A Familiar Face
We open with Eve in in a small town, brushing her hand against a man who checks her out. She enters a bar, breaks off the door handles and starts going around and touching everyone. Then the patrons go crazy and start ripping into each other. It’s a veritable orgy of monster-on-monster killing.
Back at Bobby’s house, Dean is putting the phoenix ashes into bullet shells. But he’s worried it won’t work, because the ashes don’t burn him. Bobby says he’s looking for Eve, but suggests they ask Castiel for help. He appears a moment later and says that Eve is hidden from all angels. Sam suggests they find a friendly monster, so they call on Lenore, who we haven’t seen since season 2. They want to ask her for information on Eve, but Lenore says she’s been in hiding from her. She eventually gives up Eve’s location in Oregon. Now that she has, she wants them to kill her. Castiel burns her to death then transports the Winchesters and Bobby to Oregon.
The boys set up shop in a diner, where Bobby uses one of those new-fangled computer tablets to find some information and Castiel tries to teleport. Unfortunately, his angel powers are currently on hiatus. Bobby soon learns that a Dr. Silver called in a mysterious illness to the CDC. The victim’s name? Ed Bright.
Dean and Castiel try to find Dr. Silver at his office, but he’s MIA. While trying to break in Dean spots blood and they find Ed Bright dead under a tarp.
Sam and Bobby, meanwhile, had tried to track down Dr. Silver at his house. A local cop stops by the house and Bobby manages to deflect his attention. Soon the boys all reunite at Ed’s house and find multiple bodies that all look like him, dead on the floor. One of them is still alive, but dying. His name is actually Marshall (although he looks like Ed), and they ask him for information. He says the night before they went to a bar and met a girl, but dies soon after.
Jefferson Starships
Sam and Dean head outside to talk to Bobby and Castiel and they head to the bar to find it littered with dead bodies. One of the bodies is both a vampire and a wraith, which is a hybrid they’ve never seen before. Then the cops bust in and find the crime scene. Dean manages to hide behind the bar while the other three are arrested.
As soon as they arrive at the police station, the cops turn on the boys and attack them. Turns out they’re hybrids too, but Dean manages to come in and kill all of them except one, who Bobby interrogates. Sam and Dean go to investigate a sound and find two human boys trapped in a cell. They free them and question them about what happened. The Winchesters want to take them an uncle 15 miles out of town, but Castiel tells Dean they should focus on the big picture. Dean’s sick of ‘the big picture’though and just wants to save some kids.
After the brothers leave with the boys, Castiel asks for five minutes alone with the monster because Bobby is getting nowhere interrogating him. We hear screams and then a few minutes later Castiel walks out with Eve’s address.
The boys all reunite and divide the special phoenix ash bullets among the four of them. They head back to the same diner they ate at when they arrived in town and Dean suggests he and Sam go in alone, with Bobby and Castiel staying outside as backup.
After arriving inside, Sam uses the old ‘camera shows the true face’trick and discovers that everyone in the diner besides them are monsters. Eve confronts them, suggesting they sit down for a nice chat. She immediately discovers the phoenix ashes in their bullets and destroys them.
Let’s Make a Deal
Eve says that she used to like their former arrangement: monsters would make a few new ones, while hunters would kill them. But then more and more of her monsters were being kidnapped, even her alphas. She turns into Mary Winchester to torment them and talk about a mother’s love. Eve/Mary says that she wants Crowley and that he’s still alive.
When Dean suggests that Crowley wants the location of purgatory, Eve/Mary says that’s not what he’s after at all. What he wants are the souls of the monsters, which she describes as ‘nuclear reactors’. In other words, like Castiel, he can use the souls to power his own war machine. She also talks about how she perfected creating new monsters. While some of them died, she managed to sneak one out of town: one of the kids that Sam and Dean took to their uncle was a hybrid. A moment later we see that he has killed and turned his brother and the two kill their uncle.
Eve/Mary suggests the boys find Crowley for her and she’ll let them live. Dean passes on the deal immediately. Eve/Mary transports Castiel and Bobby inside and insists Dean take the deal, but Dean refuses to work for another demon or monster. Eve/Mary bites his neck to turn him and then backs away in pain. As it turns out, Dean had drank some of the phoenix ash, so Eve ingested it from inside his bloodstream.
