Quick Reaction: 15x15 Gimme Shelter
Hello!
Yes, yes, I know there were no rewatches on the weekend, even though I said there would be... but I was BUSY... I will do rewatches this weekend, respond to my AO3 comments, and I will also remember to email my mother and everything else I forgot to do last weekend.
Now, let's talk about the episode...
We begin with a group of young adults, who should probably not be volunteering at a soup kitchen if they are that grossed out by people who don't have accesses to regular bathing. Luckily, the pastor steps in before one of them can go be an ass. Then, on the way home, young Connor who was saved from not being an ass is NOT saved by a talking Teddy Bear... and OH, I just made a connection? Maybe? Maybe not. I'm still confused about some things.
Connor is snagged round the neck by a feral dog-catching pole thingy. Who is at the other end of the pole? We don't know.
We cut to the Bunker, where Sam is reading about the case. But he thinks it might just be regular ol' murder... meanwhile, Dean thinks that a power outage in Atlantic City is both a sign of Amara's presence and also a sign that he should go have some fun in Atlantic City.
Cas arrives, seemingly being gone for a GOOD portion of time, given that he missed the entire Mrs. Butter's incident, which happened over possibly a 4 week period, depending on how you feel about birthdays. He's immediately tagged to stay home and babysit Jack, while Dean and Sam go to Atlantic City. But then Dean suggests that maybe he and Jack check out the other case that might just be murder - since it would get Jack out of the house and might be fun.
For the record, I'm not sure this is wise.
Cas and Jack go, though, in their FBI disguises as Agent Swift and Agent Lovato. There's a great amount of witty dialogue in this episode, and I wish I could capture it - but I love when Jack says he has that teddy bear, and then tries to cover it up by saying that it belongs to his step-son, Ronald.
It's ADORABLE to see Jack and Cas going around like two very awkwardly bad-at-this undercover hunters.
Cas figures they should check to see if it's the work of a demon - and so he summons a crossroads demon to have a chat. Meanwhile, Jack tries to sign up for social media so that he can do research on the victim... and we have another great line about how Cas tried social media once, but there were "too many cats"
The crossroads demon says that there's no deals going on, because Rowena is ruling hell old-school style - where the wicked just end up there naturally and they don't try to make people fall. INTERESTING. The demon is really hecking bored though and asks if he can tag along with Jack and Cas, but they refuse.
Meanwhile, back at the soup kitchen/church/faith-based place, one of the volunteers/congregation steals the money from the donation box... uh oh... sure enough, she is captured in the parking lot.
In another part of the country, Sam and Dean are in the car, and Sam is trying to talk to Dean about his feelings. He knows that it must be hard for Dean to set-up Amara for death/destruction, given their weird shady history where Dean was connected to Amara against his will and now can't harm her.
After checking in briefly with Dean, Cas and Jack decide to divide and conquer - with Jack joining the congregation, and Cas continuing the role of the FBI agent. Jack starts awkwardly trying to get information out of Sylvia, the pastor's daughter, while Cas delivers the bad news that Valerie has mysteriously disappeared.
Valerie, meanwhile, wakes up in a room with GREED written on the wall... she's tied to a chair and is getting her fingers cut off one by one, just like happened to Connor. Oh dear.
Jack tries to awkwardly apologize to Sylvia for making her upset by bringing up her friend who was brutally murdered (been there.) Jack mentions that he lost his mother, and Sylvia also lost hers... and also her father is apparently a better pastor than he is a father. Jack says that he has "more dads than most" (ha!) and he's always feeling like he's letting them down. Sylvia concludes that they should trust in God and not people (this goes well against the humanist message of Supernatural, and should have been our first sign that Sylvia wasn't on the right path...)
Meanwhile, the pastor tells Cas about how Rudy, their AV tech guy, recently left the congregation to worship someplace else. Sylvia comes in to tell her dad something and he's like "I'm busy" and she's all like " :( " and after she leaves, the pastor asks Cas if he has kids - and he's like "it's complicated" because I guess basically he has two kids, but only because he's wearing the corpse of one of their fathers, and the other one adopted HIM.
