Supernatural Recap: The Virgin Homicides

Supernatural

Rock and a Hard Place

Season ix Episode eight

Editor's Rating ii stars

Supernatural

Rock and a Hard Place

Flavour nine Episode 8

Editor'south Rating 2 stars

When it'southward 9 seasons in, a Television serial tin be forgiven for feeling a chip, well, retro. That'southward almost a whole decade of social alter! Supernatural does feel dated, but not merely because it's been on the air for so long. No, it also feels dated because datedness is in Supernatural's very DNA. It premiered long afterward The X-Files had already wearied America's hunger for monster procedurals, plus the graphic symbol of Dean Winchester has never seemed similar an actual modern guy in his mid-twenties as much as he seems similar maybe what a fortysomething writer might've considered hip when he was young. Oversize leather jackets, archetype stone, muscle cars, Howard Stern–worthy one-liners: Dean's man-out-of-time tastes have certainly endeared him to viewers, but make no mistake, nix nearly Dean has ever felt modern, least of all his attitudes toward women. (Don't worry, this won't be however another screed about Supernatural'due south treatment of female characters, though this episode was another depression point in that regard.) Fifty-fifty putting bated that particular subject, this week we got "Rock and a Hard Place," an episode in which everything from the premise to the jokes to the dialogue felt about every bit mod as an episode of Sliders.

Your enjoyment of "Rock and a Hard Place" hinged on whether you call back virginity (or lack thereof) is still a ripe subject for hilarity. You know, dudes wanna lose information technology! Ladies wanna stay pure! Those are some straight-up eighties-comedy dynamics, and Supernatural reveled in them like they never went abroad. After a legitimately riveting cold open in which a young adult female scurried under an SUV to flee an assaulter only to have the attacker lift up the SUV and engulf her in bluish flames, in that location was reason to wait that a dark and perhaps even suspenseful hour of television would follow. Unfortunately we got a hijinks-heavy episode in which the Winchester bros pretended to exist virgins and Dean ended upwardly re-deflowering a reformed porn star. Because, as information technology turned out, the victims had all been affiliated with a born-again virginity church group complete with a pearl-necklace-wearing, goodie-goodie leader and a dozen antsy women who'd exist helpless confronting the seismic sea wave of sexual charisma that is Dean Winchester. Occasional cutaways to the abduction victims skulking around their frightening subterranean prison but served to brand the Winchesters' shenanigans even more inappropriate. Salvage those people, dudes! Also, tin can nosotros become into just how bad Dean is at going secret sometimes? If y'all're going to pretend you actually desire your virginity dorsum, peradventure don't brand a big long oral communication about how great sex is to a room full of built-in-again virgins? It was funny enough, sure, but peradventure i of these cases they can actually put some try into their scam?

In fact, the ultimate reveal of the monster (another disgruntled infidel god) was so halfhearted and lazy, one would have to assume the whole concept was engineered simply to requite usa that scene of Dean seducing the ex–porn star. Which, fine, I approximate that was a fun scene, even if it was insanely implausible. Like, after Dean invited himself into Suzy's apartment and discovered her stash of adult videos (which all former-porn-star, born-again-Christian virgins store in plain sight) and then revealed he knew about her past, she didn't even carp to enquire if he was a stalker or sexual predator or a crazed fan or anything like that. She just immediately went weak in the knees for that Winchester charm and had sex with him right then and in that location. Cool wet-dream logic! I haven't checked the credits, merely in that location'due south a chance a 13-yr-sometime boy wrote this episode? If so, congrats, little dude! You are going to be the envy of everyone at your junior high.

If there was i thing to recommend in this episode information technology was the reappearance of Sheriff Jody Mills, who, along with Ellen and Charlie, is ane of the rare recurring women who seems to have an inner life of some kind. In this example Jody was the i who first noticed the string of abductions and alerted the boys, and later it was Jody who helped Sam figure out the situation one time Dean himself had been abducted by the blue-flame-wielding villain. During an outrageously lazy investigation involving nothing more than than Asking Jeeves, Jody and Sam realized that the villain at play was Vesta, ancient goddess of the hearth! Which, again, another entire screed could be written by Supernatural's repeated insistence that pre-Biblical, all-powerful entities from other continents were now resorting to petty criminal offence sprees in flyover states, simply information technology's not actually worth information technology here. The big reveal was that Vesta was actually the goodie-goodie leader of the born-once more-virgins group and she'd been angrily kidnapping those who had broken their vows of guiltlessness so that she could swallow their livers or whatever, who cares. To this episode'south credit, notwithstanding, Jody was the i who got to land the killing blow during the final group-tussle, only not before Vesta flashed Sam a stank face and told him his insides were busted. And then, you know, at least she had ane interesting moment.

That nice little mythology bump from Ezekiel at the end there was a treat, though, right? After seven episodes of Ezekiel hitchhiking effectually in a hunksuit, Dean had started to abound impatient with the angel's lack of progress in healing Sam'southward insides. Was something shady going on in at that place? A spooky moment in which Dean attempted to come up clean to Sam simply to see Ezekiel pop upwards and tell him to HUSH suggested Ezekiel might be headed into villain territory. Which, honestly, that would exist pretty interesting! It's never been very believable to me that Sam needed to exist kept in the dark about this (will his body really eject the affections?), and it'south articulate Dean has come to the same conclusion. So just whatever kind of forward momentum in that story line would be welcome, fingers crossed.

"Stone and a Hard Identify" had an interesting concept at its cadre (body purity) that could have lent itself to a much more interesting story and villain. In that location were fifty-fifty some impressive horror visuals scattered throughout (like when one victim used a taser to illuminate a room). Unfortunately all were overshadowed by some majorly retrograde sexual antics and a hastily slapped together teleplay. As a stalling tactic before the mythology really starts to unfurl in the upcoming midseason finale, "Stone and a Hard Place" was a major success! Unfortunately in every other respect it fumbled similar a teenage boy losing his — Hmmm, I forget. Something sexual.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Supernatural Recap: The Virgin Homicides