Supernatural Let the Dogs out On "Ladies Drink Free"

Fresh off of that weird mid-March hiatus The CW is so fond of, Supernaturalaimed to entice us with a well-loved guest star (Kathryn Love Newton), a good old-fashioned werewolf hunt, and some lively debate about the ethics of killing all the monsters, complete with Dean (Jensen Ackles) threatening to kill Mick the Nerdy Brit (Adam Fergus).

Long story short: Mick killed a freshly-bitten werewolf teen and angsted over it, only to be redeemed when Claire ended up turned and a magical cure that failed literally every other time the Men of Letters tried to use it, cured her, because Supernatural has a pesky kill-all-the-women problem that they've been trying to resolve for like three seasons now. Gotta love the deus ex machina cures. Live free or twi-hard, y'all!

Is Supernatural just rehashing its classic fifth season?

"Ladies Drink Free" was textbook Supernatural, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Sam (Jared Padalecki) and Dean felt more like Sam and Dean than they have in awhile. The seeds have been planted for the B-MOL alliance to maybe actually be a good thing for both factions (with Dean and Sam leading the way as utmost moral authority on all things monster, of course) and there was a Jody shout out. We live for Jody shout outs. They're almost as good as an actual Jody Mills (Kim Rhodes) appearance. Almost.

Supernatural needed to give us a shred of hope regarding the uncomfortable team-up between Winchesters and British Men of Letters. I long suspected that Mick would be the key to that given that out of all the other Brits we've met so far, he's seemed the most reasonable, less dogmatic, and most genuinely interested in some sort of alliance with the Winchesters and America's larger hunter community.

He's sketchy, but he's sketchy the way Castiel (Misha Collins) was sketchy when he first landed on the scene. He's been programmed to follow a very specific and rigid worldview and then the Winchesters came along and complicated it and probably eventually, he'll embrace the tenets of Team Free Will just like every other poor sap with a death wish and a hero complex that Sam and Dean run into. I can live with that.

Supernatural has an extremist problem.

Part of me wanted something more after the mini-hellatus, but I was pleasantly surprised by how much I didn't hate "Ladies Drink Free," even if it was the kind of mediocre that could comfortably slip between any given episodes of previous seasons to be easily forgotten. After so much disappointment this season, I'll take the familiar equivalent of Supernatural comfort food and keep crossing my fingers that we get something with a little more oomph before this season runs its course.

Supernatural airs Thursdays at 8/7c on The CW.

(Full disclosure: TVGuide.com is owned by CBS, one of The CW's parent companies.)