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Baby’s Rear View Recap: 12.10 “Lily Sunder Has Some Regrets”

Diyah Pera/The CW

This post is about Supernatural season 12 episode 10 “Lily Sunder Has Some Regrets,” written by Steve Yockey and directed by Thomas Wright.

*****Spoilers below*****

“That’s right, call your friends. I’ve waited so long.”

The episode opens on a woman playing an arcade game in a bar. The employee warns her that it’s closing time and leaves to take out the trash. Once he’s gone, a redheaded woman with an eyepatch appears behind her. The redhead addresses her as “Benjamin” and blocks her path out of the bar. The redhead pulls out two angel blades and a fight ensues. Somehow, the redhead is able to keep Benjamin from using angel powers. She corners Benjamin, who is able to get out an Enochian plea to a select few other angels just before she puts an angel blade in his vessel.

“I'm not pissed that he cares about us, you know. I'm -- I'm grateful. But Billie said there would be cosmic consequences if that deal got broken. You have any idea what that means?”
“No.”
“Neither do I, but I'm pretty sure it ain't jellybeans and g-strings.”

Sam and Dean are taking a look at Cas’s info board on the missing mother of Satan’s baby, Kelly Kline. Sam asks about Mom and Dean tells him she’s out hunting, although he doesn’t sound particularly pleased about it. The conversation turns to Cas, and Sam admonishes Dean for giving him the silent treatment. Cas steps into the room, having heard the tail-end of the conversation.

“Well we'll come with you.”
“Both of you?”
“Sure. Yeah, we could help. And make sure you don't do anything else stupid.”

Cas defends his actions and promises to deal with it. He then tells them that he has to go. To deal with something personal—the message he got from Benjamin over angel-radio. Dean and Sam invite themselves along.

“Wow, this Benjamin seems like he's pretty cool, you know. Like he wouldn't make any half-cocked, knee-jerk choices.”
“Yeah, you know what I like about him? Is that he's sarcastic, but he's thoughtful and appreciative, too.”

Sam tries to get Dean and Cas to speak to each other on the horribly silent drive. If not about Billie, at least about Benjamin and the case they’re about to work. Cas reveals that Benjamin and his vessel were “friends,” which means that Benjamin would never willingly put her in danger.

“Benjamin and I, we fought together. He was he was a gifted soldier. I don't know how this could've happened.”

TFW shows up at the site to find Benjamin dead. Dean finds and angel blade on the floor. When Cas picks it up, he senses that the blade isn’t Benjamin’s; and the Redheaded woman senses him.

“I'm not a hero, but sometimes doing the right thing requires sacrifices.”
“True, but it just always seems that it's other angels sacrificing for your good deeds. Their wings, their lives.”
“Are you here to insult me or talk about Benjamin?
“Can't we do both?”

Cas leaves the boys behind to meet with the two other angels we saw receive Benjamin’s message. The angels are Mirabel and Ishim, and they are unhappy with Castiel for his hand in events in the past. Ishim and Mirabel reveals that all the other angels from their flight have been murdered.

“These are my friends -- my friends who don't listen very well.”

Dean gets impatient and storms in. Sam follows behind. They squish into the booth. It’s a little bit funny, but Ishim isn’t amused. He orders Mirabel to see if there’s anyone else outside. She does, and is found and stabbed by the redheaded woman.

“Why do you let him talk to you like that?

“If Ishim can help me find whoever killed Benjamin, then I have to.”
“Okay, yeah, look, I-I get that we need super dick there, but, I mean, come on.”
“The angels that I served with are being killed. So I will put up with Ishim, I will put up with everything else, and so will you.”

Meanwhile, Ishim continues to insult them. He suggests they move this conversation to a safe house and goes to get Mirabel.

“You can't smite me, Ishim. I'm not powerless anymore.”

Ishim runs into the redheaded woman outside and they fight. He tries to smite her but it doesn’t work, and she gets the upper hand. Cas comes to Ishim’s rescue and the Winchesters come to Cas’s. The woman disappears in a flash of light, and then drives away.