Eve dies and Castiel manages to burn all of the monsters still in the diner, since his powers returned the moment Eve died. He also cures Dean from his monster bite then transports them to the uncle’s house. They find the dead uncle, but also find the little boys have been killed by demons.
Sam and Dean tell the other two that Crowley is still alive and think he ordered the demons to kill the kids. Castiel acts shocked. After all, he burned Crowley’s bones. After he disappears to go investigate the situation, Bobby suggests that maybe Castiel isn’t being entirely honest about killing Crowley. Dean doesn’t want to believe that Castiel would betray them, but Sam’s faith in him is wavering.
Castiel returns to the diner and in strolls Crowley, who tells Castiel he’s getting a little tired of cleaning up his messes.
Talk About Misdirection
So let me see if I have this right: Eve was essentially a diversion. We thought she was meant to be the big bad of the season when the big bad is actually….Castiel. Well, sort of. At the very least Castiel is doing something that most of us Supernatural fans would consider bad. He has joined forces with Crowley to achieve his end goal – whatever that may be – and he has lied to the Winchesters and Bobby, who are his allies and friends.
At the very least, Castiel’s actions are questionable. In the end, perhaps this season has no real big bad, but it does have its villains.
For many episodes, I’ve lamented the fact that the writers haven’t really built up the danger that is Eve. After watching this episode, I would like to believe that was deliberate. Because the truth is, she simply wasn’t the main event and, therefore, didn’t deserve that much of our attention. I would also like to admonish the writers for somewhat hitting this whole Castiel business out of left field, but I don’t actually believe I should. The ending of this episode wasn’t shocking, per se. When I recently spoke with one of the mods of Winchester Daily, she told me her theory that Castiel and Crowley were actually working together. And I knew that Crowley would be returning in a future episode.
But actually seeing the twist was still shocking. To actually see Castiel fall so far from grace – pun intended – was tragic. And now I look back on so many loose ends of this entire season – from the alphas to the search for Purgatory to all the business about souls – and suddenly they don’t seem like loose ends. It seems like there was a master plan. And I may have disagreed about the overall execution of the season until this point and how bloody long it took to get here (especially the little attention that has been paid on Castiel, who is clearly the main event of season 6), but I am anxious to see how it is resolved.
The worst part, of course, is how Dean simply cannot believe that Castiel would betray them. Dean’s world consists of so few people that he can trust, he’s desperate to hang on to his real friends and family members at any cost. When Samuel betrayed him, it was devastating. But now that Castiel has lied to him, it is even worse. Dean is a man who’s sole focus in life revolves around protecting those people he loves, and having them love him and depend on him in return. After all they have been through together, Dean and Castiel are friends (even if Cas is not like a normal friend at all). While Bobby and Sam are obviously disappointed that Castiel is clearly lying to them and feel betrayed, Dean will feel that loss of trust so much more than they will.
More is sure to be revealed in the next new episode of Supernatural, which will be airing on May 6 (view a promo here for that episode). It’s clear that we will learn more backstory about the war in Heaven and Bobby and the Winchesters will confront Castiel about his actions. I still have questions though (including some left from my recent slide-show about unresolved issues in season 6). Why are Crowley and Castiel working together and to what end? Did Castiel team up with him in an effort to beat Raphael? If Castiel does win, will the two go and rule their own domains and simply let each other be? How questionable are Castiel’s actions and what is the truth of what he’s done?
I have a feeling that now that Supernatural has rid itself of the weakest element of the season – Eve – it can focus more on the core characters that we know and love (or sometimes hate). With the focus now turned inwards again, I am anxious to know what happens next.
If you missed it earlier today, check out our slide-show about the funniest scenes of Supernatural from the last six seasons.
clarissa @ tvovermind.com
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This was a good review, but I still can't help but feel that Eve was dispatched of too quickly. She's older than an angel, and then suddenly she's dead? What if she had touched Dean instead of biting him? Also, introducing the phoenix ash the episode before seems a little too pat.