Initial reaction 15.08: "Our Father, Who Aren't in Heaven"
{sheepishly waves} Late again!
THEN: Well, if you weren't already spoiled (Was there anyone who wasn't? Even I was spoiled), looks like Adam's going to show up, since they're reminding us of his existence. (Oh, look at these beautiful young boys!) Also: Sam is seeing Chuck's endings. Eileen is back. Chuck is weak.
Now: A casino full of dead people. A very, very anxious waitress brings someone a drink with your tiniest umbrella. Oh, it's Chuck. Seems like slots would be a pretty boring game if you always win, and don't need money anyway, but what do I know.
Title card!
We join Eileen right in the middle of a hunt. Is this a vampire? I can't get a good look at his teeth. She jumps out of her hiding place to stab him and almost stabs Sam instead. And I assume they're hunting together, but it turns out that (1) she's hunting on her own, which seems unnecessarily risky for someone who can't hear, and (b) she didn't even leave a note. And she's annoyed that Sam tailed her, calling him a little bit overprotective. Now, if he truly did tail her, instead of saying "you need some help?" then yeah, I'd be annoyed too. But I also wouldn't be foolhardy enough to hunt possibly-vampires on my own, particularly when I have access to the two best hunters in America, so.
Next we see them in the bunker. Eileen is chowing down on a burger, and Sam's eating a salad. And this is a Buckleming episode, so we're going to be grateful for any tiny nuggets we get from the Continuity Fairy. Dean enters and announces he has "the answer to all our problems." The demon tablet. Ha, I forgot they had that thing. They explain to Eileen that the tablet has instructions on sealing angels and demons away if they were going to overrun Earth. Dean theorizes that there would be no need for such instructions if Chuck were truly untouchable (and also makes an awkward dick joke, hi Buckleming), and therefore, he must not be untouchable.
So he has an Achilles' heel.
Well, I'm saying he has a weak spot.
NO. THIS IS STUPID. Dean knows what an Achilles' heel is. Dean has used the term. {shakes angry fist at Buckleming}
Sam is annoyed as I am at the suggestion that Dean doesn't know what an Achilles' heel is.
Eileen asks if they can read the tablet, and Dean says "no, but I've got that handled." And friends, I was definitely not on my game when I watched this (I'm coming down with a cold; I'll blame that) because we see Cas banging on a door and I thought, Kevin? Is he trying to get Kevin? Because I had covered the guest credits, as I always do, I was quite unreasonably surprised to see Donatello. Surprised and delighted, because I love this little mensch. Donatello doesn't answer, but Cas goes to the window and sees him peeping outside. Oh, Donatello, you are a smart man. Stay away from this. It cannot end well for you.
Bunker. TFW explains their plan to Donatello - to lock Chuck up just like Amara was locked up - and he (being a smart man) points out that the last time this happened, it took the power of God. And do they have the power of God? "One step at a time," Sam says. "Hey, guys," Donatello says, "when I go crazy again, just shoot me." Told you he's a smart man.
Because this is a Buckleming episode, we get a little forced jocularity where everyone watches him work while trying not to look like they're watching him work. Finally he discovers something interesting: Metatron's notes.
"The Almighty guards his secret fear, but it is always there."
Fear of what?
"Fear of what, I do not know. This he shares only with his favorite."
Cas says Michael would have been Chuck's favorite at the time, and Sam thinks the archangel might know how to lock Chuck up, if he helped lock up Amara. Cas doubts he'd help them, but Dean thinks he might be ready for some revenge against dear old Dad. Problem solved, says Donatello! Well, no, and Cas explains that Michael was possessing Sam and Dean's half brother, while Sam was Lucifer's vessel, and they were all in the cage in Hell, and Sam looks uncomfortable. "What is it with you people?" Donatello shouts. "Can't anything you do be easy! I mean -" Then he slumps into his chair. Stroke? No. He's channeling Chuck. "Prophets speak the word of God. Sometimes indirectly. Sometimes kinda like Bluetooth." He warns them to let it go. "Or I go all-powerful. Maybe not on you. Not right away. But let's see, there's... Jody. Donna. Eileen. Pretty much everybody on your speed dial." Well, yeah, that is pretty much everybody on their speed dial. And I'm not okay with any of these ladies being threatened.
Neither are the guys.
TFW dismisses Donatello, who is very, very happy to leave. (Sidebar: TFW assumes Chuck only heard what Donatello heard. Why don't they suspect that Chuck, since he's God, can hear them all the time? Discuss.) Cas seems to think they should back off to keep their friends safe. But the Winchesters know Chuck's going to kill every friend they have at some time anyway, just to make them suffer, so the only way to save them is to take care of Chuck. They also theorize that maybe Michael isn't insane after all, since the sources of that information are known liars: Lucifer and Chuck. (Sidebar: Why would Lucifer and Chuck come up with the same lie, though? Discuss.) Dean snidely tells Cas that if he doesn't want to go to Hell and talk to Michael, he should just stay here, even though Cas didn't say he wouldn't do it, he was just pointing out the pretty major flaws in this plan. But remember, Dean is still really mad at Cas. I mean, Dean is holding onto this grudge longer than he did when Cas literally broke Sam's brain, but okay.
We see Cas watching from across the room (and Eileen watching from much closer) as Sam assembles the ingredients a spell. So, they've got a spell to get into Hell, then? Wow. That would have been handy 9 or 10 years ago. Sam apparently doesn't need to bleed into the bowl, but Dean does. Cas then volunteers to heal his hand. It's more difficult than it used to be. Cas says the spell is "exactly the spell Rowena used, just... without Rowena." And I assume this is the spell she used when she yanked Lucifer out of the cage and into Cage 2.0 in Limbo. (Spoiler alert: I assume wrong.) We get a flash of sadness and/or anxiety from Sam at the mention of Rowena. Then he reads something non-English. Cas drops a match into the bowl, everybody places their hands on it, a breeze kicks up (niiiice), there's a bright light, and then TFW vanishes.
