Review

Amanda, a witch from the local middle class coven, has gone rogue due to being spurned by her lover Paul Dutton. A bit of black magic later and Paul's wife Janet loses her teeth before succumbing to the dental assault from hell. Naturally Dean and Sam Winchester, still in bickering mode, arrive to investigate. They learn Paul had an affair with Amanda and move to stop the wicked Wiccan in her tracks. Unfortunately the Bros are too late as some more magic has gone down and Amanda is now dead, apparently as a result of slashing her wrists. Sam knows different and discovers a hex bag under Amanda's coffee table.

The Boys soon deduce local housewives Elizabeth, Renee Van Allen, and Tammi, are desperate to improve their respective situations and have resorted to that old black magic. Later the boys are intercepted by Ruby who warns Sam to get out of town as quickly as possible due to a powerful demon having been summoned by the Witches. The Winchesters however never take a backward step and with Dean the next victim a showdown is on the agenda. Can the Bros with help from Ruby overcome a demonic force threatening chaos in the suburbs? One of the best ever episodes ensues.

One of the notions you get from the dark gene if you follow it for a while is that achieving any sort of benefit from dabbling in dark powers is never going to end well. Unless your soul is black to begin with then the forces of darkness will definitely be itching to extract their pound of flesh at best and your soul at worse. Writer Ben Edlund skilfully mixes in this notion with the ongoing plot arc about Sam's situation in the demonic body politic, while still delivering a pretty solid episode that will have you glued to your screen. The question is how do practitioners of black magic gain their power; the answer is via the summoning of a demon to give them that power, with one hell of a repayment plan in the near future. Guess which current demonic entity was a black witch who was required to pay the Ferryman? When we finally meet the demonic entity giving the suburban Witches their powers we learn the Winchesters are completely outgunned and Ruby doesn't have the firepower.

Naturally there are humour elements to the episode that elevated the darker content for those who are not coming at Supernatural from a horror background. One of the things that never cease to amaze me is folks finding these shows frightening, build a freaking bridge people. The other element to this episode that had me intrigued was the building relationship between Dean, in protection and anti-demonic mode, and Ruby, a demon who apparently is clinging to her humanity and out to help Sam in the ongoing war against the forces of hell. Dean clearly started the episode not trusting Ruby, once a demon always a demon, and for mine is probably making a good call. By the end of the episode he appears to have come to a grudging acceptance that once he has gone Sam will needs some allies with there being a lack of Winchesters to cover the bases. For regular followers of Supernatural there's a wink at you with Ruby referring to Dean as "short bus" and Dean replying with his trademark inability to score a point.

So we get some black magic going down, the "book club" notably unaware they have sold their souls for some temporary benefits, but the episode sees the season turn directly into the demonic wind that hasn't been to the forefront recently. Besides Ruby, who I don't trust but thoroughly enjoy, we get another demon who reminds us that the hell born aren't big fluffy bunnies but delight in torture, causal murder, and all manner of mayhem. Perhaps the only downside here was the antagonist gloating like a James Bond villain, allowing a reprieve for the Winchesters in the bottom of the ninth from an unexpected source. But cool to get back to the major plot arc of the season for mine.

A very strong episode that should win fans back to a season which to be honest has been pretty uneven in terms of quality

Guess with things flagging somewhat it was time to go to the ball pen and bring in one of the regular heavy hitter Directors of the franchise, Robert Singer. The Dude sure knows how to put an episode together, with the pacing expertly handled throughout the 50 odd minute run time. Singer was able to imply things, Sam researching the coven members, without having to belabour the point and throw on useless scenes to explain what was happening in the hood. Very much appreciated, the research scenes for mine should be kept for major revelations or sudden plot twists, previous episodes tend to throw them in as various Directors seem incapable of implying developments. Robert Singer is one of the best Directors in the franchise and it certainly showed in this above average episode.

I'm actually getting some wry amusement at how much anger Supernatural is managing to generate during the course of season three. Some people really do need to extract the carrot from their arses and view the show for what it is, a dramatic episodic franchise that pits a couple of likeable leads against an array of supernatural antagonists. Malleus Maleficarum apparently caused some folk, notably in the U.S, to "not eat for days after watching this episode", build a bridge Princess. If this episode is putting you off your mash spuds and pork chops then quite watching any form of visual medium, as clearly the least thing is going to be upsetting to you.

Even the title of this one is coming under attack from various PC forces. "The actual Malleus Maleficarum is one of the most hateful anti-woman screeds ever written", well actually it was a political document aimed at breaking the power of the "wise women" and not surprisingly men who might constitute a challenge to the Church at the time. Claiming misogyny and various other crimes more than hints at the Writers of this sort of garbage having very little knowledge of what they are taking about. But by all means continue your moral outrage if that makes you sleep better at night, amusingly you must have watched the episode in order to spout your distorted views on the world, facts for the additional viewing figure.

While clearly some people are going to be sad sacks, and try to bring the rest of us down to their level of mediocrity, there's a lot more people supporting the episode who had some fun times with it. And I'm going to put that down to the rise in mullet rock after a slump in recent times. We get "Every Rose Has Its Thorn" by Poison and "I Put A Spell On You" hammered out by Screamin' Jay Hawkins. I'm going to give a C+ to the episode for the music content yo.

Showing the season is pretty uneven the viewer figure was down to 2.95 million in North America on first screening. I'm giving the Producers an out on this one due to the Writers strike and audiences being dubious on the merits of various franchises in the face of non-writers turning in scripts.

At the end of season five I'm going to break a site rule and actually publish my top ten episodes of Supernatural, and you know what I'm going to include Malleus Maleficarum, even though it might put me off the feed bag and turn me into a misogynist. Excellent episode that I've got no problems recommending to anyone reading, this is Supernatural at its best and I'm really looking forward to the rest of the season.