Supernatural: Don't You Forget About Me

Posted by: Kyle Tetarenko  •  February 3, 2016 @ 10:40pm

Filed under: Recaps & Reviews

The monsters will always be there but the chance at a family won't.

It's another slow week for the Winchesters. No news on the Amara front and they haven't heard anything from Castiel since left the bunker the last time. It feels like the making of a quiet week until they get a call from Castiel's vessel's daughter, Claire, telling them to head over to Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Since a few people have gone missing, Claire is certain that some type of monster is in town. Unfortunately, her track record as of late hasn't been all that great and the only thing keeping her out of jail is Sheriff Jody Mills. Jody hold the family together with her, Claire and Alex but the two girls haven't gone down the same path. Since her days of being the bait for a nest of vampires, Alex is flourishing in school and wants a normal life. Claire on the other hand is determined to become a hunter and isolates herself from others. The boys try to help her but everything is thrown into a tailspin when Alex's teacher is found dead; strung up by his legs at the top of the flag pole. With no suspects and two girls with dark pasts, the Winchesters could be in for anything.

After last week's malevolent banshee attacks, Supernatural delivers a solid, yet predictable episode with Don't You Forget About Me. What especially stands out in this episode is how Sam and Dean almost entirely take a backseat to Sheriff Jody Mills, Claire and Alex. As the attention was almost squarely on them and their lives together as a family, the Winchesters fell into the background and were there to clean up the mess when things got out of hand. This made Jody, Alex and Claire seem weaker for it than stronger together. Are they supportive of each other as a family? Sure. Does that change the fact that Sam and Dean solved all of their problems? No.

Although there is only so much that can be done in a one hour episode, Don't You Forget About Me didn't put any effort into the mystery of who the killer was. The custodian was practically waving a flag that said he had something to do with it while Henry seemed too good to be true. For all of the trouble Claire had been causing and assaulting people, I would have expected some retaliation from her victims just to give us options as to who it could be the real killer. Instead, Don't You Forget About Me felt linear and simple.

While most of Claire's storylines have involved Castiel, he was nowhere to be found. In previous episodes, Castiel came to trust Claire and he said that he would always be there for her but she didn't even mention his name when Sam and Dean came to visit. Not so much as "Hey, how is that guy doing that took over my dad's body all those years ago?" It makes the character feel inconsistent at times and would have been a good set up to have another character point out that Castiel doesn't seem like himself.

It's always good to see familiar faces on Supernatural but Don't You Forget About Me doesn't do much to make me want to see them again. The episode felt like it was accomplishing a task rather than telling and engaging story and it came across in the story. Maybe next week's Love Hurts will fair better.

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

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