There's No Place Like Home Review

As soon as I saw the title to this episode, I just knew it had to be Charlie's return. I mean, we knew she was coming back from the trailer, but this was too big of a Wizard of Oz reference to be anything else. Not only that, but it's a reference to the part of the story where Dorothy comes home, so Charlie coming home makes sense. Then again, the episode titles of this show often have little to nothing to do with the actual plot. However, since they already revealed Charlie was coming back, there was no way the title was going to be an Oz reference for no reason.

I was not expecting there to be two Charlies. I mean, I could tell from the promo content that some Oz magic had made her go dark side, but I wasn't expecting it to be a Valeyard-type scenario. The fact that the writers are willing to do this is just further evidence of Supernatural's genre-bending, trope-playing, refusal to take itself seriously. I mean, this week they're going the de-aging route, which is typically reserved for fan fiction.

I kinda wonder what would have happened if the two Charlies had remained separated for a while longer. Good Charlie had just killed someone, which is bad. Would some sort of Calvin & Hobbes-type scenario kick in where the Moral Compromise Spectral Release Phantasmatron causes her to spontaneously vanish? I suspect the Inner Key of Oz is based on something a bit more advanced than cardboard box technology, so she would probably survive.

So just how many living Men of Letters are there running around? This is the second time in about a season where the brothers have found one alive and well. For a supposedly dead society, there are suspiciously many of them running around. Then again, I have always wondered who paid the utility bills at the bunker. The equipment obviously hasn't been updated in fifty years, but someone has been keeping the power running. Of course, that could just be magic, but I'm not sure that can violate energy and mass conservation.