I'm gonna thank Speight for this.
They appear in one of the cheesier versions of Hell. Actually, this must be where Cas and Belphegor (Belphegar? Balphegor? Blephapod? I've already forgotten) had their fight. I really hate that Hell is no worse than an abandoned warehouse full of vampires to both Sam and Dean. I need some PTSD here, folks. I need some kind of reaction. I mean, not just because I like it (though you KNOW I like it) but because it's what would happen. This place would be DISTURBING to those guys.
(Also, I need Hell to look less cheesy.)
(Or maybe I just need to learn to manage my expectations.)
Carrying on. TFW pulls out their angel blades and then encounters three female demons. They get the crap pretty much beaten out of them. At one point Dean cries out "are any of us winning," which I guess is funny, but it's also the kind of thing that yanks me right out of the story. (According to Tumblr, this was actually Jensen's idea? Sorry, Jensen. Still not a fan.) But just as the guys are beaten, a female voice yells "Stop!" and the demons release them. AND DOES THAT FEMALE VOICE HAVE A SCOTTISH ACCENT??? YES IT DOES!!!
"Hello, boys," says ROWENA, THE NEW QUEEN OF HELL, backed up by a line of beefy guys in black T-shirts. She looks fantastic, by the way. TFW is stunned.
Rowena, we thought you were dead.
Oh I am, dear. Pretty much everyone here is.
So Rowena strolled into Hell and took that throne like the Queen she is, y'all. And one of the best things about this is that when Sam said, last season, that there would be no new King of Hell, ever? HE WAS RIGHT.
They tell her they need Michael's help to lock up God, and she calls him "the out-of-his-head archangel," and since she's talked to neither Lucifer nor Chuck, one has to wonder where she got that information, if it's a lie. But she says it doesn't matter, because when Chuck opened the hole into Hell, all the doors opened, including the cage. So there's no telling where he is. He might not even be in Hell at all.
But guys. GUYS. SAM'S HAIR IN THIS SCENE. I don't know whether to thank Speight or Baby Jesus, but between Queen Rowena and Sam's messy post-fight hair, this scene is an absolute gift.
Merry Christmas to me!
Rowena's all, nothing I can do, but then she looks at Samuel and his FUCKING HAIR and nods and says to her minions, "Did you not hear the man? FIND HIM!!!"
Because how could she say no to THIS?
Bunker. Eileen, apparently tending the spell, gets a call on her laptop. It's a call from a hunter friend named Sue who didn't expect her to answer because she'd heard she was dead. I mean, that's who I'd call if I needed help on a vamp hunt in Omaha - someone who I thought was dead. Eileen gives the spell a glance and I think oh, no, she's going to abandon the spell and the guys and everything's going to go wrong and good god, Eileen, even Rowena didn't do that. But she doesn't. She tells Sue she's in the middle of something, but might be able to help later. And then tosses some more potpourri into the flaming bowl.
Hell. Rowena is seated elegantly on her throne, with TFW perched on low stools below her. Sam starts to apologize for killing her, and she tells him it was the best thing that ever happened to her. Yes, there are things she misses about being alive, like the fact that Amazon doesn't deliver to Hell (why would they deliver to their own distribution center?), but she enjoys being revered and feared as Queen of Hell. And then she asks Samuel to refill her drink. And while I love Sam being adorably flustered at this interaction, I really needed more depth. More guilt from him. More pain and regret. (I'll remind you all again that you knew what you were getting into when you decided to read this review.) But it's a Buckleming episode so we're going with "funny" instead. This is our cross to bear.
Even more annoying is that Rowena feels like she needs to patch up the "wee tiff" she detects between Dean and Cas. Because one day you die, and you can't make those things right. "So fix it," she demands. I'm not appreciating the heavy hand here, mostly because I really don't care at all about the wee tiff between Dean and Cas, and I can only presume they're trying so hard to make me care because Cas is going to end up dead and I need to feel Dean's regret. Good luck with that, Show. All I care about right here and now is that Rowena calls Sam "my dove" when he returns with her drink.
A minion enters and announces Michael is nowhere in Hell. "Then where is he," Sam asks, triggering a segue to a restaurant called Jaci's Red Wagon. I'm sure this is a nod to someone or something, but I don't know what. We see Adam Milligan Winchester himself, looking hale and hearty (and having aged well), being served a burger. A voice says "you know that stuff will kill you, right?" but Adam, having been dead(ish?) for many years, declares it worth it. "Michael," he says, "I haven't seen a burger in ten years." Oh, so Michael and Adam are separate now? Dare I hope Insane Archangel Michael is actually played by Matt Cohen? Dare I?
Eh. Dare all you want, sweetheart, it ain't happening.
No, you're right. Archangel Michael is also played by Jake Abel. Oh well. "Go for it, kid," he says, indulgently. Adam expositions for us that he doesn't need to eat (so presumably he is still dead? or is it because he's an angel vessel?), but it just tastes so good. (Not like molecules?) And Michael explains for us that he wouldn't know, because he doesn't know much about all this new fangled Earth type stuff, but Adam will be his guide. He disappears when a waitress brings pizza, which shows us no one else can see him - they're not actually separate after all.
So, it looks like Michael and Adam have a pretty good relationship. Which I guess is okay. I mean, we all love the fics where Michael's as bad as Lucifer, and angry and crazy, and takes it out on Adam, except when Sam's there to save him and sacrifice himself in his little brother's place, I know we all love that version of Michael -
What do you mean "we all?" Don't paint us all with your sick little brush.
Fine. Whatever. Some of us love that. But some are probably relieved that innocent bystander Adam spent ten years (not millenia, apparently?) in the company of someone who was neither sadistic nor insane. Adam asks Michael if he's going back to Heaven, which you'd think would have come up earlier, but Michael says no. His brothers are dead, his father is gone, and he's alone. Same here, says Adam. He denies considering the Winchesters his brothers. "I met them once, and they let me rot in Hell." Fair enough, I suppose, though they did try to talk you out of the act that put you there in the first place. These two decide that family sucks, and given their experience with their families, it's hard to argue.
