Season 1

Normally I’d do a detailed recap but I wasn’t taking notes during this run and I mostly wanted to focus on my own enjoyment of the show this time. I’ll be more serious next time. For now, I’m going to just give my impressions of the show and maybe some predictions.

John Winchester is a young man returning from war, another failed checkmark on his journey to find out where his dad disappeared to. His journey is far from over, no matter how much his mother, Millie, tries to persuade him to give it up. Following instructions left in a letter his father sent him via mysterious stranger has him crossing paths with the Supernatural and, by extension, Mary Winchester. He adjusts to hunting fairly quickly, despite his missteps during his first demon battle. Though he is nervous, he’s had his fair share of fighting and war, which we see in flashbacks. His ease at stepping into hunting felt almost natural, though the episode as a whole was a bit fast paced. We even see that he’s a whiz with research. I was impressed by Drake Rodgers performance and I look forward to seeing more.

Mary was a surprise to me. She grew up hunting with her family, even extended family, and she hunted with her father the most. She understands the gravity of the work she does, but she wants to leave it after watching her cousin die young the previous year. Seeing someone so close to her die so early in life seems to have been a wake-up call for her and she realizes her life doesn’t have to be this way. She doesn’t have to be a hunter; she isn’t destined to a life in the shadows and constant sacrifice. That was a choice her parents made for her and she’s not happy about it. But, for now, she’s going to focus on finding her dad. Once she knows he’s alive and safe, she’s going to leave hunting behind for good. She was determined to drive John and Latika away from hunting but realized by the end of the episode that it was a pointless endeavor. I have to say, I am curious to learn more about her history with Carlos and Latika. I’m also interested to see if her opinion on hunting will change at all over the course of the season.

Latika was an interesting addition to the world of Supernatural. While she wants to prove herself as a hunter, she seems more content staying on the research side of things. Despite her fears, she’s proven to be capable in the field and behind a desk. I’m curious to know more about her background with Samuel Campbell. When did he save her life and how? And why is she so determined to get out into the field when it scares her so much?

Carlos is the last member of our scooby gang. I’m not sure how he fits in with the group quite yet but I did like what I saw of him. He’s a capable hunter though he’s not the most reliable of people. He mostly provided funny quips during this episode, apart from his tragic backstory, but I’m curious to see what else his character holds. Why has he stayed a hunter for so long? Why did he flake on Mary in Teluca? And how did he end up with the Campells in the first place? I’m a little excited to see where his character goes.

Seeing Dean Winchester on my screen again was...odd. I’m still not sure how I feel about having him narrate the story and lead us on this journey. Part of me feels like the show would stand better on its own, without his involvement, but that’s just me. Perhaps I’ll change my mind later.

Overall, I think it was a solid episode. It was heavy on the exposition and I had my qualms with some of the dialog (there were times when some characters were a bit too revealing to complete strangers) but overall, I liked it. I’d give it a 8/10 for bringing me a good story and making me want more.

I’m also still not sure how I feel about this as a prequel. Naturally, the biggest complaint about this prequel is that the love story of John and Mary we’re being told here just doesn’t fit with the story we were told in Supernatural. The only way it could work like this is if this was an AU story or if there was a mystery mind wipe. But, as I was watching, I thought of an idea: what if the angels were behind this? What if this is the real story of how John and Mary met but the angels needed them to work differently? We already know they’re capable of messing with people’s heads. Maybe this is where it all started. And, perhaps Dean is taking us along on this journey because he found out about all this and he’s going searching for the real story.

Well, even if I’m wrong and this series is just an objective failure as a prequel, I like it a lot as a standalone series and I’m inclined to keep watching.

Back again for another week of Winchester fun!

This review is going to be pretty basic again. I know I promised I’d be more serious this time but I’m coming off a bad illness and I didn’t quite have the energy to be taking notes.

The plot of this episode was a pretty simple MOTW setup. The gang followed Samuel’s tracks to Savannah, Georgia to gather clues on either where he ended up or what the Akrida are up to. Unfortunately, he isn’t there but he did leave behind a clue about a case. Mary barges on to follow the lead, though no one else seems on board with this. Carlos is the most vocal out of all of them and repeatedly states that Mary needs to let other people have a say in how they do things, but everyone ends up following Mary. In other news, the special monster killing box seems to have broken after one use and John thinks his mother doesn’t have any faith in him.

The newspaper article Samuel left behind leads them to a commune where a young college student named Barry went missing. His girlfriend said he was taken by a monster but almost everyone agrees that she was on drugs and he probably just ran away. After listening to the girlfriend’s story about Barry’s disappearance, Mary suspects it’s some sort of shapeshifter and the gang split up to look for clues. The leader of the commune, Clyde, is the first suspect but he’s quickly eliminated when he also goes missing the same way Barry did. The witness to this disappearance saw a little more and was able to show them the scene of the crime. There, Mary spots a green liquid on a nearby tree, assumes it’s blood, and declares the creature a Mimic. Latika disagrees, arguing that the substance seems more like sap and points out the odd flowers. Mary steamrolls over her and tells John to go fetch weapons made of copper while the rest of them try to figure out the Mimic is. Latika does sneak off on her own to call Ada to ask about the flowers.

After some research, Latika finds another answer to the case: a spirit of an abusive mother that roams the woods looking for disobedient children to feed off of. This causes Mary to panic, because John is alone and he voiced issues with his mother in the woods earlier that day. They rush back to the motel to try and save him, but they’re too late. John has been taken away like the disobedient little boy he is. Mary blames herself for not listening to Latika and asks her friends for help rescuing John.

Latika finds a way to kill the spirit in one of her lore books but she’s no closer to finding the liar. Then Carlos gets the idea to follow the trail of flowers. It’s shaky but it works and gets them to the liar just in time to save John and the other captives. Families are reunited, apologies are exchanged, and Ada managed to find a lead on the box while they were away. Looks like they’re going demon hunting soon.

The ending scene leaves us with a mysterious figure collecting the remains of the abusive spirit into a glass vial.

This episode was a pretty fun one. It was comparatively low stakes, as MOTW plots tend to be, and let the characters shine through.

I felt this episode was a bit better paced than the pilot but I thought the setup for the John-Millie issue was a bit shaky. John made quite the leap from “You didn’t call me” to “I don’t believe in you” and I think there could’ve been a few more lines of dialogue in there to make that transition smoother, even if it was just a slip of the tongue. The resolution scene at the end of it was nice though. The “Mary steamrolls over everyone and doesn’t listen to dissenters” issue was handled much better and I hope this results in her actually learning her lesson instead of going back to her old ways in the next episode. I also thought the scene between Ada and Millie was nice; it gave us a little history on Ada and it gave Millie some more information on Henry.

I’m excited to see where the next week takes us. 8/10- I took half a point off for shoddy storytelling.