Supernatural, 4x19, “Jump the Shark”

Episode Title: Jump the Shark
Writers: Andrew Dabb and Daniel Loflin

Director: Phil Sgriccia

Originally Aired: 04/23/2009
Grade: A-

I really liked the first scene, with Dean waking up in the car and Sam brushing his teeth. It was grounding, a nice reminder of the kind of life these guys lead.

On a second viewing, I noticed a lot of contempt coming from Adam that I didn’t catch—or interpreted as guardedness—the first time around. It was a nice little bonus to have the episode play a bit differently the second time.

That gash on Sam’s arm was brutal. I don’t know much about blood loss, but I have a hard time believing he’d really have survived that. They made it seems like he was bleeding out pretty fast, and Dean took his sweet time.

Maybe if I thought about it a little more, I could come up with a reason why John having another son ruins the show, but I really didn’t think it was as much of a “jump the shark” storyline as the writers thought I would. If Adam had been a semi-permanent addition, maybe, but at worst this was a mildly annoying one-off (and I actually enjoyed it, for the most part, aside from thinking there was a tad too much of Dean crawling around in the dark). So far this season, they’ve introduced a hot angel and a demon blood addiction for Sam, and this was supposed to be “jumping the shark”?!