Episode: Supernatural 7.20 – “The Girl with the Dungeons and Dragons Tattoo”
Original Air Date: April 27, 2012
Screencaps by spn-caps.
With the promise of Felicia Day, Ghost!Bobby, and the return of Richard Roman, this week’s episode of Supernatural was bound to be action-packed. What I don’t think we realized was that all this action meant the boys were going to be on the sidelines for most of the hour. Did the uneven balance hurt or help this time around? Let’s find out.
First up, we had Felicia Day. I believe that was the main thrust of the promos leading up to the episode. “See Felicia Day play a nerd who can kick butt!” I love seeing her able to play geeky characters and portray them in a good light. Just because we’re nerds doesn’t mean we can’t win in a fight. We have the power of intelligence on our side, you know. Day’s character, Charlie, was a hacker who could literally bust into anything. PAC donations, websites, hard drives, you name it and she can access it. Plus, she works in Richard Roman’s company, so the head Leviathan thinks he’s got the perfect job for her. After Frank got eaten or killed or whatever fate befell him, the Leviathans got his hard drive. You know the one, the hard drive that has all of Dean and Sam’s new identities, locations, coordinates where the Impala is stored, along with all the dirt Frank managed to dig up on Roman. So, hacking into that prized possession was important. Thus, Charlie the Hacker is on the case.
"Pretty sure I spent the last 24 hours hacking into a loony bin."
To Frank’s favor, he did manage to put a ton of locks on his hard drive to make it harder to crack than Charlie’s usual assignments. And he set up an automatic email to Sam and Dean in the event that he died and someone else accessed the data. But despite all that, Charlie got in and took a peek at the information that had Roman so interested. Turns out, her life was about to get a whole lot more complicated because of her curiosity. You see, all that information about Roman and the Leviathan connection started making sense to her, which meant she was a whole lot more open to the idea once Sam and Dean showed up. It’s interesting to me that she did take to the concepts of monsters so fast, compared to regular people, but I liked that her mind was more open to the possibilities. Plus, geek power makes for an awesome hunter-in-training.
Walking Charlie through the process of getting inside the building and getting up to Roman’s office was a fun jaunt for both Sam and Dean. I liked seeing Sam’s geeky side come out. Lest we forget, he’s the boy who always had his nose in a book and was at home in a library. Dean teased him enough about it growing up, and even now, that it’s not going to just go away. But if Sam’s good with the pop culture literature, Dean’s good with the tips on flirting. He can woo anyone, even a guy, as evidenced by his ability to walk a girl with absolutely no interest in the opposite sex through some Flirting 101. Sam’s inability to keep his laughter in check during that scene made me love him even more. Brotherly teasing, I love it!
"Stop laughing, Sammy."
Also, a big part of the episode was dedicated to Bobby. When he first popped back into visibility, it was a whole string of examples of how not to write. Don’t tell us, show us! The episode writer didn’t master that bit as well as they could have. The only knowledge Dean and Sam had to work from was the coordinates Bobby left them with his dying breath. While Bobby had seen Roman’s plans and knew much more than he could share, he could at least get the boys started in the right direction before he died. It was dramatic, it was touching, but it didn’t remain that way. Now that Bobby’s back, he basically sat the boys down and ran through everything he knew from start to finish. Yes, this is valuable information that Sam and Dean will need in defeating the Leviathans, but to me it felt like Bobby just spoon fed them all the answers because they couldn’t figure it out on their own. I’m conflicted about that.
And we have to worry about Bobby’s mental state because he’s teetering on the edge of becoming a vengeful spirit. Dean knows it, Sam knows it, and the audience knows it, too. We’re all just waiting and watching, making sure Bobby doesn’t cross that line because, if he does, the boys are going to have to deal with it. And by deal with it, I mean blast Bobby into non-existence. They don’t want to kill their adoptive father any more than we want them to, so here’s hoping Bobby can keep his Zen on. There was a point in the episode, when Bobby is faced with Richard Roman, that he stepped dangerously close to the line, but it’s not like we could blame him. Here’s a guy who is facing the monster that killed him. Of course he’s going to take a shot at him. And if he could have, I’m sure Bobby would have taken him out completely. But he can’t, not yet, and he wasn’t paying attention to the ramifications of his actions during the fight, either. Charlie got caught in the crossfire and injured in the process. Would Bobby have been more careful if he wasn’t a ghost? Maybe, probably, but we can’t know that. What we can know is that Bobby’s got to keep his anger in check or else he’s going to turn into something the boys can’t save him from.
"I think what Sam's trying to say is, what happens if you run into Dick and, you know... go vengeful. You know it's not something you can just shake off."
So, where did the episode leave us? Well, we have a lot of questions, but not a lot of answers yet. We still don’t know what that hunk of clay was that the boys stole. It had to be important, else why would Roman want it? We still don’t know how to take out Richard Roman, which would be the big question of the season. I’m sure we’ll get the answer to that soon, since we’re nearing the end of the episodes. And we still don’t know Bobby’s ultimate fate. Will he become a vengeful spirit and force Dean and Sam to kill him? Will he remain Zen-like and be their trusty ghost friend who follows them around as long as Dean’s chugging on the flask? Or will he become living and breathing again, by some miracle? What’s dead should stay dead, according to Dean, but I don’t think that’s a steadfast guarantee where Supernatural‘s concerned.
Rating: 4 / 5 Stars
