The boys – Sam, Dean and Cas – are all back this week and it finally, finally, finally feels like we’re really getting back into the old groove of Supernatural.
Reunited…and it Feels so Good?
Here’s all you really need to know about the first five minutes of this episode: We’ve got a shirtless Padalecki exercising – which was both cheesy in an ‘˜80s exercise montage kind of way and ridiculously hot – and bonus shirtless Ackles. Also, Sam, for some ridiculous reason, is sleeping with hookers. It’s preposterous that a guy who looks like that has to pay for it.
Somewhere in the midst of all this exposed flesh, the boys reunited in Pennsylvania, where Sam tells Dean to meet him for a case. The case, which we were exposed to in the first few minutes, involved the liquefying of a cop. I mistakenly thought last week’s bloody opening was due to it being an Edlund episode. Silly me. Edlund actually wrote this episode, which is ten times grosser than the last one (and approaching ‘My Bloody Valentine’territory). After that, another cop breaks out in fatal boils. It’s gross as well.
In between the reappearance of the brothers in suits, and Dean playing long-distance dad to Ben, the boys eventually track down the partner of the first cop who died and find out that he and the other two dead cops killed and framed a kid. Oh, and locusts burrow their way out of his head. Also gross.
Basically, assuming everything is gross in this episode.
Heavenly Help
The boys realize these deaths bear remarkable resemblance to various biblical plagues and decide to call on Cas for help. Sam is rightly skeptical, after all, Cas hasn’t answered his call in nearly a year. But he comes when Dean prays, because they share a ‘profound bond'(no, seriously, that was Cas’line – the fangirls squealed, I know they did). Cas confirms that God and the angels didn’t bring Sam back from Hell and they don’t know how or why he’s back.
Cas quickly comes to the conclusion that these deaths are being caused by the Staff of Moses (but not while it’s being used at its full power). According to him, there’s been chaos up in Heaven since the end of the Apocalypse and many powerful weapons have gone missing. Cas also has an abundance of air quotes to whip out when Sam and Dean are reluctant to help him out.
The three go in search of the father of the dead boy. But we learn he’s not the one wielding the Staff – his younger son is. He got it from an angel, and all he had to do was sell his soul. Cas takes the boy back to the hotel room and….well, ‘tortures’the boy to find out which angel now has a mark on his soul. Dean is vehemently against hurting the boy, but Sam doesn’t seem to care much. Castiel learns that an angel friend he thought was dead – Balthazar – sold the boy a piece of the Staff. That’s when one of Raphael’s angel minions shows up, fights with Cas, and the two of them go flying out the window in a spectacular fashion, completely totalling Sam’s car. Awesome.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Angels
Cas absolutely does not want Raphael to get his hands on the missing weapons or make a power play for Heaven, because that would result in a reawakening of the Apocalypse. They head off to find Balthazar, it seems, has been taking style and music tips from Gabriel/The Trickster. Balthazar refuses to hand the stolen weapons to Cas. Instead, he’s enjoying the freedom brought on by the aborted Apocalypse.
When Raphael arrives with some more angel minions Balthazar disappears. Dean and Sam manage to make some of the minions go away with the special angel be-gone sigil. Cas and Raphael fight, and Raphael seems to have the upper hand until Balthazar returns to iodize Raphael’s vessel. Which means we’ll likely see him again in a different body.
Dean traps Balthazar in holy fire and demands he releases the boy’s soul. Once he does, Cas honors his promise and lets Balthazar go free, and then disappears after the other angel does. The boys are left alone again.
Concluded on next page…
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Sam should have hit Castiel in the face for ignoring him, I mean Sam proved himself over and over last season if he hadn't gone to hell there wouldn't be a heaven left for Cas to lead so pompously. He can get over himself. I really dislike that character.
And I am disliking everything they've been doing with the show so far. Sam was my favourite and they are ruining him so completely it's disgusting. If they did this to Dean there'd be an outcry but there are so few Sam girls who are sticking with this show because of what they are doing that nobody notices the fact that they are gutting this show from the inside out by doing what they're doing to Sam.
Stop leaving him to deal with till mid season and give us Sam back because this robot is making me turn off. He's not the character I watch this show for.
That's an interesting argument since the new showrunner, Sera Gamble, is a self-admitted SamGirl. I'm interested in seeing how they'll redeem Sam this season, because I think they'll have to given what's been going on in his character. But you're right, I think his last act in season 5 did redeem him.
Jimmy is dead I think….Cass is occupying an empty vessel.
Poor guy, if that's the case, but I think I agree with you. But obviously the guy's body has to be hanging around somewhere, if that's the case. Ew…
Frankly, I forgot to worry about what happened to Adam after the first couple of episodes (which is weird because I actually don't mind him). Glad someone else wondered what happened to Jimmy, though.
I don't know why, but I can't get what happened to Adam out of my head. If we never get the answer, then I feel like he was just a plot device. Which, okay, maybe have been the point, but they developed his character pretty well given the time constraints and I kind of figured he deserved better than to be thrown away.
Re: what happened to Jimmy: could it be something like what Ana did back in Season 4? Her own 'vessel' was vapourised, but she still took Ana's form when she returned, and when Castiel asked her why she chose to appear like that she replied that she was sentimental (or maybe nostalgic, I don't remember exactly). Also, in 'The Rapture' in Season 4 (which I haven't seen in about a year, so feel free to correct me if I'm wrong), when Jimmy offers himself up as Castiel's vessel in order to save his daughter, doesn't Castiel warn him that this time it would be forever, there would be no going back? As though Jimmy's conciousness was going to disappear or something. I don't know. Anyway, those are my thoughts on the 'Jimmy's body' theory. Though for all we know, he might have been like Raphael's vessel, sitting drooling in a nursing home somewhere.