First Impressions: 9x21 "King Of The Damned"
I'm using these posts for quick reactions to the eps after I watch them.
Terribly late with this (which I hate), but here goes nothin'.
That has to be the longest "Then" opening in the history of the show.
Can I say that opening harbor at night shot of Scotland is absolutely beautiful? Bravo VFX team!
Is this the same dude we saw before as Gavin? I'm not sure....probably. Love Abaddon's hair...just sayin'.
I love Scottish accents, well any accents. :) She kills his friend, mentions Gavin is packing to go to colonies and swiftly time travels him out of there.
Ezra is one annoying little twerp of an angel, I've gotta say. I wanted to hear the story about the pizza and the seagulls.
And of course he's bragging about working for Metatron, of being one of the chosen few. He promptly gets himself kidnapped and brought before Castiel. Dun, dun, Duuuuuun!
Where is this location??? I swear I've seen it before on another show.
The boys have arrived at Cas's war room headquarters. Btw, is that a new jacket for Dean? I like. :)
Cas greets the boys with hugs. Awwww.
Castiel: They had no leader and they insisted on following me.
Dean: We get it; you're a rock star.
The war between the angels is on, but Cas is still hoping for a diplomatic solution.
Cas wants the boys to interrogate Ezra and Dean pretty much jumps at the chance, which doesn't go unnoticed by Sam.
At the Humboldt Hotel in Cleveland...Crowley is speaking to his trusted advisors, urging them to "spread the word - the king is back". Unfortunately, his crew is no longer on his side.
Crowley: You betrayed me! No one in the history of torture has been tortured with torture like the torture you'll be tortured with!
Abaddon: Relax everyone. You did the new Queen a solid. You're sitting at the popular kids table.
Is it wrong that I'm very distracted by whatever is dangling over the side of the cocktail glass Abaddon is holding? What IS that thing? Looks sorta....creepy.
Abaddon points out that after the Winchester boys kill her with the First Blade, Crowley will be next. She proposes they work together to kill the boys and deal with one another afterwards.
Crowley: To be clear...I'll not be joining you, ever. Except at your death scene, where I shall burst into song. Goodbye. You have no hold over me.
But Abaddon does, of course...his son, Gavin. Crowley points out there's no feelings between him and his son, as we've seen in the past...which Abaddon points out. Things are different now with Crowley's blood addiction and feeling human emotions.
Nice eye bleeding on Gavin! Ouch though.
Crowley's unfazed...at first. But he eventually caves and Abaddon releases Gavin.
Back with the boys, they're in the room with Ezra and Dean goes right away with the angel blade, but Sam stops him. He's got another idea of how to get this angel to open up....deny that he knows anything. Dean catches on quick and soon Ezra is playing right into their hands. Btw, I love how this interrogation scene is filmed, with the camera placed at Ezra's eye level so it's as if we're seeing the boys through his eyes. So it's like the boys are talking to us. Sweet. :)
So there isn't a doorway to heaven, but a portal and it moves around.
Gavin cleaned up that blood pretty nicely. I mean his shirt isn't even stained. Unless Abaddon magically made it all go away.
Wow, so Crowley's been dead for 291 years.
Gavin: [looking at a lightbulb] Can you cook a pigeon on it?
Abaddon: Not terribly quick is he?
So Abaddon opens the window and let's Gavin see the city.
Gavin: Holy Mother of God, we're amongst the stars! Are we in Heaven? You must be angels.
Crowley and Abaddon: Wow.
Back to the boys and Ezra...
Dean: “You’re a fan. Look, just cuz you’re hot for Metatron or Bieber or Beckham, just cuz you know everything about them doesn’t mean that you actually know them.”
Sam: "Or that they even know you exist."
Dean: "Ooh, that's cold, Sammy."
Turns out Ezra wasn't chosen for Metatron's elite squad after all. He's been reduced to the ground forces.
Back in Cleveland...
Gavin: You sold your soul!? Sold it? For an extra three inches of willy?
Oh, Crowley...that's so...you.
And then somebody went and killed Ezra. Ooops.
It's obvious that there's an angel working against Cas's operation.
Dean: “You don’t think anybody’s lying, I think everybody’s lying. It’s a gift.”
Dean wants to go nosing around, but Cas wants to talk to Sam first....about being possessed by Gadreel. Sam's not comfortable talking about it. It was less possession and more like they "shared housing". And I'm really distracted by Sam's girly hair here. Sorry.
Sam says Gadreel seemed misunderstood, but he never never felt threatened by the angel. But Sam says he was wrong since Gadreel killed Kevin.
