Supernatural Review: Season 8 Episode 20 "Pac-Man Fever"

By: Robbie Thompson

**Spoilers**

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

        Petition to make Felicia Day a series regular? Please? At least as much as Castiel is? I know, I know...we don't want to steal her away from her other projects, but hang me if she isn't just a delight to watch every time she's on screen with Jared and Jensen.

        Charlie is quite possibly the best character to come out of this show and I will hear no argument against it. She is funny and smart and refreshingly quirky and...and...I could go on with this whole review as to why we should all love Felicia Day and the wonderful character she has created, but I already did that in another post, so I won't. There's a lot going on in this episode. First and foremost we get the chance to delve a bit into Charlie's back-story. Up until this point the most we've known about her is that she's a geeky hacker who has been on the run from several different forms of law enforcement divisions for years and who is well-versed at disappearing. That was about it. This episode gives us a peek into Charlie's psyche as well as learning more about who she really is. So that's a lot of fun. Secondly, we see Sam and Dean figuring out how to deal with the fallout of the second Trial. Sam has contracted an illness 'fondly' dubbed Trialberculosis, given that he's had tuberculosis-related symptoms such as fevers and coughing up blood. With the second Trial, his health has only further deteriorated to the point where he can no longer shoot straight and stands on unsteady legs. That's kind of scary for a big guy like Sam who has always held up strongly under the most severe batterings of life. This episode manages to beautifully tie the two stories of Sam and Dean and Charlie together into something touching and wonderful to watch.

Favorite Moments & Random Thoughts:

- Why is it that Dean is always the one put in the period costumes?

- Talk about a confusing jump-forward opening! The last time we saw Dean in a period costume (not including the LARPing chainmail) was whenever he was sent travelling through time with Chronos. So, naturally, I was wondering if he had been sent Back To The Future-ing again. That was a clever bit of writing that hooked me into the episode and got me interested.

- The arrival of sleepy!Sammy, though, KEPT my interest, though. Wow. That hair. Hahaha!

- Dean should just have at it one night while Sam's knocked out on painkillers or whatever. Do us all a favor.

- "This is why we can't have nice things, Sam."

- Sam utterly misses the beer bottle Dean threw at him (showing that the brothers are scarily out of sync) and this, combined with Sam's general unsteadiness on his feet, tells Dean that Sam probably isn't good to go out gadding about the country and looking for Kevin. Sam disagrees, only admitting that big brother knows best after he fails to even hit the target in their shooting range (the Bunker has a shooting range now), shaking and struggling to hold the gun steady. Not a good sign.

- At least we know that they didn't forget about Kevin, though. No end-of-episode resets on this show! At least not about important stuff...

- Shortly after this the boys get their email from Charlie saying she traced their phones (of course she did) to within a five mile radius. Now we know that the Batcave is in a signal dark zone. They can make calls, but nobody can track them there. One must question how the MoL knew to build in the dark zone, though. It's not like they had cell phones back then!

- Love that she makes jokes about 'questions three' and that she calls the Men of Letters out for their 'sexist name'. Also, Charlie is turning into a hunter. "Well, after you guys left, I dug into all things monsters. I'm a wee bit obsessive. If "wee bit" means completely. I also found this series of books, by a Carver Edlund? Um...did those books really happen?"

- Why does it not sound creepy whenever she says it? Or whenever she teases Sam for his bad luck with the ladies? 

- One thing that works really well about Charlie is that she doesn't play favorites with the Winchesters. She spent time bonding with both Sam and Dean during her debut episode (Sam over Harry Potter and Dean over the most awkward flirting ever) and has consistently shown equal affection/exasperation/fondness towards both of them. She'll bond with Dean and chat with Sam and give them both the warmest hugs in the world because she loves both of them, despite their many flaws. And now, because she's read their story, she knows everything there is to know about these boys' past...blood, guts, warts and all. And she doesn't care, aside from loving them even more for it. Just look at the way she insists on helping Dean or jumps to support Sam!

- "No disrespect, okay, but there's a big difference between reading about hunting and actually hunting." "I'm. Coming. With." And Dean gives in. Of course he does...we all know he has a soft spot for his younger siblings (and it's obvious that he considers Charlie as a younger sister).

