Supernatural: The Raid

Posted by: Kyle Tetarenko  •  March 2, 2017 @ 10:48pm

Filed under: Recaps & Reviews

It's James Bond meets Assault on Precinct 13 in the week's episode, The Raid.

After Mary told her Sam and Dean that she had been working with the British Men of Letters and lying to them, you might say there was a bit of tension in the bunker. The Winchester brothers have dealt with quite a bit from the brits but there mother lying to them was the last straw. Dean confronts his mother on her actions and eventually tells her to leave the bunker. Three days later, Mary still can't get the boys to respond to a text and is sleeping at the Brit temporary compound. Dean is needs to hit something but since there are no cases he decides to go drinking instead. While he's out, Sam gets a text from Mary asking to meet with her urgently. There was no emergency but Mary shows him the compound and how they have almost rid a good section of America of all vampires. Needless to say, Sam is quite impressed with the operation that they have going; only one nest remains before they move onto the next section and start again. Back at the bunker, Dean gets home but there isn't much left to drink there. When he hears a knock at the door, he expects his brother to be behind it but it's none other than Arthur Ketch – with a bottle of scotch. The two chat about the usual: how the don't care for each other, how they are both killers and how they both eventually need to hit, stab or gut something. Ketch mentions the vampire nest to Dean and the two of them make their move to clear it out. Meanwhile at the compound, the guards on watch are killed before anyone notices and the base is forced to go into lockdown. After everyone retreats into the base, Sam and Mary take of the vamps for interrogation but he has bad news for them. The alpha has returned and he's come to kill them all.

Following last week's Family Feud, The Raid was another good episode from Supernatural but was ultimately resolved too cleanly and left a lot to be desired. At its core, The Raid was about parents and how sometimes they aren't the person we thought they were and are just as human as anyone else. For all of their lives, Sam and Dean had memories of Mary Winchester being a loving mother; an image of her that was completely separate from hunting monsters. The problem was that neither of them had the chance to learn about the kind of person that Mary was. During her confrontation with Dean, Mary said that she didn't want the boys to have to be hunters and that meant that was willing to throw her hat in with the brits even if they tortured her son, that she would lie to them and as we found out with the colt, steal from them as well. More than anything, it seems like Mary is doing all of this for herself as she hates the thing that she is good at but wouldn't know what to do if it did actually end. It was a hard thing for Supernatural to take on and it was going quiet well until the end. Even after Sam learned that his mother stole the colt (the freaking colt!), he is more than willing to join the brits and forgive his mother. After Dean thought that he could have lost Mary, he quickly forgave her for her lies and actions. While I'm not saying that this should have eventually happened, it felts incredibly forced to have the boys find out and resolve the conflict in just one episode. It weakened the impact of the scene and almost made it pointless. Had Sam and Dean decided to not forgive Mary but continue to work with her and the brits, it would have aligned more with their motivations at the beginning of episode.

Another highlight of the episode was David Haydn-Jones as Arthur Ketch. When we first met Mr. Ketch, I assumed that he would just be the gun for the brits that ended things quickly and cleanly but his character has quickly become very interesting. He's empathetic to people like him (Dean or Mary) but honest in his lack of regard or perceived value in Dean yet understands when a bottle of scotch can be better suited for a task than a gun. It's intriguing that he will take whatever course of action necessary to accomplish his goal. We'll see how that unfolds later on in the season when his task puts him on a collision course with Sam or Dean.

While it was nostalgic to see Rick Worthy return as the alpha vampire, it didn't do much to help the episode. Since his first appearance on the show in 2010's Family Matters, Worthy has a strong presence but has never been believable as the first vampire or the most powerful of them all. His death by the colt was pretty great though, at least he had that.

All in all, The Raid was a good episode that cut the family tension off before giving it the chance to get going. Let's see what happens on next week's Somewhere Between Heaven and Hell.

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

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