Supernatural: I'm No Angel

Posted by: Kyle Tetarenko  •  October 22, 2013 @ 8:47pm

Filed under: Recaps & Reviews

In this week's episode Castiel learns that there may be more to being a human than sleeping, eating and hedonism but with the angels after him, he may not live long enough to find out.

While trying to get back to Sam and Dean, Castiel is slowly adjusting to human life and all of its ups and downs. Meanwhile, the angels continue to hold a grudge and are hunting Castiel but they resort to using reapers when things aren't going as fast as they had hoped. Back at the lair, Sam and Dean have started to worry about Castiel when they realize the amount of danger he is in and set off in the impala. They go from town to town but Castiel is constantly on the move after an angel gets too close. After a while Dean feels like they are just chasing their tails and asks Ezekiel for help finding Castiel. As it turns out, Castiel is with a seemingly nice girl named April and he gets what he will later call, his first educational experience. The next morning April reveals herself to be a reaper who was sent to find Castiel and get the answers the angels want. With time running out this may the one time the Winchesters are too late to save their friend.

Though I was very excited to see the return of Misha Collins, I'm No Angel was a letdown. The biggest misstep was that we never saw a truly isolated Castiel. He was working as a grounds man for a church, stayed with other vagrants in a homeless camp, surrounded by people in the city and stayed with April. My point being here that we didn't get an isolated Castiel or a Castiel that was constantly in fear for his life while on the run. Since Castiel lost his grace he is cut off from every other angel and should have felt a troubling sense of quiet and grew to mistrust any sense of comfort knowing that angels are getting closer to him with every moment. Castiel appeared more desperate in previous seasons when he had the power to defend himself from the demons and angels.

While I understood the direction Supernatural was heading by having Castiel befriend and eventually sleep with April, it fell flat. From the moment they met, April was nice and much too trusting. That may have fooled Castiel but it made it obvious that she would eventually turn on him and made me care for her less than I already had. This situation reminded me very much of an episode (A New World) on the series Angel, when a character (Connor) entered our world for the first time and befriended a nice girl that eventually dies from a drug overdose. It was a very human and humbling moment on a show filled with supernatural (yes, I just did that) characters. I'm not suggesting that Supernatural needed to copy that but if April was a person that Castiel trusted and then she simply sold him out for money, it would have been a much harder pill for him to swallow.

I've seen it a number of times now but Jared Padalecki's transition from Sam to Ezekiel is flawless. The way he is able to go back and forth between the two is incredible. The only downside is that most of the scenes didn't make I'm No Angel a better episode and only served to distract from Castiel's story.

I'm No Angel isn't a bad episode but it could have been something powerful that defined Castiel. Some won't agree but if Sam and Dean were barely featured in the episode, it would have been better. Castiel is coming to grips with being human and that's exciting but I wanted more than the one brutal moment when Dean told him he had to leave and be on his own. Maybe we can see more of the fallout in next week's episode, Slumber Party.

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Tags: Supernatural, Dean Winchester, Sam Winchester, Jensen Ackles, Jared Padalecki, Misha Collins, Castiel

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