Supernatural: S08E06 - Southern Comfort.

And so the midweek TV clusterfuck, continues!


I would complain that we are yet again at a filler monster of the week episode but this is really where the show is at its strongest. I really wish the show hadn't piled so much crap onto it, so that it could strip all that away and keep it to the brothers driving around America ganking monsters like the good old days for the rest of the season. I know we wont get that however, so I'm just going to soak up and savour every monster of the week episode before they head back to the actual plot and the whole show falls apart again. Just like it has done for the last three or so seasons.

Southern Comfort also gives us an extra treat with a new monster - a spectre. Spectre's appear when their graves are desecrated  A spectre is different from a ghost because it possesses you to act on your feelings. I say different lightly because minus the green goo it drops everywhere and some aesthetic differences, there really isn't a whole lot that sets spectres apart from normal ghosts, you don't even have to gank it in any unique way. The spectres back story involves two brothers fighting on either side of a war, so of course it takes a liking to Dean with all the beef he has with Sam and Dean almost ends up killing him, but Garth of all people, saves the day.

That is right, this week, Garth is back! A character I think has so far been largely wasted but they use him for interesting effect this week since we learn that Garth has basically become the new Bobby, he wears Bobby's hat, uses Bobby's phrases and this creates a lot of conflict between him and Dean. This in turn shows us what an effect Bobby's death had on the hunting community in general. We also learn more about Garth in general too, he is educated for a start and he also killed the tooth fairy? It was such a bizarre scene and Garth is so strange anyway, I didn't know whether to take this seriously or not.

And so we continue the adventures of Supernatural, Season 8: Childish Bitching. The funniest thing is both Sam and Dean are right about each other, they are basically doing exactly the same thing wrong but one for a human and one for a monster. Hey at least they use the spectre to really make things explosive for once.

Surprisingly Benny is completely missing from the episode despite a brief argument about him at the start of it. It did seem kind of odd that we got no real proper pay-off with Sam meeting him at the end of the last episode. I really assumed he'd be like the new Cas. No purgatory flashbacks this week either, just Sam and his pointless girlfriend flashbacks. And some hilariously awkward pillow talk.

Supernatural normally has pretty solid action...however this week is more goofy than anything else, it looked cheap, even for Supernatural. However it was still pretty cool to see Sam and Dean fight each other, physically that is, rather than just squabbling like they have for the whole season. I mean I don't deny that both of them have valid points but just give it a rest already guys.

Although nothing spectacular, Southern Comfort was a perfectly solid monster of the week episode and it says a lot when Supernatural leaves me with little to say. This was just an entertaining little filler episode, not exactly a whole lot of substance to it but a solid outing nonetheless.

Pros;

• Good old monster of the week episodes.
• Yay Garth is back.
• It was pretty cool to see Sam and Dean actually wail on one another, rather than just bitching at each other this week.
• It's always nice to learn about the wider world of Supernatural, something that is kept oddly vague.

Cons;

• Thanks for the new monster...but couldn't you have used something that isn't practically exactly like what we already have?
• Do Sam and Dean really need to squabble every season? Does the season not count until they've wasted half of it with Sam and Dean blowing raspberries at one another?
• Sam's flashbacks are so pointless, stop wasting time on them.
• Minus a bit of character development, this was basically a filler episode again.

Think About It!

-Locke