Supernatural- ep. 621 & 622 review: "Let It Bleed" and "The Man Who Knew Too Much" (There be spoilers here...) Supernatural just recently wrapped up it's sixth season on May 20th and I have some thoughts about the finale(s), which I thought was a pretty eerie way of wrapping up what I considered to be one of the strongest seasons since season four. There was a whole lot to be done in these last two episodes. There was the wall in Sam's head that was blocking out all the bad things that he experienced in Hell, there was the war in Heaven and finally the fact that Castiel was pretty much one step away from going darkside on the brothers Winchester.

As we saw previously, Castiel had struck a deal for half the souls in Purgatory with resident Big Bad Crowley, Castiel wants to win the war in Heaven and Crowley wants to take control of Hell. Mainly, "Let It Bleed" served as a wrapping up point for Dean and Lisa and Ben, a story I felt was undercooked. I mean, it had it's potential but kind of fell by the wayside to make way for some of the bigger arcs this season. So, they chose now to wrap it up. The episode was not as powerful compared to the one that followed but it definitely had it's stronger points.

First things first, Lisa and Ben, Crowley had them kidnapped to get Sam and Dean off his tail and his plan backfired big time. Dean slipped into full-on torture mode to find out where they were and is ultimately led to the least guarded prison guided by roguish angel Balthazar. After Dean fights like FOUR demons, he gets to Lisa and Ben and she's been possessed by a demon. I thought it would be this perfect tragedy for her to kill Ben and herself leaving Dean feeling more alone than ever. The demon stabs the vessel and Dean exorcises the demon. Lisa is now bleeding to death. Sam, by the way has been knocked out this entire time proving that he is useful 98.9 percent of the time. Dean rushes Lisa to the hospital and she will inveitably die by midnight. Castiel swooshes(?) in and saves her life. Dean coldy informs Cas that this does not mean that they are allies again. Cas had burned his bridge and he does rightfully acknowledge that. This season has been about pushing the boys away from anyone that isn't Bobby Singer by killing any and all allies. Or turning them evil. Semantics, people. Then under Dean's final request, Cas wipes Lisa and Ben's memory clean. To them, he's just this stranger who wanders into the hospital room. He has to walk away from these people he's loved for so long and that is perfect and heartbreaking. Yes, Dean was very selfish in having Cas erase their memories in order to keep them safe but the point of the show is to show that the brothers can not have happiness, it just can't be...and Jensen Ackles acted the hell out of that final scene. He always does.

Second of all, and this is a big second of all, the Lovecraft thing. H.P Lovecraft has always been the master of horror, invisble monsters lurking underneath our exsistence, and to bring him into the story effectively closing the Purgatory angle and escalating it to a dangerous level at the same time was very game changer-y. Basically, Lovecraft was the first person to open the gates to Purgatory at a party and nothing came out. Sort of. They screwed the pooch at an astronomical level. They released this monster that possessed one of the guests and now they reveal that it's Bobby Singer's ex-girlfriend. Ouch. She's the only one that can unlock Purgatory and she gets taken by Castiel at the end of the episode. Throughout the episode, Castiel and Bobby have been neck and neck looking for the answers and Castiel ultimately wins out in the end....One thing, that surprised me was uber-horror geek Dean not knowing who H.P Lovecraft is. "Oh, I was too busy having sex with girls." It also shows that Bobby is super paranoid and that Sam will not bring up Lisa and Ben ever unless he wants his nose rearranged by Dean. A very strong episode save for a few minor quibbles.

Sam has always been the tortured soul and this season really highlighted his problems. For one thing, he came back from Hell with one less soul and it has caused a boatload of trouble for Dean and many others. For example, "Unforgiven" and "Clap you Hands if You Believe" as two that immediately strike out at me. So Death restored his soul plus a wall to keep out all the not-so Groovy Ghoulies that latched on during his very short lived tour in Hell. Due to the catatonic state that Sam went into the last time he poked at the Wall, he knew well enough to not mess with it. That is unless our formely friendly soul grubbing should drop it for him...Castiel is slowly creeping towards mass bad guyness. I love the Memento-like angle that they took in revealing how and why the wall dropped as well as Sam have an internal duel with his Hell personalities ala Identity. Sam ultitmately wins over his identities and gets back all his memories but at what cost? The idea that Sam's spirit guide in his journey through Hell was a waitress that he murdered in cold blood was a nice touch but I felt that more time could've been spent towards the cracking of Purgatory but it was still a nice touch. Castiel kills off Balthazar and goes completely darkside at this point. Crowley sides with the other angel Raphael but Castiel tricked them with the wrong blood cocktail, dog's blood in fact. You need virgin's blood (a milk run for them) and the blood of a Purgatory creature aka Bobby's ex-GF. She's dead and Castiel has successfully cracked Purgatory. He's soul-powered and wipes out Raphael with a snap of his fingers. He leaves Crowley for his future plans. He claims he's the new God and demands The Winchesters and Bobby bow to him. Umm, uh-oh. Castiel has been pushed too far and the build up to his cracking should have been drawn out more but with all the arcs this season, there was no time. That's fine.

Next season, sees Misha Collins taking a more reduced role and that is a damn shame. But it looks as if he's the new Big Bad, the Impala is destroyed again and Sam is 100% hellified again. The fellas are in big trouble.

And I can't wait.

"Let It Bleed" gets a B minus
"The Man Who Knew Too Much" gets an A

Reviewer:
Nathan Smith