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llywelaYes, I know I haven't written a review of last week's episode. My thoughts can be summed up thus: on the surface of it, it was a lot better than I feared it might be, but it was also all surface and no substance, and overall I was left resenting the waste of yet another episode in which there was no meaningful character exploration whatsoever, while the teeny, tiny scrap of mytharc information we were given was simply tacked on at the end as the cheapest throwaway deus ex machina of the show's history. I guess they suddenly realised they needed to set up this week's episode and had forgotten to write the story that would achieve it, so threw it in there quickly at the end.
Onto this week.
5.10 Abandon All Hope…
I'm kind of torn over this episode. On the one hand, I really, really loved it for what it is, but on the other hand it made me resent the last five episodes even more than I already did because it threw the narrative failure of recent weeks into sharp relief. Instead of playing as the climax of an ongoing story in which all players have been carefully moved into place over a period of time, the show pulls another of those tonal shifts abrupt enough to give us whiplash, and I was left feeling cheated that we have been fobbed off with shallow and weakly comedic episodes for weeks now, while all the important developments were apparently taking place off-screen. This was an excellent episode, but had the build up to it been handled better, it could have been even stronger still.
I'm not going to go into too much detail with this review, since I am drowning in projects at the moment, so instead will quickly bullet point a few of my main thoughts.
1. I really liked the demon Crowley, even if he was totally plagiarised from the book Good Omens – maybe especially because he was totally plagiarised from the book Good Omens!
2. I liked Castiel spying on Crowley, being able to follow him as he teleported, and the way he reported back to Dean and Sam, trying hard to use street slang – and goodness only knows where he picked that up – and Dean's long-suffering reaction. That Castiel was so dismayed to have to admit that Crowley's Enochian wards prevented him pursuing any further, and Dean telling him that it's okay, he did great. Dean is such a natural man manager and it really shone through in that conversation, with Castiel totally looking to him to take a lead. Castiel isn't comfortable with being out there on his own still, likes the comfort of someone else being in charge.
3. Jo suddenly working with the brothers to gain access to Crowley's hideout was a bit out of the blue. Last time we saw her, in 5.02, she hadn't seen or heard from the brothers in over two years, and barely had any contact with them in that episode. Now all of a sudden she is working alongside them? How did that happen? I feel I've missed out on a whole huge chunk of story that I would have been really interested to see!
4. Having said that, I loved seeing Jo working alongside the brothers so smoothly, switching so effortlessly from decoy to seasoned hunter. She has matured a lot since season two.
5. Hang on. Outside Crowley's house, Jo was all, "Shall we?" and totally working this job with the brothers – but then by the time they got inside she was no longer with them. Where'd she go?
6. You know, if Crowley hadn't wanted to give the Colt to the brothers, they really would have been in big trouble. That attempt at trapping him was way weak. Also? That statement he made about spreading rumours about the Colt to lure the brothers to him doesn't really tie in with Becky's claim last week that Chuck had written Crowley's possession of it into one of his unpublished manuscripts. Which way around, writers?
7. I like that Sam tried to shoot Crowley pretty much as soon as he had possession of the Colt and as much information as he was likely to get out of the demon, because Crowley might seem to want Lucifer dead as much as the brothers do, but he's still a demon. And I like that Crowley was smart enough to anticipate that move so that the gun was empty. Crowley so wins – they are lucky he doesn't want to be their enemy. At least not at the moment. My enemy's enemy may be useful, but not necessarily a friend!
8. Castiel downing shots with Ellen and Jo in Bobby's kitchen was a bit of a 'wait, what?' moment. It was a very cool scene – and I have mused in the past on how, in theory, alcohol should not actually have any effect on Castiel, since that body isn't really his, and that scene totally played into my theory, which pleased me – but it still jarred. Once again, I feel I have missed an absolutely enormous chunk of development. Again I remember that in 5.02 we learned that Ellen and Jo had not had contact with the Winchesters (or Bobby, it seemed) in over two years, and that they absolutely were not told the full story of how the Apocalypse came about in that episode. But now they seem a lot closer to the brothers than they were in 5.02, indicating off-screen contact since that episode. They suddenly seem to be rather more in the loop, have met Castiel and learned about angels, probably know at least some of the story of Dean and Sam's intimate involvement in the Apocalypse – why didn't we get to see that happening? Why aren't we told for sure how much they do and don't know? They deserve to know the truth, after all, know enough that they should be intensely curious about the rest, and their surely complex reactions to it all would have been really interesting to see! So why weren't we shown that story, which would have enriched the show's internal universe by re-establishing and developing these relationships, moving all the characters into place ready for this episode? Why were we given weeks of cheap and ultimately meaningless so-called comedy instead? It is immensely frustrating.
