Supernatural Review: Season 9 Episode 20 "Bloodlines"

By: Andrew Dabb

**Spoilers**
If you have not yet watched this episode, please go and do so before proceeding.


          This episode was intended to serve as a back-door pilot for the new SPN spin-off series, Supernatural: Bloodlines. So as a result, this episode did nothing to further the SPN mythology, history, or season arc. And it's the 20th episode of Season 9. Only three-to-four episodes left, people. Remember...we have at least three major plot conflicts to get wrapped up:

1. Abbadon vs. Crowley for control of Hell (my money is on Crowley).
2. Metatron playing God and causing further angel civil war (and Castiel leading a group of rebels...hopefully this will turn out better than last time).
3. Sam and Dean bickering. Though they seem to have agreed to a cease-fire and parley, the brothers still aren't on the most friendly of terms. Hopefully this will be kicked for good very soon.

         I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand I am happy that SPN is getting a spin-off that could help expand the mythology of the show a bit (maybe...), but on the other hand I feel like we're close enough to the end of the season that we REALLY should be focusing more on the arc.

         What do I think of the spin-off? Eh...it may be okay. It may even be great. As a show, that is. I think that Supernatural: Bloodlines looks somewhat interesting, if a trifle clichéd...but I'm not entirely sure I buy the idea that it takes place in the same universe as Supernatural.

         For starters there is the setting. SPN always has a sort of X-Files or Route 666 feel because the boys, even now that they have the Batcave, are always on the move. Superatural: Bloodlines looks to be primarily stationed in Chicago. Secondly there are the characters. While not all of them are bland, I just didn't connect to them the same way I instantly did to the Winchester family. Heck...I don't even care for them the way I do the Torchwood characters! It isn't helped by the fact that these are entirely new personalities we have to get to know. There isn't one character in this spin-off series that we've met in the parent show (probably because most of those are dead...but still). They would have been greatly helped by carrying over some character who had an already established role and personality the same way Doctor Who did with Sarah Jane and Captain Jack. Given time, perhaps I can come to enjoy these new people, but at the moment I'm not feeling the love. And thirdly there is the story. I'm not sure I buy this whole 'organised crime groups of monsters in Chicago' idea. It just doesn't feel like it fits into the established lore and starts me off on the wrong foot. 

         So yes, I was less than impressed by this back-door pilot for the new spin-off series. It wasn't a bad episode and the show itself definitely looks to have potential, but I think the further away from its parent show it can stay the better. It just feels SO different that it really should exist as its own entity. No crossovers, please? They just won't mesh together well.

Favorite Moments & Random Thoughts:

- "What is this...The Godfather with fangs?!" I'm done. Dean just summed up the entire episode for me. What else can I say?

- The 'romantic' dialogue in this thing made me want to puke. I'm sorry, but it was way too sentimentally sweet to be believable. I don't think anybody actually says stuff like that.

- Although, I'm ashamed to admit I was slightly amused by that poor kid's proposal being ruined by one of the snazzy monsters stumbling out looking like an extra from The Walking Dead. It is also interesting the way the monsters here seemed to be as organized as the witch society from Man's Best Friend With Benefits. I'm not entirely sure if I buy that or not, given the SPN universe as I understand it, but it was still interesting.

- The pacing felt a bit off in the opening too, with the girlfriend being killed off faster than Mary Winchester from the Supernatural pilot. I'm sorry. I just can't feel bad about her death and his emotional scarring because we didn't really have time to get to know her. In the original pilot, Mary's death was traumatic because of the way it happened and because we had seen the Winchester family unit together and happy before that happened. It just had better atmosphere too, which plays a big part in the effectiveness of a scene. Mysteriously burning on the ceiling with your stomach cut open is a far grimmer way to go than just knocked into a steel door and busting your head. That could happen to anyone. Also, stories where people are spurred on by the death of a romantic interest are a dime a dozen. The story of the Winchester boys spending their childhoods being trained to fight their mothers' killer resonates far better.

- I'm going to try to avoid comparing these two shows too much, but it is hard to avoid whenever the pilot goes out of its way to draw comparisons between the two.

- Agent Perth. I'm pretty sure Dean has used that alias more than once. Whatever happened to Frank Devereaux and 'no more rock shout-outs'?

- Also, no matter how borderline-unlikable the attitude Ennis is currently sporting is, Dean still should know better than to try the whole 'monsters don't exist' spiel after hearing an eyewitness account. Didn't he and Sam learn their lesson back with Ronald from Nightshifter? That sort of move NEVER ends well! 

- "What's with the NRA Christmas in here...?" Heeheehee!

- It is true that a 45 or so minute pilot that has to also shoe-horn in an appearance by Sam and Dean simply doesn't have room to properly develop ALL of the spin-off characters as well as I would like, but I still feel like they could have done better. It's a combination of occasionally-clumsy writing and actors that don't seem to have settled into the roles yet. We just don't spend enough time with these people before the big things start happening to care about whether they live or die or experience emotional scarring. And that's bad because we need to care.

