Initial reaction: 12.03 The Foundry
What does this episode's title even mean?
U-verse description: Mary and Lucifer both move forward on their makeovers.
THEN. Saaaaaaaam. BMoL. BAMF Mary. Ectoplasm leaking out of someone's eyes means ghost, and they can take control of a person's body. Poor dead Jen tells not-yet-Lucifered Vince "together, we can heal your sister Wendy," and I have absolutely no memory of this being said in 12.02 so I assume I'm mishearing this. Rick Springfield is old. Crowley tries to melt Lucifer and fails. Mary is unhappy. And we end, again, with Saaaaaaaaaaam.
NOW. A couple of douchey hipsters gripe about avocado toast and I hope they're going to die soon because this guy has a manbun and I really hate manbuns, no matter whose heads they're on (I'm not even giving Jared a pass on this). Luckily they go into an abandoned house because they hear a baby crying and it's only a doll and then the door slams shut and boom. Bye bye hipster douches.
Mary is in the bunker, sadly reading John's journal. Cas shows up because angels don't sleep, they just creep around your house all night. Mary says she's going to try to sleep and says "wish me luck" and Cas does, but it doesn't sound like he's saying luck. It sounds exactly like "fuck." Which doesn't turn out to be relevant (or does it?) but it amuses me. She asks him how long it took to felt like he belonged here, and he is not particularly helpful since he's still not sure he does. She does the patented Winchester mirror soul searching and decides to cut her own hair, because that will fix things. I understand. Who among us hasn't been going through a bad time and thought a new hairstyle might make things better? (I'm not even throwing shade at the use of office scissors, because I can't even telling you many times I've been sitting at work and said "fuck this" and cut my own bangs with my office scissors. I have curly hair that makes it easy to hide a bad haircut. Or at least that's what I tell myself. Don't burst my bubble.)
Let's veer back on track, shall we? The guys are eating breakfast and discussing the BMoL. Sam can't find anything about them in the MoL archives except one old letter, which Dean finds promising until he sees that it is almost completely redacted.
With bonus hand porn
Cas shows up and Dean says "morning sunshine," and Tumblr explodes with Destiel shippers proclaiming that this makes Destiel canon, because apparently they are unaware that this is something jokey people say to you in the morning, as opposed to being an actual term of endearment that Dean has chosen for Cas alone. But it makes them happy so it's all good.
And this is what makes ME happy. The guys look really good. Really, really good.
Cas thinks he has a lead on Lucifer in Cleveland, and he declares that this is his responsibility and he doesn't want the Winchesters as backup (though he promises to call them if it does turn out to be Lucifer). Instead, he says they're needed here. Dean doesn't get it ("what the Hell is that about?"), but Sam does ("Mom"). Sam heard her walking around all night and notices that she seems withdrawn and shaky, but Dean insists this is normal, considering what she's going through. I don't know if this is Dean's "ignore it and it will go away" method of dealing with issues, or if he really has failed to notice or acknowledge that Mary isn't happy. Either way, he's convinced that R&R and "family time" will fix her right up. Because family is the answer to everything.
Mary shows up in a suspiciously chipper mood with a new shorter hairstyle (and I love that it's kind of uneven, as if she really had done it herself), chows down on bacon (causing Dean to note how similar they are), and announces she's found a hunt. The brothers are perplexed and somewhat annoyed, with Sam pointing out that she didn't even want to hunt in the first place, and Dean is all, things change! She's a hunter now, because we're a hunting family and that's what we do! But when Dean calls a "family hunting trip," she's actually reluctant, as if she'd planned to do this on her own. The background music informs us that this is supposed to be amusing, but I'm not feeling it. Especially when Dean tells Sam, "Cas healed your s'mores foot" because it's just another example of minimizing what Sam went through, but let's not go there.
And Sam still looks at her like she's his everything.
On the road. Mary takes shotgun, which makes me sad for some reason. Dean comments on a motorcycle at the gas station, which makes me think we're supposed to notice this and remember it later, but it doesn't come up again. (Or does it?) He educates Mary on the progress made in the field of beef jerky in the last 33 years, and she decides his favorite flavor (chile lime) is tasty, because they're so much alike! And Sam tries to get Dean to turn the radio down (because Sam has better taste in music because bleah, Steppenwolf) but Mary demands otherwise (because she's so much like Dean! they're born to be wild!) and off they go. This is kind of a throwaway scene, but not really, because it shows us where the boys' heads are. Throughout this episode, Sam is so solicitous of Mary and so anxious for her to be happy, and Dean is so anxious for Mary to approve of him and their family and his lifestyle (by approving of his snack food choices), and I just. Dawwwww.
Also, the pretty.
