Supernatural Season 15 Episode 12 Review: Galaxy Brain

Sam and Dean work together to get an alternate universe wrong righted and team up with Sheriff Jody on Supernatural.

Supernatural Season 15 Episode 12: Galaxy Brain
Photo: Bettina Strauss/The CW

This Supernatural review contains spoilers.

Supernatural Season 15 Episode 12

Chuck opens this episode of Supernatural by monologuing, and frankly complaining, to Radio Shed guy in an alternate universe where we have President Hillary Clinton. This little mention is a quick way for the viewer to get on board with the alternate universe situation while showing a believable world like ours — not some spooky hellscape, but a world we could conceivably care about. Chuck’s exposition details his frustration with trying to get our Sam and Dean to follow with his Cain and Abel storyline. He talks about how in other universes, he got them to play along, but it’s these two, the ones who are resisting the most, who are the really important ones to him. 

This intro scene, though it may at first seem unconnected to the story where Sam and Dean need to rescue Sheriff Jody, is setting a stage in which the audience is privvy to vast cosmic knowledge before our main characters get a hint of it. Chuck lets slip that he’s not sure about having all these alternates…that maybe he should pare them down. In this way, we’re all the more affected in some way as Radio Shed guy’s world is…in a word…meteor’d.

Sam and Dean are brought back into the Alternate Universe insanity when they meet Alternate Universe Kaia again (we’ll call her Kaia-2). She’s still connected to Kaia-Prime (the Kaia of Sam and Dean’s Earth) who is surprisingly alive in her dystopian home When she brings this info to the Winchesters, it connects our boys to Chuck’s monologue in the beginning. The other worlds are ending. The importance of our prime story is all the more important. This has all the implications of when DC had the Crisis on Infinite Earths storyline in the comics and the New 52 reboot 25 years later, a simplification in order to get back to basics. 

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Sheriff Jody Mills is reintroduced as she proclaims “Oh yikes” to a bludgeoned cow. Jody has retained her spicy level of cop sass and I am all here for it. After a little hiccup, in which Jody is tied up in order to lure the Winchesters into an ambush, she regains that spiciness when she voices her opinion on what to do with Kaia-2. It’s all the more fun for Jody to appear in this episode, not just because she’s tied to Kaia’s story, but also because of her involvement with the failed Wayward Sisters spinoff, a passing joke that’s made in one of Chuck’s scenes.

Also — Cas and Jody never met until this episode!? How did I miss that?! Their interaction was brief and did nothing more than dismissively mention the fact that they’ve never meant before. 

Sam and Dean discuss the elephant in the room — the ramifications of soulless Jack eating angel hearts because the mysterious Death told him to. Dean understands how committed Billie aka Death is to rules, so if she’s set rules down for Jack they might have to follow it. 

It’s great to have Jack back, but I do question how soulless he really is. Jack genuinely seems to care that Kaia-Prime was left in an alternate universe in horrible conditions. He makes it his goal to rescue her despite the dangers associated with using his powers. This knee-jerk reaction is more akin to a heartfelt, soulful human than an unfeeling nephilim. Did a stay in The Empty change him? These questions will linger for some time. 

Merle the Reaper is not a fan of “Winchester levels of stupidity” and tells Jack point blank he can’t help Kaia the way he wants to. A little self flagellation is a Supernatural leitmotif. Without a little ranking on stupid character choices, or a riff on “failed spinoffs” it wouldn’t be true to Supernatural’s spirit. I like a production that can enjoy doing what that they do but can also poke fun at it as well.

Cas wants Jody to stay in the bunker to keep her safe. Since Cas took Claire’s father, he doesn’t want to be responsible for taking her mother figure as well. It’s just about the kindest thing he can do for a pseudo-daughter — to make sure she doesn’t lose yet another parent. That yearning for familial bond still seems to be present in Cas — unless this reviewer is reading too far into it. 

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Billie’s flashy entrance near the end of the episode was great. Lisa Berry has been killin’ it (pardon the language) as Billie the Reaper/Death ever since she was introduced a few seasons back. She’s suave, threatening, and pragmatic all in one. Her appearance at this point also proves a point — that God himself does have an end.

There’s also a much needed flashback to our original Death (Julian M. Richings) saying one day he’ll reap God. This sparks a lot of contemplation in this reviewer. Can we perhaps see the original actor return for such a part? The possibilities are tantalizing and rife with that coming-full-circle satisfaction.

“Galaxy Brain” launched us back into the insanity of multiple worlds, smashed that to pieces, and reintroduced us to the near impossibility of killing God by bringing Billie back to impart some harsh words of wisdom at the end of a scythe. It was an episode that a random channel flipper would be supremely lost in, but a fan could appreciate for building on, and honoring moments that came before. 

Just an update on the real world — the decision was made just last Friday to temporarily halt production on Supernatural and other CW shows due to concerns for crew safety due to the spread of COVID-19. Many productions across all traditional networks and streaming services such as Netflix have also paused or cancelled production as the threat of spreading the virus is possible in conditions where you have a large number of people together filming a TV show. As of this production halt, Supernatural had two episodes left to film. Let’s just hope they can get things back under control and resume production before Jared Padalecki moseys on over to the Walker, Texas Ranger show he’s headlining next. 

Rating:

4 out of 5