Criss Angel Is a Douche Bag

Sam and Dean travel to the Magic Week in Iowa where amateurish and professional magicians are gathered everywhere presenting their abilities. They discover that the veteran and decadent magician Jay has a fantastic show with two other old friends risking his own life; but when Jay succeeds to escape from death, another magician dies the same way. Sooner the Winchester brothers find that one magician of the trio is using black magic.

'Criss Angel Is a Douche Bag" is another good episode that does not follow the lead story of this Fourth Season that seems to be stalled. There is a surprising plot point where the evil magician is disclosed but nothing special. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Criss Angel É um Idiota" ("Criss Angel Is a Douche Bag")

When an episode opens with the great Barry Bostwick as a guest star, you know you are onto a winner. Furthermore, the title is dead on, the show-runners just stating the fact for those who didn't already know it from watching "Magic's Biggest Secrets Finally Revealed" (2008) – that far too many of Criss's tricks involve paid-for "audience" and/or editing trickery despite claims to the opposite. The man, therefore, is a douche bag.

Having had a few good laughs at Criss Angel's expense, the story proper begins. And it is great. By this point, Supernatural has found the stream of never-ending laughs, but on the dramatic side the results have varied. Fortunately, as any story involving magicians should, this one has plenty of momentum, good twists and reveals, but even more importantly, a lot of heart. The main guest characters are well-written and the actors bring them really alive.

Among all the mystery, we get some great musings about the Apocalypse and life as a Hunter from the Winchesters. And who'd have thought the most important lines in the episode would come from Ruby's mouth? That scene is the one that most sticks to the mind from watching this. While not a full classic, or even essential viewing considering the myth-arc, this is still 8/10 greatness.

This is one of my all time favorite episodes of the show. There are several factors why. I just happen to like stage magic, magicians and I thought it was about time that the show did an episode like this. Likewise, the vulgarities of aging are pretty obvious fodder for horror and this episode script tries Jay's story into the Winchester story well with it feeling entirely organic and about time this sort of thing was addressed. But mostly it because of two things. First, Barry Bostwick (Jay) and to a lesser extent Michael Rubenstein (Weston) (Young Charlie) give two of the very best one off performances in the show. Bostwick captures the melancholy and regret of Jay grappling with his age and then the choices he was forced to make. Rubenstein plays the affection for Jay and the mad trickster of Charlie fully. The chemistry between them is just great. I almost wish that the characters could be revisited because of how good these two were.

Second this is episode is one of the most overtly homosocial and/or homoerotic episodes in the entire series. It's not just the Chief-through yes that is hysterical and adds to ever growing amount of queer bait with Dean. But the bond Jay and Charlie shared is clearly stronger than mere friendship. On Charlie's end he seems particularly devoted and it almost plays out like a Hays Code era gay villain, which is entirely correct given the general vibe of the episode.

There is a weird emotional power to this episode that crops up because of the various tonalities. It vaguely reminds me-SOMEHOW!-of a queer and B flick version of The Illusionist (2010, animated). That is just wonderful.

I've only ever seen Barry Bostwick do comedic roles, and he excells at that already. Oftentimes I find comedians make for mediocre dramatic actors at best, with a few exceptions from geniuses like Robin Williams or Jim Carrey. What Barry Bostwick does in this episode is "Eternal Sunshine..." level. I am so impressed everytime I watch this, he really makes me feel the sadness of being an worn-out old has-been, who gets a glimpse of regaining his glory! He nails every emotion, every line, every tiny little glance! Its a performance so perfect that it elevates an otherwise only okay episode, to something quite magical!

Glad to be back to a regular episode instead of the angel/demon story arc