9. "Sam Winchester, having trust issues with a demon. Better late than never."
"Thank you again for your continued support."
I loved the quiet and wonderfully nuanced scene between Dean and Sam, secluded from everyone else at Bobby's place, as they worked through Crowley's intel to piece together a strategy. I loved seeing that they have reached a place where they are able to banter a little about their thorny history, without rancour on either side, and yet that neither is entirely comfortable with the subject still. The past still hurts and what happened still rankles, all those issues very active still, beneath the surface, layers of unease and insecurity in there on both sides, but they at least they are acknowledging it all, with a degree of wistful humour, rather than pretending none of it happened. I just really wish that we had been allowed to watch them developing to this stage properly, instead of being subjected to weeks of meaningless comedy with nothing more than occasional hints at behind-the-scenes character development tacked on here and there, mere glimpses that have told us only what we were missing out on rather than actually showing the story of the characters in a meaningful way as they attempt to repair their fractured relationship.
10. "But think about it. You can't come with. Look, I go to kill Satan and screw the pooch, okay. We've lost a game piece. That we can take. But if you're there? Then we are hand-mailing the devil's vessel right over to him. That's not smart."
"Haven't we learned a damn thing? If we're going to do this, we're going to do it together."
I also loved the discussion Dean and Sam had over whether or not Sam should be part of the team that went after Lucifer, and that both brothers had very valid points to make. Although I have no doubt that what Dean saw in the future in 5.04 still nags at the back of the mind of both brothers, I don't think Dean's reservations about Sam's inclusion in the team had anything to do with not trusting his brother around Lucifer. I think if there is one thing Dean is sure of it is Sam's absolute resolve not to give in. But he was still absolutely right to say that taking the one thing Lucifer wants most of all – his vessel – into battle against him was not sensible. That's basic risk assessment, from the point of view of a leader rather than a brother. It was dangerous in exactly the same way that Dean going up against Raphael in 5.03 was dangerous, more so than either he or Castiel had anticipated. If he were so inclined Lucifer could snatch Sam away in the blink of an eye once he knew where he was, and no one would ever find him again. He would then be able to wear Sam down at his leisure, and it would no longer matter how absolute Sam's resolve might be, because everyone has their breaking point. Without any way of anticipating how the mission was going to play out, Sam's inclusion on the team was definitely a risk, and Dean was right to point that out and factor it into the planning.
But at the same time, it was also right for Sam to demonstrate how much he has learned from the mistakes and tragedies of their past, in which separation inevitably led to vulnerability and disaster. He was right to want to stick together in the face of this epic battle rather than leave his friends and family a man down.
They both made valid points because there were major pros and cons to each side of this decision. What was most important of all about the discussion, however, was that again they were able to discuss their difference of opinion calmly and rationally and reach mutual agreement, instead of either one taking the disagreement personally and browbeating the other into submission. They really are making progress. It would just be nice if that slow, steady progress was being explored a little more instead of merely hinted at here and there and presented to us as a fait accompli.
11. It amused me immensely that Dean went and flirted with Jo right there in front of her mother! And I loved that she turned him down. I know the Dean-Jo relationship has never been a fan favourite, but I love that we are now a few years down the line, and although they have never actually been involved they still have a history together that lends depth to their interaction. It's a history that's about the way they used to project their respective daddy issues onto one another and the way her thirst for independence and professional respect used to clash with his leadership and need to protect those in his care, and how all that overruled his physical attraction to her while feeding into her crush on him. It is a relationship that is all about what could have been and what never was. We didn't get to see the relationship play out for long, but hindsight adds a lot to it, and I love that it was touched on in this episode. They have both been through a lot since they last knew each other, they are both different people now, but that history still stands, and I like how it played out in this episode, both in this scene and their bittersweet final farewell later.
12. I actually thought the group photo thing was a little weird the first time I watched the episode. It just felt odd. I really, really needed a bridging episode between 5.02 and this one to re-establish Ellen and Jo as part of this team working together to stop the Apocalypse, rather than them just being two more hunters out of many out there as they effectively were last time we saw them. As much as I love them both, they felt very much thrown into this episode out of the blue and it took a while to get past that. I loved the photo, though, and the sentiment behind taking it.
13. Interesting that Castiel travelled with Ellen and Jo instead of in the Impala with Dean and Sam. Loved his little interplay with Jo about the door handle.
