Supernatural: "Halt and Catch Fire" Review
Why is Dean breaking a computer? Find out here. Image source "ign.com"

The episode starts with a couple of teenagers drunk and driving a little intoxicated and looking for a fast food taco place. The young boy Billy asks his phone to give him directions to the nearest one and it sends them up a dirt road. Jonathan drives the directions given but Janet is skeptical. When they arrive at the spot, the boy asks for an alternate route and when it doesn't, Billy tells it to go screw and the phone tells him to go screw and for Janet to get out of the truck. Janet gets out after the second time the phone tells her to get out and this time, the voice sounds more human than robotic. Too bad the car locked Billy in and then proceeded to drive Jonathan off of a cliff.

image source "sweatpantsandcoffee.com"

So now we see Dean eating a "Cronut" cookie part doughnut, part something else. Sam tells Dean that Castiel has discovered riverboat gambling but also that he's closing in on Cain. Dean dismisses it because he thinks that if Cain knew how to get rid of it he would have. So Dean changes the subject and the two are off on the case to find out what happened to the kid and the car. Sam and Dean interview the girl and tells her exactly what happened. Sam asks if Billy had any enemies and Janet says maybe his brother Joey. Sam asks if he was dead, she said yes but he died in Afghanistan and never came home because he died via an I.E.D. and the only thing he had left from him was the truck he died in. Later that night the boys go into the lot where the truck was left after the accident. They find tons of ectoplasm in the driver's seat where Billy died. They set the car on fire to get rid of the spirit haunting the car.

Back at a dorm a college student starts to send pictures of herself and is then emailed from a random number. The girl is confused until the person emails her "810". She freaks out and does all she could to cut off the computer, but nothing works. She tries to leaves, and the door closes. She turns around and the computer wire strangles her. But, she did hashtag everything, so it's acceptable.

#Strangled or is it hashtag strangled?
image source "projectfandom.com"

The next day, Sam and Dean are back at the school (Dean says he's not going to make it because he kept checking out the women on campus) to check out the most recent death. Dean scans the computer and it's radiating with supernatural power. They interview Julie's (the dead hashtagging girl) and they ask if she knew Billy. Billy was the head of a fraternity and everyone knew him. Sam is checking out Julie's computer and everything is coming up normal. Then Sam decides to look into her deleted files (which Dean looks worried. Probably because he thought all of his adult videos were deleted). Sam finds the last conversation she had with the person who kept saying 810. Sam finds that there are three addresses with the number 810 in it and they head to the addresses.

Upon arriving at one of the addresses, Sam finds out that Princess Elsa 8 (the user name the killer used) was actually the name an 8-year-old girl uses and she was fast asleep when the murder occurred. So it wasn't her so she was obviously hacked. Outside one of the houses, Sam and Dean see a woman walk out and they follow her. She is putting flowers where her husband died nine months ago in a car accident. But a young girl keeps leaving flowers there. Sam and Dean assume that it's Delilah leaving flowers.

Back at the dorm, two of the college students are at the dorm. Delilah is telling one of the frat guys that they should just come clean and the guy says that if she does, she will have more than just the cops to worry about (watch out, we got a bad *** over here). Delilah leaves and the frat boy continues to use his get sex quick app on his phone. After a few back and forth instant messages, he gets a knock on the door and no one is there. He goes back in the room and the door closes behind him. The phone rings and asks what time it is. The clock shows 8:10 and the music blasts so loud that he starts bleeding out of his eyes and ears and he dies from what seems to be bleeding from his brain.

Back at the dorm, Sam and Dean are with Delilah and they find out that car accident wasn't really an accident. Billy, the frat boy, and the two girls were too busy on their phones to see the other car coming. It crashes into a pole and then a live wire sets the car on fire. Sam and Dean tell her it's a ghost that's killed her friends and eventually her. Delilah goes on to tell Dean that she feels bad that she didn't do more to save him. Dean tells her that he has made a ton of mistakes and that he does his best every day to atone for his mistakes. Sam calls Dean and says that the ghost is killing via the Wi-Fi. Sam says he has an idea and hangs up. As soon as he hangs up, Andrew pops up on her computer. Dean smashes all of the electronics in the room connected to the Wi-Fi and they head to the basement because the reception "sucks down there". Meanwhile, Sam goes to Andrew's wife and she somehow knows it's him. Soon after the death, Andrew started to contact her , but would soon start acting strange.

Andrew is heated. Get it? Because he looks burned? Never mind.
image source "blogspot.com"

In the basement, a phone vibrates in the couch cushions and that allows Andrew into the basement. He knocks Dean across the room and then starts to choke Delilah. She starts to Andrew saying she wishes she could go back and get help. Dean tries to reason with Andrew with no luck. While Andrew is strangling him, his wife face times them and talks Andrew into stop and just let go and he does.

The episode ends with Delilah going to Andrew's wife and owning up to what her and her friends did. Dean talks about his peace is helping people and that he is done looking for a cure for the Mark of Cain. He says that he's not giving up, but the answer is within him and to stop waking up every day with false hope. But he has come to terms with what's in him. Dean actually seemed happy.

Review: 4

This was not a good episode. It seemed like the writers were trying to prove a point about how technology is destroying the way people interact. The thing is that most people who watch this show already know that. While it did have very humorous parts, all in all, it was a very bad episode. By far the worst rating this writer has ever given. Maybe it's a bit overcritical and maybe it was because the way the ghost was defeated was terrible. Regardless, it left a bad taste at the end.

VAVEL Logo