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Wednesday 23 May 2012

Supernatural - 6.12: "Like a Virgin" Review


Apparently all the virgins are being hunted and abducted, all for the sake of opening the door to purgatory. Lots of myths in this including dragons and treasure.

 A woman, Penny (Darla Taylor) in a plane sees something outside and the pilot, Stan (Zach Martin) is pulled out of the window leaving the plane to crash.   Cas (Misha Collins) does his 'thing' again on Sam (Jared Padalecki) i.e.  puts his hand inside of him.  Sam's soul is in place but he probably won't wake up.   Dean (Jensen Ackles) once again asks what he was meant to do.   Cas felt his soul  and it was "like it had been skinned alive." That's how angels and Lucifer get their kicks, so much for them being angels.   If Dean wanted to kill Sam he should just do it.   Why is Cas suddenly so concerned for Sam?

Bobby (Jim Beaver) is sure Sam will be okay, he always bounces back.   Bobby tells about Stan whose body was found away from the plane, but Penny wasn't found.   Sam wakes and recalls events form the season 5 finale.   He's starving, as you may recall he also wanted food when Dean brought him back in season 2 finale.   Sam doesn't recall the year and a half he's been back.   Dean is glad he's not in hell, but he will eventually find himself in another kind of hell.   Sam needs to know what he did.   It was Dean and Death, the "slate's wiped."  Bobby isn't too happy since he knows first hand what their deals consist of and what they can do, him having one with Crowley not so long ago.

Someone should let Cas in on the secret about not telling Sam he didn't have a soul.   Bobby is still angry that Sam "went Menendez" on me.   He's having trouble looking at Sam.   He was still part Sam although he didn't have a soul.   What's the bet Sam will find out or someone will tell him about his past?   Bobby: "We're Shining him."  Aghh there's that movie again.   Sam wants to go to Oregon on the case.    He feels fine.   Dean suggests Sam should watch TV and he replies, "Because that's what you did when you got back from hell."  Bobby makes excuses about helping Rufus (Steven Williams) and declines to go, that was convenient seeing as he can't look at Sam, so he wouldn't want to be stuck with him on a road trip.

Sam asks if Dean tried to live after Sam went to hell.   Dean says he did and he's the same and it didn't work out cos of Sam.  Penny's sister (Rhonda Dent) is questioned.   What was the gun for when Dean enters.   Penny went in the plane for Stan.   Notice her pink room, hey there's nothing wrong with pink.   Sam mentions the promise rings etc.   Dean stole Penny's diary which is all about purity.   All the missing girls are virgins.   Sam is concerned Dean took the diary, well now that he has a soul.   Dean reads, "I've decided I'm going  to give Stan my most precious gift."  Sam tells him that sounded creepy coming from Dean.   Dean prefers ladies with "experience." Well, Dean, how'd they get that experience to begin with?

A girl, Melissa (Jodi Balfour) walks home and is attacked but ends up in hospital.   She was rejected cos she's not pure.   Melissa says it looked like a bat.   Sam actually displays sympathy now and he means it.   She has a scratch on her back and lost her ring.   Dean asks if she should be wearing it since his radar goes off.   Sam asks "Batman tried to rape her."  Dean's still not funny.   He looks up the World of Warcraft fansites and comes across dragons.   Bobby says they're not real and asks how Memento's doing.   Sam thinks of Dad's journal and the Neverending Story.   Sam wonders if they met with a skinwalker recently cos he must remember something from the journal and Dean lies.

Dr Visyak (Kim Johnston Ulrich) teaches medieval studies and dragons live in caves.   She and Bobby had a falling out.   Dean goes to San Francisco to see her and they need to kill the dragon.   Visyak tells Dean he'll need a blade forged with dragon's blood and she happens to have one.   It's the sword in the stone.   She mentions Brunevik, the love of her life.   A brave knight willing to kill the dragon is needed to pull the sword out.   Dean has a go and fails miserably...well he's no knight, so has to blow it out and loses a piece.  