14. Man, the town full of reapers that only Castiel could see, that was creepy. I loved the effect of switching from his to Ellen's POV to emphasise the point, and that it was driven home again later when she estimated that he had seen at least a dozen. Having seen through Castiel's eyes, we knew that it was far more than that, but Ellen didn't have that advantage, so could only draw the best conclusion she could from available evidence.
15. So Castiel wandered off alone and immediately got himself captured by Lucifer - that kind of emphasised Sam's point about them being more vulnerable on their own!
16. I really liked that conversation between Castiel and Lucifer: such a fascinating dance, full of contrasts and comparisons. Lucifer might talk of how he was betrayed by his 'brother' Michael and couch his rebellion as being in the interests of all angels, but he regarded Castiel – also a brother angel – as little more than a rather interesting bug, of no consequence whatsoever, betraying his own self-interest in the process. I loved their conversation about what travelling in a car is like, and Castiel's fierce declaration that he will not let Lucifer take Sam.
17. "Well, this is great. We've been in town 20 minutes, we've already lost the angel up our sleeve."
18. It really annoys me that Meg showed up back in the same body we saw her vacate back in 5.01. There was absolutely no reason for her to go back to the same host again once she had left her, no reason whatsoever. It might make life easier for us that we can recognise her at once – and allowed the brothers to recognise her at once, also – but there is no character reason for it at all, and that irks me.
19. So Meg is calling Lucifer her 'father' now. She used to reserve that honorific for Azazel. She's well and truly back in the fold of the demonic faithful now, after her little vengeance kick back in season two. It's the difference between an abstract plan that may never come off and the tangible reality of the actual Apocalypse in the here and now, I guess.
20. Hellhounds! Damn, that was nasty! Nasty for Dean to have to face them again after they killed him once already, and nasty that Jo was fatally injured saving him from them. Poor Jo. Poor Ellen. Fabulous sequence. Apart from how it struck me as odd that the hellhound brought Dean down but then failed to injure him even a little bit, while the other managed to tear Jo apart fairly impressively in a matter of seconds.
21. Every actor in this episode did an absolutely fantastic job.
22. I loved the sense of panic as the beleaguered hunters holed up in the hardware store, with Jo critically injured and Ellen hollering for help, while Dean and Sam frantically set about securing the perimeter, because they had to prioritise and that meant preventing any enemies getting in first and foremost before worrying about triage.
23. I loved that Ellen never blamed the brothers for what happened. Not once. She would have done, once upon a time – back in season two she had no qualms about lashing out at them rather than face up to her own issues around hunting and Jo's desire to pursue it. She is past that now. Ellen has also grown and developed – off camera.
24. I loved Dean's radio conversation with Bobby so damn much. I love the relationship those two characters have so damn much. Everyone was looking to Dean for leadership, they always do – even Sam, for all his fierce desire for independence, still defaults to Dean's leadership when he's not thinking about it. And it can be a horrendously heavy burden for Dean at times, having to bear that responsibility even while frightened and desperate and not knowing what to do. And that is where Bobby comes in, and it is where their respective needs meet in the middle, because it is also horrendous for Bobby to have to sit at home and wait, not knowing what is going on. And that gave us this conversation. Dean needed support and Bobby needed to be useful, and the conversation gave that to both of them, and I loved it. I loved the calm, solid reassurance Bobby gave Dean, at first gently affirming and then taking a harder tone to keep him focused, I loved their mutual despair – because they'd all admitted from the start that this was essentially a suicide mission, but saying it and experiencing the reality of it are two different things – and I loved how they were able to thrash out the details together and figure out what Lucifer was up to. Fabulous.
25. Angel of death? Interesting. I take issue with Bobby's claim that the last time the angel of death walked the earth was when Noah was building his ark, however. The Bible states very clearly that the angel of death walked through Egypt striking down the firstborn son in each unprotected household in the time of Moses, which was several centuries later!
26. "I can't fight. I can't walk. But I can do something. This is why we're here, right? If I can get us a shot on the devil, we have to take it."
God, the whole debate around Jo's fate, with the brothers wanting to get her and Ellen out of town in hopes of saving her life, and Ellen also wanting to get urgently needed medical care for her daughter, but Jo still thinking as a hunter and recognising that she was not going to make it and still wanting to go out fighting…damn, it was just heartbreaking. Having not had the bridging episode to fully re-establish the characters, I felt a little emotionally manipulated by it all, but it was still heartbreaking.
