Quick Take: Supernatural, "Shut Up, Dr. Phil"
Quirky gore and just a touch of impending doom makes for a nice throwback to some vintage Supernatural.
Review: Supernatural, "Shut Up, Dr. Phil"
(S0705) It’s time for another time honored Supernatural tradition: the airing of crappy promos for episodes that are surprisingly entertaining. For me, “Shut Up, Dr. Phil” had a lot of things working against it from the beginning: I wasn’t allowed to watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer as a kid, so I really couldn’t have cared less about the heavily-hyped guest appearances by Charisma Carpenter and James Marsters (except that Marsters rocks my socks every time he shows up on Torchwood), I still haven’t entirely made peace with the show squandering all of that potential built up around the first two episodes of the season, and the promo for this week’s episode just looked... well... dumb.
“Shut Up, Dr. Phil” is a lot like that John Cusack quote in Say Anything, “If you start out depressed, everything else comes as a pleasant surprise.”
Sam and Dean end up in Prosperity, Indiana to investigate some freaky and fabulously gory deaths. I haven’t been brought to gagging by the gore since that one death last season with the locusts eating that one dude’s brain. Yeah. This week, we can add port-a-potties, salon hair dryers, hot tubs and cupcakes (yes, cupcakes) to the list of things I’m going to end up developing a phobia of.
Once again, Dean spends most of the episode crawling into a bottle of brain bleach over his questionable decision to wack the Amy-monster three weeks ago. I’m all for maintaining continuity and one of the trends that I really appreciate in Supernatural is the show’s ability to revive situations and characters from several episodes (or even seasons) ago and make them vital and important. However, if we’re just going to get week after week of Dean drinking his feelings more than usual and snapping at Sam and generally just sucking at life, I’d rather we resolve the Amy thing sooner than later…even if it means putting the brothers at odds with one another again.
I was worried that I wouldn’t fully appreciate Marsters and Carpenter’s appearances, but this royal couple of Nerdland is one of the best parts of this episode. Marital strife can turn vicious at the drop of a hat in a normal separation, now turn the opposing parties into centuries old witches with 800 years of infidelity and ego-tripping to work through. Now make Sam and Dean Winchester their marriage counselors.
Now sit back and watch the body count rise.
Highly recommend you head over to Sunnydale when you have a free weekend or two to check out Buffy MaryAnn. First season takes a little while to get rolling but definitely worth the trip!