Supernatural S05E21 - Two Minutes to Midnight (2010)

Review

Having learnt the location of Pestilence the Winchesters boys springing into action planning to take him down at an old folk's home. Unfortunately for the Bros Pestilence gets the better of them, so hello to sickness without benefits. Castiel makes the scene, seems he might be low on the Angel dust, but has enough to take down Pestilence. Meanwhile Bobby has sold his soul to Crowley in order to get Death's location; on the bright side he gets the use of his legs again.

With the success of gaining three of the four Horsemen's rings they needed team Winchester are ready and willing to face Death, however there is a slight fly in the ointment. Demonic forces have been at work producing the Croatoan virus and are ready to start shipping it out as an effective cure for an epidemic breaking out, welcome to the zombie apocalypse. And to make matters even more complex a serious of storm fronts are merging above Chicago which will herald in a series of natural disasters that will potential kill three million people.

Well that was one dense episode, and no didn't have the room to cover every nuance that went down, seems like scribe Sera Gamble was looking forward to her Christmas holidays so packed about three episodes worth of plotting into the one episode. For sure I was expecting the episode to cover Pestilence but not to also include Death, extreme weather patterns, and a touch of domestic terrorism as team Winchester put a stop to the possibility of a Croatoan outbreak. And that's not even getting into Sam's argument with Dean over saying yes to the ultimate evil or Bobby's decision to play tag with a Prince of Hell. So don't hate me for not covering all bases here, I'm not planning on writing an encyclopaedia over here.

The Winchesters are taking out the supporters and setting up their final round with Lucifer

Taking down Pestilence was a bit anti-climactic to be honest, I was expecting a lot more body fluids and not taking blood here, but all we get are a couple of sick Winchesters and what appears to be a rogue Angel with a touch of the flu. Still considering the amount of material the episode needed to get through this is probably a minor quibble. So four horsemen down, the end of times coming up fast, time to make a date with Death.

Team Winchester need to split, Bobby, Sam, and Castiel head on out to commit some domestic terrorism, while Dean and Crowley load up for some Death dealing. Once again there's a hell of a lot going on and I'm not going to be able to cover it all. Death is contained to a pizza parlour in Chicago, because he likes the pie, and storm clouds are gathering overhead. Dean is prepare to go one on one with the Grim Reaper but surprisingly the scythe wielder has another path for the elder Winchester brother to take. Guess strange times call for strange allies, you are going to need to watch the episode to find out what gives here and surprisingly the motivations Death has.

Meanwhile Sam's taskforce is hitting a warehouse loaded with the Croatoan virus. Complicating the raid are demons, zombies already infected with the virus, and of course the normal civilians who seem to get caught up in horror events. Sam demonstrates he hasn't gone total dark side by rescuing a whole bunch of people before the team take out the virus stocks. Okay anyone else thought this was perhaps slightly too easy, considering the importance the Croatoan outbreak is for the forces of Hell. Another minor quibble, but they do have a tendency to build up.

Clearly that's about every loose end tied up till the final episode next week, so don't think we are going to have much in the way of plot arcs stretching into season six. Now I'm not going to complain about that as this has been one hell of a season with the biggest Boss available throwing down on the Winchesters.

Got to say this episode was intense, perhaps the most intense since season one really laid it on the line and the dark tinge had me giving a standing ovation. Director Philip Sgriccia doesn't waste a single minute of his episode, which he can't afford to because there's a lot going down, and you might just find yourself missing a few points as things ring down. A tad of an issue here, I thought scribe Gamble rushed the Pestilence storyline rather than taking time to let it play, and while I enjoyed the whole Croatoan plotline and of course the character development it offered Sam I also thought it could have been held over to season six without any negative impact. The conspiracy with Death, if you are on team Lucifer, was a surprise and for sure I am not going to mark down this episode for a surprise twist.

For those of us still rocking out to the mullet music of mayhem we get one track this episode, O Death by Jen Titus. Guess that was a given considering the actual embodiment of Death is in the house. Not sure if we will find this one down YouTube way, but will try my best.

Speaking of Death, and nice segue here - no haven't finished with "segue" yet, we do get some character development for the scythe carrier. Walking down a Chicago Street Death is bumped into by some arrogant dude, boom baby one dead asshat as Dean would say. Death also likes fast food, or at least pizza, which should make put him on Dean's Xmas card list. And finally Death may have some ties to Lucifer but he plays his own game. Anyone thinking of a recurrent character here, definitely enough time was spent with what would otherwise be a simply a walk on walk off roll.

So the review feels like I've been skimming the edges of the episode but to be honest things are so dense and multi-layer that it would take a few more thousand words to get through. Needless to say this isn't a standalone episode; you need to have been following events throughout at least this season if not a few happenings in previous seasons. But for people who have been detailing the Impala this is good stuff, a lot of loose ends have been tied off and the decks are cleared for next week's final showdown. Recommending this one but be aware this is an episode that simply builds up towards the next episode. We're almost at midnight folks, and this was the episode to get us there in style.