Supernatural (7): Even Not At Their Best, These Boys Are Good.

“You managed to pay tribute to him while completely exploiting the manner in which he died.”

Is there any better commentary on the nature of reality programming? (You can suck it 30 Rock.) Can you tell me this is not genius? Or, if you saw it can you tell me that?

This episode was one of those independent, comic relief episodes, which means that there is less for me to say about it. I am usually annoyed by this type of episode so late in a season; as time runs out I need forward momentum on overarching plots. This TV season has been so frakked up that I kind of don’t have the energy to get all that upset. Plus, it has been such a long time since there was a new episode it kind of worked well to ease viewers back into the show.

Plus, it was really funny! The return of Ed and Harry, the “ghost hunters” from Season One made my day. So I didn’t really wonder what happened to them after Sam and Dean sent them off on a wild goose chase to California with a car full of fish, but I cannot help but be impressed that no amount of incompetence can keep these kids down. The camera guy asking Dean if he had cancer was so inappropriately hilarious. And I kind of loved that they got a chance to point out that there are only certain words you can say on network television, but that such limited vocabulary is not what the situations call for. (Juvenile of me to enjoy that so much, but what are you going do?)

All this said, I am fully prepared to say that this is not one of the best episodes of Supernatural, and this could most likely be the weakest episode of the season. It is not often that my friend Jennie and I have opposite reactions to a show we both deem worthy of viewership, but she was immensely put out by this episode. For her, the episode was not funny enough to justify using the limited time there is left (3 episodes more I think). Issues of taste be what they may, but what makes our disagreement interesting is that when the boys arrive at the Morton House and find the amatures with the cameras, Sam says that they are wasting time (apparently Dean has only 2 more months to live). It looks like Dean and Sam find themselves out of options and therefore their usual activities take on a coloring of the ridiculous. From the perspective of impending death is not everything a waste of time?

According to the preview next week’s episode looks to be the opposite of funny.

The TV Girl