The pastor talks a little about how the church was formed, and Cas finishes one of his sentences with "God doesn't care" and the pastor kind of side-steps that, but says that it's important to help each other, and basically you're better off working to help your fellow man then by letting a religious doctrine tell you that you suck all day... but like, better worded? Listen, my notes are bad, guys! I tell you this every week!
Across the country, in a small snow-storm, Amara shows up at a gas station and confronts Sam and Dean - inviting them to eat perogies with her and tell her why they're trying to track her down. DUN DUN DUN...
Jack, meanwhile, attends a prayer circle thingy, and I'm thinking here that any prayer to God that includes Jack's name has GOT to be a bad idea, right? But I guess God is supposedly too busy destroying other universes?
When Jack is asked to talk about himself though, he freezes up. Cas steps in to talk instead, smoothing over the awkward situation. Cas tells the congregation that he used to blindly follow orders, and then when he realized that was wrong and he was doing terrible things, he became lost and without purpose - but then he became a father and rediscovered his faith (awww)
Afterwards, the Pastor talks to either Jack or Cas, I forget which, about how everyone can be God's hands and their each a finger or something like that... and then me and my friend were like "Wait, is the Pastor evil?! Nooo..."
Then the TV in the hall comes on and shows Valerie being tortured and Jack runs and unplugs it. And they figure it must be the AV guy.
Back with Sam and Dean and Amara, who are now eating perogies... our watching session is completely derailed by my friend, who has a proud heritage which will not allow her to accept the HORRIBLE LOOKING PEROGIES. What restaurant is this! Who would serve such a travesty of a pierogi?! These are the real unanswered questions of the episode.
Above the travesty that is the perogies though, there is also a conversation happening - they tell her about Jack, which I also don't think is a good idea - wasn't him being alive supposed to be a secret?
Amara explains that her and Chuck are like - the same, only split in two, so that they are creation and destruction, etc.... Sam concludes that them splitting apart was the big bang... Dean concludes that it was the moment that God locked her away as well. Amara is insistent that harming Chuck would make her feel really bad, and she doesn't want to do it.
Cas and Jack, meanwhile, break into Rudy's place, only to find him dead and VERY GROSS, with the words LUST written over his bed.
While Dean and Sam had left disappointed, Dean goes back into the restaurant for one last try. He confronts Amara about why the heck she brought back Mary. She tells him that she wanted to accomplish two things with it. The first, was to show Dean that his mother was just a person, and the myth of some better perfect life if things had been different was just a myth. She wanted to teach him that NOW is always better then some idealized past. She wanted him to accept his life and let go of what could have been. The second thing she wanted to do follows suit - which was to release him of his anger, but she obviously failed at that.
Dean is like "damn right!" because he is FURIOUS that she is also a "cosmic dick"... and he's mad that his life is just being a puppet, and that her life is too. He tells her that God doesn't care about her. Amara asks if she can trust him, and Dean is like "I would never harm you" which isn't technically a lie, but I suppose he could still set her up to be harmed by someone else.
Amara says that she'll think about helping them.
My friend says that she thinks the waiter never came over to check on all the yelling, because that restaurant is used to their horrible perogies making people angry.
Back at the faith-based community, Sylvia straight up just stabs her friend. So, that murderer outed themselves. Her friend informs everyone while they wait for the ambulance that it was Sylvia who did it, and that they should check the storage room. The pastor runs in and finds Valerie chained up there, and then Sylvia puts a nice to his neck and we get a very brief recap of their beef - which is seemingly that Sylvia's mom thought faith-healing would save her, and Sylvia's dad was like "maybe science?" and then her mom died, and Sylvia's dad was like "maybe I will teach people to help and seek help from other humans, rather than from a God that by nature cannot prescribe life-saving medications or perform surgery or whatever on a practical bases... and Sylvia sees this as not being a good pastor, because it's not teaching people to put God over other people.
Sounds like a religious debate that should be had in a calm studious manner and not with knives... but I suppose one could say that about most of humanity's religious wars.
Jack runs in to help, and Sylvia stabs him, and then is really confused when he heals in front of her. Cas charges in and disarms Sylvia and puts her to sleep. Then he heals Valerie. And the pastor is like "What are you?" because yeah, that cover is blown.
