Supernatural Season 14, Episode 11 Review: Damaged Goods
In Supernatural's "Damaged Goods," Nick goes to Hibbing for a lead on his personal demon. Meanwhile Dean has a secret project.
This Supernatural review contains spoilers.
Supernatural Season 14, Episode 11
The stage was set for a confrontation in Hibbing between Nick and our hunters. Meanwhile, Dean happens to have been in town for his farewell tour, and Mary and Sam finally get to see what Dean has decided to do about his Michael problem.
Nick, bless him, is acting more and more like a serial killer. I can’t get over what a fantastic choice Mark Pellegrino has been for this role. He’s portrayed this character as heartbroken, Devilish, jokey, and sympathetic. The writers took the time to build Nick up as a sympathetic character, allowing us to feel for him and wish he could be redeemed.
Nick’s search for answers in the murders of his family has led him down the path of casual murder so that when his sights turn to Mary, we can be really worried about her well being. Nick is throwing off those serial killer vibes now and it seems pretty obvious when the cart collector at the local grocery store can sense it. Good on Supermarket Joe for not giving some rando Mary’s info, by the way.
Nick is also a calculating person, so it seems fitting he once housed Lucifer. He uses a paperclip to MacGyver his way out of handcuffs, hunts down Mary’s location, easily avoids a tripwire trap and figures a foolproof way to open the demon Abraxas’s puzzle box prison. All this from a person who no longer has anything supernatural about him.
Nick does point out a major flaw in the puzzle box traps. If they can be simply drilled into, they’re not all that secure.
Further reading: Supernatural Season 14 Episode 10 Review
Meanwhile, Dean is not acting himself, and it’s because he’s on his farewell tour before Michael breaks out of his mental prison. At least Dean builds his Michael trap to some good tunes. Dean’s adventures are set to a fun soundtrack lately. Last week, Marshall Tucker. This week it’s “No Time” by The Guess Who.
It’s not all doom and gloom and serial killers. Some of this episode was precious simply because of the mother-son bonding between Mary and Dean. When he suggests “Winchester Surprise,” a meal we must assume is loaded with calories and irresistible to a hungry kid, we get big nostalgia vibes. Dean was lucky enough to know his mom before she died, so he knew a life before hunting, a life of bad home cooking and a family that ate together.
Further reading: Supernatural’s 300th Episode — Details on John Winchester’s Return
There is one unresolved Mary question: Just how many pumpkins has she been shooting? Supermarket Joe says she normally buys whiskey and pumpkins instead of actual groceries. How many pumpkins do you need? You know they make actual targets for target practice, right?
Dean and Sam need to have their usual disagreement. This time it’s about Nick, and how they’d tried to redeem him before he ran off. Sam had always been on the side of trying to help Nick, and Nick dissuades him from that way of thinking. Nick told Sam, “You couldn’t fix me because I didn’t want to be fixed. I was never broken.”
There’s something to be said about an episode that shows an all powerful demon — and a sociopathic human who is way scarier. It sure makes you wonder.
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Bridget is a graduate student attending the Savannah College of Art & Design for Film and Television. A self-professed geek, Bridget has been an avid reader…