Supernatural Review: Season 8 Episode 8 "Hunteri Heroici"

By: Andrew Dabb

**Spoilers**

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

        The Winchester Brothers (and Castiel) take a trip to Toon Town. I didn't realize just how much I wanted an episode like this until I got it. Really I'm starting to be convinced that, outside of toons themselves, no other show would be willing to attempt these goofy gambles...and actually pull them off. In fact it is only in the case of more generic moves that SPN starts to fall apart (like that one episode we don't talk about except to make fun, Swap Meat) and it really shines here in the absolutely off-the-wall and insane ideas that, in any other show, would completely mean it had jumped the shark. (Oh yeah. We had an episode titled Jump The Shark too.)

        So Castiel, newly liberated from Purgatory, has been hanging about with Sam and Dean and decides that he is never going back to Heaven. No. He is going to become a hunter. That set-up alone would have had us in for a bucket of laughs, but it didn't stop there. Nope. On our dear socially-awkward angel's first case we have talking cats, hearts leaping out of the owners' chests, and an anvil plummeting from the sky. Oh yes it's a trip down the rabbit hole (or, in this case, the Acme black hole) and it's glorious.

Favorite Moments & Random Thoughts:

- SPN used its pre-credits blood spatter to great effect this time. It was disgusting, but I actually laughed whenever Gary was having his heart issue. There's a reason cartoon rules should stay in the cartoons.

- "I can be your third wheel." Dean pointed out that a third wheel isn’t a good thing. I pointed out that Castiel has been their third wheel for about four seasons now. Castiel pointed out that the third wheel offers increased stability—how can it not be a good thing?

 

- They made him ride in the backseat, though.

- I really like that detective they meet while on the case. She seems to be very no-nonsense and practical, but also open-minded and determined to do whatever it takes to help solve her cases.

- Agent Nash? So Dean is back on the 'rock aliases' train? Huh. Frank would not be happy!

- Castiel also gets to play Sherlock Holmes for a bit, though Dean is less than impressed.

- Turns out Gary was having an affair and so the Golden Trio head over to his house to confront his wife. Because a heart being ejected from a man's body and landing in a sandbox while he's meeting with the mistress of his dreams usually equals one seriously ticked off, witchy wife. Cracks me up how almost all the witches on this show are suburbanite, socialite wives. 

- Cas takes a stab at interrogation this time (he's watched some TV) and, well, oh gosh..."I was being bad cop." "No. You were being bad EVERYTHING!"

- While the strong part of this episode is definitely the humor, where it begins to loose steam and charm is whenever Sam goes into one of those pesky flashbacks. Seriously, show, stop it. We don't care about Sam's sad little attempt at an apple pie life because we know it doesn't last. At least Dean's Purgatory flashbacks are full of energy...Sam's are just kinda there. I didn't like Amelia. She just felt too perfect and too personality-less, especially for Sam's taste. Are we really supposed to believe that Sam (the guy who has dated a werewolf, a demon, and whatever Amy was) could really go and be perfectly happy with Amelia? Really? Not to spend an entire review ranting about a fictional character's love life (I would never do that...) but it really kills the authenticity of a relationship whenever everything feels fake. Or maybe that's the point. I heard an interesting theory that, because all those flashbacks are filmed in classic warm dream tones, that maybe Sam's mind snapped (entirely understandable) and he just imagined that Amelia and Riot existed. Hmmm... 

- At least the flashbacks were led into a bit more organically this time. And, for the most part, had something to do with the episode. (Not running from your past and facing up to reality.)

- The flashbacks are the only mar on this episode's record, though, and - for me - are fairly easily ignored. They're just that forgettable.

- A nice bit of continuity in inserted with the humor whenever a man who lost everything when Roman Industries went down (calling back to last season) attempts to commit suicide but is not able to fall from the building until he looks down. This is what tips Sam and Dean that something loony is going on...

- This, of course, requires that Castiel be given a crash course in Bugs Bunny & Co. He especially seems to take a shine to Roadrunner and Wile E. Coyote, likening the hapless canine's endless pursuit of the beeping bird to man's never ending search for God and fulfillment. The best part? It kinda makes sense...

- Hearing cartoons from the POV of an angel is just hilarious.

- And apparently Dean and Sam only need/expect to get four hours of sleep a night? Geeze, dudes, that's not healthy. 

- It is sweet, though, the way Castiel offers to watch over them while they sleep. Even if Dean found it rather creepy...

- Cas thinks that John Winchester had beautiful handwriting.

- We also get a reminder that Cas may have his sanity back (somewhat), but he's still consumed with guilt for what he did while jacked up on all those souls. That includes smiting thousands of his brothers and sisters in Heaven, massacring humans on earth, trying to take over the seat of God, and breaking Sam's wall. That's why he said he wasn't going back to Heaven...he doesn't feel that he deserves it. It stands in stark contrast to the Castiel of Season 4 that couldn't believe Dean would have such a low opinion of himself that he didn't believe he was deserving of forgiveness.

- This is all cut short, though, whenever Cas picks up a frequency from the police that says there's been another 'loony' killing. So off they go to the bank.

- Ewwww...