This is the hard, bitter reality of war: people die. It was always obvious that Ellen would not leave her daughter behind to die alone, would stay and die with her. They made a choice, both of them, and it was a soldier's choice and it was tragic, but I loved that the brothers respected that choice, devastating though it was, respected them both as fellow hunters and equals. I have no doubt that a portion of fandom will have erupted in screams of misogyny over the deaths of two female characters, but to do so misses the point of the story. They didn't die because they were women. They died because they were hunters, because they were soldiers fighting in a hopeless war, and it was tragic – but one hell of an exit.
27. I loved that although Jo had already died before she got to trigger the bomb, Ellen didn't take the trigger away from her, instead held it with her to detonate the bomb. It was the last mark of respect she would ever be able to show her daughter, and that kind of broke my heart.
28. It is awful to think how much guilt Dean and Sam carry around with them these days, with so many lives sacrificed for their sake. The weight of it must be crushing. They have lost so much.
29. "Last words?"
"I think I'm good."
"Yeah. Me too."
30. I loved that the Colt didn't work. It never made any sense to me at all that everyone thought it would. But I loved how seamlessly the brothers pulled off their assassination attempt on Lucifer, with Sam using himself as bait for a distraction and Dean sneaking up on Lucifer despite his demonic entourage – and not missing, just as Ellen ordered him. I also loved how whiny Lucifer was about having been shot in the head! "Owwwww!"
31. I love that the future Dean saw in The End has been well and truly changed already, not just by the fact that he and Sam are back together now, but because Future Dean in that episode had spent five years searching for the Colt, only now it has been ruled out already, so they all already know to start looking for something else. Yet Lucifer still expects everything to work out the same in the grand scheme of things anyway, predicting that Sam will give into him in Detroit in six months. That brings us up to season finale time, let us note!
32. Sam was not surprised to hear Lucifer naming Detroit as the place he expects Sam to give in to him, confirming that Dean really has told him everything that he learned in the future, including that Sam fell to Lucifer in Detroit.
33. If Lucifer is one of only five things in creation that the Colt can't kill, what are the other four, I wonder?
34. I loved how Sam kept checking on Dean while he was unconscious, several times during his one-on-one face off with Lucifer – even as Lucifer sought to undermine the brothers' relationship, Sam was still anxiously checking on Dean.
35. I like that Lucifer was so very hands on with his ritual, doing all his own dirty work instead of getting his minions to do it for him. Reminds me of Azazel. That was always one of the problems with Lilith – she was a very hands-off antagonist, and her character was the weaker for it.
36. That scene where Sam was effectively alone with Lucifer, and Lucifer was really laying it on thick and giving his sob story the old hard sell, trying to convince Sam how alike they are, how hard done by they are, how Sam should just give in already – that was a bad moment for Sam, a vulnerable moment, in the same way that Dean was vulnerable when he confronted Raphael and when Zachariah tracked him down. He wasn't prepared for the emotional onslaught Lucifer unleashed on him, and he also could not have done a thing about it if Lucifer had decided to zap him away someplace to deal with later. This was why Dean was concerned about Sam going on this mission. He was just lucky that Lucifer was otherwise occupied at the time and could only spare enough attention to talk! Lucifer's words hit Sam hard, that was evident, and it is to be regretted that he is not yet in a place where he can repudiate the devil's manipulative claims, so we just have to hope he doesn't take them to heart. Like so many before him, Lucifer sought to play on Sam's strongest and most deep-seated fears, fears that have been used against both Sam and Dean so many times in the past, and I really, really want to see Sam facing up to some of those issues now and moving on. I want to see him learning to recognise how frequently he misunderstands and underestimates his brother, and dragging himself out of that rut in order to heal. He will be less vulnerable for it, they both will.
I so desperately long for some solid development for Sam this season, a genuine redemption arc to pick up the piece of last season, but have been disappointed so far.
37. The contrast between Meg proclaiming the beneficence of Lucifer as her god and Lucifer casually sacrificing the lives of his faithful minion demons as a tribute to Death, and then dismissing them as only demons and therefore unimportant – that was really well done. It confirmed Crowley's worst fears, all right!
38. Castiel spent a hell of a lot of the episode just standing around, trapped, but I loved how carefully he plotted his escape and used Meg to achieve it.
39. If Lucifer and Castiel are both fallen angels, how come Lucifer has retained such tremendous powers while Castiel has lost most of his? It can't just be the difference between low-ranked angels and archangels, surely?
