Supernatural - 2 minutes to midnight (S5Ep21)
It's the penultimate episode of the season (and originally the entire series until the surprising announcement of season 6), and we've quite firmly switched to serialised storytelling, the action picking up almost immediately after the events of the previous episode. The brothers are going for Pestilence while Bobby helps track down Death for a terrible price (no, not his soul, I'm talking about the kiss).
The opening scenes with Pestilence are suitably disturbing and icky, though the entrance of Castiel is too rushed and confusing with little time to figure out if he was faking the illness or not. Later, Death gets a fantastic entrance but the actor playing him doesn't quite match the style set by the slow-mo walk and reap. I can't help but think the team were running low on money when it came to taking down the virus in the warehouse as, despite a brilliant exploding head shot, we really needed to see the trucks in flames. I know I said earlier how smart the production team were to avoid trying to show the full blown apocalypse, but at this point it did need more than some news footage and press clippings. We needed to get a sense of the scale, especially as the end approaches.
Mark Sheppard once again does wonders with Crowley despite the reduced screen time compared to last week. I'm sure he'll be back given his sudden disappearance from the tale. Jim Beaver gets a nice conclusion to his mini arc, playing the joy and disbelief at getting to walk again. Misha, well Misha, as always, rocks. Which just leaves our leads. Jared's managed to control the twitch more than before but it's still lurking around. And Jensen? There very few emotions the guy has left to play, save just a final, weary acceptance of what he's going to have to let his brother do.
4.5/5
Supernatural - Swan song (S5Ep22)
And so the apocalypse comes to a close, with blood and death and loss, and yet also some hope for the future. Oh, and a huge debate over whether or not one of the characters is actually God.
Except for the very last shot this could easily have played as the final ever end to the show, albeit a much bleaker one if we thought a certain person wasn't coming back. Speaking of which: exploding Cas! Possibly the goriest thing the show has ever done.
The plot is fairly straightforward: Sam drinks a trunk full of new demon-o flavoured sunny d and hulks out; says yes to Lucifer only to get beat like France in the world cup (yeh I made a sports reference. Bet you didn't see that one coming); heads out to meet his angel brother on the final battlefield after taking care of some old friends; and then Dean drives up in the impala to save the day (and get his face turned into the inside of a blood orange). People die, only to get brought back to life; people are trapped in hell, only to pop back up later; and some people get the life they always secretly wanted, until Sera brings the pain again.
It's a great finale, if smaller in scale than I'd been expecting and with an ending that loses some punch with the knowledge the cast will be back in a few months time. This has always been a show about the 2 brothers and it's great to see it's their love for each other and the memories they shared that saves the day.
5/5
