Picspam Reaction: Supernatural 8.21
Warning: Contains mild profanity.
Spoiler and Theory Summary
Nothing! Or if I did hear anything, I don't remember it.
Same as before, there's a lot of balls in the air and 3 episodes left in the season. They've got to start falling.
Picspam Reaction, with speculation and randomness for Supernatural 8.21 - "???" "The Great Escapist"
[Due to an unforeseen technical glitch (the file I had had a good picture but the sound didn't match up, so I found another version with good audio, but the video is uncappable, so I'm watching the good audio one and pausing, then scrolling to the relevant cap on the good video one), either there will be a lot fewer caps or this will take forever and I will go insane by the end. Especially since the two different viewing programs I'm having to use have the keyboard hot-keys I'm familiar with linked to verrrrry different functions.]
-Skipping through to the NOW, but still see a lot of Castiel and Kevin en route. It looks like it's going to be raining balls tonight!
-Hi Kevin! Post-it note stuck to his face is intriguingly near-comprehensible.
-Hm. He's either back on the boat, or Crowley's making him think he's back on the boat, or he's slipped several cogs and managed to unconsciously side-slip himself out of phase with reality so he never actually left the boat.
(Is that a BC Ferry horn waking him up by the way? It sounds like a BC Ferry horn. *grins*)
-People knocking loudly on the door of your secret hermit hideaway are never a good sign.
-I know you're addled, Kevin, but why would Sam and Dean knock? Don't they usually walk right in? So, this isn't them. Anything that's trying to trick you into opening a door by imitating a trusted voice is extremely bad news. Do not open the door.
-Okay, points for the Super Soaker. Though Dean disputing Kevin using the Super Soaker on him is also a suspicious thing.
-Sam's face though. That much cute is alarming. Hm. He seems to be dry already despite just being sprayed...
-HEEE! Giveaway! "Sam" here is looking up at the warding symbols/demon traps/whatnot no doubt depicted on the ceiling with a look of "OMIGAWD IT LOOKS SO REAL, LOL! LOOKIT ME, CROSSING A DEVIL'S TRAP, WHEE!" like he's walking through a particularly well done Carnival House of Horror. Non-Sam is super adorable so far.
-Riiiiight, Crowley had the other part of the tablet. So now "Sam" and "Dean" are here with a story of how they got it off Crowley, so Kevin can complete the tablet and Crowley can get the Hell codes. Orrrrr, Crowley's swapped out the Hell tablet entirely, Kevin is now working on the Heaven tablet (though I think if they'd got the Heaven tablet off Castiel, we would have seen something about that), and Crowley will be getting Kevin to translate the Heaven codes. Hmmm. Between extended sleep deprivation, bad health, banging his brain against code from the dawn of time etc, plus Crowley's influence, I don't know if Kevin would notice a substitution. But he might. Hmm. Also, again, the cuteness of Non-Sam is off the charts. Non-Dean is displaying a more subdued cuteness and all over more down-to-business attitude. Non-Sam is probably also stoked to be playing the former host of Lucifer as well, so additional giddy cuteness is understandable.
-"So, we diggin' up the other half of that thing or what?" AHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!! Dead giveaway since Kevin's already had the other half, and there's notes about it everywhere. NON-SAM IS ONE OF THOSE MINIONS! Hooray for canon incompetent demonic minions! \o/
-Luckily for them, Kevin is either too out of it to notice, or is plotting something.
-Nice little bubble of reality. Crowley didn't just suck Garth's houseboat down into Hell (not that that wouldn't be an improvement) because it's still topside to muddy the "where's Kevin?" waters for the real boys, so Hell's virtual reality architects are pretty awesome. (Briefly wondering if Non-Sam Demon landed the duty because he was the only one who found a meat-suit comparatively tall enough.)
-"Sam is... more basic." Crowley giving direction on how to play Sam, bwahahahah! Still, completely missing Fake-Sam's telling continuity error.
-Title: "The Great Escapist" ...Houdini?
-"John Winchester's famous 'Cure-All Kitchen Sink Stew'" EEEEEEEEEEEEEE! *flail* An actual Winchester family comfort food that doesn't come from a gas station and was at some point made by John! \o/ Also sick!Sam! Dean cooking and caretaking! Wheeee! \o/\o/\o/
-"Enough cayenne pepper in there to burn your lips of, just like Dad used to make." John Winchester cooks like I do!!! \o/
-"You want me to do the whole airplane thing with the spoon?" *GLEEEEE*
-DEAN BOUGHT A THERMOMETER! SAM'S RUNNING A FEVER! WHEEEE!!! \o/
-"I'm not good." See? Wasn't that easy to say Sam? Now sit your ass down and eat the damn stew. Not eating will not help anything, and the last thing you want is for Dean to have to improvise a glucose drip.
-I'm just going to sit here and flail over all this epic self-sacrifice and taking care of each other the boys are shouting at each other about. *flailflailflail*
-"Those two Trials, they're not just something I did, they did something to me. They're changing me." Yeaaaaah, and that's never been a good thing for Sam, what with the demon blood, and the soullessness, and that stint as Lucifer, and the broken in the brain business after that. Yeah. This is really probably not a reassuring thing for Dean to hear at all, since he's got to be aware of it and making Dean face uncomfortable truths about things happening to members of his family has never been an easy thing.
-Nothing like the missing Prophet you've been looking for dropping you an email to advance the plot. Or confuse it, if the email is actually from Crowley and saying either "I've moved to a more secure location, everything's fine, I'll contact you" or "Cannot cope, off to Mordor." We shall see.
-Or if his email has been hacked and is spamming porn now.
-*squints at search string in background window* Sussex Kearney MI Jeff Bult. Well, if the art department puts it on the screen... *googles* Ah, it's from a previous Supernatural Episode. Jeff Bult was the guy who got killed with a shovel in 8.06 "Southern Comfort" in Kearney, MI by his business partner for running their business called Sussex into the ground. Why they'd be looking him up again now I have no idea, unless they're checking that their old cases haven't had any reports of their involvement? Hm. That could be sensible. Catch police reports of 'Police are looking for two FBI impersonators' before they land in their laps.
-"It'd send itself to you if I didn't reset it with a command once a week." YAAAAAAAAAAAH!!! KEVIN IS A SMART BOY! \o/
-"I'M DEAD YOU BASTARDS! SO SCREW YOU, SCREW GOD AND EVERYBODY IN BETWEEN!" *cackles* You let em have it, Kevin. Even though you aren't dead, you're just trapped in a virtual reality of Crowley's making. Leave the stoic fatalism for people who haven't had their entire lives completely screwed over in the past year or so and then left on a badly-guarded scummy houseboat instead of being brought to a nice safe warded underground bunker the second one became available. Ahem.
