Supernatural review: Hunters become the hunted in intense episode

Sam and Dean team up with Mary and Bobby when one of their own goes missing. Arguments arise within the group and their own nightmares come to life.

Our heroes were seriously tested this week as they faced their inner demons. Sam and Dean discover that Maggie, a fellow hunter, has been kidnapped and they go to investigate, which is when they find that Mary and Bobby are already on the case. The hunting team is hindered when Bobby blames Sam for allowing Maggie to go hunting alone, which causes more friction within the team as Mary feels cut off from whatever it is that Bobby is really bothered by.

I think that the Bobby and Mary pairing is a love it or hate it type of relationship. The couple do work well together and have clearly grown very close, but I think some people might feel that it is too forced. After Bobby opens up to Mary about the death of his son, the two decide to take some time out of hunting so that Bobby can learn to live without war, and to grieve. There were some emotional scenes, and we got some rare moments between the boys and their mother, which have been few and far between in recent seasons. Sam and Mary even talk about John, Sam and Dean’s dad, which was a nostalgic and heartwarming conversation to watch. It does feel strange to see Mary and Bobby together romantically, but I’m sure we’ll grow to love them.

Although Dean is clearly still struggling to get over his stint as Michael’s vessel when the Archangel possessed him last season, Sam also seems to be juggling with a lot too. Sam has become the unofficial chief of the group of hunters who they have housed at the bunker. He apparently is getting hardly any sleep to ensure that they are all checking in with him whilst hunting, making sure everyone is safe and has back up. The responsibility and the weight of so many people relying on him takes its toll and Sam feels awful when Maggie goes missing.

The team thankfully finds and rescues Maggie and, as Mary puts it in the episode, it’s obvious that Sam was born to be a leader. Sam even has the hunters wear body cameras whilst hunting in case anything goes wrong and this was pivotal to finding Maggie. It was really cool to see how far the hunting community has come in terms of technology and strategy. It’s like Sam is thinking up ideas that he wished he had had when he was younger.

Dean is taking a step back from leadership as he still has issues of his own to deal with. Dean has always been more independent and less sensitive than his younger brother, but this season he should be focusing on himself following Michael’s possession of him. When the boys find the monster responsible for Maggie’s disappearance, the monster reveals that Michael enhanced his powers and ordered him to kill as many hunters as he could. This clearly angers Dean as he can’t help feeling guilty for Michael’s actions, having allowed Michael to possess his body in the first place. More of Michael’s plan is revealed as Dean discovers that hunters are the new target. Michael is clearly thinning out the competition so that when he begins to rule over mankind, there will be less hunters to rebel against him.

The actual monster of the week was really interesting. In Supernatural, a Djinn is a creature who feeds off the blood of their victims and they can poison just by touching, causing hallucinations of their victim’s uttermost desires. (Whereas outside the show, a djinn is essentially a supernatural creature mentioned in Islamic theology — they can be good or evil, or simply benevolent.)

The Djinn in this week, however, was enhanced by Michael, and could read minds and draw the worst fears from people and make them real, which he uses to manifest a vampire and a hallucination of Bobby’s deceased son. The Djinn is quite a rare creature to see on Supernatural but they always make great villains because they bring out heartbreaking emotions from their victims, rather than just eating them quickly like vampires and werewolves do. Sometimes having the same monsters on the show all the time can get boring so it was a nice surprise to explore something we don’t normally get to see.

With Michael’s plan to utilize all of the monsters he can find, will we see any more rare or new monsters make an appearance?

Which monsters would you want to see on the show? Let us know in the comments!