We get a cut scene, and then it's the morning? Next day? It's a confusing passage of time, and the cops are leading Sylvia away. The pastor has been told what Cas is, and he gives an impassioned speech about how he will be there for his daughter as she gets the help she needs - etc.... meanwhile, the crossroads demon is the cop that is driving the car, and I'm very confused as to the significance of that - is this something that is going to come back into play? Or are we meant to believe he was helping her the whole time? Or something else?
As Cas and Jack drive home, Cas attempts to have an emotional car talk - and it works, only it also backfires horrifically, when Jack tells Cas that he's been lying to them - that Billie is setting him up to become a bomb, so when he takes out Chuck and Amara, he will also take out himself. He doesn't want Cas to tell Sam and Dean, and to Jack, the bright side is that he believes that they'll finally forgive him if he sacrifices his life to kill Chuck for them. Cas DOES NOT LIKE THIS, to put it mildly, because accidental murderer or not, Cas really loves his son (of Satan).
Back in the Bunker, Sam and Dean have actually gotten home before Cas and Jack did, and Cas and Jack came in while they were sleeping and didn't want to wake them up. But Cas runs into Dean on his way back out... and Dean is like, "Amara might be on board" and "but where are you going?" and Cas says he's going to to try to find another way... and Dean is like "BUT WHY?!" and then Cas says "I have something to tell you..." and I totally took this to mean that Cas told Dean about how Jack is going to off die.. and didn't think there was ambiguity there, but then I did read some stuff before I started writing this that pointed out that it MAY have been an "IS he going to ACTUALLY tell him?!" cliff-hanger, so I suppose we'll have to wait until next week to find out for sure.
Anyway, I liked the fact that they brought back the ol' 'human bomb is the only way to kill God-creature' since that was the only solution they could find back in S11 too - and consistency is always nice. I thought Jack and Cas's adventures were awesome and yeah, there some really great lines!
Let me know what you thought in comments!
This entry was originally posted at https://hells-half-acre.dreamwidth.org/590177.html.
Yes, yes, I know there were no rewatches on the weekend, even though I said there would be... but I was BUSY... I will do rewatches this weekend, respond to my AO3 comments, and I will also remember to email my mother and everything else I forgot to do last weekend.
Now, let's talk about the episode...
We begin with a group of young adults, who should probably not be volunteering at a soup kitchen if they are that grossed out by people who don't have accesses to regular bathing. Luckily, the pastor steps in before one of them can go be an ass. Then, on the way home, young Connor who was saved from not being an ass is NOT saved by a talking Teddy Bear... and OH, I just made a connection? Maybe? Maybe not. I'm still confused about some things.
Connor is snagged round the neck by a feral dog-catching pole thingy. Who is at the other end of the pole? We don't know.
We cut to the Bunker, where Sam is reading about the case. But he thinks it might just be regular ol' murder... meanwhile, Dean thinks that a power outage in Atlantic City is both a sign of Amara's presence and also a sign that he should go have some fun in Atlantic City.
Cas arrives, seemingly being gone for a GOOD portion of time, given that he missed the entire Mrs. Butter's incident, which happened over possibly a 4 week period, depending on how you feel about birthdays. He's immediately tagged to stay home and babysit Jack, while Dean and Sam go to Atlantic City. But then Dean suggests that maybe he and Jack check out the other case that might just be murder - since it would get Jack out of the house and might be fun.
For the record, I'm not sure this is wise.
Cas and Jack go, though, in their FBI disguises as Agent Swift and Agent Lovato. There's a great amount of witty dialogue in this episode, and I wish I could capture it - but I love when Jack says he has that teddy bear, and then tries to cover it up by saying that it belongs to his step-son, Ronald.
It's ADORABLE to see Jack and Cas going around like two very awkwardly bad-at-this undercover hunters.
