SUPERNATURAL 13.08 Review “The Scorpion And The Frog”

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

Crowley was a fascinating character. Cold, calculating, and often ruthless, but with this strange mushier side that one wouldn’t have expected in the earlier days of the character. That might be the whole point of character growth, but the evolution of Crowley went down differently than a character arc on any other show might have. His motives never really changed, just his actions. To say he warmed to the Winchester boys might be too kind, but in their weird-ass abusive relationship, the two brothers showed him more love than anyone else in his life had.

It seems important to talk about what an interesting character he was for two reasons; the first being that we never really had time to think about his death. Crowley committed unspeakable acts for centuries, but at the end of the day he went down a martyr protecting his Moose and his Squirrel. The second being that “The Scorpion and the Frog” introduced some pathetic, wannabe Crossroads King, and how dare they?

Bart is a man (demon) with a plan! He needs the Winchester boys to pull a heist with his little demon buddy, and a woman named Alice who made the mistake of selling her soul. Where Crowley had Charm, Bart has smarm, but he thinks he can trick Sam and Dean into doing exactly what he wants in exchange for a spell to find Jack. He doesn’t like them, but he doesn’t like the Evil Colonel Sanders that’s currently running hell either, so he plays it up as if they’re his best option. In reality he just needs the blood of a man who’s been to hell and back.

Off they go to play Ocean’s Eleven! Alice, the weirdo, is charming in that awkward kind of way. She thinks Dean’s pretty and gives him a soda-pop. Those are two unrelated factoids, but her mousey oddness was a refreshing change of pace for Supernatural. Charlie was big in her weirdness, and Alex broody in hers. It’s rare we meet someone soft in this universe, and though she was a safe crackin’ fiend, she had a very Neville Longbottom-like charm to her.

Surprisingly enough, Alice both makes it through the episode and has a lasting effect on Dean that doesn’t result in him trying to sleep with her. Hopefully we’ll see her again somewhere down the road, but in the meantime the Winchesters are back to square one when it comes to finding Jack. They also still have no idea that Cas is working with Lucifer to try and find their boy, which is going to result in a whole lot of complications. We’ll have to wait and see if Cas knows that Mary fell into the Armageddon World with Lucifer or not. He was dead at the time, and Sam and Dean like to keep things close to the vest, but it seems weird that he wouldn’t know. If he does it’s going to result in one hell of an explosion from Dean when they find out what he’s been up to with ol’ Luci.

At the end of the day “The Scorpion and the Frog” is a filler episode, but not necessarily a bad one. Dean got to play Indiana Jones, right down to booby traps and sticking his hand into a mysterious hole in the wall that he wanted nothing to do with. Crowley-Lite got his comeuppance at the end, and though Sam’s feeling a little down he’s got his big brother Dean to pick him right back up again.

Next week it’s mid-season finale time! If you had thoughts on the episode, you know what to do.