Bunker. I guess it's pretty easy to get out of Hell nowadays. (Remember when Hell was a big deal? Good times.) Dean calls Donatello and asks if he's felt anything "big" lately, but he hasn't. And Sam's research hasn't detected anything archangely either. Then Dean sits down and starts talking about Eileen, and what a great job she's doing (yeah, she resisted the temptation to abandon you while you were in Hell; good job.) He asks Sam if she's doing okay, and Sam says he "guesses." Because "if she needs something from me, she'll tell me; we have an agreement." Dean thinks calling it an "agreement" is adorable. He then alludes to his recent mood (Cas-related, presumably, ugh) and says that he "tried the family thing," in a way that says (in my not so humble opinion) that it didn't work for him but it would work for Sam. Sam jumps in and says he did too, and "it's not for us." Dean ignores this and pushes on, and tells Sam that she gets the life and she's hot, and if it worked with anybody, it would work with Eileen. Great, thanks, Dean. You just condemned her. She'll be dead before the end of the season. And he's not really listening when Sam makes it very, very nonverbally clear that this isn't happening. It's actually fairly close to something I said on Tumblr, which makes me happy (and confirms my suspicion that SOMEONE is FOLLOWING ME. Hello, whoever you are, and can we have more of messy-haired Sam in what remains of this season? Smooches.) Dean's all, happy for ya, good talk, and Sam's all, ha ha this is SO NOT HAPPENING BECAUSE HAVE YOU MAYBE NOT NOTICED HOW MESSED UP THINGS ARE. But we know how Dean likes to ignore an ice cold dose of reality sometimes. It's one of the reasons why we love him.
How does someone with so much sadness have so many smiley eye crinkles?
Meanwhile, back at the diner, Adam's thinking about the future, and this future definitely includes "an archangel inside of me." He's interrupted by a surprise visitor - it's Lilith! Oh, you sassy little demon. I adore you. She tells Michael that God sent her to fetch him. He says God can come talk to him, but he's not going anywhere with her. And when she insists, he BURNS HER. Dammit. I hoped she'd stay around a bit. He then gives all of the horrified witnesses in the diner the Men in Black treatment, making them forget what they saw.
Donatello senses Michael's power surge and calls Dean. He reports that Michael is "hurtling all over" but finally stops in Cairo. Cas is skulking in the background and overhears this conversation, and when Dean says they won't be able to get to Michael before he flies the coop again, Cas says they'll just bring him here.
We interrupt this recap to point out that Dean's awfully pretty here.
Cas prays to Michael. "We didn't know each other very well, and our last meeting was... unpleasant." Hee! He tells him Heaven and Earth and God have all changed, and God is now the enemy. Cas is elsewhere (yet another abandoned warehouse, I presume) when Michael does actually show up.
Thank you for coming. You remembered me?
You called me ass-butt and set me on fire. And then you helped send me to Hell.
Yes, Cas, you are memorable. Michael is not at all interested in helping Cas fight God, and refuses to believe his father is the enemy. Cas is prepared - he lights the circle of holy oil surrounding the archangel, and then the Winchesters appear from the wings (no pun intended), emerging dramatically from the plastic strip curtain door. Dean holds up the magic handcuffs. Okay, but somebody's still gotta get inside the ring of holy fire, with the angry archangel, and get those on him.
We don't see that happen. Our next shot is in the bunker, with a successfully cuffed Michael saying "Even for you, especially for you, this is stupid." Isn't that a line from "Swan Song?" Or at least a callout to a line? "Sam," he says. "You look well. Last time I saw you in the cage -" Sam's looking at the floor until Michael says this, but now he looks up at him and quickly says "Yeah, it doesn't matter." It's subtle, as are all of Jared's little ways of showing how Sam feels about his memories of Hell.
Sam goes all soft and pleading and asks for Michael's help, but he's still not interested. "You're asking me to trust you. You, who doomed me," he says to Sam. Then he turns to Dean. "You, who let Lucifer walk free while your own brother sat in Hell." And I have a confession to make... I thought wait, I can't think of a time when Lucifer was out and Sam was still in the cage. Because I FORGOT ABOUT ADAM. EVEN WHEN HE'S RIGHT HERE IN FRONT OF ME. ON THE SCREEN. AND MICHAEL IS TALKING ABOUT HIM. Oh god. I am so ashamed.
Sam and his pretty, pretty profile explain that they've had to get used to losing people. "With Adam, we said goodbye because we thought we had to. We were wrong." Dean keeps very very quiet, but is possibly thinking well, I did have a choice, but we all knew who I was going to pick.
"Well, don't tell me," Michael says. "Tell him." Then he does the glowy blue eyes and lets Adam come forward. And let me say that Jake here does a damn fine job of playing the two different characters. Adam greets his brothers a little nervously. Dean is stunned.
Michael lets you talk? He lets you... be?
Uh, yeah. In the cage, we came to an agreement. We only had each other.
Adam, look. I know we bailed on you, okay, and there is nothing that we can say to fix that.
How about... I'm sorry?
Another agreement! Is it a theme? Michael, annoyed, takes back control. I don't know if Dean would have apologized if Michael had kept Adam in front, but I think not. He looked annoyed that Adam even asked. I think he would have said something along the lines of we did what we had to do, yada yada yada. Anyway. Adam demands to know why he's here, and Cas explains that God is back. Michael thinks that means Paradise is coming, but Dean says no, he wants to be entertained, and he likes some postapocalyptic H/C. Light on the C. Michael is sure they're lying. He sends Adam to the front again, and Adam suggests they give it a rest.
I'd help you, Sam. I'd do anything for you.
