Sam and Dean find themselves dealing with a very modern paranormal problem.

The CW

I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SEMESTER.

Note: The following review goes into detail about the episode. SPOILER ALERT!

I feel very conflicted about this week’s Supernatural. On the one hand, I can applaud the writers putting a modern spin on the ghost story, but on the other, “Halt and Catch Fire” also proved to be another filler episode. Plenty of goofy stuff happened this week and there were a few genuine laughs, but there are far more pressing matters that we need to see attended to. The Mark of Cain isn’t simply going to go away, and Crowley is nowhere to be seen and Castiel is off gambling on a riverboat apparently. I understand that these long seasons require a certain amount of filler, but it looks like we could be in for even more now following Dean’s decision at the end of the episode.

Castiel’s offscreen excuse notwithstanding, I actually enjoyed some of the sillier moments of “Halt and Catch Fire.” Sure, a “Wi-Fi ghost” is really freaking stupid, but it allowed for this ghost story to go beyond the brothers searching for a grave or personal belonging to burn. Granted, we did actually get a nostalgic Winchester “salt and burn” early in the episode, but we knew that they were barking up the wrong tree. There was a lot of focus put on social networking here, so much so that I have a feeling the writers may not be big fans of it at all. It was mainly used for shallow purposes, and it was also the cause of the fatal car crash that sparked the ghostly happenings.

The CW

Some of the Dean material felt a little off too. We all love Dean, and we all know how much Dean loves food and women. While they were amusing, I felt like we could have done without a couple of the scenes where Dean stuffs his face or stares at the hot college girls. The biggest moment of the episode was Dean deciding to give up on removing the Mark. He wants peace, and the only way he knows how to get that is by “saving people, hunting things: the family business.” We’ve seen that for 10 years now, and it makes sense for him to crave that twisted normalcy, but he must know that it’s not going to be that easy. I’d be very surprised if the Mark can actually be mastered, but if anybody can do it, it’s Dean Winchester. I still can’t help but feel that he’s a little bit of a ticking time bomb.

THE BREAKDOWN

Unfortunately, there’s not too much else to talk about this week. The “monster of the week” was a mix of inventive and silly, and he’ll be quickly forgotten about in the coming weeks. As per usual, the material dealing with the Mark of Cain was the strongest, but there just wasn’t enough of it. My worry now is that with Dean giving up on removing the Mark, we may be set for a run of a few “monster of the week” episodes before something inevitably goes wrong. These kind of episodes are Supernatural’s bread and butter, and last week’s “About a Boy” proved that they can still deliver excellent standalone episodes. But “Halt and Catch Fire” simply wasn’t up to that standard though, and hopefully Crowley and Castiel will return to spice things up a bit next week.

What do you think about Dean’s decision? Let me know what you think on Twitter @OldSnake24 or in the comments below. Also, be sure to follow us @YouNerded.

68/100 – ‘Decent’

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