Supernatural- Season 11 Episode 14: "The Vessel" Review

February 18, 2016

I have to say, I was very excited to see that this episode started with a case, which is truer to the normal set up of Supernatural episodes. We seemed to have gotten lost in the subplot of the Darkness for a while and the Hunter cases took a backseat for a minute there. As Supernatural fans, we are quite used to there being some end of the world threat that needs Sam and Dean's attention in addition to their everyday hunting. This season, we have Amara, The Darkness. Amara, the sister of God, has been around since before the beginning of time, destroying everything in her path. Except Dean, who shares a mutual affection for her due the bond they developed when he wore the "Mark of Cain" and after her release. Leaving only Sam to vow to destroy her. And given how royally Sam seems to mess things up each season, this is quite worrisome.

As this episode begins, we are in 1943, in Nazi occupied France. We are following a Solider and his beautiful female companion. As the man is on the phone, our attention is brought to an old box, which is home to an ancient artifact. We quickly learn the contents of that box were the entire purpose of the Nazi's occupying France. Whatever could it be? That seems like a lot of work for an old box with mystery contents! We don't have to wait long before the beautiful mystery woman asks for us. As she stares into the box, she's mesmerized. I want to be mesmerized too! Show us what is in the box!! Whatever it is, it must be good, because the woman, Delphine, removes the pin from her hair, and jabs it into the Nazi Soldier's neck as she turns back to face him. I kind of expected that, having been watching the show 11 seasons now, but it's bad ass none the less. How does someone look so gorgeous when they kill someone? As this thought passes, we find out her true purpose there: she is with The Men of Letters!

Back in the Men of Letters bunker, we find Sam nose deep in a book. Sometimes I feel his constant thirst for knowledge is his only redeeming quality. Dean is on a much more important mission, finding coffee. Sam soon informs Dean of the lead he found. We may now have an idea of what this mysterious artifact is! He tells Dean about something called "The Hand of God" a name for several objects having been touched by God himself, retaining some of his power. He goes on to explain that the Nazi's had a whole branch dedicated to archaeology, which does not sound like your average research team. And they had possession of this "Hand of God" before a Woman of Letters, Delphine, stole it. He asks what better weapon to fight Amara than that holding the power of God himself? They needed to track it down.

Dean and Sam still have no idea that Castiel allowed Lucifer access to him as a vessel. Good intentions or not, we all know how Lucifer is, I mean he's the Devil! Not quite a man you make deals with. He has all but broken "the king of Hell" Crowley. Who knows who is next?! Sam, Dean? All that is going to have to wait. They need to travel back in time, and they know the angel to ask. Or do they? Sam is worried about Dean going, he thinks Castiel isn't at full strength. He has no idea the real truth. Lucifer sees this as an opportunity. Can you imagine a weapon of this magnitude in the hands of a man who is such a sociopath and so sinister? Maybe we would soon find out.

So Dean, in typical Dean fashion, finds himself a uniform to fit in once arriving on the submarine Delphine is on with the box. Castiel, who we know is Lucifer, fails to hold his end of the deal, and doesn't go with him. Which is no surprise to me, he can't stand the Winchesters. He fed Sam some bull about not being to make the trip, which we can see sends Sam into a slight panic. And as always, he leaps to sacrifice himself, an idea that always ends badly. I was surprised when Lucifer didn't jump at that chance, having such a strong disdain toward him. Back on the ship, we see Dean winning over Delphine after being shown how badass she is. Dean, doesn't try to hide his true intentions for being there. He warns the captain of their fate. A direct approach I have come to expect of Dean, who unlike Sam is much more blunt. It doesn't take long for us to learn the Nazi's aren't normal human soldier's, and the one we thought was Delphine wasn't dead, and he was in full on pursuit.

