Writer – Brett Matthews
Many of this season’s episodes appear on the surface as filler episodes. You sit there going, “Okay, this is a great story and all, but how does it advance the overall plot?” You tap your watch impatiently, because this could possibly be the last season of Supernatural. And then you get a couple of good character nuggets and a plot point or two and suddenly everything is right with the world.
This episode was no exception. Bobby Singer is hands down my favorite character on the show and I love every episode that fills in his backstory and deepens his character; this episode is no exception. Every time poor Bobby’s in peril I’m on the edge of my seat, afraid that he may actually kick the bucket this time! I’m waiting for when they finally do a flashback where John Winchester entrusts Sam and Dean to Bobby for a short time, and Bobby goes all Lone Wolf & Cub with baby Sam strapped to his back while he and a young Dean fight monsters. That would be fun to see!
In this episode, the “Mother of All” is back and takes on the form of a young lady named Eve. She convinces a truck driver who’s refueling at a gas station to give her a lift. When she tries to kiss him, he throws religious pamphlets her way, but she says that God doesn’t care about humanity, particularly since the Apocalypse has already come and gone. She claims to want to tell him a secret and whispers in his ear. Later, Rick the truck driver goes home and kills his wife in a gruesome way.
Meanwhile, Bobby is tracking monster sightings which lead him and the Winchester boys to the city where Rick killed his wife. What’s really cool here is that we get to see a spiffed up Bobby in a suit and trench coat, posing as FBI with Sam and Dean. When do we ever get to see that? They interview Rick who has no memory of what happened after he filled up his gas tank. While viewing the gas station’s security cameras, the team catches a glimpse of Eve’s face which looks very ghoulish. Bobby theorizes that she is the Mother of All, and suggests that they turn and run. Something that scares Bobby that badly, scares me as an audience member!
After the police get an emergency call about someone shooting out a cannery, the gang heads there where they encounter Rufus Turner, played by Steven Williams who has made a career of playing characters without whom theplot would never advance. How can we not forget him as the dude from Jason Goes to Hell who mysteriously had all kinds of plot information for the characters that he couldn’t possibly know yet the story couldn’t have moved forward without him. But I digress…Bobby and Rufus agree to team up, like the old days. We ultimately learn that Eve planted some sort of worm-like creature in Rick’s ear, and now it’s body hopping.
As the investigation continues, Samuel and Gwen show up and Dean tries to kill Samuel, since he swore he would. Sam manages to defuse the situation and the unlikely team is on the hunt. At one point, Dean is taken over by the worm and shoots Gwen, killing her. He is released, but we are treated to a hybrid of The Hidden, John Carpenter’s The Thing and Star Trek II (and if memory serves, Jason was a body hopping slug in Goes to Hell!). It’s always fun when you’ve got a situation where the characters can’t trust each other because any one of them could have the slimy creature in the pilot’s seat. As the story moves forward, we are treated to great nods to the films mentioned above. I particularly had Pavel Chekov in the back of my head yelling, “They put creatures in our ears!”
What helps elevate this episode to story arc status, even though it seems like just another investigation, is that we learn more about the characters and start to resolve some issues. Samuel is outed as having betrayed the boys to Crowley. Rufus references Omaha, an investigation that Bobby and he worked on many years ago in which Bobby didn’t take Rufus’ advice and the result was the death of someone Rufus loved. Rufus exclaims that he will never forgive Bobby for it. Yet, we see that they are still able to work together for the common good, and the tension between them never really escalates beyond a mild irritation. This illustrates the brotherly bond they have that we never really got to see before. Yeah, Rufus is not going to forgive Bobby, but Bobby full well knows that Rufus has got his back. All of that is implied which speaks to the great writing and acting.
We also kind of realize by now (if we haven’t already in prior episodes) that the Mother of All is the Big Bad for the season. She claims early in the episode that while God has abandoned his children, a mother would never do that. Considering that all of the investigations concerned random monsters throughout the season (with the occasional Angelic side-missions popping in from time to time), we now can fully theorize that the Mother of All has something up her sleeve that could be worse than the Apocalypse.
This episode made me like Rufus more as a character because rather than just being an angry hunter, we realize that just like the rest of them – he’s got a ton of baggage that weighs on him daily. Mitch Pileggi does a great job of reminding us why we can’t stand Samuel, and the final confrontation between him is a resolution that’s been long overdue. When confronted with possibly knowing details of what he did when he didn’t have a soul, Sam makes the smart choice…a choice that will have repercussions for a long time to come.
Dean, however, doesn’t have a huge amount to do in this episode, but that’s okay. We know that his day will come and it just wasn’t the right environment for him to work out his family issues.
All in all, “…And Then There Were None” will be remembered as an integral part of the Supernatural mythology and is yet another reason why we hope and pray for a season 7.
