Supernatural is back to a stand-alone, monster-of-the-week episode, only this one is all about the guest stars. Not only is Kim Rhodes back as Sheriff Jody Mills, but it also marks the return of Sheriff Donna Hanscum, a bubbly Minnesota woman the Winchesters met last season at a health spa.
The two female sheriffs are what make this episode so gosh-darn entertaining, especially Briana Buckmaster as Donna.
The Return of Sheriff Jody Mills
Surly Sheriff Jody Mills is back, attending a sheriffs’ retreat in Hibbing, Minnesota. We learn that she’s still taking care of Alex, the teen girl who was hanging out with vampires last season. Jody is master-of-fact, weary after seeing five seasons worth of Winchester chaos.
At the retreat, she gets teamed up with the cheerful Sheriff Donna Hanscum, aka the sheriff who tried to lose weight at the health spa last season in “The Purge.” When a body shows up that appears to be the victim of an “animal attack,” Jody and Donna both investigate. They wind up bonding over their mutual struggles. Alex is a reckless teen who gets into trouble and Donna’s ex-husband Doug (also a sheriff at the retreat) is a total dick, constantly making fat jokes about her.
Sam and Dean and Jody and Donna
Jody calls up Sam to give him the 411 on the attacks, and the Winchesters decide to show up since they’re making no progress investigating the Mark of Cain. When they arrive, they look into the attacks while Jody is in charge of distracting Donna (who recognizes the boys) since she isn’t aware of the supernatural. Yet.
All of that changes when Donna sees the Hibbing sheriff standing over a dead body, opening his mouth and showing off his fangs. She tells Jody, who tells Sam and Dean, resulting in Donna getting “the talk” about how monsters are real and the sheriff is a vampire. Donna deals with it surprisingly well.
Vampires in Hibbing
Donna and Jody join Sam and Dean in hunting the vampire sheriff, but when they get there, the sheriff tells them to run before they’re all attacked by a bunch of local vampires, led by the teenage homeless girl Jody gave money to at the start of the episode.
The sheriff was the leader of a group of hippie vampires, but he left them and went straight, only drinking from blood bags. The hippies want him back, but he refuses, so they kill him. Dean then breaks free and kills two of the hippie vampires. The homeless girl is about to kill Jody, but Donna breaks free and chops her head off. That’s a pretty steep learning curve from discovering that monsters are real to beheading a vampire.
When it’s all done, Jody offers to help tutor Donna in the ways of monsters. Dean admits that killing those vampires was the first time he didn’t feel affected by the Mark of Cain, so he was totally lying at the end of “Ask Jeeves” and maybe even now based on how he rubs the Mark before getting back into the Impala.
Next week on Supernatural: It’s the winter finale, and Dean is covered in blood, surrounded by bodies and telling Cas to take him out if the Mark gets reignited. So yeah, he was absolutely lying to Sam again.
(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.