Sam, again nose deep in a book, finds a way to get "Castiel" to the ship, he found a way to block all forms of blockages of magical or occult nature. The only thing is, he needed an Arch Angel, and Castiel didn't make the cut. Ouch. As we know Castiel is still full consciously aware of things said, even with Lucifer in control, and I'm sure that stung. Lucifer however, fallen or not, does fit the bill, and he devises his own plan. Now don't get me wrong, I'm team Dean and the Winchesters all day, but I am very entertained by the mischievous mind of Lucifer. And he always likes to hint to his plans, even if the people he is hinting to don't get it at the moment. I'm sure many of you were screaming at Sam to realize who he was.

Delphine, desperate to save the ship, begs Dean to kill her. She exposes a sigil on her chest. He tries to tell her he can cut the sigil, but she explains the magic is deeper. It lives and dies with her. Can you imagine carrying that kind of power? She seems so together compared to the way we saw Dean when he had the mark of Cain. It's hard to imagine what he was thinking in that moment. We saw it his hesitation. But of course, as he was getting ready to put her of her own misery, they were slammed to the ground. And just as the ground was taken from under Dean, Sam was about to be in for the same fate.

We see the pain and fear in Sam's eyes, and his world is completely shaken when he learns he has been with Lucifer the whole time. His biggest fear is now coming to light, and he just asked him to take control of his soul. How does this always happen to Sam? Can we just talk about this for a minute? He always seems too eager to sacrifice himself or give over control to whoever happens to be there. For as book smart as he is, he has no common sense. He never learns his lesson, nor does he seem to grow stronger in away from his experiences. It's like that friend you repetitively give the same advice to because they never listen. After a while, you are just kind of like… “you kind of made that bed, Sam.” Or is that just me? I'm just glad Lucifer said he would bring Dean back. We know Sam can't beat Lucifer alone, he knows him too well. And Castiel is fighting too, which we know is the only thing keeping Sam alive.

Delphine seems to be just as self-sacrificing as Sam and Dean. She knows she needs to die, but she wants to do it for a purpose. She promised to get Dean home and help the men on the ship. She seems like a female Dean, strong, assertive, and quick on her feet. So it made it more bitter sweet knowing she had to die. Or did she? I hope not. Why do they keep killing off all the bad ass female heroines? For once I would love to see one live for longer than a few episodes. We have that sheriff that pops in every now and again, who is honestly so uninteresting I don't remember her name. But of course before we got to find out the actual fate of Delphine, Lucifer pops in and takes Dean back as promised. And as soon as he's back, Sam tells Dean his real identity. Can a guy get 5 seconds back in the right time period before he had to deal with more Sam drama? Now he has to save his baby brother, again! And get back the "Hand of God" he just risked his life for, that's now a dud? Oh boy. Wait what? Twist of events! Sam saved Dean this time. A rather personal win on several levels for him. Good for him! But now what are they going to do? We need to save our precious angel, Castiel, willing or not. And I hope it happens soon, because if Lucifer meets Amara, or gets to whatever else he's planning, the battle will only get bigger. And if you're as big of fan of Castiel as I am, I'm sure you are hoping he makes it through this in one piece.

Written by A Play On Nerds contributor, Kaylynn Kasandra

X-File Relaunch Episode 5 Review: Doppelgängers, Terrorist and Mushrooms, oh my!

February 16, 2016

As the episodes begins, we follow a Muslim man as he does his morning prayers. When he leaves his home, he sees several backwoods country folk staring him down and talking, intimidating him enough to roll up his window at the stop light. When he gets to his destination he is met by a friend. They join together in prayer before a entering a building, which explodes minutes later. I was hoping the episode wouldn’t go this route, but here we are.

When we see Mulder and Scully, they are discussing theology as a means to understand the case, and we find out what makes this a X-Files case. Witnesses claimed to have heard music at the time of the explosion, the songs of the Heavens perhaps? It seems as though Mulder isn’t the only one thinking there could be an X-Files connection. Agent Miller, a young Mulder type begs his partner, Einstein, the Scully to his Mulder, to make a pit stop to discuss this case with the real Mulder and Scully. Miller thinks Mulder may know how reach the surviving terrorist who is in a coma, which will help them crack open an even bigger terrorist ring. Einstein, much like a young Scully is not impressed, and just wanted to get back to the case, her way.

