​ "Raising Hell" – Supernatural S15E02 Review

"Raising Hell" was a little more "normal" than last week's episode of Supernatural. There's a bit more of the Supernatural humor, as two of the recurring guest stars link up. We find out the fate--sort of--of another recurring character. And we get one other recurring character showing up as we find out Chuck isn't as gone as we thought.

Most of this is set against the backdrop of Harlan, the Kansas town from last week's episode. The ghosts are still there, and trying to get past the warding Belphegor created. Three of the major ghosts from last week don't appear, and the ghosts have a new leader: Francis Tumblety (Lane Davies), aka Jack the Ripper. Whose presence raises the question of where are all of the Top Ten Evil souls?

So what are the ghosts up to this week? We start with Francis establishing his street-cred by killing two of the townspeople who make the mistake of coming into the quarantine zone. The husband of one of them isn't happy his wife has disappeared and the government is covering everything up with the "benzene leak" story. The husband and a friend go out, and get possessed by the ghosts. Francis then uses them as hostages to demand Dean and Sam lower the barrier.

Ketch (David Hadyn-Jones) shows up to shoot them with iron flakes and that's the last we'll see of them after the iron flakes free the ghosts. Rowena (Ruth Connell) has showed up as well to recreate her soul catcher she's used before. The witch and the Man of Letters are all over each other like white on rice, but they are coitus interrupted when Sam calls to ask how Rowena is doing on the soul catcher.

Dean and Ketch go looking for two missing hunters. The Lizzie Borden ghost from last week attacks them, but Kevin (Osric Chau) shows up to order her away. It turns out God sent Kevin to Hell instead of Heaven, and Kevin has a reputation as a bad-ass in Hell. Dean sends him to infiltrate the ghosts, but Francis quickly realizes Kevin is a poser and captures him to use as a hostage.

Dean is questioning whether anything they've done is "real", and Castiel tells him they ran Chuck's obstacle course. Sam doesn't have much to do this episode development-wise. The Winchesters go to the house where the ghosts have holed up, and distracts them long enough for Rowena to sneak in and use her soul catcher. This captures some of the souls but not Francis, and he and the others try to weaken the warding barrier.

When Rowena and the Winchesters go there to use the soul catcher on them, Francis somehow possesses Ketch (even though Dean gave him an iron necklace earlier to ward off possession). Dean shoots Ketch with an iron bullet which drives Francis out, and Rowena uses the soul catcher to absorb Francis and his allies.

Belphegor lowers his warding barrier so Kevin can escape, since souls sent to Hell can't go to Heaven. Not that the Winchesters have any way to send him to Heaven. Kevin wanders off to what seems suspiciously like a backdoor pilot where the ghostly ex-Prophet wanders the land. More souls arrive from... somewhere to bombard the warding barrier and try to bring it down. The ghosts are inside the barrier, which raises the same questions I had last week like how many are there? Shouldn't they have shown up when Francis was massing all the ghosts to break through the barrier?

In the b plot, Chuck (Rob Benedict) pays his sister, Amara (Emily Swallow), a visit at the hotel in Reno where she's staying. They banter back and forth a bit, and Amara realizes Chuck is mostly powerless and wounded from the gunshot wound Sam inflicted on him last season. She says she's sick of him, figures he's trapped on Earth and needs her to get him off-Earth, and leaves him behind.

That's it. The return of Chuck is always welcome, as is Chuck and Amara catching up with each other. I do wonder if a little bit of Chuck goes a long way, and we will get sick of him if he's the season's Big Bad. Haydn-Jones and Connell have some good chemistry as Ketch and Rowena. I also liked Haydn-Jones cutting loose a bit, doing some goofy-looking arm-waving as he uses science to work on Rowena's soul catcher. I've never been a fan of Kevin, and his return this episode doesn't change my opinion of him. He shows up, he quickly turns out to be useless, and he escapes Harlan. The end.

Sam and Dean don't have much to do this episode. Dean gets a little bit of development with his whole "Was it all worth it?" attitude. But it's already old, and it's hard to imagine him keeping it up for a half-season, much less a whole season. Dean's attitude doesn't go anywhere: he sulks, he gets over it. We've seen the Winchesters before in the depths of despair and angst, and eventually they get over it. It's not like Dean is going to give it all up and become a monk or a hermit. Eventually, Dean will get over it.

I like Castiel, but so far he seems wasted this season. He can't heal Sam, he can't heal Ketch after Dean shoots him. I don't doubt the creative team are going somewhere with how Castiel is powerless. But Castiel never seems to be operating at full strength in recent years. All they're doing is finding another reason to keep him relatively powerless. Tonight, for instance, he doesn't add anything to the episode.

Alexander Calvert as Belphegor is still amusing. We get a little of his backstory when Ketch says he was hired to kill Belphegor by a rival demon.

Lane Davies makes a good villain. He doesn't do anything "Jack the Ripper"ish, but there isn't really much he could do. Which makes you wonder why they bothered to identify him as Jack. Other than to give him a bit of reputation he doesn't deserve based on what he does in this episode.

Overall, "Raising Hell" was an okay episode, with a bit of the Supernatural humor tossed in to boost it over last week's episode. Depending on your point of view, the humor was either a return to form, or it tended to take away a bit from the whole apocalyptic feel of the show. The ghosts don't appear to be a major threat to the Winchesters so far, even though they're described as more powerful than they were before. The ghosts make a decent "holding pattern" plot but the creative team has its work cut out for it turning them into a major threat.

Then again, maybe the ghosts aren't supposed to be a major threat. Michael was mentioned last week, and Chuck isn't going anywhere. There's the female demon who wants Belphegor dead, and the ominous hints of Chuck and Sam being tied together by their mutual gunshot wounds. As well as Castiel's depowering. Like I said, right now the ghosts seem more like filler than anything while we wait for the "real" bad guys. The Winchesters have dealt with ghosts plenty of times: they're just not that big a threat this time. Supernatural seems to be falling prey to its own upping of the stakes each season. After the Winchesters have fought demons, and Leviathans, and Eve, and Amara, and Lucifer, and Michael-boosted vampires and werewolves, ghosts just don't seem to be that big a threat.

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