-"I'm sorry." Awww, Keviiiiin, wubbie.
-"I know it was my job but I couldn't-" And then Dean has this face. Because Dean understands doing everything possible and a few things that are impossible to get a job done and still having it fail.
-As Dean exits in a storm of self-recriminatory angst and random table clearing, I see this episode was written by Ben Edlund, who has demonstrated an unanticipated facility for tearing hearts out, and directed by Robert Duncan McNeill who was last seen on Supernatural directing the episode 'Skin', and a whole lot of episodes of 'Chuck', oh and apparently he's also the guy who played Tom Paris in Star Trek voyager, which is mind-blowingly random, and also awesome.
-Heh. Five toner cartridges later... And, again, now that they have a home base, they can have things like a real printer/copier/scanner just there, waiting for use. Have I said lately how much I love them having a place where they can be, and can store stuff and have furniture and rooms and things? Has anyone mapped what we know of the Batcave yet? I really hope they don't pull a Roadhouse on it. (Don't tell me, one way or the other.)
-"I know you haven't seen him-" What does Dean say? Gail? Kale? Not Caleb, Caleb died in Season 1.
-Garth is MIA in general, and Sam does have an excellent point about the Prophet activation hoody-hoo. If there's a new one, then they'll know Kevin's dead for sure. Though Dean's face seems to be having an 'oh no you didn't' moment.
-"We should have brought them here." NO, REALLY, YOU THINK SO??? Although the sound on even the good audio one is muddy and Dean could well have been saying "We should have brought the beer" but I'd like to trust that Dean's priorities are less on booze and more on beating himself up with the coulda-shoulda-woulda stick regarding supposedly dead Kevin. Also I TOLD YOU SO. Idjits!
-OH HAI CASTIEL! You look like crap. And you're in a restaurant in New Mexico. Are you remembering to feed your poor beat to crap for the past 4 seasons vessel while on the run with the Angel Tablet?
-Hee! Cas on Coffee. "I remember when you first discovered it, before you started brewing it, just chew the berries. Folk tale is true by the way, you learned it from the goats." This is going to be an interesting shift for this waitress at the *squints* BIGGERSON'S! YAY! Well, in that case at least it might be the kind of interesting that doesn't end in a lot of messy death as it has in so many other Biggerson's over the years.
-Tempura veggies! And WESTERN FAMILY DIJON! Dijon's a bit weird to have just on the table, but then again it's Biggerson's so pure class all the way. Western Family is a sort-of No-name brand that used to be big in Western Canada when I was a kid. It's available in the states too, but whenever I see it on the show it still feels like BC. :-)
-Waitress's day may be more lethal than first assumed. High pitched whine and shaking table sounds like an inbound archangel to me.
-Way to freak the mundanes, Castiel.
-Angelic hit squad tie report: Grey, one with subtle crosshatching, one solid and neutrally unreadable. Someone's on the job, and someone's got a hidden agenda.
-"Ion, tell me you have good news." Hi Naomi. Ion, eh? Run out of biblical angels and people and now moving on to science. I approve of this. An Ion is a non-neutral atom or molecule, either positive or negative. Seems appropriate as he's definitely taken a side, the positivity or negativity of which is in the eye of the beholder. Also there's that tie to consider... *eyes Ion*
-Guy playing Ion looks familiar. Cautious googling tells me his name is Josh Kalender, who hasn't been in anything I've seen, so it could just be he's reminding me of Jake Gyllenhaal for some reason.
-"He's using a clever tactic." AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! QUANTUM JUMPING BETWEEN BIGGERSONS LOCATIONS FOR THE WIN! \o/
-"Then we'll simply have to make. Him. Stop." Did Naomi just declare war on Biggerson's? Might not be terribly subtle, though it wouldn't take too much doing to plant a contamination story and have restaurants start closing down. But I doubt Naomi means anything quite that nice. Regardless I'm thinking this doesn't bode well for Biggerson's.
-If they make it legible, I will try to cap it.
-Hmm. That three-lobed symbol is probably not significant at aaaaaall. Also, it looks very vaguely related to the symbol for radioactivity, and since Sam's been soaking up Trial radiation... Hm...
-"On of my humanities courses at Stanford." Fair enough. *fires up symbols.com* ...no luck.
-"A petro what now?" *headshake* Dean, silly. In your line of work you have to have encountered petroglyphs before. (I thought there were some in Wendigo, but it was in a cut scene and that was a rock painting) I figure Dean's faking stupid because the chances to taunt Sammy about being a college geek have been thin on the ground recently.
-"Closest translation: Messenger of God. *eyeroll*" Hee!
-"I'm only gonna get worse!" Not the best argument to try with Dean.
-"You're not really supposed to say 'Indians' it's... we should go." Well, it's more acknowledgement than that particular issue got in 'Bugs', which is hardly a ringing endorsement, but still something, however small.
-That's the problem. When you're hiding from something big and nasty, you run the risk of endangering people wherever you're hiding, even if that's 250 simultaneous locations in the lower 48 states.
-That waitress has really had the bad sort of 'interesting' day at Biggerson's. *cringing too hard to cap*
-And that's the problem with not being a callous bastard who can leave without trying to help a person who's had their eyes burned out for the express purpose of leaving you a message, just because you used their location as a hiding spot. Not that being a callous bastard would be good for anything but self-preservation.
-Hi Car! Way off in the distance!
-Sam, we've had this talk before. When your head goes funky you need to TELL YOUR BROTHER, not wander off alone.
-"We were supposed to be their shepherds, not their murderers." Yes. Naomi seems to have missed that part of the angel curriculum, though based on some of the other angels we've seen, it appears to have been an elective course and open to broad and often lethal interpretation. :-/
-"How many times have you torn into my head and washed it clean?" Riiiight. Eeek. Okay, this is now very not good because if she can brain drill him again and get him and the tablet, considering what it took to free him last time.... eeeeeeeeeek O.O
-"You're the famous spanner in the works. Honestly I think you came off the line with a crack in your chassis." Several things here. 'Spanner in the works' is a British colloquialism. Second, Naomi using human colloquialisms is vastly disturbing. Third, I bet Castiel doesn't have a clue what she's talking about with all the references, and fourthly... Colloquialisms, and British ones at that? Seems to me like the implication there is she's hanging closer to Crowley than even that one little scene implied. ALL VERY INTERESTING AND REQUIRING PONDERING. In the meantime, have Castiel's angry yet confused face. Angryfused. *nods*
-"In the words of a good friend; Bite me." Heeeeee!
