Quick Reaction: Who We Are (12x22) and All Along the Watchtower (12x23)
Oh man, this is going to be a late night...
So, copious drinking, not one but TWO episodes to keep in my head long enough to write up, after only watching them once - Do usual rules apply? YUP! 1. Don't correct me unless I ask you to, or it's plot/character crucial. 2. Keep it positive - if you want to leave a comment with everything you hated, then you have to counter every negative with one positive. Thems the rules.
Okay... let's get to it, I'mma break this post into two different cuts, and hopefully we can do this efficiently. First off, we have 12x22...
THEN takes us way back to Roy and Walt, which sent a little thrill through me since that's a REALLY ancient unresolved plot. Then we get a reminder that Jody exists, and then the summation of last episode. So, we sort of see where this is going.
NOW we join Mary, who is cleaning up after punching the shit out of some hunter while wearing fake claws. So, she's making them look like hunting accidents - explains why people didn't catch on so quick last episode to hunters dying. This time it was "Lester"... and who is next? Well, Jody's on the list that Ketch sends her, and we all hold our breath...
To Sam and Dean now, who HAVEN'T killed Toni, and just as me and my friend shout at them for it, they too bring it up. (I should note here that my other friend (friend's husband) is still mad at the show for last week and decided not to watch with us - so he made shortbread cookies in the kitchen while we drank and yelled at the TV. He's been mad since Dean killed Death and I think last week may have been the final straw. That's okay! He can get more stuff done now... and make shortbread!)
What was I talking about? Oh yeah... Toni talks her way out of being killed by saying that she can unprogram Mary. Do we buy it? Eh, not really.
She also tells them that there's a manual override for the Bunker on the outside. So, now they just have to get outside. Sam points out that they're in a treasure trove for occult books, so they can probably spell their way out.
He finds a Rromani spell that might work, but requires virgins.. none of them a virgins, but Sam figures they can fake that too by doing a blood purification ritual first. (It's the "spongebob squarepants alter cloth" of spell work! - Seriously, that was something I loved about the old SPN episodes, how everything in the Winchester's lives was makeshift and only half-right. That's what made it feel real to me. It was glorious.)
The Bunker shakes, but the spell doesn't work. Toni spills some nonsense about Ketch putting a "mystical dampener" on the locks or something... like, he can think that far ahead, but he can't just shoot them in the head when he had the chance? I still really hate plot-holes where the villains are just idiots... BUT, enough about last week, I've decided that it never happened and doesn't exist.
Plan B is to Shawshank the motherfucker - they're going to dig their way out. I love this bit, mainly for Dean getting rocks in his eye on the first swing and then them getting goggles... but secondly, and mainly ACTUALLY mainly, because they stripe down to just t-shirts.
Eventually, after getting maybe a half an inch into the solid cement wall, they run out of breath. Dean claims it's just a break - but Sam corrects him, he knows they're not getting out this way - the air is too thin for them to work for long, and it'll take them more time than they have to get through the wall.
Then we get a great brother conversation about "How did this happen?" and how not long ago, Dean thought they had it made - they had mom, Cas... and now it was all gone. Sam bemoans the fact that he bought into the BMoL "company line" and actually believed that they could do what they said. He admits that he followed them because it was easier to follow then to lead. And ya know, I absolutely love this part, because GODDAMN my inner Samgirl is happy - Sam was originally made to lead the armies of hell (and then to lead as Lucifer) and... and yet the conversation about leading amongst the Winchesters (unspoken convo) was always centred around Dean, who legit prefers to follow REALLY prefers to follow. (Sam only prefers to follow because it's less scary than leading.) So, I love the fact that Sam is seeing the idea that maybe he shouldn't shy away from leadership, that maybe he DOES have it in him (and not in a bad way.)
Sam asks Dean if this is how he pictured the end, and Dean says that Sam knows it's not - that he always pictured them going out Butch& Sundance style in a blaze of glory. (Is this the first time that Dean has used that exact reference? Because I know Jared and Jensen do all the time at Cons, but I wasn't sure if Sam and Dean have... I think they haven't, and authoritarily told my friend so, but I could be wrong.)
And that sentence suddenly gives Dean an IDEA.
GRENADE LAUNCHER TIME!
Toni tries to talk them out of it, but screw her!
Of course, K and I have to then discuss how this will either work or burn up all the remaining oxygen VERY QUICKLY... or both.
And it works! Sam walks into the room and finds a hole, that then promptly caves in, but there's no Dean to be seen. He wanders out into the war room... but the "burning up the oxygen quickly" thing was also true, and he starts to collapse... but just in time for the lights to come back on and Dean to reenter the bunker. But his knee is F*CKED. (And I got a little thrill, because although I usually don't like permanent injury fics, I'm a fan of ratherastory's Fusion'verse, which has Dean with a permanently fused knee joint who has to retire from hunting.)
So, Dean climbed out of the hole before the wall collapsed again - WITH a jacked knee. He's a tough one.
I do love his greeting of calling Sam "lunatic" :)
Then we cut to Jody, who answers her door to find Mary there. Uh oh.
Meanwhile, Sam and Dean have gotten the car and are warning people using their back-up phones. Dean calls Garth (so he's still alive.) And Sam tries to call Jody but doesn't get an answer... so it's off to Sioux Falls!
Lucky for us, Jody is a bad-ass and apprehended Mary. Alex helped.
Mary, from the chair she's tied to, taunts Jody for "playing mother" when Jody comforts Dean. Then Mary turns on Dean and asks him if he's disappointed in his own mother - wondering if they're "too different or too the same."
Sam drags Toni in to fix Mary, and Toni admits that it's irreversible. This is where me and K start yelling "THEN SHOOT HER" only I'm colder, so I yell "THEN SHOOT THEM BOTH!" Man... you know, no one should EVER rely on me to save them. I'm a HORRIBLE PERSON.
I forget how Toni talks her way out of being killed on the spot again, but she basically says that there's no point or something - that with the BMoL after them all, they can only run or die.
Sam says NO, they can FIGHT!
Jody calls all the hunters she knows to rendezvous at her place.... and HERE is where Roy and Walt come in, and it's pretty awkward, but Sam and Dean bury the grudge in the face of the greater evil.... though, I love the acting here, because they're all clearly not really over it.
But Sam starts giving them a speech, first saying, "we called you here..." and then changing it to "*I* called you here..." and it's very much a change in tone, very much Sam taking a leadership role and also taking full responsibility for the plan and whatever may result from it. He gives a big speech about how the BMoL are trying to kill them because they can't control them - and such like. And then he asks them all to follow him and fight them. The hunters are on board.
