Supernatural season 5 episode 3 review

5.3 Free To Be You And Me

So, if your eyes had wandered over the delicious content on Den Of Geek yesterday, you may have glimpsed the big Supernatural news. Season 6, ladies and gentleman has been green lit. It’s all go! It’s coming up trumps! It’s in the fast lane with all the other TV show vehicles!

Of course, like any other show with a storyline which seemed to be heading quickly towards its natural conclusion, this throws up a whole barrel of questions. The main one being, what the hell can Sam and Dean face that’s more foe than the antichrist? A thousand rabid monkeys? Zombie Hitler? Themselves?

Erik Kripke has promised that he will still be heading up the production team and not passing the keys to the unholy kingdom to any young pretender, but some will worry that, as the story arcs drag, Supernatural could end up like so many other shows before it. In a word: mediocre. Still, there’s an episode to review and demons to fight, so I’ll leave it at this. I’m in no way neutral on the subject; I’m just in two minds about it.

Episode three, Free To Be You And Me, saw Sam and Dean taking an unprecedented sabbatical from each other. Having parted ways in last week’s episode, Sam finds work as a barman in a local waterhole. Turns out Law degrees are useless after all.

As the younger brother tries to cling onto a life of normality, Dean, on the other hand, is still working the day job, passing himself off as an FBI agent and staking vampires (“Eat it, Twilight!” being one of the best little allusions to pop-culture in a long while).

Of course, the Winchester’s sure ain’t used to living all on their lonesome, so they’ve both found themselves bunk buddies, fellow co-worker Lindsey for Sam and everyone’s favourite deadpan angel Castiel for Dean.

While it’s unusual not to see Jared Padalecki (Sam) and Jensen Ackles (Dean) acting side by side for a full forty minutes each week, Misha Collins (Castiel) makes a great substitute sidekick as he proves his comedic worth in an episode which mixes humour in with the usual darker undertones (Supernatural‘s speciality). While, in retrospect, the brothel scene did feel like a way to fill time in a slow burner episode, all the little moments from Castiel’s nervous disposition to Dean’s advice “not to order off the menu” added the right amount of light relief, even if it was a bit frivolous.

Sam’s friendship with Lindsey, however, seemed only to exist for the sake of some eye candy for the boys and collateral for some renegade hunters who were looking for a fight. Well, we sure got that in all its bar stool flinging glory, which certainly isn’t a criticism. Sam’s sure got a mean right hook and Jared Padalecki’s sure been putting his gym equipment to good use. What?!

Free To Be You And Me was really centred around two lines of dialogue that truly mattered. Firstly, the angel Raphael’s hallowed words “There is no God” and secondly, the slow, stoic and macabre voice of Lucifer to Sam, “I will never lie to you, I will never trick you, but you will say yes to me.”

Continuing Castiel’s mission to prove the existence of God, he coaxes Dean into trapping the Archangel in a circle of holy oil. Having rushed to the building that Raphael is in, a drawn out conversation ensues, reaching its climax as the angel begins to slowly walk towards Dean with the promise of hurting him way more than Zachariah (forever known as ‘the biggest dick in the universe’) ever could. But just at the pinnacle moment, what do you know?! Dean and Cas have come fully prepared, having conveniently and prematurely poured holy oil around the exact spot where Raphael is standing. As much as the scene was exciting and interesting to watch, these little ‘conveniences’, nah, ‘loopholes’, can get rather old. But hey! It’s fantasy and everyone knows that the laws of time moving in its normal, linear fashion get chucked out of the window when it suits, which is, err; convenient.

Arguably the finest scene in last night’s episode was its last, as Lucifer and Sam finally meet. Here, we finally have confirmation that Sam is the devil’s vessel, putting the Winchester brothers in line for a head on head battle towards some true end. (Of course, now we know that’s likely to be in Season 6.)

Mark Pellegrino once again proves he was right for the part. With his non-dramatic, delicate speech he keeps Lucifer less devilishly caricature and more genuinely evil. Why has Sam been chosen? Why not someone else? Well, of course, we’ve known from the beginning. After all, as Lucifer mouths in his hushed tone before the end credits roll, “It had to be you Sam, it had to be you.”

Read our review of the season 5 opener here. Catch the show on Living in the UK.