Review

The boys head to Fitchburg, Wisconsin, following directions left by John Winchester. There are no apparent blips on the radar and neither brother is quite sure why they have been sent to the place. Sam notes that there aren’t a lot of children using the play equipment, and it transpires that the town is having some medical emergencies with kids being admitted exhibiting flu-like symptoms. Surprisingly, it’s Dean who supplies the information about what supernatural element the Winchesters will be facing this week, and it’s because he had a run in with this particular monster previously when Sam was very young.

A moral decision has to be made by episode end, and Dean shows a more mature quality then we have seen before. Sam is of course still a whiny biyatch, but what the heck. A surprisingly good episode ensues, though *cough* a rip *cough* goes down. Ready to breath some life into the episode?

Let’s get the rip out of the way first, and then we can all get naked and bask in one heck of a good TV episode – and I’m talking any franchise here. The monster the Winchester dudes face in this episode is a “Shtriga”, a sort of Albanian vampire-like witch “who is often believed to take on the form of an elderly woman”. The Shtriga kind of breathes in its victim’s life force. Okay, good concept, and I was certainly jiving to the whole deal, except I had seen it all before. The movie Cat’s Eye has a life-force-drinking troll creature that the cat has to face at the end of the film, and the same concept was used in one episode of Buffy The Vampire Slayer. In both cases kids were the targets of the monster. The producers of Supernatural are sailing real close to the wind with this episode, but do take the whole concept in some new directions that I applaud them for.

Okay, now that we have that out of our systems, let’s get down and dirty with the actual episode, which is a great slice of television goodness.

Director Ransick opens Something Wicked with one of the great sequences of the first season. A little girl says her prayers and is then tucked up in bed. We learn that a sibling has been admitted to hospital previously, and are hence fairly sure that this normal bedtime scene will quickly go all dark and nasty on us. Ransick obliges, and freaking nails the opening. Through the bedroom window we can see tree branches swaying in the wind, and against this, a large distorted hand slowly inches towards the latch. Nice effect – I was already getting down and dirty over here. The first reveal of our villain is pretty darn effective, and will have you checking that the windows are locked after viewing Something Wicked.

So the monster had been done before, but successfully putting kids in harm's way, that is fairly solid

Naturally, this being a Supernatural episode, we get the whole investigation and exposure of the nature of the beast. Surprisingly, and once again showing that the Producers are ready to play with the standard components, it’s Dean who has the full arcane knowledge of what’s going down, while Sam is unable to discover anything via his normal methods of investigation. Dean has faced the Shtriga once before, and he didn’t come away from the experience with his reputation intact. Get ready for a number of flashbacks to the Bros’ early lives in the hunt, and maybe why Dean is so intent on following every order John Winchester dishes out.

I was all over this episode for its ability to show how the brothers were brought up, the pressure placed upon them, and Dean being a far deeper character than had so far been demonstrated to be. Equally, I was digging Dean empathising with the young boy in the episode, and recognising his own past situations through the current events unfolding. There are some heavy concepts going down, but director Ransack treats them with a light hand, and leaves the audience to pick out what they want from Something Wicked.

The moral dilemma the Bros face in this episode is perhaps slightly underused and could have been strengthened. Dean is the gung-ho dude who knows a Winchester has to do what a Winchester has to do, thus he knows exactly what the stakes are and is prepared to put a civilian in harm’s way to defeat the beast. There’s also this slight nod to the dude maybe finding closure for himself through the moral issue of using a young boy as Shtriga bait. The fact that Dean sees himself reflected in the boy isn’t a throw-away by the writer. Sam is naturally opposed to the whole thing, but then the character is still slightly under-developed and is still a big girls’ blouse at the best of times. Keeping in mind Dean’s constant refrain of not emoting, it seems clear that his character is being developed for the male demographics, while Sam wants to get all emotional at the drop of the hat and is a character for the gals (don’t ya all just want to give him a big hug?).

On the music front we get “Rock Bottom” by UFO and – praise be! – “Road to Nowhere” by Ozzy Osborne. I was happy with the selection there, but am still slightly miffed by Black Sabbath not getting much happening on the car stereo.

A final note and we’re done. Nice twist with the old lady in the hospital; saw it coming but still managed to drum up a smile when she launches into her tirade.

I was happy with some more background exposure on the Bros, and if you want to talk moral dilemmas then how about John Winchester leaving his sons alone in a motel room for starters. The episode provided the expected punch-lines, creepy happenings, and had some nice touches to be going on with. While seeing some issues, overall I was nodding in approval. It’s late season and Supernatural is keeping it tight, mean, and totally absorbing.

With the season gearing towards a two-part finale, and with only a couple of more episodes before then, it’s good to see the Producers deciding to put the plot arcs on the back burner for the time being. We simply know the Bros are going to face their personal demon as the season concludes, but the whole concept is not being overplayed. There are a few horror elements not covered yet – vampires anyone? – and with only a couple of episodes left we are clearly going to get them next season.

I slotted a 9/10 on this episode mainly due to the texture used via the background to Dean’s character. As such I recommend this episode as it does give a nice insight into the dude’s motivations, adds some flesh to the character, and holds very well to the Supernatural mythos thus far created. Something Wicked is a stand-alone episode that doesn’t require you to have the full juice on the Winchester back-story. End of day, it’s a slice of goodness in the otherwise barren TV landscape.