Cas figures they should check to see if it's the work of a demon - and so he summons a crossroads demon to have a chat. Meanwhile, Jack tries to sign up for social media so that he can do research on the victim... and we have another great line about how Cas tried social media once, but there were "too many cats"
The crossroads demon says that there's no deals going on, because Rowena is ruling hell old-school style - where the wicked just end up there naturally and they don't try to make people fall. INTERESTING. The demon is really hecking bored though and asks if he can tag along with Jack and Cas, but they refuse.
Meanwhile, back at the soup kitchen/church/faith-based place, one of the volunteers/congregation steals the money from the donation box... uh oh... sure enough, she is captured in the parking lot.
In another part of the country, Sam and Dean are in the car, and Sam is trying to talk to Dean about his feelings. He knows that it must be hard for Dean to set-up Amara for death/destruction, given their weird shady history where Dean was connected to Amara against his will and now can't harm her.
After checking in briefly with Dean, Cas and Jack decide to divide and conquer - with Jack joining the congregation, and Cas continuing the role of the FBI agent. Jack starts awkwardly trying to get information out of Sylvia, the pastor's daughter, while Cas delivers the bad news that Valerie has mysteriously disappeared.
Valerie, meanwhile, wakes up in a room with GREED written on the wall... she's tied to a chair and is getting her fingers cut off one by one, just like happened to Connor. Oh dear.
Jack tries to awkwardly apologize to Sylvia for making her upset by bringing up her friend who was brutally murdered (been there.) Jack mentions that he lost his mother, and Sylvia also lost hers... and also her father is apparently a better pastor than he is a father. Jack says that he has "more dads than most" (ha!) and he's always feeling like he's letting them down. Sylvia concludes that they should trust in God and not people (this goes well against the humanist message of Supernatural, and should have been our first sign that Sylvia wasn't on the right path...)
Meanwhile, the pastor tells Cas about how Rudy, their AV tech guy, recently left the congregation to worship someplace else. Sylvia comes in to tell her dad something and he's like "I'm busy" and she's all like " :( " and after she leaves, the pastor asks Cas if he has kids - and he's like "it's complicated" because I guess basically he has two kids, but only because he's wearing the corpse of one of their fathers, and the other one adopted HIM.
The pastor talks a little about how the church was formed, and Cas finishes one of his sentences with "God doesn't care" and the pastor kind of side-steps that, but says that it's important to help each other, and basically you're better off working to help your fellow man then by letting a religious doctrine tell you that you suck all day... but like, better worded? Listen, my notes are bad, guys! I tell you this every week!
Across the country, in a small snow-storm, Amara shows up at a gas station and confronts Sam and Dean - inviting them to eat perogies with her and tell her why they're trying to track her down. DUN DUN DUN...
Jack, meanwhile, attends a prayer circle thingy, and I'm thinking here that any prayer to God that includes Jack's name has GOT to be a bad idea, right? But I guess God is supposedly too busy destroying other universes?
When Jack is asked to talk about himself though, he freezes up. Cas steps in to talk instead, smoothing over the awkward situation. Cas tells the congregation that he used to blindly follow orders, and then when he realized that was wrong and he was doing terrible things, he became lost and without purpose - but then he became a father and rediscovered his faith (awww)
Afterwards, the Pastor talks to either Jack or Cas, I forget which, about how everyone can be God's hands and their each a finger or something like that... and then me and my friend were like "Wait, is the Pastor evil?! Nooo..."
Then the TV in the hall comes on and shows Valerie being tortured and Jack runs and unplugs it. And they figure it must be the AV guy.
Back with Sam and Dean and Amara, who are now eating perogies... our watching session is completely derailed by my friend, who has a proud heritage which will not allow her to accept the HORRIBLE LOOKING PEROGIES. What restaurant is this! Who would serve such a travesty of a pierogi?! These are the real unanswered questions of the episode.
Above the travesty that is the perogies though, there is also a conversation happening - they tell her about Jack, which I also don't think is a good idea - wasn't him being alive supposed to be a secret?
Amara explains that her and Chuck are like - the same, only split in two, so that they are creation and destruction, etc.... Sam concludes that them splitting apart was the big bang... Dean concludes that it was the moment that God locked her away as well. Amara is insistent that harming Chuck would make her feel really bad, and she doesn't want to do it.