As Miller and Einstein wait for their flight, Scully calls Miller. She thinks she can break the case and communicate with the comatose terrorist, using science and MRI. A thing she wishes she would have thought of when her mother was on her deathbed. Meanwhile Mulder calls Einstein, he wants her to come help him with the case, she denies him, until she sees Scully helping her partner Miller. In typical Mulder fashion, he immediately goes to work at breaking down Einstein’s thoughts and theories which quickly leads to his true reason for asking for her help, magic mushrooms. He wants to use them to enter a parallel plane of existence and communicate with the terrorist. Against her better judgment, and after much protest, Einstein agrees.

Once the mushrooms are in effect, Mulder slips by Einstein as her attention is on a nurse who tried pulling the plug on the comatose man. And Mulder’s mushroom driven adventure begins! We see him walking down the street before joining a country line dance, which he looks far too thrilled to be at. We see a side of Mulder that is somewhat reminiscent of David Duchovny’s character in Californication. Sex and rock and roll seem to dominate his drug fueled fantasies, until he finds himself on a boat filled with cloaked figures.

That’s when he sees him, the whole reason he is there, the comatose man is right in front of him, being held in a woman’s arms. The whole vision is very similar to depictions of Jesus and his mother the Virgin Mary. Mulder apprehensively makes his way to towards the pair. The closer he gets he can see the man is whispering something and he leans his ear in so he can hear him. As he begins to speak, we are shown about a dozen terrorist strapped with bombs, being prepped for an attack.

Meanwhile, Scully is still determined to help Miller get the answers he is searching for. As he begins to speak the man’s native tongue, Scully notices changes on the monitor. Miller is thrilled, but quickly, Scully brings him back to Earth, there are too many unknown variables and they have tons of work ahead of them. Whereas Mulder, is recovering from his drug induced haze, which Einstein informs him was strictly a placebo effect, as she didn’t give him the real thing, a lie told to save herself from trouble.

Mulder reveals he did speak to the terrorist, and that he recognizes a woman begging to be allowed in the hospital. It was the woman holding him in his vision, the woman is the man’s mother. She cries and tells them, she saw visions of her son. He has lost his nerve to hurt others and tried to leave, that was the only thing that kept him from dying instantly. Sadly, after she reveals this, he flat lines, sparking more visions of Mulder’s adventures, as Mulder sputters off what he remembers, Miller translates. This information leads them to the remaining terrorist, saving the day just in time! Einstein admits to Miller that maybe there are possibilities for belief to hold weight outside of the scientific world. A conversation we have seen before with their older counterparts.

And with only one episode remaining we are left with hope that maybe Mulder and Scully can rekindle the love they once had. In the final minutes we get yet another reference to William when Mulder mentions mothers, and motherhood. Will the final episode reunite the family of three? Will we be seeing more of Miller and Einstein, a spin off perhaps? I can’t help but wonder what all this is leading up to. I’m just hoping the final episode isn’t going to leave us with more questions than answers. I’m not going to lie, I was a little upset to see the episode was based on terrorism this week. Having seen how much fear and hate people already have towards Islam and the people who practice it, I was very pleased to see the way they dealt with addressing those issues. X-Files has always had a way of addressing social issues. They bring to light every perspective on the issues. In this episode I believe they did so by showing all the people with blind hate towards the comatose man, as well as his mother’s perspective. Scully also did a great job of educating people that not every Islamic person is a terrorist, and that the extremists are the minority. I’m looking forward to next week’s final adventure and hope you are too!

Written by A Play On Nerds Contributor Kaylynn Kasandra

The Walking Dead Mid-Season 6 Premiere Episode 9: “No Way Out”

February 15, 2016

For those of you not caught up on the first half of the season, or on the mid-season premiere, I ask that you stop reading now and go get yourself current, because I’m going to spoil and I’m going to spoil hard.

