Baby’s Rear View Recap: 12.02 “Mamma Mia”

This post is about Supernatural season 12 episode 2 “Mamma Mia,” written by Brad Buckner and Eugenie Ross-Leming and directed by Thomas J. Wright.

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

“You know what they say: opposites attract.”

So… This episode started with a.. sex scene… of sorts. Sam x Toni + wine and candles. Presumably you watched it, so I’ll leave it at that for my own sanity.

“It's been kind of weird here with, you know, Mom being back. It's like we don't know how to act around each other, so we just kind of make this small talk and act normal, but it's -- it's so not normal.”

Cut to a Dean/Cas phone call, thank Chuck for the reprieve. Cas is in Aldrich and Dean is back at the bunker. Cas has had no luck locating Sam in hotels or abandoned buildings, so Dean suggests that Cas check above-board sites for once such as real estate sales and rental properties. Before Cas hangs up, Dean asks him for advice on dealing with his mom. Cas simply tells Dean “don’t make things needlessly complicated, as you humans tend to do.”

“Mom, look, I am thrilled that you're back. I mean, I'm so damn happy, I-I-I can't even stand it.”

Mary overhears the conversation and asks Dean if he’s really afraid of overwhelming her. Dean assures her that he’s thrilled she’s back, and they agree that she just needs time—which Dean is willing to give her. But Mary is concerned about Sam and expresses her guilt over being the cause of the Yellow Eyes saga.

“Was it good for you?”

Yuck. *retching noises.* Sam finds out that the sex was a hallucination cultivated by Lady Toni. When he wakes up out of it, Toni laments that she can’t repeat the tactic and instead must resort to “less pleasant” methods. It doesn’t seem to me like she’s too upset about it, and she gets to hacking away posthaste.

“Right. Um Okay, I-I can't do my job if I'm worried about you.” 

“Dean. You won't have to be. I can handle myself. Okay? All right, good talk.”

Back at the bunker, Dean is still researching. (Did he sleep at all?) Mary did sleep, as she recounts the dreams she had about John and how *great* of a father he was. Cas calls with information on a warded farmhouse, and Dean prepares to leave. It seems Dean planned to leave Mary behind, but she’s having none of that and goes to grab her coat before they head out for a six hour drive.

“You've been a bad girl, Toni. And I've come to fetch you.”

Meanwhile Toni prepares to torture Sam some more while Cas waits outside. Thankfully (?) Toni is interrupted by a call from someone named “Mick,” who is apparently going to intervene on the grounds that Toni “disobeyed orders.”

“You're like a boil that keeps coming back no matter how many times I have it lanced.”

Rowena is dating again. That is until Crowley interrupts to fetch her to help him with Lucifer. If she doesn’t help put Lucifer back in the cage, he’s going to muck up her future of martinis in Boca Raton.

“I can take away your pain. Bring you peace. You only have to do one easy thing.”

Vince Vincente is one depressed rockstar. He’s got pictures of a dead girlfriend everywhere—just Lucifer’s type. It isn’t long until Vince is saying “yes” and Lucifer has a body again.

“When Dad disappeared, Sam and I looked around, and something became very clear. That the only thing we had in this world -- the only thing, aside from this car -- was each other.”

Dean and Mary drive up to meet Cas in the middle of the night (which is very confusing because it was definitely morning last time we saw them?) Mary points out that she is their element of surprise and Dean acknowledges that she was a good hunter before he goes on to tell her a little more about the family she left behind.

“I'm as happy to see him as you are, 'cause while you may be able to withstand my snapping apart your body joint by joint, can you watch it happen to Dean?”

Dean and Mary meet Cas at the farmhouse and Cas convinces Mary to stay with him while Dean gets a closer look. But when Dean does, he gets stuck in some sort of trap and Toni brings him in.

“Lucifer. Wearing Vince Vincente, second-tier star. I would've thought Bieber was more your style.”

Lucifer confronts Crowley, claiming that the throne to Hell is his. Crowley suggests that Lucifer take heaven and leave hell to him, but Lucifer is reluctant to take the deal. When he threatens Crowley, Rowena casts a paralyzing spell. When the plan to send Lucifer back to the cage fails, Crowley leaves Rowena at Satan’s mercy and escapes.