-And now they're going to search all the Biggerson's, which if Castiel is smart he won't have hidden the angel tablet in any of them, but unless the hit squad of Ion and co have learned some subtlety, the entire Biggerson's chain is about to have a tremendously bad day.
-Meanwhile, back at the Hallucinatory Houseboat, yet another clue to Sam and Dean being fake: They're still there, hovering over Kevin. Which is kind of sad, that FakeSam and FakeDean are sort of being more supportive of Kevin than the real ones have been. But in a creepy way.
-HEEE! I really really hope Kevin's sending the Fakes on a complex food run because he's figured them out. Because if you know you're being held prisoner and that your prison guards don't want you to know you're held prisoner, why not get them to go on a search for a probably mythical place that sells barbeque ribs, corn bread and Pad Thai in Manitowoc, MI or Warsaw, MO or wherever the boat was moored.
-"Of course if I wasn't running everything, I could have played Dean myself." ...Can this happen? Just because I now really want to see Jensen playing Crowley playing Dean. XD
-"You remember when Dad took us to the bottom of the Grand Canyon on that pack mule ride?" I thought it was mentioned once that Dean hadn't been to the grand canyon, but aside from that, FIC! THERE MUST BE FIC! John and wee!Sam and wee!Dean all on farting pack mules riding down into the Grand Canyon. Even if it's a misremembered hallucination.
-"You rode a farty donkey." *sneeeeerk*
-"He's like a villain from Scooby-Do." Sam needs to be sick and or drunk more often. XD
-Ahahahah. Yeah. When the Hotel manager of the place your staying has evidently been alive since the 1800's, something might be amiss.
-Sam? When you are gooned out of your mind on Trial radiation (and possibly also a tumbler of vodka) and you are seeing things weird, it's a really bad time to go wandering off alone. Again.
-Sammy the Stealth King. Got to wonder though. If no one has stayed in the hotel since 2006, why is there still some form of housekeeping service? And how is the place still open? And all those normal obvious questions that Sam's not thinking about because his brain's on fire.
-Or maybe it's a postal service. That's even weirder. Unless you're providing stories to the Voice of God.
-Hee! 'Quick Post', 'Fast Trak Shipping', 'Cargo International', and 'DHF'. Sufficiently different to avoid naming actual couriers.
-Aw, they aren't creating the stories they're offering themselves? Seems a bit cheap.
-Oh Sam, Dean is so going to go bananas all over you when he finds you laying on the floor unconscious and in distress.
-It still seems odd that angels and demons fight or interrogate each other by beating their host bodies up. It's like a wrestling match where wrestlers try to tear each other's clothes off. ...Which I guess might be popular too. But still, how does hurting the vessel hurt the angel or demon filling? This needs to be adequately explained in some way.
-"It's not there." Of course it's not.
-All right so that was some form of gun, and was fired from behind him through the throat. Hell of a shot and what gun would that be and who's doing the firing, unless it's Crowley, but he's busy directing and stuff...
-...but not too busy to bust out an angel-killing, what, Ruger? and ventilate some angels to get at Castiel, who the angels have helpfully stopped in a detectible singular location, so Crowley can get the tablet. *headdesk* really, if they'd wanted the tablet protected, they should have let Castiel keep on as he was, so this is very evidently not about protecting the tablet but gaining control of it for Naomi. Who may or may not be in cahoots with Crowley, particularly with using human-based quips and 'spanner in the works'. So maybe the real goal is getting the tablet to Crowley without looking like she's betraying Heaven to the King of Hell. Or not. I have an overblown sense of conspiracy sometimes. *shrug* Regardless, Crowley is a smirky bastard.
-EMERGENCY FEVER ICE BATHS! THIS IS PRACTICALLY H/C FIC! \o/
-"The manager, he was delivering books to him."/"Books?"/"Books! Hardcovers, paperbacks, novels, BOOKS!" Whee! It's fun when they end up working two ends of a case and everything comes together in the middle. Also the dramatic declarations of "BOOKS!" Heee.
-"My R&D department melted down one of your angel blades, cast it into bullets." Sure, okay *handwave* Also Crowley tie report: Shades of grey with indeterminate small squares or circles, and at first glance a bit like lizard skin. Different tie from last time, but still obfuscating, with a hint of snake, which suits him well.
-"We've been here before, haven't we?" Between that and the flirting, their shared backstory is seeming very interesting. I don't know how much of it we'll ever get though, since neither of them will be inclined to share their histories with Sam, Dean, Cas or Kevin. Speaking of Castiel though, I do hope he's using this lovely lack of live and attentive guarding to get the heck out of there.
-And Naomi chickened off to parts unknown. And Biggerson's fine print says about that their All You Can Eat deal that 'Biggerson's management reserves the right to limit portions, and may deny customers this offer. I suppose after the turducken zombie fiasco they had to set some reasonable limits.
-Right, Ion only got grazed in the arm, so maybe Castiel would have had a harder time getting away in the kerfuffle than thought. I suspect poor Ion is about to be neutralized though. (Hee! Get it? Because an ion is a charged particle, not neutral... and.... I'll just move along now, shall I?)
-No. Wait. Oh Ion, you didn't! Oh ho! So that positive or negative charge thing was apt indeed, as was the solid grey hidden agenda tie.
-AAAAAH!!! WHAT?! CASTIEL!
-"Now. Grab him, follow me." This is one of the many reasons why working for hell sucks. They shoot you in the arm and then still expect you to carry the incapacitated prisoner.
-"You guys are right. I do need the other half of the tablet to get the Trial." Hee, hee, heeeee. Kevin's playing the Fakes. Excellent.
-"I will never tell you where I buried the tablet." *facepalm* Well great, now he knows you buried it, which eliminates dropping it in a crevasse or the ocean (or feeding it to a whale) or several other non burial options. So I hope Castiel is lying and didn't actually bury it, or buried it on the dark side of the moon. Or Mars.
-"I've been getting regular updates from my expensive friend here." What look is this? Ooo, is Ion maybe only pretending to have turned on Naomi, but actually is spying on Crowley for Naomi by pretending to work for Crowley? Working for Crowley at this point would hardly have less of a human body count than working for Naomi. This look though. I don't know.
-"If Cas got away from her by touching the tablet, why would he ever stop touching the tablet?" Ah, there's a smart demon. *pats Crowley* And smart angel, though I have a bad feeling this explains why Crowley shot him in the gut.
-Yep. Just not in a whale. Ow ow ow, no, not capping that. Ick.
