Refracted Input

My rating: ***

Season 4 episode 7: ‘It’s the great pumpkin, Sam Winchester’

Well, while I am on a roll, I thought I might as well continue with this discussion of God, angels and demons and the supernatural and so on and so forth. Perhaps a more lengthy piece on the emergence of a neo-gnostic themes in contemporary popular culture, might be something I can do at some later stage.

I have always had a bit of a take it or leave it attitude towards Supernatural. I watch it because it is fantasy/ science fiction and is reasonably inoffensive. Many people (especially women) watch it for the two main characters – the Winchester brothers – but I find them of fairly limited interest and I am not unduly concerned when I miss an episode or two.

The series takes the mystique out of the supernatural to some extent, and the two brothers have a fairly practical approach to the problems caused by the intervention of usually evil supernatural creatures into the mundane. This particular episode is set at Halloween. The most interesting aspect of the episode is the appearance of not just one – but two angels. The introduction of angels at the beginning of the current season (season 4) has actually got me almost interested in the series. Clearly the Christopher Walken The Prophecy movies have sparked off a whole trend for seriously dangerous and somewhat ambiguous angels in film and TV. No Touched by an Angel saccharine here! Misha Collins who plays the angel Castiel who rescued one of the brothers, Dean, from Hell is superb and hits just the right note of dangerous and jaded cool. Nice Columbo style trench coat as well. (I wonder whether this is an oblique reference to Peter Falk’s appearance in Wim Wender’s angel movie Wings of Desire?) I will be fascinated to see how the series writers try to solve the tricky question of God that introducing angels raises.

Unfortunately there are already signs of compromise in relation to Castiel’s character when we see him secretly expressing some ‘doubts’ to Dean about the mission he has been sent on. It is the difference, not the similarity of angels to humans which makes them interesting and it would be good to see the writers of Supernatural maintain that distance. This is something The Prophecy movies manage well.

I thought this lolcat picture of a hoard of demon cats would be entirely appropriate for this post. ‘Basement Cat’ is the lolcat name for the Devil.