"Nihilism" – Supernatural S14E10 Review

And with "Nihilism" we're back, after the CW takes its annual holiday hiatus. The Flash was already on Tuesday, Supergirl will follow Sunday, and Arrow and Black Lightning on Monday. Sadly, DC's Legends will be gone from us until April.

When last we left our heroes, the long-awaited shoe had dropped and Michael repossessed Dean. Michael was also preparing to turn his monster army loose on Kansas City, having them transform everyone they bit and scratched into another of their kind and expanding Michael's army even further. Which makes you wonder why vampires and werewolves are the underdogs if they're so contagious.

Plus, we keep getting told over and over there's a whole lot of monsters. Since this is a CW show's budget, and a show in its 14th year, that boils down to a handful of extras at the end, along with some off-screen sirens.

Team Winchester quickly captures Michael, thanks to setting him on fire with holy oil and then snapping angel cuffs on him. The monsters are at the door, literally, so Sam calls for the invisible Reaper Jessica invisibly watching over them. I guess actress Kayla Stanton was busy elsewhere, because actress Panta Mosleh arrives as Jessica's alternate-shift replacement Violet to be all snide and "Reapers aren't allowed to interfere" until the group gets teleported to the bunker anyway.

This is interspersed with scenes of Dean running Rocky's Bar along with Pamela Barnes (Thunderbird Dinwiddie, previously Traci Dinwiddie). I have no idea why Pamela is here: we haven't seen her since she died nine years ago. Why Michael would make a *spoiler alert* dream-bar to stash Dean's consciousness in it, and equip it with a non-blind Pamela, I have no idea.

Sam, Castiel, and Jack take Michael back to the bunker. He does the usual trash talk where he tells Jack Dean really hates him or at least considers him third-rate compared to Sam. Michael also lays out his reasoning, sort of, to Castiel about why he wants to destroy Earth: to get revenge on God for abandoning everyone.

Meanwhile, we get to see Alt-Earth Maggie (Katherine Evans) and a handful of Hunters play footsie with the Kansas City monsters. Which leave the city after infecting a bunch of people off-screen, and off-screen home in on Michael to rescue him. When a van full of monsters heads toward the bunker, the Hunters force it off the road and somehow the monsters all get out of the van and pile into the nearby woods. One Hunter goes in after them but then comes out and tells the others the monsters are heading to the bunker on foot.

Sam has found some Men of Letters mind-merging device. It lets him and Castiel enter Dean's mind. They get to Dean by homing in on his good thoughts, figuring Michael would try to keep Dean's consciousness occupied with good stuff rather than the trauma he thrives on. It works, and they find Dean and "Pamela" going through the same loop at the bar. When Sam points out Pamela was blinded and then died, she goes blind and then disappears. Dean remembers everything Michael did, and Michael shows up.

Michael is relatively powerless, but still strong enough to kick Sam, Dean, and Castiel's asses. However, they lock him up in a walk-in freezer in Dean's dream-bar, and Dean says he'll be the Cage now and keep Michael imprisoned.

In the real world, it turns out the Hunter who went into the woods was monsterized or something. He lets the monsters into the bunker, and they kill everyone except Maggie and Jack. Jack unleashes a blast of angel mojo, although we were told earlier in the episode that doing so will require the magic that is keeping his soul intact. The mojo disintegrates the monsters, Sam and the others wake up, once again the day is saved.

After the last commercial break, Castiel has a heart-to-heart with Jack about not using his magic because eventually it will destroy his soul. Jack kinda-sorta agrees but has that pensive "Yeah, I said I won't do it but everyone knows I will eventually" look that everyone except the characters on the show know.

Billie (Lisa Berry), the new Death, shows up and tells Dean that now all of the Books of Death that tell how he's going to die have been rewritten to say that Michael takes him over and destroys Earth. Except one book, which she gives to Dean. He looks all terse and concerned when he reads the book and wonders what he's supposed to do.

And that's it for this week. it wasn't much of a post-cliffhanger episode, but then again it wasn't much of a cliffhanger. Jensen Ackles still performs well as Michael, but I'm a little tired of the overwhelming condescension performance. I can see why they want to keep Michael off-screen for long gaps between episodes because he's a pretty overwhelming presence. But it's somewhat counter-intuitive since it's hard to establish him as a Big Bad when he's barely in the show. He's almost too big to be a Big Bad.

But then they defeat Michael pretty easily. Yes, he's locked up in Dean's mind, and he'll get out before the season is over. And then they'll come up with some other out-of-the-blue way to stop him. I'm beginning to regret them making God a character on the show. He won't show up unless he wants to, which makes him a literal deus ex machina. So we're stuck between him being lovable ole Chuck, and unlovable ole "the heck with my creations" God. The fact that we have another divine being out to kill him doesn't help: we already had that with God's sister a few seasons ago. Michael says "Even God can die", but he doesn't seem to have any means or plan to kill him.

The dream-bar thing doesn't make a lot of sense, and I can only assume that they got Ms. Dinwiddie because she was available. She's Dean's "dream woman"? Really? I can think of someone who would be a better choice. Lisa Braedon. She's still alive and Dean had feelings for her, but had to leave when Crowley sent demons to attack her. Not that any of that would make any difference: it's Dean's fantasy, and Pamela being dead didn't stop Dean from fantasizing her into his dream-bar.

So basically, they introduced Michael as a major taking-over-Dean menace. And then imprisoned him in one episode. Which is even shorter than they did with the first few episodes of the current season. There he left of his own volition, as part of some lame plot to eliminate Dean from his mind once and for all. But we all saw how that turned out. If Michael can't handle Dean, how are we supposed to think he can kill God?

But that's what I mean about him being such a big Big Bad that he doesn't work. He's supposed to be powerful enough to kill God, but the Winchesters defeat him. And not even after a season and change of Supernatural angst. But after one episode. Woo-hoo.

The performances are good as always. Jared Padalecki doesn't have much to do. Misha Collins went for a more... "human" performance here. He wasn't the clueless screw-up, he wasn't the self-sacrificing martyr-angel. Castiel was just being helpful and sort of fatherly to Jack. Although he's picked up some odd mannerisms: I can't imagine Castiel knocking on wood the way he does after his Jack-chat at the end of the episode.

So we're left with Michael trying to get free of Dean's mind, an only-one-way-out scenario delivered to Dean via Billie, and the threat of Jack's soul eventually disappearing. We've got 11 or so episodes to go, and none of it seems very cohesive. Next week looks to be a "let's take a break" episode as Dean bonds with Mary and Donna. Donna? And we check in with Nick and/or possibly Lucifer. And with Lucifer's potential return I suspect the creative team has one plate too many spinning. I'd rather see Mark Pellegrino continue as Nick for a while. He's back, but after a few episodes of ultra-violence we got Lucifer back. Do we need Lucifer and alt-Earth Michael crammed into one season, along with Jack going all soulless and presumably evil? Two Big Bads, maybe, but three seems a bit much.

But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong. What do you think?