Supernatural: The Bad Place
December 8, 2017 9:40 PM - Season 13, Episode 9 - Subscribe

Sam and Dean track down Jack while he seems to be going after dream walkers, people with the power to see into other worlds.

I'd like to know what's going with Cas and Lucifer, please!

Man, fucking angels, amirite?

I thought The Bad Place was similar to purgatory, but it's definitely a world of a different shade. Also, since it seems like these different worlds are basically alternate timelines, perhaps this is one where dinosaurs didn't go extinct?

I'm so ready for that Wayward Sisters backdoor pilot!
posted by numaner (9 comments total) 2 users marked this as a favorite
 
I was kind of blindsided by Jack's turnaround. Last we saw he was saying he had to leave because he felt that it was inevitable he'd hurt people, then he shows up again and he's on a crusade to do right and prove to the Winchesters that he's good. I could buy that arc, but since they didn't show us the steps in between it seemed like a really big jump. Well, it's good to see Jack back anyhow.

Is the dreamwalker girl going to be a Wayward Sister? It seemed like they were setting her up as one, and if so that would seem to suggest they'll be doing more world-hopping in the spin-off.

Supernatural keeps their monsters and worlds as cheap and low-key as possible and that seems to suit the blue collar, diners-and-cheap-hotels vibe of the show. Their bad guys are almost always just actors without a lot of makeup, even when they're "dragons". Purgatory was basically just a Canadian forest with a grainy camera filter. No matter what the stakes, the big confrontation almost always comes down to the bros in a field outside Vancouver, squaring off against some guy wearing colored contacts. I'll be amazed if we see actual giant monsters or dinosaurs or whatever on this new world, because that just isn't how this show rolls. (I haven't seen the early seasons in a long time, but IIRC they used to have more fantastic monsters and much more graphic gore. I wonder if it was a deliberate style choice to drop that stuff, or if their budget got cut as the show got older.)
posted by Ursula Hitler at 10:25 PM on December 8, 2017 [1 favorite]


I wouldn't be surprised if their budgets got cut to make room for the DC stuff. But even early on the most fantastical stuff might've been the poltergeist, and that was just in a few seconds. I wonder how cheap their ghost effects are, since that's their most common CG element probably.
posted by numaner at 7:51 AM on December 10, 2017


Purgatory was basically just a Canadian forest with a grainy camera filter.

They didn't use a filter, Canada just naturally looks like that.
posted by FallowKing at 9:20 AM on December 10, 2017 [4 favorites]


I vaguely remember reading about how impressive the special effects and monster development were in the early seasons given that the crew did it all with a very limited effects budget, so I think they've always done that on the cheap. The leviathans seem like the only monsters that required cgi (and were the worst storyline, which seems like it's not a coincidence).

I am not super psyched about the possibility of dinosaurs and tons of parallel words, though I guess more than one parallel world has been inevitable since the rift opened up at the end of last season (or since the French Mistake, really). I sort of wish they had been tossed into a subtly different world rather than dino world, it would have been interesting to see how long it took them to figure it out, whether they met themselves, Bobby/John/Ellen/Jo were still alive, etc. Though if we get modern society built by dinosaurs, I take this all back and will be delighted at just how bananas the writers decided to go.

Yeah, I think Kaia is supposed to be a wayward sister. I'm looking forward to that too!
posted by snaw at 1:55 PM on December 10, 2017


My guess is that the alternate worlds stuff will mostly be used for Wayward Sisters, as a way to set it apart from this show. Grim as it is to think, at 13 seasons Supernatural really can't go on that much longer. I'm sure they've got high hopes of WS carrying the torch. By having a bunch of old school Supernatural characters involved it will probably feel much more connected to this show than that weird monster mafia spinoff they tried a couple of seasons back, but I imagine they're also trying to come up with stuff to make it feel new too.

Funny how everybody seems to be assuming that big footprint was a dinosaur. Why couldn't it be a dragon or some other giant monster? I have a feeling that whatever it was we'll either never see it or barely glimpse it. A big Godzilla episode would feel like a radical departure from what this show has always been, and the effects would probably be pretty sad too. They have the budget for, like, one genuinely impressive CGI shot in the season finales, and that's about it.
posted by Ursula Hitler at 8:21 PM on December 10, 2017


This is the same show that decided to do an entire episode about the Titanic without springing for a shot of, on, or around a boat or indeed watercraft of any kind. Planet Godzilla could be pretty much anything, really.
posted by jameaterblues at 6:17 PM on December 11, 2017 [2 favorites]


To me, that track looked like a large bird print but I can't say I've ever seen a dino track. Effects have always been iffy on this show so I really shouldn't gripe. I'm wondering how long the boys will be stuck there and where the hell Cas is.

It was another decent episode. They're not back at that season two-five peak but so much better than that wretched run they were on a couple years ago. I still want Crowley back. That prince of Hell just isn't nearly as fun.

I assume that both the dreamwalker and the psychic will be part of the Wayward Sisters. If that's true they're doing a good job of building that team.

My biggest gripe: there is not a fucking shipyard anywhere near North or South Dakota. That was just ridiculously lazy. And don't get me started on the other Dakota-related inaccuracies.
posted by Ber at 6:50 AM on December 21, 2017


Quotes

Jack: Are you okay?
Kaia Nieves: No! What the hell was that?
Sam: They were angels.
Jack: Bad angels
Kaia Nieves: Angels?
Sam: Yes, and we're hunters. We kill things like them.
Kaia Nieves: Right. And he's the son of Satan?
Jack: I am. Yes.
Kaia Nieves: You're insane.
Dean: Yeah, the whole world's insane. You get used to it.

Elewon: Need that boy, Dean Winchester. Heaven's running out of angels. Only he can save us.
Dean: As far I'm concerned, you dicks can fry.
Elewon: Yes, well, you first.

Trivia

In a scene taking place in the support group, Kaia calls Jack "Suite Life". This is a reference to the popular Disney Channel show in which, back in the day, Kim Rhodes (Sheriff Jody Mills) played the mother.

Derek tells Paula that his prospective buyer is "probably some gawking wasichu". "Wasichu" is Sioux for "non-Indian". Some people say that "wasichu" means "greedy person" or "one who steals the fat" but those translations belong to "wasin icu", which is similar but not the same as "wasichu" in the same way that "manger" is not the same as "manager".

The scenes on the blue and white ferry boat where Sam, Dean, Jack, and Kaia take refuge from the angels in were filmed on the "Queen of Sidney" an old ferry that is awaiting salvage near the town of Mission, British Columbia, Canada. The Queen of Sidney also stands in for the ferry "Chimera" in the 2018 X-Files episode "Ghouli".

This is the first Supernatural episode in its 13 seasons to have a footprint of a creature that can almost be categorized as a MUTO (Massive Unknown Terrestrial Organism) to be featured on the show.
posted by orange swan at 10:54 AM on February 11, 2022


Dean pulling a gun on a homeless, traumatized teenage girl who is refusing to help him for good and excellent reasons is probably his worst moment in the series thus far. (I'm not counting anything he did in his Demon Dean days, as I don't consider those were his fault.)

Now we have a new type of player on the game board: dream walkers. Which I suppose are another type of psychic. And we've got Patience back in play too. And Sam, Dean, Jack, and Mary in an alternate universe. Fun!
posted by orange swan at 10:56 AM on February 11, 2022


« Older Movie: Bad Santa...   |  Crazy Ex-Girlfriend: Getting O... Newer »

You are not logged in, either login or create an account to post comments