Supernatural Season 14 Episode 2 Review: Gods and Monsters

This Supernatural  review contains spoilers.

Supernatural Season 14 Episode 2

Supernatural season 14 episode 2 brought us several storylines and plenty of drama to sink our teeth into. The search for Michael, Jack’s self discovery and Nick’s origin story were all given equal merit in an episode that cleverly juggled our interest between them. Each storyline was worthy of our time, and better yet, left us wanting more.

First, we’ll start with the archangel in the room: Michael. The episode opens on Michael’s mad science mixing angelic grace with monster blood. He’s experimenting to create something new. We find he can at least make werewolves shrug off silver like they’re too good for it. That makes things complicated for our hunters, but also brings up the question of what Michael is really creating. You don’t really think he’ll stop there, do you? This is all part of something bigger and nastier down the road. Perhaps super(natural) soldiers to fall in line behind Michael? It would make sense, since there’s only a handful of angels left.

Jack frustrated with his angelic impotence has decided to recenter and improve himself. Castiel has another dad discussion with Jack, really getting good at this pep talk thing. “The past, where you came from, that’s important but it’s not as important as the future and where you’re going,” Cas tells him, while extolling the virtues of patience and persistence. Jack is gonna need all that given his powers could take anywhere from a month to a hundred years to return. Of course, that opens up a really convenient Jack-gets-his-powers-back-in-the-nick-of-time plot point sometime in the future.

The scene with Jack and his grandparents — who tragically believe he’s just an intern who worked with Kelly Kline — was painfully touching. Jack didn’t give away his true identity, though the way the grandparents talked to him, they must have sensed a kinship.

When Jack returned to the bunker, Cas could have reamed him out. In fact, that’s the kind of conflict we would typically see when Sam and Dean have their major disagreements. Instead, Cas softened, and told Jack another poignant, quotable insight, “What you did, you did from a place of kindness. There are worse ways to be human than to be kind.”

In this Jack and Cas scene, they are sitting very far apart, perfectly separated by the archway into the next room. The blocking of this scene doesn’t make sense until it turns out they are diametrically opposed on how far they should take their confrontation with Michael. Jack, having had more experience with the archangel in that other world, believes that if all else fails, Dean will have to die too. The visual cue in their wide shot, showing them spacially far from each other, prefaced this and gave us an early hint of this oncoming tension.

The third incredible plot line was that of Nick’s origin. Nick discovers that the brutal murder of his family prompted Lucifer to sway him. When Nick discovers the murder is still unsolved, he is driven back into grief and ultimately anger. In a quick blink-and-you’d-miss-it moment, Nick performs the “Lucifer snap” at Cas, not realizing he’s channeling a little leftover Lucifer in his system. It’s chilling.

Watching the premiere, I felt Nick had the potential to be a serial killer. He’s been possessed by ultimate evil for so long, surely some of that rubbed off, right? After seeing him this episode, we see those lingering effects coming to light. The diabolical thing is — it didn’t happen right away. First, the writers made us empathetic towards Nick and his humanness. Then, when he truly snaps, we are left in a much darker place emotionally.

“Gods and Monsters” ends with Sam, Mary and Bobby confronted by “Michael,” thematically lit by a red light streaming in harsh angles through the windows. When he slowly approaches, ditches the old timey hat and collapses against a beam, we see all the mannerisms of the evil archangel have evaporated. Dean is back. Or is it? We’re left with paranoid thoughts, being that it wouldn’t be unheard of for the archangel to infiltrate the hunter’s ranks. It’s likely that after some tests, we’ll see this is Dean, and the question will remain as to what Michael created with his experimentations that led him to ditching his perfect vessel.

This episode was better than it had any right to be. No story line lagged behind in tempo, and one can even forgive the retconning that allowed a werewolf to change at will when the rules dictate they shouldn’t.

Season 14, man. It’s a time for surprises and rebirths and new discoveries. It seems Supernatural found a way to continue delivering.

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