-Oh hello, Ion. Having second thoughts about switching your polarity?
-AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!! And this is why you don't send idiot minions in to impersonate Winchesters.
-AWWW, MORE WEECHESTER BACKSTORY!!! Dean used to read Sam stories! Love the Metatron for somehow hooking up Sam's vague childhood memories to his narrative generator.
-"I remember thinking I could never go on a quest like that, because... I'm not clean." OH GOD, SAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAM! *flail* How old would he have been? How would he have known about being fed demon blood at six months old, and then what? He locked it away after? AAAAAAAAAAAAH!!! SAM!!!
-Oh god, Dean's faaaaaaaace!!!
-"It doesn't matter anymore, because these Trials, they're purifying me." *blink* Well that's... *blink* I mean damn. That's kind of awesome if true. it's not going to matter too much when the final Trial kills him, or kills Dean, or kills Castiel, or kills Kevin, however temporary the death might be in the end. Or just totally screws up the world again some more. Hm. Sam getting detoxed by the Trials is an interesting possibility. Well then! Although Sam's face at this particular statement is, uh...
-Boys: *walk into room full of towers of stacked books* Me: *commences choking to death while laughing until tears fall* Oh god. See, I just finished marathoning all three series of Black Books recently. Now the Winchesters walk into this room full of stacks of books, and I have a sudden thought of the Metatron being Bernard Black (played by Irish Comedian Dylan Moran). I can just see them come around the corner of one of the stacks and there's Bernard with his hair everywhere, chain smoking and drinking endless bottles of wine, who then curses foully and chases the Winchesters out with a bullhorn and a broom. XD
-Ooof, I need to breathe. Aaaany time now. Okay, I'm good. ...nope. BWAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHHA! XD
-Right! Okay! Getting on with it. *snerk* XD
-Since this evening's Metatron is not being portrayed by Dylan Moran, he's chosen the more traditional rifle to threaten those who invade his book shop. I mean hotel room. Of course.
-"You work for Michael? Or Lucifer?" Ehehehehehe. That's a long and complicated story, but in the end, no.
-"You haven't heard of us? What kind of angel are you? We're the friggin' Winchesters!" AHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAH. When Sam's feeling poorly and being deafened by angelic feedback squeal, Sam has no tact.
-"They've been in all our heads." Ah, Naomi's been busy. I still think it's an overreactive response to free will being seen as a problem after the last big events in Heaven, and as a result they're trying to forcibly remove or suppress it. With power tools. Very bad for team morale, mind control by Dremel. Leads to very distressed double agents.
-"It all matters." What are you doing, Castiel?? Did he hide an angel blade in there too, or a second tablet and Crowley got the decoy? Or is that part of his grace? O.o
-*FACEPALM* OH RIGHT, IT'S THE BULLET. *headdesk* I am slow tonight.
-Game's up and Crowley's pissed. Hope Kevin's ready for it.
-"So, my demons were... too polite?"/"Yeah." *snerking everywhere*
-"You're resonating." OOOOOOO!!! Nifty.
-I don't know exactly why I like the prosaic "secretarial angel" angle so much, but I do.
-Right, so, in SPN 'verse, God built the base code of everything, then left and the Archangels took over, decided to outdo their Dad and take over existence, and Metatron hid away so he couldn't be controlled or used. Kind of noble, even though the Archangels and whoever's running heaven now managed to mess things up pretty good regardless, and he's kept himself out of the loop so he doesn't have a clue what's been happening. Not terribly helpful in the end.
-I suppose trying to get him fully convinced to turn sides again would have taken too long and even then, Ion wouldn't be someone they could trust, having flipped sides so often. Still, shoving an angel bullet in his eye is a bit harsh.
-That said, I kind of hope it doesn't kill him and he shows up again somewhere with an eyepatch. Just because.
-"But really? Really? It was your storytelling. That is the true flower of free will. At least as you've mastered it so far." *grinning* :-)
-And then he goes on about writing being the creation of worlds and I just have to grin some more. Because.
-Sam, you need to stop doing things like this, it is very damaging to the calm of people who care about you. You do have a point, but maybe back down a hair on the drama, hm?
-"You want a story?" I'm sorry, but Dean's face.
-"He's dead now." No he's not, and I'm thinking maybe Metatron can tell you guys that.
-See, he's alive, and smug like a smug thing.
-"And I don't. Need. You!" Yeah, that's the problem, if Crowley figures he doesn't need a smartass Prophet anymore, whether he actually does or not, you'll still get dead.
-ARCHANGEL INCOMING! OR SOMETHING! ARE THERE EVEN ARCHANGELS LEFT? WHOSE SIDE ARE THEY ON? MAYBE IT'S METATRON? I DON'T KNOW, ALL I KNOW IS IT'S BIG AND SHINY AND COMING TO RUIN CROWLEY'S DAY!!!
-HOLY CRAP, WHAT? IS HE LANDING INSIDE KEVIN?
-Well, yay, you've got Kevin. That's terrific. Um. Just a quick question: Where are the tablets?
-Ooo, crap, Kevin was worse off than it seemed. D-:
-"How'd you get past Crowley's angel-warding?"/"I'm the Scribe of God, I erased it." Ooo, that might come in handy in future.
-"You really intend on closing the gates of Hell?"/"Seems like the thing to do, don't it?"/"It's your choice." And then there's this little beardy smirk. You sneaky little celestial. You know something, but you're not going to say, because free will. Suddenly getting Evil Gamemaster vibes here. "Are you sure you want to take that action you're set on taking without checking for traps/calling in reinforcements/summoning a byahkee?"
-"And that's what this has all been about. The choices your kind make. But you're going to have to weigh that choice. Ask yourself what is it going to take to do this, and what will the world be like after it's done." Oh, someone needs to be sat down right now and asked all the frigging questions. Because really, you've got the guy who inscribed and annotated all the tablets, rather than running him through a guilt trip about not protecting the world from his jerkier kin, ask him questions about the bloody tablets.
-Aww, Dean's face.
-Oh hey! Well done, Kevin! \o/
-"I've got it. Third trial." And these are the faces of "Oh crap, there's only two episodes left in the season, we are so screwed."
-"To cure a demon." Way to steal Kevin's thunder, Metatron, you jerk.
-Oh that doesn't look like a trap at all.
-Or it's Castiel! Since the season's about to end, it's time all the eggs got back into the same basket and ready for the inevitable smashing of the finale.
Well! There were certainly a lot of balls flying around in that episode, wasn't there?
