Supernatural: LOTUS

Filed under: Recaps & Reviews

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely (John Dalberg-Acton).

Following the suspicious death of a well know tech billionaire, the boys investigate but find Castiel and Crowley (Crowliel because I'm writing their names way too often) already there. They see the body of Wallace Parker with his eyes burned out; another victim of Lucifer. Back at the bunker, Sam learns that Parker made sizeable donations to the St Louis arch diocese and was close friends with the Arch Bishop – who he also sees is not wearing his cross in his latest pictures. Crowliel suspects that Lucifer is jumping from one power player to the next as several powerful people have all died due to mysterious circumstances. The Winchesters go to investigate the St Louis Arch Diocese but are too late when they arrive. They find the bodies of nuns and priests strewn about in horrific ways until they finally find the Arch Bishop's body on the floor with his eyes burned out. After retreating back to the bunker, Crowley uses his contacts to learn that Lucifer has claimed none other than the leader of the free world, the President of the United States as is latest vessel. The boys don't believe it. They could come up with every plan but LOTUS is currently staying at the Forester Estate, Presidential Compound. An estate covered on four sides by walls and guarded by the army and secret service. It will take every trick the Winchesters and Crowliel have to stop Lucifer from using absolute power.

As a mid-season finale, Supernatural continues trend of great ideas with poor execution in LOTUS. In Lucifer, we have the father of lies, the ultimate evil and genuinely bad dude but how much power has he ever truly had? Sure he can throw people at walls and he's pretty strong but LOTUS (as Supernatural would have us call him) has power that is far beyond that. With the authority of the office, the LOTUS can change the entire fate of the world in an instant and unleash a nuclear holocaust if it was deemed necessary. So, with all of that power, Lucifer thought that his best course of action was to have a baby. Now, I'm sure that this will inevitably lead somewhere for the rest of the season but that definitely wasn't the action I was expecting. As Vince Vincente, Lucifer intended to have fans commit terrible acts to themselves and as an Arch Bishop and Wallace Parker, he did almost nothing. As unhinged as Supernatural has proven Lucifer to be, his plans so far appear random at best and makes it quite difficult to get engaged in the story as we usually can. Wherever the Nephilim path leads to in the future, I hope that it gives a much better sense of purpose for season twelve besides stop Lucifer because he is bad.

Besides Lucifer's haphazard vessel selection, some parts of LOTUS didn't make a whole lot of sense. The first being that the death of a billionaire in Wallace Parker is treated in such a nonchalant immediately stood out. Here is a billionaire (that even Castiel knows about) whose eyes burned out of his head and it's just being examined at a small, local hospital? Near the end of the episode, Kelly decides to keep her abomination demon-angel baby after setting a bible on fire just with a touch. Sure, she seemed like a devout person at the beginning with her call for a prayer but that wasn't the reason that she focused on. If she had said something related to that it would have been much more in line with her character. Let's also keep in mind that this happened within the course of only a few days. Why it was decided that Castiel would only help Kelly escape and not simply teleport everyone to safety broke their Supernatural continuity. I was expecting Castiel to either teleport to Kelly and promptly find her (like how he does with everyone else) or show up to rescue Sam and Dean. It was just too many things that felt thrown together rather than well planned out for a mid-season finale.

Overall, LOTUS could have easily been a much stronger episode. Something that was only briefly touched on but was still the highlight of the show was the scene when the president was talking with Lucifer in his mind. Just as Lucifer was found speaking to himself, he killed a secret service agent and it was never touched on again. What was the reaction of the president after that? Did he regret giving himself to the devil? To me, the most interesting part is that Lucifer's vessels have to say yes for him to use them. Wallace Parker may have been interesting but what did Lucifer say to an Arch Bishop that made him say yes? It seems like a huge missed opportunity that was right there for the taking. I guess we'll find out what happen when Supernatural returns on January 26th.

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

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