Meanwhile, Cas (no, "Agent Beyonce," for fuck's sake) talks to Vince's brother, who isn't as dead as I thought he was last week. He hasn't heard from Vince, and he's pretty sure Vince wasn't Vince anyway. Enter Crowley, who says "I guess that makes me Agent Jay-Z," and I don't think that's the kind of partnership Cas is going to go for, but I'm sure Tumblr is going to love it.
He still likes his drink with a little pitchfork and your tiniest umbrella, and I will never get tired of that.
Again, the music tells us it was supposed to be amusing, but what's coming up is even funier, because Mary introduces herself to the coroner as Agent Shirley Partridge, with her associates Agent Cassidy and Agent Bonaduce.
They're not exactly in sync. Coincidence?
Maybe you're not old enough to recognize Shirley Patrtride from the TV show "The Partridge Family." Maybe you don't remember that Shirley Partridge was the matriarch of a musical family and two of her sons were played by David Cassidy and Danny Bonaduce. (BTW, Sam is definitely David Cassidy in this scenario.) Maybe you're not old enough to be rolling in nostalgia this season like I am. But I bet you do remember Ruby 1.0, played by Katie Cassidy. Who just happens to be David Cassidy's daughter. (I was a Shaun Cassidy girl myself. Can we get Shaun on the show somehow?)
She tells the coroner that agents Cassidy and Bonaduce are new, even though I think they're actually older than her now. But that's not important. What's important is that the coroner has not released a cause of death because he can't figure out how the victims managed to die of hypothermia in a 65 degree room. Or why they have a frostbitten handprint on their bodies. Or how their hearts were literally ("and I mean literally") frozen.
I think I love you. So what am I so afraid of? I'm afraid that I'm not sure of a love there is no cure for.
Crowley convinces Cas to team up to find Lucifer ("It's been months, months since we last tried to kill each other"), mostly by being persistent and by telling Cas that he found postcards in Vince's room from his sister Wendy. So, wait, that was real? Did poor dead Jen actually tell Vince last week that they were going to "save your sister Wendy?" Am I going to have to go back and watch that again? Or are you guys going to be troopers and do it for me? :)
Oh, and Cas is still driving the stolen truck. What happened to the pimpmobile?
Let's stay on C squared and the B plot for now, rather than sticking with the show's timeline. They show up at a house that must belong to Your Sister Wendy (sorry, that really bugs me; I hate it when dialog is written that way because no one talks that way, and it's lazy because there are other ways to inform us that Wendy is Vince's sister). There's a vehicle with a wheelchair permit sticker. Cas checks his tie and hair in the side mirror of his stolen truck and then informs Your Sister Wendy that he is Agent Beyonce and the man in black is his partner, Agent Z (I would have gone with Agent Cash, but whatever) and for some reason she doesn't shut the door on him until he says he has some questions about her brother. She then calls Her Brother Vince and conveniently mentions he was at her house yesterday. Cas can tell she's been "recently healed," which is confirmed by the unused wheelchair in the corner. Cas tells her that the "thing" that healed her wasn't her brother. That "thing" is an archangel - does this mean Cas considers himself a "thing?" No matter. Crowley works with threats, telling her he can undo the healing, but Cas appeals to hear heart, saying they want to help Your Brother Vince. She tells them Vince was cold and unfriendly and ran off with his "groupie friend" - his redheaded female groupie friend. Huh. Cas is annoyed to find out Rowena is involved, and he actually lays on some sarcasm quite nicely, and Crowley explains that he needs to find her or else she's an extremely powerful witch under Lucifer's power and that's not in anybody's best interest.
Sarcastic Cas is actually very much like Casifer, but less annoying.
Lucifer and Rowena are holed up in Vince's cabin. Well, Lucifer is holed up. Rowena is chained up. His vessel isn't doing well, although it seems to be manifesting as bruises instead of lesions.
Lately something's changed; it ain't hard to define.
He's annoyed at the need to find another vessel, and complains that this one is going Keith Richards on him a lot sooner thn expected. Well, I don't think you're that bad yet. Rowena says she could make this one strong enough to hold him if only she hadn't misplaced the Book of the Damned, which Lucifer does not believe. He's convinced she's got all that knowledge right in her pretty little head.
The next time we see them, he's shirtless, and he actually looks quite a bit better than I would have guessed. She's drawing a "druidic glyph" on his chest in hawthorn ash, claiming that it combines Celtic magic with Book of the Damned magic. I guess it's convenient that there were hawthorn trees at Vince's cabin. She claims it will restore his vessel, but when she activates the spell, it actually accellerates his vessel's decay. "You think Keith Richards is bad? Try Iggy Pop!" Now that's cold. Iggy Pop's 103 years old and still kicking; don't be throwing shade on him. (It's true. Look it up.) As he grays and burns, she tells him she can't destroy him, but she can send him to the bottom of the ocean, and try finding a new vessel there? Then she zaps him out. Huh. Does that mean his next vessel will be a sea creature? Since we're being nostalgic this season, how about Flipper? Or, if he makes it to dry land, what about Shaun Cassidy?