Dean though, isn't coming. His leg is too busted. Sam tries to argue, but Dean tells him that he's got this - that he doesn't need Dean. And Dean's going to try to save Mary. ("DEAN IS GOING TO USE HIS SUPERPOWER!" - my notes)
And I agree with Dean, because that knee is BUSTED... as awesome as he is, he's in no condition for a running fire-fight.
Jody sends Alex to Donna's, and before she leaves, Alex tells her to "kick it in the ass" and we all cry a little at the memory of Kim Manners and how much he made the show awesome while he was part of it.
Then Sam and Dean have their own parting scene, and it's actually spectacular... I mean, I know I equally like the scenes where they don't NEED words, because they already know how each other feels, it's also nice to use words sometimes. Dean tells Sam to come back, and then they exchange a bitch/jerk parting.
Toni claims she needs her gear from HQ to give Dean a shot at saving Mary, but pressed, she decides she can improvise... so it's back to the Bunker with that lot.
The BMoL are moving out to kill the remaining hunters...
Ketch meanwhile runs to their location tracking and locates Mary in Lebanon KS (hopefully she wasn't already in the bunker, because otherwise their warding is kaputt.)
In the Bunker, Toni makes a deal with Dean - she helps, and he gives her a headstart... she plays the mom card, saying that she'd just like to see her son again. So, Dean takes the deal.
Toni sets Dean and Mary up with some electrodes and sedation and joins their dreams together. Dean cuffs her to the table so that she doesn't escape while he's sedated... but meanwhile, I observe that she could just as easily kill them both with too strong a sedation (or just through some fentanyl in there) and then take all the time in the world to pick the locks on the cuffs and escape... so, Dean's already taking a huge risk by letting her inject his neck with something.
Dean enters Mary's head and his knee works! Yay! Disability has not yet become permanent enough to filter into the subconscious. But, more importantly, he's in their house in Lawrence KS... baby Sam is in a crib SO ADORABLE. Mary is there too, looking after the boys... including little Dean - ALSO ADORABLE.
Back in the real world, the BMoL is doing it's thing when THE MIGHTY CONVOY ARRIVES. And it was K who started singing "We are a mighty convoy..." and then we had to pause the episode and laugh and sing some more of the song and wonder if they had CB radios and what their handles would be. Garth's would be "Wolfman" or something, Sam's would be "Moose" (not that Garth was there, but we were having fun..... so, let me know in comments what you think some good hunter handles are!)
But, before we derail the tension too much with our frivolity, ATTACK BEGINS!
Then there are a series of scenes that cut between the ATTACK and Dean trying to save Mary - for the sake of my sanity, I'm going to talk about each in a chunk devoted solely to them instead of going back and forth.
Let's begin with Dean and Mary... Dean tries to talk to Mary, but she asks like she can't hear him. He even tries to grab her arm, but she just twists (naturally) out of it, as though it didn't happen. Then she tells little Dean in her dream that she's never going to let anything bad happen to him.
And that's when Dean decides to just go with the truth "I hate you," he says.
And man, the speech that follows is fantastic, and Jensen's fantastic.... but Dean just goes for all the emotional punches, and it's a brilliant strategy, because if there's something that's gong to get through, it's emotional pain - Dean lays into Mary - explaining how it was her fault, the deal with Azazel that ruined their lives. And we see it start to work with the way Mary's expression falters for a moment, though Dean can't see it.
It's also a really cathartic speech for Dean - much like him yelling at the dream!demon version of himself in S3's Dream a Little Dream... there are things about Dean's psychology and his upbringing that Dean just ignores and doesn't address - but he does so here. (And man, just like earlier my inner Sam!girl was please, in this moment, my inner Dean!girl is LOVING IT.)
Dean explains how John became a shell and Dean had to be both a father and a mother to Sam - but he couldn't do it. And then my inner Dean!girl and Sam!girl join in a moment of sheer brilliance, when Dean tells Mary what happened to Sam...everything that happened to him, and how it was Mary's fault. AND I LOVE THIS... because back in S5, we had that moment where we were told that if Sam hadn't been born, Mary would still be alive... and if you frame something like that, it sounds SO MUCH like Sam is at fault for everything shitty that ever happened in their lives (even though, logically, we know a 6 month old baby can't be blamed for anything.) But I LOVE Dean reversing that implied sentiment and saying no, it wasn't Sam that ruined Mary's life, it was Mary that ruined Sam's life.
Of course, this gets Mary to cry (Dean is already crying)... and she's crying in the outside world too!
Dean reiterates that he hates her, but he says "I hate you and I love you" because she's his mother, and he understands and forgives her. And he tells her they can start over, right now, if she turns and "SEE ME" and I just LOVE that he puts it that way, not "look at me" but "SEE ME" - it involves so much more than looking, it involves acknowledging what you're looking at.
And Mary DOES turn, but just as she does, the wires are ripped off Dean's head, and he's brought crashing groggily back into the waking world (and UGH, I hate it when I'm woken up from dreams like that! I feel ya, Dean.)
But, even more than that rude awakening is the fact that it's KETCH that did it - Toni lies dead, slashed through the neck, and Ketch is going after Dean next, but wants him awake for the fight.
Ketch tries to goad Dean by telling him that Mary never talked about him in all the time he spent with him. Then they break one of the library tables in the fight - and while I'm glad it's Ketch's back that breaks it, I'm also there yelling "NO! THAT'S AN ANTIQUE!" because I have priorities.
Dean is able to get a table-leg out of the antique's sacrifice though and he does some damage with it as a club, while goading Ketch for being such a dumbass as to leave them alive (YEAH) Ketch doesn't even have a good excuse, he just says that he's not stupid and pulls out a gun (you actually gonna use that this time buddy? Or is it just for show?) but he doesn't get a chance to, because he gets shot in his gun-arm shoulder by Mary - who has also come out of it. Ketch goads them both by telling them that he always knew they were killers - and Dean's like 'you were right' and then Mary shoots him in the head. Yay!
Okay, now let's see what Sam's been doing this whole time...
ATTACK! Hunters dying. BMoL wearing body armour but no helmets against a whole bunch of crack-shots means that they gonna die. (My second note about the attack is indecipherable, it looks like "ten into the ocean" but that doesn't make any sense? If anyone knew what I meant by that, let me know.) My third not is actually "body armour is dumb" but I already discussed that.
Dr. Hess runs into a locked room, but one of the hunters (Walt?) has a way to unlock it.
Hess is frantically calling for extraction - HA! But there IS NO HELP FOR HER.