“Her family was murdered. I mean, I-I know you were just doing a job, but—”
“Are you saying that those angels deserved to die?”

“What?”

“You think I deserve to die?”

Once they’re at the safe house, Cas explains who the redheaded woman is. We are shown a flashback: Cas, in a female vessel, is part of a party of angels congregated to punish an angel named Akobel who has married a human woman and fathered a Nephilim. The angels execute Akobel while Cas reads his sentence, and then Ishim goes inside to take care of the Nephilim. The human woman was Lily Sunder, and she’s somehow still alive and kicking ass over 100 years later.

Ishim explains that she has made a demonic pact. Dean and Sam go to talk to her while Cas stays behind to heal Ishim.

“You know why we're meant to stay away from them humans? Hmm? It's not because we're a danger to them. They're a danger to us.”

Ishim tries to convince Cas that humans are bad news. Cas insists that Sam and Dean have made him stronger. But healing Ishim’s wound has made him substantially weaker.

“You broke my heart, Lily. Now I'm gonna break yours.”

After going home and healing herself, Lily Sunder gets ready to go out again. But she’s met by Sam and Dean. Sam tracked her rental car, apparently. Sam asks to talk and starts to explain that it wasn’t Cas’s fault, and that Heaven has rules about Nephilim. As we see another flashback, Lily explains that she studied angels all her life. She summoned Ishim, and learned things from him. Ishim became dangerously obsessed with her, and Lily needed Akobel to protect her from him. Ishim killed her daughter just to break her heart. Her daughter was human.

Dean calls Cas to confirm, but Cas isn’t answering. Dean goes to find him while Sam stays with Lily.

“I used to dream about my daughter every night. Do you know what I dream about now? Nothing.”

Sam finds out that Lily is using Enochian magic and that every time she uses it, a piece of her soul burns away.

“I'm gonna help you. I'm gonna cure you of your human weakness same way I cured my own -- by cutting it out.”

Dean finds Cas and tells him Ishim’s lying. A confrontation follows, and Ishim easily overpowers them both. He beats Cas down and then goes after Dean—Cas’s human weakness. Dean has painted a banishing sigil in blood, but chooses not to use it when Ishim tells him that it could kill Cas if he does. Ishim has him cornered and is about to deal a killing blow when Lily and Sam burst through the door.

Lily takes on Ishim, revealing that the eye beneath her eyepatch holds the power of an angel. Dean, Sam, and Lily all fight him together, but Sam and Dean can’t keep up. Lily manages to hold Ishim long enough for Cas to step up behind him and stab him in the back.

“I'm sorry. I was wrong. And while it's true that I didn't know we were killing an innocent, ignorance is no excuse. I truly can't imagine the depths of your loss. This was your child. I can't imagine the pain. So if you leave here and you find that you can't forgive me I'll be waiting.”

Dean and Sam ask Lily if she’s done now that Ishim is dead. Lily doesn’t seem to be sure. Cas apologizes to her and Lily leaves.

“You're not weak, Cas. You know that, right?”
“I mean, obviously, you've changed, but it's all been for the better, man.”
“And you have been with us every step of this long, crazy thrill ride.”
“And no matter how crazy it got, you never backed down.”
“And that takes real strength.”

Back at the bunker, TFW talks it out over beers. Dean reveals that he’s not angry about Billie—he’s just worried. Cas says he doesn’t regret it, even if it costs him his life. They talk about what to do about the Nephilim, and whether Cas will be able to cause such pain and harm to a mom and her kid. When Dean asks what they’re gonna do now, Cas replies “Let's drink, and hope we can find a better way.”

Questions:

Do angels have gender? I have always wondered this. I always think of them as genderless, but they do seem to use gendered pronouns. But is that a definite answer, or just a result of convenience? I think Benjamin being referred to aggressively as “he” in this episode had much more to do with the fact that they were trying to emphasize his separation from his vessel than it had to do with his actual gender-self-identification.  Different genders was the easiest way for them to establish that Benjamin and his vessel were two separate beings who were both present, narratively and actually.

