Review

With nothing much happening the Brothers head to Concrete, Washington to investigate the case of the pervy ghost. Seems a supernatural presence is stalking women in the shower room of the local Health club. When the Bros arrive they find there's a lot more strangeness in the air of Concrete which doesn't involve cement dust. A giant teddy bear that is alive is raiding the local store for girly drinks and porn mags, possibly doesn't help the Bear's depressed nature. Some dude has won a lot of money in the lottery. A young boy is suddenly terrorising the bullies that have been harassing him every day. And the local loser has suddenly become engaged to the town hottie. Things aren't right in the state of Concrete folks.

Dean discovers they are dealing with an ancient Babylonian curse brought about by a coin dropped in the local Chinese restaurant Lucky Chin's fountain. Seems if you throw a coin into the fountain your wish will be granted, but not in the exact fashion you might imagine. The Babylonian coin brings about chaos, death, and destruction. Only problem for the Winchesters is they need to find the person who dropped the original coin in the fountain to remove the curse.

I was digging the start of this episode, and not for the obvious reasons, Director Robert Singer is back with a vengeance. We are inside a shower room and a woman is taking a shower, don't worry Supernatural is as coy as ever, you won't be seeing naughty bits. Anyways a shadow appears through the clouded shower screen, which I guess is a wink at any number of movies, horror sure does like to sneak up on chicks taking a shower. When our gal turns to go dry herself the shadow blinks out, leading me to believe we're either taking a ghost or a revenant. As the chick is drying her hair she becomes aware of someone or something watching her, she turns but nobody is there. Eventually she discards the towel she is using to dry her hair by throwing it behind her, not entirely sure that made a lot of sense, where it lands on the head of our supernatural element. Naturally the chick goes into panic screaming mode and Casper the pervert ghost says "I'm sorry Mrs Armstrong", say what! Director Singer caught me there as I wasn't expecting that, it gets worse later in the episode when Sam questions Ms Armstrong and discovered the "ghost" also didn't want her to tell his mom!?!

While I was certainly digging the episode served up to me, who doesn't like a giant animated teddy bear that reads porn and is suicidal, the Producers were ensuring that the plot arcs weren't being forgotten as the at times surreal events unfolded in Concrete. The episode is neatly bookended by the question of just how much Dean remembered from his time in the pit. At the start of the episode Sam is questioning him about it, due to Uriel letting the cat out of the bag, but Dean is denying any memory of his time in hell. By the end of the episode Dean admits to Sam he remembers everything about his time down below but isn't prepared to go into any details. This is clearly going to have ramifications through the second half of the season but I'm not quite picking where the Writers are going with this element just yet. Anyways I thought it was a nifty framing device and keeps us on track with things that haven't been resolved as yet.

Dean remembers his time in Hell, this can't be a good development!

At the heart of the episode is one of the truly great tropes of horror, be careful what you wish for as your wish may be granted, just not in the manner you expected. The idea of wish fulfilment as a sort of supernatural punishment for reaching above your station dates at least back to early Islamic times when Jinn, or Genies, could be evil and you are warned to not accept their offerings. Of course this somehow got turned into the whole three wishes thing in Western writing, which I guess duplicates Biblical numbering, but I have noticed recently a few movies and novels that view the Genie as an evil creature out to do harm by corrupting the wishes of their victims. Perhaps the best example in horror however of "being careful what you wish for" is of course W. W. Jacobs classic tale, The Monkey's Paw which once again emphasises that you should not attempt to rise above your station via supernatural wish fulfilment. In Wishful Thinking nearly every wish granted is corrupted in some way to being a slice of personal hell. In Dean's case the sandwich he wishes for turns out to have some unhealthy properties.

Out of interest Sam Raimi (Wes) drops in to add to the Supernatural street cred. While Sam Raimi is probably not considered horror royalty as such he's certainly the only notable horror actor the series has had since Linda Blair back in season one. Raimi actually does alright in his role of loser who has wished for the hottest chick in town to love him, and yes he does end up having one hell of a decision to make as things start to spiral out of control.

Before I wrap this one I wanted to mention the dilemma the boys find themselves in and yet another classic horror theme in Wishful Thinking. Once they determine the issue the township is facing is people being granted their wishes Dean wonders if they would be douches for removing that opportunity. Later we find the coin was minted for Babylonian chaos gods, i.e. via being granted their wishes the townsfolk will end up in complete chaos. One of the foundation blocks in horror is the darkness brings with it chaos, bloating out the normal ordered lives people lead. Stephen King likened it to the Greek God Dionysus holding sway over the more sober Apollo, though admittedly King didn't mention Apollo's association with darkness and plagues. In Wishful Thinking the Winchester Bros are exonerated from being "douche bags" due to the whole chaos thing, the Boys are fighting to restore order and harmony as is the requirement of all dark genre white hat wearers.

This is becoming kind of repetitive, no mullet rock again this week. What's that all about?

While not the greatest episode of Supernatural I've ever seen Wishful Thinking was still entertaining, got to love a giant Teddy deciding to end it all because the world is bad. We got to find out what Dean remembered from the pit, everything, and besides a bit of humour some solid horror conventions were adhered to. End of day one of those episodes that isn't going to harm your health or make it onto your list of top ten Supernatural episodes.