Reaper: The Home Stretch
By fred | April 22, 2009
(S02E08) It’s funny to see how much this show has changed from its first season, and if in the beginning there might have been concerned about how each episode seem to follow a formula, clearly this season there is no such thing as a formula, unless it reads “stay away from that old formula” or something. It’s up to a point where – and I’m not saying it’s a bad thing, I actually enjoy this so far – the hunting of the escaped soul of the week is not the main issue, if it is one at all.
This week, there wasn’t one, two or even three stories all at once in this episode, but no less than four stories. Four different stories, and writers managed not only to make them all fit and to have them all cross paths and affect one another like it once was done on Seinfeld and the likes. Four stories, and one escaped soul as always; But as I said, if each week there’s a new soul to send back to Hell, this just isn’t what the show is all about anymore.
We’ve seen an episode where instead of tracking and fighting the soul to send him back to Hell, what our boys did for an episode long was trying to get the poor virgin laid. It’s not really the same, and this week there was no such alternatives, Sam just didn’t want to catch the soul, as is often the case, so he just… didn’t put much effort into it.
Of course the Devil tried to make things fun, and had a competition between Saw & Morgan, to finally see which of the two was worthy of being his son. But if the looser get to spend the rest of his miserable life on Earth, with no powers and no evil things to do, or at least not more than they currently have to, that actually seemed rather fine for Sam.
He wanted to loose, he wanted Morgan to win, but the later only saw that as a ploy to get him to trust him, and be beaten in the end, and that wouldn’t work: slap! But of course in the end it was Sam who did send the soul back to Hell, and the Devil knew it. And because it’s more fun that way, he made sure to ridicule Morgan, humiliate him and have him believe Sam played him all along. I don’t know if he actually can come back with a vengeance, or is too dumb for it, but I’d bet Morgan will try…
This was only one part of the episode, lots of other stuff happening. That was Sam, but pretty much each of the main characters had its own plot line, and not everything was good. Actually, I found things to complain about in each of them :
- Sock. This guy was once the show, the source of all things funny, a real comedy force, but lately I’m not always enjoying the plot he’s given. That whole mess with the sister was just wrong, and him crashing a funeral this week wasn’t really the funniest thing of all either. I also think that I like my Sock better when he’s not alone, but as friends to bounce the ball with. Case in point, while not a fan of his plot line this week, I thought things got better once Ben got involved, and brought with him his self-sucking straw…
- Andi. One word, annoying. I used to like her, I want to like her, but she doesn’t make things easy. After believing Sam was all “evil inside” and breaking up with him, again, now she wants to be back together and acts as if they were, just because they found Alan. Which makes things even more so annoying because you obviously knew the Devil wouldn’t allow it, and Alan would be taken out of the picture before he could talk, and so I’m guessing she’ll “break up” with Sam again, even though they’re not really back together. Seriously girl, pick your side and stick with it!
