Supernatural Review: Sammy’s Back!

The boys are really back in town! Wheeling from the backlash of getting Sam’s soul back into his body, we enter familiar territory as one Winchester brother returns from his time down under. As Death said, they keep coming back and messing up life’s natural order. But that’s okay, he’ll put up with it.

The episode opens with a man and woman inside a small plane, flying through a storm. The woman is scared beyond belief while her boyfriend attempts to calm her down. As she gazes out the window, we see a flash of lightning and a large flying shape out in the dark, rainy sky. It’s much bigger than a bird and the poor woman is clearly about to have a major panic attack. For good cause too because soon her boyfriend is ripped out of his seat via front window glass and the plane is plummeting towards the ground.

Meanwhile, Cass has just checked out a still unconscious Sam (Jared Padalecki) and Dean (Jensen Ackles) asks if his brother is okay. The angel gives him the what do you think look and a, “I’m not a human doctor” line. We are still getting reminders of the repercussions of Dean’s decision to get Sam’s soul back. The younger Winchester could be comatose for life and in Cass’s opinion, Dean should have just killed his brother outright than do it this way.

Soon though Sam does wake up with no memory of what’s happened in the past year. His last memories are falling into the cage with Adam and then the next thing he knew he woke up in the panic room. Dean and Bobby exchange some knowing glances after they decide not to tell Sam that he nearly killed the elder hunter and put his brother’s life in danger multiple times. They don’t know what might destroy the wall that Death put in Sam’s mind to prevent him from remembering the pain and trauma his soul went through in hell.

The brothers leave for Portland after Bobby gives them a lead of a woman who disappeared from inside a crashed plane. They discover that two other girls have gone missing and put together the theory that perhaps they were being targeted for their virginal purity.

Another young woman is attacked but survives and the brothers discover that it had been a giant bat-like creature that came for her. She says that the only thing it took was her promise ring. After some callous prodding from Dean, the young girl protests that one boy didn’t count (aka she wasn’t a virgin after all).

What creature likes gold and virgins? The search leads to World of Warcraft and finally dragons. It seems to fit the bill and Dean goes to consult one Dr. Viziak, an expert of all things dragon and one time paramour of Bobby Singer. Turns out that the good doctor has the one thing that can kill the creature, a sword forged in dragon’s blood. Dean points out in exasperation that you have to kill one of those before you can make something that can kill it. How does that even work then? Well, best not to think too hard on that because there’s another problem. The sword is very much near hilt deep inside a large stone.

The episode continues its high fantasy exploits with Dean attempting to do a King Arthur and pull the sword from the stone. Except he doesn’t. After a few ridiculously funny attempts, the elder Winchester decides to use C4. A nice modern solution if not for the blade getting broken in the process. Whoops!

Back in Portland, Sam has been tasked to figure out where the dragons could be. He gives Bobby a call to get some help but keeps getting the weird “I don’t wanna talk to you vibe” from the older hunter. Determined to find out what Bobby and his elder brother have been hiding from him, Sam calls on Cass. Cass spills the beans, unaware that the hunters haven’t told Sam anything. He does his best to not freak out having just learned that he’d spent the whole year soulless.

When Dean gets back, the pair goes hunting for dragons in the local sewer system. They finally come across the missing girls who are locked underneath metal grates. The brothers get into a scuffle with two male dragons in human form, with their pointy sharp fingernails and hands that heat up like a hot plate. Sam manages to kill one with the sword but the other flees.

Back at Bobby’s, the hunters finally get a big clue on what the mysterious story arc has been over this new season. The dragons had a manual of sorts on how to bring back “The Mother” from purgatory. So Crowley was right that purgatory is the land where monsters come from. Perhaps this viewer has been reading a lot of Greek mythology related books, but the mother of all monsters can mean only one thing, the Echidna of course (not the ant eater mind you!).

She is referred to as the mother of all monsters because she gave birth to most monsters in Greek mythology. The Greek poet Hesiod describes her in the Theogony:

The goddess fierce Echidna who is half a nymph with glancing eyes and fair cheeks, and half again a huge snake, great and awful, with speckled skin, eating raw flesh beneath the secret parts of the holy earth. And there she has a cave deep down under a hollow rock far from the deathless gods and mortal men. There, then, did the gods appoint her a glorious house to dwell in: and she keeps guard in Arima beneath the earth, grim Echidna, a nymph who dies not nor grows old all her days.

Sure enough, two male dragons meet at an undisclosed location where the entrance to purgatory lies. One of the virginal girls is sacrificed down a deep chasm with molten lava at the bottom. The girl rises back up, clearly possessed by another entity. She tells her children that she’s waited a long time and that they’ve got a lot of work to do.

After a crazy first half of season six, it appears that we’ve got our old Sam back in his puppy-dog eye, moral, geeky self. He tells Dean that he has to make amends for the things he did sans soul. While it’s great to have this Sam back, it feels a little creepy too just because of the amazing transformation actor Jared Padalecki gave us with his womanizing, kill-without-hesitation, self-comes first version of his character. It’s going to take some adjusting again to really believe that old Sam is back, much like Dean is probably feeling.

The relief he felt seeing his brother just automatically empathize with the missing girl’s sister was evident. It’s the little things that convinces Dean that he made the right choice in returning Sam’s soul to his body. The Sam that lost his humanity wasn’t really his brother anymore.

With Crowley gone hell must be in chaos, while heaven continues to deal with a civil war. This is the perfect opportunity for the monsters to really come out and play and perhaps even take over the earth while the other two factions are distracted by their own internal struggles.

Right smack in the middle of all of this of course are the Winchester brothers. How will they fare this time? Will Dean ever go back to Lisa and Ben? Will Sam’s great wall stand? And what’s been happening to Grandpa Campbell now that his boss is dead? We’ll have to tune in to find out.

Season 6, Episode 12: Like a Virgin (originally aired February 4, 2011)

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Photos Courtesy of Michael Courtney and The CW