Supernatural recap: Garth gets a visit from the (very normal) Winchesters
Just when you think Supernatural has done it all … they write a tap dance scene for Garth and Dean!!! Have you ever heard of something so magical?! But before we get into it — and we will — let’s back up.
The episode opens with a supernatural cage fight between a werewolf we’ve never met and a wraith we’ve never met, but thanks to some epic musical choices, I was in.
Back in Kansas, Sam and Dean are having a no good, very bad day. Dean, on a beer run, gets a toothache, his credit card is declined, he’s almost run over by a skateboarder, and then he gets a parking ticket. Sam burns dinner, learns the importance of oven mitts, and gets a cold! Also, important detail: We get a little explanation as to why the boys no longer need to get new fake credit cards. Apparently, Charlie hacked one a few years ago so they could be set for good. Until today, when even Charlie’s card was declined.
Then, to make matters worse, the boys get a call from Garth, and on the drive to Wisconsin, the unthinkable happens: Baby breaks down!!
After walking the final 10 miles, the boys arrive at Garth’s, where he lives with his wife, Bess, his daughter, and his twin boys, named Sam and … Castiel! (Sorry, Dean.) He called the boys about the fight club, only he doesn’t realize it’s a fight club. Turns out, the wolf we saw at the start of the episode is Bess’ cousin. She’s been nursing him back to health, and Garth called to see if the boys could figure out who attacked him. But first, the boys need some help.
While Bess gives Sam a secret family concoction that nearly kills him — it’s mostly cayenne pepper — Garth takes Dean down to his basement where he’s opened a dentist’s office. (Fang maintenance is tricky for werewolves.) There, Garth knocks Dean out so that he can fix his 17 cavities, and Dean’s unconscious state is where the magic happens: He dreams that he and Garth are performing an old school tap dance number in the bunker and dear Chuck I love it so much! At this point, there’s no reason for the show to limit itself in terms of what it can do, so why not have some fun with the final season?!
Also, Garth’s daughter saying, “Mommy, the giant’s crying” in reference to Sam is A+ work.
Once Dean wakes up and the giant stops crying, the boys catch Garth up on the God of it all. Chuck is a writer and for years, they’ve been the heroes of his story. And, as with most stories, the heroes don’t have to sweat the small stuff. But now, Chuck has downgraded the boys from heroes to, well, normal people. “You need to get a colonoscopy stat,” Garth tells Dean.
Garth’s rant about Batman, Superman, and well-known hero Christian Grey is interrupted when Brad, the werewolf cousin upstairs, wakes up. He tells them about the fight club in Minnesota right after he calls Sam out on his “furrowed brow” and “puppy eyes.” Not realizing WHAT he’s saying, Brad asks Sam, “That never actually works for you, does it?” OF COURSE IT DOES BRAD, DID YOU EVEN SEE IT?!
The boys head off to take down the fight club because they figure that many monsters in one place means trouble. And despite arming themselves with extra weapons and a grenade launcher, they end up in the cage thanks to Sam’s inability to walk without tripping and Dean’s sudden intolerance for dairy.
Sam and Dean find themselves in the possession of the fight club owner who’s a shifter and would like to see the boys go toe-to-toe with an alpha vampire in the cage. It’s the perfect main event to put on his ticket, really. And so … welcome to Monday Monster Mayhem!
While Killer Wraith and Jamaica Djinn go at it, Sam and Dean are trying their best to free themselves but it seems they’re not very good at picking locks after all. “Could we ever actually pick locks or was it Chuck the whole time?” Sam asks. But Dean does his best to pull off one final pep talk: Not everything they did was Chuck. “The blood, the sweat, the tears, that’s us! We’ve been doing this our whole lives,” he tells Sam. “We’re the best in the world.” So what are they going to do? Go out there and kick some ass!
Except not really. Just as the owner comes to tell them to take their shirts off, he realizes their cages are empty. (That moment was for you, fans!) And here’s where we get an Ocean’s 11-esque rewind: Not only did Garth show up, he used his werewolf strength to break the locks on the cages and free the boys and THEN he blew the place up! Who’s the hero now?!
The bad news? The explosion didn’t kill the 310-lb vampire the boys were supposed to fight, which leads to Sam and Dean getting their butts kicked until Garth takes a machete to the guy’s head.
Back at Garth’s, Sam and Dean say bye to the kids with this amazing exchange…
Dean: “This Cas keeps looking at me weird.”
Sam: “So kind of like the real Cas.”
The boys then thank Garth for being the hero this time around and he says, “I guess I learned from the best,” a line that made me cry instantly. He tells the boys about someplace he heard of in Alaska that supposedly helps people right their luck. And with a couple goodbye hugs, Garth goes back inside and dances with his wife as “Werewolves of London” starts to play. So yeah, when it comes to character goodbyes, Garth got a pretty good one.
Sam and Dean agree that they have to head to Alaska because right now, they’d never stand a chance against Chuck. The problem? Baby breaks down before she’s even made it out of the driveway. The episode ends with a fade to black and Dean yelling his favorite catchphrase: “Sonofabitch!”
All in all, this was one of my favorite episodes of the final season. It was such a lovely goodbye to a beloved recurring character while also letting the guys flex their comedic muscles. Plus, even just the premise of what these guys would do if they had to be normal is pretty great.
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