Rewinding ‘Supernatural’: Hammer of the Gods

It was obvious that something bad was going to happen to the security guard that was looking around inside the abandoned hotel at the beginning of tonight’s Supernatural. When a creepy bellhop magically appeared in the same room and started babbling about him being late and an honored guest, I really wasn’t surprised, and when that same bellhop killed him in order to make “dinner” (off-camera, of course), I knew that I was watching a sub-par episode.

Next, this same hotel was re-opened, and full of people. Coincidentally, a terrible storm is going on outside, so the Winchester brothers are forced to stop there for the night. Dean said, “Nice digs, for once.”, but most hotels on this show all look alike anyways. The same creepy bellhop notifies Dean that his neck is bleeding, probably from shaving, and introduces him to an all-you-can-eat buffet that includes the “best pie in the tri-state”. However, Sam realizes something is very strange about this place, and not because whenever there is pie on Supernatural, bad things are about to happen. His neck has a cut on it as well, but Dean is too busy to notice, flirting with a woman in red that wants nothing to do with him. Unbeknownst to him, the creepy bellhop, Mercury, delivers the brothers’ blood samples in vials to this same woman later on. Her name is Kali, and she is not as she seems.

As Sam and Dean begin to realize they were “led here, like rats in a maze”, they notice blood boiling in the unattended kitchen and a storage room full of humans screaming for help. Before they can do anything, they are stopped by some of the hotel’s guests, who are various pagan gods. It sure is convenient how they all are wearing nametags, otherwise we wouldn’t know we are seeing the Norse gods Odin and Baldr, Chinese god Zao Jun, and Hindu deities Ganesh and Kali, among others. (Kali is popular with Hollywood, she was previously mentioned in the movies Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and the Beatles’ Help!.) Kali seems to be in charge of things here, and she informs Sam and Dean that all of the gods are working together in order to use the brothers to stop the apocalypse. As they bicker amongst themselves about what to do, whose religion is the least realistic, and how old they all are, Sam and Dean try to escape. They are stopped, and the angel Gabriel, previously known as the Trickster, appears. After making an obnoxious speech, he teleports Sam and Dean back to their room.

This is when he informs them that they can’t leave, because Kali has samples of their blood, but they’re safe because the gods don’t know who he is, he’s their bodyguard, and he used to date Kali. Seriously. Sam and Dean’s plan is to get the people out of the storage room and to sneak out of there while Gabriel distracts Kali with his clumsy flirting and a reference to Avatar. Just as the brothers are about to rescue those people, they’re interrupted by Zao Jun. And all of this is interrupted by a very invasive commercial for the spin-off “Ghostfacers” web series, leading some of the people at my house to believe that they had accidentally changed the channel or something.

When the show returns, Kali’s goons have brought Sam and Dean to her. Realizing who Gabriel is, she takes his “archangel’s blade” and stabs him after she makes a speech that warns us that there are “billions of gods” and possibly offends all religions at the same time. His death seemed a lot more real than Zachriah’s was last week. Even Mercury says, “This is crazy.” Dean has a plan, however, he’ll help them kill Lucifer if they release the humans. Finally, those poor people are allowed to make a break for it, but Dean meets up with Gabriel in the parking lot. Apparently, he knows how to make a fake archangel blade out of a “diet orange slice” can. Plus, he refuses to help them kill his brother Lucifer.

Meanwhile, Lucifer and his badly scarred vessel check in. Calling the gods “petty little things” who are “worse than humans”, he goes on a killing rampage until Kali is the only god left standing. As she tries fighting him with her hokey-looking arms of fire, Sam, Dean, and Gabriel hide behind a table. Seriously. Gabriel hands Dean something before he gets up to argue with his brother. As Sam, Dean, and Kali escape in the Impala. Gabriel announces to Lucifer that he is on the humans’ side, because “Dad was right. They are better than us.” Lucifer just snarls, “Don’t forget, you learned all of your tricks from me” before he kills him with his own sword.

The next day, Sam and Dean watch what Gabriel gave them. A DVD message disguised as a filthy movie. (I am really sick of this show’s immature obsession with pornography. It makes any mature person over the age of 15 want to change the channel.) This qualifies as his will, because their watching of it means that he is dead. Gabriel leaves them the secret to trapping the devil, the fact that there is a cage whose keys are the rings of the four horsemen. They already have the rings of War and Famine, so they set off to find the other two.

Meanwhile, a very ill man is coughing all over a convenience store while the clerk reads a newspaper that touts a widespread flu pandemic. This is our very unsubtle hint that Pestilence is the next horseman.

Dean may have said, “One night off, is that too much to ask?” But with just three more episodes until the season finale, let’s hope this is the last silly episode of season five.