Interestingly, Ishim refers to Cas as “he” in the present (he only uses 2^nd person with Cas in the past). He also refers to Akobel as “he,” even among only angels (side note why weren’t they speaking Enochian here? Could it be because Enochian is better suited to their true forms and more difficult for vessels? Or was it because Benjamin insisted they use English for his vessel’s benefit—even though her native language was probably Spanish, but it seems likely that English would be easier for her than Enochian anyway? Or, more likely, it was just for convenience because we also see angels using English in heaven, which I frankly think is ridiculous but this is a tangent)…

My guess is that the use of gendered pronouns is likely just so as not to jar the audience. They give us what we expect, because they don’t want us to be distracted. Again, I think that they refer to the angels as the gender of the vessels they occupy first for our benefit. Not because of the gendered order of heaven. But who knows. Gender might really be eternal (o.o), since God seems to be unequivocally male for some reason. Or, it might just be a way for them to make sense of themselves through the human lens.

How does Lily have two blades outside of the diner if she left one behind? Did she take Benjamin’s? Did she leave her blade specifically so she could use it to spy on the body? Interesting…

If Lily Sunder can teleport using Enochian magic, why can’t the angels? Because it looked like she teleported outside the diner. Just minutes before, the angels were standing around talking about how they can’t teleport since they lost their wings. But it looked like Lily did. Was this some sort of misdirect, and she really just ran over to the car while we were blinded by the light? It really looked like a little mini-teleport to me. I would say she somehow has the wings of an angel if it weren’t for the fact that she was using a car. Because she and Sam did get to the safe house rather fast. Maybe she has a slightly less powerful version of wings? Can teleport short distances? Can move extra quickly but can’t actually fly?

Ok, so didn’t Cas say he hadn’t taken a vessel for 2000 years before Jimmy? But this was only like 100 years ago? So was he lying? This is a question that has been asked a lot in fandom the last few days. I mean technically, it’s been pointed out that what Cas actually said was “Why do you think we're here, walking among you now for the first time in 2000 years?” (in 4x02). It seems to me that he was just talking in general about how angels weren’t regularly stationed en-masse long-term on earth in vessels since then, not that they never once touched down in all that time or that he himself hadn’t had a vessel in that time. I mean, Gabriel had certainly been on earth during that time, though he wasn’t stationed here. I think that canon statement was very clearly proven false long before this episode. Although he also says in 4x10 “I was stationed on Earth 2000 years. Just watching. Silent. Invisible.” That might imply that he was not in a vessel. Or he could have been watching from a vessel that entire time, who knows. I don’t know. I think a lot of us assumed that the flashback in this episode would have been one of the memories he lost to Naomi’s tinkering, but that doesn’t seem to be the case (unless maybe the longer he goes without reprogramming, the more his memories come back?) Either way, it wasn’t addressed anywhere in the ep. (More on this here!)

Remember how two episodes ago Cas got this massive migraine message that a Nephilim had been born? So how come he didn’t realize in 1901 that there had been no message, and therefore no Nephilim? Was it because the angels didn’t used to do that then? Or was the message about Satan’s spawn an anomaly because of Satan’s raw power—or the angels’ (ones who did automatically know) corresponding level of fear over it? I mean, I don’t think Cas knew about the Nephilim that Metatron introduced him to either, so my guess is that the Satan Spawn message was an anomaly.

What was that banishing sigil? I don’t think we’ve ever seen that one, and I need to know the difference! Is it just a new one they found that he wanted to try out? Or one he found and wanted to use because it was smaller and more convenient?

And speaking of, do banishing sigils count as Enochian magic? Because Sam and Dean do that all the time… and I’m sure they’ve done other Enochian magic too. Does that count against their souls? Or does the type of magic Lily is harnessing require an actual pact before it starts to do that? Or does the magic have to be a much higher level? My guess is that nothing the Winchesters have done counts as Enochian magic, because Sam said “you can do that?” when Lily explained she was using it. I think it’s not just spells or sigils in Enochian, but a way of actually harnessing the power of an angel.

