Review

Dean and Sam visit their mother's grave at Sam's insistence; Dean doesn't see the point due to there being no remains and the like. While Sam is burying his father's dog tags in his mother's plot, Dean checks out the local surrounds. Dean notes a dead tree, and a perfect circle of dead grass with another grave at its centre, clear indication of unholy ground. You could raise some issues with this plot point to be honest. The grave contains, or should contain, local college student Angela, who died in a car accident, as explained in the prologue to Dead Things.

Sam is sceptical about Dean stumbling onto a hunt but agrees to investigate. A few deaths later and the brothers decide to do a bit of grave digging; salt and burn the body as we have come to expect. Unfortunately it's not going to be that easy, we're dealing with a zombie here as evidenced by the empty coffin. Who raised Angela from the dead, and how are the Winchester Bros going to return her to that state? A surprisingly weak episode ensues. Ready to go shoot something in the head?

The continual refrain from Dead Things is “what's dead should stay dead”. The line gets uttered at least four times during the episode – well, actually I lost count at three, but whatever. The point here is the referencing to the first episode of season two In My Time Of Dying ala Dean dying and being brought back to life by John's deal with the demon. Clearly the producers of Supernatural are setting us up for one hell of a development later in the season. This is a horror series after all; what's dead isn't necessarily going to stay dead. And that in a nut shell is the single salient point of Dead Things, the rest of the episode is of a low standard in comparison to even the early episodes of season two, let alone the meaty goodness of season one. I have a real feeling that Supernatural has “jumped the shark” already, which is disappointing for yours truly. If anyone wants to write in and tell me things improve I would be eternally grateful, and promise never again to be outside your bedroom window at midnight wearing a clown suit.

First things first: what sort of creature are we dealing with here? Seems to be some confusion on the web as to whether Angela is a revenant, vengeful spirit, or a zombie, re-animated dead person. Clearly people haven't been paying attention to scaryminds' continued education of the masses about the creatures of the night. Revenants are incorporate beings, i.e. they have no body, they are ghosts, poltergeists, not of the flesh. You following here? Good! Zombies are reanimated dead people, i.e. they have a body, with the only downside being that it's a body that tends to need a lot of underarm deodorant and skin care products. Sort of like Tammy Fay Baker. Clearly Angela has a body – and just how many head shots can the chick take and still keep coming? – ergo she's a zombie, not a revenant. Right, now that we are all on the same page of the game-book, let’s move along.

There are some aspects of Dead Things that help to a degree to lift the episode from the morass of muddy water the Director is aiming to sink it into. Yo Manners, what the hell were you thinking with this one? Angela's makeup effects were perfect, and a great performance by Tamara Feldman there. Matt watching videos of himself and Angela in happier times, pausing during a close up, and noticing a reflection on the screen, outstanding and simple effect. And finally the showdown between Lindsey, Angela's former roommate, and the new and improved Angela, some tension achieved there. Other than that this is a by-the-numbers television episode, though the resolution is high on the yuck factor.

On to the bad, and there are some real clunkers going down. You have a graveyard, sometime late at night, exactly where were my dry ice and blue filters? Director Manners wasn't even trying with this scene; the whole setup was trite and screamed out “it's in the script”. Don't know what's going on to be honest, maybe the early episodes of season two are under budget constraints or something. The whole dead foliage, ’cause raising the dead is unholy and stuff, was overly used and the set designers did miss the odd plant if you want to be picky about things. Neon-signposted for the cinematically challenged; on the bright side, Dean picks up on the signals while college boy Sam is apparently unaware. And just when we think it can't get much worse, a plot device is tossed in, used to some sort of effect, and is then discarded before being roped and branded with one of the worst continuity errors committed in living memory. Angela takes a pair of scissors to the chest, the wound then remains throughout the rest of the episode – dead things can't regenerate, you with me here? Normally this would be tossed in to add some motivation for those close to the undead thing to wake up and smell the coffee. To a certain degree this does happen with the character of Neil, though Manners belabours the point to the nth degree. All well and good and I could have lived with the plot development, but how many times is Angela shot in the head with no visible wound?!? Sam even references Romero on this point: “Dude, you've been watching way too many Romero flicks.”. Uhmm, sorry, if scissors are going to leave major trauma damage then repeated bullets to the head should make for one real messy zombie. This sort of major league mishandling of a plot point really does point out the episode creators are working on the “B” end of the street and are not respecting their audience. Sorry, complete bollocks there and a fatal flaw in what to date has been an outstanding series.

Add in some emo action by Dean of all people in the final scene and a crap episode is wrapped up in a pretty much melodramatic blanket of ineptitude.

Perhaps the weakest episode ever made, is season two already stumbling?

Referencing other horror genre outings, where the hell do I start with Dead Things? Well guess the title is as good a place as any. Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things is also the title of Bob “Black Christmas” Clark's 1972 schlock outing that pretty much plays on the same end of the street. Wonder where Raelle Tucker got the ideas for the episode? Romero's dead universe is winked at – wonder how many kids got the connection – to reiterate: “shoot them in the head they’re all messed up”. And of course we can't leave well enough alone and have to mention Stephen King's Pet Semetary, also winked at. At least script writer Tucker has the decency of actually having characters mention a couple of the references that litter up Dead Things. In terms of being informed by prior horror outings, this episode puts even Rob Zombie to shame.

Mullet rock time, not on your life! We get nadda, zero, the square root. Now that really bummed me out.

Quite frankly Dead Things is to date the worst episode ever of Supernatural and someone should be taken behind the bike sheds and horse whipped. Overly derivative, lacking in tension, a purely by-the-numbers season filler that goes nowhere, has nothing much to say for itself, and forced me to pick my chin up off the coffee table. There is no excuse for the inept display going on here considering to date the reasonably high overall standard Supernatural has achieved. I watched in stunned amazement at how Director Manners took a zombie story and managed to turn in a car wreck with the resulting episode. Disappointed doesn't come into it, I was angry with this excuse for fifty minutes of wasted time.

Actor Jared Padalecki broke his hand while shooting Dead Things but continued with the episode till it finished before heading down to the local hospital. What a trooper, reminded me of the Aussie Olympic competitor who fell off her horse, broke her collarbone, and then completed the day's event in case her team needed her score. Above and beyond the call of duty, I salute you Mr Padalecki.

Zero recommendation on Dead Things, this episode is only going to excite the rabid drooling fans of Supernatural everyone else should give it a miss. There's nothing to be taken from an episode that simply fills in the required allotment of 22 for the season. Angela might be one of the undead, but they really should have left Dead Things in the ground.