Next we see Adam and Michael talking. Adam suspects the brothers are not actually lying. He doesn't forgive them, but he knows how they work. Michael doesn't even want to ask if the Winchesters could be telling the truth about his father, because asking means doubt, and he is the good son who doesn't doubt. "You still care about that? Even after he left you in the cage?" Adam asks. Hmmm. I wasn't prepared for Adam and Michael to have a healthy relationship, but I kinda like it. I particularly like Michael looking out for Adam.
Elsewhere in the bunker, Eileen's hunter buddy Sue is asking for that "maybe later" help. When Eileen hesitates, Sue snarkily asks if she has to "ask for permission." Well, that's it, then. Someone sure knows how to push Eileen's buttons. Sue sends her coordinates and then gets attacked on camera. Oooh, Sue, I hope you've got help closer than Lebanon, because that's 3.5 hours away.
Eileen knocks on Sam's door, as per their agreement, and tells him about her buddy who needs help 3.5 hours away. Sam decides this is an excellent time to leave the bunker, since nothing else is going on. Well, I mean, his roommates from Hell (literally) are here, so I can understand him wanting to be anyplace else. He grabs his bag, which is already packed and sitting by the door. The little boy scout.
Cas has another conversation with Michael, telling the archangel he pities him because he was never actually God's favorite. He was just a bit player. And Lucifer knew God couldn't be trusted. "I guess he was the smart one." Michael responds by pouncing on Cas and choking him (begging the question of whether an angel needs to breathe, which seems as unnecessary as a ghost breathing, blah blah blah), but Cas grabs Michael's head and shows him s14 Chuck happily admitting to being a liar and enjoying the drama he'd scripted out - which would include his "favorite" son being trapped in the cage, wouldn't it?
Kitchen. Cas is sitting alone in the semi-darkness. Dean comes in and says maybe Cas went too fast, because Michael's been on lockdown for a while.
What's he doing now?
No idea. He was very distraught.
Yeah, but what exactly did he say?
Leave, get out, I want you dead. We didn't bond.
Hee! Cas asks about Sam, and Dean tells him he's off on a case with Eileen, but won't be gone long. Well, at least 7 hours travel time. Then the bunker starts shaking. Apparently it's caused by Michael's anger. They go wherever they stashed him, which is a location I do not recognize. "God lied to me," he says. "I gave everything for him. I loved him. Why? I'm not even the only Michael."
Cut to a parking garage. Eileen is driving, because Sam is destined to be a passenger in every way, his whole life. Sue's truck is abandoned with the door open. Sam shines a flashlight in it and seems confused that there's no sign of the person attacked by vampires at least 3.5 hours ago.
It's okay, sweetie. I like your confused face.
"She says she saw vampires here?" he asks. "It looks empty." Before Eileen can say "well, that was 3.5 hours ago," someone emerges from the shadows. "Look again," says Sue. Or the vampire who used to be Sue, because that was an OMINOUS entrance there.
Eileen, somehow, doesn't get it. (Thanks, Buckleming!) Wouldn't it be obvious to ANY HUNTER that this isn't Sue? That your friends don't lurk in the shadows waiting for the best moment to make their super creepy and ominous Big Entrance? But Eileen says "Sue, you're okay, thank God."
Turns out I was wrong about Sue being a vampire, but not about her being evil, because she transforms into Chuck. "Any time," he says. Sam does the anxious swallow, and none of you should be surprised that I like anxious Sam as much as confused Sam.
Which is to say, very much indeed.
Bunker. Michael tells Cas and Dean he's ready to help them. "What was done to the Darkness can be done to God, if he's as weak as you say. And I know how." He's already written out a spell, which (as all spells do, nowadays) only requires a few simple ingredients. No archangel grace or virgin's heart or anything like that. Oh, but there's a twist - they also need the nectar of a leviathan blossom, which is a flower that only grows in Purgatory. How inconvenient. And other than that, it's so improbably easy. Didn't Donatello just tell us, minutes ago, that it took the power of God? Wouldn't the whole so-difficult-to-lock-up-the-Darkness plot suggest that locating one inconvenient flower wasn't the major stumbling block? Wasn't this trick supposed to be a Really Big Deal?
{sigh}
Michael snaps his fingers and opens a fiery portal, which is also much easier than we'd been led to believe, and begs the question of whether all archangels could snap their fingers and open a portal, and can they access anything other than Purgatory, but asking such questions will put us on dangerous ground in terms of canon, folks, so let's just close our ears and move forward. Michael tells them the portal will be open for 12 hours and asks that they remove his cuffs. Dean asks if he's going with them, but he declines. "Before you go," Dean says, and I'm pretty sure he's going to say "can you tell me what this flower looks like," because DUH, but he doesn't. He asks to talk to Adam.
Adam comes forward, and it's interesting that seems to have been listening the whole time, because he just says "yeah?" expectantly and not "oh, wait, I'm not handcuffed any more, and there's a big fiery hole torn in the air, what's going on?" Dean says "Adam, I want you to know, we are sorry. What happened to you.. you're a good man. You didn't deserve that." Adam looks down, a little teary. "Since when do we get what we deserve?" He wishes them good look and he's gone. Man, no one says goodbye to Sam, do they?
So, this is our midseason cliffhanger ending. Dean and Cas are heading out on a quest without a Field Guide to the Flowers of Purgatory. Oooh, I wonder if they'll get over their wee tiff? I hope they wrote a note telling Sam what they're up to. Sam and Eileen are facing off against Chuck. And I'm left here looking a gift horse in the mouth. Because I wanted Sam and Eileen together, and now that I have it, I'm not happy with it. I'll have to unpack that later. I did get Rowena, Queen of Hell, with her awesome Frozen-inspired hair, having Sam bring her a drink and calling him my dove, so let's just think about the good things, friends, and try to forget about the bad.
And this. I got this. (GIF stolen from jarpadxmasjensens on Tumblr)
No spoilers in the comments, please!
