Supernatural - 8.16 - Remember the Titans - Recap/Review

A dude (John Reardon) stumbles along the highway as another man is falling asleep at the wheel. Predictably, the man in the truck hits the wanderer and checks his work out before hoping back in the truck and leaving. After the truck blazes off, the next morning, a crow is eating the man’s liver as a police car pulls up. The cop turns around to call it in and when he turns back, the man has revived and wandered off.

At the headquarters, Sam (Jared Padalecki) is drinking some water when he spits a bit back and it’s bloody. He goes to the sink and spits out some more blood which he rinses away before Dean (Jensen Ackles) can see it. Dean arrives in a robe and carrying a tea cup. He asks if Sam’s heard from Kevin and the answer is no. Bringing the time frame back in Dean mentions it’s been three weeks since they’ve heard from him. Sam briefs Dean on the witness to the guy’s resurrection, a 20 year state trooper, and on the road to Montana they go.

The state trooper says the newspaper article on the incident said it all and that the guy may be a zombie. Dean asks if another thing could have carried it off. Not long after the “zombie” shows up on another police report with another cause of death in another city. The trooper recognizes him and tells the boys to aim for the head when they find him. In the morgue, they have no identifying features from teeth to fingerprints. The liver, has indeed, been eaten.

The guy revives as Sam and Dean go over the case outside the room and has no idea who he is or what he does. Every day he dies and a few hours later he revives. His memory only goes back a few years. His name, Shane, was given to him sometime in the past few and he doesn’t remember anything before a recue in the mountains. The boys run their usual tests back at their cabin and they all come back clean. “It’s definitely something.”

So far, the theory is that he’s the victim of a curse. Dean replies that Sam gets to go full cavity for the hex bag. That night, a woman (Anna Von Hooft) touches Shane’s face. He awakens and asks who she is. She’s bothered by the fact he can’t remember her and tries to stab him. He throws her into the bathroom and Dean comes up behind her as the fight rages on. She subdues both him and Sam while Shane fights her off. He holds the knife up to her face and demands to know who she is. “Now? I’m your worst enemy.” Shane is questioned by the brothers as to who she is and confirming nothing, he starts to have a heart attack.

The brothers wonder about what has “Jason Bourne fighting skills, dies a lot, and has a violent history with women.” Dean jokes “I don’t know, you?” There’s a knock at the door and a woman, Halie, with her child are standing on the other side. She says she’s looking for a corpse named Shane and the kid is his son, Oliver. They let him in. She tells her son to stay with “the nice FBI agents” as she looks at the body.

Hallie had friends who had wanted to climb this mountain so she joined them. That’s where she found Shane. She thought that his dying every day was because of shock or exposure. When they got to the bottom, they consummated their attraction during which he had a heart attack. When he awoke, she ran. Nine months later she had Oliver and despite her best private detectives, she gave up the search. Hallie started looking again a couple of months ago. Shane steps out of the house and is introduced to his son.

Sam comes out onto the porch to tell Dean that this is the titan Prometheus. Dean knew that he stole fire but did not know why. Sam explains that the fire was stolen for humans. Prometheus was strapped to a mountain as punishment so the girl is likely Artemis. Time to break a god curse.

Inside, they show Shane some web articles on Prometheus. He wants to run to help Hallie and her son. Dean wants to take them some place safe. Oliver fell and is dying but Hallie doesn’t want him to call an ambulance. The woman is unaware of the curse.

Dean does not how that the curse was put on the kid. Sam suggests that it’s because seven is one of the first ages of manhood according to the Greeks. Hallie wants to know how to stop the curse. Dean says that they usual summon the bastard until he undoes what he did. Sam says the next step is to take him out. I don’t think these boys are any match for Zeus. Still, they decide to go after him. Shane is in. (Why am I still typing Shane? Because it’s easier to type.)

“What you got?”
“Dragon penis.”

Dean has found an ancient warrior who fought Zeus by the name of Dracopolis which I think you can guess what that means. They then explain the whole men of letters thing to Shane. The girl notes that the journal just ends so they have no way of knowing whether it worked or not. They split up; Sam and Shane go grave digging and Dean and Hallie take the b&e but fulgurate is available all over the place which renders the b&e unneeded. Thanks for the information, lady!

Sam asks why Shane took the fire but he doesn’t remember and says that saying the world doesn’t matter unless he can save his son. Dean is driving to get the fulgurate with Hallieho can’t believe she is about to ask a Greek god to save her son. They put the halves of the spell together and Zeus is trapped in the god version of a pentagram. Or is he? He asks if they can do it “civilized” so Dean asks him to break the curse on the kid. Zeus taunts Shane and later says if Dean breaks the trap, he’ll break the curse. Dean says he can rot there for all he cares. They have a short standoff with Dena eventually deciding to just go. Hallie and her child stay. She breaks the trap and Zeus electrocutes Sam, Dean, and Shane.

The hard way it is.

Artemis arrives as the three of them are pinned to the wall. Zeus updates her on the fate of the child and says he couldn’t have conceived such a “horrible fate for such a beautiful child. We must all leave room for happy accidents.” He then asks if Shane hurt when Oliver died. Good. He then says that only imagining a thousand children dying a terrible death would equal his pain but “one will have to do”. He tells Oliver he has a special job for him and Artemis lets the boys off the wall.

Sam says she’s who they pray to before a hunt and then trash talks her. Dean finds this to not be a good idea and they’re thrown into the nearest wall. Hey, she could have slammed them into it quicker. Sam continues the taunt asking how it took her seven years. She says he was hiding. Sam lies and says that Shane is in love with her. Meanwhile Zeus is torturing Shane. Sam tells of another time Shane was let off the mountain and mentions an affair saying she let Shane go for seven years until Zeus saw the zombie article.

Zeus points out the pluses of being immortal because nothing can ever truly kill him before his hands light up as if he’s going to kill the kid. We don’t get the opportunity to see what he would have done thought as Artemis points her bow at her father demanding that he let them all go. He thinks she should obey him because he’s her father but she replies he is snow someone else. She fires a bolt and it hits Shane as Zeus had grabbed him. Zeus threatens the boy and Shane pushes the arrow thru him and into the father of the gods. Zeus leaves and Artemis takes her arrow from Shane. The women stand/ kneel over him and Artemis leaves him to Hallie.

Dean opens a lighter and sets the pyre a light for a wrapped Prometheus giving him a hero’s burial. Halle apologizes and Sam offers to take the kid for ice cream. He replies that he would like to stay in a robotic voice before looking up at the flames.

The Impala drives off and Dean asks how Sam knew about the affair. Dean calls this a win with the kid being okay and Sam thinks he might have been naive in thinking that he could escape the trials unscathed. Dean says he promised so he can’t die on Dean’s watch. If he dies, it will be because of something normal. Dean then yells at his brother, to eat his burger.

In another crappy hotel room, Dean sits on the bed and prays to Cas despite not being one to usually do so. But because it is because of Sam, he is willing to make an exception. He knows that Sam is hurting and wants to know what’s going to happen to his brother for “all that we’ve been thru” and asks Cas to keep an eye for his little brother. Cas does not appear and Dean asks “Where the hell are you man?”

Next time: March 20th, Cas is back! And so is my favorite King of Hell, Crowley.

What worked:
♥ I liked that they went back to more of a first season concept with bringing in the Greek gods.

What didn’t work:
≠ Why would Zeus be aware of the newspaper to know that Prometheus was still kicking about on earth as Sam insinuated but Artemis wouldn’t know enough about human communication to be aware of whatever source Sam used to discover the affair. Assuming he hadn’t used a Men of Letters resource which is equally plausible, she should have known.