“Let’s Kill Some Evil Sons of Bitches and Raise a Little Hell!”
“Supernatural Season Three” / Stacey Nosek
TV Reviews | October 15, 2007 | Comments (13)
Everyone, I have an announcement to make: Fun Dean is back! Yes! After a season of sullen brooding, I’m happy to report that the philandering, gluttonous, wisecracking Dean of yesteryear, the Dean we’ve all come to know and love, is back, bitches! Oh yeah, and he also has a year left to live, which I suppose presents an entirely new set of problems on its own. But I’ll get to that in a minute. For now I’m just happy that Fun Dean is back! However, one thing I’ve learned (both from from the response to last season’s review, accompanied by a melee over at TWoP) is that there are two kinds of “Supernatural” fans: those like myself, who love the show for the scary, snarky fun — but much like our beloved Dean, don’t like to take anything too seriously and be burdened by anything tediously heavy handed. And then we have the camp who love-love the show for the underlying stories, family dynamic and melodrama. So while Fun Dean may be back, from what I’ve seen of this season, it seems like there just might be enough mix of angst, spook and snark to keep everyone happy. If you haven’t caught up with Season Three yet, well, shame on you — I’ll try to keep specific details to a minimum, but there will be spoilers ahead, so you’ve been warned!
If you’ll recall, last season left off with: Sam dying; Dean trading his life for Sam’s, giving him a year left to live; the Gates of Hell momentarily opened, and a number of demons escaping through the briefly opened doors; Ass Dad also escapes, helps to saves the day and then goes (presumably) to heaven; and of course, the Yellow-Eyed Demon exterminated. So while it wasn’t quite the redonkulous cliffhanger of Season One, it certainly gave us plenty reason to look forward to in Season Three. The first episode picks up pretty much where last season left off, with an escaped demon cloud attacking the token Sucker Who Eats It in the weekly opening teaser. After the credits, it’s now a week later — and Dean is having a threesome with two unseen girls whom he refers to as “The Doublemint Twins.” For you see, Dean isn’t altogether distressed about the whole “dying in a year” thing, and plans to spend his last year on Earth going down in a blaze of hedonistic glory, riddled with venereal diseases and cholesterol aplenty. Sam is expectantly less than thrilled about all of this, but (mostly) bites his tongue as to not ruin his brother’s fleeting time with a bunch of girly bitching and whining. Although he does inadvertently ruin his brother’s threesome, by walking in on him after getting a call from Bobby about repercussive demony activity. In my review of last season, there was so much to cover that I unfortunately neglected to mention Bobby, wonderfully played by Jim Beaver of “Deadwood” notoriety. When Bobby was first introduced in late Season One, I was more or less indifferent to him as he seemed to be intended as an expository character. At any rate, the character has really fleshed out in the past year, and I’m thrilled to see him back this season.
So Bobby and the Winchesters meet up and do a little recon work, which includes Bobby delightfully posing as a District Attorney, and discover that they’re not just dealing with regular old hell demons, but the Seven Deadly Sins — a revelation which prompts Dean to exclaim, “What’s in the box?!” (Hee! I love you, Fun Dean.) Also in town are a pair of husband and wife hunters, Issac and Tamara, who go all “blamey” on the Winchester boys for opening the gates of hell. Uh, last time I checked it wasn’t totally their fault, but whatever. Just as demon hunters who live in glass motel rooms shouldn’t throw, uh, holy water or something, naturally the two proceed to totally fuck up a stakeout and alert the Deadly Sins of everyone’s presence, resulting in Issac getting wonderfully and horrifically killed by way of drain cleaner ingestion. Smooth move, ex-lax. So now the gang has got the Seven Motherfucking Deadly Sins on their ass, but just when things are starting to look especially grim — a mysterious blonde (Kate Cassidy) who has been following Sam around all episode shows up to kick ass and take names with some kind of special, demon slaying knife. It’s just like the Stupid Colt, only tons more useful and not so totally lame!
Now, about this mysterious blonde. I had heard rumors swirling that they were going to introduce a couple of female hunters this season, Blondeypants obviously being one of them. Because that worked out, like, so awesomely last season right? Didn’t the last hot, blonde female hunter they tried out last year fall off the face of the fucking Earth after she was predictably met with insane fan resistance — not to mention that she was a grating bore? Needless to say, I was holding out reservations for this new gal, especially after hearing she was to be played by Kate fucking Cassidy, of yes, David Cassidy lineage. I actually saw a special on VH1 a few years back about her trying to break into the world of tween pop stardom with a cover of “I Think I Love You.” (Yeah, my brain is still a little sore with me over that one.) Well, I’m still holding reservations, but we get a major revelation by the end of the second episode which both makes her character infinitely more appealing and at the same time rules out any potential love interest whatsoever. Because the last damn thing this show needs is these boys getting tethered down by any ladies.
At any rate, yes — Blondeypants comes back for the second episode, to yank Sam’s chain a little more. Remember that loose end from last season, where it turns out that Ma Winchester maybe wasn’t the innocent pawn we all thought? Well it looks like that’s going to be this season’s mystery arc, for which Blondeypants has got information in regards to, and for whatever reason an invested interest in such. Meanwhile in the second episode, the duo have taken up in a town in Indiana to investigate a mysterious table-saw related death, (yes!) which just so happens to be in the same neighborhood as an ex-fling of Dean’s whom he affectionately refers to as “Gumby Girl.” Gumby Girl, as it turns out, is the mother of a young boy who just so happens to be the approximate amount of years old that have gone by since Dean last blew through town, and is a miniature version of our saucy hero. Hells bells! Despite my feelings towards a love interest, I actually didn’t mind the idea of Dean having a kid, partially because watching Dean and Mini Dean interact was so immensely enjoyable.
Of course, the whole Dean having a kid thing turned out to be a ploy to gain viewer sympathy — as well as to show that maybe Dean does feel an inkling of despondency over his lot in life, after all. I expect they’ll elaborate on that more as the season progresses. While some viewers may be disappointed that this season started out a little slower than last, it seems like they’ve laid down groundwork for which could be an exceptionally ass kicking, mullet rocking, dramariffic, Impala-growling, hell-raising third season. Let’s just try to keep all the talking about our “feelings” to a minimum — OK boys?
Stacey Nosek is a television columnist for Pajiba, and lives in a quaint little town in rural Pennsylvania. You can also visit her blog, Litelysalted.
Comments
Posted by: WestCoastPat at October 15, 2007 4:00 PM
While I disagree with your optimistic take on the Children of the Corn episode, I agree with you that the show is at its best when it focuses on cars, music and Deans' snark.