Actually, I'd love to see Tom Petty as Lucifer. I mean, come on.
C squared get to the cabin, prepared to fight Lucifer, and are befuddled to find Rowena calmly sipping tea. She tells them she's not going to help look for him, but if they do get him cornered, she'll help put him away.
Now let's join the Winchesters in the abandoned dead douchebag house. Their EMF meters are going crazy, and Mary finds the room with the crib and the doll. Dean calls her, but before she can leave the room, the door slams shut. Interestingly, she calls Sam first. As the brothers attempt to break the door down, the creepiest little ghost boy touches her on the arm, leaving a familar frostbitten handprint. And we get angry-panicky Dean and concerned-exertion-hair-in-his-face Sam, which is always good.
And Dean says "cool, I had a handprint on my arm too because we're so much alike!!!" (No, not really.)
Clan Winchester regroups at their hotel (with two beds and a rollaway - I wonder who got the rollaway? I bet it was Sam, just like he got the back seat) and we see the brothers furiously typing away. Mary's ready to go talk to the neighbors and visit the police station, but her sons tell her that nobody does that any more (even though that's not true at all; we see these guys talking to neighbors and visiting the police station every week) and that everything can be found on the internets now.
The room divider subtly informs us they're on a co-ed team now.
Mary is disappointed, or disconcerted, or some kind of emotion that starts with dis-, to see how much hunting has changed. And the guys notice it; even Denial!Dean (Deanial?). Her disappointment and disconcertedness are distressing and disturbing. Sam insists they'll teach her how to do this, probably not noticing that she doesn't particularly want to.
It's DIStracting. Sorry. (Not sorry.)
And for the first time, I notice Mary is wearing what appears to be a ring on a chain around her neck. What is it? Dean's old ring, which was supposedly originally Mary's, even though the same ring would never fit both of them? John's old ring, saved before they gave him a hunter's funeral?
Anyway, if she hadn't been so busy being disappointed and distressed, she would have noticed that Sam found files for several missing children, one of whom is the creepy little boy who touched her. Sam thinks their monster is a miling, from Scandinavian lore, although Mary notices the lore doesn't exactly match. She tells them Creepy Boy didn't want to hurt her, he was just scared. But Sam explains that the victims were all lured to their deaths by a baby's cry, and the sad piano music tells us this is emotionally significant, and oh, crap it is. Because Mary Winchester herself was lured to her death by a baby's cry. The brothers decide to salt and burn all the kids, and I'm confused as to whether they think the kids are the victims or the culprits, and then Mary starts having a flashback where she hears Sam cry and hears Creepy Boy say "help me" and she semi-collapses onto the bed. This convinces her sons that she should skip the salting and burning part and relax at the hotel instead. They leave her a cell phone and head out, even though it's broad daylight, to do their thing.
Mary pokes at the cell phone and then picks up the room phone (which is cordless, which you never see in hotels) and calls to get contact information for the house's previous owner (and is not amused when he tries to get her to look it up online, hee). Creepy Boy's mom tells her that he was very cold when she found his body, and describes his appearance so Mary knows he's Creepy Boy in the house. Then says it was nice to have a conversation about her dead son because nobody talks on the phone any more. Mary says "I've noticed," and this is kind of true, but kind of not. Yes, no one talks on the phone much any more. (I got an actual legit call on my landline last night from someone who (a) I knew, and (b) had a bona fide reason to call me, and do you know how often that happens? Less than once a month. Maybe less than every two months. I get tons of calls from people who want me to buy windows or donate to something or remind me about my dentist appointment but never from people who I actually want to talk to. Which is why I keep the landline. It's a lot easier to ignore those calls when they're not on my cell.) But Sam and Dean do a lot of research and interviewing on the phone, so I don't know what she's on her high horse about. Also, as I said earlier, if she'd even looked at Sam's computer screen she would have seen the picture of one of the victims and recognized that he was Creepy Boy.
Coincidentally, Sam and Dean are torching Creepy Boy's bones. Sam says he's worried about Mary, and Dean asks why, because he's Dean. All he cares about is that she's back, and damn, that is so Dean. It doesn't matter that you sold your soul to bring someone back, or that you stuffed an angel into them agains their wishes, or that they're only back because their girlfriend was murdered by a demon. All that matters is that the person you love is still there with you, and the rest can be dealt with later. And he breaks my heart and I want to hug him and say "that's okay, I still love you and I'm not going anywhere." But doesn't even know me and also he's a fictional character, so.
