Friday, November 6, 2009

Changing Channels

Tonight’s episode opened with a voice-over from Dean: “Supernatural is filmed before a live studio audience.” LOL! “Supernatural: The Sit-Com” had Dean mugging and Sam making exaggerated movements and the bitch-face. I have to say, the theme song was fun—two hunting bros, when demons come out to play—LOL. Also, the bicycle built for two!

Two days earlier, Sam and Dean are investigating a man killed by the Incredible Hulk (Lou Ferrigno, not Bana or Norton. I loved Dean’s matter-of-factness following this line of questioning). Sam is pretty quick to identify the Trickster as the baddy, based on the punishment fitting the crime (the vic was a hot-head, you wouldn’t like him when he was angry) and candy wrappers at the crime scene. Sam wants to recruit the Trickster’s help, thinking the Trickster isn’t going to want the world to end, and will work against the demons and angels. Funny that Dean didn’t know MySpace a couple of seasons ago and now asks Sam why he wants to be Facebook Friends with the Trickster.

A fake call on the police radio sends them to an abandoned warehouse. When they walk through the door, they’re suddenly wearing doctor coats and are in the halls of Seattle Mercy Hospital, the setting of “Dr. Sexy, M.D.” Sam is accosted by a female doctor who slaps his face and says “seriously” a lot. Dean points out the characters, including Johnny Drake, who’s a ghost in the mind of the sexy-but-neurotic female doctor. The brothers riff about why the show has ghosts, and then Dean goes all fan-boy when Dr. Sexy himself approaches. Dean knocks him off for wearing tennis shoes instead of Dr. Sexy’s cowboy boots, and Dr. Sexy morphs into the Trickster.

Sam tries to talk to the Trickster, who says if they survive the next 24 hours, they’ll talk. He disappears and Dean and Sam try to escape. When Dean tells a patient at the fake hospital that none of it is real, he shoots Dean in the back. Dean ends up on the operating table with Sam as the surgeon, who asks for a penknife, dental floss and a fifth of whiskey to operate.

The brothers then appear—as in, suddenly—on a Japanese game show called “Nutcracker.” They’re standing, legs spread, while the host asks questions in Japanese. Sam can’t answer, so he gets smacked in the groin by a giant spring-loaded ball. When Castiel appears to save them, he disappears. The host chides them, saying he doesn’t want pretty boy angels. Dean decides to play the role and gets the answer right—in Japanese.

Their next appearance is in a commercial for genital herpes. Sam doesn’t want to, but the boys realize they have to play their roles to survive. He says his lines, then does a nice lay-up in the basketball game his character is playing.

Back to the sit-com. The Trickster shows up and wants the brothers to take their roles (ahhh) as Lucifer and Michael to get the show on the road, to accept the roles destiny has chosen. If they don’t, they’ll stay in TV Land.

Next is a procedural cop show, a la CSI. The brothers are dressed hot as hell, in suits, blue shirts and shades. At night. They adopt gravelly voices and toy with the glasses. They joke over the body with a CSI tech who’s eating a lollipop, and stab him with a stick. Turned out to be the wrong guy, but when the Trickster shows himself, Sam is there to stab him and the brothers return to reality.

Or….not. Suddenly Sam is the voice of Metallicar, in a Knight Rider take-off. Sam-as-the-car and Dean discuss whether or not the stake didn’t work because their nemesis is something else, not a Trickster after all. The Trickster shows up and Sam and Dean light a circle of flames around him. Turns out he’s the archangel Gabriel who had left heaven and was happy until the apocalypse began. He blames the brothers for HIS brothers killing each other. He says there’s not stopping this, that this war is about 2 brothers who loved each other and betrayed each other.

He says the brothers were born to be the vessels: the big brother, loyal to an absent father, the little brother, rebellious, and that one has to kill the other. Heaven has always known it would come to Sam and Dean.