- Perhaps they just shouldn't have introduced quite so many characters because they didn't have the time to do it properly. Again with the SPN pilot comparison: we were only introduced to Sam and Dean in that episode. Mary died, John was AWOL, and Jessica was pretty much just there to die in the name of literary symmetry. But why did we care about all these things? We cared because we connected to Sam and Dean. We felt for them, and therefore whenever they reacted to other characters dying or to awful things happening, we did too. That was because we were ONLY spending time with the two of them - getting to know their characters and coming to realize their bond. This pilot just had too many people being thrown at us and is a bit of a confused result.

- There is also a conspicuous lack of Classic Rock in this episode's soundtrack. Apparently the new show won't be using that iconic music. I don't know what to feel about this...

- Why do they show us a black and white flashback to Ennis' girlfriend's death? It happened like five minutes ago...do they really think our minds are that forgetful? Or is it that they know the event was typical, predictable, and not at all moving so they realized it was easily forgotten?

- I'm sorry...Ennis has officially crossed the border from 'bland' to 'annoying' with the scene in the bar where he pulls a gun on that one vamp and shouts at it. That was kind of dumb and I know grief makes us do dumb things, but that was REALLY kind of dumb. Hopefully he'll shape up in the actual show.

- One good thing about this episode is that it gave us an outsider's look at the Winchesters...a type of story-telling that I am a big fan of and something that we haven't really seen since Ghostfacers. That was nice.

- The kid who plays Ennis does a fairly good job with what he's given, but oh my gosh is he made to look like a kid in a Christmas pageant whenever he's on screen with Ackles and Padalecki. It just serves to highlight the way he clearly isn't comfortable or sure what he wants his character to be yet. I'm sure in the spin-off itself he will blossom out, but right now it's a bit hard to watch.

- I do like the way Sam and Dean try to warn him away from the life of hunting. Really...why would anyone want to get involved with that?

- One danger of spin-offs is that they tend to ruin the continuity of the parent show unless they either show slavish devotion to the point of no creativity or break away entirely and become their own thing. I mention this, because I'm wondering what Supernatural: Bloodlines is going to do with the whole demons thing. I mean...that's a pretty big part of what hunters are fighting right now. Are they going to ignore that? Are they going to try and stick with more a monster-of-the-week type of deal the way Seasons 1 and 2 of SPN did, or will they delve into the Heaven vs. Hell mythology too? I'm curious to see how they handle that.

- I liked the callback to the whole ghouls thing. We haven't really seen ghouls since Adam's introductory story Jump The Shark, though they were mentioned briefly in Road Trip. I'm on board with the whole 'warring monster families' idea. I think it could be real interesting to see how this plays out.

- There is also a character named David Lassiter, a shapeshifter who may be on the side of the good. I like him. I'm also dying to ask him which member of his monstrous family works with Pixar Animation Studios and if they're responsible for the Cars franchise.

             This pilot (because I refuse to call it a Supernatural episode whenever it stubbornly refuses to feel like one) wasn't all bad. Sure it wasn't all that great either, but what back-door pilot is? The biggest problem was the fact that it is almost painfully clichéd (to the point that I would suspect it of being a satire if I actually thought it had the humor to do so) and that there was too much going on in too little time. I honestly don't know what to think about this new spin-off. Just looking at this episode, I would say that it is going to be something that you watch whenever there's nothing other than reality television on. It doesn't look to be as great as the parent show and I think the further away from SPN it gets the better, simply because whenever someone compares the two it looks to be less than it probably is. Maybe it'll be interesting to watch, but for now I'm going to cleanse my brain of the clichés by listing off the spin-off series' that I want to see done...even as miniseries':

• Supernatural: Emails From The Cage - The satirical story of the condemned Adam Winchester, waiting for his brothers to get off their behinds and remember him.
• Supernatural: Freaks & Geeks Unlimited - The tales of Krissy and her group of hunter friends as they grow up and learn more about the world of the supernatural
• Supernatural: America's Most Wanted - The untold story of Special Agent Victor Henriksen as he searches across the country for Sam and Dean. Would also explore other hunters' encounters with the long arm of the law.
• Supernatural: Growing Up Winchester - The story of Sam and Dean before they were all grown up. This would heavily feature Bobby, Pastor Jim, Rufus, and John being awesome, of course.
• Supernatural: The Adventures of Mr. Fizzles - Garth's story! I want to hear all about the cousin he took Becky to stay with and how he met his werewolf wife and...I just want more Garth!
• Supernatural: Hellfire - Crowley. Just...just all about Crowley. I'd watch a 45 minute episode just about him making wisecracks and doing Hell's paperwork. It certainly would be more entertaining than what we're getting!

           Okay, so maybe I'm a bit bitter. I guess I'm just disappointed that this unique and wonderful show isn't getting an equally unique and wonderful spin-off. Supernatural deserves better than this, darn it! I give Bloodlines a 1/5. I'll probably check out the spin-off, just in case the elements that interested me pay off, but my hopes are not particularly high.

What did you think? Do you agree with my rating? If not - what would you say differently?