SUPERNATURAL: “The Slice Girls” – RECAP

I don’t know about anyone else, but for me “The Slice Girls” was the breath of fresh air I’ve been waiting for from Supernatural. I’ll be blunt; it didn’t solve every single issue that has plagued Season 7, but it dealt with some of the past kerfuffles in a way I could get behind. My biggest worry going in was knowing they would be bringing up Dean’s killing of Amy yet again. I really wanted that plot to die, but sometimes we just don’t get what we want. There’s no use crying over it and as it turns out it was a smart move.

It’s important to keep Dean in a place where he can’t quite function properly. He’s led his life being able to call on any number of people for help. Never before has he been in the situation where his only partner is Sam. That’s hardly good news since Sam is barely holding on to his sanity. Like any good man worth his salt, Dean has been hitting the bottle pretty hard to numb his feelings, but he’s doing his best to put a smile on and pretend like he’s not suffering. I find it interesting that part of his coping mechanism involves meeting a woman at bar. It’s been some time since we’ve seen Dean shack up with a lady for the night. Essentially what we’re getting is Dean going backwards. He’s leaning on old habits. He meets the gorgeous Lydia and they hit it off. I really enjoyed their conversation at the bar, not so much for the actual words but for how it was shot. It was filled with extreme close ups of eyes and mouths, giving it a sense of intimacy. But it’s a fake intimacy as they’re both lying to the other person. They both put on a grand production to get what they want; sex.

The love scene was expertly intercut with a murder scene. It’s intense in a violent, sexy way. You don’t get to see that too often. The next morning, Sam and Dean are investigating the murder with Dean complaining about being “too old” for one night stands. Yet another mention of just how long its been since Dean has been this slutty.

The rest is pretty standard Supernatural storytelling. Sam and Dean discover what’s killing people (Amazonians! So there are still new types of monsters out there.) and realize they missed something. The only difference is that Dean father’s a child. Lydia happens to be one of these Amazonians and they give birth within 48 hours of conception. It’s pretty nuts, but it was interesting to see Dean come face to face with his monster child, Emma. He knows she’s dangerous and he should kill her, but you know he’s grappling with the idea of letting her go. It’s up to Sam to be the cold one and take her out (by the way, it’s nice to have a monster that’s so easily killed. Just one shot to the chest).

Naturally, Sam and Dean have a pretty heated conversation over the death of Emma and inevitably Amy’s murder is brought up. You can see Dean is loosing his edge and Sam is getting his back. It’s a complete role reversal from where they were at the beginning of the season. It’s taken awhile to get there, but I’m finally enjoying the turn of this season’s storyline. I just hope it can keep this up.