Sam and Jody barge into the room, and she's like "Dean." And for some reason I find that INFINITELY HILARIOUS AND WONDERFUL. I think it's because I love outsider POV and I love the fact that she doesn't even know which one is which.... and yeah, it's amazing.
Sam corrects her with an "It's Sam" and then she tries to tell him that he's making a grievous mistake. Then the voice on the computer that Hess was talking to agrees. This is where K and I start yelling at the TV again to "JUST KILL HER!" "WHY ISN'T JODY KILLING HER? "JODY SHOULD KILL HER!" "SHOOT THE COMPUTER TOO!" "IF I WERE JODY, I'D KILL HER!" But first, Hess drops the bombshell that Lucifer is back, courtesy of Crowley. Sam is not amused. And then Jody shoots her! YAY! (Actually my notes say "NOICE!" because I was so please, I turned Australian.)
Sam then shoots the computer, at which point K yells "NOT THE SCREEN THE CPU!" But whatever, computer is still toast, I guess. Maybe it's like one of those old' macs that had the CPU behind the screen.
Then they blow up the BMoL HQ on their way out. At which point I said excitedly "They blewed it up!" and I will admit now, only to unknown multitudes of the internet, that I did not say it that way to be cute, I just genuinely got the conjugation wrong. This is why I'm not a public speaker.)
At the Bunker, Dean has found some painkillers, and Mary is trying to tidy. Dean tells her to stop "that's not your job" - and man, it's a little thing, but I love it, because it's very much an acknowledgement that Dean does not need a "homemaker mother" nor does he expect Mary to do that simply because she's his mother.
Mary tells him it's all her fault - which you know, is what he DID just say to her. She apologizes for being so distant and cold towards them, and explains that she was that way because being with them was hard, knowing how she wrecked their lives. Dean assures her that everything she started, it made them who they were... and they kick ass. They saved the world.
Mary worries about whether Sam can forgive her, that she's scared of what he might say. That's when Sam walks up behind her and tells her "don't be scared of me" and we get a MASSIVE FAMILY HUG and it's LOVELY.
And it's a WONDERFUL EPISODE...
....so off course I turn to my friend K after and say "well, now Mary's gonna die for sure."
Which leads us into 12x23....
THEN gives us Carry On... which is lovely as usual. I also like how it starts with the quote about them being legendary.
NOW... "The loon...", I say... and then laugh, because of Hinterland Who's Who which played on Canadian TV a lot when I was a kid.
Really though, we don't join just any loon, we join CAS! Our favourite loon. Kelly is inside, praying to God - but really only because she can't assemble an IKEA crib.
Kelly is upset, but Cas tries to comfort her, saying first that he understands, but then admitting that's a lie and saying he has no idea how hard it is, but he vows again to raise her kid when she's dead.
Sam and Dean discuss the Lucifer news. And the fact that Crowley is supposedly dead. Dean says he'll believe it when he sees a body - and we get to see a little montage of the rat!Crowley running out to where they buried his vessel's corpse and resurrecting himself.
Sam says they don't need Crowley, they just need Rowena - and he calls her, and... Lucifer picks up, after having just killed Rowena... so, that sucks. Not that I thought they could do much of anything else with her character, but still, I liked the actress.
Sam puts Lucifer on speaker phone and tells him to go to hell. Lucifer tells the boys that they're no longer a threat, because they can't kill him and they can't defeat him without Rowena and he's just killed her, so tough beans.
Back with Cas, he's all stocked up with diapers. Kelly has a stomach pain, and leans on the truck - letting off a weird light, that then floats around back of the house.
Back with Sam and Dean, they decide that they better find Cas and Kelly, if only to warn them - and try to protect them from Lucifer. They start looking for weird signs, because apparently the world freaks out when a nephilim is born.
Cas meanwhile, finds the weird sliver of light, and it has apparently turned into a portal to another realm, where Cas is attacked by some sort of monster and then rescued by a man with a gun, who Cas recognizes (by this point, I had a fairly good guess as to who it might be, since the hand coming out of the earth was Crowley and unconnected.)
Kelly is making a video for the baby she'll never know - and then tells him that an angel is watching over him, which is both sweet, and also a mirror of what Mary told Dean when he was a kid and we all know how that turned out. Then she has another contraction.
Sam and Dean are still in the Bunker when Crowley shows up (they either just left the door open, or they legit don't have any wards on that place anymore.) Dean straight off punches him, which is great, then holds the demon knife to his throat. Crowley pleads to Sam for some help and Sam actually tells Dean to lay off him for a moment, to which Dean and Mary share a unison "seriously?" which is great.
Sam points out that Crowley might know the spell that Rowena used too. They then break the news to Crowley that Rowena is dead. He responds with "I thought I'd be the one to kill her" which could mean anything with Crowley - he hasn't been able to read since S9.
They then demand to know what the hell he was thinking - and he explains is VERY FAULTY REASONING, but the important bit here is that he knows it was dumb and he wants to fix it now. He also knows that he really sucks at being the King of Hell and he doesn't want the job anymore. He tells them that he also knows when it comes to the end of the world stuff, he should always place his bets with Sam and Dean - "big beautiful lumbering piles of flannel" - the important bit there is that he called them beautiful ;)
Crowley makes them a deal - they defeat the devil, and he'll seal the gates of hell to all demons - protecting the earth from all demons except him. They decide that's good enough for them.
Kelly tries to find Cas in the house... and he eventually shows back up again, claiming he was "nowhere" - she tells him that she's having the baby.
Sam and Dean and Mary research, Crowley is bored. Meanwhile, I love that they actually put a scene with everyone just typing... again, I'm a sucker for realistic things. They finally find a massive power outage in the pacific northwest (HA!) (I forgot to write down the name of the town/bay/area, so if anyone knows it, please tell me!) - that started at a house rented by "James Novak" - which is clearly Cas.
Dean jabs a blade through Crowley's hand and keeps him pinned to the table, because he doesn't trust him.
Cas and Kelly chat while she's in labour. Cas took a doula class online, apparently, but doesn't know how much of it applies to celestiel beings... and I kind of love that Cas is still as awkward as ever.
Kelly asks him to tell her again what he saw in his vision. He tells her that he saw the future - a world without pain, or hatred, etc... essentially paradise. (And guys, like... paradise is ALWAYS too good to be true.... as much as I really want Cas to be right this time, because I'm sick of him being wrong... I just can't believe that paradise is possible. And it doesn't fit into the SPN world-view either, which is that paradise is always at the sacrifice of free will - and free will is always the better option.)
