‘Supernatural’: Welcome to the family

Supernatural
“Wayward Sisters”
January 18, 2018

“Something bad’s coming.”

Something badass, you mean. Let’s just take a moment to enjoy, shall we?

Five seconds of THEN and I’m already in my feels.

NOW

A delivery truck drives along a quiet, rural Iowa road. On that road is a house. Inside the house a young girl is huddled on the floor, trembling in a corner. Her hands are bound. A man sits at the kitchen table sharpening a knife on a whetstone. The girl looks over and her eyes go wide with fear.

Another man crouches down in front her. He asks if she wants to hear a joke. First man tells Ed not to play with his food. Ed ignores him and says, “Knock knock.” The girl whimpers and presses herself against the wall. Ed says it again and the girl answers. He shows her his true face like a werewolf Large Marge.

Ed thinks his joke is HI-larious.

Headlights illuminate the boarded up windows as a vehicle pulls up. Footsteps on the porch and a knock-knock. Ed asks who’s there.

“Delivery. Flowers. Plumber. Telegram. Candygram.”

Ed opens the door and says the driver has the wrong house. Does she? Claire says his name is right on the box – “MR WEREWOLF”. Ed is dead on the floor from the shotgun blast before he knows what hit him. Claire dodges first guy’s knife and unloads the other barrel.

He runs and Claire calmly reloads with practiced efficiency. She confirms that she’s in the right place. “Amanda Fitzmartin? I’ll be right there.”

The werewolf attacks, knocking Claire to the floor. They struggle and he snarls, “Who the hell do you think you are?” Claire rolls him and slides a silver knife into his heart.

“I kill monsters. That’s who the hell I am.”

Claire unties Amanda. She says her mother’s been looking for her. She says it’s going to be okay. The girl stares up at her and a seed is planted in another tiny badass. When Amanda looks over Claire’s shoulder her eyes go wide again and her breath catches in her throat.

Claire turns and puts two silver slugs in the werelady’s chest.

“Like I said. Totally okay.”

The next morning Claire watches Amanda race into her mother’s waiting arms. It’s a win that seems to strike Claire as bittersweet. She records the hunt’s outcome in her demonic day planner. Her phone rings with a call from Jody. The sheriff tells her that Sam and Dean are missing.

“They were on a hunting trip and I haven’t heard from them in a few days.”

Jody tells Claire it’s time to come home.

Show just went there and I am here for it.

Now, I get that some may question Claire’s bona fides as a hunter. But she’s not that much younger than Sam was in the Pilot. She’s been on her own a good chunk of her life and had to learn to survive. She’s mostly self-taught, but then so are most hunters. So was John. I have no problem with her level of mastery as established in this scene.

Cracks in her cool facade show themselves when Claire arrives at Jody’s. She’s anxious and unsure of the reception she’s going to get. She tries to cover it by teasingly asking Alex if she missed her. Alex says not really. Claire looks a little deflated – until the grin that Alex has been trying to hide finally shines through.

Jody nods at Claire’s split lip. Claire brushes it off. Just a werewolf. No big deal. Jody pulls her into a hug. Yay!  Hugging! Claire wonders when they became huggers? Jody gives her one more quick squeeze and says she’s just glad Claire is home safe. She introduces Claire to Patience.

“You’re wearing my sweatshirt.”

Also, the guest room is storage now, so. Patience is staying in her room. Claire says it’s fine. She’s the one who left. The awkwardness hangs in the air a moment and then Claire is all business. Patience stands in her wake feeling slightly dazed.

Jody plays Sam’s last message while Alex tends to Claire’s wounds. It’s been three days and they haven’t heard anything since. He mentioned Kaia in the message and Jody says there’s been no sign of her since she left the rehab center. Alex finishes up, does a gut check on Jody, and leaves for her night shift at the hospital.

