Review: Supernatural, Season 7, Ep. 703 “The Girl Next Door”
Air Date: Friday, October 7, 2011 9/8c on The CW
Rating
Waking up to a doctor resetting your broken leg without any anesthesia sucks, but waking up at Sioux Falls General Hospital where some of the employees, like Dr. Gains (Cameron Bancroft), enjoy snacking on patients, is downright frightening—even for Dean (Jensen Ackles).
When Bobby (Jim Beavers) finds Dean doped up on morphine, I’m not 100% sure if Bobby is…Bobby. He seems a little too clean and almost, dare I say it, chipper. But of course after he rescues both Sam (Jared Padalecki) and Dean from becoming the ‘meal du jour’ for Dr. Gains and his friends, my doubts are quelled.
Bobby (Jim Beavers) alive and well and saving Dean (Ackles) from becoming the 'meal du jour' for a certain doctor
It’s been three weeks since their incident and the guys have high-tailed it to the small town of Whitefish, MT where they’ve been cooped up trying to find answers to rid themselves of some pesky Leviathans. I think all the immobility from Dean’s busted leg and lack of hunting resources at this juncture (since Bobby’s house burned down) has made both of them a little soft. They are watching novellas on TV! It’s hysterical! As Bobby walks in the front door of the cabin, Sam is sitting at the table reading while Dean is so engrossed in the story – a woman cries out as she hovers over a bloodied man:
Dean: “Dude…Ricardo.”
Bobby: “What happened?”
Dean: “Suicido.”
Bobby: “Adios, ese.”
I think it’s great they have some downtime. Their whole lives they’ve been hunting dangerous and strange supernatural beings. Unwinding to telenovelas may help them get out of their own minds (no pun intended, Sam). If you keep fighting and fighting with no memory of the reasons why you’re fighting, it becomes moot.
Dean, of course, is still worried about Sam who zones out a little while they talk about their next moves. He sends Sam on a food run—what is it with Dean and his pie?—but you know he sent Sam out to talk to Bobby privately.
Dean: “So?”
Bobby: “So what?”
Dean: “Before you bail again; Girl Interrupted over there…your thoughts?”
While I find “The Girl Next Door” somewhat entertaining, I am not blown away. There are moments of edginess but overall it’s not comparable to “Hello, Cruel World,” which had me riveted. I like that the writers go back to focusing on the actual case rather than keeping the guys personal issues with how they escaped from Hell and the whole gambit of religious debauchery the focal point; but in this instance, the case itself isn’t captivating.
Sam comes across an article in the local paper about a case similar to one he worked on in 1998 when he was just a teenager in Lincoln, NE. A supernatural creature called a “kitsunai” that eats brains, specifically pituitary glands, to survive. (Side Note: As Sam sneaks out while Dean is sleeping, you hear a TV commercial playing in the background “My Bloody Valentine in hellish 3D.” Hmm, didn’t Ackles star in a movie called My Bloody Valentine? Amusing; I guess when you direct the episode you can plug your own films.) Perhaps if the story focused more on how the “kitsunai” came to America and its curious need for such a specific part of the brain it may have proved more enthralling. The recurrence of the terms “freak” and “normal” throughout the episode also seem interesting because honestly, what is normal anymore anyway?
Sam as a kid (Colin Ford), while working on a case meets a young girl named Amy (Emma Grabinsky), but instead of being a normal teenager, he’s tracking down the “kitsunai” his brother telling him over the phone how to kill it as he stands in the middle of a library, “…stab it through the heart!…Can I have a normal life for five minutes now?” After Sam saves Amy from being harassed by two punks at the library, she takes him to her house where they discuss their mutual nomadic background of moving around a lot. They are just two kids who are tired of being “freaks” and want some normalcy for a change. But when you have to push a few jars of brains aside in the fridge to get to a can of soda, normalcy is pretty much out the window. Sam reveals to Dean he didn’t kill a now grown up Amy (Jewel Staite) because she killed her mother to save him years ago. Dean isn’t too happy about that.
Dean: “She’s dropping bodies, man; which means we gotta drop her no matter how many merit badges she racked up when she was a kid. I’m sorry but it’s that simple.”
Sam: “Nothing in our lives is simple.”
Dean (Jensen Ackles) hobbles quickly to the ambulance bay to escape from Sioux Falls General Hospital
Why is Dean so anxious to clean up Sam’s mess? Does he think Sam is going soft because of the hallucinations? A grown up Amy is the source of the recent killings to save her sick young son Jacob (Donnie MacNeil) who needed “fresh meat” rather than the stuff she brings home from work as a mortician. Once you get past the gag-reflex, it’s kind of a sweet story but Dean isn’t feeling sentimental and kills Amy unaware her young son is standing behind him in the doorway.
Dean (still holding a bloody knife): “You got someone you can go to?”
Jacob – nods yes.
Dean: “You ever kill anyone?”
Jacob – nods no.
Dean: “Well, if you do, I’ll come back for you.”
Jacob: “The only person I’m gonna kill is you.”
Dean: “Well, look me up in a few years…assuming I live that long.”
I’m not sure what grosses me out more – the “kitsunai” who eat human brains to survive or a Leviathan (Sean Owen Roberts) who like people smothered in cheese sauce? “Do you know what I find…plain ole people taste fine but everything is better with cheese.” Uh, I think I’m off Cheetos® for a while.
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Photos © 2011 The CW Network, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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Judy Manning
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