Is it true that weakened angels can die from being banished? Or was Ishim just lying so Dean wouldn’t banish him?

Two back-stabs in a row by Cas? What does it mean?

Will we ever see Lily Sunder again? There’s a chance she will stop using Enochian magic now that her revenge is complete, which will allow her to die a natural death, presumably. But if she doesn’t stop… if she does continue to use the magic, she may turn soulless and then come after Cas when that happens. Or, as some have speculated, they may bring her back to help control the Nephilim.

And: where is Kelly? Why can’t they find her?

Conclusions:

Yes! Finally an episode that I’m excited to write about! No offense to the last four episodes or so, I’m just being honest.

Long live Steve Yockey. Yockey is our king. Literally I love him and I’m gonna go read his plays (anyone know where to find them?). Both of his episodes have been solid favorites this season. His sense for character-building is A+, and he has a good handle on pacing and emotional climax. A few people have said that the characters were a little different this ep than we usually see them, but since I like the direction he seems to be pushing them in, I’m really not bothered. And actually, the things we saw in this ep—like sassy Cas—are  things that have been building for a long time, so it’s actually more in-line with the character development than it is ooc. I’ve seen this ep compared to fan fiction (in a good way) a lot already, and I think it’s because these are the characters lurking underneath the characters on the show. These are the characters we want to see, that’s why we write them that way. Yockey found a way to bring that out, and it was funny and touching and good. And we are here AF for DeanCas bickering like an old married couple. Just throwing that out there. Yockey is a keeper, and if he doesn’t stay for a long time, I will be devastated (I hope you’re listening Yockey. I will never forgive you for leaving. I will Lily Sunder your ass. That is not a threat it’s just an expression of my feelings on the subject.)

There have been some complaints that Sam was sidelined in this episode, and he definitely was, at least from an action/reaction, driving-the-story standpoint. I absolutely wish that they would write more for Sam in the show. But this episode at least let him react, and many episode don’t even really let him do that. I love Sam, I loved him in this episode, and I wish we had all the time in the world to devote to him. I’m just glad he was sidelined for an episode that was at least good, rather than sidelined for a story I don’t give a fig about. Little victories. Plus, there were lots of great sastiel moments, and boy do I love those. Those are my favorite.

Look, I love Cas episodes, okay? There’s no barometric for how biased I am when it comes to this angel, so if you didn’t like this episode, just leave me alone to die.

There was so much DeanCas interaction in this ep. I’m just over-the-moon about it.

I seriously—I don’t think I even have any complaints about it.

Except maybe to lament the fact that Dean didn’t get to react to Cas having a female vessel before Jimmy. (btw CAS HAD A FEMALE VESSEL BEFORE JIMMY!)

Also, I’m saddened that Benjamin and Mirabel had to die. I would have loved to have heard more about Benjamin and his vessel’s relationship. And there’s also the fact that it was yet another WOC that died without comment on the fact that it was a WOC. Could have been a fantastic recurring character. But, I can’t say I’m surprised. 

Also, as a wonderful person just pointed out to me, this implies something disturbing about Mirabel and Ishim. Their vessels were strapped to them for over 100 years. That’s messed up, dude. I get that it made the most sense, because it would be annoying to have a flashback where you have to aggressively keep establishing who is who for it to have any impact at all… but yeck.

But besides those things, I’m really quite happy. It was a solid episode with lots of happy things, some actual communication and expressions of loving feelings and mutual respect, and a new female character that did not die and was not punished for fighting back against those that hurt her. 

I am here AF for this.

Baby’s Rear View Recap: 12.09 “First Blood”

This post is about Supernatural season 12 episode 9 “First Blood,” written by Andrew Dabb and directed by Robert Singer.

*****Spoilers below*****

“I-I need you to meet me at the bunker.”

Mary is nursing a coffee in a diner in Lawrence when she gets a panicked call from Castiel. She agrees to meet him at the bunker, even though he won’t tell her why.

“You're gonna talk to me, son. You just are. Now that's not a threat. I don't believe in torture. Doesn't work. Oh, I've seen folks waterboarded, cut on. And they talk. Ooh, they do. But they never tell you what you need. You know what does work, though? Every time? Nothing.”