THEN: Well, if you weren't already spoiled (Was there anyone who wasn't? Even I was spoiled), looks like Adam's going to show up, since they're reminding us of his existence. (Oh, look at these beautiful young boys!) Also: Sam is seeing Chuck's endings. Eileen is back. Chuck is weak.
Now: A casino full of dead people. A very, very anxious waitress brings someone a drink with your tiniest umbrella. Oh, it's Chuck. Seems like slots would be a pretty boring game if you always win, and don't need money anyway, but what do I know.
Title card!
We join Eileen right in the middle of a hunt. Is this a vampire? I can't get a good look at his teeth. She jumps out of her hiding place to stab him and almost stabs Sam instead. And I assume they're hunting together, but it turns out that (1) she's hunting on her own, which seems unnecessarily risky for someone who can't hear, and (b) she didn't even leave a note. And she's annoyed that Sam tailed her, calling him a little bit overprotective. Now, if he truly did tail her, instead of saying "you need some help?" then yeah, I'd be annoyed too. But I also wouldn't be foolhardy enough to hunt possibly-vampires on my own, particularly when I have access to the two best hunters in America, so.
Next we see them in the bunker. Eileen is chowing down on a burger, and Sam's eating a salad. And this is a Buckleming episode, so we're going to be grateful for any tiny nuggets we get from the Continuity Fairy. Dean enters and announces he has "the answer to all our problems." The demon tablet. Ha, I forgot they had that thing. They explain to Eileen that the tablet has instructions on sealing angels and demons away if they were going to overrun Earth. Dean theorizes that there would be no need for such instructions if Chuck were truly untouchable (and also makes an awkward dick joke, hi Buckleming), and therefore, he must not be untouchable.
So he has an Achilles' heel.
Well, I'm saying he has a weak spot.
NO. THIS IS STUPID. Dean knows what an Achilles' heel is. Dean has used the term. {shakes angry fist at Buckleming}
Sam is annoyed as I am at the suggestion that Dean doesn't know what an Achilles' heel is.
Eileen asks if they can read the tablet, and Dean says "no, but I've got that handled." And friends, I was definitely not on my game when I watched this (I'm coming down with a cold; I'll blame that) because we see Cas banging on a door and I thought, Kevin? Is he trying to get Kevin? Because I had covered the guest credits, as I always do, I was quite unreasonably surprised to see Donatello. Surprised and delighted, because I love this little mensch. Donatello doesn't answer, but Cas goes to the window and sees him peeping outside. Oh, Donatello, you are a smart man. Stay away from this. It cannot end well for you.
Bunker. TFW explains their plan to Donatello - to lock Chuck up just like Amara was locked up - and he (being a smart man) points out that the last time this happened, it took the power of God. And do they have the power of God? "One step at a time," Sam says. "Hey, guys," Donatello says, "when I go crazy again, just shoot me." Told you he's a smart man.
Because this is a Buckleming episode, we get a little forced jocularity where everyone watches him work while trying not to look like they're watching him work. Finally he discovers something interesting: Metatron's notes.
"The Almighty guards his secret fear, but it is always there."
Fear of what?
"Fear of what, I do not know. This he shares only with his favorite."
Cas says Michael would have been Chuck's favorite at the time, and Sam thinks the archangel might know how to lock Chuck up, if he helped lock up Amara. Cas doubts he'd help them, but Dean thinks he might be ready for some revenge against dear old Dad. Problem solved, says Donatello! Well, no, and Cas explains that Michael was possessing Sam and Dean's half brother, while Sam was Lucifer's vessel, and they were all in the cage in Hell, and Sam looks uncomfortable. "What is it with you people?" Donatello shouts. "Can't anything you do be easy! I mean -" Then he slumps into his chair. Stroke? No. He's channeling Chuck. "Prophets speak the word of God. Sometimes indirectly. Sometimes kinda like Bluetooth." He warns them to let it go. "Or I go all-powerful. Maybe not on you. Not right away. But let's see, there's... Jody. Donna. Eileen. Pretty much everybody on your speed dial." Well, yeah, that is pretty much everybody on their speed dial. And I'm not okay with any of these ladies being threatened.
Neither are the guys.
TFW dismisses Donatello, who is very, very happy to leave. (Sidebar: TFW assumes Chuck only heard what Donatello heard. Why don't they suspect that Chuck, since he's God, can hear them all the time? Discuss.) Cas seems to think they should back off to keep their friends safe. But the Winchesters know Chuck's going to kill every friend they have at some time anyway, just to make them suffer, so the only way to save them is to take care of Chuck. They also theorize that maybe Michael isn't insane after all, since the sources of that information are known liars: Lucifer and Chuck. (Sidebar: Why would Lucifer and Chuck come up with the same lie, though? Discuss.) Dean snidely tells Cas that if he doesn't want to go to Hell and talk to Michael, he should just stay here, even though Cas didn't say he wouldn't do it, he was just pointing out the pretty major flaws in this plan. But remember, Dean is still really mad at Cas. I mean, Dean is holding onto this grudge longer than he did when Cas literally broke Sam's brain, but okay.
We see Cas watching from across the room (and Eileen watching from much closer) as Sam assembles the ingredients a spell. So, they've got a spell to get into Hell, then? Wow. That would have been handy 9 or 10 years ago. Sam apparently doesn't need to bleed into the bowl, but Dean does. Cas then volunteers to heal his hand. It's more difficult than it used to be. Cas says the spell is "exactly the spell Rowena used, just... without Rowena." And I assume this is the spell she used when she yanked Lucifer out of the cage and into Cage 2.0 in Limbo. (Spoiler alert: I assume wrong.) We get a flash of sadness and/or anxiety from Sam at the mention of Rowena. Then he reads something non-English. Cas drops a match into the bowl, everybody places their hands on it, a breeze kicks up (niiiice), there's a bright light, and then TFW vanishes.
