Supernatural - S11E16 - Safe House
Previously on Supernatural, ‘Beyond the Mat’
Supernatural likes to service its fans by bringing back fan-favorites that have previously died on the show: whether it’s guiding Sam through Hell or Dean through purgatory, or communicating through a séance. Bobby (Jim Beaver), since his death during the awful Leviathan arc, has appeared in at least onc episode a year in some sort of cameo. This time, Rufus (Steven Williams) joins him in a series of flashbacks that connect to an investigation by Sam and Dean.
After a mother and daughter are mysteriously found comatose, Sam serendipitously finds in Bobby’s journal a similar happenstance and the boys decide to follow the trail left in the journal. Supernatural cleverly weaves the flashbacks into the current investigation by showing how Bobby and Rufus shaped clues found by Sam and Dean.
The monster of the week is a Soul-Eater that exists in a parallel universe called the Nest. It traps its prey leaving them in a coma-like state until their life force is depleted. Sam and Dean find out that Bobby and Rufus where able to trap it in the Nest by painting a sigil on the wall, but the sigil was accidentally tampered with allowing the Soul-Eater to escape. Reading through their Men of Letters archive, Sam and Dean figure out that to truly kill it the sign has to be painted in both worlds. The fights are expertly depicted in two timelines as Dean and Bobby battle the Soul-Eater in the Nest while Sam and Rufus battle it in our world.
Eventually, Sam is able to draw the sigil completing Dean’s pair, destroying the Soul-Eater and freeing the victims from the Nest, including Dean and Bobby - but not before they see each other in a sweet touching moment.
Supernatural S11E16
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Plot: Classic monster of the week but with a cool twist. - 9/109/10
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Action: The fights scenes were excellent - 10/1010/10
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Dialogue: I could watch a prequel spinoff of Bobby and Rufus insulting each other. - 9/109/10
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Performances: All around solid performances. - 9/109/10
Summary
Great job by director Stefan Pleszczynski in taking a standard monster of the week trope and turning it into a haunting nostalgia filled episode. It was great to see Bobby and Rufus back as they work well together. The fact that the crux of the episode took place in one house gave it a haunted house feel. Although a bit heavy-handed, the flashbacks worked great in seamlessly integrating both timelines as the story was told in one continuous sequence. (Take note, Arrow). At first I didn’t understand how Dean and Bobby where able to see each other in the Nest since Bobby was there in the past and eventually got out to work with the boys again, but upon a second viewing it looks like the Nest exists outside of time and space allowing the two to be there simultaneously. Like Sam and Dean, just thinking about paradoxical time travel makes my head hurt and like them I’d rather get drunk than try to figure it out.