40. The mourning after, back at Bobby's, that silent scene of burning the photo – that was heartbreaking. The whole point of taking the picture was in case they didn't all make it – but the difference between abstract theory and bitter reality is pretty huge, and in the end it seems it was just too painful to keep the picture and remember what happened. Damn, my heart breaks for these characters!
41. I really hope to see some solid Sam-Dean development after hiatus. We desperately need it now!
Onto this week.
5.10 Abandon All Hope…
I'm kind of torn over this episode. On the one hand, I really, really loved it for what it is, but on the other hand it made me resent the last five episodes even more than I already did because it threw the narrative failure of recent weeks into sharp relief. Instead of playing as the climax of an ongoing story in which all players have been carefully moved into place over a period of time, the show pulls another of those tonal shifts abrupt enough to give us whiplash, and I was left feeling cheated that we have been fobbed off with shallow and weakly comedic episodes for weeks now, while all the important developments were apparently taking place off-screen. This was an excellent episode, but had the build up to it been handled better, it could have been even stronger still.
I'm not going to go into too much detail with this review, since I am drowning in projects at the moment, so instead will quickly bullet point a few of my main thoughts.
1. I really liked the demon Crowley, even if he was totally plagiarised from the book Good Omens – maybe especially because he was totally plagiarised from the book Good Omens!
2. I liked Castiel spying on Crowley, being able to follow him as he teleported, and the way he reported back to Dean and Sam, trying hard to use street slang – and goodness only knows where he picked that up – and Dean's long-suffering reaction. That Castiel was so dismayed to have to admit that Crowley's Enochian wards prevented him pursuing any further, and Dean telling him that it's okay, he did great. Dean is such a natural man manager and it really shone through in that conversation, with Castiel totally looking to him to take a lead. Castiel isn't comfortable with being out there on his own still, likes the comfort of someone else being in charge.
3. Jo suddenly working with the brothers to gain access to Crowley's hideout was a bit out of the blue. Last time we saw her, in 5.02, she hadn't seen or heard from the brothers in over two years, and barely had any contact with them in that episode. Now all of a sudden she is working alongside them? How did that happen? I feel I've missed out on a whole huge chunk of story that I would have been really interested to see!
4. Having said that, I loved seeing Jo working alongside the brothers so smoothly, switching so effortlessly from decoy to seasoned hunter. She has matured a lot since season two.
5. Hang on. Outside Crowley's house, Jo was all, "Shall we?" and totally working this job with the brothers – but then by the time they got inside she was no longer with them. Where'd she go?
6. You know, if Crowley hadn't wanted to give the Colt to the brothers, they really would have been in big trouble. That attempt at trapping him was way weak. Also? That statement he made about spreading rumours about the Colt to lure the brothers to him doesn't really tie in with Becky's claim last week that Chuck had written Crowley's possession of it into one of his unpublished manuscripts. Which way around, writers?
7. I like that Sam tried to shoot Crowley pretty much as soon as he had possession of the Colt and as much information as he was likely to get out of the demon, because Crowley might seem to want Lucifer dead as much as the brothers do, but he's still a demon. And I like that Crowley was smart enough to anticipate that move so that the gun was empty. Crowley so wins – they are lucky he doesn't want to be their enemy. At least not at the moment. My enemy's enemy may be useful, but not necessarily a friend!
8. Castiel downing shots with Ellen and Jo in Bobby's kitchen was a bit of a 'wait, what?' moment. It was a very cool scene – and I have mused in the past on how, in theory, alcohol should not actually have any effect on Castiel, since that body isn't really his, and that scene totally played into my theory, which pleased me – but it still jarred. Once again, I feel I have missed an absolutely enormous chunk of development. Again I remember that in 5.02 we learned that Ellen and Jo had not had contact with the Winchesters (or Bobby, it seemed) in over two years, and that they absolutely were not told the full story of how the Apocalypse came about in that episode. But now they seem a lot closer to the brothers than they were in 5.02, indicating off-screen contact since that episode. They suddenly seem to be rather more in the loop, have met Castiel and learned about angels, probably know at least some of the story of Dean and Sam's intimate involvement in the Apocalypse – why didn't we get to see that happening? Why aren't we told for sure how much they do and don't know? They deserve to know the truth, after all, know enough that they should be intensely curious about the rest, and their surely complex reactions to it all would have been really interesting to see! So why weren't we shown that story, which would have enriched the show's internal universe by re-establishing and developing these relationships, moving all the characters into place ready for this episode? Why were we given weeks of cheap and ultimately meaningless so-called comedy instead? It is immensely frustrating.
9. "Sam Winchester, having trust issues with a demon. Better late than never."