I've gotta ask though...How does Sam have any memories of being possessed? He didn't even know he was possessed until Crowley went in and got him out. Am I right? My impression was that Gadreel kept Sam completely in the dark, so he felt completely normal...which is what we saw. I'm confused.
Back to the Crowely and his son drama...
Crowley: “I beat you, starved you, came home drunk, beat you some more, woke up hungover and, yeah, well, beat you. In all fairness, I didn’t really have any role models. My mother was a witch.”
And with a touch to the forehead (I thought that was strictly an angel thing?), Gavin can read.
Crowley: "King of Hell. Plenty of perks."
Suddenly Gavin's on board with daddy being a demon. He's willing to be Prince of Hell...as long as daddy can keep him from burning in hell. Crowley's proud of his negotiating son already.
Cas meets with Gadreel...who's seen Cas thru Sam's eyes. "He trusts you. You have a reputation for honor."
Gadreel says what happened in the garden wasn't his fault. Cas points out that Metatron cannot be trusted.
Gadreel: Castiel, are you suggesting I change loyalties?
Castiel: I'm suggesting you reclaim your original loyalty to the heaven and mission we were made to serve.
Gadreel: I thought that was exactly what I was doing.
Castiel: You've been deceived.
No wonder Cas can sympathize with Gadreel. He's been used by Metatron himself and thought he was doing what was best for heaven and earth.
Suddenly, a couple of angels attack. Cas takes them out and Gadreel disappears.
Oh...Dean's having Mark Of Cain flashbacks. Trippy.
It's Sam who finally gets his attention to answer his phone. It's Crowley calling about Abaddon, but first they have to retrieve the Blade.
Sam: Oh, come on Crowley. Really? You have to hide the Blade in a corpse? Not-not with the corpse, but in the corpse?
Dean: Well, I gotta say, it's not the first place I'd look.
Hellhound!!!! The boys run into a mausoleum and call Crowley. Of course it's his hellhound guarding the grave, but she was supposed to be collected. Love him talking so sweetly to his Juliet. LOL
Bleh. What a nice, juicy, ripe corpse.
Wisely, Sam volunteers to dig in and retrieve the Blade. Can't have Dean touching it anymore than necessary.
The boys call Crowley again who gives them his location with plans to kill Abaddon, but then he mentions Poughkeepsie, which of course is the Winchester word for "drop everything and run". He even says it twice...like that's not a dead giveaway to Abaddon at all that something's up. She's no fool, she shoots Crowley in the shoulder with a Devils Trapped bullet.
Dean meanwhile, doesn't mention a thing about this to Sam. Uh, oh...
Cas meets with Gadreel again, who denies knowing about the angel attack. He wants honor, but Cas points out his loyalty to Metatron is misguided. Cas asks him to report to him on what's going on. Since Metatron obviously has someone in Cas's camp working for him, he's just trying to even the playing field.
The boys arrive at the hotel and Dean tells Sam a lie to get him to go down to the basement while he heads up to the penthouse. Oh, Dean...what are you doing? He enters the room, Blade in hand.
Crowley: "Hello, Dean. Love the crazy bloodlust in your eyes."
OMG How is that little chest tap with the Blade so hot? *fans self*
Dean kills one demon, but then Abaddon appears, pinning him to the wall. We see Sam in the empty basement, knowing he's been sent on a wild goose chase.
Abaddon: So first, you'll die, painfully. And then Crowley will watch his son die, ditto. And then the King himself and Blade destroyed. That's quite a to do list.
The Mark activates and Dean able to break free of the wall. Whoah. He pushes against her power, but she's able to pin him to the wall again, knocking the Blade from his hand. Even as she's choking him, Dean's able to Jedi Mind Trick the Blade back to his hand. Holy Friggin' Cow!!!! Even Abaddon is shocked at his power.
He breaks free of the wall again, marches right up to her and plunges the Blade into her body just as Sam enters the room. Awesome slo-mo, btw. It coulda been cheesy, but it kinda works here. Then he starts hacking at her body, but Sam yells at Dean and gets him to stop and drop the Blade. Phew! Dean's face in that moment...he looks so lost and confused. Like he didn't even know what he was doing. Great pull back of the whole scene.
Crowley's digging the bullet out of his shoulder and complaining, as usual. Sam points out they could have easily just killed him...which is a good question: why didn't they? Again, I think the boys and Crowley like to use one another. It's the whole devil-you-know situation. Why kill a tool you can use in the future?
Anyway, Crowley then brings up about warning them on the phone and uh, oh...Sam knows Dean lied to him.
