Recap of Supernatural
Season 9, Episode 05:
Dog Dean Afternoon
I want...a belly rub.
Written by Eric Charmelo and Nicole Snyder.Directed by Tim Andrew.
Airdate: November 5, 2013.
Body Count:
For this episode = 3 humans (one of which was a witch) and 1 cat.
For the series so far = At least 1065 angels, 927 humans (of which 8 were witches), 135 demons, 51 vampires, 48 ghosts, 36 Jefferson Starships, 20 gods, 19 zombies, 10 hellhounds, 7 skinwalkers, 6 changelings, 5 djinn, 5 shapeshifters, 5 werewolves, 4 ghouls, 4 Leviathan, 4 reapers, 3 dogs, 2 Amazons, 2 arachnes, 2 kitsunes, 2 rugarus, 2 Thule, 2 vetalas, 1 cat, 1 crocotta, 1 dragon, 1 fairy, 1 familiar, 1 Khan worm, 1 lamia, the Mother of All, 1 okami, 1 phoenix, 1 Purgatory creature, 1 rakshasa, 1 rawhead, 1 shojo, 1 shtriga, 1 siren, 1 Titan, 1 wendigo, 1 whore of Babylon, 1 wicked witch, and 1 wraith.
Tropes:
- Animal Stereotypes: Dean acting like a dog has him barking at the mailman, scratching behind his ear, getting the urge to sniff peoples' butts, sticking his head out of a car window, and playing fetch.
- Animal Talk: Dean figures out he can talk to all animals after a Jerkass pigeon poops on the Impala and taunts him. As explained by the Colonel: "Animals have a universal language, like Esperanto. Except this one actually caught on."
- Animal Wrongs Group: Downplayed in that the couple from SNART aren't really malicious; while Dean disagrees with them, he trusts them enough to leave the Colonel with them.
- Artistic License – Animal Care: The Colonel complains about being adopted by the vegan bakery owners, who plan to feed him a vegan diet. This cannot be emphasised enough: dogs are obligate carnivores that cannot subsist on an all-plant diet.
- Blatant Lies: Dean dismisses Sam's suspicions with saying the villain was just crazy, Sam doesn't seem to buy it.
- Breather Episode: It's so much of one that it makes a point to recap almost every single previous Supernatural Breather Episode before it, just to remind the audience that, yes, sometimes this show lets you stop crying.
- Call-Back: Dean is disgusted upon entering the vegan bakery to see the owners are wearing sunglasses indoors, something only "douchebags" do. He relents when he sees they're covering the damage from being "maced" (actually from having venom spat in their eyes by the Monster of the Week).
- Cannibalism Superpower: Sam's mysterious-to-him Healing Factor inspires this plan in Chef Leo.
- Comically Small Bribe: The terrier at the pound has information on the Monster of the Week, and demands a heavy price for it; a belly rub, from Sam. He even stops talking when Sam takes a break to deal with a hand cramp.
- Evil Brit: Scottish-born actor Steve Valentine plays Chef Leo with a British accent, which is fairly exotic in Enid, Oklahoma.
- Goggles Do Nothing: Subverted, the owners of the vegan bakery wore sunglasses to hide their eyes.
- Oh, Crap!: Chef Leo when he sees Sam get healed.
- Dean when it's pointed out to him that eating chocolate in the state he was in was probably not such a good idea.
- Pounds Are Animal Prisons: The animals tell Dean that the cages they are in are like prisons, even referencing The Shawshank Redemption
- Previously on…: There are scenes from past episodes, some as early as season 2, though none of them have anything to do with this episode besides the fact that they were also breather episodes.
- Red Herring: The first crime scene has the logo of an animal rights group, though the group wasn't involved in any way.
- Shout-Out: This is the second consecutive episode to contain a Game of Thrones reference, in this case the tableau of stuffed animal GoT characters Max Alexander is working on in the teaser.
- Speaks Fluent Animal: Dean gains the ability to speak with animals during this episode.
- Strange Minds Think Alike: When Dean sees the people at the vegan bakery wearing sunglasses indoors, he remarks that only blind people and douchebags do that. When they explain why they're wearing sunglasses, the woman complains that it makes them look like douchebags.
- The Unreveal: At the end of the episode, the Colonel tells Dean that dogs aren't actually Man's Best Friend. The spell wears off immediately before he reveals what their true purpose is.
- You Are Who You Eat: Human-on-animal variant. With an attempted human-on-human.