"Thank you again for your continued support."
I loved the quiet and wonderfully nuanced scene between Dean and Sam, secluded from everyone else at Bobby's place, as they worked through Crowley's intel to piece together a strategy. I loved seeing that they have reached a place where they are able to banter a little about their thorny history, without rancour on either side, and yet that neither is entirely comfortable with the subject still. The past still hurts and what happened still rankles, all those issues very active still, beneath the surface, layers of unease and insecurity in there on both sides, but they at least they are acknowledging it all, with a degree of wistful humour, rather than pretending none of it happened. I just really wish that we had been allowed to watch them developing to this stage properly, instead of being subjected to weeks of meaningless comedy with nothing more than occasional hints at behind-the-scenes character development tacked on here and there, mere glimpses that have told us only what we were missing out on rather than actually showing the story of the characters in a meaningful way as they attempt to repair their fractured relationship.
10. "But think about it. You can't come with. Look, I go to kill Satan and screw the pooch, okay. We've lost a game piece. That we can take. But if you're there? Then we are hand-mailing the devil's vessel right over to him. That's not smart."
"Haven't we learned a damn thing? If we're going to do this, we're going to do it together."
I also loved the discussion Dean and Sam had over whether or not Sam should be part of the team that went after Lucifer, and that both brothers had very valid points to make. Although I have no doubt that what Dean saw in the future in 5.04 still nags at the back of the mind of both brothers, I don't think Dean's reservations about Sam's inclusion in the team had anything to do with not trusting his brother around Lucifer. I think if there is one thing Dean is sure of it is Sam's absolute resolve not to give in. But he was still absolutely right to say that taking the one thing Lucifer wants most of all – his vessel – into battle against him was not sensible. That's basic risk assessment, from the point of view of a leader rather than a brother. It was dangerous in exactly the same way that Dean going up against Raphael in 5.03 was dangerous, more so than either he or Castiel had anticipated. If he were so inclined Lucifer could snatch Sam away in the blink of an eye once he knew where he was, and no one would ever find him again. He would then be able to wear Sam down at his leisure, and it would no longer matter how absolute Sam's resolve might be, because everyone has their breaking point. Without any way of anticipating how the mission was going to play out, Sam's inclusion on the team was definitely a risk, and Dean was right to point that out and factor it into the planning.
But at the same time, it was also right for Sam to demonstrate how much he has learned from the mistakes and tragedies of their past, in which separation inevitably led to vulnerability and disaster. He was right to want to stick together in the face of this epic battle rather than leave his friends and family a man down.
They both made valid points because there were major pros and cons to each side of this decision. What was most important of all about the discussion, however, was that again they were able to discuss their difference of opinion calmly and rationally and reach mutual agreement, instead of either one taking the disagreement personally and browbeating the other into submission. They really are making progress. It would just be nice if that slow, steady progress was being explored a little more instead of merely hinted at here and there and presented to us as a fait accompli.
11. It amused me immensely that Dean went and flirted with Jo right there in front of her mother! And I loved that she turned him down. I know the Dean-Jo relationship has never been a fan favourite, but I love that we are now a few years down the line, and although they have never actually been involved they still have a history together that lends depth to their interaction. It's a history that's about the way they used to project their respective daddy issues onto one another and the way her thirst for independence and professional respect used to clash with his leadership and need to protect those in his care, and how all that overruled his physical attraction to her while feeding into her crush on him. It is a relationship that is all about what could have been and what never was. We didn't get to see the relationship play out for long, but hindsight adds a lot to it, and I love that it was touched on in this episode. They have both been through a lot since they last knew each other, they are both different people now, but that history still stands, and I like how it played out in this episode, both in this scene and their bittersweet final farewell later.
12. I actually thought the group photo thing was a little weird the first time I watched the episode. It just felt odd. I really, really needed a bridging episode between 5.02 and this one to re-establish Ellen and Jo as part of this team working together to stop the Apocalypse, rather than them just being two more hunters out of many out there as they effectively were last time we saw them. As much as I love them both, they felt very much thrown into this episode out of the blue and it took a while to get past that. I loved the photo, though, and the sentiment behind taking it.
13. Interesting that Castiel travelled with Ellen and Jo instead of in the Impala with Dean and Sam. Loved his little interplay with Jo about the door handle.
14. Man, the town full of reapers that only Castiel could see, that was creepy. I loved the effect of switching from his to Ellen's POV to emphasise the point, and that it was driven home again later when she estimated that he had seen at least a dozen. Having seen through Castiel's eyes, we knew that it was far more than that, but Ellen didn't have that advantage, so could only draw the best conclusion she could from available evidence.
