At exactly the mid-way point of this week’s Supernatural, I took a step back and thought “this doesn’t seem like a classic Ben Edlund episode”. The first half was a bit choppy, with a great deal of set-up (although, it had a few stand-out moments) that seemed to drag. I’m happy to say that after the half-way point, the “The Great Escapist” perked up considerably and delivered moment after moment of action, interesting backstory and a few surprises. While I wasn’t crazy about the first half, the second half was engaging, fun and pushed the story right along, complete with a few trademark Edlund lines and some terrific performances by all of the main and recurring stars.
Angel Houdini
Clever, clever Castiel. It turns out that Cas has been utilizing a very interesting tactic in his attempts to escape Naomi and her henchangels: he goes from Biggerson’s restaurant to Biggerson’s restaurant. Because they’re basically identical (with only the outside scenery changing) the angels can’t figure out which restaurant he’ll be at next. But Naomi is approaching desperation and so she comes up with a new plan: slaughter the Biggerson’s customers until Castiel is forced to stop. We revisit the first restaurant we saw him in and, in a horrifying scene, Castiel sees bodies lying dead on the floor, with the nice waitress who had served him repeating that he should “stop” while her eyes have been burned out. Castiel’s connection to humanity makes him pause, giving Naomi the moment she needs to corner him.
When the angels can’t find the Angel Tablet in one of the other restaurants, Naomi starts getting frustrated. And then a curious thing happens: she spills some secrets. She recounts the angels’ slaughter of Egyptian first born sons, telling Castiel that the angels had done far worse. The problem is that Castiel cannot remember this. Why? Because angels like Naomi have wiped his memory. From what I gleaned from the information, there are a group of higher-up angels, such as Naomi, who have essentially perverted the idea of what it was to be an angel. Free will was never in the cards for angels, because angels like Naomi never gave them the chance to experience it. Angels like Castiel have been controlled and manipulated to serve the purposes of whomever was in charge, often committing terrible acts. But Castiel has always been an anomaly, even before he came to know the Winchesters. “You have never done what you were told, not completely. You don’t even die right,” Naomi bemoaned about Castiel.
Enter Crowley, who cleverly melted down an angel blade to create bullets. He takes out one of Naomi’s henchangels and then scares her away as well. He tells Castiel that he’s had one angel (Ion) on the payroll and then proceeds to question Cas himself about the location of the Angel Tablet. The thing is, Crowley is what Naomi is not: an out-of-the-box thinker. They may be equally as cruel in some respects, but Crowley has survived far longer on his own wits, and so he quickly realizes that Castiel has hidden the Angel Tablet inside of himself. What’s curious is that Crowley believes – as many of us do – that touching the Tablet is what gave Castiel the power to break away from Naomi’s control. By keeping the Tablet inside of himself, he never stopped touching it. Crowley removed it, but does that mean that Castiel is once again susceptible to Naomi’s control?
Crowley was called away to deal with Kevin (more on that soon), and Cas was left with the angel who had betrayed them all: Ion. He bemoaned that they’ve always been controlled and none of it really matters, but Castiel has a different opinion and this is why he’s always been a difficult angel to control…why he was the angel who connected easily with humanity through the Winchesters: because it all matters to him. The choices that the angels make – or the blind orders that the other angels follow – affect humanity. It all matters. He manages to dig Crowley’s bullet out of himself, takes out Ion and then escapes.
Not Breaking a Second Time
Going back to the beginning of this week’s Supernatural for a moment…we had Kevin on Garth’s boat, attempting to decode Crowley’s piece of the Demon Tablet that the Winchesters had just brought to him. But fans must have immediately suspected something was strange, because hadn’t Kevin just disappeared? It turns out that Crowley had put him on a replica of a boat and sent two demons in to “play” Sam and Dean. Crowley had quite a few standout lines and facial expressions in the first half of the episode as he “directed” the attempt to get Kevin to spill about the Demon Tablet.
Back in the Men of Letters cave, Dean was tending to a sick Sam when they received an automated video email from Kevin. It turns out that he programmed it to arrive if he didn’t input a code each week and since he disappeared, it was delivered. It was essentially a goodbye and an admission that he must have been killed, but he left Sam and Dean with all of his notes to finish the trials. The thing is, as despondent as Kevin was in that video, he assured Sam and Dean that he wouldn’t “break a second time”. This time, he planned to let Crowley kill him without giving up any information.