(PLEASE NO REFERENCES TO EPISODES PAST 8.21 IN COMMENTS! I'm catching up as fast as I can, but that's not very fast. :-/)
Spoiler and Theory Summary
Nothing! Or if I did hear anything, I don't remember it.
Same as before, there's a lot of balls in the air and 3 episodes left in the season. They've got to start falling.
Picspam Reaction, with speculation and randomness for Supernatural 8.21 - "???" "The Great Escapist"
[Due to an unforeseen technical glitch (the file I had had a good picture but the sound didn't match up, so I found another version with good audio, but the video is uncappable, so I'm watching the good audio one and pausing, then scrolling to the relevant cap on the good video one), either there will be a lot fewer caps or this will take forever and I will go insane by the end. Especially since the two different viewing programs I'm having to use have the keyboard hot-keys I'm familiar with linked to verrrrry different functions.]
-Skipping through to the NOW, but still see a lot of Castiel and Kevin en route. It looks like it's going to be raining balls tonight!
-Hi Kevin! Post-it note stuck to his face is intriguingly near-comprehensible.
-Hm. He's either back on the boat, or Crowley's making him think he's back on the boat, or he's slipped several cogs and managed to unconsciously side-slip himself out of phase with reality so he never actually left the boat.
(Is that a BC Ferry horn waking him up by the way? It sounds like a BC Ferry horn. *grins*)
-People knocking loudly on the door of your secret hermit hideaway are never a good sign.
-I know you're addled, Kevin, but why would Sam and Dean knock? Don't they usually walk right in? So, this isn't them. Anything that's trying to trick you into opening a door by imitating a trusted voice is extremely bad news. Do not open the door.
-Okay, points for the Super Soaker. Though Dean disputing Kevin using the Super Soaker on him is also a suspicious thing.
-Sam's face though. That much cute is alarming. Hm. He seems to be dry already despite just being sprayed...
-HEEE! Giveaway! "Sam" here is looking up at the warding symbols/demon traps/whatnot no doubt depicted on the ceiling with a look of "OMIGAWD IT LOOKS SO REAL, LOL! LOOKIT ME, CROSSING A DEVIL'S TRAP, WHEE!" like he's walking through a particularly well done Carnival House of Horror. Non-Sam is super adorable so far.
-Riiiiight, Crowley had the other part of the tablet. So now "Sam" and "Dean" are here with a story of how they got it off Crowley, so Kevin can complete the tablet and Crowley can get the Hell codes. Orrrrr, Crowley's swapped out the Hell tablet entirely, Kevin is now working on the Heaven tablet (though I think if they'd got the Heaven tablet off Castiel, we would have seen something about that), and Crowley will be getting Kevin to translate the Heaven codes. Hmmm. Between extended sleep deprivation, bad health, banging his brain against code from the dawn of time etc, plus Crowley's influence, I don't know if Kevin would notice a substitution. But he might. Hmm. Also, again, the cuteness of Non-Sam is off the charts. Non-Dean is displaying a more subdued cuteness and all over more down-to-business attitude. Non-Sam is probably also stoked to be playing the former host of Lucifer as well, so additional giddy cuteness is understandable.
-"So, we diggin' up the other half of that thing or what?" AHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!! Dead giveaway since Kevin's already had the other half, and there's notes about it everywhere. NON-SAM IS ONE OF THOSE MINIONS! Hooray for canon incompetent demonic minions! \o/
-Luckily for them, Kevin is either too out of it to notice, or is plotting something.
-Nice little bubble of reality. Crowley didn't just suck Garth's houseboat down into Hell (not that that wouldn't be an improvement) because it's still topside to muddy the "where's Kevin?" waters for the real boys, so Hell's virtual reality architects are pretty awesome. (Briefly wondering if Non-Sam Demon landed the duty because he was the only one who found a meat-suit comparatively tall enough.)
-"Sam is... more basic." Crowley giving direction on how to play Sam, bwahahahah! Still, completely missing Fake-Sam's telling continuity error.
-Title: "The Great Escapist" ...Houdini?
-"John Winchester's famous 'Cure-All Kitchen Sink Stew'" EEEEEEEEEEEEEE! *flail* An actual Winchester family comfort food that doesn't come from a gas station and was at some point made by John! \o/ Also sick!Sam! Dean cooking and caretaking! Wheeee! \o/\o/\o/
-"Enough cayenne pepper in there to burn your lips of, just like Dad used to make." John Winchester cooks like I do!!! \o/
-"You want me to do the whole airplane thing with the spoon?" *GLEEEEE*
-DEAN BOUGHT A THERMOMETER! SAM'S RUNNING A FEVER! WHEEEE!!! \o/
-"I'm not good." See? Wasn't that easy to say Sam? Now sit your ass down and eat the damn stew. Not eating will not help anything, and the last thing you want is for Dean to have to improvise a glucose drip.
-I'm just going to sit here and flail over all this epic self-sacrifice and taking care of each other the boys are shouting at each other about. *flailflailflail*
-"Those two Trials, they're not just something I did, they did something to me. They're changing me." Yeaaaaah, and that's never been a good thing for Sam, what with the demon blood, and the soullessness, and that stint as Lucifer, and the broken in the brain business after that. Yeah. This is really probably not a reassuring thing for Dean to hear at all, since he's got to be aware of it and making Dean face uncomfortable truths about things happening to members of his family has never been an easy thing.
-Nothing like the missing Prophet you've been looking for dropping you an email to advance the plot. Or confuse it, if the email is actually from Crowley and saying either "I've moved to a more secure location, everything's fine, I'll contact you" or "Cannot cope, off to Mordor." We shall see.
-Or if his email has been hacked and is spamming porn now.
-*squints at search string in background window* Sussex Kearney MI Jeff Bult. Well, if the art department puts it on the screen... *googles* Ah, it's from a previous Supernatural Episode. Jeff Bult was the guy who got killed with a shovel in 8.06 "Southern Comfort" in Kearney, MI by his business partner for running their business called Sussex into the ground. Why they'd be looking him up again now I have no idea, unless they're checking that their old cases haven't had any reports of their involvement? Hm. That could be sensible. Catch police reports of 'Police are looking for two FBI impersonators' before they land in their laps.
-"It'd send itself to you if I didn't reset it with a command once a week." YAAAAAAAAAAAH!!! KEVIN IS A SMART BOY! \o/
-"I'M DEAD YOU BASTARDS! SO SCREW YOU, SCREW GOD AND EVERYBODY IN BETWEEN!" *cackles* You let em have it, Kevin. Even though you aren't dead, you're just trapped in a virtual reality of Crowley's making. Leave the stoic fatalism for people who haven't had their entire lives completely screwed over in the past year or so and then left on a badly-guarded scummy houseboat instead of being brought to a nice safe warded underground bunker the second one became available. Ahem.