The mid-season premiere of The Walking Dead begins with Daryl, Abraham and Sasha road tripping it back to Alexandria when they are waylaid by a biker gang (who knew there were so many motorcycles to be had at the end of the world?) led by a charismatic fellow who in turn claims the group’s guns for a man named Negan. Talk of Negan has been brewing ever since his arc took place in the comics, and rightfully so. While The Governor was no prince, Negan makes him look charming in comparison, so much so that I had to take a break from reading the comics. Let’s just say I’m...interested...in how things play out on television. I will say that the casual humor and swagger with which the biker fellow talks to our hardened heroes is very ominous, literally telling them to eat shit in big bites. The bravado doesn’t last long however, and while I did warn about spoilers, the way the group gets away is just too good for words.

Back in Alexandria, Rick, Michonne, Carl, Judith, Father Gabriel, Jessie, Sam and Ron are all holding hands and making nice while using an old trick in the survivor’s handbook to remain undetected by the walkers. Seeing that there’s too many to get through at their pace, Rick decides the best thing to do is to get back to the quarry and get some vehicles. Gabriel volunteers to take Judith back to his church and sit tight. When Michonne questions his grit, he responds with one of my favorite lines this season:

“I’m supposed to. I have to. I will.”

Gabriel has been a bit of a slouch when it comes to keeping people alive if you’ll recall, but Rick believes in him and off they go. Meanwhile Rosita, Tara, Eugene, and knocked out Carol and Morgan are holed up and thinking of a plan. Alpha Wolf had previously taken Denise hostage after Carol and Morgan had a difference of opinion regarding the value of human life. Carol comes to first and snaps to attention, taking Rosita’s gun to do a perimeter check. Morgan wakes up soon after, hopefully feeling like an ass.

We then see the progress of two odd couples, Glenn and Enid and Alpha Wolf and Denise. Both have different objectives and both have halves that are unwilling and afraid to go on. We see two sides of the survivor mentality in these scenes. You keep going because you HAVE to, because living is the only imperative, or you keep going because you carry the memories of your loved ones gone and you shoulder the responsibility to those who are still alive. The juxtaposition was very enjoyable.

Checking back in with our viscera laden daisy chain, we get our first big “HOLY SHIT” moment. Sam, who had previously begged his mother to let him come along instead of go with Gabriel, panics. Carol’s words ring in his mind and he freezes. Was this Carol’s intention? When she said those awful things to him, was she just trying to push away a nuisance child, projecting her own losses onto him, or did she see an inescapable weakness in him and was just giving fair warning? Whatever the reason, Sam becomes the walkers’ appetizer. Grief stricken and frozen herself, Jessie immediately becomes the main course. Rick, so unlucky in love, who had fought so desperately for a normal life and to protect the first woman he’d had feelings for since Lori, watches in agonized horror. But once he realizes Jessie was holding Carl’s hand, and Carl himself was dangerously close to the feeding frenzy, the Ricktatorship kicks back in and he wastes no time in hacking his beloved’s arm off to save his son. In the scuffle, Carl drops his gun.

Always a big fan of pointing guns at the people he blames for his problems, Ron takes the opportunity to take revenge for his drunk father, his irksome brother, and his poor mother who bore all their burdens. Alas, Michonne runs him through with her katana. While she might have believed for a moment that they could have had a normal life in Alexandria, killing Ron without hesitation was also the death of that chance at a normal life. The group comes first, the rest are just baggage. Unfortunately Ron pops a shot off before becoming walker dessert, and a moment I’ve been waiting for, for a long time, finally happens.

Carl gets his eye blown out. These things happen in such rapid succession that I was breathless by the time Carl turns to his father and collapses.

Scrapping the plan for the rock quarry, Michonne leads the charge back to the infirmary, going full samurai on walkers along the way. In the meantime, Carol and Morgan have a moment where she points out the hypocrisy of Morgan’s zen ninja turtle philosophy. He only lives that way to cope with his own demons, and while everyone alive has their own demons, their actions serve the group, whereas Morgan’s way of life is self-serving. Carol remarks that she should have killed Morgan, to which he replies that she can’t, highlighting a weakness in her own merciless ways. Between you and me, Carol could and would kill Morgan in a heartbeat.