Then there's the rumbling sound of the Impala outside, and Cas goes to investigate.
He says "Dean" and looks ready to get into an argument, but Dean cuts him off at the pass and tells him that they can "work through [their] crap" later, but right now they need to move and get some place safe, because Lucifer is on his way. Cas says that Kelly's in labour. Mary takes off to go check on her...
Dean's knee hurts like the dickens and Cas sees this and heals him... awww.
Sam runs out the backdoor to start warding the house and he sees the tear in space and time...which is exactly what Cas explains it to be. "Like to Narnia?", no, an alternate earth. To which Dean recounts the time they went to the alternate earth where the supernatural wasn't real and Sam was polish. Hahaha... Cas just looks confused. I'm wondering if he even knew where Balthazar sent them that time. Cas tells them that they don't want to know where this tear leads.
They go through it though, so apparently they do!
It's a place of eternal war between Heaven and Hell.
Then I have the words "Faith - dumbass" written... and I can't remember what they refer to, but I WOULD like to talk about how this episode is all about faith... and basically everyone having faith in someone. Kelly in Cas and the baby. Cas in the baby... misplaced or not. Crowley having faith in Sam and Dean... Sam and Dean having faith in themselves and their friends, even Cas, who has questionable allegiances at the moment.
Anyway, back to the wasteland. BOBBY IS THERE! That's who the mysterious figure was! Which was my SECOND guess when everyone was speculating... so, I wasn't as surprised as I could have been, I suppose... this is why I used to avoid speculation, but I don't care these days.
This Bobby doesn't know who they are though - the only Winchester he knew of was John, who died over 40 years ago - as told to him by a Hunter named Mary Campbell.
We find out that this was a world where Sam was never born. Mary never took Azazel's deal and John stayed dead, and she stayed a hunter, and Sam and Dean never existed to save the world. I LOVE THIS... because it takes Sam's cursed life and shines a light on it and says "no, this is SUPER IMPORTANT" and you didn't mess up and cause the apocalypse, you STOPPED IT. And Mary didn't mess up taking that deal with Azazel, she started a chain of events that would SAVE THE WORLD. Now, of course, in a universe of infinite worlds (which is now, for certain, canon in SPN) I'm sure there are also worlds where everything got messed up even though Sam was born... but I kind of loved this version of "It's a Wonderful Life" for Sam (and Mary) (and Dean - because it was Dean's superpower that actually beat back Lucifer long enough for Sam to defeat him.)
Meanwhile, in the house, Mary and Kelly are talking. Kelly tells Mary that she's dying, and Mary agrees. Kelly says it's okay though, because "wouldn't you die for your sons" and Mary agrees that she would... so, you know, just in case there was any doubt as to how this episode would end...
AU!Bobby continues to talk to Sam and Dean... when they compare worlds and say that theirs is obviously way better, Bobby insists that his "ain't so bad." He also tells us that his gun's name is Rufus (nice) and that it's loaded with angel bullets melted out from angel swords. Dean is pretty impressed.
Sam, Dean, and Cas discuss things, and Dean argues that things are not alright, that they've got Lucifer in their world, vs "mad max" AU. And then Crowley shows up to help, because a blade through the hand really wasn't enough to hold him for long.
They come up with a plan.
And then I start forgetting what my notes mean... so here they are:
"Sam & Dean - guns."
"Cas's faith"
Oh, and then Dean says that he has "faith in us" and Cas and even Crowley. Aww.
Then Lucifer shows up for the battle. Sam tells him that Chuck will help them stop him, because he did last time - and Lucifer counters that Chuck walked, and that he is indeed planning apocalypse take 2.
Cas charged first and is thrown (and I thought, "better than exploded"... oh how naive I was to think he was then in the clear.)
Sam and Dean run around the house... and go through the portal once Lucifer can see them do so.
He follows them into the apocalypse world.
Dean tries to kill Lucifer with Bobby's gun, while Sam runs off to where Crowley is doing a spell to seal the portal. The gun doesn't work on Lucifer, and Dean runs out of bullets... so Lucifer starts beating Dean up with his fists (as is his wont). Sam tells Crowley to hurry up, but Crowley says they need one more thing for the spell - and that's a life.
So, Crowley sacrifices himself...which, wow... that's pretty great, really. I mean, it's a really great way for the character to go out... fixing his mistake, and actually doing good for the world in the process.
Just as Sam and Dean are going to exist the portal though, Cas comes charging in to beat up Lucifer some more. Then I'm there worried that Cas is going to get trapped...
Meanwhile, the baby is born while Kelly is not even in position to give birth - and also it's just a huge flash of bright light, so I'm guessing he came right out of her stomach alien-style and then healed her up and cleaned her clothes in his wake.
Then Cas makes it out of the portal in time, only to be stabbed in the back by Lucifer and KILLED right in front of Sam and Dean, as Lucifer also steps out of the portal.
I mean, I really did not see that coming... as glowy angel-deaths are probably more final than explody ones and drownings? I mean... I really hope Cas isn't GONE GONE, because I swear Jared and Jensen have said before that they don't want to do the show without Misha in it... but yikers, I'm concerned.
Then, to top it off, and this I DID see coming... Mary comes charging up with her enochian knuckles and punches Lucifer back through the rift, after telling the boys that she loves them. At the very last minute - very reminiscent of the way Adam died (so, TOTALLY A LUCIFER MOVE), he grabs onto her shirt and pulls her in with him. Trapping her forever in an apocalyptic hellscape.
Sam and Dean are left with ALL OF THEIR LOVED ONES DEAD.
Sam runs inside to investigate the nephilim... while Dean stares in shock at Cas's dead vessel.
Kelly is dead.
And the nephilim is ALREADY a fully grown person hiding in the shadows of his room... and he kind of looks a bit like Rutger Hauer from Blade Runner. I guess they aren't going to have a use for those diapers... or, uh, they'll need a different size.
....
So, yeah... the good news is that the IMPALA IS FINE! Guys, don't worry about Baby.
But YIKES. I haven't been online since I watched, but I bet a considerable amount of the fandom is freakin' the hell out right now.
I may still be in denial, but I really can't believe that this is the end for Cas. He's gotta come back somehow.... or at least, I won't believe he's really dead until S13 is over. :P
And that's our season....
I'll be posting the timeline next week at some point. I've got a few things I've gotta verify from some episodes that I didn't watch close enough..
I guess I'll see you again for quick reactions in the fall!
I'll be posting this summer too, but it'll just be random junk, and maybe some fic.
Let me know what you thought - and please remember the BALANCE rule... gotta put the positive with any negative.