-"I'm sorry." Awww, Keviiiiin, wubbie.
-"I know it was my job but I couldn't-" And then Dean has this face. Because Dean understands doing everything possible and a few things that are impossible to get a job done and still having it fail.
-As Dean exits in a storm of self-recriminatory angst and random table clearing, I see this episode was written by Ben Edlund, who has demonstrated an unanticipated facility for tearing hearts out, and directed by Robert Duncan McNeill who was last seen on Supernatural directing the episode 'Skin', and a whole lot of episodes of 'Chuck', oh and apparently he's also the guy who played Tom Paris in Star Trek voyager, which is mind-blowingly random, and also awesome.
-Heh. Five toner cartridges later... And, again, now that they have a home base, they can have things like a real printer/copier/scanner just there, waiting for use. Have I said lately how much I love them having a place where they can be, and can store stuff and have furniture and rooms and things? Has anyone mapped what we know of the Batcave yet? I really hope they don't pull a Roadhouse on it. (Don't tell me, one way or the other.)
-"I know you haven't seen him-" What does Dean say? Gail? Kale? Not Caleb, Caleb died in Season 1.
-Garth is MIA in general, and Sam does have an excellent point about the Prophet activation hoody-hoo. If there's a new one, then they'll know Kevin's dead for sure. Though Dean's face seems to be having an 'oh no you didn't' moment.
-"We should have brought them here." NO, REALLY, YOU THINK SO??? Although the sound on even the good audio one is muddy and Dean could well have been saying "We should have brought the beer" but I'd like to trust that Dean's priorities are less on booze and more on beating himself up with the coulda-shoulda-woulda stick regarding supposedly dead Kevin. Also I TOLD YOU SO. Idjits!
-OH HAI CASTIEL! You look like crap. And you're in a restaurant in New Mexico. Are you remembering to feed your poor beat to crap for the past 4 seasons vessel while on the run with the Angel Tablet?
-Hee! Cas on Coffee. "I remember when you first discovered it, before you started brewing it, just chew the berries. Folk tale is true by the way, you learned it from the goats." This is going to be an interesting shift for this waitress at the *squints* BIGGERSON'S! YAY! Well, in that case at least it might be the kind of interesting that doesn't end in a lot of messy death as it has in so many other Biggerson's over the years.
-Tempura veggies! And WESTERN FAMILY DIJON! Dijon's a bit weird to have just on the table, but then again it's Biggerson's so pure class all the way. Western Family is a sort-of No-name brand that used to be big in Western Canada when I was a kid. It's available in the states too, but whenever I see it on the show it still feels like BC. :-)
-Waitress's day may be more lethal than first assumed. High pitched whine and shaking table sounds like an inbound archangel to me.
-Way to freak the mundanes, Castiel.
-Angelic hit squad tie report: Grey, one with subtle crosshatching, one solid and neutrally unreadable. Someone's on the job, and someone's got a hidden agenda.
-"Ion, tell me you have good news." Hi Naomi. Ion, eh? Run out of biblical angels and people and now moving on to science. I approve of this. An Ion is a non-neutral atom or molecule, either positive or negative. Seems appropriate as he's definitely taken a side, the positivity or negativity of which is in the eye of the beholder. Also there's that tie to consider... *eyes Ion*
-Guy playing Ion looks familiar. Cautious googling tells me his name is Josh Kalender, who hasn't been in anything I've seen, so it could just be he's reminding me of Jake Gyllenhaal for some reason.
-"He's using a clever tactic." AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! QUANTUM JUMPING BETWEEN BIGGERSONS LOCATIONS FOR THE WIN! \o/
-"Then we'll simply have to make. Him. Stop." Did Naomi just declare war on Biggerson's? Might not be terribly subtle, though it wouldn't take too much doing to plant a contamination story and have restaurants start closing down. But I doubt Naomi means anything quite that nice. Regardless I'm thinking this doesn't bode well for Biggerson's.
-If they make it legible, I will try to cap it.
-Hmm. That three-lobed symbol is probably not significant at aaaaaall. Also, it looks very vaguely related to the symbol for radioactivity, and since Sam's been soaking up Trial radiation... Hm...
-"On of my humanities courses at Stanford." Fair enough. *fires up symbols.com* ...no luck.
-"A petro what now?" *headshake* Dean, silly. In your line of work you have to have encountered petroglyphs before. (I thought there were some in Wendigo, but it was in a cut scene and that was a rock painting) I figure Dean's faking stupid because the chances to taunt Sammy about being a college geek have been thin on the ground recently.
-"Closest translation: Messenger of God. *eyeroll*" Hee!
-"I'm only gonna get worse!" Not the best argument to try with Dean.
-"You're not really supposed to say 'Indians' it's... we should go." Well, it's more acknowledgement than that particular issue got in 'Bugs', which is hardly a ringing endorsement, but still something, however small.
-That's the problem. When you're hiding from something big and nasty, you run the risk of endangering people wherever you're hiding, even if that's 250 simultaneous locations in the lower 48 states.
-That waitress has really had the bad sort of 'interesting' day at Biggerson's. *cringing too hard to cap*
-And that's the problem with not being a callous bastard who can leave without trying to help a person who's had their eyes burned out for the express purpose of leaving you a message, just because you used their location as a hiding spot. Not that being a callous bastard would be good for anything but self-preservation.
-Hi Car! Way off in the distance!
-Sam, we've had this talk before. When your head goes funky you need to TELL YOUR BROTHER, not wander off alone.
-"We were supposed to be their shepherds, not their murderers." Yes. Naomi seems to have missed that part of the angel curriculum, though based on some of the other angels we've seen, it appears to have been an elective course and open to broad and often lethal interpretation. :-/
-"How many times have you torn into my head and washed it clean?" Riiiight. Eeek. Okay, this is now very not good because if she can brain drill him again and get him and the tablet, considering what it took to free him last time.... eeeeeeeeeek O.O
-"You're the famous spanner in the works. Honestly I think you came off the line with a crack in your chassis." Several things here. 'Spanner in the works' is a British colloquialism. Second, Naomi using human colloquialisms is vastly disturbing. Third, I bet Castiel doesn't have a clue what she's talking about with all the references, and fourthly... Colloquialisms, and British ones at that? Seems to me like the implication there is she's hanging closer to Crowley than even that one little scene implied. ALL VERY INTERESTING AND REQUIRING PONDERING. In the meantime, have Castiel's angry yet confused face. Angryfused. *nods*
-"In the words of a good friend; Bite me." Heeeeee!