The energy in the room is suddenly charged. Claire is instantly on the defensive about hunting alone. She insists to Jody that she’s fine. She’s good. She’s safe. Jody blurts that she’s not! She says Patience had a vision. Claire’s surprise hardens into skepticism.

A flash to the vision again, but this time after the knife and the blood, we see Jody cradling Claire’s body.

“I saw you die.”

Claire chuckles and looks at Jody like this is a joke, right? Jody looks stricken. The smile slides off Claire’s face. Jody earnestly says that Patience is the real deal. Claire questions the girl’s accuracy rate and Patience admits that she’s still getting a handle on her abilities. That’s enough wiggle room for Claire. She says Patience might be wrong.

Jody explodes that this is serious business! She’s trying to protect her! Claire snaps that that’s always her excuse! She says Jody has never even seen what she can do. Jody calmly insists that Claire can’t go dive-bombing into every fight. Claire is on her feet shouting that yes, she can! “That is how you save people!” She dismisses anything else as sitting back and losing time. “That’s how people end up dead.”

“And if you end up dead??!?”

It’s the nightmare that Jody sees every time she closes her eyes. Claire seems taken aback by Jody’s visceral reaction. She quietly says she won’t.

Feels, part of the second.

Claire visits Alex at work at the hospital. She cracks on Alex’s scrubs. Alex tells her she looks like Biker Barbie.

With the hellos out of the way, Claire brings up Patience’s vision. Alex confirms that she knew – and knew how Claire would react. Claire snips back, noting that Alex is still helping Jody with cases. She thought Alex wanted out of the monster life.

Alex gives Claire a pointed look. She says if Jody needs her help – whether it’s with the dishes or with monsters – she’s there. For Jody. Claire doesn’t miss Alex’s meaning. She suggests that leaving was the only way to save Jody from worrying about her all the time. Alex tells her Jody never stopped worrying.

She changes the subject from caring and sharing to the real reason for Claire’s visit. Claire smiles and gives her the wide-eyed sweet face. Two minutes in the hospital’s system? Alex says she already checked – including rock star aliases, from metal gods to obscure hair bands. Claire asks about Kaia and suggests searching for Jane Does. Alex has already checked, but searches again and gets a hit. A woman was conveniently just brought in.

Claire finds Kaia in a room down the hall as she’s grabbing her clothes and preparing to bolt. She introduces herself as a friend of Sam and Dean Winchester’s. Claire has no way of knowing how little credibility that gives her with Kaia. The girl bolts out the back door only to discover that something came through the floating space vagina with her.

She’s confronted by a clicking, hissing, glowing-eyed monster. Apparently they were originally called Canids in the script, but since Sam and Dean are trapped in the laaaaaaaaaaand of the loooooooooost, I’m going to call them Sleestaks.

For real though, these things were terrifying when I was 6.

Claire comes through the door. She looks from Kaia to the Sleestak and goes a little dead behind the eyes. She pulls out a knife and attacks, jamming it into the monster’s chest. The Sleestak cracks her in the face with a blow that sends her flying into the dumpsters.

It advances on Kaia but is quickly brought to its knees by a gunshot to the leg. It turns to face Jody and Claire grabs it from behind, slipping her knife up under its chin.  Thick blue blood spurts from wound. It looks like Star Wars space milk.

Alex helps Jody wheel the body into the garage. The Sleestak has a lumpen, fleshy pink head that kind of looks like an Ood from Doctor Who. It’s wearing a Bane-style respirator mask and I’m just going to keep calling these things Sleestaks because a Sleestak-Ood-Bane mashup just seems unnecessarily complicated. A Sloob? See, it just doesn’t work.

Sleestak it is.

Jody wonders what’s under the mask. Alex snaps on a pair of surgical gloves. “Let’s find out.”

Kaia is sitting huddled alone on the front stoop. Claire joins her and asks if she’s seen a Sleestak before. Kaia says in her dreams. And not just one – they travel in packs. They pick up your scent and they don’t stop. THIS IS IMPORTANT INFORMATION TO FILE AWAY FOR LATER.

