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Shadow - Recap
Episode sixteen opens in Chicago, Illinois with a young woman walking through the streets and alleys alone, listening to her iPod. When the iPod dies on her the last thing she is probably thinking is supernatural creature disturbing the EMF spectrum, at least until the phantom winds and strange whispers start. Panicked she manages to make it home, lock herself in and arm her security system. Shored up by this false comfort she relaxes and listens to her messages, unaware that a shadow has detached itself from the others in her apartment and is stalking her. The shadow attacks and we are left with a scream and the certainty that she is no longer of the living.
One week later Sam and Dean arrive in Chicago to investigate. Masquerading as people from the alarm company they talk their way in to look over the apartment where the girl died. She had died inside with the alarm on, the chain on and the windows locked, with no sign of struggle but the young woman had been torn apart as if by a wild animal. Using masking tape they trace a strange sigil left in the woman's blood on the carpet, definitely their type of job.
As they ask around for information in the bar where Meredith used to work, we find that there was another victim killed in the same way, but beyond that they seem to have nothing in common. Sam catches sight of something and leaves a confused Dean behind. Re-enter Meg (Nicki Aycox), the evil hitchhiker from Scarecrow. The reunion is interrupted by Dean, who gets told off by Meg for dragging Sam around like luggage, Dean excuses himself from the two of them and when Meg says they should meet up later Sam gets her phone number and her last name “Masters” from her.
Despite the fact that Dean thinks Sam is thinking a little too much with the downstairs brain, Sam is suspicious of her reappearance in his life. She seems to check out, however, and Sam is left to follow her to prove his suspicions.
The sigil they found turns out to be for a Zoroastrian demons named Devas, the demon of darkness, savage demons that are animalistic in nature. They have to be summoned, they wouldn't just appear on their own, so there is someone else involved.
Following Meg leads to an abandoned looking warehouse and the discovery that she's not what she appears to be. Using her cup of blood, Meg has a conversation with the same unseen someone as at the end of Scarecrow, telling them that they shouldn‘t come because the brothers are in town. Waiting until Meg leaves, Sam discovers the same sigil on her altar that they found on the carpet in the second victims apartment. Certain that she must be the one that summoned the Devas Sam goes to get Dean.
Dean in the meantime has discovered that there was something they overlooked that connected the two victims. They were both born in Lawrence, Kansas, birthplace of the brothers and the place where the demon killed their mother. They now suspect whatever Meg is working for may be the demon that killed their mother. They leave a message for their father that they think they are on the trail of the thing that killed their mother and head out to see who is coming to meet Meg in the warehouse.
The brothers walk right into Meg's trap, she isn't hunting them, she's hunting their father and they are going to be the bait. They manage to make their way out of the trap to keep their father from being caught as well, destroying Meg's altar and leaving her to the mercies of the creatures she summoned.
They return to their hotel room to find their father (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) is waiting for them. Meg was right, his sons are the successful bait to use on him, despite knowing that it had to be a trap he had been outside the warehouse while they were being held. The reunion is interrupted when the Devas attack again, showing that this was the real trap after all. Sam manages to use a flare to drive off the demons and father and sons have to split up again, leaving Meg and the failed trap behind.
Review :
Zoroastrianism is theorized to be the first religion that brought us the whole concept of heaven and hell and individual judgment of a person. So the idea of Meg and whoever she is working for using the demons from this faith indicate that likely this demon they are hunting is a lot older and more powerful than any they have encountered before. It could hint that what they are hunting is something that could be considered the devil itself.
Meg uses a lot of language like “show you a hell of a time” and “I'd kill him” words innocuous in a normal person that mean a lot more coming from her. I was worried that she'd be a little over the top as a villain in her first appearance, but Meg's character shows a lot of promise. Plans within plans within plans as the saying goes. When you watch what she does it seems simple and one dimensional but it's continuously turned into something that led to something else that in turn because something completely different. The brothers are used to monsters with simple and straightforward motivations, the Benders started their preparations for having to think differently and Shadow reinforced that. If they keep going the way they are, seeking their mother's killer, they need to learn to think in terms less straightforward than this monster needs meat, or that ghost wants that person dead. Dean's decision to separate shows the first hint of this thinking.
When the brothers are discussing the possibility that this could be the end of the hunt, Dean seems surprised by Sam's desire to go back to school and to just be a person again. When asked what he wants Dean tells Sam “I don't want you to leave the second this things over Sam“. Everything ties back to the pilot where Sam tells Dean he can do it alone, and he says ‘well, yeah but I don't want to'. Dean's entire world seems to revolve around trying to pull his family back together, so he and Sam and their father are all together again. Dean is adamant that he wants to leave when it's all over, that he has to go his own way. So at the end it's a surprise when Sam is the one who can't let go of their father.
I'm always happy when Jeffrey Dean Morgan makes an appearance as the boys father, those episodes (Home, Scarecrow and Shadow) mark points where you get a glimpse into the family dynamic from the past. Dean's immediate hug and Sam hanging back in the background plainly wanting to do the same does a good job once again of showing those walls they've hinted that Sam and John built between them over the years before their final showdown when Sam left for school. Sam and John say hello to each other , and you are wondering if things are going to go well, or if this is going to end in a fight.
Overall as usual there is great use of shadows to create the mood, but the Devas themselves seemed a little too obviously CGI for me. As a being that was strictly shadow I would have liked their effect well enough, but as something that was supposed to be solid but only visible through their shadows I would have liked to see something that moved a little more like a solid creature, giving realism to their movements might have heightened the creep factor.
I'm also curious about their decision to wound everyone so badly and in obvious places. It will be jarring to find everyone healed and unscarred in the next episode, or will they introduce even more continuity by healing the wounds slowly and adding scars that slowly fade?
“You have to let me go.” Words to his son from John Winchester, do they portend something in the future? We'll have to wait and see.
Guest Stars:
Jeffrey Dean Morgan - John Winchester
Nicki Aycox - Meg Masters
Trivia
Meg tells Sam she met “Something Michael Murray at a bar“. Chad Michael Murray costarred on Gilmore Girls with Jared.
“Deva” was also used as the name of a demon in Charmed in the episode “Deva vu all over again”
The Devas are described as demon pit bulls, maybe a tribute to Chicago's “Demon Dogs” restaurant, considered one of the highlights of Chicago for eating.
1435 west Geary is the address of the warehouse