Gabriel tells them he wished this was a TV show with easy answers, but it’s going to end bloody. Oh, dear, not a good sign for the end of the season!

Dean is defiant, but Sam looks worried. Dean does get Castiel back, and accuses Gabriel of being too afraid to stand up to his family of angels. He puts out the fire and the brothers and Cas leave. The ending was a little weak, with the brothers climbing in the car asking what they were going to do and not having an answer.

I really wanted to like this show more. Maybe on a second viewing. What did you think?

7 comments:

Kim said...

I thought it was great!! Soooo much better than the poker episode, where we were in faux-suspense the whole time because really, no one thought at any point that Dean was going to stay old or die. I mean it was supposed to be scary but it was just uncomfortable.

I was worried this week's show would be too cutesy, but I think it was just enough funny and just enough plot. Going completely into the realm of the fantastic is OK with me.

Anonymous said...

I actually LOVED this one. I laughed out loud several times but thought they did a great job of working in the overall apocalpyptic arc and was really impressed by the reveal that our "Trickster" is actually Gabriel, traumatized by his "family's" squabbling. 1) this kept it from just being the third "trickster screws with Sam and Dean 'sode" and gave that actor--name temp. escapes me--a chance to show more range, 2) It kind of rang true. Lucifer was supposed to be an angel who fell and the context of watching your brothers war and then tying that into the Winchesters' destinies of one broke the 1st seal, one broke the last and now they're fated to be Michael and Lucifer's vessels? Nice symmetry.

I also think we're seeing them grow as a team again, capable of letting the past go and forgive; rather than dwell on what's been started and who screwed up where.

Plus, bonus for me, not a lot of gore :-)

Trish Milburn said...

I agree with Tanya. There were some seriously funny moments. I was so laughing at the Dr. Sexy M.D. and the ghost and how that tied into JDM's role on Grey's Anatomy. And the herpes commercial, LOL!

As soon as the Trickster showed up in the sitcom and started talking about the roles as vessels, I figured it was a powerful angel, though I hadn't pegged Gabriel in particular. I thought the look on his face at the end was interesting, perhaps a turning point where he might start thinking the end isn't inevitable and try to help the boys.

Natalie J. Damschroder said...

Funny that Dean didn’t know MySpace a couple of seasons ago and now asks Sam why he wants to be Facebook Friends with the Trickster.

Yeah, Sam's obviously supplemented his education. LOL

who asks for a penknife, dental floss and a fifth of whiskey to operate

That was awesome! I love the continuity, since we've seen him handling his own bullet wounds. :)

Their next appearance is in a commercial for genital herpes

OMG, that was the funniest! When Dean was the "friend" smirking at the camera I about died.

I, too, loved this episode (is anyone surprised? LOL). Richard Speight Jr. (the Trickster, and I am shocked...SHOCKED, Tanya! that you don't remember that. LOL (JK) Richard was tremendous. I was so pleased he had so much screen time (he's my favorite guest star) and delighted at the tie-in to the mytharc. I got angel, too, when he came in to the sitcom, but figured he was Zachariah, because his logic sounded just like him. His transition from fun-loving-prankster-with-an-edge to baby brother (middle brother? I forget) in pain because his family is being torn apart was excellent.

I feel like they're spending time now setting up for the last quarter of the season. We've got Jessie/AntiChrist primed for the showdown, now Gabriel having to pull himself together and man up. They've GOT to return for the showdown, right? I can't wait to see what else they'll have in store for us along the way.

MJFredrick said...

I thought Zachariah, too, for the same reason as Natalie.

MJFredrick said...

http://www.supernaturalwiki.com/index.php?title=Supernatural_Sitcom_Theme_Song

MJFredrick said...

Rewatched with the dh and ds (was taking my bath, heard my dh go into son's room and say, "You gotta see this," then the laugh track. The ds ended up watching the whole thing.) I caught a bunch of stuff I missed, like the questions on the game show and that there never WAS a trickster. Enjoyed it a lot more.