Thursday nights have been especially tough this year. Even though I’m a big fan of Supernatural, I’m also a fan of other Thursday-night-at-9pm shows like CSI, Fringe, The Office, and 30 Rock. On top of that, my wife cannot miss a week without Grey’s Anatomy. It’s always a struggle to figure out how to access all of those shows. Somehow we figured out a way to schedule our television, a DVR and streaming video to get to all of it. But the fun thing about tonight’s episode of Supernatural was that a good amount of our Must-Find-Time-To-See TV was parodied.
The Trickster was back and rather than kill Dean over and over again like the third season episode “Mystery Spot”, he decided to give them the challenge of going through his own version of television. His rule was only for the brothers to play their roles. The first was a show called Dr. Sexy MD, a great send-up of Grey’s Anatomy, where the hallways of Seattle Mercy Hospital were full of tender moments and poppy yet somber music. They even had a doctor that talked to a ghost, which puzzled Sam.
Other shows that were parodied successfully were CSI and Knight Rider. In the CSI send-up, which was kind of a mash-up parody of the original and CSI:Miami. Sam and Dean played their roles by making ultra-cool witticisms about a crime scene and wearing sunglasses at night to the music of what sounded like the Who. For the Knight Rider parody, Dean got to drive what I’m going to call S.A.M.M. He had the LED lights and instrument panel like K.I.T.T., but was Dean’s Chevy Impala. My Brother the Car indeed. To round out the other channels that the boys get put through, there was a 90’s style T.G.I.F. sitcom (with the funniest opening credits using every cheesy cliché in the book), a Japanese game show called Nutcracka!, as well as a commercial for genital herpes. Poor Sam. Always getting the STDs.
I would say my only complaint about all these parodies is that they should have gone all the way and stuck to just the Thursday night competition. Rather than do the 90’s-style sitcom, why not take a run at The Office? Seeing Sam and Dean dressed up like Dwight and Michael would have been brilliant. Of course, I really don’t know what they could have done with parodying Fringe and making it funny so it was probably a good idea to stay away from that. But hey, let’s send the boys to 30 Rock! Sam can be Kenneth and Dean can be Tracy. It would have been a blast! Ok, maybe there’s a reason I don’t write for Supernatural.
What started out as a silly filler episode turned into an important one, because it was revealed that the Trickster is actually Gabriel the Archangel, hiding out on Earth. To this, I cheer the writers of Supernatural. From monsters to ghosts, I could swallow any sort of being having a place on this show. But when they brought God and Lucifer into it, I always thought that everything the Winchesters have faced can kind of fit underneath their existence on this TV show. The supernatural can always be blamed on something to do with Hell or deciding not to go to the light or whatever. But the one black sheep in this show that made no sense was the existence of the Trickster.
The Trickster, by the show’s definition, is a demi-god. It can do anything – create new realities, reverse time, and even possess immortality. Whether you subscribe to religion or even philosophy, it is usually a general rule that there cannot be two Gods. I can bet this also goes for demi-gods as well. Well thanks to tonight’s episode, the one problem I had with the show’s mythology was finally wrapped up. The Trickster is Gabriel, and angels on the show have created new realities, reversed time and are immortal. Now it makes more sense. I am appeased, Eric Kripke.
