Meta! We’re getting back to the meta! No more talking
animals or Oz or other nonsense!
And we open with a bus full of singing Christians. It’s a
bus with “Jesus Saves” written on it, full of women singing hymns – The Melody
Ministy Glee club apparently. Pulling up to a biker bar.
They get out, all dressed the same in long white dresses
and pink cardigans and enter the biker bar full of bikers. There’s a
confrontation – and BOTH sides draw angel blades. Lots of flashing white light
and sounds of conflict – and the bloodstained Christian Glee Club leave a whole
lot of dead bikers behind
Well, I was waiting for something to eat them, but this is an acceptable second.
Sam and Dean are driving along and clearly on the case –
much to Ezekiel’s annoyance because it puts him and Sam at risk (Ezekiel is a
rather cowardly angel, it has to be said). Dean’s impatient for Ezekiel to
actually put Sam together again and points out they can’t ignore the case
without Sam getting suspicious. Ezekiel is not only a cowardly angel but a
snippy one as well – and when Sam comes back he notices he’s lost time again
which is beginning to frustrate him and add to the whole “something’s wrong!”
worry.
At the biker bar, there’s already an FBI agent present apparently… well, there’s Castiel pretending to be an FBI agent anyway
 |
| Castiel! He’s back! |
Dean gives him A Look. That wryly amused, mildly
irritated, happy-to-see-you-but-still-going-to-to-chew-you-out-over-this most
excellent look. Sam has a look as well, but it’s not as good as Dean’s. Last we
saw Castiel he was trying to avoid all things angelic and trying to live a
normal life; but if angels are slaughtering each other he feels the need to
intervene. And adds “Cas is back” which is… just Castiel. Looking at the pics
they can see that there’s a large number of angels involved – one or two couldn’t
have inflicted this level of violence. They
already know Bartholomew’s faction – but there could easily be another.
Naturally Ezekiel is most unamused by Castiel joining
them again.
Meanwhile two big ominous cars park, out of which come
representatives from 2 factions of angels. One lead by Malachi (including the
Melody Glee club) and the other by Bartholomew’s representative – he hasn’t
come in person. Malachi is not amused – if Bartholomew wants to unite and avoid
all kinds of bloodbath, he will meet personally (in between lots of talk of
them disrespecting each other). Which is fine because Bartholomew won’t
negotiate either. Malachi and his minions (including the Christian Glee lady)
promptly kill Bartholomew’s representatives. Really, under a flag of truce,
that’s just not sporting. Bad angels! Bad!
Back to the Winchesters and Castiel wondering if it’s ok
for him to help them (Sam doesn’t understand why he’d ask since he still doesn’t
know that Dean told him to leave). We
have recap of the murderous April (Dean being Dean, he only remembers “she
was hot”.) and Bartholomew’s plan to unite angelkind and retake Heaven – then Castiel
goes to the bar for another round (already hammered after one drink) giving
Ezekiel chance to pop in and whine. This time Dean doesn’t have time for it –
Ezekiel made enemies choosing sides? Well Castiel has far more angels coming
after him and he’s not whimpering and whining.
Admittedly this is incredibly selfish since Ezekiel did
choose sides effectively to help Sam and Dean, but still, Ezekiel HAS chosen a
side, so stay with the side – cowering in the corner is not choosing a side. I
think I’d be more sympethatic and see this point if Ezekiel expressed his
displeasure in a way that wasn’t “waaaaah!” When Castiel returns with the
drinks, Samkiel huffs outside the bar where he runs into… Metatron.
And Metatron recognises him as an angel – but not
Ezekiel. He imitated Ezekiel because he was good and honourable which,
according to Metatron, is everything this angel – Gadriel - isn’t. Gadriel
protests that he’s been terribly slandered. Regardless of the bad stories, Gadriel
had been locked in prison for millennia because he was the angel who watched
over the Garden of Eden. Gaddy, Gaddy, you have one job – one job – stop some
silly people eating fruit, but nooooo! But still, bygones, Metatron claims
credit for freeing Gadriel because his locking of Heaven made every angel fall –
even Gaddy. Apparently Gadriel didn’t know that Heaven was entirely locked down.
There’s a wrinkle in Metatron’s plan – yes he has Heaven all to himself now –
but you can only be smugly victorious for so long before it starts getting
dull. It’s boring up there. He wants to rebuild Heaven by handpicking angels –
preferably funny ones. He plays on Gadriel’s epic insecurity to get him on side
Inside, Castiel awkwardly pokes the fact that Dean told
him to leave and Sam doesn’t know why. Dean doesn’t spill the whole truth but
does say Ezekiel helped heal Sam and to help Sam they have to keep away from
Castiel.
 |
| Poor Castiel |
Back to the Winchester cave and Sam is, again, surprised
that Castiel disappeared for no apparent reason. Anyway, on the research front,
it turns out the bikers who were killed were a Born Again Biker Gang. Yes.
