 It's quite entertaining when Sam's face of natural tiredness and discomfort reflects that of me watching each episode of this season. Let's just rip off the Band-Aid and go for another good slash bad episode. Oh, that's a hot mug, guys. Hey guys, this is my review for the born again identity. Jesus Christ, that's Jason Bourne. This is an episode that focuses on Sam's madness. How the Lucifer hallucinations have literally taken control to the point where he can't go to sleep at all and gets hit by a car and he goes into a psych ward, whereas Dean is trying to find some means, some MacGuffin tool to help him save Sam. And Jesus Christ has a lot of MacGuffins in this episode. And not only do these MacGuffins very rapidly appear, they almost as rapidly disappear. I'll get to that point in a minute. The first MacGuffin that we come across is Castiel. He's just there. Even though we literally saw him explode, he somehow survived. Somehow Palpatine returned. His body did anyways, but he also lost his memory. But he still has his powers. Somehow. Now we all know the joke about Castiel's powers and how it got to a point where no one really can tell what the consistency of his powers were. But now I'm going to keep track of it, at least until season 10. The MacGuffin-ness of him just having his power. And then the fact that he has a wife where she got a name for him off of bouncingbabynames.com. And then considering what happens at the end of the episode, and she is not referred to at all, like holy shit this episode feels like it's put together so inconsistently, despite the fact that there are good elements in it. I do like Sam literally giving up being a broken mess, yet he's still able to help someone dealing with a ghost, their brother being a vengeful spirit. I like that aspect. I like that even at the brink of madness, he can still be the Sam that we know and love that can help people. Probably the one subtle thing that this show is still doing is Bobby's ghost, because that's how he gets the card, that's how Dean gets the card, then he knows how to call this one guy who's able to give him a link to Castiel. There's one incredibly big fucking issue with me saying that out loud though. How does Bobby, as a ghost, know that Castiel is actually alive and healing people? How does he know that? Or is it just a random coincidence that the guy that he calls just so happens to know that Castiel is alive? This is what I mean when it comes to MacGuffins. Castiel coming back is one of the biggest MacGuffins that Supernatural ever made us eat at the time. And this is a crux, this is a major episode crux the more you think about it. Bobby had to know that somehow Castiel was alive, or there's just this random coinkydink that Castiel was alive at the same time, and this random guy that Bobby just so happened to say, hey, this guy might work, knew that Castiel was alive without knowing that it was Castiel. That's the first major MacGuffin you have to swallow. The second is that, well, one, that Castiel is alive and he has all his powers, and then he just needs about five minutes of convincing of who he used to be, and then all of a sudden he remembers it and he's able to take down all these demons. Like, it's cool to see Cass as a badass again. It is really cool to see that. Don't get me wrong. But again, the amount of MacGuffin sandwich that you have to eat to believe that, why haven't they taken the time to build this? Why haven't they taken the time to build up to this moment? Why are we consistently being inundated with a bunch of really poorly put together Monster of the Week episodes when we could have had them be focusing on Sam? We had a somewhat competent kind of timeline with how Season 6 occurred. Sure, there was the overall hunting the monsters of all and blah, blah, blah, as the overarching story, but Sam's fragility in his mind and the breaking of his spirit and him being solace, that was still the crux. And this just seems to be the sloppy seconds of that, because it literally is the sloppy seconds of that. We could have taken time to build up where Castiel was. We could have taken time to build up to Sam's breaking madness, but this is all happened in the last three episodes. This is definitely the catalyst of where Andrew Depp must have gotten the idea that, hey, I can just make a three episode arc for most major things, and that's it. That will handle it, right? No! And then when we get into the hospital and Castiel's like, oh wow, Sam's totally broken. I'm sorry I did this to you. Well, there's only one thing I can do. I can take what's happened to you and give it to myself. And then he gets put in the psych ward, Sam and Dean leave in there, not mentioning to Castiel's now wife that he's in there. Sure, it's cool to see Meg, and I will give the episode that I did like Meg. I always enjoy this actress. He's always really fun. I actually didn't notice something when I was reading through the trivia that some people made a comment about how she looked a little bit more swollen in the face. It's actually because she was dealing with an injury that she got all the way back in season six on Caged Heat. She got injured in that episode. It's why we never saw her again. Like, holy shit, I feel so bad for her. But it was great to see her in this