- One thing that has bothered me about this scene (aside from the human pancake goo) is that nobody before this has made a connection between all these events and Loony Tunes. Come on! The black holes? The anvil? Even if you don't know about the 'not natural' or don't believe in it, you've gotta draw some kind of conclusion from that. So nobody even suspected a psychopathic man-child? I'm ashamed of you, detective, I'm ashamed!

- "So this Animaniac can step through walls, can toss an anvil?" YES! WHY DID NOBODY NOTICE/MENTION THIS?!

- Eventually they figure that the center of all these thefts and murders is an old folks home because everything stolen belonged to a resident. So off the Golden Trio goes to investigate. Cas is really in his element here as he charms little old ladies and interrogates cats. Times like this it is hard to remember that he's actually a warrior of Heaven who can smite you as soon as hug you and whose real form is roughly the size of the Chrysler Building. The cat certainly is less than impressed!

- The actor who plays Fred Jones (Mike Farrell) was on M*A*S*H*.

- I wish we had seen a bit more of Fred Jones before this episode. Not only is he a powerful psychic (that could have helped Sam) but clearly John trusted him enough to let him give both Sam and Dean their first beers. Geeze. Guess the Hunter network really is depleted.

- One thing I will say about those pesky flashbacks is that I enjoyed the story about ballerina!Amelia and the toilet paper. It helped humanize her a bit. I also noticed something interesting. While Amelia and her father were arguing in the dining room, Sam was supposed to be doing dishes. But he wasn't. He was fiddling with his hand scar again. Is it force of habit or should we take that to mean that maybe the Lucifer issue wasn't so gone after all once Cas was blasted into Purgatory? Hmmm. Maybe Sam had ulterior reasons for leaving Dean where he was. (My personal theory is that he thought Dean was dead and that Cas made sure he got into Heaven and so Sam didn't want to mess with that.)

           

- After that birthday cake blew there was a commercial break and I was left torn between being horrified that SPN had blown a granny up or laughing that SPN had blown a granny up. Worst fifteen minutes or so of my LIFE! Fortunately I was saved from either hysterical response by the reveal that it was indeed only cake batter and frosting that had hit the wall. Phew!

- I love the scene where Cas heals the doctor's accomplice, leaving him spluttering and scared half to death. Dean's response to the inquiries? "Guy eats his Wheaties." 

- Dean also looks just a bit TOO excited to get to use one of those black hole thingies. He had to grow up too fast so I guess he never really grew up at heart. Methinks the return of Cas and the apology from Sam is starting to bring our Dean back a bit. He's cracked, but starting to be pasted together.


 - I will forever love the episode for doing this freeze frame:

- Castiel may have seemed a bit out of his element at the beginning of this episode, what with his terrible attempts at 'bad cop' and tendency to sniff the corpses, but in the end he proved himself to be a competent partner and even figured out how to reach the near catatonic Fred Jones by taking Sam and himself inside Fred's mind to shake him out of his stupor.

- Makes me snicker that Fred is shocked that John's boy, the scrawny one, turned into the man Sam is today. This is why we need more characters who knew Sam and Dean years ago meeting them again now. Gives a fresh perspective.

- It's also interesting how the green screen that is Fred's mind keeps shifting from static to check patterns as he and Sam have their discussion. Nice touch.

- But while Sam is having the battle for the mind with Fred and Cas, Dean tracks down the crooked doctor just as he's robbing the last bank box. What follows is a gag fight that has me rolling on the floor every time.

- It really makes me laugh that someone sometime had to design a frying pan with that Jensen Ackles specialty face imprinted on it. Wonder if the designer has it hanging on their wall...?

- What really surprised me with this episode, though, was the surprisingly dark turn it took whenever Fred comes to the rescue and manipulates the doc into shooting himself in the head. It's not actually shown on screen and you can tell that Fred didn't want to do it, but I'm surprised neither Sam nor Dean tried to intervene. They may have become darker themselves over the season, but they do still try to keep their human kill count down (with the exception of possessed meatsuits, because apparently those don't count). Maybe they just figured it was Fred's decision to make?

- And the end of the episode is beautiful. (Even with Naomi giving Cas STRICT instructions about when he's invited back to Heaven. Ouch.) Cas gives Fred the equivalent of an angelic lobotomy/mind wipe and strips away his psychokinetic powers so that he can't hurt anyone by accident again. This leaves Fred a mere shadow of himself, but Cas then leaves him listening to Ode to Joy and sits down next to the old man to keep him company while Sam and Dean hit the road again. That was the perfect ending.

          There are a lot of things this episode does extremely right. The humor (both verbal and visual) was spot-on and definitely felt like something out of a more bloody version of Who Framed Roger Rabbit?. The flashbacks were a bit distracting and pointless, even though they did help Sam reason with Fred about not running from real life. I'm still not entirely convinced by Amelia, but I don't dislike her. (That's probably because there isn't enough to dislike, though.) Still, overall, the flashbacks didn't detract from the overall experience to the point where they ruin the episode. I do hope they go away soon, though, or build up the reveal that Amelia was imaginary or a monster or something interesting. The ending was dark and shocking, but also beautiful and very touching...especially for a SPN episode. Hunteri Heroici is a 4/5.

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