10x07 "Girls, Girls, Girls" Review

My Synopsis

Episode 7 of season 10 is called “Girls, Girls, Girls.” In this episode Sam and Dean stop over at a diner to grab food when Dean receives an invite to be intimate with a woman who he has been speaking to on a dating app.  She tells Dean that she’s a prostitute but instead of accepting cash accepts souls.  Dean and Sam uncover a prostitution ring run by demons.  Rowena, a witch, also intervenes and tries to take the girls under her wing in order to create a coven of her own.  Meanwhile, Hanna decides to leave her vessel’s body because she cannot bear her pain of missing her husband.  The episode ends with the Winchesters, Rowena, and demons all meeting up which results in the demons being attacked, Rowena getting away but being captured by demons, and Dean being confronted by Cole.  Last but not least we learn that Rowena is Crowley’s mother.

My Review

            “Girls, Girls, Girls” this title leaves very little to the imagination as I immediately was able to guess what would be the main theme of the episode.  In my opinion this episode felt more edgy than what Supernatural usually presents.  I found myself very nervous with worrying how Dean and Sam would respond to the women.  But I also found myself quite proud with the boy’s response.  I think this adds an important layer to Sam and Dean’s character which equates to effective character development.  However I very much disliked their use of Rowena as the role she takes with the girls tries to emulate Sam and Dean’s response to the girls but ultimately falls flat.

            When the first girl Dean met revealed that she was a prostitute he didn’t look at her with disgust.  He seemed more disappointed because of his rule.  Later, when she hints at something very suggestive he still wants to be intimate with her but remembers his rule and cannot.  To me this moment was so powerful that I wanted to stand up and applaud the Supernatural writers.  Dean’s character is written as a hyper-masculine man’s- man.  To see him go against the stereotypical grain that a man of that character should believe made me so proud.  Then when Rowena was captured by the demons they call the prostitutes with her trash.  As soon as that line was said Sam and Dean appear and immediately kill the demons thus killing the belief behind those words.  To me this was like Sam and Dean’s way of saying that what they said was unacceptable.  Dean stated earlier that the girl did not want to be in that kind of business and he didn’t blame her for being in it.  Knew that she was doing it against her will.  He knew that she was tricked and most importantly through all of this Sam and Dean never victim blamed or slut shamed.  Well… except for when they blamed the same young lady for killing her abuser before they got the intel they needed.

           

This episode also saw the introduction of Crowley’s mother Rowena.  When she was first introduced she seemed very motherly, caring, but also sneaky with evil undertones.  I was excited to see her rescue the girls from their pimps.  I thought “Oh wow now Sam and Dean are going to have to face a new witch-y coven!  This is great we’re going to have evil villainesses with an in-depth background!”   I was so incredibly wrong.  I cannot forgive this episode for how it sets up Rowena’s character to how it then shows us Rowena’s true character.  She went out of her way to start a coven that she’s was banned from starting and rescued these women from a terrible life only to try and kill them the moment it became inconvenient to her.  Rowena is in fact cold-hearted.  I don’t really see her going out of her way to make something work that doesn’t give her anything in return.  The whole introduction of her story seemed pointless and more of an excuse for an exposition dump to introduce a new character.  I get that the actresses are supposed to pretend they’re uncomfortable and don’t want to be at the restaurant but it felt more like the actresses were realizing their roles were needless and they don’t belong in the episode. 

           

Overall I enjoy the episode as a piece that drops some essential plot points for the season.  I wouldn’t say it was a great episode but it certainly wasn’t a terrible one.  The way Sam and Dean responded to the girls was more than comforting to me in a world where I notice misogyny is more embedded in our society than I realized.  However Rowena’s character introduction could’ve been much better.  It did a great character like her an injustice.