Dean says Gavin has to go back to his own time. Crowley points out that the ship his son was set to board for the new world went down, with no survivors. Sam argues that if one thing is changed in the past, it's ripple effect on the future is disastrous.
Crowley: Please. No one bends the rules like you two bend the rules.
He's got a point. :P
Oh, boys. Why would you let Crowley alone with his son like that. You should have known he'd pull a fast one.
Gavin: I don't know the first thing about the 21st century!
Crowley: You'll be fine. Just avoid cheap whiskey and cheap hookers... Look at me getting all fatherly.
Ooooh...final scene of the boys in the car! Haven't had one of these in a while. :)
Dean explains that he didn't warn Sam about the setup because he knew his brother would go in that room with him.
Dean: First time I touched that blade, I knew I wouldn't be stopped. I knew I would take down Abaddon and anything else if I had to. It wasn't a hero thing, it wasn't.... It was just calm. I knew I had to go it alone, Sammy.
He knew that if Sam went in there with him that Abaddon would just use Sam as a bargaining chip and they couldn't afford to mess it up like that. Now, to me this might be less about protecting Sam's life and more Dean being afraid that Sam would keep him from killing Abaddon. Because he would totally choose Sam over Abaddon. Dean couldn't afford to miss his chance to kill Abaddon.
Sam says he's worried that the Blade is doing something to Dean and suggests they store it away somewhere until they decide if they'll use it to kill Crowley. Dean answers with a simple "No."
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Good to have the show back to what it does best. :)
I must say I was a little surprised they killed off Abaddon before the big season finale. I've read where others have said her death seemed anticlimactic, but I disagree. It was quite dramatic, with Dean using the power of the Mark to neutralize her powers. Crowley proved that he was, in fact, true to his word about helping to take her down with the help of the boys. Will they kill him soon? I'm not so sure. Personally, I hope not. Love Mark Sheppard and Crowley. He's so delicious, this character, and I love what Mark brings to all the wonderful lines the writers give him. :)
Now that Dean's fulfilled the reason why he got the Mark in the first place, what now? Will he go kill Cain like he wanted? What happens to the Mark? What will it continue to do to Dean? This isn't over yet and I'm sure Dean will want to keep using the Blade. What many of us suspect (and I hope) is that Sam will somehow have to make the decision to save Dean from his darkside self. But how?
Ooooh...I can't wait for these last two episodes! :D
Terribly late with this (which I hate), but here goes nothin'.
That has to be the longest "Then" opening in the history of the show.
Can I say that opening harbor at night shot of Scotland is absolutely beautiful? Bravo VFX team!
Is this the same dude we saw before as Gavin? I'm not sure....probably. Love Abaddon's hair...just sayin'.
I love Scottish accents, well any accents. :) She kills his friend, mentions Gavin is packing to go to colonies and swiftly time travels him out of there.
Ezra is one annoying little twerp of an angel, I've gotta say. I wanted to hear the story about the pizza and the seagulls.
And of course he's bragging about working for Metatron, of being one of the chosen few. He promptly gets himself kidnapped and brought before Castiel. Dun, dun, Duuuuuun!
Where is this location??? I swear I've seen it before on another show.
The boys have arrived at Cas's war room headquarters. Btw, is that a new jacket for Dean? I like. :)
Cas greets the boys with hugs. Awwww.
Castiel: They had no leader and they insisted on following me.
Dean: We get it; you're a rock star.
The war between the angels is on, but Cas is still hoping for a diplomatic solution.
Cas wants the boys to interrogate Ezra and Dean pretty much jumps at the chance, which doesn't go unnoticed by Sam.
At the Humboldt Hotel in Cleveland...Crowley is speaking to his trusted advisors, urging them to "spread the word - the king is back". Unfortunately, his crew is no longer on his side.
Crowley: You betrayed me! No one in the history of torture has been tortured with torture like the torture you'll be tortured with!
Abaddon: Relax everyone. You did the new Queen a solid. You're sitting at the popular kids table.
Is it wrong that I'm very distracted by whatever is dangling over the side of the cocktail glass Abaddon is holding? What IS that thing? Looks sorta....creepy.
Abaddon points out that after the Winchester boys kill her with the First Blade, Crowley will be next. She proposes they work together to kill the boys and deal with one another afterwards.
Crowley: To be clear...I'll not be joining you, ever. Except at your death scene, where I shall burst into song. Goodbye. You have no hold over me.
But Abaddon does, of course...his son, Gavin. Crowley points out there's no feelings between him and his son, as we've seen in the past...which Abaddon points out. Things are different now with Crowley's blood addiction and feeling human emotions.