-And now they're going to search all the Biggerson's, which if Castiel is smart he won't have hidden the angel tablet in any of them, but unless the hit squad of Ion and co have learned some subtlety, the entire Biggerson's chain is about to have a tremendously bad day.
-Meanwhile, back at the Hallucinatory Houseboat, yet another clue to Sam and Dean being fake: They're still there, hovering over Kevin. Which is kind of sad, that FakeSam and FakeDean are sort of being more supportive of Kevin than the real ones have been. But in a creepy way.
-HEEE! I really really hope Kevin's sending the Fakes on a complex food run because he's figured them out. Because if you know you're being held prisoner and that your prison guards don't want you to know you're held prisoner, why not get them to go on a search for a probably mythical place that sells barbeque ribs, corn bread and Pad Thai in Manitowoc, MI or Warsaw, MO or wherever the boat was moored.
-"Of course if I wasn't running everything, I could have played Dean myself." ...Can this happen? Just because I now really want to see Jensen playing Crowley playing Dean. XD
-"You remember when Dad took us to the bottom of the Grand Canyon on that pack mule ride?" I thought it was mentioned once that Dean hadn't been to the grand canyon, but aside from that, FIC! THERE MUST BE FIC! John and wee!Sam and wee!Dean all on farting pack mules riding down into the Grand Canyon. Even if it's a misremembered hallucination.
-"You rode a farty donkey." *sneeeeerk*
-"He's like a villain from Scooby-Do." Sam needs to be sick and or drunk more often. XD
-Ahahahah. Yeah. When the Hotel manager of the place your staying has evidently been alive since the 1800's, something might be amiss.
-Sam? When you are gooned out of your mind on Trial radiation (and possibly also a tumbler of vodka) and you are seeing things weird, it's a really bad time to go wandering off alone. Again.
-Sammy the Stealth King. Got to wonder though. If no one has stayed in the hotel since 2006, why is there still some form of housekeeping service? And how is the place still open? And all those normal obvious questions that Sam's not thinking about because his brain's on fire.
-Or maybe it's a postal service. That's even weirder. Unless you're providing stories to the Voice of God.
-Hee! 'Quick Post', 'Fast Trak Shipping', 'Cargo International', and 'DHF'. Sufficiently different to avoid naming actual couriers.
-Aw, they aren't creating the stories they're offering themselves? Seems a bit cheap.
-Oh Sam, Dean is so going to go bananas all over you when he finds you laying on the floor unconscious and in distress.
-It still seems odd that angels and demons fight or interrogate each other by beating their host bodies up. It's like a wrestling match where wrestlers try to tear each other's clothes off. ...Which I guess might be popular too. But still, how does hurting the vessel hurt the angel or demon filling? This needs to be adequately explained in some way.
-"It's not there." Of course it's not.
-All right so that was some form of gun, and was fired from behind him through the throat. Hell of a shot and what gun would that be and who's doing the firing, unless it's Crowley, but he's busy directing and stuff...
-...but not too busy to bust out an angel-killing, what, Ruger? and ventilate some angels to get at Castiel, who the angels have helpfully stopped in a detectible singular location, so Crowley can get the tablet. *headdesk* really, if they'd wanted the tablet protected, they should have let Castiel keep on as he was, so this is very evidently not about protecting the tablet but gaining control of it for Naomi. Who may or may not be in cahoots with Crowley, particularly with using human-based quips and 'spanner in the works'. So maybe the real goal is getting the tablet to Crowley without looking like she's betraying Heaven to the King of Hell. Or not. I have an overblown sense of conspiracy sometimes. *shrug* Regardless, Crowley is a smirky bastard.
-EMERGENCY FEVER ICE BATHS! THIS IS PRACTICALLY H/C FIC! \o/
-"The manager, he was delivering books to him."/"Books?"/"Books! Hardcovers, paperbacks, novels, BOOKS!" Whee! It's fun when they end up working two ends of a case and everything comes together in the middle. Also the dramatic declarations of "BOOKS!" Heee.
-"My R&D department melted down one of your angel blades, cast it into bullets." Sure, okay *handwave* Also Crowley tie report: Shades of grey with indeterminate small squares or circles, and at first glance a bit like lizard skin. Different tie from last time, but still obfuscating, with a hint of snake, which suits him well.
-"We've been here before, haven't we?" Between that and the flirting, their shared backstory is seeming very interesting. I don't know how much of it we'll ever get though, since neither of them will be inclined to share their histories with Sam, Dean, Cas or Kevin. Speaking of Castiel though, I do hope he's using this lovely lack of live and attentive guarding to get the heck out of there.
-And Naomi chickened off to parts unknown. And Biggerson's fine print says about that their All You Can Eat deal that 'Biggerson's management reserves the right to limit portions, and may deny customers this offer. I suppose after the turducken zombie fiasco they had to set some reasonable limits.
-Right, Ion only got grazed in the arm, so maybe Castiel would have had a harder time getting away in the kerfuffle than thought. I suspect poor Ion is about to be neutralized though. (Hee! Get it? Because an ion is a charged particle, not neutral... and.... I'll just move along now, shall I?)
-No. Wait. Oh Ion, you didn't! Oh ho! So that positive or negative charge thing was apt indeed, as was the solid grey hidden agenda tie.
-AAAAAH!!! WHAT?! CASTIEL!
-"Now. Grab him, follow me." This is one of the many reasons why working for hell sucks. They shoot you in the arm and then still expect you to carry the incapacitated prisoner.
-"You guys are right. I do need the other half of the tablet to get the Trial." Hee, hee, heeeee. Kevin's playing the Fakes. Excellent.
-"I will never tell you where I buried the tablet." *facepalm* Well great, now he knows you buried it, which eliminates dropping it in a crevasse or the ocean (or feeding it to a whale) or several other non burial options. So I hope Castiel is lying and didn't actually bury it, or buried it on the dark side of the moon. Or Mars.
-"I've been getting regular updates from my expensive friend here." What look is this? Ooo, is Ion maybe only pretending to have turned on Naomi, but actually is spying on Crowley for Naomi by pretending to work for Crowley? Working for Crowley at this point would hardly have less of a human body count than working for Naomi. This look though. I don't know.
-"If Cas got away from her by touching the tablet, why would he ever stop touching the tablet?" Ah, there's a smart demon. *pats Crowley* And smart angel, though I have a bad feeling this explains why Crowley shot him in the gut.
-Yep. Just not in a whale. Ow ow ow, no, not capping that. Ick.
-Oh hello, Ion. Having second thoughts about switching your polarity?
-AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!! And this is why you don't send idiot minions in to impersonate Winchesters.
-AWWW, MORE WEECHESTER BACKSTORY!!! Dean used to read Sam stories! Love the Metatron for somehow hooking up Sam's vague childhood memories to his narrative generator.
-"I remember thinking I could never go on a quest like that, because... I'm not clean." OH GOD, SAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAM! *flail* How old would he have been? How would he have known about being fed demon blood at six months old, and then what? He locked it away after? AAAAAAAAAAAAH!!! SAM!!!
-Oh god, Dean's faaaaaaaace!!!
-"It doesn't matter anymore, because these Trials, they're purifying me." *blink* Well that's... *blink* I mean damn. That's kind of awesome if true. it's not going to matter too much when the final Trial kills him, or kills Dean, or kills Castiel, or kills Kevin, however temporary the death might be in the end. Or just totally screws up the world again some more. Hm. Sam getting detoxed by the Trials is an interesting possibility. Well then! Although Sam's face at this particular statement is, uh...
-Boys: *walk into room full of towers of stacked books* Me: *commences choking to death while laughing until tears fall* Oh god. See, I just finished marathoning all three series of Black Books recently. Now the Winchesters walk into this room full of stacks of books, and I have a sudden thought of the Metatron being Bernard Black (played by Irish Comedian Dylan Moran). I can just see them come around the corner of one of the stacks and there's Bernard with his hair everywhere, chain smoking and drinking endless bottles of wine, who then curses foully and chases the Winchesters out with a bullhorn and a broom. XD
-Ooof, I need to breathe. Aaaany time now. Okay, I'm good. ...nope. BWAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHHA! XD
-Right! Okay! Getting on with it. *snerk* XD
-Since this evening's Metatron is not being portrayed by Dylan Moran, he's chosen the more traditional rifle to threaten those who invade his book shop. I mean hotel room. Of course.
-"You work for Michael? Or Lucifer?" Ehehehehehe. That's a long and complicated story, but in the end, no.
-"You haven't heard of us? What kind of angel are you? We're the friggin' Winchesters!" AHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAH. When Sam's feeling poorly and being deafened by angelic feedback squeal, Sam has no tact.
-"They've been in all our heads." Ah, Naomi's been busy. I still think it's an overreactive response to free will being seen as a problem after the last big events in Heaven, and as a result they're trying to forcibly remove or suppress it. With power tools. Very bad for team morale, mind control by Dremel. Leads to very distressed double agents.
-"It all matters." What are you doing, Castiel?? Did he hide an angel blade in there too, or a second tablet and Crowley got the decoy? Or is that part of his grace? O.o
-*FACEPALM* OH RIGHT, IT'S THE BULLET. *headdesk* I am slow tonight.
-Game's up and Crowley's pissed. Hope Kevin's ready for it.
-"So, my demons were... too polite?"/"Yeah." *snerking everywhere*
-"You're resonating." OOOOOOO!!! Nifty.
-I don't know exactly why I like the prosaic "secretarial angel" angle so much, but I do.
-Right, so, in SPN 'verse, God built the base code of everything, then left and the Archangels took over, decided to outdo their Dad and take over existence, and Metatron hid away so he couldn't be controlled or used. Kind of noble, even though the Archangels and whoever's running heaven now managed to mess things up pretty good regardless, and he's kept himself out of the loop so he doesn't have a clue what's been happening. Not terribly helpful in the end.
-I suppose trying to get him fully convinced to turn sides again would have taken too long and even then, Ion wouldn't be someone they could trust, having flipped sides so often. Still, shoving an angel bullet in his eye is a bit harsh.
-That said, I kind of hope it doesn't kill him and he shows up again somewhere with an eyepatch. Just because.
-"But really? Really? It was your storytelling. That is the true flower of free will. At least as you've mastered it so far." *grinning* :-)
-And then he goes on about writing being the creation of worlds and I just have to grin some more. Because.
-Sam, you need to stop doing things like this, it is very damaging to the calm of people who care about you. You do have a point, but maybe back down a hair on the drama, hm?
-"You want a story?" I'm sorry, but Dean's face.
-"He's dead now." No he's not, and I'm thinking maybe Metatron can tell you guys that.
-See, he's alive, and smug like a smug thing.
-"And I don't. Need. You!" Yeah, that's the problem, if Crowley figures he doesn't need a smartass Prophet anymore, whether he actually does or not, you'll still get dead.
-ARCHANGEL INCOMING! OR SOMETHING! ARE THERE EVEN ARCHANGELS LEFT? WHOSE SIDE ARE THEY ON? MAYBE IT'S METATRON? I DON'T KNOW, ALL I KNOW IS IT'S BIG AND SHINY AND COMING TO RUIN CROWLEY'S DAY!!!
-HOLY CRAP, WHAT? IS HE LANDING INSIDE KEVIN?
-Well, yay, you've got Kevin. That's terrific. Um. Just a quick question: Where are the tablets?
-Ooo, crap, Kevin was worse off than it seemed. D-:
-"How'd you get past Crowley's angel-warding?"/"I'm the Scribe of God, I erased it." Ooo, that might come in handy in future.
-"You really intend on closing the gates of Hell?"/"Seems like the thing to do, don't it?"/"It's your choice." And then there's this little beardy smirk. You sneaky little celestial. You know something, but you're not going to say, because free will. Suddenly getting Evil Gamemaster vibes here. "Are you sure you want to take that action you're set on taking without checking for traps/calling in reinforcements/summoning a byahkee?"
-"And that's what this has all been about. The choices your kind make. But you're going to have to weigh that choice. Ask yourself what is it going to take to do this, and what will the world be like after it's done." Oh, someone needs to be sat down right now and asked all the frigging questions. Because really, you've got the guy who inscribed and annotated all the tablets, rather than running him through a guilt trip about not protecting the world from his jerkier kin, ask him questions about the bloody tablets.
-Aww, Dean's face.
-Oh hey! Well done, Kevin! \o/
-"I've got it. Third trial." And these are the faces of "Oh crap, there's only two episodes left in the season, we are so screwed."
-"To cure a demon." Way to steal Kevin's thunder, Metatron, you jerk.
-Oh that doesn't look like a trap at all.
-Or it's Castiel! Since the season's about to end, it's time all the eggs got back into the same basket and ready for the inevitable smashing of the finale.
Well! There were certainly a lot of balls flying around in that episode, wasn't there?
(PLEASE NO REFERENCES TO EPISODES PAST 8.21 IN COMMENTS! I'm catching up as fast as I can, but that's not very fast. :-/)