“Reading is Fundamental” aired tonight. This is the beginning of the trio of episodes that will complete the seventh season of “Supernatural”. This episode fell a bit flat after last week’s home run.
New character Kevin Tran (Osric Chau) made his debut tonight. He will be tagging along for the final three episodes. Kevin is a Cello playing over achiever and is at home studying while Sam (Jared Padalecki) and Dean (Jensen Ackles) are trying to hack their way into the clay covered prize they managed to swipe from Dick (James Patrick Stuart).
The problem is that each strike of Dean’s hammer against the clay causes a huge clap of thunder. It doesn’t bother Dean and he forges on. It does, however, bother Kevin when some kind of bolt of energy zaps him right off his feet.
Back at the mental hospital, Meg (Rachel Miner) has been true to her fragile alliance with the Winchesters and is keeping a careful watch over Castiel (Misha Collins). When Misha suddenly wakes up during the hammering storm she gives Sam a call.
The Winchester head off to the hospital to find out “how different” Castiel is and Kevin – poor soul – steals his mom’s car and heads off… somewhere.
Castiel is more than a bit off his rocker. After a bad pull-my-finger joke, he makes it clear that although he’s aware of who and what he is he’s not going to be much help. Castiel is afraid of conflict, enamoured by the simple life, loves bumble bees and has a crush on Meg. How’s that for changed?
When Sam and Dean show Castiel the slab he tells them it’s written by Medatron. Sam mistakes Medatron for the Transformer Megatron and then it was my turn to be confused. I’m not religious theory scholar but even I knew who Medatron was. Sam doesn’t? I found it really strange that he compared the angelic voice to a transformer – not only would that morning be a Dean-like line but poor Sam’s knowledge base seems to be decreasing.
A little altercation between Dean and Meg results in Castiel popping out of sight and dropping the tablet which breaks into a few pieces. Dean goes off to the day room to find him and while Sam is trying to talk Meg into staying rather than taking her “angel and leaving” Kevin manages to swipe the tablet.
There was a rather bizarre chase scene.
I found the scene with Dean and Castiel in the day room a little uncomfortable. Maybe I was expecting too much from it – but it felt off to me. I don’t blame Dean for being angry at Castiel. Castiel nearly destroyed the one person that Dean has always said was his focus, his brother. That’s not going to heal quickly. Flakey Castiel just didn’t work for me though.
When Sam finally catches Kevin he sits him down in Cas’ room and they talk. Kevin doesn’t know why he feels like he needs to keep the tablet so Sam asks him to take it out. As soon as he’s holding the tablet the pieces shift back together again.
Judging by my brave venture onto the internet – there sure seems to be a mix of reactions to the way Dean treated Castiel. I wasn’t surprised – meaning, I suppose – it worked for me. Dean is an angry guy and a lot of the mess he’s trying to clean up is Castiel’s fault.
Meanwhile – Kevin translates little bits of the tablet for Sam. The writing is about the Leviathans and how God sent them away because they were evil. Before they can figure anything out Hester and Anaes the angel show up. She has come to collect Kevin who is a prophet and is saddened to find “a demon whore and a Winchester again.” (Ouch Sammy).
Castiel hears the angels talking so he intervenes. There’s another painful chat as he tries to joke with Hester and Anaes before Dean shows up and using the banishing sigil to get rid of them all for a while. The banishing works on Castiel too – so clearly he’s still an angel, right?
Everyone heads back toward Rufus’ cabin and when they stop for snacks Meg problems pop up. Meg sees some other demons and Sam finds out that the feds think Kevin has been kidnapped. Meg keeps her little secret about demons knowing where they are and Castiel calls from a dogtrack in Perth to get directions back to where they are.
Castiel has enough of his marbles left to tell everyone that the Angels from the garrison have come to collect the prophet and the tablet. It’s their job so if the Winchester’s want to read it they’d better do it quickly. Castiel isn’t fighting anymore – he just watches bees apparently. Was I missing some kind of pop culture joke?
“You seem troubled. Of course, that’s a primary aspect of your personality so I sometimes ignore it,” says Castiel when finally alone with Sam. Touche. But Sam was his usual sweet self. He might feel a little guilty about scrambling Misha’s eggs but he promises to help Castiel “get better.”
Meg meets up with the demons who spotted their entourage and once more proves herself to be sticking to the deal by killing them both with Ruby’s knife. She sure seems to find it easy to keep swiping that knife.
Hester and Anaes find the cabin because of the demon slaying. They want to leave with the prophet and no matter how Dean argues Hester won’t be swayed. Castiel insists that the angels were supposed to protect angels but she wants to kill Cas. Fortunately, Meg shows up with her handy Angel dagger and kills Hester.
Anaes seems to be a bit of a good guy which is a nice change from the usual set of nasty angels. So the episode begins to wind up with Kevin handing over the translation of the tablet. It turns out that Sam and Dean just need the bone of a “righteous mortal washed in the three bloods of the fallen.” Yikes. Oh, is that all?
Knowing “Supernatural”? The bone of a righteous mortal is going to be the most difficult thing to find.
This episode was really choppy and certainly not up to the usual Ben Edlund standard. A lot of the dialogue seemed forced and the joke kind of fell flat, at least at our house. What did you think? Some important things were revealed but this episode was much more filler-feeling than substantial.