Simon Said

[fairyd123]

Definitely my favourite episode so far this season. I thought it was a great myth arc episode and the guest actors were really strong. Admittedly the central concept was pretty much stolen from a variety of other shows - most noticeably the "Pusher" episode of The X-Files but it was still surprisingly effective.

The teaser was incredibly unsettling. I liked how affable and calm the doctor was while he loaded the gun before blowing away the owner and himself. The shot of the blood hitting the sink which cut to Sam in the world's worst truck stop bathroom was a very effective segue. Although the shot of poor Andy's birth mother calmly giving herself a gasoline shower before setting herself alight was actually horrifying. The show seems to have worked out this year how to be really gory - and upsettlingly effective at the same time. Last year there seemed to be plenty of gore but none of it ever affected me to the extent that I wanted to turn away from the screen - but the woman burning herself to death completely freaked me out. I hope they paid that poor stunt woman a fortune!

Love how Ash manages to be both immensely helpful and incredibly silly at the same time.Only answering to "Dr Badass" was excessively silly but it kinda worked.

You know you've watched way too much TV when you peg the overly intrusive busboy as the villain within 10 seconds of him appearing on screen - way too keen.

I actually really liked Andy and thought the actor did a good job with him. He had some great lines (These are not the droids you are looking for and I have an Evil Twin being the clear favourites!) and with minimal screentime managed to breath real life into this likeable grungy loser with the most hilariously cheesy van ever. That being said I really wished they had cut the scene of him leaving the woman's apartment at the beginning as it wasn't at all clear if she was just someone who really liked him or if he had used his powers to get her to sleep with him. The possibility that he might effectively be a date rapist was a notion I could have done without and stopped me liking him completely. It's difficult to empathise with his plight, or chuckle along with Dean at his clever lines when you're wondering whether he's a serial rapist.

I do think though that leaving Andy to fight another day might come back to haunt them. He can control people with his mind and with practice is only going to get more powerful. Granted Sam and Dean hope that he's going to be good and responsible but they don't know that he will be. Realistically they're not going to be able to tabs on him. They've just walked away and left this potentially lethal guy to his own devices. Granted they can't eliminate Andy for what he might do, or for what he has the potential to do but it would have been nice if they had had that discussion. Up until now Sam and Dean haven't had to make all that many tricky choices when it comes to hunting. The writers fudged the moral dilemma as to whether to kill the vamps in Bloodlust by having Gordon be a raving nutjob, with Meg it was better to exorcise the demon than leave the girl trapped and with Meg's brother the choice was simple - kill a human (albeit a possessed one) or let Sammy get beaten to death. But could they kill a guy simply because he has the potential, if he makes the wrong choices, to be a very powerful murderer?

Likewise I thought the guy playing Weber did a good job. His character was completely nuts but the actor didn't go over the top in playing it. He was sort of evil and pschotic but banal at the same time - which just made him even more unsettling. I saw slight echoes in his desire to keep hold of Andy and eliminate everyone from Andy's life that he thought was responsible for keeping them apart in Sam and Dean's slightly unhealthy bond. Both of them can be quite possessive about the other one. It's not inconceivable to see one of them taking that possessiveness to the homicidal level that Weber displayed if pushed hard enough. And don't think I didn't see the anvils in having the "good" brother kill the evil one. This had better not happen to our boys Kripke.

Both Jensen and Jared were very strong in this episode again. I really liked the scene with the two of them after the doctor had killed himself with Jared doing a very nice job of appearing distressed. This episode was also the first time that I saw Sam as a potentially threatening guy rather than a 6 ft 5 puppy. He was seriously cold and commanding when insisting that Andy stay with him while Dean ran off to try and protect the birth mother. Jensen was also great in the scene where Andy forced him to tell the truth - he really did act it as if every word was being dragged from him under great sufferance.

I can understand though why all the hardcore Dean girls are up in arms about this episode. I'm in two minds whether I want Dean to have powers or not. Part of me really liked the fact that in the beginning of the series Sam and Dean were just two average guys who chose to go around hunting demons without the help of special powers to aid them in their task. Then they gave Sam the visions and indicated that he would ultimately be part of something greater (and darker). I'm not sure I want Dean to have powers but I would rather have him develop them (even if they go the super cheesy route of Sam having power that comes from evil and Dean power that comes from good) than have him be played like a marionette every time one of these psychic children shows up.

