Review

The Winchester Bros swing into investigation mode after a couple of victims turn up who’s murderers claim they were carrying out the word of God at the direction of an angel. Sam is willing to accept the angelic angle, but Dean remains steadfast sure it’s probably the work of a demon or other dark side force.

Sam quickly determines that the victims were not whiter and white, and all roads lead to “Our Lady of Angels” church where the victims attended services. Sam gets a visitation by an “angel” and needs to stop another “victim” before he commits another crime, Dean remains sceptical. A pretty solid episode ensues that has a single plot twist coming at you. Ready to see if mass is still said in Latin?

First up, this episode further explores the characters of Sam and Dean and their thoughts on the supernatural. Sam is prepared to believe in the forces of good, due no doubt to his own impending destiny, while Dean remains firmly in the sceptics’ camp and will only believe what he has seen himself. Once you take this aspect of the episode out you are left with a pretty standard horror lite outing that we have all no doubt seen before. But kudos to the writer for referencing a part of Dean’s character we haven’t been exposed to since the season one episode Dead Man’s Blood, admittedly only hinted at there.

Overall, Houses seemed to have something missing from the ingredients and thus fails to really produce a top class horror meal. Slight hint of a mystery – are we dealing with an angel or something else? – that gets resolved far too quickly and should have been left hanging in the air. The usual Winchester comedy routine and one liners going down, clever enough writing though the whole bed thing was belaboured. Interesting enough supernatural elements, the whole “rapture” thing seemed slightly implausible to me as this would indicate something more than the protagonist should be capable of given Supernatural mythology thus far referenced. Guess what we were missing here was the whole tension and edge of your seat requirement that good horror will ladle onto your plate. Houses didn’t so much grab me by the throat as flop into my lap like that tomcat you had neutered last week.

For the first time ever in a Supernatural episode I picked up on a major plot hole that no amount of decent writing could gloss over. Okay, it’s to do with the resolution so will try to get through this without blowing the episode’s major twist. Sam conducts a séance in a church basement, actually pretty cool moment when he is discovered by Father Reynolds – talk about embarrassing – and Jared Padalecki nails the moment. Sam’s séance draws in our protagonist for the evening to allow the usual fixes you would expect from a Winchester take down. Except they don’t happen here! What happened to salt and burn the bones? What happened to the concept that once you turn to the dark side there’s no going back? The resolution here is a copout in the extreme and goes against any number of rules established in the Supernatural universe. Writer Sera Gamble backs herself into a corner with Houses was unable to think her way out of it, so just shaded acceptable developments and hoped no one would pick up on it. Well sure, the 1001 fans of the show might let this one slide but I’m not about to, you either stick to the rules established through one and a half seasons or you tear up the script and start again.

Once again notably the whole atmosphere that season one episodes seemed to turn on like a tap were missing from this episode, budgets being cut for season two? We have the Winchesters down a church basement, visiting a couple of murder scenes, and heck Sam having visitations, surely some dry ice and back lighting wouldn’t be too much to ask for would it? The car chase towards the end was pretty anticlimactic as well, more on this with the “borrowing” part of the review.

Side bar here; normally I start with an approx rating on what I thought of an episode and either deduct or add rating points as the review progresses and I get to think about what I’ve watched. I better finish this review real soon as thus far I’ve dropped a couple of points off the old rating.

A disappointing episode that delivers some background on Dean's views of the supernatural and not much else

In terms of borrowing from previous horror outings, the whole angel who isn’t is sort of a Jungian archetype to be honest and crops up in various divergent sources so we’ll let this one though to the keeper and move along. I’m racking my brain over here with Dean’s “will of God”, the pole through the windscreen; I’ve seen this scene before but can’t place it. At the moment am leaning towards one of The Omen movies, possibly the second one, but don’t quote me on this; [maybe from Neil Marshall’s The Descent? – Ed].

Oh dear God in heaven they went Rob Zombie on me with the music. Bob Dylan’s “Knocking on Heaven’s Door” kicked in towards the end of the episode and I almost pissed myself I was laughing so hard. There’s not enough “t”s in tacky to describe the insertion of the song here. Heavy handed and neon sign posted, a new low for the Supernatural team. We also get “Down on Love” by Jamie Dunlap, but since that’s Dean’s mobile phone theme I don’t really think it counts.

Houses of the Holy was an okay if not solid episode of Supernatural, one of those episodes every franchise seems to throw up when it becomes apparent 22 in total are going to stretch creative juices and something is going to give. I don’t mind the odd weak episode or something completely left field as long as the season as a whole is moving along. Hope the next episode is better to be honest.

Director Manners left Dean’s “will of God” scene ambiguous to encourage online debate about the show, for mine he simply missed the boat. The scene left me wondering where I had seen it before and I would imagine must other people simply wouldn’t have given a toss and have moved on. Guess one for the rabid fans to gnarl over till there’s no flesh left on the bone.

Yes, am aware of the connections to the mighty Led Zeppelin, but am unsure if this was intentional or not. Slightly grandiose title for the episode for mine.

If you are rolling through season two of Supernatural then stop by this one to complete your episodes, if in a bit of a hurry then skip to the next episode. End of day Houses doesn’t ultimately satisfy, so I would not be praying at its altar.