This entry was originally posted at http://hells-half-acre.dreamwidth.org/540110.html.
So, copious drinking, not one but TWO episodes to keep in my head long enough to write up, after only watching them once - Do usual rules apply? YUP! 1. Don't correct me unless I ask you to, or it's plot/character crucial. 2. Keep it positive - if you want to leave a comment with everything you hated, then you have to counter every negative with one positive. Thems the rules.
Okay... let's get to it, I'mma break this post into two different cuts, and hopefully we can do this efficiently. First off, we have 12x22...
THEN takes us way back to Roy and Walt, which sent a little thrill through me since that's a REALLY ancient unresolved plot. Then we get a reminder that Jody exists, and then the summation of last episode. So, we sort of see where this is going.
NOW we join Mary, who is cleaning up after punching the shit out of some hunter while wearing fake claws. So, she's making them look like hunting accidents - explains why people didn't catch on so quick last episode to hunters dying. This time it was "Lester"... and who is next? Well, Jody's on the list that Ketch sends her, and we all hold our breath...
To Sam and Dean now, who HAVEN'T killed Toni, and just as me and my friend shout at them for it, they too bring it up. (I should note here that my other friend (friend's husband) is still mad at the show for last week and decided not to watch with us - so he made shortbread cookies in the kitchen while we drank and yelled at the TV. He's been mad since Dean killed Death and I think last week may have been the final straw. That's okay! He can get more stuff done now... and make shortbread!)
What was I talking about? Oh yeah... Toni talks her way out of being killed by saying that she can unprogram Mary. Do we buy it? Eh, not really.
She also tells them that there's a manual override for the Bunker on the outside. So, now they just have to get outside. Sam points out that they're in a treasure trove for occult books, so they can probably spell their way out.
He finds a Rromani spell that might work, but requires virgins.. none of them a virgins, but Sam figures they can fake that too by doing a blood purification ritual first. (It's the "spongebob squarepants alter cloth" of spell work! - Seriously, that was something I loved about the old SPN episodes, how everything in the Winchester's lives was makeshift and only half-right. That's what made it feel real to me. It was glorious.)
The Bunker shakes, but the spell doesn't work. Toni spills some nonsense about Ketch putting a "mystical dampener" on the locks or something... like, he can think that far ahead, but he can't just shoot them in the head when he had the chance? I still really hate plot-holes where the villains are just idiots... BUT, enough about last week, I've decided that it never happened and doesn't exist.
Plan B is to Shawshank the motherfucker - they're going to dig their way out. I love this bit, mainly for Dean getting rocks in his eye on the first swing and then them getting goggles... but secondly, and mainly ACTUALLY mainly, because they stripe down to just t-shirts.
Eventually, after getting maybe a half an inch into the solid cement wall, they run out of breath. Dean claims it's just a break - but Sam corrects him, he knows they're not getting out this way - the air is too thin for them to work for long, and it'll take them more time than they have to get through the wall.
Then we get a great brother conversation about "How did this happen?" and how not long ago, Dean thought they had it made - they had mom, Cas... and now it was all gone. Sam bemoans the fact that he bought into the BMoL "company line" and actually believed that they could do what they said. He admits that he followed them because it was easier to follow then to lead. And ya know, I absolutely love this part, because GODDAMN my inner Samgirl is happy - Sam was originally made to lead the armies of hell (and then to lead as Lucifer) and... and yet the conversation about leading amongst the Winchesters (unspoken convo) was always centred around Dean, who legit prefers to follow REALLY prefers to follow. (Sam only prefers to follow because it's less scary than leading.) So, I love the fact that Sam is seeing the idea that maybe he shouldn't shy away from leadership, that maybe he DOES have it in him (and not in a bad way.)
Sam asks Dean if this is how he pictured the end, and Dean says that Sam knows it's not - that he always pictured them going out Butch& Sundance style in a blaze of glory. (Is this the first time that Dean has used that exact reference? Because I know Jared and Jensen do all the time at Cons, but I wasn't sure if Sam and Dean have... I think they haven't, and authoritarily told my friend so, but I could be wrong.)
And that sentence suddenly gives Dean an IDEA.
GRENADE LAUNCHER TIME!
Toni tries to talk them out of it, but screw her!
Of course, K and I have to then discuss how this will either work or burn up all the remaining oxygen VERY QUICKLY... or both.
And it works! Sam walks into the room and finds a hole, that then promptly caves in, but there's no Dean to be seen. He wanders out into the war room... but the "burning up the oxygen quickly" thing was also true, and he starts to collapse... but just in time for the lights to come back on and Dean to reenter the bunker. But his knee is F*CKED. (And I got a little thrill, because although I usually don't like permanent injury fics, I'm a fan of ratherastory's Fusion'verse, which has Dean with a permanently fused knee joint who has to retire from hunting.)
So, Dean climbed out of the hole before the wall collapsed again - WITH a jacked knee. He's a tough one.
I do love his greeting of calling Sam "lunatic" :)
Then we cut to Jody, who answers her door to find Mary there. Uh oh.
Meanwhile, Sam and Dean have gotten the car and are warning people using their back-up phones. Dean calls Garth (so he's still alive.) And Sam tries to call Jody but doesn't get an answer... so it's off to Sioux Falls!
Lucky for us, Jody is a bad-ass and apprehended Mary. Alex helped.
Mary, from the chair she's tied to, taunts Jody for "playing mother" when Jody comforts Dean. Then Mary turns on Dean and asks him if he's disappointed in his own mother - wondering if they're "too different or too the same."
Sam drags Toni in to fix Mary, and Toni admits that it's irreversible. This is where me and K start yelling "THEN SHOOT HER" only I'm colder, so I yell "THEN SHOOT THEM BOTH!" Man... you know, no one should EVER rely on me to save them. I'm a HORRIBLE PERSON.
I forget how Toni talks her way out of being killed on the spot again, but she basically says that there's no point or something - that with the BMoL after them all, they can only run or die.
Sam says NO, they can FIGHT!
Jody calls all the hunters she knows to rendezvous at her place.... and HERE is where Roy and Walt come in, and it's pretty awkward, but Sam and Dean bury the grudge in the face of the greater evil.... though, I love the acting here, because they're all clearly not really over it.
But Sam starts giving them a speech, first saying, "we called you here..." and then changing it to "*I* called you here..." and it's very much a change in tone, very much Sam taking a leadership role and also taking full responsibility for the plan and whatever may result from it. He gives a big speech about how the BMoL are trying to kill them because they can't control them - and such like. And then he asks them all to follow him and fight them. The hunters are on board.