I'm gonna thank Speight for this.
They appear in one of the cheesier versions of Hell. Actually, this must be where Cas and Belphegor (Belphegar? Balphegor? Blephapod? I've already forgotten) had their fight. I really hate that Hell is no worse than an abandoned warehouse full of vampires to both Sam and Dean. I need some PTSD here, folks. I need some kind of reaction. I mean, not just because I like it (though you KNOW I like it) but because it's what would happen. This place would be DISTURBING to those guys.
(Also, I need Hell to look less cheesy.)
(Or maybe I just need to learn to manage my expectations.)
Carrying on. TFW pulls out their angel blades and then encounters three female demons. They get the crap pretty much beaten out of them. At one point Dean cries out "are any of us winning," which I guess is funny, but it's also the kind of thing that yanks me right out of the story. (According to Tumblr, this was actually Jensen's idea? Sorry, Jensen. Still not a fan.) But just as the guys are beaten, a female voice yells "Stop!" and the demons release them. AND DOES THAT FEMALE VOICE HAVE A SCOTTISH ACCENT??? YES IT DOES!!!
"Hello, boys," says ROWENA, THE NEW QUEEN OF HELL, backed up by a line of beefy guys in black T-shirts. She looks fantastic, by the way. TFW is stunned.
Rowena, we thought you were dead.
Oh I am, dear. Pretty much everyone here is.
So Rowena strolled into Hell and took that throne like the Queen she is, y'all. And one of the best things about this is that when Sam said, last season, that there would be no new King of Hell, ever? HE WAS RIGHT.
They tell her they need Michael's help to lock up God, and she calls him "the out-of-his-head archangel," and since she's talked to neither Lucifer nor Chuck, one has to wonder where she got that information, if it's a lie. But she says it doesn't matter, because when Chuck opened the hole into Hell, all the doors opened, including the cage. So there's no telling where he is. He might not even be in Hell at all.
But guys. GUYS. SAM'S HAIR IN THIS SCENE. I don't know whether to thank Speight or Baby Jesus, but between Queen Rowena and Sam's messy post-fight hair, this scene is an absolute gift.
Merry Christmas to me!
Rowena's all, nothing I can do, but then she looks at Samuel and his FUCKING HAIR and nods and says to her minions, "Did you not hear the man? FIND HIM!!!"
Because how could she say no to THIS?
Bunker. Eileen, apparently tending the spell, gets a call on her laptop. It's a call from a hunter friend named Sue who didn't expect her to answer because she'd heard she was dead. I mean, that's who I'd call if I needed help on a vamp hunt in Omaha - someone who I thought was dead. Eileen gives the spell a glance and I think oh, no, she's going to abandon the spell and the guys and everything's going to go wrong and good god, Eileen, even Rowena didn't do that. But she doesn't. She tells Sue she's in the middle of something, but might be able to help later. And then tosses some more potpourri into the flaming bowl.
Hell. Rowena is seated elegantly on her throne, with TFW perched on low stools below her. Sam starts to apologize for killing her, and she tells him it was the best thing that ever happened to her. Yes, there are things she misses about being alive, like the fact that Amazon doesn't deliver to Hell (why would they deliver to their own distribution center?), but she enjoys being revered and feared as Queen of Hell. And then she asks Samuel to refill her drink. And while I love Sam being adorably flustered at this interaction, I really needed more depth. More guilt from him. More pain and regret. (I'll remind you all again that you knew what you were getting into when you decided to read this review.) But it's a Buckleming episode so we're going with "funny" instead. This is our cross to bear.
Even more annoying is that Rowena feels like she needs to patch up the "wee tiff" she detects between Dean and Cas. Because one day you die, and you can't make those things right. "So fix it," she demands. I'm not appreciating the heavy hand here, mostly because I really don't care at all about the wee tiff between Dean and Cas, and I can only presume they're trying so hard to make me care because Cas is going to end up dead and I need to feel Dean's regret. Good luck with that, Show. All I care about right here and now is that Rowena calls Sam "my dove" when he returns with her drink.
A minion enters and announces Michael is nowhere in Hell. "Then where is he," Sam asks, triggering a segue to a restaurant called Jaci's Red Wagon. I'm sure this is a nod to someone or something, but I don't know what. We see Adam Milligan Winchester himself, looking hale and hearty (and having aged well), being served a burger. A voice says "you know that stuff will kill you, right?" but Adam, having been dead(ish?) for many years, declares it worth it. "Michael," he says, "I haven't seen a burger in ten years." Oh, so Michael and Adam are separate now? Dare I hope Insane Archangel Michael is actually played by Matt Cohen? Dare I?
Eh. Dare all you want, sweetheart, it ain't happening.
No, you're right. Archangel Michael is also played by Jake Abel. Oh well. "Go for it, kid," he says, indulgently. Adam expositions for us that he doesn't need to eat (so presumably he is still dead? or is it because he's an angel vessel?), but it just tastes so good. (Not like molecules?) And Michael explains for us that he wouldn't know, because he doesn't know much about all this new fangled Earth type stuff, but Adam will be his guide. He disappears when a waitress brings pizza, which shows us no one else can see him - they're not actually separate after all.
So, it looks like Michael and Adam have a pretty good relationship. Which I guess is okay. I mean, we all love the fics where Michael's as bad as Lucifer, and angry and crazy, and takes it out on Adam, except when Sam's there to save him and sacrifice himself in his little brother's place, I know we all love that version of Michael -
What do you mean "we all?" Don't paint us all with your sick little brush.
Fine. Whatever. Some of us love that. But some are probably relieved that innocent bystander Adam spent ten years (not millenia, apparently?) in the company of someone who was neither sadistic nor insane. Adam asks Michael if he's going back to Heaven, which you'd think would have come up earlier, but Michael says no. His brothers are dead, his father is gone, and he's alone. Same here, says Adam. He denies considering the Winchesters his brothers. "I met them once, and they let me rot in Hell." Fair enough, I suppose, though they did try to talk you out of the act that put you there in the first place. These two decide that family sucks, and given their experience with their families, it's hard to argue.
