"Golden Time" – Supernatural S15E06 Review

"Golden Time" was both good and bad. Good, in that I liked the primary monster of the week: a family of witches with the mother played by returning-for-the-third-time Keegan Connor Tracy. It also brought back Eileen (Shoshannah Stern) and gave us some payoff from Season 11. Eileen always felt like the creative team's attempt to give us both a Sam romantic interest, a tough female Hunter, and a handicapped person as a Hunter. She didn't have much time to become a character in her own right before they killed her off.

We also had some decent chemistry between Sam and Dean. Sam got a happy ending of sorts, and gave Dean a pep talk which will hopefully snap him out of his current funk. Which involves sitting around the bunker, watching TV, and eating cereal.

The downside was we had a dull-as-dishwater Castiel subplot that didn't seem to do much of anything. As much as I like Misha Collins, "Golden Time" shows he's really not up to being a central character. So if "Golden Time" was some kind of backdoor pilot for a Castiel series, it failed as miserably as the last two backdoor pilots.

So why was the Castiel plot so boring and the other stuff so good? The episode starts with a woman, Jessie, breaking into Rowena's apartment, searching the place and finding nothing, and getting hexed to death by a mystical booby trap.

At the bunker, Sam is checking the Internet for signs of Chuck or Lilith. A near-invisible shimmer is hovering around him, and soon Eileen appears to the Winchesters. It turns out Eileen was dragged to Hell by the Hellhound that killed her, and was released with the other souls. She can't go to Heaven since it's been stated anyone in Hell can't go to Heaven, so she hangs out with Sam in ghostly form. Sam goes to Rowena's place and soon locates a hidden room and a spell that lets the caster resurrect someone.

Two witches capture Sam and dispel Eileen, and the mother witch soon reveals she came to plunder Rowena's magical spells and items. The previous woman, Jessie, was the third member of the trio, and was the mother's daughter along with the third witch, Emily (Jodelle Ferland, who was previously in a season 1 episode). Emily creates a voodoo-witch doll to force Sam to search Rowena's apartment since she set the hex traps not to kill him so he could inherit her things.

Sam tries to get Emily to his side by talking about how Dean used to prank him, the same way Jessie pranked Emily. Emily looks pensive but finally decides she isn't having any of it. I can't blame her: the bit seems like time filler. We learn nothing new about Sam, and Emily isn't at all swayed. Dean shows up holding a gun to the mother's head, and Jessie's ghost attacks him. However, Eileen has put herself back together and fights Jessie.

In a well-choreographed three-way fight, Dean shoots Emily dead, Sam force-feeds a magical token to the mother killing her, and then Dean burns Jessie's body before she can kill Eileen. Sam then uses the resurrection spell to bring Eileen back to life. At the bunker, Sam makes Eileen comfortable in a guest room and I'm looking forward to seeing more of Eileen. Dean admits to Sam he can't tell where Chuck's plans begin and end. Sam gives him a pep talk saying they still have moves and he needs Dean at his side. Dean looks pensive.

In the Castiel subplot, Castiel is holed up in a small town in Wyoming. He's not doing much of anything until a local tackle & bait shop owner mentions they hauled a boy's body out of the nearby lake. Castiel goes to the sheriff's station, meets Melly Krokowski (Jennifer Spencer), and finds out her son is also missing. Sheriff Roy (Art Kitching) isn't helpful and questions Castiel's credentials. So Castiel calls one of Bobby's "fake FBI supervisor" numbers, and Dean picks up. They have a tense phone conversation where Dean tells Castiel to return Sam's calls and check his voice mails.

Dean also convinces Roy to let Castiel stick his nose in. Somehow, Castiel soon finds out tourists have gone missing near a local lake, goes there, and Melly trails after him. They wander around for a bit, find Caleb who saw the monster doing the killing, and then Sheriff Roy shows up, reveals he's a djinn, and shoots Castiel. Since Castiel is an angel, the bullets have no effect. Castiel repeatedly stabs and finally kills Roy, and heals Caleb's twisted ankle. Although it takes a lot of effort out of the angel. At the end, Castiel tells Melly he's going back to "get into the game" and heads for the bunker.

This would be more impressive if we had seen enough of Castiel to have a grasp of why he left, and/or why he's going back. If he thinks his time with the Winchesters is done, then why go back to them? There are presumably ways to get back into "the game" without rejoining Team Winchester. Melly talks about how she came to Wyoming to get out of "the game" of accounting but still argues with her son. However, other than a distant flicker of "Her story parallels my own" from Castiel, there really aren't any parallels between Melly's situation and Castiel's.

There is a parallel of sorts between Dean and Castiel. Dean has pretty much given up on "the game" since he doesn't know if they're being manipulated by Chuck, and Castiel has done the same. But again, the parallel isn't really emphasized or touched on. It's just there.

As I noted in my last review, I don't mind parallel-storytelling episodes. However, last week's was just a repeat of the week before that. This week there just wasn't much paralleling there.

"Golden Time" was basically a placeholder. It gave us a little bit of a wrap-up on Rowena's death, and brought Castiel back onto the show after a two episode absence. We get Eileen back, and I'm glad to see her. But I can't see her being a big contributing factor to the battle against Chuck. Sorry, Eileen. I suspect she'll heroically die (again) as part of Chuck twisting the knife in Sam's gut.

The witch trio were decent monsters. Roy was a waste as any kind of impressive monster. Remember when djinns used to be impressive on Supernatural? Roy isn't one of them. Plus, he doesn't stand a chance against the bulletproof Castiel, so doesn't even provide a decent challenge.

We get mentions of Chuck, Lilith, and the overall "Big Bad" storyline. But nothing happens concerning it. We get Castiel back in the fold, but he's no more powerful against Chuck than the Winchesters. I like the Sam-Dean-Castiel dynamic, and there's still Castiel's deal with the Empty to be explored. And Jack went there when he was killed and is still awake. So they can bring Alexander Calvert back if they're so inclined.

"Golden Time" just felt a bit rudderless. Castiel is back, Eileen is back, Rowena's inheritance for Sam is handed over (he's now apparently a decent spell practitioner). But as an episode in the final season, "Golden Time" didn't feel... climactic. I don't expect every episode this season to be an over-the-top "Battle versus Chuck" extravaganza. But with a few dialogue changes, "Golden Time" could have been in any of the last few seasons. Season 15 is the final season, and the creative team are wasting episodes like this on relative piffle. They need to go big or go home.

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