This is another monster of the week episode but a nifty
one as it draws on some old plot lines and continues to peak my interest in one
of the characters who has had some shifts lately
So the bad is a ghost killing teachers based in a museum
which means it’s going to quickly rack up the bodies and quite gruesomely. The
Winchesters drop in and do their investigating thing, looking for the ghosty
artefact to salt and burn
In the museum they find a part of a sunken ship and its
contents – it’s the ship Gavin Macleod was supposed to sail on from Scotland to
the US
Forget who Gavin is? Gavin
is the mortal, human, son of Crowley when he was alive and before he became a
demon. Due to various shenanigans and time travel and other factors, Abaddon
grabbed him from the past before he got on that ship and brought him to the 21st
century and Crowley refused to send him back, saving his life
What Gavin has been doing wandering around the 21st
century despite being several centuries old is a mystery
The Winchesters quickly seize on this and try to get hold
of Gavin – Crowley refuses to help being extremely pissed at the Winchesters
since he’s realised they failed to get Kelly an abortion to stop her giving
birth to the Nephilim of doom – so they turn to Rowena.
These leads to a rather touching meeting between Rowena
and the grandson she never met, securing his co-operation in identifying the
ghost:
He was in love with a woman called Fiona way back when
and she was determined to be with him when he fled to America. She stowed away on
the ship and hid there: except, of course, he wasn’t there. Instead she was a
woman on a ship with a reputation for chasing after a man: the men abused her
and even the female teacher said she deserved it for being a slutwhorejezebel.
In weird Supernatural ghost logic
this turns Fiona into a force for death and torture against all teachers rather
than against all rapists, misogynists or slut shamers (I suppose if she were
the latter there would be less motive to remove her and more motive to send her
amulet on a world tour).
Gavin tries to talk to her, but it’s been well
established on Supernatural that
spirits aren’t really things you can reason with (just look at Bobby‘s
ghostly storyline).
So burn and salt the amulet which is her tether? For plot
reasons the Winchesters decide they can’t because she may randomly be tied to
something else? No real reason for this after all, she snuck onto a ship, it’s
unlikely she’d have a huge number of possessions in that situation and we’ve
only seen the necklace be the haunted object
This is a clumsy plot contrivance for the true solution: Fiona
wouldn’t be a vengeful spirit with unfinished business if Gavin hadn’t leaped
forward in time. They would have died together and, presumably, ascended
heavenward for an afterlife of togetherness (or gone to hell and been recruited
by Crowley, I guess. When you’re dad’s the king of hell death is a somewhat
win/win proposition). In addition everyone Fiona has already murdered would be
alive again
Gavin wants to do that – go back in time and fix the
shenanigans that bringing him forward did. Which seems awfully simplistic – messing
with time is supposed to be a huge big terribad awful taboo for it to be used
simplistically.
Crowley is adamantly against this, losing his son who he
cares for – and it’s only Rowena’s magically freezing him that lets them get
away with it. I think this is the interesting moment of the Crowley family. We
have Rowena, who earlier in the season already made the decision that power isn’t
everything and is seeing that, from both her and her son (two decidedly evil
people) has emerged a grandson who is pretty decent, still has hope and belief
and has found love… I see her wanting to preserve that and you see it in her
emotion. While
Crowley, just an episode ago, risked his life and limb to try and protect the
Winchesters from Remiel is now watching them tear away his son, effectively
killing Gavin. So soon after Crowley’s willingness to sacrifice for them? That’s
going to burn. That’s going to be a huge shift.
Of course, it’s not helped by Rowena revealing another motive
(and I do think it was another motive rather than her sole motive): Crowley
killed Oskar, the son she loved so she killed his son. Simple, nasty
vengeance from the most dysfunctional family ever.
On the back of all this we also have Mary talking to Dean
and Sam about the Men of the Letters and how she’s working with them: Sam and
Dean are Not Happy About This since the Men of Letters tortured them
I think this is heading into a major rift between the
Winchesters and Mary. Her lies and manipulations last episode were, frankly,
inexcusable. And while the Winchesters have ALL THE MUMMY ISSUES watching her
willingness to ally with people who brutally tortured them is shaking that
connection a lot.
Especially since the Men of Letters are also pushing Mary
to put some distance between her and her sons. When you consider that their
bond is actually pretty hollow – sure they’re mother and sons but there’s been
a huge estrangement after her death; exactly how close are they
Over to Crowley, we see he has indeed been
uncharacteristically stupid. He has captured Lucifer. Rather than send Lucifer
back to his cell, he has the devil all chained up so Crowley can lord over him
and be all scathing and superior. Crowley this level of stupidity is beneath
you. It’s only a matter of time before Lucifer escapes – especially with his
son out there
And Kelly, pregnant with Lucifer’s son? Angels nearly
catch her – until Dagon, Prince of Hell, intervenes, easily dispatching the
angels. She acts as protector and guide for Kelly, giving her a new perspective
on the whole heaven & hell thing – saying that it’s all a bit more grey and
not so black and white (other than angels being dicks, this isn’t actually
something we’ve seen a lot of in Supernatural.
Hell and Lucifer are still, well, evil. Ok, god and angels are also, well,
fairly evil. So I guess you’re fucked either way).
The most telling point she has is that baby devil is
still a foetus – and no-one can judge whether they’re going to be good or evil
yet. She also thinks the baby could save them all
Which sounds interesting – except Lucifer apparently
knows what Dagon is doing and is happy about it…
