Reaper: No Reaper Left Behind
By fred | April 29, 2009
(S02E09) This season of Reaper has been pretty awesome so far, and it had and continues to evolve and goes into direction one might not expect. Also, the old formula of the escaped soul of the week hasn’t been around much, they always found a way not to commit to it, so much that by now you almost expect Sam not to have to chase a soul, or just not to do it for some reason.
Instead we have some other stories to focus on, stories about personal relationships, which may or may not include demons, as well as the ongoing idea Sam has been obsessing about (although not too much) : he wants out, he needs to find a way out of his deal with the Devil. He doesn’t know how, but he’s learned for sure that it was doable, and he won’t stop until he succeeds — well, you know, or dies/gets sent to Hell.
I’m not sure why it was, but I found this week’s episode to be the least appealing of the season so far. The comedy was still there as we got to see Nina and Ben working through their breakup and eventually getting back together, of course. It was expected, and I’m not sure how Ben will act next time he sees his grandmother, but I liked that they’re back together, they are such a cute and interesting couple.
Plus, Nina is also a lot of fun, and the funniest scene of this episode was certainly when Ben and Sock were in the car, trying to ignore Nina and just sing along Cher’s Believe and pretend they were having fun, while the question of life after love might never has sounded so real that at that moment, with your demon ex-girlfriend right there on your car, and with the power to just kill you any time she wants to.
It’s the other story that I felt wasn’t as good as what we usually get, or just that things annoyed me more than it had so far. For example, as much as I want to believe Sam and that he really wants out of his deal with the Devil, he seems so freaking stupid at times that it gets irritating. He should know first hand, especially after all he went through last season, that the Devil pretty much knows about everything, hears everything, and you can’t fool him easily.
Yet he keeps saying how he’ll lie to him or trick him or whatever, out loud, never caring to be in a circle. Of course he knew about Adam – and about that, I was shocked (no really) that the Devil didn’t thank Sam, repeating how the mastermind of evil behind it was no other than Sam himself, and how the Devil only did what Sam first thought of…
But did Sam then tried to up his game? Nope, he still explained his plan to anyone who wanted to hear it, right there at the Work Bench. When is he going to get a clue?? Even later in the episode, when the Devil played the hero who saves the girl, he mentioned again how he heard everything, he heard how she liked the gift and was attracted to his demonic darkness. He wasn’t physically there in the room but he heard everything, that’s how he rolls!
That’s how it goes, so of course the Devil knew about Sam’s “plan” all along, and he probably played him all along as well, not trying to get Sam to learn anything, just to have fun with him and of course get the girl in the end. That’s how he is, that’s what he does, and if Sam refuses to see such obvious thing and get smarter he’s never going to get out of his deal.
Actually at this point, considering how everything went down, I was shocked that Sam’s dad asked to be sent to Hell, maybe even more so that Sam did it, but I just have a hard time believing that text message really came from him. First off, I’m not sure how a regular cell phone could just work between worlds or whatever, and even if it could there’s no way this happens without the Devil’s knowledge. So as far as I’m concerned, I’m hesitating between the Devil is actually sending those messages, or is just aware of it, letting it happen, and will step in at the “right” time. But you can be sure, one way or another, this is yet another case of the Devil playing with Sam.
One last thing, though, that did bother me as well, but maybe I missed something : since when did Andy knew, about Sam’s father?? For all she knew, he was dead by the end of season one, no? I don’t remember Sam ever telling her that he was “back from the dead” or just undead, because I actually thought this was gonna be yet another lie/secret he kept from her and that she’d use to break up with him yet again. But if she didn’t know, why did she show up at the end, like she just heard he just died again, or that Sam sent him to Hell?
What did everybody else think?
