Supernatural: Remember the Titans

Filed under: Recaps & Reviews

While walking alongside the highway, a man is struck and killed by a negligent drunk driver. The next morning a state trooper discovers the body but before he can call it in, the corpse suddenly recovers of all injuries and vanishes before the trooper turns around.

With no news from Kevin, the boys are starting to get stir crazy until Sam shows Dean the story of what could be a zombie. The two of them make the trip to Livingston, Montana where they speak with the trooper who is certain it was a zombie. Suddenly, they see another alert that a body was just found that is the same corpse that got away from the trooper. Sam and Dean speak with the coroner and the death is pretty straight forward, until the corpse disappears again. Luckily, Sam and Dean manage to get a hold of him quickly but they want answers. The guy says that his name is Shane but can't remember more than the past two years; just that he dies every day only to awaken a few hours later. After going back to the latest motel, Shane is attacked that night by a strange woman dressed in leather. Shane manages to stop her using some Bourne like moves and then she takes off when he says that he can't remember who she is. After dying from a heart attack (it was a tough fight!), a woman named Hailey comes to the motel with a boy named Oliver: Shane's son. After putting the pieces together, Sam realizes that Shane is actually the Greek titan Prometheus who was cursed by Zeus to die every day as punishment for giving fire to mortals. Hailey tells Sam and Dean that Oliver has been afflicted with the same curse as his father and now Sam, Dean and Prometheus will summon the king of the gods to save Oliver from his father's fate.

Though it was a definite improvement from last week, Remember the Titans was another largely forgettable episode. Even when including Zeus himself, the story couldn't manage the payoff it promised by including such grand characters on a small scale. While there are some high notes, the sheer amount of mythology and history between the characters is staggering and even trying to put a slice of that into an hour, on top of another story is overly ambitious. It also feels as though there was a missed opportunity for Prometheus's deaths to add humour to the episode. Had it been taken in a different direction, Prometheus could have been dying too often in increasingly absurd ways that were bound to eventually attract the attention of Zeus sooner or later. At one point, it could have been a challenge for Sam and Dean to keep him alive long enough to go through everything. This may have slowed the pacing of the story but I would rather see come comical exploits rather than hear about how he had a heart attack while he and Hailey were together.

A major issue that I had this week was how forced the plot felt at times. Prometheus couldn't remember who he was but he was able to use his Bourne like skills on Artemis. Artemis easily took down dean but had to "force push" Sam out the door and her weapons can destroy anything. Hailey knew that her son would die and return to life a few hours earlier yet she still broke the one trap that kept Zeus bound. Even still, there was a trap to bind Zeus! It all worked for the story but to be able to pick these catalysts and bread crumbs out so easily takes you out of the story. Why did all of the same tricks that work on demons work on the Greek gods? The plot devices simply felt too convenient as Prometheus wouldn't have died if Hailey didn't kick started the last fifteen minutes of events.

For such epic characters, the casting was well done. As Prometheus, John Reardon managed to strike a balance that made the character believable and sympathetic. Reardon gave Prometheus a wanderer quality without seeming confused even though his character had amnesia. The way Reardon showed Prometheus's fatherly instinct to protect his son was quick but very well done. As Artemis and Zeus, Anna Van Hooft and John Novak had an excellent chemistry that lent itself very well to the history. Even with the little screen time that they had, they definitely made the most of it as their relationship was by far more interesting than Prometheus and Hailey's.

Though it was another forgettable episode, Remember the Titans was largely saved by the strong performances from its guest stars (not the boy that played Oliver; that was creepy). Hopefully after the break, Supernatural will return to the main story when it returns March 20th with Goodbye Stranger.

Tags: Supernatural, Dean Winchester, Sam Winchester, Jensen Ackles, Jared Padalecki, John Reardon, Anna Van Hooft, John Novak

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