Nice eye bleeding on Gavin! Ouch though.
Crowley's unfazed...at first. But he eventually caves and Abaddon releases Gavin.
Back with the boys, they're in the room with Ezra and Dean goes right away with the angel blade, but Sam stops him. He's got another idea of how to get this angel to open up....deny that he knows anything. Dean catches on quick and soon Ezra is playing right into their hands. Btw, I love how this interrogation scene is filmed, with the camera placed at Ezra's eye level so it's as if we're seeing the boys through his eyes. So it's like the boys are talking to us. Sweet. :)
So there isn't a doorway to heaven, but a portal and it moves around.
Gavin cleaned up that blood pretty nicely. I mean his shirt isn't even stained. Unless Abaddon magically made it all go away.
Wow, so Crowley's been dead for 291 years.
Gavin: [looking at a lightbulb] Can you cook a pigeon on it?
Abaddon: Not terribly quick is he?
So Abaddon opens the window and let's Gavin see the city.
Gavin: Holy Mother of God, we're amongst the stars! Are we in Heaven? You must be angels.
Crowley and Abaddon: Wow.
Back to the boys and Ezra...
Dean: “You’re a fan. Look, just cuz you’re hot for Metatron or Bieber or Beckham, just cuz you know everything about them doesn’t mean that you actually know them.”
Sam: "Or that they even know you exist."
Dean: "Ooh, that's cold, Sammy."
Turns out Ezra wasn't chosen for Metatron's elite squad after all. He's been reduced to the ground forces.
Back in Cleveland...
Gavin: You sold your soul!? Sold it? For an extra three inches of willy?
Oh, Crowley...that's so...you.
And then somebody went and killed Ezra. Ooops.
It's obvious that there's an angel working against Cas's operation.
Dean: “You don’t think anybody’s lying, I think everybody’s lying. It’s a gift.”
Dean wants to go nosing around, but Cas wants to talk to Sam first....about being possessed by Gadreel. Sam's not comfortable talking about it. It was less possession and more like they "shared housing". And I'm really distracted by Sam's girly hair here. Sorry.
Sam says Gadreel seemed misunderstood, but he never never felt threatened by the angel. But Sam says he was wrong since Gadreel killed Kevin.
I've gotta ask though...How does Sam have any memories of being possessed? He didn't even know he was possessed until Crowley went in and got him out. Am I right? My impression was that Gadreel kept Sam completely in the dark, so he felt completely normal...which is what we saw. I'm confused.
Back to the Crowely and his son drama...
Crowley: “I beat you, starved you, came home drunk, beat you some more, woke up hungover and, yeah, well, beat you. In all fairness, I didn’t really have any role models. My mother was a witch.”
And with a touch to the forehead (I thought that was strictly an angel thing?), Gavin can read.
Crowley: "King of Hell. Plenty of perks."
Suddenly Gavin's on board with daddy being a demon. He's willing to be Prince of Hell...as long as daddy can keep him from burning in hell. Crowley's proud of his negotiating son already.
Cas meets with Gadreel...who's seen Cas thru Sam's eyes. "He trusts you. You have a reputation for honor."
Gadreel says what happened in the garden wasn't his fault. Cas points out that Metatron cannot be trusted.
Gadreel: Castiel, are you suggesting I change loyalties?
Castiel: I'm suggesting you reclaim your original loyalty to the heaven and mission we were made to serve.
Gadreel: I thought that was exactly what I was doing.
Castiel: You've been deceived.
No wonder Cas can sympathize with Gadreel. He's been used by Metatron himself and thought he was doing what was best for heaven and earth.
Suddenly, a couple of angels attack. Cas takes them out and Gadreel disappears.
Oh...Dean's having Mark Of Cain flashbacks. Trippy.
It's Sam who finally gets his attention to answer his phone. It's Crowley calling about Abaddon, but first they have to retrieve the Blade.
Sam: Oh, come on Crowley. Really? You have to hide the Blade in a corpse? Not-not with the corpse, but in the corpse?
Dean: Well, I gotta say, it's not the first place I'd look.
Hellhound!!!! The boys run into a mausoleum and call Crowley. Of course it's his hellhound guarding the grave, but she was supposed to be collected. Love him talking so sweetly to his Juliet. LOL
Bleh. What a nice, juicy, ripe corpse.
Wisely, Sam volunteers to dig in and retrieve the Blade. Can't have Dean touching it anymore than necessary.