- The shopping montage (with Dean acting the part of the fashion consultant) was just hilarious. And it was very fitting that we once again get to see Charlie rocking out to 'Walking on Sunshine' while Dean sits and critiques her outfit as he makes up a fake FBI badge for her.

- Charlie brings up Castiel who she describes as 'nice and dreamy', a description she drew from reading the books because she's never met Cas in the flesh. The thing is, those books stopped at No Rest For The Wicked which means that Castiel would never have appeared in them. So I guess Sam and Dean's threats to Chuck didn't work and he published the new series anyway. Is it any wonder they're envisioning a good, old-fashioned book burning?

- "If it's any consolation, having read your history, there is pretty much nothing the Winchesters can't do if they work together." Yes. Work TOGETHER! Why is it so hard for everyone on this show to remember that?!

- Seriously. Half of the problems would be resolved if Sam and Dean would just stop lying and work together like they did here in the end of Season 8 or all the way back in seasons 1 - 3. I know a lot has changed and there's been a lot of bad blood between them...but it's water under the bridge! Why are we still trying to cause tension by fraternal bickering? It's getting old!

- "Must be nice, having a brother, someone to always watch your back."

 

Honestly, I thought she was going to answer 'Sam and Dean' there...

- Dean and Charlie head out to the morgue to get a look at the bodies. These scene is great fun to watch for a couple of reasons. First off, Charlie makes the Castiel mistake of holding her new badge upside down. Secondly, the morgue lady is a real stickler for the rules and even turns down Dean's most angelic smolder with a sharp refusal to help him out without the official paperwork. And thirdly, we discover that Charlie hacked NORAD as a teenager. Tsk, tsk...

- "Real-life roleplaying is HARD!"

- I really wish this deleted scene had been left in the episode...

- As soon as those two boys started poking at that corpse I groaned and begged them not to do it. I KNEW something nasty was going to happen and, sure enough, the guy's distended and liquefied guts squirt all over the young gamers. EWWWWW! They're not the only ones who need therapy from that!

- Dean and Charlie head out to the crime scene (where the other weird corpse has been found) and Charlie introduces herself with a lot more confidence this time as Agent Ripley. Nice Alien reference there, writers.

- Sammy, despite not yet being given a clean bill of health from Dean and looking distressingly pale and awful in the police spot lights, has shown up on the case anyway. Dean gives him The Look and sends Charlie over to talk to some witnesses while he deals with Sam. She protests (she doesn't want to miss the broment) but does as she is asked and instantly gets the kids to like and trust her by talking what I think was Mario Kart with them. She also finds a vital clue for the case, being the blue hand print on the corpse.

- Later on, as the three of them sneak into the morgue and find that the corpses have been mysteriously cleared for cremation, Charlie again gets to stretch her skills and intellect by distracting the creepy morgue lady long enough for Sam and Dean to get in and out without detection. How does she do it? By striking up an awkward but believable conversation about power suits.

- They figure out that they're dealing with a djinn. We haven't seen djinn since Season 6, have we? 

- Sam is so jealous of Charlie's iPad and supernatural creatures app, it's hilarious.

- After they figure out what type of creature they're facing, they figure it's time to eat so Charlie offers to run into town and promises to return shortly with pie.

- She takes the opportunity to head back to her motel room (clearly she has the same awful taste in motels that the Winchesters do) and use her various aliases to hack and re-direct money to make donations somewhere. Can I just say that I find it so cool that one of the names on her passport is 'Anna Tolkien'?

- Charlie is interrupted, though, whenever the creepy morgue lady comes breaking in and it's revealed that Jennifer (Djinnifer? Anyone?) was the culprit all along, using her position at the morgue to dispose of evidence. She kidnaps Charlie and drags her away somewhere.

- It is at this point that the episode takes a sharp turn from the 'buddy cop comedy' feel and right into the realm of 'character study and tragedy'. It turns out that this particular branch of the djinn family feeds off of deep terror. And Djinnifer says that she smells a lot of fear on Charlie. (Charlie tells her it's probably just deodorant and maybe a little bit of pee.) This makes us wonder...what on earth does sunny, kind Charlie have to be so afraid of?

