The return from the hellatus was a little jarring – first, because the show was finally back and second, because it dropped us into yet another alternate reality. It’s a little hard to be invested in plot turns when the Undo key is hit so many times, but this was one very sweet alternate – for Bobby, and for us, with the return of Ellen.
In a nod to the Final Destination methods of demise, we get some near-misses before the gory actually occurs. The hook for the boys is that there are several of these deaths occurring simultaneously all over the county (an unseen Jo is on the West Coast). Before long we find out that a bored Balthazar undid the Titanic (mainly to undo the Celine Dion ballad), so all 50k descendants are being undone by Fate herself. So, the boys have to get Balthazar to un-undo that to undo all these people, and that means Ellen and Jo go, too (we don’t address whether they’re descendants – it’s more a butterfly effect aside). There’s some back and forth about it and then Balthazar just does it himself, leaving only the boys with the memory of the altiverse.
The middle of the episode was what made it worthwhile. Fan (and my) favorite, Samantha Ferris, booked her return last month and it was mentioned on Twitter, but because I roll spoiler free, I had no clue this was coming up. When I saw her name at the beginning of the credits, I feared a demon-inhabited Ellen, but instead we got a deliciously alive and sassy-as-ever Ellen, who just happened to settle down with Bobby. And it takes us a little while to get to her.
We seemingly pick up from the “And Then There Were None” debacle with a drunken Bobby still mourning Rufus and nursing his guilt from a bottle. All that’s as we would expect, but then the boys reference that “she” will be home soon, and they go outside and get in a Mustang. When there was no dialogue to address that the car was not the Impala, I sort of glazed past it, but then Ellen walks into Bobby’s kitchen carrying groceries and chatting away and I thought I’d missed an episode. Then the next scene has the boys never hearing of the Titanic and I finally caught on.
The Eve arc was backburnered while we met more of the angelic farm team. This seemed like a filler episode, but that’s not a bad thing because we got to flirt with Ellen again. I’ve missed her, and Samantha. I always thought it was a drag that we didn’t have any scenes of Ellen and Bobby together (that I remember) after the season two finale – if I’m wrong, comment me! I’m glad that was resolved and that Ellen was given a lovely coda.
I was fine that Samantha only had (onscreen) scenes with Jim Beaver, even though I’ve felt like “Abandon All Hope” short-sheeted Ellen’s last interaction with the boys. It seemed glaring to me that neither one reached out to her, hugged her, or even touched her when they realized she was going to stay with Jo. I wasn’t looking for anything overly dramatic, but I thought it missed a moment of some sort of physical recognition of goodbye, especially when she’d been a mother figure to them.
Next, we dive into the Wild West. Again, spoiler-free over here, but I’m guessing this is more angel business, and I’m wondering where they’re going by alternating between that and the Eve arc each week. I expect they’ll be meeting in the middle in a grand “aha!” moment soon enough. As long as they get there eventually.
Photo Courtesy of The CW