Looking further they realise that the bikers were connected to Reverend Boyle,
who works for Bartholomew. They had hoped the Reverend had gone quiet – but it
seems he stopped doing the televangelist thing because encouraging everyone
everywhere to let the angels in was allowing angels who didn’t support
Bartholomew find hosts. This way Bartholomew can control who gets embodied.
Which means there’s a new group out there brutal enough to take on Bartholomew’s
people: as Dean says, angels are dicks.
Which is when we move to another skirmish in the Angel
war, with Glee Lady leading a Bible meeting trying to get a group of people to
open up to possession – with glowy angels hovering above them. Just as she’s
about to succeed, a group of Bartholomew’s angels attack, killing her with an
Angel blade and using their lethal touch on all the gathered humans (reminding
us that they may be footsoldiers in this war, but they are still angels).
In presumably free
moments, Metatron continues to work on his pitch to Gadriel: this time pointing
out how exhausting and chaotic humans are and how nice it’d be to be in Heaven
away from them all. Gadriel isn’t entirely unsuspicious and points out Metatron
would be ruler of Heaven which would kind of make him God – Metatron backs off
from that and says he’d just be called “X”. Which is actually rather creepier
than calling oneself god.
Castiel seems to have hit rock bottom because he decides
to ask for advice. Through prayer. Pretty much every prayer position
imaginable. Yes, he’s praying, yes the angels can hear him, no this isn’t
sensible. And Muriel arrives to help him – and she isn’t happy that the person
asking for help is Castiel, hated by all things halo’ed and winged. He wants
info and Muriel may be the best person to talk to since she wants nothing to do
with the militants – he assumed no militant would answer his prayer because his
being warded would make him seem human and the militants are completely
uninterested in humanity. She tells him Malachi is Bartholomew’s opposition
(who Castiel recognises as “the anarchist”) and fewer and fewer angels are
independent as both groups hunt the unaligned and torture and kill them to
force allegiance.
Which is when Malachi’s angels break down the door – they
were hunting Muriel but Castiel is an excellent bonus. They’re taken to Malachi’s
torture compound, both of them get badly mangled pretty quickly though Muriel
makes sure to tell Castiel she never knowingly lead Malachi’s people to him. They
torture Castiel and kill Muriel to try and make him give up what he knows about
Metatron; unfortunately he doesn’t know much. Castiel tries to shame Malachi by
lamenting angels slaughtering angels, but Malachi isn’t taking that from Castiel
who slaughtered so many when
full of Leviathan – or the many more who died during the Fall. That shocks
Castiel – but apparently locking them out of Heaven called many angels to die:
Azrael, Sophia, Ezekiel… oooh that last name! Yes, Ezekiel’s dead which means
Castiel realises someone else had to have healed Sam.
When Malachi leaves Castiel alone with his torturer, that torturer then surprisingly asks Castiel to pass on a message – to Metatron. He’ll do anything Metatron wants if he can get into heaven, yes, he’s jumping ship. Castiel actually digs up some guile from somewhere and makes the torturer really sell it to him and assure him he’s totally a team player (he also thinks none of them will survive the war between Malachi and Bartholomew). He releases Castiel – and Castiel stabs him with his angel blade. White light emerges from his mouth and into Castiel’s – Castiel has stolen back his Grace, his angelhood. He glows with a brilliant white light and is fully healed. The torturer isn’t dead – at least, until Castiel touches his head with the lethal angel glowy-touch.
 |
| Castiel is really back. |
Malachi returns to find a lot of his followers dead.
Castiel was not amused it seems
Back at the Winchester cave, Kevin has been allowed out
of the plot box! So he can do some more tablet reading still trying to reverse
Metatron’s spell. As he and Sam get up to date on the latest deaths on the
angel war, Dean turns to put more pressure on Kevin to find some way to return
the angels to heaven. And Kevin notices that Sam has been stepping out a lot
lately without telling anyone where he’s going.
Dean gets a call from Castiel warning him about Malachi –
and Castiel admitting he has become what they have – a barbarian (c’mon
Castiel, it’s hardly the first time you’ve killed an Angel. Or the 10th.
Or the 30th). And that he has his mojo back – sort of, since it’s
not his Grace. Dean is shocked by all the changes and wants to try and talk to
an obviously troubled Castiel about them – but Castiel just says they’re going
to war, he needs to be ready – Castiel interrupts concern with the news that
Ezekiel is dead – and has been for a long time.
