Time to cut down
another storyline - Nick, Lucifer’s ex-host, who is now dealing with serial
killer impulses and a desire to get vengeance for his family by finding Abraxas
the demon who killed them. This involves finding various people who are
probably really eager to co-operate with him but he decides to go with
kidnapping threat and torture anyway
Because evil. Oh and
he has an angel blade. Do they mass produce these things?!
But we also have
Dean. Last episode we were told by Billie that there was just one possible way
that Michael doesn’t escape Dean’s head and causes the world to end. Despite a
regular habit of disrupting prophecy and rebuilding reality, Dean accepts this
I approve. This is
very very very much in character. If it were Sam who was facing this certain
horrible death, Dean would end the world first. But since it involves his own
martyrdom and his own self-destructive impulses and lack of self worth, this
makes perfect sense
Speaking of that
unhealthy co-dependence. Dean decides to set that plan in motion by going on a
little road trip to see Mary (staying in Donna’s cabin. Alone as she and Bobby
had a little tiff but mainly because with this very personal emotional time for
Dean I think Bobby-not-Bobby would just really complicate things. The
Pseudo-father-figure-who-isn’t would be awkward). And he wants to go alone. He
also hugs Sam goodbye
Sam is SUSPICIOUS.
Dean does not go places without Sam. He just… doesn’t. That unhealthy
attachment ensures it. Dean also doesn’t hug. Dean doesn’t do emotion like
that. Hugs mean the end of the world. As Sam says. Which kind of annoys me
because I think one of the advantages of having fourteen seasons is that a show
doesn’t need to explain things like that, but hey.
Dean heads to Mary,
dropping in to see Donna, who is always awesome and show have had her own show
like Wayward Sisters and I am NOT OVER THIS.
Donna also notices
Dean is acting… oddly but he continues on to see Mary who, thanks to lots of
phone calls with Sam, knows Something is Up and they do lots of family bonding
and reminiscing while Mary tries to figure out exactly what is happening with
Dean. I like this - I like the dynamic and the recognition that everyone is
deeply worried but also fully away Dean will neither ask for nor accept help.
But the
delicate-do-si-do is interrupted by Nick coming to town - he’s after the last
Hunter who Hunted Abraxas - Mary. Donna stops him and they fight and she wins
because she’s Donna - but then he tases her
And you have no idea
the many many threats I uttered if they killed Donna. Thankfully they didn’t so
i don’t have to go on an unhinged rampage and Donna managed to send a warning
to Dean - but not before Nick manages to kidnap Mary. Somehow
So we have another round of kidnapping and threats to make Mary reveal where Abraxas is and it’s just weird. Because… why? I mean, Mary would probably happily recount everything about imprisoning the demon. And why would he even think she imprisoned him? She’s a hunter. She has an Angel Blade from the giant angel blade storage unit. There’s no reason why Mary not having stabbed Abraxas shouldn’t be believed. It was highly plausible. It has been damn RARE for them not to stab everything with the angel blades.
But in this case she
imprisoned Abraxus in an Enochian puzzle box and left it in a spooky storage
unit full of weird stuff. This box cannot be opened without lots of cunning. Or
a drill. Yes, a drill. A drill. This box seems like a bad idea.
So grabbing a random
person, Nick drops him in a magic circle and releases the demon so they can
have a conversation and he can ask why the demon killed his family. He agrees
to answer if he tortures Mary to death which he clearly intends to (rather than
torture the demon, apparently?) and then Sam, Dean and Donna arrive, the demon
dies and Nick gets shot in the leg
Oh and the demon
killed his family for the sake of Lucifer getting a host and really, anyone
would have done just to add insult to injury.
The main point here
was both to close the storyline and to have Sam and Dean argue about whether
someone is past saving which doesn’t actually make a lot of sense. Yes Sam
wasn’t making a lot of progress helping Nick, but I don’t think either of them
were aware of his descent into serial killing. Sam is protesting that they
can’t just give up on people while Dean is saying they can because some people
can’t be saved when, as far as they both knew, Nick was just a deeply
traumatised and wounded man…
Of course it’s actually a proxy for Dean and his sacrifice - because Mary has found his secret and demands he tells Sam. The solution Billie has provided is to create a kind of magical coffin that will seal him in forever with Michael. And this coffin will then be dropped in the Pacific
Sam is not a fan of
this plan
Dean insists - he
kept it secret from Sam because Sam would talk him out of it. Dean lays out the
rules - either he gets out the way or he helps. Yeah that’s not going to happen
Sam does have a nice
speech about being sorry he couldn’t help Nick - not for him but for all his
victims who died.
