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SupernaturalpremiereSam.jpg

'Supernatural' Season 14 Premiere: A Sam Without His Dean Is A Sad Man, Indeed

By Tori Preston | TV | October 12, 2018 |

By Tori Preston | TV | October 12, 2018 |


SupernaturalpremiereSam.jpg

Dean’s possessed, Hell’s a mess, and Sam gets punched in the face. A LOT. Yup, it’s just another fun hour of Supernatural! SPOILERS AHEAD, obviously!

The Road So Far: During last season’s finale, Dean agreed to let the (alternate reality) archangel Michael use him as his “perfect vessel” in a last ditch bid to stop Lucifer, who had become supercharged after sucking up all of his son Jack’s grace. But part of the deal was that Michael had to let Dean stay in control. So OF COURSE Michael reneged on that deal as soon as Lucifer was defeated, leaving behind the powerless Nephilim Jack, the very sad Sam, Castiel, and Mary, and a bunch of survivors from the alternate reality that Michael already ruined (including Bobby!).

The Road Travelled Last Night: Season 14 (FOURTEEN!) picks up three weeks after Michael skedaddled in his fancy new Dean Winchester suit, which he has apparently decided to cover in a fancy Peaky Blinders suit (as many commenters were confused by yesterday). He’s been making use of his time by going around and asking people from all walks of life a very simple, very loaded question:

“What do you want?”

And when people give their answer, Michael usually sees through it and calls them liars (even if they’re just lying to themselves). His end goal is to make a perfect world, full of people who are worth saving… and evidently, the criteria for that is, like, “people who are honest about their true desires” or something? I mean, honesty is great! But if you’re just “honest” about wanting to eat people, should that really make you worthy in the eyes of an angel?

Apparently, yes — as evidenced by the end of the episode, when Michael is shown making a deal with a vampire, whose hunger is pure and true.

Meanwhile, Sam & Co. are pulling out all the stops to trying and find Michael, in the hopes that they can save Dean somehow. And they have a good chance, since a) this show has never managed to kill Dean for long, and b) Michael hints that he’s drawing knowledge from Dean’s memories, which I think means Dean is still in there somewhere. Unfortunately, none of their leads are panning out, which is why Castiel has the super-great idea to meet up with a demon named Kip in a bar of the demon’s choosing.

OF COURSE IT’S A TRAP. The bar is FULL of demons, who kick Cas’s heavenly butt, then Kip holds him hostage in order to lure Sam to meet with him directly. It turns out that Kip has also recently been asked what it is that he wants (GEE I WONDER WHO ASKED?), and after a lot of consideration, he finally found his answer: he wants “everything” — but he’ll settle for being the new King of Hell. After all, Crowley is gone, and Asmodeus is gone, and heck — LUCIFER IS GONE — and nobody has stepped up to take over the demons yet. Kip, who claims he’s a bigger, badder ass than you’d expect, thinks he’d be perfect for the job… and he asks Sam to make “The Crowley Deal” with him. Essentially: Kip will use the resources of Hell to aid the Winchesters on occasion, in exchange for no interference in their continued crossroad dealings and general demon-y stuff. Sam points out that there never really was an expressed Crowley Deal in the first place, and also NAH, DUDE.

What follows is a big fight where Mary and Bobby bust in, Jack tries to help but is mostly useless, Maggie hides, and Sam gets punched in the face a bunch until he finally stabs Kip with the Demon Blade. Then he makes this announcement to the room:

“There will be no new King of Hell. Not today, not ever. And if anybody wants the job, they can go through me.”

Cue all the assembled demons giving up and returning to Hell in little clouds of black vomit (I really missed this show).

Surprise Returns: Sister Jo, the undercover angel (played by Jensen Ackles’ wife, Danneel Ackles), is one of the people Michael meets with. And when she lists a bunch of designer brands as the stuff she wants, he sees right through her, pointing out that what she REALLY wants is love and family or whatever. So — she doesn’t make the cut. But she does ring up Sam and give him his first break on the whereabouts of Michael at the end of the episode…

Also, Mark Pellegrino is still on the show… but not as Lucifer! Turns out, Lucifer really did die last season, but the archangel blade that killed him didn’t kill his vessel, meaning that “Nick” (his body) is alive and healing quite nicely back at the Bunker. This is clearly all a set up for how they can kill Michael without killing Dean’s body. But YAY to more Mark Pellegrino!

Other Thoughts:

- The episode opens with Sam driving the Impala. And as if to underscore just how truly sad and Dean-less Sam is, HE TURNS OFF THE CLASSIC ROCK SONG ON THE RADIO. Dude, c’mon. Do you really think that’s what Dean would have wanted?

- The big bar fight was kind of a mess. Obvious strobe lighting, random slow-motion, and bad shakey-cam like a cheap Bourne ripoff. And, like, I’m FINE with Supernatural being cheesy! But that was over the line into the realm of physically jarring to watch.

- Also, Sam’s big demon pronouncement is heroic and all, but let’s take a moment to appreciate the fact that he’s ALREADY trying to face down an apocalyptically-powerful archangel, and now he’s just invited any and all demons who want the throne to come at him too? SAM YOU ARE SO DUMB SOMETIMES. Though if this leads to him taking the throne himself and using Hell’s minions to fight Michael, then you do you, Sammy.

- Wondering who Maggie is? Me too. And then I remembered — she’s the alt-universe survivor who was found killed, and then was resurrected by Lucifer in a bid to win over Jack during last season’s finale (only for it to be revealed that Lucifer was the one that killed her in the first place). She is played by The Killing’s Katherine Evans. Will she be Jack’s first girlfriend?

- So, is Bobby going to sacrifice himself to save Jack, or is Jack going to sacrifice himself to save Bobby (or Mary, or Sam, or EVERYONE)? One of the two of them isn’t making it out of the season, is my guess. But they’ll be back by season 20!

- I may alter my predictions if Jack’s grace grows back, which it apparently will! Eventually. Until then, Bobby’s gonna have to keep teaching the boy how to take a punch to the face (which is a handy skill to have, given how well Sam employs it).

- But like, SOMEONE is sacrificing themselves this season. Because it’s the Supernatural way!

- Ackles is doing a really nice job with cold, menacing Michael. But damn, I miss the hell out of Dean.

via GIPHY




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