Such a pretty scene.
Sam insists that Mom is not okay, and then we get this:
She's trying to bury herself in hunting to avoid dealing.
And how do you know that?
Years of personal experience.
Oh Saaaaaammmmm!!!!!
Dean, of course, doesn't want to hear this. He needs to believe everyone is okay, or that if they're not okay, they'll shove all of that deep down inside, just like he does. (And honest to Chuck, I feel him so hard on this.)
When they get back to the hotel, Mary is gone, and so is the weapons bag. Well, Mary, I hope your children didn't happen to need any weapons while you were gone. We cut to Mary at the abandoned house, carrying an iron crowbar. She sees Creepy Boy, but instead of whacking at him with iron, she drops her weapons and tells him his mother misses him. He points at a door that's boarded shut, and she rips out the boards and heads down a flight of stairs. The guys call her and tell her to get out of the house. It's like they don't even know her. Creepy Boy says he's still in the house because of "him" and points at a wall. Then things start going crazy and "he" shows up, and it turns out he's Moriarty (heh), the ghost of the father of one of the victims. He starts freezing Mary's heart but Sam and Dean show up just in time to save the day. Except Mary elbows Dean in the face... why would she do that?
We told you in the "Then." Sheesh. Don't you listen?
She slams Sam against the wall and then starts freezing Dean's heart. Instead of coming to help, Sam watches in horror, because otherwise Mary won't get a chance to prove her love by overcoming some kind of possession in order to spare Dean's life. Which she does. She sends Sam to the basement, where he is directed by Creepy Boy to tear down a wall and salt and burn the bones inside. I guess it's a good thing he didn't take the salt and lighter fluid out of his pockets after the cemetary. Mary fights the ghost, and Ghost!Mary fights Dean, and Dean points a gun at her but refuses to shoot, even though it's presumably rock salt. He finally gets an iron chain wrapped around her, and then the bones burn and the ghost burns and Sam runs in and the ghost children's souls get to go to Heaven (or maybe not; who knows where souls are going now) and everyone's okay! A happy ending!
Except.
Back at the bunker, Dean apologizes for not respecting Mary's hunting ability. She tells him that when Moriarty possessed her, she felt what he was thinking. When his child died, he walled himself off, alive in the basement, and starved to death. And then his spirit killed children who moved into that house and it drew strength from them and yeah, I'm pretty sure this is supposed to be a parallel to Mary's life somehow. She tells Dean that she's not okay, and she misses John and she misses her boys and poor sweet Sam says "we're right here" but she doesn't mean this version. She misses her baby Sam and her little boy Dean. "It feels like just yesterday we were together in Heaven, and now they're gone, and John's gone, and every minute I spend with you reminds me of every minute I lost with them."
Well, that's interesting. It's the first time Mary's told us about her Heaven, isn't it? And it apparently confirms that, in your Heaven, you aren't reunited with your lost loved ones. You're reunited with their avatars. Because if she'd been with actual John, she would have known that he was dead. She would likely have known that her sons were hunters - I don't see him keeping that a secret. It's sad, but it's also a nice bit of continuity. John's got his own version of Mary and the boys up there somewhere. Does he realize he's dead? Does he remember Hell? Is someone going to fic this for me? These are important questions.
Mary says she has to go; she needs some time (away from you two who are not my babies, she doesn't add). She turns to Dean and he actually steps back, unable to handle this moment. She tells Sam she loves him and gives him a hug, and he doesn't do the little boy huddle into her shoulder like last time. It's like he's trying to be strong for her (I'm not crying, I just have something in my eye). Then she says "I love you both" and takes John's journal and walks out. Sam turns to watch her but Dean can't even bring himself to look at her, and oh god, this is so sad, and Sam watches her disappear from view and turns to Dean like "this is really happening? you really can't fix this the way you fix everything?" and then the bunker door opens noisily (as it never has before) and Sam flinches and oh god it's even sadder, and then it closes and Dean doesn't react at all and we're out.
I didn't need my heart anyway, you assholes.
So.
Poor Sam. Never got to know his mother, never got to remember her saying "I love you" or even hearing her say his name. And now he gets it but it's never quite okay and then it's gone. And poor Dean, growing up with an idealized vision of his mother, and that's blown away and then his pipe dream of the family that hunts together is blown away and now she's gone. Guys, this sucks.
Albeit in a very good way, because it gives me all of this.
How did she leave, though? Did she take the Impala? Is she going to steal a car? Did she find the pimpmobile parked out back? Did she steal that motorcycle from the gas station?
Bottom line - the case was weird and some things were off but damn, everybody looked good and this scene at the end nearly killed me. I'm calling it a win.