“I thought you were dead.”
“I'm not sure that I'm not.”

Dean and Sam briefly reunite before “Angry Spice” Toni reappears. Just as she is about to double-down on torturing Dean, Mary shows up with a gun. A fistfight ensues and Dean escapes, at which point Toni casts a spell on Mary. Dean agrees to give up his gun to get her to stop before punching her out, revealing that she was using a form on Chinese mind-control that could not continue if she were unconscious.

“I'll tell you what, why don't you take a walk, and she can face those consequences right here and now?”

Just when the situation seems under control, a man steps in. It’s Mick, with Cas following just behind. Mick extends an “olive branch” and lets them go, giving them his number but taking Lady Toni.

“I would've cooked, but I, uh don't.”

Dean, Sam and Mary gather around the table in the bunker for some take-out and pie. She admits she doesn’t cook and Dean is surprised.

“Mom. For me just, um having you here fills in the biggest blank.”

Later that night, Sam brings Mary some tea and John’s journal. They have a heartfelt exchange where Sam is nervous and excited and giving. It ends with probably the most beautiful hug I’ve ever witnessed. Meanwhile, Dean hides in the kitchen and drinks while he looks at old pictures.

“If our goal is to end the supernatural threat here, we need to destroy every obstacle. The Winchesters, these American Hunters, they're no better than the monsters they fail to control. They need to be eliminated.”

As Mick drives Lady Toni to a plane back to England, she begs him to see that the Winchesters are just as dangerous as the monsters they hunt. She questions whether Mick can do what needs to be done, but Mick reveals that he won’t have to because he has already called the mysterious Mr. Ketch.

Questions:

Why why why? Why? Whyyyyyyy.

Okay so I guess Dean and Mary went back to the bunker and not straight to Aldrich. That sort of answers the question I had last episode about where they were going. Only… if they were already close enough to Aldrich that Ms. Watt could reach them that quickly, why would they go back to the bunker? The bunker has been compromised. If they really needed to sleep that badly (which they probably did), why didn’t they get a hotel between Aldrich and where they were. Sam could die at any moment for all they know! There is six and a half hours travel time between Lebanon and Aldrich! Why can’t Dean also be in Aldrich so Cas can say these things to his face? Or so he can help look for leads on Sam after he’s slept his four hours that he’s not gonna get anyway because it’s Dean? Or at least, you know, rescue Sam as soon as Cas finds him instead of making Cas sit there and wait for six hours while Dean and Mary drive up?

So does Mary know about the demon blood? Why else would she be concerned about facing Sam in particular? At this point she definitely doesn’t know about Jess, or she wouldn’t have had to ask why Sam came back to the hunting life. I can’t see why she would know about his addiction or about the apocalypse and Lucifer and the cage, but I don’t think she even knows what Azazel’s plans for Sam were. The only thing she knows is that Azazel killed her, and that he wanted access to Sam. But she has no idea what he did to him. She doesn’t know whether he succeeded in whatever his plans were, or if he even had any effect on Sam besides killing his mother (which Dean experienced also). Like, don’t get me wrong. I want Mary to acknowledge that Sam paid for her choice and that he didn’t deserve her putting that on him. But first I want her to really know what it means to shoulder the guilt for that. I want her to be horrified at what Sam went through. And then of course I want her to understand that Sam’s part in this went much deeper than a simple demon deal and that he was marked for tragedy by prophecy and not by her… but it’s just gotta be more than this, you know? I love the trepidation about meeting Sam for the first time. I love it. But she shouldn’t even know at this point that Dean knows she made a deal with Yellow Eyes. Why does this bother me so much?

Ok so who is this Mick guy? His first words on screen were literally “you’ve been a bad girl,” so I’m bracing myself for a lot of yuck. Also apparently Toni disobeyed orders? So she wasn’t supposed to torture Sam? Then why did she even have Ms. Watt there? (Ms. Watt was British and therefore it seems like Toni brought her to the states specifically as an expert on torture so… it’s not like it was a snap decision. Toni planned to do it.) So what is she playing at? Like, why would she torture him if she didn’t have to? She says she had a plan, but what could it have been? And will she continue trying to implement it without the authority of the bmol? And who is Mr. Ketch? I mean, we know now that he is indeed the guy from the montage with the cross tattoo on his hand but... what does he do?

