This review WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS for the episode to be discussed, if you do not want certain plot points or story spoilt, please do not read further.
At 11 seasons in it's hard to expect every episode of Supernatural to be great. The show had some poor episodes when it was at it's high point, so it's not really much of a surprise to find episodes today that just don't really work. Despite some great acting from Jensen Ackles 'Red Meat' is an episode that just doesn't really work.
When a werewolf hunt goes wrong and Sam is shot in the stomach Dean has to try and carry same through the woods to safety whilst escorting the two campers that were being held hostage by the werewolves.
The group manage to make their way through the woods to an abandoned cabin, where Corbin suggests leaving Sam behind so that they can make better time getting away from the remaining werewolves pursuing them. Dean immediately shoots down this idea (as we all know he would) and leaves the cabin to make a litter that they can use to carry Sam.
This is where the episode has a good idea though and goes quite dark, Corbin decides that the only way Dean will leave Sam behind is if Sam is dead, so he proceeds to suffocate and kill Sam. Yes, Corbin has been bitten by one of the werewolves by this point, but he has not turned yet. This isn't monster violence, it's a desperate human willing to kill another man in order to live. Even for Supernatural this is fairly dark territory.
Believing Sam to be dead Dean leads the others to safety. When they come across a local police officer Dean is prevented from going back for his brother.
Waking up at the local hospital Dean concocts a plan to overdose on medication in order to die so that he can talk to Billie the Reaper and get her to bring Sam back to life. Overdosing on drugs Dean comes face to face with Billie and attempts to trade his life in place of Sam's. Unfortunately for him Billie tells him that Sam isn't dead, but she is willing to reap Dean.
It's at this point that what was a mildly entertaining episode feels so much duller than it should have. Yet again we're watching one of the brothers lose the other (or at least thinking they have) and making stupid decisions in order to get them back.
This is a plot point that the series has visited time and time again over it's eleven year run, and whilst this episode has something of a fake out in the sense that Sam isn't dead, it still very much feels like a rehash of past events. When you add in the fact that there is little to no mention of Amara or Castiel and that nothing gets added to the overall season story this episode could easily fit in anywhere in the shows run.
Overall there are some good things in the episode, Corbin 'killing' Sam is a great scene that does something the show has never done before, but after that it just falls back into a story we've already seen more than once. Hopefully this is just a bump in the road and the show will start telling more interesting stories.
Amy.
Waking up at the local hospital Dean concocts a plan to overdose on medication in order to die so that he can talk to Billie the Reaper and get her to bring Sam back to life. Overdosing on drugs Dean comes face to face with Billie and attempts to trade his life in place of Sam's. Unfortunately for him Billie tells him that Sam isn't dead, but she is willing to reap Dean.
It's at this point that what was a mildly entertaining episode feels so much duller than it should have. Yet again we're watching one of the brothers lose the other (or at least thinking they have) and making stupid decisions in order to get them back.
This is a plot point that the series has visited time and time again over it's eleven year run, and whilst this episode has something of a fake out in the sense that Sam isn't dead, it still very much feels like a rehash of past events. When you add in the fact that there is little to no mention of Amara or Castiel and that nothing gets added to the overall season story this episode could easily fit in anywhere in the shows run.
Overall there are some good things in the episode, Corbin 'killing' Sam is a great scene that does something the show has never done before, but after that it just falls back into a story we've already seen more than once. Hopefully this is just a bump in the road and the show will start telling more interesting stories.
Amy.
xx
No comments:
Post a Comment