As fake Sam and Dean hung out with Kevin on the boat, the boy proved his smarts. He quickly realized the boys weren’t real and sent them off to a Devil’s Trap. When Crowley found out he blew off the door and strode in, but Kevin calmly ate his BBQ. I’ve literally never loved Kevin more than I did in this scene where he calmly told Crowley to go to Hell. Crowley may have the Angel Tablet, but Kevin literally has no intention of breaking this time and he’s prepared to let Crowley kill him. Kevin is amazing and is currently going neck-and-neck with Chuck for the most awesome Supernatural prophet ever. But then, there’s a brilliant white light and….
Concluded on next page…
Follow Us
Thanks once again for the review! I wanted to say two things. First, like you, I liked this episode. To pick three things: I was fascinated by Metatron’s tale, I laughed when Kevin agreed with Crowley’s assessment that he knew it wasn’t the Winchesters because they were too polite, and I thought Sam’s memories when he talked about the demon blood (and Dean’s reply) were touching.
Second, unlike you, I got Sam’s demon blood thing backwards! That is, back around 8.15 or so, I wondered in a comment to you if Sam was being slowly destroyed by his demon blood. I thought maybe closing the gates of hell would destroy the demons that were topside, and that moving towards that goal was the source of his illness. That came to mind partly because I figured it was Sam’s turn for end-of-season “punishment” if you will. You’ve been watching, thinking, and writing about the show for much longer than I have – this is the first season I’ve watched in “real time” – so it doesn’t surprise me that, of the two interpretations of what Sam’s demon blood might be doing, you got it right. Also, I’m so glad you did! Just because I thought Sam was headed to a sad pseudo-end because of his demon blood, does Not mean I wanted it to happen. :)
I think you’re right that for the third trial they’ll try to cure Abaddon, and maybe even Crowley, but now that Sam has said he was being cleansed (and therefore still has some demon blood in him), will the “demon” they succeed in curing for the third trial be… Sam?
I don’t think Cas broke free because of the tablet, I think he did because of Dean. They even knew what a threat Dean was to their control of Cas. Once the first break happened, the tablet took over.
I’m glad Dean and Sam mentioned that they should have kept Kevin in the bunker.
Unless they “cure” Crowley and he becomes even more dangerous, I’m not sure where they’ll go with him. He’s become a much darker character this season. If they could believably write some of this away and have him as more gray again (which I think suits him), and Abaddon becomes the queen of Hell, I’d be happy. But I rarely get what I want with Supernatural…
I was pleased to learn some of Castiel’s backstory, and the show attempting to explain why the angels were initially seen as emotionless – they were being mindwiped. I like the idea of Cas having a more complex history than we realized. I don’t think this takes away from his relationships with Sam or Dean, just because he rebelled before he met them. He’s still overcome just about everything for them (especially Dean), and always sees them as his home.
Loved your review, Clarissa! This episode has been one of my favorite of the second half of Season 8! It’s totally got me excited again in a way that the last couple of episodes did not (even though I did enjoy Pac-Man Fever and love Charlie). I think it was mostly just that I was glad to get back to the mythology episodes and away from the filler stuff. And I have to admit glad to get back to my favorite character, Castiel.
Like you, I’m a big fan of the heaven and hell/angels and demons myth-arcs of the show. I love the salt-and-burn stuff too, but it is usually the main mythology stuff that keeps me on the edge of my seat.
I adored all the Cas stuff in this episode. Love that he’s always been a bit of a rebel. Totally the best angel in the garrison, is our Castiel. I really hope the show gets back to having Cas working with Dean and Sam soon though. Team Free Will is absolutely my most favorite part of SPN.
I agree with you Clarissa. The first half was surprisingly tedious for Ben Edlund, but the last half was great.
I loved the story Sam told about Galahad and the emotions he had, while imagining himself cleansed of the demon blood. And I liked Metatron and LOVE that there is another good angel to help the brothers! Wish they didn’t violate the Grand Canyon canon, that the brothers never visited – John would never have taken them on any vacation like that, anyway. No continuity.
