A quick introduction before we get to the meat and potatoes… Hello, my fellow citizens of MoonDoor! I’m Arik, you may have seen me around in the comments section before, and I’ll be filling in for your very own (and mine too!) Vini B., who is off chasing a rainbow somewhere, I’m sure. Hope to see you soon, girl! Now, let’s dive in, shall we?
After the heaviness that was last week’s return of Supernatural, this week we were treated to the complete opposite. No one was tortured, no one was stabbed to death, and most importantly, there were no tablets to be had – not even an iPad.
The Writer Dronestm bring us their own version of an homage to a Renaissance Faire, tossed in a little LARPing, gave us a monster of the week (sort of), the return of the fabulous Felicia Day as Charlie Bradbury, some hot girls making out, and a lot of Dean in costume. I don’t know about you, but I call that a win. Of course, there are nits we can pick at and I probably will do precisely that but for the most part, it is my humble opinion that what the writers set out to do, they accomplished.
When we meet who we already know is going to be our first victim, Ed, we get a glimpse at his apartment, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want some of his stuff. I call dibs on the He-Man action figure! Anyway, he gets torn to bits by an unknown force and the most canon ship in the fandom, Blood/Wall, is on full display once again.
We cut to Dean and Sam in the Impala and then Dean is the one to bring up talking about their feelings?! That’s called character development, ladies and gentlemen, and it’s being done right.
One not-so-small gripe about Sam’s story this episode? While it makes sense that his character is going through a bit of slump after the whole Ameliadebacle ordeal, what doesn’t make sense is pretty much everything else about that story. We got closure on it last week, or as close to closure as we’re going to get on a story that never truly worked to begin with, but the fact still stands that we’ve never gotten a legitimate explanation for why he didn’t even bother to look for Dean, and it’s fairly clear at this point that we never will, so let’s all breathe a collective sigh and do our best to move on from it. This includes Sam.
Dean, ever the perceptive brother, notices Sam’s mood and suggests a date night off from “the life.” He asks Sam to a movie, or perhaps a bar - maybe even some mini-golf where the last obstacle is an over-sized clown head. Just kidding, Sam. He would never do that to you. Again.
Garth calls in to direct the boys to a hunt before they have time to decide on what to do on their night off and they’re off to the scene of a crime instead. (This was after learning they’re being tracked by Garth via the GPS on their phones. This was also the part where I grabbed my phone and turned off the GPS.) At the scene, besides getting another look at the mysterious tattoo on the victim’s arm (LotR White Tree of Gondor, anyone?), we learn at the crime scene that the victim’s “twig and berries” are intact. Um… thanks?
Cheap suits and “blue steel” looks in tow, the boys are all set to interrogate the singular suspect for the murder… until he starts crying like I do whenever a cop pulls me over. I don’t care if it’s just to tell me I have a broken taillight. The first words out of my mouth, through massive sobs, are, “I don’t want to be scared straight!” This guy has a similar reaction.
We have just enough time to get a quick “Fifty Shades” reference before we go all “Winchester research” on the LARPing game the victim and the suspect played. Dean can barely control his glee. Mind you, this surprises no one, least of all Sam, who has been at the other end of Dean’s semi-vague Star Trek references for years!
Lance, the suspect who kind of reminds me of Garth, gets killed by a mysterious force in the interrogation room… yada yada. The boys watch it on video and discover the mysterious tattoo on his forearm just like Ed’s… yada yada. And off to MoonDoor we go!
Let us take a moment to thank the casting department here because, really, if you’re going to cast the queen of the nerds, you can do no better than Felicia Day. It’s the part she was born to play.
In the queens tent at MoonDoor, after some back and forth on imminent danger and whether Charlie should stay or not (and some battle strategizing on Dean’s part about the southern wall), we settle on her Highness, the Queen of MoonDoor, (who happens to watch the same porn that Dean does) staying to help. Sam goes off to the “future” tent to do some research and Dean dons the crown briefly (hellooooo, Your Majesty!), and then slips into something a little less comfortable and little more BBC’s Merlin. And just like that, date their night off has turned into a hunt with some LARPing on the side.
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It doesn’t take long for Dean to fill Charlie in on what’s new in their world, and she concludes that both he and Sam have both been through tough break-ups recently. Yes, Dean, you are that obvious. What’s not obvious to me is why Dean and Charlie are BFFs now. I do love their chemistry, though.
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Meanwhile, in the “future” tent, Sam makes a new friend who likes what she sees, in typical horny nerd fashion. (This is why nerds are my favorite flavor. That, and I like a nice big… brain.)
We discover that the mysterious murderous tattoo that is linked to these events is actually a symbol from a rival king, and her Highness with her new handmaiden, Dean, wander off to seek an audience with the Shadow King for information. If nothing else, writing that sentence made me giggle. They run into royal kiss-ass, Boltar, on the way and our freshly appointed handmaiden sends her Highness back to the camp for safety. This being Supernatural, of course, she gets captured by someone wearing a costume Heidi Klum would deem unworthy of her annual Halloween party.
When Charlie wakes (don’t worry, I didn’t realize she'd been knocked unconscious either), she paraphrases a Julia Roberts movie, tries to run away, and begs for her life, all while Heidi Klum’s reject looks on in silence. Funnily enough, it’s the begging that works and we meet the person behind the dead animal mask. She’s a fairy! And a pretty one at that! Last time we met fairies, they were tiny and had… nipples, or so Dean said. But this one is a good fairy, she insists, and she just wants to go home, except her master, whoever summoned her, won’t let her. Charlie does everything she can to console her and this includes a little tongue hockey in a tent in the middle of Vancouver MoonDoor.
Reunited with Sam, who, as per Dean himself, loves Dean’s outfit, they discover Charlie is missing and Dean takes credit for arranges the prisoner exchange they will now use to get information on Charlie’s whereabouts. It doesn’t go down exactly as planned, with Dean literally bringing a gun to sword fight, but they get the information they need and run into the odd tent in the middle of nowhere to find…
Oh, and did I mention that royal kiss-ass Jerry Boltar turns out to be the fairy’s master in what was some ploy to be king? Geez, and I thought I took my Dungeons and Dragons too seriously!
Even with the unfair fairy advantage, Jerry is no match for Dean and “the big one,” and they easily overpower him after Charlie destroys the spell book that gave him control of the fairy. She saves the day and gets the girl! Except the girl has to leave and take Jerry with her to face a tribunal of her fellow fairies for his sins. Again, the things this show makes me write are enough to have me committed under normal circumstances. Like that time Dean and Sam told a psychiatrist about their lives and they ended up locked up in a mental institution with Martin. Oh Martin, you crazy bastard.
When all is said and done, we end on a better note with Charlie this time and it sounds like we’ll be seeing her again. It also looks like their date night off was ruined… or was it? Having a little bit of fun is exactly what they both need, Sam deduces, and so we get Dean in one of Britney Spears’ wigs from her last tour, emphatically reciting that speech from Braveheart (“It’s the only one he knows”), Sam in a ponytail, and a great big battle for Moondoor!
All in all, this was a successful monster-of-the-week episode with some chuckles thrown in and the return of a fan-favorite GLBT character. It was a little light on content, but my guess is that’s exactly what they were going for in an episode that seems to be sandwiched between two heavy story-oriented episodes. (Spoiler alert: next week they meet their grandfather, Peepaw Winchester. Okay, that’s not his name but whatever.)
What did you all think? Satisfied with the ramen noodles, or did you want more sausage in your soup? I don’t know where I was going with that analogy, but it sounds deliciously dirty so I’m keeping it.
Until next week!
