Okay, it was not one of their better episodes. It wasn’t “Bugs” , “MM”, or “Croatoan” but I do believe we’ve found this season’s worst ep anyway.

However, we only have ourselves to blame. From the start, the show’s writers have been mining ideas for episodes from the “Wish” and “Corrupt a Wish” threads on TwoP (don’t believe me? Go back and read them and make a list of all the ideas suggested that actually got used, it’s quite eerie and was even pointed out *in* the Wish thread). I bet they take those suggestions, put them on notecards, tack them to a cork board in the office and whenever one of them is stuck for an idea, they throw a dart at the board and Kripke says they have to write whatever it lands on. Unfortunately, two (repeated) suggestions there have been “More Irish mythology” and “we want to see Dean play poker”.

Look at that, it’s an ep with both!

Logic Fails: Why did Bobby think that winning the poker game would cure his legs? His injury was the result of an unavoidable demon attack, it’s not an age thing, it could’ve happened to anyone, so being able to reverse the years would not necessarily have cured his disability.

And the fact that neither Sam nor Dean really understood Bobby’s issues, that’s not due to the fact that they’re in their twenties, it’s due to the fact that they’re not disabled. I guess Dean was supposed to learn a little something about what it’s like to be in Bobby’s shoes but you don’t have to be old to be in a wheelchair and it was the wheelchair that was the problem. Old!Dean could still climb stairs (if a bit more slowly than before he still did better at keeping up with Sam then a lot of people could), dig a grave, etc.

It’s hard to sympathize with Bobby when he didn’t sympathize with Dean in “Lucifer Rising”.
If witches make deals with demons, who was Patrick’s demon and why didn’t we hear about that? As offensive as those rules were, why ignore the rules mentioned in “MM” only to reference that same episode in this one? But at least we know that this ‘verse doesn’t just have female witches. Too little too late, but thanks guys!

Was Patrick extending his life by stealing years from other people? They should’ve you know, said that.

Haven’t I seen that moment with “Cliff” in the fancy hotel bedroom before? No, seriously, I swear I have. This is the second time an episode this season has given me serious déjà vu.
Those twenty five year olds were not believable as twenty five year olds. Yes, many people that age are married, but they don’t *usually* own their own homes, let alone one so large and beautiful. They live in apartments, or maybe a condo if they make good money. Especially if there aren’t any kids.

But then, this twenty five year old man also has a job where he wears brown suits and carries a briefcase.

I did not particularly care about Patrick and Lia. If a script is going to spend that much time fleshing out new OCs it had better be either because their story is actually interesting, or because they’re going to be recurring. It’s not that Patrick wasn’t a good guest star, but he seems to break all previously established rules and why did they keep trying to make us sympathetic towards him?

I often found my attention wandering.

This whole episode left me feeling like I was watching a filler ep of “Angel”. This is not a bad thing, but it is disconcerting.

The good parts: The actor who played Old!Dean, Chad Everett, was pretty good. He was doing all Dean’s specific little mannerisms, he even ran and walked like Dean.

The jig. HA. JA does a good jig.

I understand why they let Patrick go. If he’s stealing years from people’s lives in order to extend his own, won’t his spell collapse when he stops doing that? Still, how come he gets spared the violent death?

Sam got an STD from a guy. *snerk*

This *was* an episode with some good Sam stuff. Not just his clear impatience with the “old men” (Sam is often a little less able to hide his impatience with having to take care of another person) but the way he played Patrick. It’s very rare that JP gets the stage almost all to himself but… there was the real fear, the fake fear, his real thoughts and the ones he wanted Patrick to see, etc. It was all a little nervewracking, I kept wishing he could use his powers and getting mad because it didn’t seem like he could, I didn’t like seeing him so helpless. But, it was all basically a gigantic bluff.

A gigantic bluff with a slightly sinister edge to it, which is what you should expect from The Prince of Lies and Heir to the Underworld Sam at this point in the series. I kept wondering “Um, exactly what is Sam prepared to do in order to win this game? And does Patrick realizes how close he is to playing poker with the Devil?

Which brings me to my last complaint: Sam IS Lucifer’s vessel, and Dean is Michael’s. The angels and Lucifer are NOT going to allow their vessels to be killed by some random witch. I mean, Lucifer even *said* that if Sam killed himself to get away from the Devil, Lucifer would just resurrect him, so even if Patrick took Sam’s entire lifetime, he’d just end up being confronted with Sam back to normal. Only, this time, with Satan inside and not inclined to spare a measly little witch.