About: Supernatural "Frontierland"

Every season Supernatural has a handful of episodes so outside the box that the promos have me worrying that they're jumping the proverbial shark. This season alone we've had Clap Your Hands if You Believe , The French Mistake and now Frontierland. But when Supernatural decides to go outside the box, it's rarely a swing and a miss. Needless to say I was very happy with Frontierland. In fact, I've decided that cowboy hats need to come back in fashion. It really is a good look.


But as great as the hats were, they were just one of the many highlights of Frontierland. We got to meet Samuel Colt in the flesh only to find that he, like most hunters, feels burdened by the job. I couldn't help but notice what a disappointment this was for Sam. At the time I was actually a little surprised that he didn't give Colt a grander speech about his responsibility as a hunter. But in thinking more about it I realized that Sam has seen and felt the burden of this responsibility first hand. Even though he tried to tell Colt that there is no getting out I doubt he really blamed him for trying. I wonder if Sam will ever tell Dean about Colt's attempt to "retire"? Somewhere inside I still think Dean holds on to the dream that hunting and happiness can go hand in hand even if it hasn't worked for him yet. And since Colt is something of a superhero to Dean, his unhappiness has the potential to crush that dream.

 It's been a while since we've heard anything about the Mother of All. I was starting to wonder why they even bothered with her storyline. We already have so much going on this season, what with Sam getting de-souled and re-souled, Grandpa Samuel rising from the dead and dying again and all that purgatory business not to mention whatever Cas has going on in Heaven.  There really hasn't been much time devoted to the MOA story line. And I can't say we learned much more about her in Frontierland other than the fact that the ashes of a phoenix are her equivalent of kryptonite. I wonder how much damage the bottle of ashes Colt sent will do? i find it hard to believe that that bottle of ashes will be all they'll need to fight her but the way the episode ended left us with the impression that they're planning to go after her.I'll be curious to hear they're plan.

My fears were confirmed. It seems that Cas has a dirty little secret. We don't yet know what it is, but whatever he's hiding is bad enough that he was almost killed for it. It has to be something to do with how he's acquiring souls, right? I mean, this whole season has revolved around souls; their power, their worth, their influence. And it has been made fairly clear that souls are what Castiel requires to win this war. He un-sunk the Titanic to acquire a few more. Maybe he's been sneaking around, un-doing other disasters and acquiring souls? Is it possible that that's it? That's the reason Rachel tried to kill him? I think that's a little bit of wishful thinking on my part. Cas is obviously hiding something much bigger and I wonder how inadvertently involved the Winchesters have been. They are in no position to lose another ally and it would be heartbreaking if Cas betrayed them in any way.

I mentioned last week that I was wondering what kind of power was gained from the acquisition of souls. I think we know for sure now that souls equal physical power. Just touching Bobby's gave Castiel the juice to drag Sam and Dean back to the present. Physical power is a good thing to have, especially when you're fighting a war and it would explain why Castiel is so desperately seeking more souls as the war drags on. But we also learned just how dangerous it is to touch the human soul. This makes me worry more about what Castiel seems to be hiding. Is he putting innocent lives in danger for what he sees as the greater good?

There were so many things that Frontierland did right. It would be easy to take these seemingly light-hearted episodes and create what is nothing more than a fun hour of TV, but that would do nothing to propel the story forward. Instead, Supernatural took a quirky concept and used it as a means to advance the plot and set up the groundwork for the remainder of the season. And in true Supernatural fashion, they achieved this feat with no lack of humor. So I would be remiss to talk about this episode without mentioning as many funny moments and I can remember. I'm sure I'll miss some, but I know you guys will help me remember them!

*First of all, the title card. Genius. I think I've seen every episode of Bonanza there is and I loved the shout out to that classic.

*Dean: "We'll Star Trek IV this bitch." Is it sad that I knew that reference before Dean explained it?

* Cas: "Is it customary to wear a blanket?"

*Marshall Clint Eastwood and Walker Texas Ranger. Hilarious.

*Sam riding a horse was almost painful to watch.

*Dean: "I'm a posse magnet. I mean, I love posse. I'm gonna make that a t-shirt."

*I loved that Colt referred to Sam as "a giant from the future with some magic brick".

*Finch: "So you're a hunter?"
 Dean: "Slash Sheriff"

*Bobby's shout out to Deadwood was great. I was actually wondering if that was going to come up.

*Dean: "Yippe ki-yay mother f..." That's a little Die Hard shout out for those of you who didn't catch it. I'm not much of a fan, but I definitely laughed at Dean saying it.