Meanwhile, the Federal agents are deciding what to do with these brothers they picked up six hours ago. Turns out what they’re going to do is leave them in solitary confinement for two months.

“Let me paint you a picture of a world without monsters or demons or any of those little buggers that go bump in the night. Of a world where no one has to die because of the supernatural. Of a new world, a better world.”

It turns out Mick from the British Men of Letters has been meeting with hunters. He meets with a hunter named Wally over burgers, but to no avail. Wally politely tells him to shove his offer of ‘help’ up his ass.

“Sam and Dean? They're like herpes. Just when you think they're gone: Hello! The boys are back, leaving a trail of bodies in their wake.”

Cas meets Crowley in yet another bar to convince him to help find the Winchesters. But Crowley is unwilling, since the Winchesters are nothing but trouble for him and his kind.

“Look, I -- me and my brother, we're working this case in Louisiana. We thought it was some southern fried werewolf thing, but it's not one thing. It's a pack. There's, like, a billion of them down here, and we need help.”

Mary is reading John’s journal in the kitchen of the bunker when she hears a phone ringing. She follows the sound to Dean’s room, where she finds a cellphone in a desk. Alicia asks for help with a werewolf pack while Mary looks at a picture of herself with the boys before she died.

“I saw it on the news and I thought, that's the sort of thing Sam and Dean would investigate. They would roll into town, save the day, kill the monsters. But with them gone I tried to work the case. I tried. But I don't know what I did wrong. I asked questions, but maybe they were the wrong people or the wrong questions, and I just -- I never found it. Never found the monster. Never even got close. And three more women died before I left town. Before I ran away.”
“So we go back. You and me.”
“No. No, I'd only get in your way.”

Mary asks Cas to meet her in a bar. She apologizes and Cas laments being unable to live up to Sam and Dean’s legacy of saving people without them. They’ve been gone six months, two days, and ten hours.

“I wanted them punished. I wanted to look Dean Winchester in the eye and I wanted him to feel it.”
“Well, that that is totally mentally normal.”

Sam and Dean are found dead in their cells. Their bodies are transported to the morgue, where they are left alone. They wake up but run into the morgue attendant before they have a chance to escape. They incapacitate him, steal his cell phone, and then stuff him in one of those dead-body-cabinets.  Then they hightail it out of there.

“You didn’t tell him?”

“No.”

Sam finds a map while Dean calls Cas. They realize they’re in Rocky Mountain National Park, and Dean tells Cas to meet them on route 34 a soon as possible.

“Castiel, it's me. I'm just calling to… You don't have to worry about that thing in Missouri. I'm handling it.”

Mary took care of the vampire in Missouri and called to let Cas know. Cas, in turn, calls her to come with him to pick up the boys.

“Alright, so we got what? An hour till dark? Which puts us at six hours till midnight?

“That sounds about right.”
“Dean, we gotta talk about this.”
“Okay, we will. All right? Later.”

Dean and Sam struggle through the woods, pursued by the feds and a squadron of soldiers.

“Mrs. Winchester—Mary: I came to this country to do one thing—make friends. But you American hunters, you're—you're a different breed than our sort. You're surly, suspicious. You don't play well with others.”
“Well, that is accurate.”
“You don't trust people you don't know, even when they come bearing gifts. Now I can't help that, but I can help you.”

Meanwhile, Cas and Mary have stopped to meet with the British Men of Letters. They explain that they lost Sam and Dean after defeating Lucifer, and that they need help. The BMOL offer a satellite—in return for some good word-of-mouth.

“Well, what we have here is a failure to communicate. 'Cause we're not trapped out here with you. You're trapped out here with us.”

The feds are gaining on Sam and Dean. They manage to take out the guy closest to them and hightail it to a cabin in the woods, which they promptly home-alone the crap out of.

“Who are you?”

“We're the guys that save the world.”

Sam and Dean manage to incapacitate every soldier without killing a single one. Admittedly, they only showed seven soldiers going down and there were definitely more than that but… still impressive.