episode, and I do like the idea of her keeping an eye on him. But the fact that this was written by Sarah Gamble baffles me. The fact that it's directed by Robert Singer doesn't so much, because I think we are starting to get into that singer that we used to know and distaste. For all the good that this episode does have, and I will not discredit that there isn't, there's some cool funny humor throughout the episode, the fact that Sam is being broken by Mark Pelaringo is really fun to see. Having Meg be introduced into the episode was fun. Seeing Castiel, it could be a badass again, and have some of that Castiel humor was nice. But there's just so much you have to swallow and accept that the writing is poor. It's to the point of a serialization of just how coincident everything is in this episode, or how much of a coincidence everything is in this episode. But it's not partly put together, which is probably like the biggest thing that I can't fault it for. It's a fun episode. It's enjoyable. It's fun to watch. But the problem is, it's just so much fucking dumb you have to accept. And just so much of a reach that you have to allow for this episode to work. If I was writing this purely from a writing perspective, I would give this a three. I would absolutely give this a three. Hell, maybe even a two. But because it was put together decently, I have to be lenient and I'm going to give this episode a four. Oh, that's a stretch. That's a stretch for me because there's a lot I could pick apart of this episode. My God, I can feel the cynical Jeremy who was reviewing season 12, 13, 14, 15 coming back. Anyways, though, those were my thoughts. Let's see what you guys had to say. The boring identity is the point where season seven actually becomes pretty decent because this is not only one of my favorite episodes of the season. It's an honorable mention for my top 10 favorite episodes in the series. Oh God, Matt, I really hope I didn't break this for you. After so many boring episodes, it's almost like the show got a pulse again. We'll agree with you on that. This has everything we want in a supernatural episode. Angels, demons, biblical lore, etc. Not a bunch of weird one note monsters. From the moment Castiel entered, I was instantly invested. Speaking of which, Castiel is back. After so many episodes of him being absent, it's so satisfying to finally see him. Misha gives one of his best performances in that sequence where he remembers his true self as riveting in one of the most iconic in the series. But it gets better. Not only do we get Castiel back, we also get Meg to show up, who is my favorite female character in the entire show. Yeah, she is definitely one of the best. One of the absolute best. And I'll give props to Rachel Minor because even though she is underwent treatments at the time, she still gives 100% of the character. Absolutely, you can hear it. Even though she's definitely looked like she's still dealing with some pain, she still does a great performance. Jesus, even Sam gets to help someone in the episode despite his weak state. Where was all of that throughout the first and second third of the season? Absolutely, I wish this had been more of a focus and it wouldn't have felt so crushed in. Glad to see Castiel back in the show. Truly wasn't the same without him. To me, Misha, Jared, and Jensen brought their A game here. I like the scene where Dean and Castiel as Emmanuel are talking about Castiel. I'm really happy to see good old Meg again. I will admit the conversations with Emmanuel were actually pretty good. I like that not talking about the very direct thing, but still being direct. I liked how Castiel got his memory back while talking down the demons. Glad that Meg decided to keep Castiel company in the asylum, even though I was happy Misha was back. Now I really wish he left the show because Castiel basically became a punchy back. As the show continued. Remember, let us all keep track now. So he has his powers, but he's insane. The Born Identity is my all-time favorite of the season as a whole. Oh my God, Lord, I am hopefully I didn't destroy this episode for you either. I love everything in this episode from Sam losing his grip on reality, to Dean going to the end to find Emmanuel and reuniting with Meg. Seeing Dean and Cast together again makes me tear up because Dean knows everything and blames Cast for what's happening to Sam. Seeing where Cast uses his powers so when he gets his memories back is amazing as the score takes over for his memorable scenes in the show at this point. As much as I love Sam, it pains me to see him hurt in a sort of way. In a side note, Lucifer is hands down hilarious, especially when he says lobotomy and that's sort of cute when he reads a Sam bedtime story. The only thing I wish this episode did was leave a tiny bit of Sam's PTSD still there because Cast basically shifted it to himself and didn't even say how much of the wall was damaged, especially because in season 11 onwards, Sam obviously still has some PTSD. And there's a scene, I believe in season 13, with a ruino about Lucifer and how Sam dealt with the PTSD by pushing it down because the world kept on ending. Obviously, I would still hate to see Sam suffering, but they could have done something like have Dean pulled out of hell and