Sam calls Bobby and he suggests underground sewers, as usual.   Something Sam should know.   Bobby mentions Godzilla and says they had their moments last year but it was nothing to do with Sam and hangs up.   Didn't Sam feel a cold shoulder.   Sam calls Cas, who happens to oblige.  Usually he doesn't turn up when Sam calls and he mistakenly thinks Sam knows everything. Sam wasn't tricking him, but Cas is naive.   He's glad to see Sam alive.   Sam would hug but Cas adds, "That would seem awkward."  Cas is surprised Sam survived and getting his soul back didn't kill him.   It comes as a shock to Sam that he didn't have his soul and wants all the info.

Dean learned from Bobby and he's a genius.   For a moment there Sam wanted to tell Dean, who is busy with the treasure stash he's just found.   Being Dean he has to pocket some.   Sam sees the alter with a book and the dragon (Ilia Voiok) returns.   He got the sword from ComicCon, that's an injoke, the number of conventions Jared and Jensen have attended.   Sam fights with yet another poker but one of the dragon's escapes as Sam tries to retrieve the sword.   Dean: "I rarely have wealth."

Sam comes clean and apologizes for what he did.   See that's Sam's soul talking.   Dean can only blame Cas, "friggin' child." Sam should know so he can fix things but Dean tells him what he did wasn't Sam and he has to know what he did.   Bobby finds the book is in fourteenth century Da Vinci Code language and isn't paper, but skin, after they touched it.   It talks of the place of worst nightmares; as the dragon takes girls for sacrifice to bring back, 'Mother' from purgatory.   It's an instruction manual showing them how to open the door, but that page is missing.   Sacrifice a virgin or two, ain't that always the way.   Some thing's coming here, "Mother of all."  Oh come on how could that not click, especially when the Alpha vampire was talking about his mother and the mother of everything? Sam can't recall that.  He's got an excuse but why didn't Dean?

Lots more references to past episodes too, like when Dean made a deal to bring Sam back in 2.22; also when Dean came back from hell in season 4.  In 2.1 In My Time of Dying, Dean makes jokes about prude chicks.   Also in this episode he told Tessa, "My corpse is gonna rot in the ground and my family's gonna die."  In my Supernatural book (Dudes and Demons: Unauthorized and Unofficial Guide to Supernatural) I've commented "but his soul won't rot."  How true that was for Dean as his soul was still intact in hell, but not the case for Sam.   So Sam knows about not having a soul but also needs to apologize for what he did when soulless, even if he doesn't know what that is.  

Sam knows he's getting the cold shoulder treatment from Bobby and Dean.   Dean when he was talking about their past year in the car, and Bobby when he didn't want to go on their road trip since he couldn't stand to be in the same space with him, and when he hangs up the phone on Sam.   But it was good to have our old Sam back.   He no longer has to pretend about his feelings or make excuses or lie - though Dean's glad to have him back he walks around on egg shells.

As for dragons being fearsome and fiery creatures, these two were anything but and in human form weren't much to be reckoned with, so much for Melissa describing them as bats.   Didn't even look like a sword was needed to dispatch them.   Supernatural has done some great monsters in its own version of mythology in its time, but these were just lame by comparison.   Cas wanting to hug Sam who just sits down, wouldn't have expected that from him as he always kept his distance from Sam.   Dean not being able to pull the sword out was kind of expected and funny.   He believed he could take it no worries.  

As for my earlier comment about Dean not being a knight, I meant knight of old cos he is knightly with his trusty Impala.   Sam understands why Dean and Bobby lied to him but somehow it doesn't even come close to the lies Sam told Dean et al and the things he did. Not having a soul didn't make it okay but just puts his actions into context.   He now has to understand how they felt and more precisely how he made them feel.  At least it didn't lead to Sam walking out after being 'betrayed' in that way,  after he finds out they didn't tell about his soul, especially since he does have a lot to answer and atone for.   In the past Sam usually has run when confronted by such things.

Dean's reference in letting T-1000 walk around alludes to Terminator 2 Judgement Day as T-1000 has no emotions.   He called Sam Robosam a few episodes back in 6.7 Family Matters.   Bobby saying Sam went 'Menendez' on him was a reference to the Menendez brothers, Erik and Lyle, who were convicted of killing their parents.  As for Memento, Sam now has his soul and so must go backwards and find out what he did when he was soulless.

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