Supernatural: S08E04 - Bitten.

Let the mid-week TV clusterfuck commence! Last week Supernatural had one of its best episodes in a very long time. Will they continue that and start a streak this week or will they royally fuck that up? Let's find out!


All I can say is, really, Supernatural jumps on the found footage bandwagon? Really? I know they do this kind of stuff ironically but...really? Admittedly mixing werewolves and found footage is a little different. And although the Supernatural werewolves are kind of rubbish, I'm a huge fan of werewolves in general and it's fun seeing them as the monster of the week again. It also probably helps that the episode has more nods to my film of the year Chronicle than more obvious choices like the Paranormal Activity franchise. Plus, the found footage style actually makes Supernatural's minimalist take on monsters actually look pretty great.

Opening at a brutal crime scene, whatever the brothers have arrived at, they've arrived too late. However they find a laptop with a video file asking to be played. The video starts fairly boringly, three students - one who really wants to make a movie and land a career in filming, one love triangle and a bunch of cameras. Things start getting more interesting when one of them is attacked in the woods, they are bitten but by the time they get home...the bite is gone and he starts to develop superpowers, however just as quickly as things seem to be picking up, things start to go horribly wrong.

In Bitten's defence, taking the brothers out of the story for the most part does add tension in places where it wouldn't normally be and the episode is well written and paced enough that it is both horrifying hilarious and completely thrilling with each element bouncing and playing off one another for great effect.

However if I was to have any complaints, I would say that changing the perspective to the monster of the week, only further makes Sam and Dean seem like the villains, rather than the heroes. I mean I know they let her go at the end and give her a chance, but that just feels out of character with all the innocent people we've already seen them murder in this season alone, let alone any of the others. I mean is this like a thing for this series? Although hey, no mention of Thor this week.

Bitten also expands Supernatural's werewolves with the introduction of Pure Blood werewolves, which are somewhere between your normal werewolf and an Alpha. Their powers include transformations outside of the full moon and in general much more control of themselves. This is pretty standard stuff for werewolf lore though, which is a shame because Supernatural can have some pretty fun reinventions along with all the terrible ones. But werewolves never really got much justice in this series, they are just basically vampires, only they don't need blood, they need hearts.

Holy crap, this season is just getting better and better, this episode was probably even better than last weeks, even considering found footage, shitty werewolves and this episode basically being filler. These last two episodes have really filled me with hope, who knows, maybe season eight will be a good one after all.

Pros;

• Yay, werewolves.
• Supernatural feels like it's finally starting to get good again - this was a great episode and so was last weeks.
• If you're going to do found footage, going more in the direction of Chronicle was a great move, we don't need any more shitty Paranormal Activity clones.
• Changing the perspective to the monsters of the week was another great move on the episodes part.
• Found footage really works in Supernatural's favour visually because it looks so low-budget all the time anyway.

Cons;

• Was it really necessary to make this found footage, though?
• The brothers are still assholes. 
• Letting Kate go felt out of character for the brothers.
• I love werewolves and I'm glad we get a werewolf episode, but why are werewolves so rubbish in this show? They are just vampires basically and that sucks.

Think About It!

-Locke