having nightmares over his time. Overall, I think that Sam would have had a consistent arc with his PTSD, moving off from Carver and Dabera with Lucifer having the part, I'll give the episode a 7-7, it's the best of this entire lackluster season. I think that's definitely where people are coming from is like because this season's been so crap, that's why people look so highly upon this episode, which I'm not going to blame you all for that. And I would have liked to see Sam have some PTSD as well, that would have been a cool idea. From what I've heard, Misha was supposed to be killed off this season, but as we all know, the fanbase works, Castiella had to make a comeback. For the following episode, I still don't get how people have shipped Cast and Dean, trust me, I'm fine with the LGBT community, but you can clearly see from the beginning of the show that Cast was like a third brother and that he's been a part of their family and Eric Kripke and even Gamble made it obvious that he and Meg were going to end up together. Yeah, exactly. It was a thing. It was just like it was less creepy than Dean and Sam. That was really fucking weird. This was the other weird one, like I don't know. I know Misha bought into it, but it was Bros, man. They were Bros. The born again identity, I'm giving a 5 out of 7. It's a mixed bagman entertaining one nonetheless. It's one of my top 4 favorite of the season. I feel like this season compared to what we've had later on and did somewhat improve, but it wouldn't go so far as to say it's the best season. It's directed by Robert Singer, like to me as a wow, because I look at how Robert directed and also to somewhat good episodes of Sam Dabb wrote, it's a shame how the show didn't have much money left in season 15 compared to a show. I quit watching The Flash after season six, but by watching the first episode of The Flash for final season, I got to say to the CW and the writers did a better job with The Flash than I expected, and I kept asking myself, is this the same show for Supernatural's final season? They really needed the budget and the Kripke and Gamble and Edlen and Carver to have returned. Maybe next time, it seemed like a running stream of consciousness. Maybe take a little bit of an edit next time, but no. I see where you're going like the CW is just falling apart. They barely have any money, but I don't know. I don't know how The Flash is. I never watched any of the Castiles back in The Born Again Identity. It's easily my third favorite episode of the season, which is hardly a surprise considering Robert Singer directed the episode and Sarah Gamble wrote it, and Robbie Townsend edited it into the story. I will try to be as brief as I can be and add a footnote. Sam and Dean's dialogue towards each other is heartbreaking, but also enjoyable. I love how Lucifer confirms that his psych word was one of the sets he used to torture Sam. It makes sense that Sam would be against psych words after what they did to him in season 5 when they fought a wraith. It's really humbling to watch that as Sam is falling apart, he helps another patient suffering from trauma from a revengeful ghost. When the ex-wife was pregnant, she wanted to name her son Castile, and I was against it in fear of the bullying he would go through. From this episode, we see Castile suffering. The plot trope of amnesia is named Immanuel, which is fitting because it translates to God is with us. Castile in a lot of ways represents how God has been with the Winchesters before we learn about his nefarious deeds in the season 14 finale. Oh no, don't remind me. So my son William received the middle name Immanuel, and I instead of E. No, that's cool. One of my favorite scenes in the entire show will always be when Castile regains his memories by smiting demons. Although I will never get over how weird it is that Dean kept Castile's blood soaked trench coat in his trunk, yeah that was really weird because that thing would have stank. Plus it's always a treat to have Meg on the show. In the end, I still think that it was a really cool concept that Castile has the ability to shift Sam's trauma to himself, and I love how Dean describes madness from the cage as mutilated assured destruction. Yeah, actually that was a good part too. And yes, because I enjoyed researching the show, I knew Castile would eventually return to the show, as Sarah stated in interviews about after his death, but I did not know when. Now like I said, this, it's, it's got some good elements. There are some decent elements. Why I didn't give it a negative rating. It's just the amount of macguffin garbage writing that you have to stomach. And I know some people are fine with that. I'm just, I'm just not. So thank you guys for your comments. Next episode is Party on Garth. Make sure to give me your guys's thoughts about that episode in the comments down below, and I'll read those off in the next review. It does look like it's going to be another filler episode, which fuck me, Jesus Christ. At least we have 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23. There's six episodes left, and then hopefully this nightmare is over. Anyways guys, thank you for watching. Hope you liked the review. If you did leave a like, and if you're just more subscribed. Until then, see you guys next time.