SUPERNATURAL 13.07 Review “War of the Worlds”
Read the previous review here.
This post contains spoilers for Supernatural.
Well, Supernatural fandom, it appears we’re here. Where’s here? Here is that time just before midseason when things start to hit the fan. Make no mistake, things are never calm in the Winchesters’ world, but that hike toward midseason is where the weird seems to get weirder and everything gets turned on its head.
What’s gone sideways this year? So far we’ve got Jack the conflicted Nephilim, evil Colonel Sanders running hell, and an apocalypse world run by Michael (yes, that Michael). “War of the Worlds” wanted to be sure everyone was really on their toes and tossed in a powerless (but back on Earth) Lucifer, your least favorite Men of Letters back from the dead, and Kevin freaking Tran! Don’t get too excited about that last one, he’s kind of tweaked out and at this point we’ll only see him on the Apocalypse world, but it’s nice to see Osric Chao’s face in any capacity.
Lucifer’s always been one of the most interesting characters Supernatural has to offer. His allegiance only to himself makes him fun, but in the most wicked way imaginable. Makes sense, being Satan and all, but deep down under all that evil is the angel who only became evil because he cared. With that said, after seven seasons containing at least four arcs featuring the character, there aren't many new stories to tell with an all-powerful evil, so the writers decided to take away that power.
On the Apocalypse world, Michael’s the lead deity in charge, and he’s seen Earth and all the beauty it contains. Logically, he wants Earth for his own, and is on a mission to get it. After Kevin creates a rift with Lucifer’s grace, ol’ Luci manages to be the one being to jump through it. He’s able to return to Earth, but he’s missing a big hunk of his powers, so whatever hair brained scheme he’s got in mind is going to require some help. Lucky for him, he stumbles upon Castiel, who is the king of being manipulated.
The prince of being manipulated? Sam Winchester. Sam and Cas, despite all of the things they’ve seen in their lives, always want to see the good in people. They want to give whoever’s in front of them the benefit of the doubt, and that’s how people die. Dean’s the polar opposite of the two of them, and somewhere in the middle of those two extremes is where a functional human being should live. Usually when Dean goes on one of his “I don’t trust this” tirades, it’s without just cause and whatever he’s judging turns out to be on their team. That is not the case with “Alexander” Ketch. Turns out Ketch made a deal with Rowena years back and got a handy little charm to bring him back to life after Mary shot him in his stupid face. Unfortunately for him, that charm requires recharging once it brings you back, and Lucifer left Rowena’s corpse all crispified back in season twelve. His hunt for Rowena is what lead him to torturing witches, indirectly throwing him in the Winchesters’ path. He’s in the wind for now, but with a war about to come between two worlds, he’ll no doubt be returned to the fray soon.
That impending war of the worlds is exactly what convinces Cas to help Lucifer, no matter how reluctantly. We get to see the two of them bicker like brothers now that they’re on a more equal playing field, which added a little bit of fun into the mix. Those two brothers are probably going to be bickering a lot more now that Az has them both sitting in cells in hell, too. That banter is going to quickly come to an end once the custody battle for Jack comes to a head, but for now they both play for the same team and that’s going to be a delightful watch.
If you had thoughts on the episode, you know what to do! More importantly, whose faces do you want to see in the Armageddon world that we’ll probably never run into back on Earth?
