Supernatural Season 2 Episode 6: Celebrating the Life of Asa Fox Review

This Supernatural review contains spoilers.

Supernatural Season 12 Episode 6

Supernatural reminds us that nobody is safe as a houseful of hunters is picked off one by one by a particularly nasty demon. Appropriately, Billie the Reaper shows up to rub mortality in the faces of three Winchesters who’ve cheated death time and time again. 

Sheriff Jody Mills gets to guest star in this episode too. I’m glad we got a few minutes of normalcy in the beginning of the episode – it’s just Jody enjoying her day off with Netflix, the boys dropping in and being treated to Jody’s hospitality. I enjoy seeing them interacting outside of a case. Of course, the tone changes a bit when Jody gets the call to attend a funeral. 

Although Jody’s connection to Asa Fox in the story seemed shaky at best, I appreciated having non-hunter characters in the gathering. Jody is pretty hip to most of this hunter stuff now, but she’s still an outsider looking in. And Lorraine Fox, Asa’s mother, provides the grudging foil to Jody’s understanding outsider personality.

This was a well done stand-alone episode, but I would have loved a little lead up to the characters of Asa Fox and J.L. Perhaps a legend or two, to really sell that Fox had such a hunter resume that he’d be talked about in hunter gatherings across two countries. The demon J.L. was also so refreshingly evil. Demons have become so darn commonplace in Supernatural that they’re almost window dressing. J.L.’s body-swapping, conniving mind games and twisted humor made demons scary again.

There are twists at the end that are brilliantly set up in the intro scenes showing Asa’s life as a hunter. You see Asa fixing his Jeep, much to a friend’s chagrin. You see him scoring many a date in the front seat of that Jeep. You see his death scene, carefully edited. It’s only at the very end, when J.L. forces the truth out of Bucky and spills the beans about Lorraine, do we find out what’s happening in between. 

We find out that Lorraine, unhappy with Asa pursuing the life of a hunter and ignoring more domicile things like starting a family, has been sabotaging his Jeep to discourage him. One of those women Asa was with ended up being the mother of the twins. The death scene – so jarringly edited –  served the purpose of showing how suddenly a hunter’s life could be cut short, while also avoiding Bucky’s part in his death. Lorraine’s own story comes full circle – she lost a son, but realized he had a life and friends, and now she’s gained two grandchildren. So poetic.

We also needed that interaction between Mary Winchester and Billie. Naturally, the Reaper who doesn’t believe in second chances wants Mary back where she belongs. There’s a tense moment when that closure is offered to Mary. It was made clear when she was brought back that she didn’t feel she fit in this world, and Billie hits on that sore topic immediately. It’s tempting bait, but Mary decides she’ll go back after she’s good and ready. Maybe seeing the cause and effect of how Asa’s life so positively affected so many that makes her decide. Maybe it’s the opportunity to get to know her boys. Whatever it is, I’m glad Mary’s journey didn’t end here. 

Really, it’s sad we didn’t get to explore some of these moments some more in another episode or a larger arc. For what was basically a filler episode (I say that because of no progression on the Lucifer story arc) this was a damn good story.