Dean though, isn't coming. His leg is too busted. Sam tries to argue, but Dean tells him that he's got this - that he doesn't need Dean. And Dean's going to try to save Mary. ("DEAN IS GOING TO USE HIS SUPERPOWER!" - my notes)
And I agree with Dean, because that knee is BUSTED... as awesome as he is, he's in no condition for a running fire-fight.
Jody sends Alex to Donna's, and before she leaves, Alex tells her to "kick it in the ass" and we all cry a little at the memory of Kim Manners and how much he made the show awesome while he was part of it.
Then Sam and Dean have their own parting scene, and it's actually spectacular... I mean, I know I equally like the scenes where they don't NEED words, because they already know how each other feels, it's also nice to use words sometimes. Dean tells Sam to come back, and then they exchange a bitch/jerk parting.
Toni claims she needs her gear from HQ to give Dean a shot at saving Mary, but pressed, she decides she can improvise... so it's back to the Bunker with that lot.
The BMoL are moving out to kill the remaining hunters...
Ketch meanwhile runs to their location tracking and locates Mary in Lebanon KS (hopefully she wasn't already in the bunker, because otherwise their warding is kaputt.)
In the Bunker, Toni makes a deal with Dean - she helps, and he gives her a headstart... she plays the mom card, saying that she'd just like to see her son again. So, Dean takes the deal.
Toni sets Dean and Mary up with some electrodes and sedation and joins their dreams together. Dean cuffs her to the table so that she doesn't escape while he's sedated... but meanwhile, I observe that she could just as easily kill them both with too strong a sedation (or just through some fentanyl in there) and then take all the time in the world to pick the locks on the cuffs and escape... so, Dean's already taking a huge risk by letting her inject his neck with something.
Dean enters Mary's head and his knee works! Yay! Disability has not yet become permanent enough to filter into the subconscious. But, more importantly, he's in their house in Lawrence KS... baby Sam is in a crib SO ADORABLE. Mary is there too, looking after the boys... including little Dean - ALSO ADORABLE.
Back in the real world, the BMoL is doing it's thing when THE MIGHTY CONVOY ARRIVES. And it was K who started singing "We are a mighty convoy..." and then we had to pause the episode and laugh and sing some more of the song and wonder if they had CB radios and what their handles would be. Garth's would be "Wolfman" or something, Sam's would be "Moose" (not that Garth was there, but we were having fun..... so, let me know in comments what you think some good hunter handles are!)
But, before we derail the tension too much with our frivolity, ATTACK BEGINS!
Then there are a series of scenes that cut between the ATTACK and Dean trying to save Mary - for the sake of my sanity, I'm going to talk about each in a chunk devoted solely to them instead of going back and forth.
Let's begin with Dean and Mary... Dean tries to talk to Mary, but she asks like she can't hear him. He even tries to grab her arm, but she just twists (naturally) out of it, as though it didn't happen. Then she tells little Dean in her dream that she's never going to let anything bad happen to him.
And that's when Dean decides to just go with the truth "I hate you," he says.
And man, the speech that follows is fantastic, and Jensen's fantastic.... but Dean just goes for all the emotional punches, and it's a brilliant strategy, because if there's something that's gong to get through, it's emotional pain - Dean lays into Mary - explaining how it was her fault, the deal with Azazel that ruined their lives. And we see it start to work with the way Mary's expression falters for a moment, though Dean can't see it.
It's also a really cathartic speech for Dean - much like him yelling at the dream!demon version of himself in S3's Dream a Little Dream... there are things about Dean's psychology and his upbringing that Dean just ignores and doesn't address - but he does so here. (And man, just like earlier my inner Sam!girl was please, in this moment, my inner Dean!girl is LOVING IT.)
Dean explains how John became a shell and Dean had to be both a father and a mother to Sam - but he couldn't do it. And then my inner Dean!girl and Sam!girl join in a moment of sheer brilliance, when Dean tells Mary what happened to Sam...everything that happened to him, and how it was Mary's fault. AND I LOVE THIS... because back in S5, we had that moment where we were told that if Sam hadn't been born, Mary would still be alive... and if you frame something like that, it sounds SO MUCH like Sam is at fault for everything shitty that ever happened in their lives (even though, logically, we know a 6 month old baby can't be blamed for anything.) But I LOVE Dean reversing that implied sentiment and saying no, it wasn't Sam that ruined Mary's life, it was Mary that ruined Sam's life.
Of course, this gets Mary to cry (Dean is already crying)... and she's crying in the outside world too!
Dean reiterates that he hates her, but he says "I hate you and I love you" because she's his mother, and he understands and forgives her. And he tells her they can start over, right now, if she turns and "SEE ME" and I just LOVE that he puts it that way, not "look at me" but "SEE ME" - it involves so much more than looking, it involves acknowledging what you're looking at.
And Mary DOES turn, but just as she does, the wires are ripped off Dean's head, and he's brought crashing groggily back into the waking world (and UGH, I hate it when I'm woken up from dreams like that! I feel ya, Dean.)
But, even more than that rude awakening is the fact that it's KETCH that did it - Toni lies dead, slashed through the neck, and Ketch is going after Dean next, but wants him awake for the fight.
Ketch tries to goad Dean by telling him that Mary never talked about him in all the time he spent with him. Then they break one of the library tables in the fight - and while I'm glad it's Ketch's back that breaks it, I'm also there yelling "NO! THAT'S AN ANTIQUE!" because I have priorities.
Dean is able to get a table-leg out of the antique's sacrifice though and he does some damage with it as a club, while goading Ketch for being such a dumbass as to leave them alive (YEAH) Ketch doesn't even have a good excuse, he just says that he's not stupid and pulls out a gun (you actually gonna use that this time buddy? Or is it just for show?) but he doesn't get a chance to, because he gets shot in his gun-arm shoulder by Mary - who has also come out of it. Ketch goads them both by telling them that he always knew they were killers - and Dean's like 'you were right' and then Mary shoots him in the head. Yay!
Okay, now let's see what Sam's been doing this whole time...
ATTACK! Hunters dying. BMoL wearing body armour but no helmets against a whole bunch of crack-shots means that they gonna die. (My second note about the attack is indecipherable, it looks like "ten into the ocean" but that doesn't make any sense? If anyone knew what I meant by that, let me know.) My third not is actually "body armour is dumb" but I already discussed that.
Dr. Hess runs into a locked room, but one of the hunters (Walt?) has a way to unlock it.
Hess is frantically calling for extraction - HA! But there IS NO HELP FOR HER.