15. So Castiel wandered off alone and immediately got himself captured by Lucifer - that kind of emphasised Sam's point about them being more vulnerable on their own!
16. I really liked that conversation between Castiel and Lucifer: such a fascinating dance, full of contrasts and comparisons. Lucifer might talk of how he was betrayed by his 'brother' Michael and couch his rebellion as being in the interests of all angels, but he regarded Castiel – also a brother angel – as little more than a rather interesting bug, of no consequence whatsoever, betraying his own self-interest in the process. I loved their conversation about what travelling in a car is like, and Castiel's fierce declaration that he will not let Lucifer take Sam.
17. "Well, this is great. We've been in town 20 minutes, we've already lost the angel up our sleeve."
18. It really annoys me that Meg showed up back in the same body we saw her vacate back in 5.01. There was absolutely no reason for her to go back to the same host again once she had left her, no reason whatsoever. It might make life easier for us that we can recognise her at once – and allowed the brothers to recognise her at once, also – but there is no character reason for it at all, and that irks me.
19. So Meg is calling Lucifer her 'father' now. She used to reserve that honorific for Azazel. She's well and truly back in the fold of the demonic faithful now, after her little vengeance kick back in season two. It's the difference between an abstract plan that may never come off and the tangible reality of the actual Apocalypse in the here and now, I guess.
20. Hellhounds! Damn, that was nasty! Nasty for Dean to have to face them again after they killed him once already, and nasty that Jo was fatally injured saving him from them. Poor Jo. Poor Ellen. Fabulous sequence. Apart from how it struck me as odd that the hellhound brought Dean down but then failed to injure him even a little bit, while the other managed to tear Jo apart fairly impressively in a matter of seconds.
21. Every actor in this episode did an absolutely fantastic job.
22. I loved the sense of panic as the beleaguered hunters holed up in the hardware store, with Jo critically injured and Ellen hollering for help, while Dean and Sam frantically set about securing the perimeter, because they had to prioritise and that meant preventing any enemies getting in first and foremost before worrying about triage.
23. I loved that Ellen never blamed the brothers for what happened. Not once. She would have done, once upon a time – back in season two she had no qualms about lashing out at them rather than face up to her own issues around hunting and Jo's desire to pursue it. She is past that now. Ellen has also grown and developed – off camera.
24. I loved Dean's radio conversation with Bobby so damn much. I love the relationship those two characters have so damn much. Everyone was looking to Dean for leadership, they always do – even Sam, for all his fierce desire for independence, still defaults to Dean's leadership when he's not thinking about it. And it can be a horrendously heavy burden for Dean at times, having to bear that responsibility even while frightened and desperate and not knowing what to do. And that is where Bobby comes in, and it is where their respective needs meet in the middle, because it is also horrendous for Bobby to have to sit at home and wait, not knowing what is going on. And that gave us this conversation. Dean needed support and Bobby needed to be useful, and the conversation gave that to both of them, and I loved it. I loved the calm, solid reassurance Bobby gave Dean, at first gently affirming and then taking a harder tone to keep him focused, I loved their mutual despair – because they'd all admitted from the start that this was essentially a suicide mission, but saying it and experiencing the reality of it are two different things – and I loved how they were able to thrash out the details together and figure out what Lucifer was up to. Fabulous.
25. Angel of death? Interesting. I take issue with Bobby's claim that the last time the angel of death walked the earth was when Noah was building his ark, however. The Bible states very clearly that the angel of death walked through Egypt striking down the firstborn son in each unprotected household in the time of Moses, which was several centuries later!
26. "I can't fight. I can't walk. But I can do something. This is why we're here, right? If I can get us a shot on the devil, we have to take it."
God, the whole debate around Jo's fate, with the brothers wanting to get her and Ellen out of town in hopes of saving her life, and Ellen also wanting to get urgently needed medical care for her daughter, but Jo still thinking as a hunter and recognising that she was not going to make it and still wanting to go out fighting…damn, it was just heartbreaking. Having not had the bridging episode to fully re-establish the characters, I felt a little emotionally manipulated by it all, but it was still heartbreaking.
This is the hard, bitter reality of war: people die. It was always obvious that Ellen would not leave her daughter behind to die alone, would stay and die with her. They made a choice, both of them, and it was a soldier's choice and it was tragic, but I loved that the brothers respected that choice, devastating though it was, respected them both as fellow hunters and equals. I have no doubt that a portion of fandom will have erupted in screams of misogyny over the deaths of two female characters, but to do so misses the point of the story. They didn't die because they were women. They died because they were hunters, because they were soldiers fighting in a hopeless war, and it was tragic – but one hell of an exit.
