This week's Supernatural was written by Ben Edlund (pictured), a writer with "a sensibility that's so left of center" (Joss Whedon, commenting on his Titan AE and Firefly collaborator).
With its shapeshifter "monster" addicted to monster movies of the 1930s (Dracula, Frankenstein, The Wolfman, The Mummy), its brilliantly done B/W photography, its wry wit, its closing revelation of the engagingly shallow Dean's favorite movie, the episode is a hoot and a welcome change of pace from the apocalyptic vector of the season to date.
Now forty and anything but prolific, Ben Edlund nevertheless continues to show himself to be one of the most ingenious writers around. Not only is Edlund the creator of The Tick, he wrote the unforgettable Angel as a "bloody puppet man" episode "Smile Time" (see above) and Supernatural Season Three's superbly meta "Ghostfacers"--both likely to be long-remembered.
Edlund's unique, highly intertextual and self-referential genius reminds me a bit of similarly "left of center" Darin Morgan, The X-Files scribe who wrote "Jose Chung's From Outer Space" and "Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose" (he's now working on Fringe, though he has yet to write an episode).
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