Supernatural does a big Buffy shout-out … with Jefferson Starships!

Something that hit me instantly while watching this episode of Supernatural, when Castiel went off to “interrogate” that Jefferson Starship in the back room: Castiel is to Supernatural as Giles is to Buffy. That one scene in particular brought forth a memory of a Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode from season five called “Tough Love.” In that episode, Giles takes to interrogating Glory’s minion, Slook, off-screen. Seemingly milliseconds later, Slook is screaming in pain and willing to spill whatever secrets they want to hear. Well, Castiel pretty much did that same thing in this episode … and that brought up some other interesting points.

When I was looking up the name of the Buffy episode where Giles pulls off that mysterious interrogation, I found the Wikipedia page for “Tough Love.” There, that accompanying photo from the episode has none other than Amber Benson on it, having her soul sucked from her by Glory. Well, what do you know — Amber Benson made a surprise appearance in this episode!

But that’s not all! I can’t be alone in thinking that the Eve storyline felt a hell of a lot like the Glory storyline in Buffy. You know, this super demon-beast thing, that probably has a true form that would cause a mortal human to explode when setting eyes upon it, but takes on the appearance of an ordinary person. She’s the “first” of her kind and — oh yeah — basically feeds off souls. If this wasn’t an intentional Buffy shout-out, I’d be shocked.

Off the subject for a bit. … Something else that occurred to me during this episode was the fact that those suppressed memories inside Sam’s noggin — about his time in that cage in hell — seem to have been pushed way off to the site for the past few episodes. I have to imagine that we’ll see those memories leak out again sometime before the season finale, and they’ll more than likely come fully to the forefront in that episode.

Both Deb and I clapped in excitement (yeah … I clapped — don’t judge) at the news that Crowley was not dead. Carla attended a panel at C2E2 this year with Mark Sheppard, and he all but spilled the news that he was going to be back on the show. Obviously I was immediately curious as to what the hell is going on that would cause Castiel to work with Crowley, but then the previews for the next episode appeared, and it pretty much spelled out what the deal is.

I honestly was a bit disappointed with how the Eve thing went down. The surprise that Dean had the phoenix ash in his bloodstream — and then the Castiel-provided blast — was really awesome, but … that’s it? We’ve been following Eve for nearly the entire season, and she’s already done?

Getting back to the Buffy tribute — anyone else find something that screams shout-out? Let me hear it!

“Oh that’s just great, because without your power you’re just a baby in a trenchcoat.” – Dean, to Castiel

“Jefferson Starships — because they’re horrible and hard to kill.” – Dean, naming the new hybrid vamp/wraiths

Clacked by Keith McDuffee
on Apr 29, 2011 @ 23:13 EST5EDT