Claire assumes that Kaia is a hunter. Kaia is like, no crazypants, I don’t fight them – I run.

“But … sometimes they catch me.”

Clare asks if that’s how Kaia got the scars on her wrist. Kaia shrugs and says she has others, all over. She looks away and curls in on herself. Even when she’s awake, the Bad Place is never far from her mind.

Claire smiles and pulls up her pant leg revealing two crescent-shaped marks. “Ghoul bite.” She pulls her collar aside and points to the scar on her collarbone. She says that one is from a bar fight with a vampire. He threw her through a window. Claire shrugs like, “It’s how I roll.”

Kaia relaxes and smiles. She reaches out and brushes Claire’s forehead with her finger. And that scar? Claire looks sheepish. She says it’s from a heroic battle with a doorknob. She tripped. Kaia beams and chuckles. And whatever this is, this easy rapport between the two women, whether it’s friendship or blooms into something else, I am here for it. Team DreamHunter.

Also, this scene is a total shoutout to the Quint and Hooper scene from Jaws.

In the garage, Alex gently pulls the Bane mask away from the Sleestak’s face. It makes a squelchy, suctiony sound and Patience throws up in her mouth again some more. Jody looks over Alex’s shoulder with horrified fascination. Alex is like, okay now this is why I went to nursing school.

She gently pries open the Sleestak’s mouth pincers as Kaia gives them all the recap from “The Bad Place”. She says something went wrong when she and Jack opened the floating space vagina. Claire realizes that if the Sleestak came through, it means the door is still open. She says if they find it, they’ll find Sam and Dean.

Kaia bluntly says that if Sam and Dean are in the Bad Place, they’re already dead.

Sam and Dean are sitting around a campfire in the blue-green forest. Sam looks cold and hungry and miserable. Dean checks the doneness on his lizard kabob.

Sam tells him not to say it tastes like chicken.

“No Sam, it’s a lizard. It tastes like lizard.”

Sam says they should get moving again and keep looking for the floating space vagina. Dean, having done this before, is already in long-term survival mode. He says no one knows they’re missing and the last rift only stayed open for a few hours. They’ve been in Jurassic Park for more than two days. So eat up.

A snarling growl echoes through the forest. The boys decide they’d rather not find out what’s making the sound. They head off in the opposite direction. Dean follows Sam for a few steps, but then stops and goes back to the fire to get his lizard to go.

Thudding footsteps rumble through the forest, gradually growing louder.

Also, a quick reminder that Purgatory!Dean is the second finest Dean (after Unhinged, Murderous Mark of Cain!Dean) in the Dean Winchester Hierarchy of Inappropriate Hotness.

Patience is packing her bags. She tells Alex that if she goes now, maybe her dad will take her back. Alex asks if that’s what Patience really wants – to deny who she is and pretend she’s not a powerful psychic. Patience says it’s just all too freaky.

“I mean, your mom’s out burying a monster in the backyard.”

“Well, you gotta bury ‘em somewhere.”

Your mom. YOUR MOM and Alex doesn’t correct her. Feels, part of the third.

Alex tries to reassure Patience that she doesn’t have to be a fighter like Claire. She says she’s not, not really. There are other ways they can help. Patience says she’s sorry, but she can’t.

She gets as far as the car before the vision hits her. It leaves her gasping for air. She bursts through the front door. She says the monsters are coming – lots of them. They have to go. Now. Claire is like, sweet let’s take our chances, stay, and fight.

Patience is not having her death wish nonsense.

She gets toe-to-toe with Claire. She says she gave up a lot to come there – to do what was right and to save Claire. Her voice rising, Patience tells Claire she can brush that off and think she’s a fake, but that doesn’t change the fact that they’re all in danger. Kaia reaches out to Claire. Now is not the time fight. Now is the time to run.

