The upward swing of the seventh season of Supernatural continues with the not at all spoilery return of Castiel (Mischa Collins), Sam's steep slide into insanity thanks to Lucifer (Mark Pelligrino), and strong character work all-around. Besides the premiere, it's the first essential episode from this season.

More spoilers and impressions after the jump.
Read more...

Tags Jared Padalecki, Jensen Ackles, Mischa Collins, Supernatural, The CW

Sam and Lucifer, mystery team, a cursed porno mag, and the Supernatural writers try to beat the "Dick" jokes to death in the two most recent episodes.
Read more...

Tags CW, Jared Padalecki, Jensen Ackles, Supernatural

The last two weeks of Supernatural have worked better than most episodes from the seventh season. The drama-heavy "Slice Girls" develops some of the deep guilt issues that Dean has been working through this year while also setting up a unique new enemy in the Supernatural mythos while the goofy "Plucky Pennywhistle's Magic Menagerie" lightens the mood as Sam and Dean investigate a string of murders associated with the titular kids eatery.

It's a return to form as the show tries to work through what to do about the still amorphous villain, of the season while working Sam and Dean back into their two dudes on the road status quo post-Bobby.
Read more...

Tags CW, Jared Padalecki, Jensen Ackles, Supernatural

In the wake of Bobby's death, Dean gets to take care of a sassy teen and play dress up in the 40's with Krycek.
****Spoilers ahead****
Read more...

Tags Jared Padalecki, Jensen Ackles, Jim Beaver, Supernatural, The CW

Bobby's taken one to the dome--will the mid-season finale be the end of Sam and Dean's surrogate father?
****Spoilers below the break.****
Read more...

Tags Jared Padalecki, Jensen Ackles, Jim Beaver, Supernatural, The CW

A mostly so-so episode has a pretty jarring ending leading into the mid-season finale.

****Spoilers right off the bat, so be warned.****
Read more...

Tags CW, Jared Padalecki, Jensen Ackles, Supernatural

Please note: calling out a trope and making a whole episode out of it does not automatically make said trope funny again. Case in point: this week's clunky episode of Supernatural that sees Sam getting married under mysterious circumstances to Sam and Dean superfan, Becky Rosen (Emily Perkins, who, I'm just now realizing is Brigitte from the first two, very, very good Ginger Snaps movies). The sum total gag of the episode (and I don't feel like this is really any kind of spoiler at all) is that Sam is magically roofied by a painfully nerdy fan, and it's all kind of a big bummer all around since the episode does nothing more than tread water and avoid the main storyline of the season. We get it, you guys don't know what the deal is with Leviathan, either.
Read more...

Tags CW, Emily Perkins, Jared Padalecki, Jensen Ackles, Supernatural

To the best of my knowledge, I've never met anyone who went to a psychic or called a psychic hotline back when that was a whole thing. Well, in this week's episode of Supernatural, Sam and Dean investigate a series of murders in a small town that just full of sham psychics and clairvoyants.
Read more...

Tags CW, Jared Padalecki, Jensen Ackles, Supernatural

In this week's episode, Sam and Dean get murderous doppelgangers, while Bobby attempts to MacGuyver some kind of means of hurting Leviathan.
Read more...

Tags CW, Jared Padalecki, Jensen Ackles, Supernatural

Charisma Carpenter and James Marsters return to the CW as bickering witches in this week's episode.

After four straight weeks of pretty dark/emotionally-grim episodes, "Shut Up, Dr. Phil" attempts to bring the funny to Supernatural with Sam and Dean investigating a series of improbable murders in a small town linked to a married couple on the outs (Carpenter, Marsters). While the War of the Roses meets the frequently called-out Bewitched premise has a lot of promise, as with last week, there's not enough time to spend with the interesting villains.

Those villains, of course, being--no big spoiler here--married witches played by former Buffy and Angel alums Charisma Carpenter (still fine--yeah I said it) and James Marsters (does this guy age at all). As wealthy bigwigs in a small town, their escalating tensions are causing some of the local plant life to rot, statues to explode, and acquaintances and friends to die gory, agonizing deaths. With the exception of a bit of counseling at the end of the episode and a last-minute save of a potential victim, Sam and Dean don't have a whole lot to do this episode, placing a lot of it on Marsters and Carpenter. Unfortunately, more than a third of "Shut Up, Dr. Phil" is structured like a mystery, requiring Sam and Dean to catch up to where any viewer who watched the preview from last week starts off: that is to say, they're dealing with dueling witches. It's also a shame that Carpenter and Marsters' characters don't exactly share a lot of screen time--these are two actors who can do heated/funny bickering well and it's a missed opportunity keeping them separated for so long.

Read more...

Tags Charisma Carpenter, CW, James Marsters, Jared Padalecki, Jensen Ackles, Supernatural