Next week - I have no idea! Don't tell me, please!
U-verse description: Mary and Lucifer both move forward on their makeovers.
THEN. Saaaaaaaam. BMoL. BAMF Mary. Ectoplasm leaking out of someone's eyes means ghost, and they can take control of a person's body. Poor dead Jen tells not-yet-Lucifered Vince "together, we can heal your sister Wendy," and I have absolutely no memory of this being said in 12.02 so I assume I'm mishearing this. Rick Springfield is old. Crowley tries to melt Lucifer and fails. Mary is unhappy. And we end, again, with Saaaaaaaaaaam.
NOW. A couple of douchey hipsters gripe about avocado toast and I hope they're going to die soon because this guy has a manbun and I really hate manbuns, no matter whose heads they're on (I'm not even giving Jared a pass on this). Luckily they go into an abandoned house because they hear a baby crying and it's only a doll and then the door slams shut and boom. Bye bye hipster douches.
Mary is in the bunker, sadly reading John's journal. Cas shows up because angels don't sleep, they just creep around your house all night. Mary says she's going to try to sleep and says "wish me luck" and Cas does, but it doesn't sound like he's saying luck. It sounds exactly like "fuck." Which doesn't turn out to be relevant (or does it?) but it amuses me. She asks him how long it took to felt like he belonged here, and he is not particularly helpful since he's still not sure he does. She does the patented Winchester mirror soul searching and decides to cut her own hair, because that will fix things. I understand. Who among us hasn't been going through a bad time and thought a new hairstyle might make things better? (I'm not even throwing shade at the use of office scissors, because I can't even telling you many times I've been sitting at work and said "fuck this" and cut my own bangs with my office scissors. I have curly hair that makes it easy to hide a bad haircut. Or at least that's what I tell myself. Don't burst my bubble.)
Let's veer back on track, shall we? The guys are eating breakfast and discussing the BMoL. Sam can't find anything about them in the MoL archives except one old letter, which Dean finds promising until he sees that it is almost completely redacted.
With bonus hand porn
Cas shows up and Dean says "morning sunshine," and Tumblr explodes with Destiel shippers proclaiming that this makes Destiel canon, because apparently they are unaware that this is something jokey people say to you in the morning, as opposed to being an actual term of endearment that Dean has chosen for Cas alone. But it makes them happy so it's all good.
And this is what makes ME happy. The guys look really good. Really, really good.
Cas thinks he has a lead on Lucifer in Cleveland, and he declares that this is his responsibility and he doesn't want the Winchesters as backup (though he promises to call them if it does turn out to be Lucifer). Instead, he says they're needed here. Dean doesn't get it ("what the Hell is that about?"), but Sam does ("Mom"). Sam heard her walking around all night and notices that she seems withdrawn and shaky, but Dean insists this is normal, considering what she's going through. I don't know if this is Dean's "ignore it and it will go away" method of dealing with issues, or if he really has failed to notice or acknowledge that Mary isn't happy. Either way, he's convinced that R&R and "family time" will fix her right up. Because family is the answer to everything.
Mary shows up in a suspiciously chipper mood with a new shorter hairstyle (and I love that it's kind of uneven, as if she really had done it herself), chows down on bacon (causing Dean to note how similar they are), and announces she's found a hunt. The brothers are perplexed and somewhat annoyed, with Sam pointing out that she didn't even want to hunt in the first place, and Dean is all, things change! She's a hunter now, because we're a hunting family and that's what we do! But when Dean calls a "family hunting trip," she's actually reluctant, as if she'd planned to do this on her own. The background music informs us that this is supposed to be amusing, but I'm not feeling it. Especially when Dean tells Sam, "Cas healed your s'mores foot" because it's just another example of minimizing what Sam went through, but let's not go there.
And Sam still looks at her like she's his everything.
On the road. Mary takes shotgun, which makes me sad for some reason. Dean comments on a motorcycle at the gas station, which makes me think we're supposed to notice this and remember it later, but it doesn't come up again. (Or does it?) He educates Mary on the progress made in the field of beef jerky in the last 33 years, and she decides his favorite flavor (chile lime) is tasty, because they're so much alike! And Sam tries to get Dean to turn the radio down (because Sam has better taste in music because bleah, Steppenwolf) but Mary demands otherwise (because she's so much like Dean! they're born to be wild!) and off they go. This is kind of a throwaway scene, but not really, because it shows us where the boys' heads are. Throughout this episode, Sam is so solicitous of Mary and so anxious for her to be happy, and Dean is so anxious for Mary to approve of him and their family and his lifestyle (by approving of his snack food choices), and I just. Dawwwww.
Also, the pretty.
