By: Matt Spaulding
This week we got an episode that brought us a good mix of "monster of the week" and "overarching story." The boys, a little burnt out from all their research on how to defeat The Darkness, decide to take a little road trip to pay their respects to a wrestler they loved as kids who has recently died.
At the same time, Lucifer has all the demons in Hell doing research as well, because, obviously, he wants to beat the Winchesters to the next Hand of God artifact. But, it seems, Crowley (still chained up and being treated like a dog) might know exactly where it is.
While paying their respects to a childhood hero, the boys stick around to take in a wrestling match and learn that the company is thought to be cursed, as dead bodies seem to keep popping up at all their stops. Sure enough, a patron at the show they're at gets murdered, and the symbol carved on his chest points to a demon being on the loose.
On the Hell side of things, a demon frees Crowley, claiming that all the demons miss him as leader and hope he knows a way to defeat Lucifer to regain his position. Crowley says he does and leads her to the Hand of God. As you might figure, though, nothing here is on the up-and-up. We're talking about Lucifer and demons, after all.
The wrestling parts were really fun. There's even a hilarious sequence of Dean alone in the wrestling ring acting out fantasies of being a star. The story, however, was a little standard on the whole, with the exception of a rather emotional ending.
On the other side of the story, it was good to see Crowley set free, but beyond that the story didn't progress too much. I can't wait to see how Crowley eventually regains his position as leader of Hell, and what that means for those who have betrayed him (which is everyone).
While I enjoyed this episode, it was fairly standard. But not exactly middle of the road, either. Final grade: B-