Bunker. I guess it's pretty easy to get out of Hell nowadays. (Remember when Hell was a big deal? Good times.) Dean calls Donatello and asks if he's felt anything "big" lately, but he hasn't. And Sam's research hasn't detected anything archangely either. Then Dean sits down and starts talking about Eileen, and what a great job she's doing (yeah, she resisted the temptation to abandon you while you were in Hell; good job.) He asks Sam if she's doing okay, and Sam says he "guesses." Because "if she needs something from me, she'll tell me; we have an agreement." Dean thinks calling it an "agreement" is adorable. He then alludes to his recent mood (Cas-related, presumably, ugh) and says that he "tried the family thing," in a way that says (in my not so humble opinion) that it didn't work for him but it would work for Sam. Sam jumps in and says he did too, and "it's not for us." Dean ignores this and pushes on, and tells Sam that she gets the life and she's hot, and if it worked with anybody, it would work with Eileen. Great, thanks, Dean. You just condemned her. She'll be dead before the end of the season. And he's not really listening when Sam makes it very, very nonverbally clear that this isn't happening. It's actually fairly close to something I said on Tumblr, which makes me happy (and confirms my suspicion that SOMEONE is FOLLOWING ME. Hello, whoever you are, and can we have more of messy-haired Sam in what remains of this season? Smooches.) Dean's all, happy for ya, good talk, and Sam's all, ha ha this is SO NOT HAPPENING BECAUSE HAVE YOU MAYBE NOT NOTICED HOW MESSED UP THINGS ARE. But we know how Dean likes to ignore an ice cold dose of reality sometimes. It's one of the reasons why we love him.
How does someone with so much sadness have so many smiley eye crinkles?
Meanwhile, back at the diner, Adam's thinking about the future, and this future definitely includes "an archangel inside of me." He's interrupted by a surprise visitor - it's Lilith! Oh, you sassy little demon. I adore you. She tells Michael that God sent her to fetch him. He says God can come talk to him, but he's not going anywhere with her. And when she insists, he BURNS HER. Dammit. I hoped she'd stay around a bit. He then gives all of the horrified witnesses in the diner the Men in Black treatment, making them forget what they saw.
Donatello senses Michael's power surge and calls Dean. He reports that Michael is "hurtling all over" but finally stops in Cairo. Cas is skulking in the background and overhears this conversation, and when Dean says they won't be able to get to Michael before he flies the coop again, Cas says they'll just bring him here.
We interrupt this recap to point out that Dean's awfully pretty here.
Cas prays to Michael. "We didn't know each other very well, and our last meeting was... unpleasant." Hee! He tells him Heaven and Earth and God have all changed, and God is now the enemy. Cas is elsewhere (yet another abandoned warehouse, I presume) when Michael does actually show up.
Thank you for coming. You remembered me?
You called me ass-butt and set me on fire. And then you helped send me to Hell.
Yes, Cas, you are memorable. Michael is not at all interested in helping Cas fight God, and refuses to believe his father is the enemy. Cas is prepared - he lights the circle of holy oil surrounding the archangel, and then the Winchesters appear from the wings (no pun intended), emerging dramatically from the plastic strip curtain door. Dean holds up the magic handcuffs. Okay, but somebody's still gotta get inside the ring of holy fire, with the angry archangel, and get those on him.
We don't see that happen. Our next shot is in the bunker, with a successfully cuffed Michael saying "Even for you, especially for you, this is stupid." Isn't that a line from "Swan Song?" Or at least a callout to a line? "Sam," he says. "You look well. Last time I saw you in the cage -" Sam's looking at the floor until Michael says this, but now he looks up at him and quickly says "Yeah, it doesn't matter." It's subtle, as are all of Jared's little ways of showing how Sam feels about his memories of Hell.
Sam goes all soft and pleading and asks for Michael's help, but he's still not interested. "You're asking me to trust you. You, who doomed me," he says to Sam. Then he turns to Dean. "You, who let Lucifer walk free while your own brother sat in Hell." And I have a confession to make... I thought wait, I can't think of a time when Lucifer was out and Sam was still in the cage. Because I FORGOT ABOUT ADAM. EVEN WHEN HE'S RIGHT HERE IN FRONT OF ME. ON THE SCREEN. AND MICHAEL IS TALKING ABOUT HIM. Oh god. I am so ashamed.
Sam and his pretty, pretty profile explain that they've had to get used to losing people. "With Adam, we said goodbye because we thought we had to. We were wrong." Dean keeps very very quiet, but is possibly thinking well, I did have a choice, but we all knew who I was going to pick.
"Well, don't tell me," Michael says. "Tell him." Then he does the glowy blue eyes and lets Adam come forward. And let me say that Jake here does a damn fine job of playing the two different characters. Adam greets his brothers a little nervously. Dean is stunned.
Michael lets you talk? He lets you... be?
Uh, yeah. In the cage, we came to an agreement. We only had each other.
Adam, look. I know we bailed on you, okay, and there is nothing that we can say to fix that.
How about... I'm sorry?
Another agreement! Is it a theme? Michael, annoyed, takes back control. I don't know if Dean would have apologized if Michael had kept Adam in front, but I think not. He looked annoyed that Adam even asked. I think he would have said something along the lines of we did what we had to do, yada yada yada. Anyway. Adam demands to know why he's here, and Cas explains that God is back. Michael thinks that means Paradise is coming, but Dean says no, he wants to be entertained, and he likes some postapocalyptic H/C. Light on the C. Michael is sure they're lying. He sends Adam to the front again, and Adam suggests they give it a rest.
I'd help you, Sam. I'd do anything for you.
