SUPERNATURAL: “Adventures in Babysitting” Recap

First things first: do the writers of Supernatural have a secret hope that Kevin McNally will be able to take the place of Jim Beaver? Don’t get me wrong, I like McNally’s paranoid Frank character, but if the writers’ plan was to kill Bobby only to replace him with a slightly more crotchety version of him then what was the point of killing him at all? It’ll be harder for fans to latch on to Frank because he doesn’t have the seven years of backstory that Bobby had with Sam and Dean. Then again, I have no proof one way or the other regarding what role Frank will play from here on out. His appearance in “Adventures in Babysitting” could have been his last for all I know.

I have two big gripes against this episode, with number one being it was, without a doubt, the dullest episode this season. It started off promising enough. I liked the little montage of the boys dealing with Bobby’s death, slowly finding motivation to continue working. That was nice. That felt real. I wouldn’t expect either Sam or Dean to immediately want to start searching for the meaning behind the numbers. They needed to grieve and I was glad they were given that opportunity. And after three weeks past, they were ready to continue their fight against Dick Roman, with one added objective: avenge Bobby Singer.

But after that, things got rather stale. Dean’s storyline with Frank was expectedly dull, as they were doing reconnaissance work and dealing with Dean’s feelings. Sam found himself with a typical monster of the week scenario, with the added bonus of a young teenaged girl missing her daddy. Everything involving the monster was just… uninspired. It didn’t have the usual Supernatural pop to it. It was like it was drifting along, without any real desire to be exciting. And then the twist of there being two instead of one could be seen coming the moment the episode started. A guy’s got to wonder, what’s the point?

My second big gripe was with the teenaged girl, Krissy (Madison McLaughlin). She was a walking, talking plot device. or to put it anther way; she did whatever the plot demanded of her, whether it was concealing an extra knife to kill the monster or poignantly remind Dean of his younger self. The writers attempted to hide her true purpose by giving her one of the most annoying personalities a kid has ever had on this show. She was a little brat.  Every time she opened her mouth I immediately started hoping the scene would change. And it never did.

For an episode intended to follow one of the most tragic episodes in the series, “Adventures in Baby” did very little in keeping the sense of loss alive. It managed to carry it through for the opening montage, but it soon became lost amongst a terrible monster of the week plot. Only Dean seemed to show being affected by Bobby’s death, but even he dropped all pretenses once he had to get involved with the monster. There should have been more Bobby, though not in a literal sense. Once the ball was rolling, I didn’t feel him anymore. Even though he was the driving force behind a lot of choices this episode, I still felt like he was forgotten by the midway point. His death should have had a bigger impact.