Supernatural: Out of the Darkness, Into the Fire

Posted by: Kyle Tetarenko  •  October 8, 2015 @ 1:25am

Filed under: Recaps & Reviews

Supernatural is back for its eleventh season and the Winchesters now have to face an enemy that predates creation itself: The Darkness.

Immediately picking up where last season's finale left off, Sam awakens in the impala after the explosion from The Darkness happened in the field but Dean is nowhere to be found. After a bit of searching, he finds his brother face down in a field but Dean doesn't seem to remember what happened during the explosion, just that he spoke with a woman who he thinks is The Darkness and that she saved him. The two of them get out of there but it doesn't take them long to find trouble when they stumble onto a massacre on the road where they encounter Deputy Nickerson. She makes them show their necks since road workers with black, infected necks went insane and started killing everyone. Although Sam and Dean would love to keep moving and track The Darkness down, the deputy is hurt so they decide to help her out at the nearest hospital. Unfortunately, even the hospital wasn't safe. They arrive only to find dead bodies everywhere. Dean stiches up the deputy while Sam looks around and finds an infected victim, only to watch him expire while trying to kill someone that has been hiding. Elsewhere, Crowley managed to escape certain death at the hands of Castiel by leaving his vessel before the blow was struck. On the other hand, Castiel is still struggling with the blood lust inducing spell he was hit with and makes a desperate plea for help to the angels. Back at the hospital, the Winchesters and the deputy talk with the survivor, Mike, about what happened but Sam also notices that he's been infected. Dean wants to put him down immediately but Mike has a newborn daughter and Sam wants to get back to saving everyone and not just who might be convenient at the time. Knowing that sparing Mike is certainly a bad idea, Dean reluctantly agrees but when more infected people show up the Winchesters need to decide if they are going to take them head on or follow Sam's lead to save as many people as they can at a much greater risk.

So, after ten seasons, how was Supernatural's latest? Good but nowhere near great. Out of the Darkness, Into the Fire works well because it starts the season off by asking questions; a lot of questions. We have little to no understanding of what The Darkness is besides her name, Amara. Although we found out that she didn't know who Death was that just left it open to more questions. What is she? What does she want? Can she be stopped or does she have to be put back into her cage like Lucifer and Michael? These are all questions that I look forward to getting the answers to later on in the season and Out of the Darkness, Into the Fire did an excellent job of giving us a villain that is a complete mystery.

On the other hand, while Out of the Darkness, Into the Fire was asking all of those questions, it forgot to tell a good story for the episode itself. Having the Winchesters trapped isn't new to fans of the show and it was even less believable when we saw that there were only three guys that came out of that truck. The result was that I never thought that the Winchesters were in any real danger and could easily escape; making Sam's distraction plan seem pointless. If there were twenty to thirty people that started to storm the hospital, then Sam's plan would have made sense because they would never have been able to shoot their way out of that.

Speaking of pointless, Crowley's transition self-balancing scooters from his usual host to the woman whose husband was about to have an orgy was just terrible. It felt inorganic and didn't flow with the rest of the episode which was a more somber tone. In the end, it wasn't funny and didn't provide a break from the bleak outlook of being trapped in the hospital. Dean's flashbacks to his moments with Amara were insightful (especially at the end) but were poorly executed. The effects just weren't good enough to make it believable and distracts from an otherwise good scene.

Out of the Darkness, Into the Fire had its flaws but is a good start to season eleven. Maybe we'll have more answers about Amara next week's episode, Form and Void.

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

Related Posts

• Supernatural: A Farewell
• Supernatural: Carry On
• Supernatural: Inherit the Earth
• Supernatural: Despair
• Supernatural: Unity

Comments Posted ()