We start with one of
the cruellest openers - with the whole gang eating pizza and it’s all family
like and everyone’s mocking Dean for his infinite capacity while Castiel is
aiding and abetting more pizza eating
But it’s all a Sam dream because today is the day they all go through the rift and do a rescue. There are doubts - Rowena in particular isn’t especially sure 24 hours will give them enough time to do all the rescuing but hey it’s the plan they have
Except for Gabriel’s
grace - which begins with a whole masturbation metaphor they all stretch way
way way further and keep running into “performance” and “premature…” when it
turns out Gabriel doesn’t actually have that much grace left, certainly
I’ll admit, yes, I
was amused. This turns into a whole thing with Gabriel and Rowena realising how
hot the other is which really didn’t need all the smoky voiceovers and
saxophone music since Rowena was quite capable of selling it with her eyes
alone. And we’re all Dean with his facial expression when he catches the 300
year old witch and the Archangel at it in the library
With Gabriel’s grace not doing it everyone admits yes they need Lucifer. Which leads to Castiel, Dean and Sam having a big argument and Rowena telling Gabriel it will take some time with the “brohugs, peptalk and the melodrama”. I think at this stage Rowena is just all of us. And awesome.
I think it was
Castiel’s pointing out Lucifer is only free because of them that swung the
balance despite everyone being so afraid of him.
Lucifer is
conveniently drinking himself to oblivion, or trying because alcohol doesn’t do
a whole lot to an Archangel, but Rowena’s spell does. Between that and
Gabriel’s trickster mojo they manage to subdue Lucifer surprisingly easily and
bring him back to the Winchester cave to bleed his grace into a bowl
Constantly - but
leaving Rowena on guard to watch him continually drain grace into a bowl they
get to keep the gate open way way longer than the usual 24 hours. And when they
come out Lucifer will be all graceless and killable.
I’m assuming this is
only possible because of the Archangel Blade because killing Archangels and
Lucifer like this in previous seasons would have made things a lot easier.
Dean, Sam, Castiel
and Gabriel go through the portal and begin their journey (and writers, trying
to make a joke about Gabriel nearly landing face in Castiel’s crotch isn’t
funny. It’s not the 90s any more) - one that is likely to take several days
before they reach Jack and Mary’s rebel camp. Along the way Castiel quietly
tells Gabriel about the state of Heaven, the near extinction of angels et al
and Gabriel seems genuinely shocked and horrified by this. Cas gently suggests
that maybe Gabriel is needed there but he insists that he’s a screw-up, Heaven
wouldn’t want him. Welp, as Castiel points out, all those fine upstanding angel
leaders haven’t exactly done a great job, now, have they?
They also find 2
refugee humans who tell them that the way to the camp is a tunnel full of feral
vampires (with humans in such short supply, creatures that fed on them like
vampires are now starving and become near animal monsters) which they decide
they have to go through because going round is going to take too long.
And they have an
angel and an archangel and really since when are vampires a concern with that
kind of firepower?
Apparently they were
right to because the vampires attack and SAM IS KILLED
He’s like totally dead guys!
And Dean is super
super sad!!!!
And when they get
through to Mary and Jack the reunion all falls because Dean cries a single,
proper manly tear (men don’t sob, men get the single manly tear to use once
every 6 months at most) because SAM IS TOTALLY REALLY DEAD GUYS!
I’m not even going to burrow into the whole idea that they couldn’t possibly fight through to Sam or how the angels were so useless here.
Back to Earth and we
have Rowena and Lucifer. Lucifer first tries to distract her by playing on the
misogynist idea that she’s been left behind while the men go hunting: Rowena
isn’t impressed or moved. She knows bait when she refuses to take it. He next
tries singing really really annoying songs over and over and over and over
again. Rowena is annoyed but doesn’t break
So then he tries to twist the knife with the horrendous traumatic experience of her death. So she hits back - deeper and twistier - with how Sam, Dean and Castiel are going to find Jack and he’s going to greet his fathers - because all three of them are more fathers to Jack than Lucifer is. He’s meaningless, he means nothing to Jack, to anyone
When Rowena twists
the knife she doesn’t pull any punches and she knows all your tender spots.
Unfortunately this
enrages Lucifer and, as we’ve seen before, rage tends to surge his powers and
he manages to break free. It looks like he’ll kill Rowena but she uses magic to
throw him back - through the rift. Oops
With no replenishing
grace she realises the portal will close. So, damn, so sad for the Winchesters
they’re all stranded with the devil, bye…
...except all that
guilt kicks in. She comes back because the new Rowena won’t abandon them. And
she looks for a way to keep the portal open.
In the evil world,
Lucifer snacks on many of Michael’s angels before joining… Sam. Who he saves
from the vampires and brings back to live
Are we shocked?
This moment of
compassion is, of course, self-serving. He’s realised Rowena is right that Jack
does see the Winchesters and Castiel as father figures and if he wants to get
in good with his son he really needs to come with a present: Sam alive and
well.
