Supernatural: The Mentalists

Posted by: Kyle Tetarenko  •  November 6, 2011 @ 8:32pm

Filed under: Recaps & Reviews

Now that Dean is riding solo after his fallout with Sam, his travels have taken him to Lily Dale, New York for the local psychic convention, where this year's headliners are having visions of their own deaths shortly before they happen.

After jacking a new car and using the FBI routine on the local police to get some clues, Dean runs into Sam at a restaurant. Though they definitely have their differences and Sam is still mad about what happened to Amy (Dean killed her), they agree to put their differences aside to solve the case together. At first they think it might be a local witch hexing her victims with a necklace charm but when that lead hits a dead end, Melanie Golden (another psychic who was related to one of the victims), has some interesting information for the Winchesters. Melanie's grandmother told her that she had a premonition of her death before it happened and when her friend Camille has the same thing happen to her, it can't be a coincidence. When it turns out the psychic behind the murders is in bed with a ghost (literally), the Winchesters certainly have their work cut out for them.

The Mentalists turned out to be a solid and entertaining episode. Though the episode stands apart from the season's central arc, the surprising element how the tension between Sam and Dean was resolved. In almost every singular story, there is a humorous gimmick or it is unnaturally emotional and The Mentalists did not have either flaw. All of this together made for an enjoyable story and entertaining episode and for the most part very light hearted.

While it has been quite some time since there has been a heart to heart between the Winchester brothers, this one had to have been the best in quite some time. So often the hard moments between Sam and Dean turn out to be overly cheesy and helplessly emotional but Dean confronting Sam was straight to the point and almost abrupt. It felt completely in Dean's character to tell Sam exactly what he felt and then tell him to "stop being a bitch" before walking away. Even though the two of them have their "chick flick moments" (season one reference!) all of the time, this had to be one of the best in quite a while.

One of the weakest parts of the show was definitely the semi relationship between Dean and Melanie Golden at the end of episode. The two of them didn't have any chemistry beyond the case itself and the scene between them before the closing moments was unnecessary. The last issue that I had has is more about Supernatural as a whole as the show has become less horror and more slasher flick and that aspect has been quite prevalent this year. Supernatural doesn't need to be as cheesy as it has been but they continue to go that direction and end up spending more time on random death scenes that have become tired rather than crafting tighter stories.

The Mentalists had a number of good things and a few that didn't work as well. Hopefully Supernatural will steer away from the slasher elements and back towards the horror but as long as there are no leviathans, it's fine by me. We'll see if Supernatural can still do comedy in next week's Season Seven, Time for a Wedding!

Tags: Supernatural, Dean Winchester, Sam Winchester, Jensen Ackles, Jared Padalecki

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