The last new episode for two months brings us a wagon-load of Apocalypse Arc, explosions, mass murder, rituals, Romo Lampkin making out with a dude and the death of a couple of supporting characters. It’s a lot to dish out and the writers obviously want to do what they can to fan the flames until January 21, when the next new episode drops.
As an installment in the season-long story, “Abandon All Hope” was satisfying and intense. The Winchesters follow up their lead on the kill-anything Colt to a demon who is happy to lend to the brothers. See, this guy thinks Lucifer is just using demonkind and will slaughter them right when he’s done purifying the planet of humans.
So they graciously accept the gun and head to a town called Carthage where Revelation signs are all over the place. Sam and Dean are accompanied by Ellen and Jo and Castiel and no one thinks they’re going to make it out alive. They’re two-fifths right.
Once they arrive, Castiel notes that Reapers are all over the place, which signals that Lucifer looks to be summoning Death, the Pale Horseman himself, to unleash some serious chaos on the world.
To corner Lucifer and blast him with the Colt, the brothers must get past some tenacious Hell Hounds first and thanks to a homemade bomb lit off by Ellen and a mortally wounded Jo, Sam and Dean manage to intercept the Devil, shoot him with the Colt and…watch as he stands back up saying that the gun can’t do anything to him. Oof.
Castiel shows up in time to save the guy from witnessing Death emerging (we don’t see him actually, just Lucifer’s happy face) and our heroes retreat to Bobby’s cabin where they mope over the death of Jo and Ellen.
Good show, but I have to be honest: I didn’t really care about Ellen and Jo’s demise that much, even though the episode laid on the tragedy thick. They were rarely in the series after the second season and Jo was always tedious and one-dimensional anyway. Ellen was a little better but still, I wasn’t really gobsmacked by their detonation.
The bigger news is the Colt’s impotence against Lucifer, which inevitably will set up the Michael/Satan vessel confrontation that has been hinted at. The stuff with Lucifer and Sam was dynamite, as was the Castiel-Lucifer interactions. Can’t wait to see more.
As it stands, I’m glad that the good guy deaths have been limited to my least-favorite peripheral characters. Although, I suspect Kripke and pals will eventually work their way to offing someone I would truly be bummed to see go.
20. November 2009 at 12:37 pm
I hear you brother. I never was a big fan of Ellen or Jo so seeing them go was no great loss. I did like the emotional response it triggered in Dean, so I guess it was worth it for that.
I adored the scene of the reapers all over – standing around like some creepy cell phone commercial. They’ve been filming in the old Watchman set and it gives the show a nice, desolate feel.
Up until now, I wasn’t crazy about Pelligrino as Lucifer but I liked him here with Sam and Castiel. I love Mark Sheppard and I hope we’ll see more of him. I feel like that opening with the male / male kiss was a set up for something to come – too out of left field not to be.
And now I see The CW has added another week of hiatus. Jan 21! Sigh. It’s funny because last night’s felt like finale material, so where will they go from here?