Review

Gordon, currently doing time, receives a visit from the hunter Kubrick who informs him the gates of hell have been opened and a demonic army released. Pointing out that he foretold a war was coming Gordon convinces Kubrick, a fanatic bible pounder, that Sam is mixed up in the evil and must be destroyed. Gordon might be partially right as demonic Ruby is certainly dangling carrots in front of Sam's eyes in the form of having a get out of hell card for Dean.

The Winchesters, unaware that Gordon's influence stretches beyond the prison war, are in an argument about Ruby when they receive a call on one of their Father's old cell phones. Seems John Winchester kept a lock up in Buffalo and it's been broken into. The Bros travel to Buffalo and while checking out the break in discover a box containing a cursed item is missing. The Culprits, Grossman and his partner, are small time crims and easy to track down. In the interim the crims have broken open the box to discover a rabbit's foot! Yes it does award extremely good luck to the possessor, but Bobby can inform the Bros that once you lose the foot you conversely have extremely bad luck and die within a week. Naturally Sam takes possession of the rabbit's foot which is then stolen by artefact hunter Bela Talbot. Can Dean track Bela down and retrieve the foot, or will Kubrick and his partner Creedy get to Sam first?

Surprisingly for the Supernatural franchise it's episodes like Bad Day at Black Rock that should be throw away fillers that make fans. There's something in the episode for everyone, sans those with the old carrot issue. We have a humorous premise, Sam is a babe in the woods as his normal training goes out the window when Bela steals the rabbit's foot from him. The episode is worth catching solely on Sam trying to put out an electrical fire in an old style air conditioning unit. The Hunter aspect is handled as Dean goes in search of Bela and ultimately confronts her after Bobby provides the intel. We have the revisit of Gordon, still with a thing for Sam that is partially correct. Not quite sure if Gordon isn't almost a tragic figure, he was sort of right about the demon army thing but has a character flaw in seeing things strictly in black and white. And of course we have the enigmatic Ruby that proclaims she is on the Bros side. I think not, once a demon and all that. So a pretty light hearted episode that drives a number of plot arcs forward while giving the leads a chance to hit the sketch comedy routines.

I wanted to take some time out this review to discuss the character of Bobby Singer played by the talented Jim Beaver. Bobby has taken on a mentor role for the Winchester Bros. and provides the father figure that was sadly lacking in John Winchesters driven existence. Bobby fits in as a sort of down home Savant with all the arcane knowledge and in depth experience of who are the major players in the game. He has no problems identifying Bela as the master mind behind the lock up break in, Bela uses a standard alias of Lagosi, a name that doesn't get past Dean. I'm actually quite impressed with the Writing as two birds with one stone are going down. We explore more of the experiences growing up the Winchester Bros had, with Bobby being the springboard, and unnecessary time is cut out of each episode by Bobby having the knowledge or reference material to identify what the team are facing. I get the general feeling that Bobby is going to be with us for quite a few more seasons.

Strangely one of the "plot holes" people are pointing to in this episode is how did Bela know the rabbits foot was hidden in a forgotten lock up. Sorry listen to the freaking dialogue, Bela used an Ouija board to contact former victims of the curse who were more than happy to point her in the right direction.

A fun departure form normal franchise episodes, love me some differences to the standard story telling

The other interesting aspect to the script was an insight into the differing childhoods of Sam and Dean, with an indication of what John Winchester thought was important. He kept the soccer trophy Sam had won and the first sawn off shot gun Dean made. No wonder Dean had issues in earlier seasons, Sam got away while Dean was forced into the "family business". It's the insightful scripts that dole out background details in surprising places that has me grooving to the Supernatural beat.

As stated previously on this site it's bloody hard to get horror and comedy working together, but Supernatural nails it every time the writers decided it's time to take a break from the big nasty. The scene where Sam loses his shoe is classic, catch the episode for this alone.

Veteran Supernatural Director Robert Singer once again shows why he is one of the go to Directors for the franchise. Not a single frame is wasted, with good use of close ups, wide angles, and frame composition.

I'm not even sure the term "mullet rock" can be applied to this episode. We get Daniel May's "Women's Wear", and Mary Ford and Les Paul laying down "Vaya Con Dios". Not entirely sure there's any rock involved there to be honest.

Unfortunately the number of viewers in North America fell off to 3.03 million when the episode was first aired. While some loss of figures can be accounted for by the rise of DVD and Blu-Ray formats, that's still a worrying trend for the show overall.

I was humming to this episode, loved the clear humour elements, and really dug Bela who, fingers crossed, becomes a regular on the show. We have some plot arcs being advanced and tantalisingly possibly new antagonists for the Winchester Bros to face up to. Once again an episode that will require some knowledge of previous events, but even if you aren't immersed in the show you will probably have some good times with the episode. Recommended, love me some Supernatural when it goes off the reservation.