Meanwhile, Cas (no, "Agent Beyonce," for fuck's sake) talks to Vince's brother, who isn't as dead as I thought he was last week. He hasn't heard from Vince, and he's pretty sure Vince wasn't Vince anyway. Enter Crowley, who says "I guess that makes me Agent Jay-Z," and I don't think that's the kind of partnership Cas is going to go for, but I'm sure Tumblr is going to love it.
He still likes his drink with a little pitchfork and your tiniest umbrella, and I will never get tired of that.
Again, the music tells us it was supposed to be amusing, but what's coming up is even funier, because Mary introduces herself to the coroner as Agent Shirley Partridge, with her associates Agent Cassidy and Agent Bonaduce.
They're not exactly in sync. Coincidence?
Maybe you're not old enough to recognize Shirley Patrtride from the TV show "The Partridge Family." Maybe you don't remember that Shirley Partridge was the matriarch of a musical family and two of her sons were played by David Cassidy and Danny Bonaduce. (BTW, Sam is definitely David Cassidy in this scenario.) Maybe you're not old enough to be rolling in nostalgia this season like I am. But I bet you do remember Ruby 1.0, played by Katie Cassidy. Who just happens to be David Cassidy's daughter. (I was a Shaun Cassidy girl myself. Can we get Shaun on the show somehow?)
She tells the coroner that agents Cassidy and Bonaduce are new, even though I think they're actually older than her now. But that's not important. What's important is that the coroner has not released a cause of death because he can't figure out how the victims managed to die of hypothermia in a 65 degree room. Or why they have a frostbitten handprint on their bodies. Or how their hearts were literally ("and I mean literally") frozen.
I think I love you. So what am I so afraid of? I'm afraid that I'm not sure of a love there is no cure for.
Crowley convinces Cas to team up to find Lucifer ("It's been months, months since we last tried to kill each other"), mostly by being persistent and by telling Cas that he found postcards in Vince's room from his sister Wendy. So, wait, that was real? Did poor dead Jen actually tell Vince last week that they were going to "save your sister Wendy?" Am I going to have to go back and watch that again? Or are you guys going to be troopers and do it for me? :)
Oh, and Cas is still driving the stolen truck. What happened to the pimpmobile?
Let's stay on C squared and the B plot for now, rather than sticking with the show's timeline. They show up at a house that must belong to Your Sister Wendy (sorry, that really bugs me; I hate it when dialog is written that way because no one talks that way, and it's lazy because there are other ways to inform us that Wendy is Vince's sister). There's a vehicle with a wheelchair permit sticker. Cas checks his tie and hair in the side mirror of his stolen truck and then informs Your Sister Wendy that he is Agent Beyonce and the man in black is his partner, Agent Z (I would have gone with Agent Cash, but whatever) and for some reason she doesn't shut the door on him until he says he has some questions about her brother. She then calls Her Brother Vince and conveniently mentions he was at her house yesterday. Cas can tell she's been "recently healed," which is confirmed by the unused wheelchair in the corner. Cas tells her that the "thing" that healed her wasn't her brother. That "thing" is an archangel - does this mean Cas considers himself a "thing?" No matter. Crowley works with threats, telling her he can undo the healing, but Cas appeals to hear heart, saying they want to help Your Brother Vince. She tells them Vince was cold and unfriendly and ran off with his "groupie friend" - his redheaded female groupie friend. Huh. Cas is annoyed to find out Rowena is involved, and he actually lays on some sarcasm quite nicely, and Crowley explains that he needs to find her or else she's an extremely powerful witch under Lucifer's power and that's not in anybody's best interest.
Sarcastic Cas is actually very much like Casifer, but less annoying.
Lucifer and Rowena are holed up in Vince's cabin. Well, Lucifer is holed up. Rowena is chained up. His vessel isn't doing well, although it seems to be manifesting as bruises instead of lesions.
Lately something's changed; it ain't hard to define.
He's annoyed at the need to find another vessel, and complains that this one is going Keith Richards on him a lot sooner thn expected. Well, I don't think you're that bad yet. Rowena says she could make this one strong enough to hold him if only she hadn't misplaced the Book of the Damned, which Lucifer does not believe. He's convinced she's got all that knowledge right in her pretty little head.
The next time we see them, he's shirtless, and he actually looks quite a bit better than I would have guessed. She's drawing a "druidic glyph" on his chest in hawthorn ash, claiming that it combines Celtic magic with Book of the Damned magic. I guess it's convenient that there were hawthorn trees at Vince's cabin. She claims it will restore his vessel, but when she activates the spell, it actually accellerates his vessel's decay. "You think Keith Richards is bad? Try Iggy Pop!" Now that's cold. Iggy Pop's 103 years old and still kicking; don't be throwing shade on him. (It's true. Look it up.) As he grays and burns, she tells him she can't destroy him, but she can send him to the bottom of the ocean, and try finding a new vessel there? Then she zaps him out. Huh. Does that mean his next vessel will be a sea creature? Since we're being nostalgic this season, how about Flipper? Or, if he makes it to dry land, what about Shaun Cassidy?
