Season 10 Episode 1 – “Black”

The brothers Winchester are back and with the 10th season there are a few changes to the status quo of Supernatural. It’s been a few months and Sam is trying to track down his newly minted demon brother Dean who is “howling at the moon” with Crowley.

Demon Dean (hereafter referred to as Deanmon since the rest of the internet’s doing it) is like a far more uninhibited version of the human version. His version of “howling at the moon” involves drinking in Supernatural branded dives, doing terrible sounding karaoke and sleeping with loose women. None of it is really anything that Dean wouldn’t do before becoming a demon but there’s a difference to how Ackles plays the character. There’s a definite sense that nothing is holding him back and he’s having what probably amounts to the most fun he has ever had.

I like how the show has mixed things up by having Crowley and Dean be a proper pairing; the two actors have great chemistry and the two of them together feels fresh and interesting. The characters are on the same wavelength in the beginning and Crowley seems to be enjoying spending this time with a completely unhinged Dean.

What Crowley doesn’t see is that there are shades of Deanmon’s humanity still creeping through, there are times in the episode where it seems like regret can be seen in his eyes and there’s a really good scene resembling hitting rock bottom where he almost admits his failings but is unable to due to his bravado. To contrast with that there’s a moment at the end of the episode where Dean is the coldest we have ever seen him, he casually dismisses the threats against his brother and drives on. I hope we see more of this emotionally detached Dean and I really hope we get to see him acting truly monstrous before this is all resolved.

Sam spends much of the episode on his own as he looks for information on his missing brother. There’s a lot of determination in everything he does as well as more than a little desperation. The fact that his brother has become something they’ve been fighting all their lives is probably something he takes more than a little personally. He is very concerned about his brother but I get the impression he has no idea what he’ll actually do when he finds him. Sam being on his own is something that the show has done before but this does feel different considering he has a clear mission and a sense of urgency to everything he does.

Castiel is in fairly bad shape at the beginning of the episode as his borrowed Angel Grace is running out of power and causing him a lot of pain. When we first see him it looks like he’s barely holding it together so the last thing he needs is a mission. Unfortunately Hannah has other ideas and brings him along to track rogue Angels who refuse to return to heaven. I thought this plot was the strongest of the three in this episode. The added complexity to the Angel civil war is always welcomed and it’s interesting to see Angels that have no interest in joining either side. Cas and Hannah’s beliefs are a nice contrast here where Hannah sees them all as traitors who should be executed and Cas sees no problem in leaving them to their own devices given that they aren’t harming anyone. Cas is clearly a man who doesn’t want to see any more bloodshed and seems like he’s slightly broken when he’s forced to be violent once again.

There was nothing technically wrong with the episode, it was a very solidly written episode of Supernatural with some really good character moments. The Deanmon plot is interesting so far and I’m glad that it hasn’t been resolved in one episode. Something about the episode didn’t feel quite right and it lacked anything to really wow me as a viewer. It felt more like an arc setup episode than story in its own right.