“Uh, you left survivors?”

“They were soldiers, just doing what they were told.”
“Still, a bit unprofessional.”

Cas and Mary find Dean and Sam in the woods. They exchange hugs, and then Cas and Mary lead the boys back to their car—where the BMOL are waiting for them. They express their thanks and explain that they should leave in a hurry so that the people they left won’t catch up.

“And we made a deal. We'd get to die and come back one more time, but in exchange—”
“–Come midnight, a Winchester goes bye-bye. Like, permanently.”

The Winchester clan is riding in the car when suddenly, midnight hits and something is about to go down. It turns out it’s Billie, here to collect on the deal she made with Sam and Dean to get them out of prison. And oh yeah—breaking this deal? Has cosmic consequences.

“You said come midnight, a Winchester dies? I'm a Winchester.”

Before Dean and Sam can debate over who gets to go, Mary volunteers herself. Dean and Sam try to protest, but Billie doesn’t want to hear it.

“You know this world, this sad, doomed little world, it needs you. It needs every last Winchester it can get, and I will not let you die. I won't let any of you die. And I won't let you sacrifice yourselves. You mean too much to me, to everything.”

Mary raises her gun to her head and says one last “I love you.” But before she can pull the trigger, Cas puts a blade in Billie’s back—consequences be damned.

“Every person who knew about Sam and Dean's little adventure in assassination has been dealt with. As far as the world's concerned, it never even happened.”

Unbeknownst to Dean and Sam, Mr. Ketch is killing everyone they were so careful to leave alive.

“I'm listening.”

And Mick is meeting with Mary Winchester.

Questions:

Lol what kind of phone stays charged for 6 weeks? Speaking of, though, what is the timeline? How long was it before this happened? Was this just days after their disappearance? Because the next time we see Mary, it has been 6 weeks since. It’s not really clear how long she stayed at the bunker before starting to hunt again.

Is this werewolves in Lousiana thing a reference to The Originals. Oh please say it is.

Ok but why they letting them shave? Is that a thing that high-security prisons do?

WTH season is it? WHAT IS THE TIMELINE? Because it is definitely not winter in the Rocky Mountains with no snow on the ground, ya feel?

Shouldn’t the feds have known exactly where Norton was? And therefore exactly where Sam and Dean were? And therefore been able to catch them before they even got to the cabin? I’m just saying, they were right on top of them in the shot immediately preceding that scene. 

Ok but Dean didn’t ask Cas to bring Mary? They had no idea she was gonna be there? I love when we see Cas taking initiative in making decisions, and this is obviously just the lead up to his big decision later—i.e. to kill Billie.

Is Billie really dead? WTF is reaper lore? I think I miss when reapers weren’t angels.

Also, why did they kill Billie? I mean, I guess she was a villain technically, but was she just the easiest to sacrifice or does this have some deeper meaning? Beyond the symbolism of killing an agent of death, did they feel her arc was over? I always assumed her purpose was just to be a threat hanging over their heads to up the drama (and legitimately add conflict sometimes). Has her purpose come to an end? Do they have something in mind to replace that? DO they REALIZE that this was their ONLY recurring WOC on the ENTIRE SHOW? Did they think we wouldn’t notice that? Do they even care? Apparently Alicia is replacing her… and everyone knows there can only be one. Smh. 

And what will the consequences be? Because there were sort of no consequences to killing Death in season 10… I’m just saying they better follow through with this consequences threat. Billie’s death deserves to haunt us from the void.

Speaking of death, how long will we have to wait until Mr. Ketch dies?

Aren’t the feds gonna assume that Sam and Dean killed all those soldiers? Talk about bad PR. How will they live with the government on their backs? Because, although it was a secret site, the President knew they were there, as did the agents who made the arrest (and it’s not clear if they were the same ones hunting them in this episode, but I’d lean towards no since these were portrayed as “soldiers” not “agents”). And Mick says at the end that “every person who knew about Sam and Dean's little adventure in assassination has been dealt with.” So if they weren’t the same, are the agents who made the arrest still dead? Also. DOES THAT MEAN THEY KILLED THE PRESIDENT? Because I doubt that we will see much more from the federal government this season. And they clearly implied that Mr. Ketch killed everybody. I’m just saying.

