If you ever wished Supernatural would do a Who Framed Roger Rabbit? episode, then you have very unique tastes and you’re in luck. This week Cas joins the boys as a Hunter and the case involves a series of cartoony deaths inspired by classic Looney Tunes. There’s also a talking cat. Yup, it’s that kind of weird, ridiculous, fun episode.
Cas has given up on Heaven because of the shame he feels for destroying it and now wants to help people by becoming a Hunter, so he joins Sam and Dean on the road. Things go about as well as you would expect, with Cas smelling bodies to detect bladder infections.
The case of the week is particularly cartoony. One guy has his heart beat out of his chest, literally. And another tries committing suicide by jumping off a building, but he winds up floating in mid-air until he looks down and falls to his death. Clearly someone doesn’t understand the Looney Tunes Laws of Gravity. A third guy gets crushed by an anvil.
All the clues lead to a old folks home where Cas interrogates a cat, and after he leaves, the cat calls Cas a dumbass. The talking cat instantly becomes one of the favorite things this show has ever done.
Sam and Dean find Fred Jones, a psychokinetic friend of their father who can reshape reality with his mind. Since he’s basically out of it, his old man delusions trigger cartoon-like events, including a birthday candle that explodes.
But Fred isn’t the bad guy. The doctor at the retirement home is using him to rob the other residents. The boys and Cas head to the bank where the evil doctor is doing one last job.
Cas zaps himself and Sam into Fred’s cartoon mind to convince him to come back to reality. Meanwhile Dean goes into the bank to fight the doctor in a cartoon fashion. The confusing title of the episode, “Hunteri Heroici,” is explained as the Latin genus and species appearing below Dean Winchester’s name in a Road Runner-style freeze frame. The whole fight scene is perfectly done and the cartoon sound effects are brilliant.
Sam succeeds and Fred wakes up, stops the cartoon madness and stops the evil doctor by using his psychokinetic powers to force the doctor to shoot himself. Um, murder seems like an unusual ending to the story. Not even Dean’s classic “That’s all folks” can really lighten the fact that Fred just killed a man.
Cas the Sleeper Agent
By the end of the episode Cas finally realizes that he can’t stay on Earth and be a Hunter, he needs to go back to Heaven to face the carnage he caused. Only just then Naomi, Heaven’s Covert Ops Handler, zaps him back to her office for a chat. She doesn’t want Cas coming back to Heaven until she says he can. What’s she hiding? We don’t know, and when Cas is back he decides that he’ll just stay with Fred at the retirement home for a while. That’s not really a solution as much as it is a stalling tactic by the writers.
Sam’s Flashbacks
In flashback land, Sam and Amelia move into a house together and he meets her disapproving dad. He thinks Sam and Amelia are moving too quickly and that they’re only latching onto each other as a way to avoid their traumatic pasts. Just as her dad starts to like Sam, she gets a phone call that her husband, the one who allegedly died in Afghanistan, isn’t actually dead. Ooh, we’ve got a Homeland situation going on! Let’s hope Don is actually a terrorist converted to Islam by Abu Nazir.
The flashback ties into the theme of the episode, which is all about how people need to stop living in a dream land. They need to wake up and face the harsh reality of their lives. Sam was hiding from his true feelings about Dean by moving in with Amelia. Fred was hiding in his cartoon fantasy land. And Cas was hiding as a Hunter, refusing to face the reality of the pain he caused hi Heaven.
Next week: It’s the last episode of 2012 and Dean is put in the middle after Sam suspects Benny in a series of vamp attacks.
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(Image courtesy of the CW)
Senior Writer, BuddyTV
John watches nearly every show on TV, but he specializes in sci-fi/fantasy like The Vampire Diaries, Supernatural and True Blood. However, he can also be found writing about everything from Survivor and Glee to One Tree Hill and Smallville.