Actually, I'd love to see Tom Petty as Lucifer. I mean, come on.
C squared get to the cabin, prepared to fight Lucifer, and are befuddled to find Rowena calmly sipping tea. She tells them she's not going to help look for him, but if they do get him cornered, she'll help put him away.
Now let's join the Winchesters in the abandoned dead douchebag house. Their EMF meters are going crazy, and Mary finds the room with the crib and the doll. Dean calls her, but before she can leave the room, the door slams shut. Interestingly, she calls Sam first. As the brothers attempt to break the door down, the creepiest little ghost boy touches her on the arm, leaving a familar frostbitten handprint. And we get angry-panicky Dean and concerned-exertion-hair-in-his-face Sam, which is always good.
And Dean says "cool, I had a handprint on my arm too because we're so much alike!!!" (No, not really.)
Clan Winchester regroups at their hotel (with two beds and a rollaway - I wonder who got the rollaway? I bet it was Sam, just like he got the back seat) and we see the brothers furiously typing away. Mary's ready to go talk to the neighbors and visit the police station, but her sons tell her that nobody does that any more (even though that's not true at all; we see these guys talking to neighbors and visiting the police station every week) and that everything can be found on the internets now.
The room divider subtly informs us they're on a co-ed team now.
Mary is disappointed, or disconcerted, or some kind of emotion that starts with dis-, to see how much hunting has changed. And the guys notice it; even Denial!Dean (Deanial?). Her disappointment and disconcertedness are distressing and disturbing. Sam insists they'll teach her how to do this, probably not noticing that she doesn't particularly want to.
It's DIStracting. Sorry. (Not sorry.)
And for the first time, I notice Mary is wearing what appears to be a ring on a chain around her neck. What is it? Dean's old ring, which was supposedly originally Mary's, even though the same ring would never fit both of them? John's old ring, saved before they gave him a hunter's funeral?
Anyway, if she hadn't been so busy being disappointed and distressed, she would have noticed that Sam found files for several missing children, one of whom is the creepy little boy who touched her. Sam thinks their monster is a miling, from Scandinavian lore, although Mary notices the lore doesn't exactly match. She tells them Creepy Boy didn't want to hurt her, he was just scared. But Sam explains that the victims were all lured to their deaths by a baby's cry, and the sad piano music tells us this is emotionally significant, and oh, crap it is. Because Mary Winchester herself was lured to her death by a baby's cry. The brothers decide to salt and burn all the kids, and I'm confused as to whether they think the kids are the victims or the culprits, and then Mary starts having a flashback where she hears Sam cry and hears Creepy Boy say "help me" and she semi-collapses onto the bed. This convinces her sons that she should skip the salting and burning part and relax at the hotel instead. They leave her a cell phone and head out, even though it's broad daylight, to do their thing.
Mary pokes at the cell phone and then picks up the room phone (which is cordless, which you never see in hotels) and calls to get contact information for the house's previous owner (and is not amused when he tries to get her to look it up online, hee). Creepy Boy's mom tells her that he was very cold when she found his body, and describes his appearance so Mary knows he's Creepy Boy in the house. Then says it was nice to have a conversation about her dead son because nobody talks on the phone any more. Mary says "I've noticed," and this is kind of true, but kind of not. Yes, no one talks on the phone much any more. (I got an actual legit call on my landline last night from someone who (a) I knew, and (b) had a bona fide reason to call me, and do you know how often that happens? Less than once a month. Maybe less than every two months. I get tons of calls from people who want me to buy windows or donate to something or remind me about my dentist appointment but never from people who I actually want to talk to. Which is why I keep the landline. It's a lot easier to ignore those calls when they're not on my cell.) But Sam and Dean do a lot of research and interviewing on the phone, so I don't know what she's on her high horse about. Also, as I said earlier, if she'd even looked at Sam's computer screen she would have seen the picture of one of the victims and recognized that he was Creepy Boy.
Coincidentally, Sam and Dean are torching Creepy Boy's bones. Sam says he's worried about Mary, and Dean asks why, because he's Dean. All he cares about is that she's back, and damn, that is so Dean. It doesn't matter that you sold your soul to bring someone back, or that you stuffed an angel into them agains their wishes, or that they're only back because their girlfriend was murdered by a demon. All that matters is that the person you love is still there with you, and the rest can be dealt with later. And he breaks my heart and I want to hug him and say "that's okay, I still love you and I'm not going anywhere." But doesn't even know me and also he's a fictional character, so.
