Supernatural Review: Season 9 Episode 4 "Slumber Party"

By: Robbie Thompson

**Spoilers**

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

             Sammy? I don't think we're in Kansas anymore. What do you get when you combine two plaid-wearing brothers, a redheaded hacker, and an overload of The Wizard of Oz references? Well, you get this wonderfully bizarre, extremely touching, and completely absurd break from the angst and dullness of the rest of Season 9 for starters. Charlie Bradbury has returned, Game of Thrones DVDs in hand, and is just as wonderful as always. Felicia Day really has good chemistry with Jared and Jensen, especially considering the fact that they have only had four episodes together on the show. And one of them was spent primarily in separate locations, only communicating via bluetooth!

       This is one of those episodes that you can't really pick at. You've got to just grin and hang on for the ride, because it is ridiculous. Now, granted, I'm never a fan of episodes that you have to literally switch off your brain and don a pair of blinders to watch...but that's not what I'm saying here. It's not like the logic is flawed or that the plot holes hit you over the head, but there are some things that you just have to accept as fact and move on. The fact that the Land of Oz is really a kingdom in Faerie, for instance. Or that, in the sexist era she came from, Dorothy managed to become a hunter. Or that it really was ruby slippers and not silver ones after all. Little details like that.

      Charlie is also now officially a Winchester. She's wearing plaid, ganking witches, and has died and been brought back to life once. Now here's to hoping that they won't kill her off permanently for a LOOOOONG time!

Favorite Moments & Random Thoughts:

- I love that this episode delved a little bit more into the MoL lore. That was a FANTASTIC idea to bring into the show, but after Season 8 I feel that it's sort of been cast by the wayside a bit to make way for the stupider and extremely pointless 'angel civil war' rehash that is going nowhere.

- Calm down, Emily. Don't even bring that into this episode where it doesn't belong. After all... "There's nothing worse than adventure, son. Trust me." What. Have hobbits infiltrated the Men of Letters or something?!

- I really like Dorothy. She is a strong, independent woman character that manages to be likable because she's not shoving her strength and independence down your throat to prove that she is indeed strong and independent. 

- It's also cool how the flashbacks in this episode are all black and white, just like the beginning of The Wizard of Oz. This may also be the best use of flashback this show has ever done since Season 4.

- Poor Kevin is having a nervous breakdown as this episode opens, so Sam and Dean send him on sabbatical to clear his head a bit. We must remember that Kevin is barely twenty and has only been introduced to his (rather intense) role as a prophet within the last year. He has a right to feel a bit unstable.  "Well, he stared at the Angel tablet and repeated the word "falafe" for the entire ride. Kid's cracked. I'm hoping this break will, uh, clear his head." 

- We finally get to see Sam's bedroom in the Batcave. It's very spartan. If the bed wasn't unmade and rumpled, you'd never know that anyone lived there. ESPECIALLY in contrast with Dean's room with his weapons collection, Led Zeppelin records, and various pictures of his family. (Kinda makes sense...Sam doesn't really have a whole lot of possessions aside from a gun, a few pairs of raggedy jeans, and a collection of plaid and ugly thrift-shop shirts.) This apparently discomfits Dean, who has completely moved into the Batcave and accepted it as the home he was never able to give Sam whenever they were younger, but whenever confronted about it Sam says that the Bunker is a place for them to work. Almost like he's afraid to settle in anywhere.

- Dean has a very different view: "Yeah, but a lifetime of abandoned buildings and crappy motel rooms. I mean, this is about as close to home as we're gonna get, and it's ours." He has a point...

- This episode is essentially a Men of Letters Bunker bottle episode. It takes place entirely within the Batcave and it digs a little bit more into the mythology of the mysterious Men of Letters that Sam and Dean are legacies of. This is good because it (a) doesn't make us accept the absolutely ludicrous picture of Sam and Dean skipping down the yellow brick road and (b) gives us a slightly claustrophobic feel once the heat of conflict is on and shows us more rooms of the Batcave, something that never fails to be interesting. Just how big is this bunker?!

- The brothers discover an ancient computer (that apparently runs off some sort of spellwork) and call in their resident little sis and tech girl to take a look at it. Charlie arrives with the bombshell that she has been fired from her latest job for soliciting a wikileak and taken up hunting as a side career...something Sam and Dean are instantly concerned about. "Okay. It was just a couple little cases. I took down a teenage vampire and a ghost...which sounds like a Y.A. novel if you say it out loud." 

- I'm not sure if Dean was wise to ask Charlie to get the computer that tracks angels to run. Wouldn't it just point straight to Ezekiel, hiding inside Sam's mind? Huh. Or does it only pick up areas on the globe outside the Bunker where they are? It's never really explained...

- They make a Winchester sibling night of it by settling down to watch some Game of Thrones together. Dean has a very low opinion of Joffrey...
 

- Charlie also brings up the fact that she's reading Sam and Dean's histories, as well as the fact that the 'anonymous Scandinavian investor' (who I have a suspicion was Gabriel) came through and did indeed fund further publication of the books, up to Swan Song. Where she found these special editions is a call back to awkward memories for the boys...ESPECIALLY Sam.
 



Definitely no wedding bells...right, Sammy?

- In many ways we can draw parallels between the character of Charlie and the character of Becky Rosen (Sam's former stalker and temporary wife). Both of them are fangirls, both have read the meta SPN books, and both are sort of an avatar for the audience.