Sam and Jody barge into the room, and she's like "Dean." And for some reason I find that INFINITELY HILARIOUS AND WONDERFUL. I think it's because I love outsider POV and I love the fact that she doesn't even know which one is which.... and yeah, it's amazing.
Sam corrects her with an "It's Sam" and then she tries to tell him that he's making a grievous mistake. Then the voice on the computer that Hess was talking to agrees. This is where K and I start yelling at the TV again to "JUST KILL HER!" "WHY ISN'T JODY KILLING HER? "JODY SHOULD KILL HER!" "SHOOT THE COMPUTER TOO!" "IF I WERE JODY, I'D KILL HER!" But first, Hess drops the bombshell that Lucifer is back, courtesy of Crowley. Sam is not amused. And then Jody shoots her! YAY! (Actually my notes say "NOICE!" because I was so please, I turned Australian.)
Sam then shoots the computer, at which point K yells "NOT THE SCREEN THE CPU!" But whatever, computer is still toast, I guess. Maybe it's like one of those old' macs that had the CPU behind the screen.
Then they blow up the BMoL HQ on their way out. At which point I said excitedly "They blewed it up!" and I will admit now, only to unknown multitudes of the internet, that I did not say it that way to be cute, I just genuinely got the conjugation wrong. This is why I'm not a public speaker.)
At the Bunker, Dean has found some painkillers, and Mary is trying to tidy. Dean tells her to stop "that's not your job" - and man, it's a little thing, but I love it, because it's very much an acknowledgement that Dean does not need a "homemaker mother" nor does he expect Mary to do that simply because she's his mother.
Mary tells him it's all her fault - which you know, is what he DID just say to her. She apologizes for being so distant and cold towards them, and explains that she was that way because being with them was hard, knowing how she wrecked their lives. Dean assures her that everything she started, it made them who they were... and they kick ass. They saved the world.
Mary worries about whether Sam can forgive her, that she's scared of what he might say. That's when Sam walks up behind her and tells her "don't be scared of me" and we get a MASSIVE FAMILY HUG and it's LOVELY.
And it's a WONDERFUL EPISODE...
....so off course I turn to my friend K after and say "well, now Mary's gonna die for sure."
Which leads us into 12x23....
THEN gives us Carry On... which is lovely as usual. I also like how it starts with the quote about them being legendary.
NOW... "The loon...", I say... and then laugh, because of Hinterland Who's Who which played on Canadian TV a lot when I was a kid.
Really though, we don't join just any loon, we join CAS! Our favourite loon. Kelly is inside, praying to God - but really only because she can't assemble an IKEA crib.
Kelly is upset, but Cas tries to comfort her, saying first that he understands, but then admitting that's a lie and saying he has no idea how hard it is, but he vows again to raise her kid when she's dead.
Sam and Dean discuss the Lucifer news. And the fact that Crowley is supposedly dead. Dean says he'll believe it when he sees a body - and we get to see a little montage of the rat!Crowley running out to where they buried his vessel's corpse and resurrecting himself.
Sam says they don't need Crowley, they just need Rowena - and he calls her, and... Lucifer picks up, after having just killed Rowena... so, that sucks. Not that I thought they could do much of anything else with her character, but still, I liked the actress.
Sam puts Lucifer on speaker phone and tells him to go to hell. Lucifer tells the boys that they're no longer a threat, because they can't kill him and they can't defeat him without Rowena and he's just killed her, so tough beans.
Back with Cas, he's all stocked up with diapers. Kelly has a stomach pain, and leans on the truck - letting off a weird light, that then floats around back of the house.
Back with Sam and Dean, they decide that they better find Cas and Kelly, if only to warn them - and try to protect them from Lucifer. They start looking for weird signs, because apparently the world freaks out when a nephilim is born.
Cas meanwhile, finds the weird sliver of light, and it has apparently turned into a portal to another realm, where Cas is attacked by some sort of monster and then rescued by a man with a gun, who Cas recognizes (by this point, I had a fairly good guess as to who it might be, since the hand coming out of the earth was Crowley and unconnected.)
Kelly is making a video for the baby she'll never know - and then tells him that an angel is watching over him, which is both sweet, and also a mirror of what Mary told Dean when he was a kid and we all know how that turned out. Then she has another contraction.
Sam and Dean are still in the Bunker when Crowley shows up (they either just left the door open, or they legit don't have any wards on that place anymore.) Dean straight off punches him, which is great, then holds the demon knife to his throat. Crowley pleads to Sam for some help and Sam actually tells Dean to lay off him for a moment, to which Dean and Mary share a unison "seriously?" which is great.
Sam points out that Crowley might know the spell that Rowena used too. They then break the news to Crowley that Rowena is dead. He responds with "I thought I'd be the one to kill her" which could mean anything with Crowley - he hasn't been able to read since S9.
They then demand to know what the hell he was thinking - and he explains is VERY FAULTY REASONING, but the important bit here is that he knows it was dumb and he wants to fix it now. He also knows that he really sucks at being the King of Hell and he doesn't want the job anymore. He tells them that he also knows when it comes to the end of the world stuff, he should always place his bets with Sam and Dean - "big beautiful lumbering piles of flannel" - the important bit there is that he called them beautiful ;)
Crowley makes them a deal - they defeat the devil, and he'll seal the gates of hell to all demons - protecting the earth from all demons except him. They decide that's good enough for them.
Kelly tries to find Cas in the house... and he eventually shows back up again, claiming he was "nowhere" - she tells him that she's having the baby.
Sam and Dean and Mary research, Crowley is bored. Meanwhile, I love that they actually put a scene with everyone just typing... again, I'm a sucker for realistic things. They finally find a massive power outage in the pacific northwest (HA!) (I forgot to write down the name of the town/bay/area, so if anyone knows it, please tell me!) - that started at a house rented by "James Novak" - which is clearly Cas.
Dean jabs a blade through Crowley's hand and keeps him pinned to the table, because he doesn't trust him.
Cas and Kelly chat while she's in labour. Cas took a doula class online, apparently, but doesn't know how much of it applies to celestiel beings... and I kind of love that Cas is still as awkward as ever.
Kelly asks him to tell her again what he saw in his vision. He tells her that he saw the future - a world without pain, or hatred, etc... essentially paradise. (And guys, like... paradise is ALWAYS too good to be true.... as much as I really want Cas to be right this time, because I'm sick of him being wrong... I just can't believe that paradise is possible. And it doesn't fit into the SPN world-view either, which is that paradise is always at the sacrifice of free will - and free will is always the better option.)
Then there's the rumbling sound of the Impala outside, and Cas goes to investigate.