Such a pretty scene.
Sam insists that Mom is not okay, and then we get this:
She's trying to bury herself in hunting to avoid dealing.
And how do you know that?
Years of personal experience.
Oh Saaaaaammmmm!!!!!
Dean, of course, doesn't want to hear this. He needs to believe everyone is okay, or that if they're not okay, they'll shove all of that deep down inside, just like he does. (And honest to Chuck, I feel him so hard on this.)
When they get back to the hotel, Mary is gone, and so is the weapons bag. Well, Mary, I hope your children didn't happen to need any weapons while you were gone. We cut to Mary at the abandoned house, carrying an iron crowbar. She sees Creepy Boy, but instead of whacking at him with iron, she drops her weapons and tells him his mother misses him. He points at a door that's boarded shut, and she rips out the boards and heads down a flight of stairs. The guys call her and tell her to get out of the house. It's like they don't even know her. Creepy Boy says he's still in the house because of "him" and points at a wall. Then things start going crazy and "he" shows up, and it turns out he's Moriarty (heh), the ghost of the father of one of the victims. He starts freezing Mary's heart but Sam and Dean show up just in time to save the day. Except Mary elbows Dean in the face... why would she do that?
We told you in the "Then." Sheesh. Don't you listen?
She slams Sam against the wall and then starts freezing Dean's heart. Instead of coming to help, Sam watches in horror, because otherwise Mary won't get a chance to prove her love by overcoming some kind of possession in order to spare Dean's life. Which she does. She sends Sam to the basement, where he is directed by Creepy Boy to tear down a wall and salt and burn the bones inside. I guess it's a good thing he didn't take the salt and lighter fluid out of his pockets after the cemetary. Mary fights the ghost, and Ghost!Mary fights Dean, and Dean points a gun at her but refuses to shoot, even though it's presumably rock salt. He finally gets an iron chain wrapped around her, and then the bones burn and the ghost burns and Sam runs in and the ghost children's souls get to go to Heaven (or maybe not; who knows where souls are going now) and everyone's okay! A happy ending!
Except.
Back at the bunker, Dean apologizes for not respecting Mary's hunting ability. She tells him that when Moriarty possessed her, she felt what he was thinking. When his child died, he walled himself off, alive in the basement, and starved to death. And then his spirit killed children who moved into that house and it drew strength from them and yeah, I'm pretty sure this is supposed to be a parallel to Mary's life somehow. She tells Dean that she's not okay, and she misses John and she misses her boys and poor sweet Sam says "we're right here" but she doesn't mean this version. She misses her baby Sam and her little boy Dean. "It feels like just yesterday we were together in Heaven, and now they're gone, and John's gone, and every minute I spend with you reminds me of every minute I lost with them."
Well, that's interesting. It's the first time Mary's told us about her Heaven, isn't it? And it apparently confirms that, in your Heaven, you aren't reunited with your lost loved ones. You're reunited with their avatars. Because if she'd been with actual John, she would have known that he was dead. She would likely have known that her sons were hunters - I don't see him keeping that a secret. It's sad, but it's also a nice bit of continuity. John's got his own version of Mary and the boys up there somewhere. Does he realize he's dead? Does he remember Hell? Is someone going to fic this for me? These are important questions.
Mary says she has to go; she needs some time (away from you two who are not my babies, she doesn't add). She turns to Dean and he actually steps back, unable to handle this moment. She tells Sam she loves him and gives him a hug, and he doesn't do the little boy huddle into her shoulder like last time. It's like he's trying to be strong for her (I'm not crying, I just have something in my eye). Then she says "I love you both" and takes John's journal and walks out. Sam turns to watch her but Dean can't even bring himself to look at her, and oh god, this is so sad, and Sam watches her disappear from view and turns to Dean like "this is really happening? you really can't fix this the way you fix everything?" and then the bunker door opens noisily (as it never has before) and Sam flinches and oh god it's even sadder, and then it closes and Dean doesn't react at all and we're out.
I didn't need my heart anyway, you assholes.
So.
Poor Sam. Never got to know his mother, never got to remember her saying "I love you" or even hearing her say his name. And now he gets it but it's never quite okay and then it's gone. And poor Dean, growing up with an idealized vision of his mother, and that's blown away and then his pipe dream of the family that hunts together is blown away and now she's gone. Guys, this sucks.
Albeit in a very good way, because it gives me all of this.
How did she leave, though? Did she take the Impala? Is she going to steal a car? Did she find the pimpmobile parked out back? Did she steal that motorcycle from the gas station?
Bottom line - the case was weird and some things were off but damn, everybody looked good and this scene at the end nearly killed me. I'm calling it a win.
Next week - I have no idea! Don't tell me, please!