"Unhuman Nature" – Supernatural S14E07 Review

Oh, with "Unhuman Nature" we get another Jack episode. Yes, we got other people along the way. But it was mostly about Jack: Jack dying, Jack dealing with death, Jack living his life to the fullest knowing he's going to die. So how much you like the episode will probably depend a great deal on how much you like Jack.

Fortunately, I currently like Jack. He had a rocky start as another godlike being on the show. Most of the episodes last season seemed dedicated either to Jack as a McGuffin ("Where has he gone? We have to find him!") or put him off-camera (what was he doing on Apocalypse World?), or made him a plot device (Lucifer needing his grace). None of this has done the personality of Jack much good.

Fortunately, as I noted in my review of "Optimism", the creative team has turned this around to some degree and let some of actor Alexander Calvert's natural charisma come through. If I had been Calvert last year, I would have either demanded more to do with some acting chops required or left the show. The creative team apparently figured out they should do the former, with or without some prompting.

So what did Calvert get to act with this week? As we start the episode, Jack is still coughing. They take him to a hospital for a mildly boring sequence where the Winchesters discover that living off the grid sucks when it comes to getting medical treatment. I'm not sure if it's a political commentary ("insurance" is never mentioned), or it's a look at how unrealistic the Winchesters' lifestyle can be, or what. It goes on a bit too long, and it ends with the doctor basically telling what we figured, and what you'd think any of the magical types on the show could figure out and eventually do: Jack losing his grace is killing him. It doesn’t seem to have regenerated (why not?), and so his cells are eating each other alive.

Sam calls in Rowena, and Castiel tracks down Sergei (Dimitri Vantis), a shaman who has worked for the Men of Letters on occasion as a freelancer. Rowena isn't big on helping Lucifer's son, but Jack lays on the charm and she's soon swayed.

Castiel heads off to... somewhere. Sergei traps Castiel in a Holy Fire circle but soon lets him go and offers him a cure for Jack in return for the Winchesters owing him some future unspecified favor. The cure doesn't work, and makes Jack worse. Rowena tells the team all they can do is make Jack comfortable as he dies.

While this has been going on, Dean has been having regrets about giving Jack a hard time early on. So he makes it up to him by taking him out to live it up. This involves letting Jack drive the Impala and buying burgers. And then Jack decides to go fishing because he heard Dean say he and John used to go fishing. I wish we had heard this: I don't ever recall it. The two of them have beers and Jack says life is about the little moments. Hallmark quickly writes down his sentiments, and they head back to the bunker for the (failed) cure.

Throughout all of this, we've had more of Nick (Mark Pellegrino) trying to find out who killed his wife and son. This first involves killing a priest who knew Arty, the neighbor Nick killed a few episodes back. Nick then tracks down a crime reporter who covered the story. He never gets the chance to kill her. Nick does stalk some woman outside of a club. He comes up to her, but she gets the creeps from him, but then does a 180 and invites him in with her to the club. Nick starts to go with her, but then tells her to run.

Subsequently, Nick tracks down the beat cop the crime reporter told him about. Nick breaks into ex-cop Frank Kellogg (Craig March)'s house, tortures the guy, and gets him to admit he talked to someone at the house named Abraxas before waking up covered with blood. Our home intruder/torturer tells him he understands Frank was possessed, but still kill him for being the "hands" that killed Nick's family.

At the end of this week's Nick adventure, Nick preys to Lucifer saying he really really likes the killing. But he wants to go back to the way he was when Lucifer possessed him and not feel any compassion or remorse. And in the darkness that looks like the darkness Castiel was trapped in last season, a black figure emerge from black liquid and its eyes glow read. Could it be... Lucifer?

The Sergei thing really didn't really go anywhere. Team Winchester already know they need an archangel's grace and a magic spell: it just so happens Sergei has the grace (he got it from Gabriel) and the spell. He's pretty indifferent when Castiel tells him the process failed. I'm not sure if the deal he made with the Winchesters is binding since it didn't work. But then I don't understand why Castiel just doesn't teleport and kill the guy, rather than make vague kill-y threats.

So on the one hand, if we never saw Sergei again I wouldn't be heartbroken. But why build him up if they're not going to bring him back.

Rowena (Ruth Connell) was her usual charming self. She didn't have a lot to do, but Connell did it well.

That leaves us with Jack, who was pretty much the lynchpin of the episode. As I noted earlier, credit to Alexander Calvert: he pulled it off pretty well when it could have either been soppy or unaffecting. The creative team just managed to walk the line between the two extremes. Calvert manages to do inhumanity (or at least unfamiliarity with humanity) as well as Misha Collins does, while putting a different spin on it. Jack is young and naïve and inhuman, Castiel is old and seasoned and inhuman.

Where they go from here, I don't know. It looks like something attacks Heaven and what remains of the angels. Lucifer is on the rise. Michael is still out there. Dean has a few moments of... something this week where he goes wobbly and his vision blurs. Whether that ties into Michael or not, presumably we'll find out.

Since this is episode 7, we're roughly a third of the way through the season. And it's done what most thirds of seasons have done. Set up a few plotlines for the season, set it all up for something big for the mid-season finale, given us a comedy episode ("Mint Condition"), and introduced us to the new status quo of Apocalypse World Hunters. Even though they all seemed to be absent from the bunker this week.

I don't think there's enough to predict what's going on other than Heaven, Lucifer, and Michael. But there rarely is, and the creative team has demonstrated in the past they can throw in a curve ball or two mid-season.

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