Thursday, November 3, 2016

Baby’s Rear View Recap: 12.03 “The Foundry”




This post is about Supernatural season 12 episode 3 “The Foundry,” written by Robert Berens and directed by Robert Singer.

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






“Hi, there's a baby in distress in an abandoned house.”

A young couples goes into an abandoned house when they hear a baby cry. No way are they gonna make it out of there alive. And they don’t.


“Castiel? After you left heaven, when did it start to feel like like you fit, like you belonged here?”

“Well, I'm still not sure I do.”
Back at the bunker, Mary flips through John’s journal in the middle of the night. Castiel, who apparently was just wandering the halls in the moonlight (maybe?), goes in to check on her. She implies that she doesn’t feel like she fits, and Castiel assures her that she does. When Mary goes back to her room, she decides to cut her hair.

“I heard her walking around all night last night. I mean, don't we think she seems a bit withdrawn? You know, shaky?”
“Of course she's shaky. She hasn't been on this planet since Jane Fonda was wearing leg warmers. Look, all she needs is a little R&R. You know, some good family time. She'll be aces.”

The next morning Sam and Dean are discussing the bmol over breakfast when Cas stops by the kitchen to let them know he’s headed out to catch Lucifer. Though both Sam and Dean protest that they should all do it together, they give in when Cas promises to call and suggests that Mary needs them more than he does. After Cas leaves, Sam and Dean discuss Mary. But when Mary comes in shortly after, it seems she doesn’t want R&R. She wants a hunt (and bacon). Thus begins the Family Hunting Trip.

“I guess that makes me Agent Jay-Z.”

Cas, AKA Agent Beyonce, has made it to Ohio where he interviews one of Vince’s bandmates. It turns out Crowley had the same idea, and is angling for a team-up. When Crowley reveals that he has the address of Vince’s sister Wendy, Cas reluctantly agrees.

“I got police reports filed from 2004 uh, '91, '89, '85, '78. All deaths. All kids. Looks like it started with this girl here. Elizabeth Moriarty.”

Meanwhile the Partridge family work their case in Minnesota, discovering that the victims died of hypothermia, frozen hearts, and frostbite handprints. The fam heads to the haunted house, where Mary gets trapped in the nursery and marked with a child-sized handprint from a little boy. Back at the hotel room, Sam finds a slew of child deaths in the area, leading back to one Elizabeth Moriarty. Sam thinks the kids are mylings, but Mary disagrees. She thinks the little boy was innocent, even though Sam thinks that sympathy is just a trick of the myling. Mary seems a little shaky on her feet so Dean and Sam leave her to rest while they salt and burn the kids’ bodies. While they’re gone, Mary calls the last owner of the house, who turns out to be the little boy’s mother.

“Try finding a new vessel at the bottom of the bloody ocean.”

While Cas and Crowley are getting Vince’s location out of Vince’s recently-healed sister Wendy and arguing about saving Rowena, Rowena is at Vince’s cabin, saving herself. When Lucifer threatens her until she agrees to cast a spell to give his vessel permanency, she instead casts a spell that speeds up its deterioration and sends him far, far away.

“I mean, she's trying to bury herself in hunting to avoid dealing.”
“And how do you know that?”
“Years of personal experience. I don't know, man. Like mother, like sons.”

At the cemetery, Dean and Sam argue about Mary’s well-being. When they get back to the motel, Mary is gone. It turns out she went to the haunted house alone to talk with little boy Lucas. Lucas points her to a boarded-up door that leads to the basement, where she runs into the ghost of Elizabeth Moriarty’s father. Moriarty goes to freeze her heart, but is interrupted when Sam and Dean burst in. So instead, he possesses her. The possessed Mary fights Dean and Sam. Just as Dean is cornered and nearly killed, Mary manages to break through the possession and let him go. She directs Sam to the basement where he finds and disposes of Moriarty’s body, freeing all the spirits.

“If you're looking for Lucifer, you just missed him. Cup of tea?”

Cas and Crowley get the low-down from Rowena, who promises to come when they need her help against Lucifer but wants to stay away from this crap as long as she can.

“Mom, it's okay. All right? You're home now.”
“No. I'm not.”

Back at the bunker, Dean apologizes to Mary for not being behind her 100% on the hunt. She explains that Moriarty buried himself out of grief after the death of his daughter, and then reveals that she needs some time away to mourn the husband and children she lost. After telling her sons she loves them and hugging Sam, she leaves.


Questions:

Why was it called “The Foundry”? The haunting was in a house, right, so there was no literal foundry featured. If a foundry is a workshop or factory for casting metal, how is that relevant? Maybe it’s some kind of forshadowing?

Cas has a business card that says Agent Beyonce on it? I just wanted to point that out.

DOES CROWLEY KNOW DEAN IS ALIVE. Come on now, I need to know. Is Cas his rebound? Are we gonna get to see his reaction when he finds out Dean’s alive? He’s gonna be totally pissed Cas didn’t tell him. Also, why hasn’t Cas told him?

So how many graves did they have to dig up? Five? Six? Yeesh.

Is this it for Rick Springfield? Did Vince Vincente die? I mean, Lucifer has healing powers, so you never know I guess.

WHERE WILL MARY GO.

WILL DEAN AND SAM BE OKAY.

IS THERE GOING TO BE HARD DRINKING IN THE NEXT EPISODE.

AND WILL THE DRINKING BE DONE BY ME.


Conclusions:

This episode broke my heart. Like, I still can’t even really meta it, I’m too sad. I didn’t even re-watch it until almost a week after it aired. 

I’m broken.

I really love that Mary is getting such focus and development. Like Sam said, she’s not a thing. She has her own feelings and doesn’t exist solely for what she does for Dean and Sam. This is all I can ask for and I feel blessed.

But also. Dean’s face at the end, there. Like, this is my worst nightmare for him. He already has major abandonment issues, and I hope that the eventual resolution of this particular abandonment will help him get over that, but right now it just feels so devastating. And then Sam! That flinch when the door shut ended me. I have a teensy bit more hope for him, but then consider: he was just getting tortured last episode and he is due for a breakdown. I’m real worried about them all.

The actual plot and stuff of the episode was fine. It was not anywhere close to as scary as the promo made it out to be. In fact, I actually laughed out loud during the cold-open. The symbolism was pretty heavy-handed but in a way I totally enjoyed, and the acting was A+. 

I liked the Cas/Crowley dynamic and would totally watch more of that. The more Cas the better, and Crowley certainly brings out a different side in him. In fact, that scene where he makes fun of Crowley for wanting to rescue his mother seemed so different as to be OOC. It reminded me of Casifer, actually. I wonder what the reason for that choice was? Will this be developed in the future? What’s it leading to? Just wondering.

I did not really like the Lucifer/Rowena dynamic, because gross. However, Rowena is Queen. Also, I actually really like Rick Springfield as Lucifer. If this is his last episode, I’m disappointed. 

Overall the episode is not going to go down as one of my favorites. Also, I wish they would have had more Prince references.

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