- The answer is revealed in quite an interesting and logical way. Sam and Dean, worried sick after Charlie doesn't return with the promised pie, track her phone to her abandoned hotel room. There they find the place trashed, clear signs of a struggle, and Charlie's computer still lying open and on the page she had been using to make her donations. Here we find out that Charlie's real last name is Middleton and that she has been running from the law ever since she was twelve and that her mother is in a coma in a hospital...and that's why she was in Sam and Dean's area. Dean goes to visit Mrs. Middleton and tells her softly that she's got "One hell of a daughter" before he promises to save Charlie, whatever it takes.

- Sam tracks Charlie to an abandoned warehouse and he and Dean go after her, killing Djinnifer and sending Dean into Charlie's dream with the use of some dream root while Sam stands guard.

 - And that brings us back to where we started at the beginning of the episode with Dean waking up in uniform and getting stalked by growling Communist vampires. Charlie comes to the rescue, though.

- "Come with me if you want to live...I've always wanted to say that!"

- Together they fight their way through her nightmare (a game she hacked and was arrested for whenever she was twelve) to the top level where they try to figure out a way to get out of the dream before the other djinn (the one Sam and Dean didn't know about) can attack their sleeping forms.

- He tries. But Sam manages to fight him off and even kills the poor kid.

- Now I have to say that I start tearing up at this point in the episode. Why, you may ask? Well...the whole object of the game Charlie and Dean are trapped in is to kill all the vamps and save the patients in this medical hospital. For Charlie the patient she has to save is her mother, symbolizing her fear in real life of losing her mother...even though Mrs. Middleton is brain-dead and will never wake up again. Okay. So Charlie has to save her mother. That's emotional enough...but then we get the revelation that, for Dean, the patient lying still and sleeping in the bed is Sam. Ach! Little brothers!

- I get where Charlie is coming from. I identify with her love for her mother and the fact that she got so many of her likes and interests through their relationship. But then to just add fuel to the feels fire, we also have Dean's fear of losing Sam. Now I'm an older sibling myself. I identify a lot with Dean Winchester and so anything that deals with his fear of failing and/or losing Sam is just an emotional kick in the gut for me. Put these two things together and you have something that can melt my heart into a miserable puddle of sobs. 

- And yet I go back and watch this episode again and again because the storytelling is so perfect and the emotions so pure and everything is just so beautifully done that it makes me smile even as I'm reaching for my second box of tissues.

- Whenever Dean tells Charlie "Game over, kiddo" and she finally lets go of it all and collapses into his waiting arms with a broken sob...yeah. I'm pretty much done emotionally for the night. It's a sign of how well-written these characters and relationships are that I am SO invested in them.

 

- The episode ends with Charlie saying goodbye to the brothers, reminding them to always work together, and then Sam declaring her a definite Woman of Letters. And then this happens...

- Oh that hug felt good! In the latter half of Season 8, despite their lingering issues, Sam and Dean feel closer as brothers than they have been since Season 3. We all needed that. We needed a reminder of why they stay together and fight. It's not just because they're fated to. It's not out of obligation or because it's more convenient. They stay and work and fight together because they love each other.

- But the episode doesn't exactly end on a feel-good note. If anything it is one of the more bittersweet endings that Supernatural has to offer. Charlie decides that it is finally time to let her mom go and goes to the hospital to sign the papers and to give herself closure by reading their beloved bedtime story, The Hobbit, one last time.

- You know? I'm actually tearing up thinking about this. It's a very quiet, very personal scene between mother and daughter. Charlie smiles at her mother through her tears and starts to read, "In a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit..."

- Excuse me while I go wipe some rainwater from my eye.

- No, really. Without fail I am crying by the end of this episode. Legitimately crying. That ending is so bittersweet and beautiful and it gets me every time.

            Maybe I'm a little bit biased towards this episode because of how darn emotionally invested it makes me. There aren't a whole lot of things that can actually move me to tears. I think I can count on one hand the amount of times I have physically cried over something on television...and this episode is definitely one of them. It's funny and sad and touching and scary and everything that makes a story wonderful. Charlie is a great character and is all the more wonderful now that we know a bit about her past. Her relationship with the Winchesters is always a joy to watch and I really find that the plot of the episode is good for multiple re-watches. Pac-Man Fever is a 5/5.

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