Bad Boys Review

Given that the intro sequence included clips of Ezekiel, I was expecting him to make an appearance. I think this is the first episode this season where he hasn't appeared (though I'm having difficulty remembering last week's episode).

I thought they would make something out of the final scene from last week's episode. In that scene, Crowley extracted some of his blood using a syringe he stole from Sam and made a call to some demon. I hope they make something out of that in the future, as it seems important enough not to ignore.

I'm glad we got to have a good old-fashioned ghost story. I feel like there's been too much focus on angels and demons lately. Having a story like this, with no angels or demons, is refreshing after a long stretch of every episode either having an angel or demon as the main villain or somehow involving them in a minor way. Slumber Party and Dog Dean Afternoon were a start, but they both included appearances by Ezekiel, which rather ruined it.

It seems like in 50% of ghost stories, Sam and Dean initially burn the wrong bones. It's a rather over-used trope where they hear about some people who died, reach the conclusion that it's their ghost, salt and burn the bones, then someone else dies. There are other ways of drawing the story out to 45 minutes and having the boys not be around during someone's death. I wish the writers would be a bit more creative with these stories.

It's been a while since we had a flashback sequence to when the boys were kids. I also don't know how long it's been since John made an appearance (barring his appearance as a kid last season). It's always nice to have some backstory to the Winchesters and with 20 years of growing up, there's plenty of room for flashbacks. I don't think flashbacks are something that should occur in every story, or even every third story, but they're nice once in a while.