The Sleestaks crash through the windows and ransack the house. Claire watches them on her phone via the nanny cam in the living room. Sitting behind the wheel, Patience keeps her eyes on the road. “Believe me now?”

Walking through the forest. Walking through the forest. Walking through the forest. The boys are attacked by a cloaked figure who quickly hands them their asses. And I’m not going to complain too much, because otherwise this episode knocks it out of the park, but really? I mean, Dean managed to survive on his own in Purgatory but can’t put up a fight against Kylo Ren and their whacking stick?

The boys come to, each tied to a slender tree. Kylo Ren appears. Dean calls them Darth Dickwad. Kylo strikes the butt of their spear on the enormous skull we’ve seen in both Kaia and Patience’s visions. It makes a hollow, metallic sound. Kylo Ren slowly exits, stage right. The boys hear the growling roar and thud of footsteps. Dean looks down at the bones littering the ground. Kylo Ren just rang the dinner bell.

The women pull off the road the next morning to rendezvous with their backup. Patience asks if Jody called in the National Guard.

“Nooo … Better.”

There’s the sound of a cheery honk-honk and a black pickup pulls up. The Minnesota license plate says D-Train.

D-TRAIN.

DEEEEEEEEEEEEEE-TRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIN!!!!!!

There is hugging. Yay! Hugging! Donna calls Claire, “Rainbow Brite”. Jody makes the introductions to Kaia and Patience. She says Donna has killed a lot of vampires.

Donna gets right down to business. She says she brought the basics. She opens up the back of her truck and pulls out an arsenal that would make Dean go weak in the knees.

“So, who knows how to use a flamethrower?”

Using Kaia’s description of events and Alex’s Google-fu they identify the boat yard’s location. Jody says she and Donna will check it out. She pulls Claire aside and asks her to hang back – just for now – and keep the other girls safe. Claire looks over at Kaia and agrees without complaint. Jody is like, WHAT SORCERY IS THIS?

Alex and Patience are throwing rocks in the river, as one does. Kaia joins Claire in her perch in the back of Patience’s Jeep. Kaia realizes that Claire is scared, and Claire admits that yeah, she is. She tells Kaia that she’s always brushed off Jody’s warnings that she would get herself killed hunting. She embraced the idea of going out while doing something great. But Patience’s vision has changed that.

“It’s one thing thinking that you’re going to die, but actually knowing it …”

She says for once a part of her just wants to sit back and let Jody handle it. “Stay safe.” But Sam and Dean saved her life. She can’t sit this one out.

“Then don’t.”

Kaia says if Claire goes, she’ll go with her. Maybe together, they can save them.

Jody and Donna arrive at the boatyard. Baby is still parked next to the ferry, so at least she’s okay. They approach the ferry with guns drawn, and I just feel like they need waaaaay more firepower than their service pieces. Although in theory, the boys’ weapons bags are still sitting in the lounge, so.

They board, and the camera is focused on the melted angel blade. And I don’t know if the production designers meant for it to look like a sex toy, but it fully looks like a sex toy.

The camera pans up, and Jody’s attention seems drawn to the wings burned onto the walls of the ferry. My attention is drawn to Donna, and given that body image is something that has been explored through her character I feel comfortable saying this – girl, your ass looks good in those jeans.

As they approach the stairs they hear a gentle hissing buzz. They look up and see a golden light glowing through the doorway. The floating space vagina is still humming away in the lounge. I think Donna speaks for all of us when she says, “Uff da.”

Jody approaches the rift and says she’s going in. If she doesn’t, Claire will.

“Donna, I cannot lose another child.”

My emotions, part of the fourth.

That trip is interrupted by the echoing clicks of the Sleestaks who have already come through and are still on the boat. Jody and Donna make a break for it, but their escape is cut off. They hide in a rusted out car. The way they’re stretched out, front seat and back, is kind of a bizarro version of Sam and Dean from “Baby”.

