Supernatural Review: "Repo Man"

He's back, finally. Lucifer that is. We've known all season that Sam had still been seeing him all along, but sadly, Satan hasn't been our co-pilot (yeah, I'm just as uncomfortable writing that as you are reading that.) With him back, messing with Sam's psyche it is fairly clear that the quality of the season would have been better thus far with him included in more episodes. The driving force of this episode was that of a demonic possession, which is something we surprisingly haven't seen much of this season seeing as to how part of that is what made the show so successful at first. However, it still is somewhat of a quasi-filler episode. Sadly, this marks the last episode before another upcoming month long break.

The plot starts at some point in season three when the brothers are searching for the whereabouts of Lilith by means of torturing peon demons. We've seen examples of this towards the end of season three when things were getting dire with Dean's crossroad's deal. This time, however, the demon made things difficult on the boys as it would frequently go back forth into bringing out the innocent personae of the host it was possessing reminding them that they are most likely about to kill an innocent for information. It then skips back to present time where the brothers are looking into similar murders that match what that demon did four years ago. It prompts the Winchesters to head back to the town to see if the demon had resurfaced. While investigating the murders, they check in on the man who was possessed by the demon initially, a man named Jeffrey whose life had taken a tailspin following the possession. However, Jeffrey is now in a halfway house as after he recovered from the cuts, burns and all the torture the Winchesters did to expel the demon within him, Jeffrey turned to alcohol and made more mistakes than he would care to admit. Jeffrey also tells them of a list the demon created of people that he had wished to kill, two on the list have already been killed. Thus, Sam went off by himself (and Lucifer) to protect the third on the list.

The entire time Sam is by himself, Lucifer increases the torture. He constantly pokes and prods at Sam trying to get Sam to acknowledge him. Sam finds the next woman on the list, who happens to be a librarian. He sits at a table and angles himself so that he can see her at all times, despite Lucifer constantly trying to get in the way. Lucifer then gets bored and decides to make things a little bit interesting by making it seem as if everyone in the library is banging their heads to death on the table. Eventually, after finding out the woman isn't in danger of getting attacked by a demon, Sam gives in and tell's Lucifer to shut up. The expression on Lucifer's face after Sam finally speaks to him again is priceless. Mark Pellegrino does a fantastic job in the role of Lucifer and it's to the point where even though his place on the show doesn't exactly fit, but I don't care. His presence and comedic timing bring up the quality of the show instantly. Once Sam "let's him back in", Lucifer and Sam begin to work together as if they are now the newly re-united Hardy Boys and piece together the puzzle as to who this murderer is. All signs point back to Jeffrey, and in this case it is.

For a filler, it was yet again at least entertaining. With the reveal at the end of the episode that Sam can no longer just press in on the wound to make Lucifer go away, it at least is progress. Continuing that point, I hope this also means we see more of Mark Pellegrino as the season continues forward. He single-handedly rose an average, and somewhat predictable filler episode to being one the better filler episodes of recent memory. The reveal that Jeffrey was the actually killer, wasn't all that surprising to me seeing how it isn't exactly a demon's M.O. to go serial killer in a systematic way. Now that the show is going away for another month long break my hope for this season to be salvaged is that it gets back to the main story of the season. Get back to the Leviathan's, have some more progression in Sam losing his sanity, and even more importantly, Castiel.