Do Crowley and Rowena know that Dean is alive? Because Rowena asks if Crowley is going to work with the Winchesters and their pet angel? But shouldn’t they think there is only one Winchester? Do they know about Mary? Or did they… forget that Rowena made Dean into a bomb and sent him to die?

How long will Vince last as Lucifer’s vessel? In other words, how long until Lucifer comes for Sam?

And speak of the devil, does he have any idea what happened with Amara and God? I guess he’s gotta get Rowena to tell him. He’s gonna be real disappointed if Rowena tells him Dean’s dead and then it turns out he’s not. Because Lucifer’s only real play seems to be to prey on the grief of lost loved ones, and Dean’s death would have been the perfect opening.

WHERE DID CAS GO. I’m serious, not even a goodbye? No Cas/Sam hug? No family dinner? But Cas is FAMILY. I don’t understand?

Also NO DEAN/SAM HUG? WHAT ARE YOU PLAYING AT BUCKLEMING. GO BACK TO HELL WHERE YOU BELONG. LUCIFER CAN STAY BUT YOU JUST GO TO HELL.

Okay. Why the endverse picture. How did it get in John’s journal (how did it even get into this universe tbh) and why did they choose to specifically bring back that picture for this moment? I so hope that Mary asks about it. You know? Who’s this guy in a wheelchair? How long have you known Cas? What is Camp Chitaqua? PLEASE GIVE THIS TO ME. And actually now I’m wondering. Does Sam even know about this? Has Sam looked at that picture? Did Dean ever give him the full story about that reality?

Conclusions:

I always have so many questions after a buckleming episode… But hey, it wasn’t all bad. Definitely a step down from last episode, but I’m not surprised.

I hate the dubcon. I actually think the fact of it is extremely interesting, particularly from an ethics standpoint; but I know that they aren’t going to explore it or deal with it at all in that way, so it just makes me sick.

I have high hopes that this is the extent of Sam x Toni and that the rumors surrounding them were referring to this and NOTHING ELSE. That we have seen the fulfillment of that theme and will no longer be plagued with that nonsense. But. We’ll see. It looks like Toni was not ordered to torture Sam, contrary to my original sense about her. She wanted to hurt Sam, because he is too sympathetic towards monsters. That really changes my perception of her character.

I wasn’t a fan of the time jumps in this episode? Normally I love lost time because it means I can insert fan fic into those spaces. But in this episode, it just felt all wonky.

I did, however, really like pretty much everything about Mary. So that’s nice.

There were some really good lines in this episode. I actually really liked most of Cas’s lines. Except, I was not a fan of the way he reacted to Dean’s asking him for advice. Maybe this is nitpicky, (it is) but I just want Dean’s opening up emotionally to be so so encouraged? And it felt like Cas was shutting him down? Which makes me sad. Also, I don’t really like it when Cas reminds us that he isn’t human? I don’t know, I may be in the minority in this.. it just alienates him and keeps him isolated. I’m fine if they’re going to explore it, because it is an unendingly fascinating part of his character. But throwaway lines like this just feel like a jab to my tiny Cas-loving heart.

SO I also didn’t like how Cas and Dean were needlessly separated for most of the episode, how Cas was absent from the action completely, and how he got no resolution at the end of the episode, no reunion with Sam, and no place at the table for family dinner. Boo.

And while I adored the moment Sam got with Mary (especially the hug. HUGS! And the tears, and the journal, and the relating to her on a personal level and connecting through the pain of not feeling like you fit) I’m a little bit angry that he didn’t get any real closure in relation to the literal torture he’s gone through for the past two days. I have hope that this will be addressed in the future, like in the next episode (but not really because this show never really addresses the violence, particularly when it’s against Sam, and especially not when it’s sexualized). But whether they do address it eventually or not, the end of the episode felt a little off to me. Like the denouement got skipped and we went straight to an epilogue. We didn’t even see a real reunion between Sam and Dean! What the heck!

So. There were some great moments. I was really impressed with Rick Springfield and I’m endlessly here for Mary interacting with anyone and everyone. But the episode was honestly soured for me from the very first scene. So far it’s my least favorite of the season (haha well, duh) and I hope it remains my least favorite, cuz that will mean they didn’t do anything worse than this.