'Supernatural' Recap – Episode 7.20, "The Girl with the Dungeons and Dragons Tattoo."
Finally, an episode in season 7 where the phrase, “One does not simply calm down after an episode of Supernatural” is applicable. After it’s airing, the fans were discussing non-stop; Charlie, Roman’s plot, hints that were dropped during the episode, what’s coming next for the Winchester brothers and their ghostly sidekick Bobby–but we’re here to focus on what caused all this ruckus in the first place.
This episode starts a little slow with exposition from Bobby, explaining the Leviathan’s master plan. Slaughterhouses to harvest human meat, and using fast food restaurants to spread their concoction of chemicals that makes us docile and fat. No one’s going to rise up to stop the overlords if no one cares that they’re being harvested, right?
But in the middle of the explanation, Sam and Dean get an automated e-mail–it looks like some lady (immediately recognizable to fans as Felicia Day, therefore, her character Charlie) is trying to hack into the Winchester’s dead tech guy (Frank)–‘s hard drive. What contains all of their information, including the location of the Impala! Also, everything the Winchesters know about the Leviathans and their plans. That’s…not good. So, just go get it, right?
No. It’s stuck in Richard Roman Enterprises. Or, as Dean so eloquently puts it: “It’s in the middle of the Death Star.”
Flashback to five hours earlier, where we get a look at the girl–a desk covered in geek memorabilia and $10,000 stolen from a conservative Super PAC transferred to an ‘animal lovers’ site later, Charlie’s motivations are pretty clear.
It’s also clear that she’s a brilliant hacker, and Dick Roman notices. He enlists Charlie (through a creepy, roundabout speech) for the task of cracking into Frank’s drive. A few Lord of the Rings jokes and a pep talk with Hermione later, we’re back where the episode started, plus or minus a few WarGames references.
Our Winchesters head off to rescue the hard drive after forbidding Bobby from entering the place on account of vengefulness. Meanwhile, crap! Charlie cracked the code, and starts going through the drive, finding information about the Leviathan and Roman’s master plan. She’s reasonably freaked out.
But, you know, it’s just some lunatic’s ranting, right? Ms. Hacker goes to report her progress to her boss—only to witness him get cloned and devoured by a Leviathan. Nothing like a little gore to convince you monsters are something to worry about.
Being one of the rare intelligent side-characters in Supernatural, she absconds to her apartment immediately and starts packing. Until, oh god, she’s being assaulted by attractive men! One who’s apparently built like a brick wall.
Luckily, it’s only Sam and Dean, who whip out a bottle of borax and perform a routine monster test. Satisfied that everyone in the room is human (or at least not a Leviathan), they get to discussing.
We now pause for a commercial break! One of the few faux-commercials that Supernatural likes to throw at us, this time advertising Dick Roman’s company “Sucrocorp”, which any attentive watcher knows is a front for brainwashing us.
Anyways, back to the show. The brothers give Charlie the monster talk, and enlist her to help get dirt on Roman. But, in order to do that, they’re going to have to break into the guy’s office–Charlie, to the boys’ relief, volunteers, given in to the fact that knowing what she knows, she’s probably going to die anyways.
Bluetooth connected, security cameras hacked and creepy van parked outside of the building, the team is ready to go–except that Charlie’s freezing up, and Bobby stashed
his flask in the girl’s bag, planning to tag along no matter what anyone says. Well, nothing to do about it. They have to let it go, and Sam’s Harry Potter pep talk gets their hacker friend ready, riling her up to “Kick it in the ass!” in true Supernatural fashion.
Everything goes smoothly, until she reaches the hallway outside of Roman’s office, running into a security guard, and oh no! She doesn’t know how to flirt her way past
(because she only flirts with women, of course). Luckily, Dean seems awfully adept at hitting on men, and walks Charlie through it (with the help of some interesting cinematography), successfully getting her to Roman’s office.
She hacks her way into the server in no time at all (w1nn1ng!), and begins copying all of Roman’s emails onto her USB–but then the security guard, not quite as dim as one would think, decides something is up and goes to investigate, requiring a rescue from Bobby and some smooth talking to avert. But, it all works out, and Charlie begins sending all the important information over to the van stronghold.
Looks like Richard Roman found something he was looking for in Iran, and it’s arriving at a nearby airport…oh, right about now!
Roman’s men in black fetch the package…and Sam and Dean are hanging out in front of the airport? What’re they up to?
Oh, a Borax bomb, apparently–the Leviathans open their metal case to get a little surprise.
An explosive surprise.
Flashback again to two hours before–Charlie buys Sam and Dean more time, and we get some clarification on how this all went down. Disguised as airplane people (is it just me, or does Sam look weirdly good in that outfit?), they switched out the cases, smooth as can be.
Curiosity overpowering them, the Winchesters open their prize at the first possible moment.
Revealing what, for all intents and purposes…looks like a block of regular old red clay. What’s that about?!
We get absolutely no explanation—just Roman continuing to creep on Charlie.
After a little exchange, the hacker skedaddles and the bomb explodes, bringing us up to the present again. Roman locks down the building–and Charlie isn’t quite quick enough to escape! But Bobby’s there to help (?), holding back Roman until the Winchesters break in and douse our baddies with Borax. Bobby goes a little vengeful, but
makes it out of the building, not quite doomed to a life of hunting Dick yet.
Meanwhile, on the escape car ride, Charlie drops an interesting line: “The really evil ones really need a special sword.” We may have ignored it, taking it as another off
comment relating to her gaming tendencies, but Sam’s look tells us otherwise–there’s some significance in what she’s saying. But what?
(Some people speculate this is alluding to the sword of Gabriel. AKA the one that, according to the lore, slew the original Leviathans in the first place. Hmmm…)
Roman’s pissed, Charlie’s going off the grid, and the Winchesters are worried about family again. As in, Bobby going off on Richard Roman and possibly turning into a vengeful spirit. Honestly, I wouldn’t guess it was a likely scenario, but…with the brothers bringing it up all the time, I just don’t know anymore.
So, thus concludes the adventures of Charlie, leaving us with the Leviathan’s master plan, a mysterious block of clay, and a few hints dropped about future episodes.
I, for one, cannot wait until next week.
Watch an all new episode of ‘Supernatural’ on the CW at 9/8c on Friday, May 4th!
Author of this post: Amelia Merritt