He says "Dean" and looks ready to get into an argument, but Dean cuts him off at the pass and tells him that they can "work through [their] crap" later, but right now they need to move and get some place safe, because Lucifer is on his way. Cas says that Kelly's in labour. Mary takes off to go check on her...
Dean's knee hurts like the dickens and Cas sees this and heals him... awww.
Sam runs out the backdoor to start warding the house and he sees the tear in space and time...which is exactly what Cas explains it to be. "Like to Narnia?", no, an alternate earth. To which Dean recounts the time they went to the alternate earth where the supernatural wasn't real and Sam was polish. Hahaha... Cas just looks confused. I'm wondering if he even knew where Balthazar sent them that time. Cas tells them that they don't want to know where this tear leads.
They go through it though, so apparently they do!
It's a place of eternal war between Heaven and Hell.
Then I have the words "Faith - dumbass" written... and I can't remember what they refer to, but I WOULD like to talk about how this episode is all about faith... and basically everyone having faith in someone. Kelly in Cas and the baby. Cas in the baby... misplaced or not. Crowley having faith in Sam and Dean... Sam and Dean having faith in themselves and their friends, even Cas, who has questionable allegiances at the moment.
Anyway, back to the wasteland. BOBBY IS THERE! That's who the mysterious figure was! Which was my SECOND guess when everyone was speculating... so, I wasn't as surprised as I could have been, I suppose... this is why I used to avoid speculation, but I don't care these days.
This Bobby doesn't know who they are though - the only Winchester he knew of was John, who died over 40 years ago - as told to him by a Hunter named Mary Campbell.
We find out that this was a world where Sam was never born. Mary never took Azazel's deal and John stayed dead, and she stayed a hunter, and Sam and Dean never existed to save the world. I LOVE THIS... because it takes Sam's cursed life and shines a light on it and says "no, this is SUPER IMPORTANT" and you didn't mess up and cause the apocalypse, you STOPPED IT. And Mary didn't mess up taking that deal with Azazel, she started a chain of events that would SAVE THE WORLD. Now, of course, in a universe of infinite worlds (which is now, for certain, canon in SPN) I'm sure there are also worlds where everything got messed up even though Sam was born... but I kind of loved this version of "It's a Wonderful Life" for Sam (and Mary) (and Dean - because it was Dean's superpower that actually beat back Lucifer long enough for Sam to defeat him.)
Meanwhile, in the house, Mary and Kelly are talking. Kelly tells Mary that she's dying, and Mary agrees. Kelly says it's okay though, because "wouldn't you die for your sons" and Mary agrees that she would... so, you know, just in case there was any doubt as to how this episode would end...
AU!Bobby continues to talk to Sam and Dean... when they compare worlds and say that theirs is obviously way better, Bobby insists that his "ain't so bad." He also tells us that his gun's name is Rufus (nice) and that it's loaded with angel bullets melted out from angel swords. Dean is pretty impressed.
Sam, Dean, and Cas discuss things, and Dean argues that things are not alright, that they've got Lucifer in their world, vs "mad max" AU. And then Crowley shows up to help, because a blade through the hand really wasn't enough to hold him for long.
They come up with a plan.
And then I start forgetting what my notes mean... so here they are:
"Sam & Dean - guns."
"Cas's faith"
Oh, and then Dean says that he has "faith in us" and Cas and even Crowley. Aww.
Then Lucifer shows up for the battle. Sam tells him that Chuck will help them stop him, because he did last time - and Lucifer counters that Chuck walked, and that he is indeed planning apocalypse take 2.
Cas charged first and is thrown (and I thought, "better than exploded"... oh how naive I was to think he was then in the clear.)
Sam and Dean run around the house... and go through the portal once Lucifer can see them do so.
He follows them into the apocalypse world.
Dean tries to kill Lucifer with Bobby's gun, while Sam runs off to where Crowley is doing a spell to seal the portal. The gun doesn't work on Lucifer, and Dean runs out of bullets... so Lucifer starts beating Dean up with his fists (as is his wont). Sam tells Crowley to hurry up, but Crowley says they need one more thing for the spell - and that's a life.
So, Crowley sacrifices himself...which, wow... that's pretty great, really. I mean, it's a really great way for the character to go out... fixing his mistake, and actually doing good for the world in the process.
Just as Sam and Dean are going to exist the portal though, Cas comes charging in to beat up Lucifer some more. Then I'm there worried that Cas is going to get trapped...
Meanwhile, the baby is born while Kelly is not even in position to give birth - and also it's just a huge flash of bright light, so I'm guessing he came right out of her stomach alien-style and then healed her up and cleaned her clothes in his wake.
Then Cas makes it out of the portal in time, only to be stabbed in the back by Lucifer and KILLED right in front of Sam and Dean, as Lucifer also steps out of the portal.
I mean, I really did not see that coming... as glowy angel-deaths are probably more final than explody ones and drownings? I mean... I really hope Cas isn't GONE GONE, because I swear Jared and Jensen have said before that they don't want to do the show without Misha in it... but yikers, I'm concerned.
Then, to top it off, and this I DID see coming... Mary comes charging up with her enochian knuckles and punches Lucifer back through the rift, after telling the boys that she loves them. At the very last minute - very reminiscent of the way Adam died (so, TOTALLY A LUCIFER MOVE), he grabs onto her shirt and pulls her in with him. Trapping her forever in an apocalyptic hellscape.
Sam and Dean are left with ALL OF THEIR LOVED ONES DEAD.
Sam runs inside to investigate the nephilim... while Dean stares in shock at Cas's dead vessel.
Kelly is dead.
And the nephilim is ALREADY a fully grown person hiding in the shadows of his room... and he kind of looks a bit like Rutger Hauer from Blade Runner. I guess they aren't going to have a use for those diapers... or, uh, they'll need a different size.
....
So, yeah... the good news is that the IMPALA IS FINE! Guys, don't worry about Baby.
But YIKES. I haven't been online since I watched, but I bet a considerable amount of the fandom is freakin' the hell out right now.
I may still be in denial, but I really can't believe that this is the end for Cas. He's gotta come back somehow.... or at least, I won't believe he's really dead until S13 is over. :P
And that's our season....
I'll be posting the timeline next week at some point. I've got a few things I've gotta verify from some episodes that I didn't watch close enough..
I guess I'll see you again for quick reactions in the fall!
I'll be posting this summer too, but it'll just be random junk, and maybe some fic.
Let me know what you thought - and please remember the BALANCE rule... gotta put the positive with any negative.
This entry was originally posted at http://hells-half-acre.dreamwidth.org/540110.html.