This is also the first time in a long time that I’ve felt any real sense of danger or suspense in an episode. I mean, this boat scene, y’all. EEP!

The Sleestaks circle around the car, probing and prodding. Donna says if they make a run for the truck, they’re dead. Jody says if they stay, they’re dead. The car begins to rock as one of the Sleestaks jumps onto the roof. Donna fires at it and it jumps down, staring at Jody through the grimy rear window. Before it can attack, it’s immolated by a jet of roaring flame.

The two women get out of the car to see Claire holding the flamethrower. She’s flanked by Alex, Kaia, and Patience.

“I called. You didn’t answer. We worried.”

The framing of this shot, y’all. That is some Avengers assembling level shit and I AM HERE FOR IT.

Claire notices the glow of the floating space vagina and bolts for the stairway. Kaia and Jody are hot on her heels. Claire reaches out for the rift, almost like it’s calling to her. Jody realizes the doorway is getting smaller. It’s closing. She reflexively stops Claire from going through. Claire fixes her with a look and says she needs to save Sam and Dean – and Jody has to let her.

Jody gives her a look in return that is filled with love and pride. She quietly says, “I know.” With tears in her eyes, she tells Claire to go.

My emotions, part of the fifth.

Kaia looks terrified. Claire holds out her hand and says she’ll protect her. They pass through the rift together.

Donna loads up a shotgun and asks Patience if she’s ever shot one before. No. No, Patience has not. With an “Okie-doke, here you go,” she hands the gun to the girl. Donna instructs Patience on its use in the same calm, reassuring tone of a flight attendant explaining what to do if the cabin loses air pressure.

A clicking hiss announces a Sleestak’s presence. “Oh, there he is. Hiya, buddy”, singsongs Donna. Four more monsters show themselves. Donna orders the girls upstairs and covers their retreat.

After blocking the stairwell, the women regroup. Jody says if anything gets in, take it down. Donna calls out to Patience. She smiles at her and says, “You got this.” I would pretty much believe I was capable of doing anything if Jody or Donna told me I could. The Sleestaks circle around and the women form up.

“Alright, girls. Let’s go to work.”

I want that on a t-shirt. I want to embroider it on a pillow. I want to burn it into my lawn in 10-foot letters.

Shooting shooting shooting shooting. Alex unloads a clip in a Sleestak. Donna tags one as it dives for cover. Jody leans over the partition and fires down on it, unloading her clip like this ain’t even her whole day. One races at Patience and she nails it in the chest mid-leap.

Kaia leads Claire to the feeding ground. They slip up quietly behind the boys and free them. Dean calls Claire his hero. I guess they’re even now for that time she set him up and tried to kill him. But then, who hasn’t tried to kill each other on this show? It’s practically a sign of affection.

They make it back to the rift. Kaia hears the crack of a twig and turns to see Kylo Ren. She pushes Claire out of the path of Kylo’s spear. It strikes her instead, running her through. The girl falls to the ground next to Claire. She reaches out to Claire and they clasp hands. And then Kaia is gone.

WHAT. JUST. HAPPENED?

High up above them, a glowing-eyed Rancor from Return of the Jedi looking nightmare looms out of the darkness through the tree canopy. All Claire can see is the monster that just killed her friend. She launches herself at Kylo Ren, but Dean pulls her back. They make their escape and the rift seals itself behind them.

Jody rushes into the lounge, bypassing the boys and going straight to Claire. She gathers the girl in her arms. Claire sobs into her shoulder. Jody eyebrows at the boys. Kaia? Sam shakes his head. Patience can only watch as the reality of her vision becomes clear.

Feels, part of the sixth.

The boys say their goodbyes to Jody in Sioux Falls, and really? They can’t stay and help clean up the mess that the Sleestaks made of her house? That is some weaksauce. Dean did at least try to talk to Claire, so there’s that.

Sam warns that more monsters may have come through the rift while it was open. Jody says with confidence that they will handle it.