The boys call Crowley again who gives them his location with plans to kill Abaddon, but then he mentions Poughkeepsie, which of course is the Winchester word for "drop everything and run". He even says it twice...like that's not a dead giveaway to Abaddon at all that something's up. She's no fool, she shoots Crowley in the shoulder with a Devils Trapped bullet.
Dean meanwhile, doesn't mention a thing about this to Sam. Uh, oh...
Cas meets with Gadreel again, who denies knowing about the angel attack. He wants honor, but Cas points out his loyalty to Metatron is misguided. Cas asks him to report to him on what's going on. Since Metatron obviously has someone in Cas's camp working for him, he's just trying to even the playing field.
The boys arrive at the hotel and Dean tells Sam a lie to get him to go down to the basement while he heads up to the penthouse. Oh, Dean...what are you doing? He enters the room, Blade in hand.
Crowley: "Hello, Dean. Love the crazy bloodlust in your eyes."
OMG How is that little chest tap with the Blade so hot? *fans self*
Dean kills one demon, but then Abaddon appears, pinning him to the wall. We see Sam in the empty basement, knowing he's been sent on a wild goose chase.
Abaddon: So first, you'll die, painfully. And then Crowley will watch his son die, ditto. And then the King himself and Blade destroyed. That's quite a to do list.
The Mark activates and Dean able to break free of the wall. Whoah. He pushes against her power, but she's able to pin him to the wall again, knocking the Blade from his hand. Even as she's choking him, Dean's able to Jedi Mind Trick the Blade back to his hand. Holy Friggin' Cow!!!! Even Abaddon is shocked at his power.
He breaks free of the wall again, marches right up to her and plunges the Blade into her body just as Sam enters the room. Awesome slo-mo, btw. It coulda been cheesy, but it kinda works here. Then he starts hacking at her body, but Sam yells at Dean and gets him to stop and drop the Blade. Phew! Dean's face in that moment...he looks so lost and confused. Like he didn't even know what he was doing. Great pull back of the whole scene.
Crowley's digging the bullet out of his shoulder and complaining, as usual. Sam points out they could have easily just killed him...which is a good question: why didn't they? Again, I think the boys and Crowley like to use one another. It's the whole devil-you-know situation. Why kill a tool you can use in the future?
Anyway, Crowley then brings up about warning them on the phone and uh, oh...Sam knows Dean lied to him.
Dean says Gavin has to go back to his own time. Crowley points out that the ship his son was set to board for the new world went down, with no survivors. Sam argues that if one thing is changed in the past, it's ripple effect on the future is disastrous.
Crowley: Please. No one bends the rules like you two bend the rules.
He's got a point. :P
Oh, boys. Why would you let Crowley alone with his son like that. You should have known he'd pull a fast one.
Gavin: I don't know the first thing about the 21st century!
Crowley: You'll be fine. Just avoid cheap whiskey and cheap hookers... Look at me getting all fatherly.
Ooooh...final scene of the boys in the car! Haven't had one of these in a while. :)
Dean explains that he didn't warn Sam about the setup because he knew his brother would go in that room with him.
Dean: First time I touched that blade, I knew I wouldn't be stopped. I knew I would take down Abaddon and anything else if I had to. It wasn't a hero thing, it wasn't.... It was just calm. I knew I had to go it alone, Sammy.
He knew that if Sam went in there with him that Abaddon would just use Sam as a bargaining chip and they couldn't afford to mess it up like that. Now, to me this might be less about protecting Sam's life and more Dean being afraid that Sam would keep him from killing Abaddon. Because he would totally choose Sam over Abaddon. Dean couldn't afford to miss his chance to kill Abaddon.
Sam says he's worried that the Blade is doing something to Dean and suggests they store it away somewhere until they decide if they'll use it to kill Crowley. Dean answers with a simple "No."
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Good to have the show back to what it does best. :)
I must say I was a little surprised they killed off Abaddon before the big season finale. I've read where others have said her death seemed anticlimactic, but I disagree. It was quite dramatic, with Dean using the power of the Mark to neutralize her powers. Crowley proved that he was, in fact, true to his word about helping to take her down with the help of the boys. Will they kill him soon? I'm not so sure. Personally, I hope not. Love Mark Sheppard and Crowley. He's so delicious, this character, and I love what Mark brings to all the wonderful lines the writers give him. :)
Now that Dean's fulfilled the reason why he got the Mark in the first place, what now? Will he go kill Cain like he wanted? What happens to the Mark? What will it continue to do to Dean? This isn't over yet and I'm sure Dean will want to keep using the Blade. What many of us suspect (and I hope) is that Sam will somehow have to make the decision to save Dean from his darkside self. But how?
Ooooh...I can't wait for these last two episodes! :D