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Feb 18, 2010

Supernatural - Sympathy for the Devil



And finally Supernatural has made it to its 5th season... and with no less than Lucifer himself rising from Hell and walking on Earth.

The addendum of the catholic mythology to the show made it a lot deeper and broader than ever before, mainly because of the way both sides, good and evil, are pictured. Good is not so good or even not good at all, with angels and archangels torturing people, killing each other, and willing to wipe a whole town to avoid the breaking of a seal. And evil is not so evil after all, if the Dark Lord asks for permission to inhabit a human being...

"Sympathy for the Devil" begins exactly where season 4 ended, and after a couple mysterious jumps from one place to another, the brothers are back on the road, alive, but not all is as good as it seems: they're listening to the radio and they hear about disasters and plagues; then they find out that Castiel, who could be their only hope, has been killed, and now Zacharias is back on their asses (well, most precisely on Dean's ass, but we'll get back to that later).

And then there's Bobby... his angry rebuke to Sam was serious. Like, Sammy goes and sets Lucifer free starting the damn Apocalypse, and the typical "it's OK, kid, we'll deal with it as usual" is not what you want to see and hear; so I really enjoyed the this cannot be forgiven and I don't want to see you again thing. Too bad it wasn't Bobby, but a demon inside him. Curse you, Eric Kripke.

Now we're back on Dean's ass... er, sorry, we're back on Zachariah. According to the mythology, Archangel Michael defeats the Antichrist. Turns out that Dean Winchester is that sword. Holy swords, Dean!

While Zachariah is having a great time torturing the Winchesters and everything seems to be lost, the saviour arrives. No, not The Saviour; it's just Castiel who's back and takes care of the situation. Zachariah leaves and Cass places a protection (an Enochian Sigil) on both Sam and Dean to guard them against heavenly creatures.

Near the end of the episode, Lucifer finally approaches this guy Nick and asks him to be his vessel. Nick is played by Mark Pellegrino, who already plays another almighty being on Lost's season 5 final episode; although his brief role here on Supernatural as Nick didn't do him any justice as an actor, he seems to be made to play another kind of characters. I think some of us will love his Lucifer.

And in the end scene, Dean finally spits it out on Sam: everything is not allright, and it will never be, from the moment Sam decided to chose a demon over his own brother. I'm hoping to see this situation well developed by Supernatural's writers, I don't want to see that kind of dramatic element go to waste.

On a side note, starting on this episode, Misha Collins is listed in the credits as on of the show's stars; a well deserved award for his work on season 4 (or, most precisely, for Castiel's work on the past season's story) and a promise of more to come from him.

Image courtesy of The CW Television Network

Feb 15, 2010

Fringe - A New Day in the Old Town

On this episode, Fringe is back, and it's back with a bang. Events from last season finale, the Fringe Division being shut down... and Olivia almost dead?

OK, let's start again, but this time let's make it slowly.

Last time we saw Olivia Dunham before this episode, she was on an alternate reality face to face with William Bell. Next scene, now, her SUV is involved in a car crash, but she isn't driving; she isn't there at all. Until the guys show up and Dr. Bishop does who-knows-what, and suddenly Olivia is thrown through the windshield out of nowhere.

(Looks like Walter does have magic fingers - because later in the episode, with gloves and through clothes, he can feel with his left hand how a dead body's anus is soaking wet. Ugh.)

At the hospital, doctors say Olivia's brain damage is irreversible, but looks like she won't take that, as later she wakes up speaking in Greek.

A new enemy is introduced on this episode: a shapeshifter. He is sent there to kill Olivia to prevent a meeting, but whith whom? As he doesn't succeed on the first try, he is sent again to get some information. He fails again, but manages to escape and take a new shape: agent Charlie Francis.
Meanwhile, Broyles is in Washington trying to prevent the Fringe Division of being shut down by a Senate committee.

A New Day in the Old Town seems to settle down what the next several episodes will be all about. A spy, a meeting and a hidden thing Olvivia seems to know about but doesn't remember, a one man fight to keep the Fringe Division alive, and as usal, a lot more questions but not a single answer.

There are a couple nice details on this episode.
One of them is the way the shapeshifter communicates with his people: through a typewriter and a mirror. The authors could have chosen an uber-technified device from another universe, or even a regular cellphone, but they didn't. Instead, they went the old fashioned way.
The other is the double reference to The X-files. Sweet.

Oh, by the way, The Observer was there. :)



(Observer image credit: http://eastereggs.fringetelevision.com/2009/09/fringe-easter-eggs-observer-in-new-day.html)