hard time believing that she really wanted to help our boys.  I have no problem believing that Ruby Two (Genevieve Cortese Padalecki) wanted to help Sam.  She helps him right to bed, real fast.  I think that this Ruby is just what Sam needed to help push him to achieve Lilith’s goals.  Sam’s not impressed by snark, he’s Dean’s brother, after all.  No, he responds better to a sweeter approach.  The poor guy has been starved for affection.  He didn’t have a mom and then he lost his true love Jess.  This Ruby is small and vulnerable-looking; she seems like not much of a threat.  There have been some negative reactions to Genevieve’s acting, but I liked her right from the start.  She may not have been channeling Meryl Streep, but I do think that she has a lot of charisma and is always interesting to watch in her scenes.  There is no denying the fact that she and Jared have mucho chemistry together.  Boy howdy, do they ever!

Anyway, in the beginning of the episode we meet Anna.  She’s a pretty red-head with enormous eyes that has a bit of a problem.  Julie McNiven is also a great addition to our show.  She goes from scared girl to fierce warrior and it’s quite a journey.  It’s also fun to see Sam and Dean hustling pool.  I’d almost forgotten that they used to scramble for money.  Dean’s not happy to see Ruby, but he is willing to use the intel that Ruby provided about Anna.

In the Impala, things are mighty tense.  Dean is accusing Sam of being BFF’s with a demon and Sam wants to know more about Dean’s Hell.  We are then shown some of what happened to Sam six months earlier.  Poor Sammy is in terrible shape.  He’s drunk and trying to make a deal with a crossroads demon to trade himself for Dean in Hell.  That’s not a good idea, Sam!  Dean would just be furious and do something to trade him back, and around and around we would go.

I like it when Sam and Dean find Anna in her church.  She’s awestruck to meet “The Dean Winchester,” who was saved. Holy moly.  It’s also amusing (and a little sad) when she told Dean how great he is, according to the angels, and then turns to Sam and tells him that they don’t like him very much.  Poor guy.  It is hard to watch these next few seasons because of all the guilt that gets dumped on Sam.  He made mistakes, but he didn’t make them all on his own.  I try not to judge either brother, they were dealing with circumstances that were extraordinary and they did the best they could. 

I like Anna’s “angel radio” and when Dean gets to take on Alistair, who tortured him in Hell.  Sam gets dragged forward in a remarkable way and then gets thrown down some stairs.  You can’t keep Sam down, though.  Soon he comes back up to help Dean in the fight.  The best part is when Sam grabs Dean and nods to the stain-glass window.  That’s an awesome shot of Sam and Dean going through the window and falling.  We don’t see them land, but we see the aftermath.  Sam stitches up a large cut on his arm, by himself ya know, then Dean gets his arm relocated back into its socket.  Man, I miss those days when Sam and Dean had to pick themselves up and go back to their home base to fix themselves.  In the latter seasons, it seems that they can be beaten and bloodied one minute, and then be just fine the next.  I miss all the sexy pain staggering.  Sigh.

Since the boys must lay low for a while, Dean decides that now it should be story time.  He wants to know why Sam trusts Ruby so much.  Sam starts out by saying that Ruby saved his life.  Now, granted, those demons were never going to kill Sam, because it was Ruby’s plan to save the Big Guy, but that could also mean that Sam wouldn’t have been able to go on alone and would have died somehow.  Even though Ruby isn’t a nice lady, I’m still glad that she was there for Sam.

In a great abandoned house set, we see Sam’s story played out for Dean.  Sam wants Ruby to not inhabit another girl, so she goes and finds “Coma Girl.”  I guess it’s rather convenient that a girl that attractive was a brain-dead Jane Doe, but whatever.  I like the way that she sat up and wanted to kill someone for French fries.  Ha!

Sammy is so lonely and Ruby gets all nice and cozy while she coaches him in mind expelling demon tricks.  Things get delightfully sexy back at the abandoned house with lots of nudity that I’m enjoying, but Dean isn’t, so let’s move on.

It must be a set-up when Sam and Ruby go to confront Lilith, but find a little girl decoy and big male demons, instead.  A demon is attacking Ruby when Sam finally gets control of his powers and expels that demon.  Maybe Sam needed a bigger reason for his powers to work, instead of just finding random demons.  Ruby was in danger and Sam wanted to save her.  Needed to save her?  Perhaps.  She’s his only companion now.

I love the housekeeper who is really Ruby.  The incredulous looks on Sam and Dean’s faces are a joy to behold.  Sadly, though, Anna finds out that her parents are dead and that Cas and Uriel are coming to capture her.

This is one of my favorite episodes and features two lovely ladies.  Julie does an incredible job bringing her character to life.  Anna is in some interesting episodes, after this, and I really enjoyed Anna and the angel lore that she contributed to our show. Genevieve also got to have a starring role in Jared’s life and I love watching her in convention videos.  She goes to a lot of conventions with Jared and shares her kids with us.  I think that she’s a wonderful person and that her Ruby made season four mesmerizing to watch.  

Random Fallen Angel Stories

City of Angels (1998) – Meg Ryan and Nicolas Cage star in this film about an angel who falls in love with a human.  He falls to earth so that he can be with her, but a happy ending is not ensured.  Fun Fact:  there’s an angel named Cassiel in this movie.  I always thought that this film was really interesting and moving.

Dogma (1999) – Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Linda Fiorentino, Alan Rickman, and Jason Mewes star in this Kevin Smith film which features Chris Rock as Rufus (the thirteenth apostle) and Alanis Morissette as God.  I’m not Catholic, but the religion is a fascinating one, I think.  It’s because of this movie that I even knew who “Metatron” was, at all.  I love this movie; it does contain profanity, blasphemy, and bathroom humor, but it’s also an emotional film about hope, faith, forgiveness, friendship, and cosmic possibilities.  Alanis was amazing in this film, I wish we had gotten her for our show.

Angels of Destruction by Keith Donohue (2009) – Is Norah really an Angel and who is the dark mystical figure that is stalking her?  I loved this sweet and haunting book that tells the story of a mysterious little girl who shows up on the doorstep of a woman who has lost her daughter to a radical movement. 

Lucifer (2016 – ) – Tom Ellis stars as the ruler of Hell on this Fox show – who just wants to have a little fun, so he retires from the dark throne.  He winds up in Los Angeles, running a bar, and helping a policewoman solve crimes.  I like some of the episodes of this show, but I think that there isn’t enough Heaven and Hell drama and way too much policework.  Lucifer’s Mom is great, though.  She’s played by Tricia Helfer.

There are more stories about angels, but I think I’ll save them for another day.  On Supernatural, we never seem to run out of angel stories.  Time will tell if that remains true.  Let me know in the comments what you think about Anna, Ruby, or fallen angel stories in general. 

Thanks for reading—–Mallena