This episode basically rendered Dean impotent as far as the big showdown goes. If any of the psychic kids can make Dean eat his gun if he goes within a mile of them then Dean will only be a liability to Sam in the final battle. It's not a development I'm thrilled about and we didn't really see the repercussions of it in this episode - although surely at some point they will have to address the fact that Dean is going to be a danger to himself and to Sam if they come into contact with one of the kids again. As fun as it was to see Dean act all manly and threaten Andy that they'll come back if Andy misbehaves it was a completely empty threat.

Some of the Sam/Dean stuff was a little clunky this week. I liked having Dean expressly state that hanging around a hunters bar given Sam's powers may not be the best idea - we've all assumed this is why John kept the boys away from other hunters so it was nice to actually see Dean acknowledge that other hunters could be a danger to them. But apart from that Dean's desperate insistence that Andy wasn't the killer because he can't face the prospect that Sam could one day be that killer and his childish request for a do-over once the truth that he's terrified had been ripped from him by Andy, whilst perfectly in character were a little annoying. Last week they didn't have Sam offering false comfort to Dean in relation to their father's death but this week we have Dean desperately repeating that Andy's not the killer as if simply repeating it enough will make it so.

Loved Ellen- very no nonsense broad that one. Her semi-smackdown of Dean in the bar worked really well. That being said her line that they're all in this together didn't ring quite true. I think the Winchesters are a tad more invested in the machinations of the demon than she is. She's not the one with a brother that's having visions and appears to be part of a greater dark plot.

Still a little baffled by the way they're using Jo. Kripke could have (and probably wishes he had) been a lot more cautious in his approach. He could have hired Alona, waited to see if she had decent chemistry with Jensen and if the fans liked the character on her own merits before opting for a romance storyline. Instead he announced Jo as a love interest for Dean straight away - immediately putting fan girls backs up andthen prompted a venemous backlash the likes of which I've never seen before when the hunter's blog and the first set of sides were released for the character, with both of them conspiring to make Jo sound like a moronic 12 year old. ELAC then airs and its clear that a major rethink had taken place between the script stage and actual filming. Ellen had gone from being a nauseatingly cloying downhome momma substitute to a no-nonsense warm tough old broad that the audience instantly warmed to and Jo was little more than a glorified extra.

We now get Jo's second appearance and she's still little more than an extra. We get a slightly awkward scene of her trying to flirt with a surprisngly disinterested Dean - a scene which actually only seemed to be there to set up the gag of Dean singing REO Speedwagon (guess Kripke realised how much the fans wanted to hear Jensen sing). Hell we even had Ellen sending Jo off on a task while she spoke to the boys at the end - the equivalemnt of keeping the kid busy while the adults talk. If she's intended as a love interest it's a really weird way of setting up the foundations of a future relationship.

I'm sure that in the next episode Jo will get hurt, Dean will realise how much he actually likes her and tru luv will ensue. I'll dry heave for 5 minutes and all will be well with the world. However, I rather wish now that they'd go a completely different way with Jo. I would quite like her to be Ellen's daughter - the cute kid with the unrequited crush on Dean. Have her realise over the course of the season that her feelings aren't going to be returned, have her get past that and become true friends with the boys (they could take her under their wing and teach her to hunt) so that by the end of the season Ellen and Jo have been positioned as two strong capable woman who are very much a part of the Winchesters lives. I have no objection to the notion of them having a woman go on hunts with them as long as she's not making moony eyes at one of them. The friend route would turn all the negatives about the storyline into pluses. Jensen and Alona have zero sexual chemistry. In fact in the directors cut for the next episode its clear that they have a quite strong brother/sister vibe going on (Jo could not be more annoying little sister in that clip if she tried) . Plus it would make the decision to hire someone who looks as if she could play Jensen's teenage sister, rather than his love interest, reto-actively brilliant. Of course Alona looks too young for Jensen - that was the whole point all along! I know it won't work out this way but I think it would be better for the show if it did because I'm not sure many are going to be able to get past the slight squickiness of having Dean flirt with a girl who looks like a young teen. Pair him with Ellen already those two have chemistry to spare!

All round a pretty strong episode even if it did muddy the waters of the myth arc (why exactly is the demon spending his time driving losers like Weber insane) and essentially marginalise Dean as an effective force against the demon.