“C’mon, you guys take care of the world. We got Sioux Falls covered.”

DAMN RIGHT THEY DO. Dean couldn’t agree more. They all hug. Yay! Hugging!

Jody checks in on Claire. She tries to assuage some of the guilt, but Claire isn’t having it. She tells Jody she didn’t think. She just raced in. No plan.

“I said I’d protect her …”

A tear slips down Claire’s cheek. She says she gets it now. She understands that Jody was trying to protect her from the emotional toll of hunting as much as the physical danger.

Jody tells Claire she doesn’t have to do this alone. “When you’re ready … If you want … We’re all here for you.”

Patience, Alex, and Donna are sweeping up broken glass and taping plastic in the empty window frames. Patience says, “I killed a monster.” Donna and Alex grin and begin to chuckle.

“Welcome to the family.”

Claire pulls out her journal. She writes that she came back to Sioux Falls to save Sam and Dean and she did. She corrects herself –

“We did. All of these amazing women. My family.”

She joins Jody, Donna, Alex, and Patience at the table for Chinese takeout. “They don’t know it yet. They think I’m staying because I’m broken. But I’m staying because I need them.”

“My family. My army.”

“The thing that killed Kaia is still out there. And I don’t care if I have to tear another hole in the universe, we’re going to find it …”

We get a sweeping aerial view as the sun sets over Sioux Falls. A glowing rifts flares into being in the middle of a park. Kylo Ren comes through.

… And I’m going to kill it.”

The figure pulls back their hood. It’s Kaia.

IT’S KAIA.

KAIA REN COME THRUUUUUUUUUUUU!!!!!

So, at the end of “Hibbing 911”, Donna is processing the fact that she just chopped off a vampire’s head and Jody beams at her and says, “You were great at that!” And this is what I wrote in my recap of that episode that aired in 2014:

I just want to hang out and have a beer with these ladies every week. EVERY WEEK. DO YOU HEAR ME, THE CW? HEY, DO YOU KNOW WHO WATCHES SUPERNATURAL CURRENTLY? GROWN ASS 30 AND 40 SOMETHING WOMEN WHO ENJOY WATCHING OTHER GROWN ASS ADULT WOMEN HAVE SUPPORTIVE FRIENDSHIPS AND KILL MONSTERS. THE JODY AND DONNA SHOW. MAKE IT SO.

And somehow, through the magic of a whole lot of people who both put that wish out to the Universe and actively campaigned for it, it became so.

I had sky-high expectations for this episode and it did not disappoint. When I started watching Supernatural ten (good lord) years ago, I came for the urban legends and monsters but I stayed for the relationship between Sam and Dean. And that’s what this episode gets so right for a potential spin-off.

The relationships between these women feel real and earned – even with the new characters. We know Jody, Donna, Alex, and Claire.  We’ve watched them all walk through the fire and we know how it forged them.  So when they vouch for Patience and Kaia, it makes them family.

These characters, who were invented over time by a host of writers, are given breath and heart by a group of wonderful actresses – Kim Rhodes, Brianna Buckmaster, Katherine Ramdeen, Kathryn Newton, Clark Backo, and Yadira Guevara Prip – THAT I WANT TO HANG OUT WITH EVERY WEEK, OKAY THE CW?

(And honestly, I would totes hang out with them in real life too, not a stalker I promise.)

I am sad that we (apparently) won’t get to know Kaia Prime better, but I’m kind of loving that twist.  If Wayward goes to series, I hope Kaia Ren sticks around for a while.

So, in conclusion: Wayward Sisters. Learn it. Know it. Live it. Do the right thing The CW. Give us this spin-off. GIVE IT TO MEEEEEEE!!!

(And then maybe in Season 2, Krissy and Josephine stop by.)

Supernatural airs Thursday at 8:00 p.m. (Eastern) on The CW. Whitney also watches Timeless and (sometimes) Outlander. Follow her on Twitter @Watcher_Whitney.