Next we see Adam and Michael talking. Adam suspects the brothers are not actually lying. He doesn't forgive them, but he knows how they work. Michael doesn't even want to ask if the Winchesters could be telling the truth about his father, because asking means doubt, and he is the good son who doesn't doubt. "You still care about that? Even after he left you in the cage?" Adam asks. Hmmm. I wasn't prepared for Adam and Michael to have a healthy relationship, but I kinda like it. I particularly like Michael looking out for Adam.
Elsewhere in the bunker, Eileen's hunter buddy Sue is asking for that "maybe later" help. When Eileen hesitates, Sue snarkily asks if she has to "ask for permission." Well, that's it, then. Someone sure knows how to push Eileen's buttons. Sue sends her coordinates and then gets attacked on camera. Oooh, Sue, I hope you've got help closer than Lebanon, because that's 3.5 hours away.
Eileen knocks on Sam's door, as per their agreement, and tells him about her buddy who needs help 3.5 hours away. Sam decides this is an excellent time to leave the bunker, since nothing else is going on. Well, I mean, his roommates from Hell (literally) are here, so I can understand him wanting to be anyplace else. He grabs his bag, which is already packed and sitting by the door. The little boy scout.
Cas has another conversation with Michael, telling the archangel he pities him because he was never actually God's favorite. He was just a bit player. And Lucifer knew God couldn't be trusted. "I guess he was the smart one." Michael responds by pouncing on Cas and choking him (begging the question of whether an angel needs to breathe, which seems as unnecessary as a ghost breathing, blah blah blah), but Cas grabs Michael's head and shows him s14 Chuck happily admitting to being a liar and enjoying the drama he'd scripted out - which would include his "favorite" son being trapped in the cage, wouldn't it?
Kitchen. Cas is sitting alone in the semi-darkness. Dean comes in and says maybe Cas went too fast, because Michael's been on lockdown for a while.
What's he doing now?
No idea. He was very distraught.
Yeah, but what exactly did he say?
Leave, get out, I want you dead. We didn't bond.
Hee! Cas asks about Sam, and Dean tells him he's off on a case with Eileen, but won't be gone long. Well, at least 7 hours travel time. Then the bunker starts shaking. Apparently it's caused by Michael's anger. They go wherever they stashed him, which is a location I do not recognize. "God lied to me," he says. "I gave everything for him. I loved him. Why? I'm not even the only Michael."
Cut to a parking garage. Eileen is driving, because Sam is destined to be a passenger in every way, his whole life. Sue's truck is abandoned with the door open. Sam shines a flashlight in it and seems confused that there's no sign of the person attacked by vampires at least 3.5 hours ago.
It's okay, sweetie. I like your confused face.
"She says she saw vampires here?" he asks. "It looks empty." Before Eileen can say "well, that was 3.5 hours ago," someone emerges from the shadows. "Look again," says Sue. Or the vampire who used to be Sue, because that was an OMINOUS entrance there.
Eileen, somehow, doesn't get it. (Thanks, Buckleming!) Wouldn't it be obvious to ANY HUNTER that this isn't Sue? That your friends don't lurk in the shadows waiting for the best moment to make their super creepy and ominous Big Entrance? But Eileen says "Sue, you're okay, thank God."
Turns out I was wrong about Sue being a vampire, but not about her being evil, because she transforms into Chuck. "Any time," he says. Sam does the anxious swallow, and none of you should be surprised that I like anxious Sam as much as confused Sam.
Which is to say, very much indeed.
Bunker. Michael tells Cas and Dean he's ready to help them. "What was done to the Darkness can be done to God, if he's as weak as you say. And I know how." He's already written out a spell, which (as all spells do, nowadays) only requires a few simple ingredients. No archangel grace or virgin's heart or anything like that. Oh, but there's a twist - they also need the nectar of a leviathan blossom, which is a flower that only grows in Purgatory. How inconvenient. And other than that, it's so improbably easy. Didn't Donatello just tell us, minutes ago, that it took the power of God? Wouldn't the whole so-difficult-to-lock-up-the-Darkness plot suggest that locating one inconvenient flower wasn't the major stumbling block? Wasn't this trick supposed to be a Really Big Deal?
{sigh}
Michael snaps his fingers and opens a fiery portal, which is also much easier than we'd been led to believe, and begs the question of whether all archangels could snap their fingers and open a portal, and can they access anything other than Purgatory, but asking such questions will put us on dangerous ground in terms of canon, folks, so let's just close our ears and move forward. Michael tells them the portal will be open for 12 hours and asks that they remove his cuffs. Dean asks if he's going with them, but he declines. "Before you go," Dean says, and I'm pretty sure he's going to say "can you tell me what this flower looks like," because DUH, but he doesn't. He asks to talk to Adam.
Adam comes forward, and it's interesting that seems to have been listening the whole time, because he just says "yeah?" expectantly and not "oh, wait, I'm not handcuffed any more, and there's a big fiery hole torn in the air, what's going on?" Dean says "Adam, I want you to know, we are sorry. What happened to you.. you're a good man. You didn't deserve that." Adam looks down, a little teary. "Since when do we get what we deserve?" He wishes them good look and he's gone. Man, no one says goodbye to Sam, do they?
So, this is our midseason cliffhanger ending. Dean and Cas are heading out on a quest without a Field Guide to the Flowers of Purgatory. Oooh, I wonder if they'll get over their wee tiff? I hope they wrote a note telling Sam what they're up to. Sam and Eileen are facing off against Chuck. And I'm left here looking a gift horse in the mouth. Because I wanted Sam and Eileen together, and now that I have it, I'm not happy with it. I'll have to unpack that later. I did get Rowena, Queen of Hell, with her awesome Frozen-inspired hair, having Sam bring her a drink and calling him my dove, so let's just think about the good things, friends, and try to forget about the bad.
And this. I got this. (GIF stolen from jarpadxmasjensens on Tumblr)
No spoilers in the comments, please!