But this episode is yet another one that passed by without Dean “having his hands full” as per Carver, unless you count lifting Sam into the bathtub.
Great review. I love Castiel more and more with every episode!
I am not the biggest Angel/Castiel fan. I feel sometimes they hinder rather than enhance the story but I thought Metatron was a good introduction .However for me the greatest thing was Sam having a voice , Sam telling us about Sam and not being told through someone else mainly Dean and it was a breathe of fresh air and insightful how he has been feeling since childhood and Jared was wonderful
The third trial sounds odd because how do you ‘cure’ a demon but if anybody can Dean and Sam can but wether the closing of the Gates is a good thing or will actually end up causing even more problems than solve remains to be seen. I loved both brothers in this and Crowley and Kevin has some steel in him . So all in all a very good episode.
This was such a great Castiel episode. It was good seeing him being so crafty and badass and caring so deeply and I love the reveal about the “crack in his chassis.” I’ve always felt that Dean spotted something about Castiel that was already there, that Castiel had a questioning nature inherently, and Dean broke that open, but it was always there in Castiel himself.
In the crypt scene in Goodbye Stranger, Castiel stopped beating Dean and healed Dean before he picked up the tablet, if I’m remembering right. Maybe touching the tablet more permanently severed the link, but I’m getting the impression the characters–including Cas and Dean themselves–think it was only the tablet, but it wasn’t, it was a combination of Castiel’s strength of will and his friendship with Dean.
Kevin is awesome, I hope he’s around in season 9. I also really enjoyed the introduction of Metatron, and how he fit in with the season themes about how you can only hide for so long.
As I commented on the spec post, the idea that the trials are purifying Sam’s blood, and not transforming them, intrigues me so much. I’m enjoying that flip on expectations. I was disappointed when the show decided to do something wrong with Sam again. But we got a lot here about Sam himself and his perception of himself. Maybe this will bring him closer to finding an in-between, some sense of normalcy even if he doesn’t leave the hunting life.
Still hoping for a mytharc connection for Dean, but I’m really liking his character development this season and how he’s assembling his superteam of heroes, and the importance found family members have to him, along with his bond with Sam.
@Dot – I agree with you re: the crypt scene. I do believe that Castiel and Dean’s friendship helped Cas break the hold (as well as his “rebellious” streak that we learned about last night), because we saw that he was questioning Naomi even before he touched the tablet. I think it’s a lot like “Swan Song” in that respect. But I think weight should also be given to the tablet itself. It clearly has properties that we can’t even begin to guess. I think it was a combination of that and his friendship with Dean that helped Cas break free. And not a moment too soon!
@Clarissa – the tablet does seem to play a role and have some kind of effect on Cas. He touched it and it glowed. I really wonder what it all means, and what it means for Dean that Castiel said he has to protect it from angels and “from you.” Dean specifically? All humans? It does seem like Cas, Dean, and the tablet are kind of connected by the story already, at least thematically. Whether that means an actual link between all 3, I’ll have to wait and see. But definitely, their friendship played a big role–and it’s poignant that neither of them seem to realize yet how big a role, they just know that they do care (they are terrible at talking about it, natch).
@ Clarissa: Did you forget to cover Dean’s role in the episode? There was Sam. There was Kevin. There was Cas. There was Crowley. There was Naomi. Oh, there’s a new character, Metatron. Where is Dean?
This episode finally did it for me. After 8 years of never missing a live viewing, Edlund did quite masterfully make it clear that there is no pay-off for Dean ever having a story. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing on my screen — was it June Cleaver in jeans? No, that’s most definitely Jensen Ackles. Jensen playing Dean playing June. Not what I want to see.
@Salt and Symbols – no, I didn’t forget to cover Dean’s role. Dean is on the show and continues to be an integral part as he’s always been. If you choose not to watch it because of how you feel, that’s totally fine. But I’m enjoying his character as I always have. But if you’re done with the show, then why are you seeking out recaps? Wouldn’t you just walk away from it? You’ll save yourself stress if you just let it go if you’re not happy.