- The difference between Charlie and Becky is that Becky read the books in a creepy, invasive sort of way. She developed an obsession with Sam and, even after she discovered he was real, refused to get to know him as a person instead preferring to continue her rather sick fantasies about him. Charlie, on the other hand, stumbles into the boys before she meets their literary counterparts. She falls in love with these two dysfunctional brothers who have let her into their family and she reads the books in a loving "Oh my gosh, I'm learning more about my brothers!" type of way. And, while she lightly teases them about it, she stays away from anything that might make them uncomfortable. Becky is nosy, stalkerish, and rude, Charlie is loving and inquisitive and understanding. This is why Charlie works as a character and Becky, in the end, really didn't. (It also helps that Charlie is a little sister figure and not a sexualized joke at the expense of some of the more forward Sam girls.)

- Really it boils down to one thing: Charlie is grateful and humbled by being accepted into the hearts and lives of these two incredible men, Becky demanded that they accept her and used their private jokes and stories against them to get what she wanted.

- All the fun and games end for the three hunters, though, whenever some grey liquid that Dean spilled starts to warp and grow a la sci-fi, to finally reveal a pod from which they rescue a young woman. And not just any young woman, no, she is Dorothy Baum from the beginning of the episode who sacrificed herself to trap the Wicked Witch inside of a potion. The same potion Dean just spilled.  

- Nothing like Crowley sitting nonchalantly in his cell and whistling 'Somewhere Over The Rainbow'.

- The meetings between Crowley and the Wicked Witch only get more hilarious as time goes on, due to his increasingly frustrated state with her lack of communication (Dorothy had cut out her tongue to stop her from incanting spells) and her disgust with his lack of help. 

- "What's the matter, darling? Cowardly lion got your tongue? Right. Enough chitchat. Must be here for a reason. Write it down so daddy can help." Ugh. Crowley? Never refer to yourself as 'daddy' ever again, please?

- Charlie chews Dorothy out for being so dismissive of her father's embellished Oz books and tells her to stop ruining Charlie's childhood, right before the two of them take off for the Bunker arsenal to make themselves some poppy bullets. Apparently enchanted opium is Kryptonite for the Wicked Witch? Good to know...

- While Charlie and Dorothy are doing that, Sam and Dean go to get some information from Crowley. (Presumably because he is a demon and witches deal with them.)

- "Wow. If it isn't the Scarecrow and the Tin Man. Your new houseguest - so misunderstood ...what? Neither of you saw Wicked?" Somehow it makes me laugh very hard that Crowley is apparently a musical theater buff.

- Dean's reaction to the witch trashing his kitchen is priceless!

 - I guess he's still 'nesting' or whatever.

- Dean's excitement over having a garage to put Baby in is just adorable. Now she's in out of the elements too!

- And if you ever needed confirmation that Charlie is now officially part of the tiny Winchester family, you need look no further than Sam and Dean's reaction to her proud statement about the poppy bullets that won't kill the witch but will stun her. Sam grins like she's just discovered a cure for the common cold and Dean...

- Of course this happens just in time for Charlie and Dean to be cornered by the witch and for Charlie to hurl herself in-between Dean and a spell (that looked suspiciously like an Avada Kedavra Maleficient cooked up) and end up dying.

- I would have to say that the whole Charlie death thing is the worst part of the episode. Not because it's hard to watch or emotionally ruining or anything like that, but because it isn't. We aren't allowed to feel the impact of the death. It's more of an 'oh well' moment than anything else, because we know that Samzekiel will end up bringing her back, despite the fact that it weakens him. We should be mourning for Charlie's spark being snuffed out. Whenever a show starts to trivialize the emotional impact of death, the stakes are instantly lowered somehow. In past seasons jokes have been made about the fact that Sam and Dean die a lot, but we've always had at least the emotional side of the death to dread, if not the death itself. Here it is almost an afterthought and is so quickly resolved that there was no point to it, aside from giving Jared the chance to play Zeke again.

- One thing that SPN does really well is playing around with the elements of established lore to create a whole new mythology. We see this applied to the world of Oz here as it is turned from a fictional land to a dark, mysterious place (part of the Fae Realm, actually) that L. Frank Baum wrote about due to his daughter's explorations there. The Wicked Witch actually exists, as do the flying monkeys and the yellow brick road. And the only way to slay the witch? The ruby red stilettos of doom.

- After Sam and Dean are taken out of commission by the witch (and Charlie apologetically kicks Dean in the family jewels to knock his enchanted self down so she can get away) Dorothy and Charlie set about destroying the witch who has opened the portal back to Oz. My only regret about this scene is that the witch, due to her lack of tongue, was not able to cackle wickedly as the storms of flying monkeys soar into the skies. Drat.

- In the end, Charlie is the one to take out the witch with the heel of the ruby slipper. This is both darkly hilarious and slightly twisted, reminiscent of Sam and Dean using the Christmas tree to stake the pagan gods in A Very Supernatural Christmas. So she's wearing plaid, she's died and come back to life, and now she's taken out a supernatural force in a bizarre manner...yup! She's definitely a Winchester!

- The episode ends with Sam and Dean seeing Charlie off with a smile as she decides to go with Dorothy and help to lead the rebellion in Oz to destroy the rest of the wicked witch's army in an ending that is so sappy and yet so extremely sweet that it brings a nostalgic smile to my face every time.

        Wow. Nine seasons in and SPN still has it when it comes to the quirky, crazy, and downright ridiculous combinations of literature, mythology, and geekiness. Much as I've been a bit disappointed with Season 9, I have to say that this episode is a definite high point. Crowley is hilarious, Charlie is awesome, and we get to see some more of the MoL lore. There were a few things that didn't quite work (like Charlie's death) but overall they didn't really detract from the enjoyment of the episode any. Slumber Party is a 4/5.

 

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