Recap: SUPERNATURAL Brings Back Hitler

Season 12, Episode 5 “The One You’ve Been Waiting for”
Directed by Nina Lopez-Corrado
Written by Meredith Glynn

A lot of stories have brought Hitler back to life. Maybe like Elvis, the world just can’t believe he’s dead. Most of the time Hitler is resurrected, he comes back bodily. Either he has secretly escaped and is alive, living normally, or he had been brought back by science fiction. In They Saved Hitler’s Brain, it’s his brain that is alive and causing problems. In The Boys of Brazil, Hitler has been cloned 94 times and sent around the world to be adopted. But this is Supernatural, and it’s Hitler’s soul we have to worry about. No conflict between nature and nurture, they are bringing him back intact with his own evil and memories.

The road so far shows Sam (Jared Padalecki) and Dean’s (Jensen Ackles) previous encounter with the Thule society, Hitler’s magicians and necromancers.

It starts off with a stylish wealthy blonde trying to buy a gold pocket watch from an older gentleman. He won’t sell it as he has received a better offer. She tries to make him stick to their deal but Poof! he goes up in flames. She takes advantage and tries to the steal the watch but she goes up in flames, too.

Dean finds the case and wants to check it out. Sam is sure he’s distracting himself and is still upset over their mom leaving. He doesn’t even want pie. Dean says he’s right. Sam finds the spontaneous combustion part interesting, and wonders what caused it. He mentions a dragon. I find it interesting that there are at least three things in Supernatural that could cause it. In real life, one never thinks that spontaneous human combustion could be caused by the devil collecting his due. They go to Columbus, Ohio and break into the antique shop. An antique shop, cursed items… why is that so familiar? Dean acts like a bull in an antique shop and knocks things over. Sam finds information about the pocket watch in the guy’s computer, while Dean finds a hidden treasure trove of Nazi paraphernalia. From this they conclude that they are dealing with the Thule.

Next we see a young woman, Eleanor (Allison Paige), who has brought home a new guy from Tinder, because she just broke up with her fiancée. She’s very nervous and ADHD. I like her. I wonder if he’s one of the Thule society but he’s too hipster. When she is in the bathroom, two men come in and torch her new would-be boyfriend. Ellie escapes through a window and down the fire escape.

Sam and Dean call Aaron (Adam Rose), who hunts resurrected Nazis after their last encounter with them. He says something big is afoot. They are interrupted by news of another body. They go check it out but Ellie gets kidnapped by the younger of the two, Christoph (Keenan Tracey) who broke into her apartment. Sam and Dean see this and rather easily capture him and rescue the girl while he is fighting with his father over the phone. They try to explain things to Ellie, and threaten their prisoner.

Christoph rolls over quickly and says his father is Nauhaus (Gil Darnell), a high ranking officer in the Thule society. He then tells them that his father trapped Hitler’s soul in a pocketwatch and the watch was lost and recently found, and all the old guy Thule want to bring back Hitler. He describes the watch as a Horcrux. Hitler can only be brought back in the body of a relative, and Ellie is a collateral relative. Ellie doesn’t take that well. She’s already suffering from supernatural shock, and now she knows she’s a descendant of Hitler. Christoph also reveals that she’s adopted, which she didn’t know. Sam follows her to console her. Just when they are telling her that they will keep her safe when they use her for bait, the Thule show up. They fight pretty hard for old guy Thule. Ellie escapes again, but she gets picked up by the bad guys later.

The younger Thule gets in trouble for spilling the beans to Sam and Dean. Christoph has a very millennial/parent argument with his dad. His dad even calls him a millennial. You can see that it bothers him when his dad taunts Ellie, though. Of course we know he’s not all bad, because he’s a Harry Potter fan. Nauhaus orders one of the men to kill his son, but Christoph overpowers the guy and gets away. He runs to Dean and Sam and tells them where Ellie is, which they need to know, because the boys have had no clue as to how to find her.

Meanwhile, they have Ellie hooked up to drain her blood. The plan was never to put Hitler’s soul in Ellie’s body, but to put it in Nauhaus’s. He just needs to have her blood in his body. It works. The pocketwatch inscribes a swastika in his flesh and sinks into his belly.

And this is where it gets really interesting. Their portrayal of Hitler is fascinating. He’s manic. Jubilant one minute, threatening the next. Completely insensitive. The other Nazis don’t celebrate with him. They don’t protest his treatment of them. Remember, these guys are resurrected from the original time of Hitler. Why did they want this? They look scared stiff.

It reminds me of the fact that Hitler was portrayed as a clown before and during the war but became a symbol of ultimate evil after the full effect of the holocaust was known. Maybe he was more apparently crazy and less evil looking than I thought.

The boys fight their way through the building. Dean wanted to bring a grenade launcher but Sam wouldn’t let him. They get caught and get to meet the Führer, who is still delighted to be back and delighted with the new world he’s in. “Just think what I could do with Twitter.”He’s reacting in the opposite way their mom did.

Poor, bloodless Ellie gets off her hospital cot and grabs a gun they left beside her. The world is spinning but she shoots one of them, giving Sam and Dean a chance to fight. They win and Dean kills Hitler. In cold blood. On the floor.

Another interesting twist on Hitler. When the fight happens, he shows himself to be cowardly.

Killing Hitler was just the boost Dean needed. He feels better. He decides to eat pie. Ellie decides to go back to medical school and call her mom. They let the young Thule go. He expects that they will kill him, which reflects even better on him, since he put himself in that position.

I expected a twist. The soul flowing into Ellie after Hitler dies again. The Men of Letters hitman showing up and taking out Ellie, or young Thule, or both. But there wasn’t one. And this makes it a Supernatural with a message. We don’t have to be evil because we were raised evil. We don’t have to be evil because we have evil blood in us. It’s not nature or nurture. We can choose to be heroes.

 

Supernatural airs at 9pm/8c on Thursdays on the CW.