Supernatural S05E15 - Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid (2010)

Sex :    Violence :     Scary Movie Rating:  

Director John F. Showalter
Writers Jeremy Carver
Starring Jared Padalecki, Jensen Ackles, Jim Beaver, Kim Rhodes
Genre Zombie
Tagline Lucifer Unbound
Country
Supernatural S05E15 - Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid (2010)

Review

"Agent Willis, this is Sheriff Jody Mills of - Bobby?"- Sheriff Jody Mills

In Bobby's home town the dead are coming back to life and there have been some fatalities, as old grudges are sorted out. The Boys are soon on the case and talking to local character Digger about a dude named Clay that resurrected and took revenge on his killer. Unfortunately they are interrupted by town Sheriff Jody Mills who wants to know what their jurisdiction is. Naturally the boys tried to pull a fast one by having Jody call their supervisor, aka Bobby, and in one of those twists that underline bad luck Sheriff Mills recognises the voice on the other end of the line.

The Boys are on the out with the Sheriff, whose young son has resurrected, and eventually Bobby, who is enjoying the company of his undead wife, the lady in question making a zillion pies much to Dean's delight. Naturally, this being supernatural, the undead aren't exactly going to remain friendly for long, and pretty soon the town is under siege from a zombie uprising of flesh eaters. Seems the central focus is Bobby, because he is helping the Winchester, and not surprisingly Death, the horseman and cause of the dead uprising, has left a message for the Winchesters via the walking dead. Lock and load and shoot them in the head, this one drops some nasty on us.

For once we are getting past Dean's angst, which has been on the high boil all season and to be honest has gotten a tad wearisome, and thankfully Sam isn't going all girly man on us. This episode is about loss and coming to grips with that emotion, and mainly round the tragic life that Bobby Singer is living through. We find out that Bobby had to kill his wife, case of demonic possession, and then she returns from the grave to apparently go into the pie making business. We know this isn't going to end well, Bobby knows it isn't going to end well, but the dude wants to come to his own terms with the inevitable. Naturally neither of the Winchesters is socially adept at picking up on signals from other people, which leads to a split amongst the team as Bobby orders the boys off the ranch, uhmm, car wrecking yard.

Trouble amongst the team, they still seem outgunned by the forces of evil Lucifer is gathering

Must admit I was rocking to the introduction of Sheriff Jody Mills. The boys are conducting an interview with one of the local characters, you know resurrection times and passed crimes etc., naturally they are impersonating impossibly named FBI agents, and naturally their backup plan if called out is to hand off their supervisor's card, hey which just happens to be Bobby. Standard modus operand right, we have seen it at least once an episode over a number of years now. Jody decides it wouldn't be beyond the realms of police procedure to see exactly why the FBI is interested in a local case, and naturally she recognises Bobby's voice, which lands the Winchesters in the local lock up. Bobby does get the boys out eventually, and they promise to put their FBI impersonating ways behind them while in town. And of course this lasts about ten minutes before they really earn the ire of the local Sheriff. However luckily she doesn't run team Winchester out of town as things are about to take a turn for the flesh eating worse! Kim Rhodes (Jody Mills) simply nails it, from the surprise in her voice as she recognises Bobby on the other end of the line, to her stark determination to save her town as the walking dead start to go cannibal holocaust on us.

Another aspect to the episode I was digging like a grave digger on steroids was more background story to Bobby Singer, dude quiet clearly has a wealth of arcane knowledge and has been battling things that go bump in the night for quite some time, but with four and a half seasons under our belt we are still pretty much in the dark when it comes to the Singer backstory. Cool to meet the missus, great baking skills, but seriously, middle American vibe going down? No problems with that, different cultures Bro, but she is defined by her man and her requirements to her man? The militant feminist element lost clearly, the one or two of them that watch Supernatural at least.

Yeah I know I've been rabbiting on about the minor characters and prancing around proclaiming that the Winchesters are for once sans angst, when all you really want to know is how cool are the zombies. Well this ain't The Walking Dead so we don't get any gnarly decaying ones, actually give or take time spent in the ground these zoms are looking like they might have just stepped out of a particularly good makeup season, and not in the disgusting zombie sense but in the looking good sense. So if you don't mind your dead looking good then you will be fairly right with this episode, which for mine was sort of disappointing Night of the Living Dead wise to be honest.

On the bright side we do get some carnage, off screen, and plenty of "shoot them in the head" action that should have the fans out there at least smiling to the Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid beat. There's some deaths going down in typical zombie fashion, but all off screen or at least behind the sofa, (watch the episode folks). We do get plenty of zombies being taken down with extreme prejudice but overall it remains pretty acceptable for mainstream television, so yes the kids can watch this one without their sensibilities being assaulted by gore and flying viscera.

With a third horseman now in play the Winchesters could be facing their toughest test to date in trying to thwart the apocalypse. War went down pretty easy, Famine was a slightly tougher nut to crack, but how do you defeat Death? Strangely the Horseman has left a message for the Winchesters, hey that was some over the top method to get the Bros' attention, nevertheless we don't yet know what Bobby was told, guess that's going to be the subject of the next episode or at the most the one after that. Things moving at the station, but for mine they seem to be stretching out the season plot arcs with the big bad seemingly doing nothing but taking a nap on the sideline.

Well at least we get three tracks this episode, but to be honest getting a mixed tape out of this season is going to be a job of work! Moot Davis lays down You're One of a Kind, Lovin the Sin I'm In by Terry Campbell, and Tears In My Beer Jay Gruska is your soundtrack for the evening. Hey we have been asked to drop some tunes on the readership each review, you know the YouTube thing, so guess we might succumb to peer pressure and start doing that this review, check below for my selection from the smorgasbord of Mullet rock available to us this evening.

Okay so who doesn't like a good zombie outing, fans of Disney Princess schlock that's who, the rest of us are rocking the dead and rotting flesh. While Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid, not sure on why the Steve Martin reference - no noir in the present episode, doesn't get down in the ditches with the gore it does bring the undead action. From memory this is the second episode involving zombies Supernatural has done, so they haven't over done the tropes but are not shying away from any monster that inhabit the dark corners of the horror manse. Got to say I enjoyed the episode, the whole Bobby backstory was worth the price of admission on its own, so have no problems with giving it a recommendation for fans and newbies a like. You probably need to have been keeping up with developments in season five but lock and load in case you haven't been, there are only a couple of things you might be scratching your head over. Hey can't wait till the next episode, rock it on people, things are only going to get better from here.

ScaryMinds Rates this episode as ...

Good enough episode, slightly weak on the undead scrimmage line, but hey season is moving.