SUPERNATURAL 13.06 Review “Tombstone”

Read the previous review here.
This post contains spoilers for Supernatural.

Tying humor with grim notions of reality has always been one of Supernatural’s strong suits. One moment, one of the Winchesters is cracking a joke, the next, one of your favorite characters gets ganked. All of our boys made it out of “Tombstone” alive, but things definitely go sideways amidst the laughs and merriment over Castiel’s return.

Jack has spent most of his short existence hesitant. Because he doesn’t feel the same way humans do, he has to be in constant awareness of what emotions he does have. If he gets too mad, his powers explode. If he gets too eager and plays too rough, people can die. That eagerness comes to a head when Jack is trying to impress Cas, and someone does. Goodbye charming security guard, you were lovely while you lasted.

“Tombstone” is one of those episodes where the monster portion happens to be absolutely irrelevant to the story, but the Dodge City aspect gave them fun opportunities to play with. While they’re playing, Jack learned that trying to show off to your dad has consequences, and he takes those consequences to heart in a big way.  He may not feel emotions the same way that humans do, but he cares about his weird-ass little family. Jack isn’t just concerned that he disappointed Cas and the Winchesters, he’s worried that he’ll hurt them too. Because of that, he chooses to run. A choice that will, no doubt, cause more harm than good in coming episodes. He’s just going through his Team Free Will initiation, honestly. Really, he has about five hundred more major screw ups before he catches up to any other individual on this show.

When “Tombstone” wasn’t heavy, it was hilarious. It’s nice to see Dean Winchester smiling again, and episodes where he fanboys are always the best. Watching him nerd out over cowboys while wearing a bolo tie and cowboy hat was a deep contrast to the Dean we’ve seen in the earlier episodes of season thirteen, and it was a welcome change. Pairing that with Castiel exasperatedly explaining Dean’s ridiculous idiosyncrasies to Jack creates that warm and familiar kind of humor that’s rare in Supernatural.

Getting Cas back has returned at least a portion of Dean’s hope, and that hope seems to have given him the final push to accepting Jack. The eldest Winchester has moved past seeing the Nephilim as a monster and has started seeing parts of himself in the kid’s regret. When the time comes for Jack to run, Dean’s right there with Cas and Sam trying to convince him to do otherwise. That’s a quick turnaround time for the most stubborn man on Earth, but we’ll chalk it up to a really bad few days.

With Jack on the run, Team Free Will is going to have to find a way to protect him from the influences of both heaven and hell, while simultaneously taking on whatever monster of the week comes their way. Lucifer and Mary aren’t going to stay stuck in the Apocalypse world, either. Needless to say, the Winchesters are going to have their hands full in the coming weeks. If you had thoughts on the episode, you know what to do!