Dean runs to Kevin to demand a spell to shut down an
Angel so they can speak to the vessel (not a bad thing anyway since Gadriel revealed
that Sam could kick him out at any time – so presumably they can deposes vessels
of angels by talking them into kicking their angels out). He sets an exhausted
Kevin on the task.
Meanwhile Gadriel tells Metatron that he will join him and become his second in command. Great, but first Metatron needs Gadriel to prove his loyalty by neutralising their enemies. Gadriel tries a brief “but nooo, I do not kill”, Metatron isn’t impressed and hands him a to-do list.
Kevin cobbles together a spell from the tablet and the Men
of Letters books – he’s not 100% sure, but Kevin knows something is up because
why else would they already be painting the symbols for it? Dean urges him to
trust him and Kevin, accurately, says “I always trust you and I always end up
screwed.” So very true.
Dean takes Sam into the prepared room and activates the
spell and quickly recaps Sam on what he did, on the possession and a whole lot
angst and shock and anger that Dean would do this without respecting Sam’s
choices – angst later, now they have to evict mystery angel who is up to no
good. Sam is stuck on angst – and punches Dean unconscious and runs out. Or
maybe Gadriel took over and the uncertain spell wasn’t good enough
He goes to Kevin – and Gadriel uses the angel touch on him. Gadriel kills Kevin. Just in time for Dean to catch up and see him fall. Dean tries to help, but Kevin falls dead and Gadriel pins Dean to a wall. Gadriel heard them talking and changed the sigil Dean had to activate, stopping it form working. Gadriel leaves with the tablet while both Sam and Dean practice their best angst faces.
The mid-season finale! So, what of this season so far?
Well that was a pretty epic end to the first half with lots of drama, major
things happening and generally excitingness. I think Supernatural may actually
be pulling itself out of the hole it dug itself. Season 7 was terrible, Season
8 was looking up (poor still, compared
to seasons 4, 5, and 6 – the Golden Age of Supernatural) and season 9 feels
like they’ve got a lot of their mojo back. We had a lot of episodes that were
fillerish – perhaps more filler than was necessary since the show really needed
to get back onto the rails to make up for the last 2 seasons. We’re climbing
out again and I’m actually really hopeful.
What I’m not hopeful about is the inclusion situation:
Dean seems almost to have been getting worse this season
when it comes to women. Last episode with his chasing the celibacy group leader and now he
only remembers April by “she was hot.”? Also, we have a huge attrition rate of
female angels – Muriel appeared, how long did we expect her to last? The
leaders of the factions are male, the archangels we’ve seen are male. Any angel
that has lasted for more than 2 or 3 episodes has pretty much been male except
for Naomi. Then throw in things like Abaddon
and the female hunters (who all seems to be attractive and usually young
while, except for the Winchesters themselves, most male Hunters seem to be
older and grizzled)… We have the odd decent female character – Sheriff Jodie
and Charlie, but they’re one off episodes, filler episodes not the main meta and
they are sometimes highly unusual. Charlie in particular feels like she’s brought in for very
cartoony, almost non-canonical episodes. She’s the Simpsons Hallowe’en special
of Supernatural – she arrives, something ridiculously zany happens, and she leaves.
While she herself isn’t the comic relief, her presence means the episode is. If
Supernatural was a comic series, then Charlie episodes would be the alternate
world #245 where the cannon is all weird and Batman marries Wonder Woman.
And then there’s Kevin. This show has had a painful lack
of major POC for a long time now. It’s actually had a painful lack of anyone
who isn’t a white, straight, cis, able bodied man (yes Bobby was briefly
disabled. Briefly being the operative word). And then we brought in Kevin to be
a tool, to be a resource, to be exploited – he was dragged out whenever he was
useful and when he wasn’t they put him in the plot box never to be seen until
the next time they had use for him.
Do you know what really rubs salt in that? They know. They lampshaded it. Kevin even told them that they treat him as a tool to be exploited. And Dean told him he was family, that he mattered them as much as Castiel, that he was one of them. And I celebrated because it seemed this character was finally going to be a character and due some respect, not some tool they push to the brink of exhaustion in service…
And then Kevin falls into the plot box. The excuses they
find to get rid of him! They send him on a weekend holiday. One episode he’s
absent entirely because of a 3 day hangover (seriously). That whole speech was
nonsense because they STILL treated Kevin as a complete servant who disappeared
entirely when he wasn’t useful – until he came back this episode to die and
cause more Winchester Angst. The Prophet is no longer useful, to the fridge
with you!
I’m glad the season is giving me hints of going back to
how Supernatural used to be in terms of plot and action. But, sadly, it’s doing
the same thing with its minorities as well