Cas and Jack, meanwhile, break into Rudy's place, only to find him dead and VERY GROSS, with the words LUST written over his bed.
While Dean and Sam had left disappointed, Dean goes back into the restaurant for one last try. He confronts Amara about why the heck she brought back Mary. She tells him that she wanted to accomplish two things with it. The first, was to show Dean that his mother was just a person, and the myth of some better perfect life if things had been different was just a myth. She wanted to teach him that NOW is always better then some idealized past. She wanted him to accept his life and let go of what could have been. The second thing she wanted to do follows suit - which was to release him of his anger, but she obviously failed at that.
Dean is like "damn right!" because he is FURIOUS that she is also a "cosmic dick"... and he's mad that his life is just being a puppet, and that her life is too. He tells her that God doesn't care about her. Amara asks if she can trust him, and Dean is like "I would never harm you" which isn't technically a lie, but I suppose he could still set her up to be harmed by someone else.
Amara says that she'll think about helping them.
My friend says that she thinks the waiter never came over to check on all the yelling, because that restaurant is used to their horrible perogies making people angry.
Back at the faith-based community, Sylvia straight up just stabs her friend. So, that murderer outed themselves. Her friend informs everyone while they wait for the ambulance that it was Sylvia who did it, and that they should check the storage room. The pastor runs in and finds Valerie chained up there, and then Sylvia puts a nice to his neck and we get a very brief recap of their beef - which is seemingly that Sylvia's mom thought faith-healing would save her, and Sylvia's dad was like "maybe science?" and then her mom died, and Sylvia's dad was like "maybe I will teach people to help and seek help from other humans, rather than from a God that by nature cannot prescribe life-saving medications or perform surgery or whatever on a practical bases... and Sylvia sees this as not being a good pastor, because it's not teaching people to put God over other people.
Sounds like a religious debate that should be had in a calm studious manner and not with knives... but I suppose one could say that about most of humanity's religious wars.
Jack runs in to help, and Sylvia stabs him, and then is really confused when he heals in front of her. Cas charges in and disarms Sylvia and puts her to sleep. Then he heals Valerie. And the pastor is like "What are you?" because yeah, that cover is blown.
We get a cut scene, and then it's the morning? Next day? It's a confusing passage of time, and the cops are leading Sylvia away. The pastor has been told what Cas is, and he gives an impassioned speech about how he will be there for his daughter as she gets the help she needs - etc.... meanwhile, the crossroads demon is the cop that is driving the car, and I'm very confused as to the significance of that - is this something that is going to come back into play? Or are we meant to believe he was helping her the whole time? Or something else?
As Cas and Jack drive home, Cas attempts to have an emotional car talk - and it works, only it also backfires horrifically, when Jack tells Cas that he's been lying to them - that Billie is setting him up to become a bomb, so when he takes out Chuck and Amara, he will also take out himself. He doesn't want Cas to tell Sam and Dean, and to Jack, the bright side is that he believes that they'll finally forgive him if he sacrifices his life to kill Chuck for them. Cas DOES NOT LIKE THIS, to put it mildly, because accidental murderer or not, Cas really loves his son (of Satan).
Back in the Bunker, Sam and Dean have actually gotten home before Cas and Jack did, and Cas and Jack came in while they were sleeping and didn't want to wake them up. But Cas runs into Dean on his way back out... and Dean is like, "Amara might be on board" and "but where are you going?" and Cas says he's going to to try to find another way... and Dean is like "BUT WHY?!" and then Cas says "I have something to tell you..." and I totally took this to mean that Cas told Dean about how Jack is going to off die.. and didn't think there was ambiguity there, but then I did read some stuff before I started writing this that pointed out that it MAY have been an "IS he going to ACTUALLY tell him?!" cliff-hanger, so I suppose we'll have to wait until next week to find out for sure.
Anyway, I liked the fact that they brought back the ol' 'human bomb is the only way to kill God-creature' since that was the only solution they could find back in S11 too - and consistency is always nice. I thought Jack and Cas's adventures were awesome and yeah, there some really great lines!
Let me know what you thought in comments!
This entry was originally posted at https://hells-half-acre.dreamwidth.org/590177.html.