27. I loved that although Jo had already died before she got to trigger the bomb, Ellen didn't take the trigger away from her, instead held it with her to detonate the bomb. It was the last mark of respect she would ever be able to show her daughter, and that kind of broke my heart.
28. It is awful to think how much guilt Dean and Sam carry around with them these days, with so many lives sacrificed for their sake. The weight of it must be crushing. They have lost so much.
29. "Last words?"
"I think I'm good."
"Yeah. Me too."
30. I loved that the Colt didn't work. It never made any sense to me at all that everyone thought it would. But I loved how seamlessly the brothers pulled off their assassination attempt on Lucifer, with Sam using himself as bait for a distraction and Dean sneaking up on Lucifer despite his demonic entourage – and not missing, just as Ellen ordered him. I also loved how whiny Lucifer was about having been shot in the head! "Owwwww!"
31. I love that the future Dean saw in The End has been well and truly changed already, not just by the fact that he and Sam are back together now, but because Future Dean in that episode had spent five years searching for the Colt, only now it has been ruled out already, so they all already know to start looking for something else. Yet Lucifer still expects everything to work out the same in the grand scheme of things anyway, predicting that Sam will give into him in Detroit in six months. That brings us up to season finale time, let us note!
32. Sam was not surprised to hear Lucifer naming Detroit as the place he expects Sam to give in to him, confirming that Dean really has told him everything that he learned in the future, including that Sam fell to Lucifer in Detroit.
33. If Lucifer is one of only five things in creation that the Colt can't kill, what are the other four, I wonder?
34. I loved how Sam kept checking on Dean while he was unconscious, several times during his one-on-one face off with Lucifer – even as Lucifer sought to undermine the brothers' relationship, Sam was still anxiously checking on Dean.
35. I like that Lucifer was so very hands on with his ritual, doing all his own dirty work instead of getting his minions to do it for him. Reminds me of Azazel. That was always one of the problems with Lilith – she was a very hands-off antagonist, and her character was the weaker for it.
36. That scene where Sam was effectively alone with Lucifer, and Lucifer was really laying it on thick and giving his sob story the old hard sell, trying to convince Sam how alike they are, how hard done by they are, how Sam should just give in already – that was a bad moment for Sam, a vulnerable moment, in the same way that Dean was vulnerable when he confronted Raphael and when Zachariah tracked him down. He wasn't prepared for the emotional onslaught Lucifer unleashed on him, and he also could not have done a thing about it if Lucifer had decided to zap him away someplace to deal with later. This was why Dean was concerned about Sam going on this mission. He was just lucky that Lucifer was otherwise occupied at the time and could only spare enough attention to talk! Lucifer's words hit Sam hard, that was evident, and it is to be regretted that he is not yet in a place where he can repudiate the devil's manipulative claims, so we just have to hope he doesn't take them to heart. Like so many before him, Lucifer sought to play on Sam's strongest and most deep-seated fears, fears that have been used against both Sam and Dean so many times in the past, and I really, really want to see Sam facing up to some of those issues now and moving on. I want to see him learning to recognise how frequently he misunderstands and underestimates his brother, and dragging himself out of that rut in order to heal. He will be less vulnerable for it, they both will.
I so desperately long for some solid development for Sam this season, a genuine redemption arc to pick up the piece of last season, but have been disappointed so far.
37. The contrast between Meg proclaiming the beneficence of Lucifer as her god and Lucifer casually sacrificing the lives of his faithful minion demons as a tribute to Death, and then dismissing them as only demons and therefore unimportant – that was really well done. It confirmed Crowley's worst fears, all right!
38. Castiel spent a hell of a lot of the episode just standing around, trapped, but I loved how carefully he plotted his escape and used Meg to achieve it.
39. If Lucifer and Castiel are both fallen angels, how come Lucifer has retained such tremendous powers while Castiel has lost most of his? It can't just be the difference between low-ranked angels and archangels, surely?
40. The mourning after, back at Bobby's, that silent scene of burning the photo – that was heartbreaking. The whole point of taking the picture was in case they didn't all make it – but the difference between abstract theory and bitter reality is pretty huge, and in the end it seems it was just too painful to keep the picture and remember what happened. Damn, my heart breaks for these characters!
41. I really hope to see some solid Sam-Dean development after hiatus. We desperately need it now!