When will we see Alicia and Max again? (Lbr, they the real MVPs).

Conclusions:

I quite liked this episode. I couldn’t make up my mind whether it should be classified as a mytharc episode or a MotW. Sure, the first half cleared up the previous mytharc conflict and the end set up the next one, but the “monster” (AKA the feds) seems to be a self-contained one-off villain of the type we see in MotW eps. I lean towards mytharc, but I think it does have lots of MotW qualities. And those MotW qualities it has is what makes it one of the stronger mytharc episodes we’ve seen lately. It took its time and gave us some room to breathe, the opposite of which is a recurring problem in mytharc episodes.

It had a lot of emotion, and that’s always something I can get behind. Cas just killed me this episode. I don’t think we saw him smile once that entire time, and I loved it. We also got some really great lines from Cas that let us into his state of mind and the growth of his character.

There was one Cas scene I wasn’t a fan of, though I actually don’t think it was Cas’s fault. It was the scene where Mary shows up at the bunker in the very beginning and starts to blame Cas for losing her sons. I understand why this scene existed. It shows that Mary is a Winchester, i.e. angry and maladapted to human interaction. It also shows that she cares about her sons, and maybe even that she’s projecting the blame onto Castiel because she feels guilty herself. That’s a very ‘Dean’ thing to do. It also showed that Cas’s despair is so deep and his self-esteem so low that he agrees with her that he’s awful. I liked all those things. What I did not like was the way it was written and used. First, the pacing was off. I get it if they wanted us to feel that waiting feeling, or if they were going slow to ease us into the episode. But it just felt off. And that kept us from empathizing with Mary. I saw people online demonizing her left and right for blaming Cas. And it’s not because we’re blinded by our love for him. It’s because the scene didn’t read. We need to see her point of view. And it just felt half-hearted and half-assed to me. It also wasn’t used effectively as conflict. We don’t feel the tension and heartbreak of Cas’s only ally turning against him. It was sad, but it didn’t bleed into the other scenes and up the tension like it could have. And then she just apologizes in her next scene like it’s nothing—there was no emotional beat set aside for it. If this tension had been developed more, if this relationship had been developed more… think of how much more potent it would have been to see Cas save her.  

I think the wonky timeline in the beginning contributed to this. We see Mary and Cas in the beginning, and then suddenly it’s 6 weeks later… It bugged me a little. It’s like they wanted the best of both worlds, and I almost would have preferred to start with a ‘six weeks later’ title card at the beginning. It would have been cleaner. I liked the moments we got, but I digress.

I liked the quietness of the episode. I actually wish we could have had more. Most of the conversation seems perfunctory and expository, and I wish we could have done without it. In a show like this though, it’s to be expected. I wish we would have had less from the feds. I wish we only saw what Sam and Dean saw. I felt like the two main agents were more annoying than anything. The weird antagonism between them felt sort of forced to me. I get that the more we see them, the stronger effect their deaths have at the end… But I much preferred seeing their individual interactions with the Winchesters to their interactions with each other. To me, the premise of this episode gave it the potential to be like Red Meat—but it fell short of that standard. Maybe because of the differences required of a mytharc episode, I don’t know.

Wow. All of that above makes it look like I didn’t like this episode. Sorry for misleading you—I did like it. I liked the bookends with Mick and his voiceovers. I thought it was clever and that it worked well to frame this episode clearly within the overarching story of this season.

I also loved the montages of the boys, and actually pretty much everything about them. I could watch Cas’s sad face all day and I wouldn’t be bothered. And I’m glad that Mary is getting some time in the narrative.

And I loved that morgue attendant. He didn’t deserve to die, he was so awkward and deserved only good things.

Overall it was a solid episode. I liked it. I will never forgive them for killing Billie, but at least it wasn't a horrible episode besides that.