Alpha Wolf and Denise make a break for the guard tower, and they almost made it. Denise is waylaid by a walker and Alpha Wolf goes back to save her, suffering a bite himself. She promises to save his life if they can get back to the infirmary. Making a pit stop to tourniquet his arm, Alpha Wolf muses that he almost made it out, and Denise points out that he went back for her and that maybe he did change. Perhaps hearing Morgan’s story moved him to have a newfound respect for life? We would have found out, but Carol popped two caps in Alpha Wolf’s chest as they made a break for the infirmary. I think therein lies the difference between Carol and Morgan’s way of handling problems.

Denise makes it back to the infirmary, where Heath, Aaron, and Spencer are hiding out. Not far behind are Rick and Michonne, with a cycloptic little sheriff in tow. No time to mourn the loss of her new friend, she gets to work on Carl. His son’s life hanging in the balance, his one shot at love in the zombie apocalypse dead, and everything overall being in a shitty state of affairs, Rick goes absolutely berserk.

One man alone against the zombie horde, Rick is possessed by blood fury. He fights tirelessly but the walkers keep closing in. But soon he is joined by Michonne, then Heath, Aaron and Spencer. Not wanting to be left out, Rosita, Carol, Tara, Morgan and even Eugene join in this last stand. Gabriel passes Judith on to someone else hiding in the church, inspired to do some righteous smiting himself. Here we see the survivors of Alexandria united finally, behind Rick. Their cozy suburban life thoroughly destroyed, they have only each other now.

Glenn and Enid finally reach Maggie, only to find her guard tower surrounded and about to topple. Glenn goes for the distraction while Enid climbs up with a rope. Mind you, this is the first time Maggie has seen Glenn since the failed trip to the quarry and the invasion of the Wolves and walkers. She wasn’t sure if he was alive or dead, and could only watch from afar as he is surrounded by walkers. I was incredibly tense during this scene. Were they not even going to be reunited? Would she have to watch him die from afar, would their last moment together be his sacrifice for her rescue? He can’t get lucky twice, after all…

I don’t mind telling you I stood up and cheered as the ravenous walker horde closing in on Glenn was mowed down by divine fully automatic gunfire from Abraham and Sasha, who had reached Alexandria in the very nick of time. But the hugs and handshakes would have to wait, as the newly reunited friends dump fuel from the tanker into Alexandria’s lake and lit it ablaze. A fairly symbolic action, as a montage of our heroes, men and women on fire, fight endlessly against a black background to finish the fight.

The next morning, those that were left stand in silent relief, and perhaps disbelief. At Carl’s bedside, Rick talks of a new world, of a bright future that he wants him to see. And, not to disappoint, Carl’s hand stirs to grip his father’s.

Overall this is what makes the show great. It’s a balance of tragedy and triumph, and the writers dole each out in different measurements. It’s not a perfect show so the measurements aren’t always right, but when there’s that right amount that has us biting our nails one moment and fist pumping the next, it’s great television. I can’t think of a more emotionally nerve wracking premiere and the ride was worth it.

But there are plenty of questions to be answered in the remainder of this season. Who are the Wolves, and who are the men who follow Negan? Are the Wolves expendable foot soldiers for Negan? If so, does that mean he has more people than Rick? Morgan and Carol’s way of doing things will come to a head, and when it does, who wins and who loses? Who would Rick side with? Will Alexandria have time to rebuild before Negan comes? And who’ll be his first victim? Comic readers think they might have an idea. Either way, as I’ve said before, this is going to be the most brutal trial our already harrowed heroes have had to face. Let the speculations begin!

Written by A Play On Nerds contributor, Jerry Herrera - Lover of horror, sci fi, and fantasy in that order. Semi-permanent Disneyland resident. I'm at least one of the droids you're looking for. Twitter: @FrankenJerry - Instagram: @GeraldoPedro