‘Supernatural’: Impossible odds

Supernatural
“The Spear”
December 13, 2018

THEN: “I know what it’s like to see monsters.  I know that when they’re gone, they never really go away.”

NOW

Jack is stress eating Cookie Crisp cereal in the middle of the night as one does.  He’s worried about his mother in Heaven and fretful over Castiel’s deal with the Empty. He asks why Sam and Dean can’t know about it.  WHY INDEED, CAS? WHY. IN. DEED.

Cas blah blahs about not wanting to burden them and hand waves that, given that their life is a perpetual shit show, there’s little chance of him allowing himself to be happy any time soon, so.

Cas eats a few cookies, but I thought all food tasted like molecules to him?

Also the password to the decoder ring that Cas snaked out of the box is, “cookietacular.”

Samantha Carter has made good on her offer of intel on Michael.  He and his lovely lady vessel are operating out of the Nakatomi Plaza Hitomi Tower in downtown Kansas City. Sam pulls Garth out of retirement and the boys send him in as a weremole.  Hey!  Garth!

Having been in Dean’s head, Michael knows who Garth is.  Garth admits to being a friend of the Winchesters, but explains that he has a family now.  There’s a war coming—Michael’s war—and for the sake of his little girl, he has to be on the winning side.

Garth is forced to ingest Michael’s grace and then just happens to overhear the archangel tell an underling that Kaia Ren is hiding out in an abandoned recycling facility outside of Omaha. Oh, and also, he’s summoning his army of enhanced monsters to eat or turn everyone in KC.

There is no way that Michael doesn’t know Garth is a spy.  If these big dummies get Garth killed I am flipping all of the tables dot gif.

Ketch skypes in to pip pip cheerio that the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch has been recovered and is en route to them.  He paid extra for the priority express service!  We are all Cas with how over Ketch he is in this scene.

Dean says he and Cas will go to Nebraska to get Kaia’s spear; Jack and Sam will go to the sorting facility in Missouri to fetch their package. They’ll regroup at the Hitomi Tower and hit Michael from both sides.

Dean and Cas arrive in Omaha the next morning.  The angel comments on Dean’s good mood.  They drove the whole way without music because of Baby’s broken tape deck and Dean didn’t complain once! Dean admits he’s feeling fired up.  They got Jack back.  

“When was the last time we had a big, no-strings-attached win like that?”

Also, Dean won’t be truly happy until Michael is dead and he’s the one who kills him.  Kaia’s spear is his chance to do that.  So, yeah.  He’s good.

Inside, there’s no sign of Kaia Ren—or of the monsters Michael sent to kill her. Gears slowly and painfully begin to turn in Dean’s head.  Hey … could this be a setup? When Kaia does appear, she is no more disposed to give up her spear than she was in the cabin.

Dean steps forward and leans into the tip of the spear.  He tells Kaia she should just go ahead and kill him. Because Michael is going to kill his family and thousands more, and the only thing that will stop him is her spear.

“So if you’re not going to give it to me, kill me.”

Kaia Ren stands down. She offers a trade.  She says she wants to go home.  She wants to go back to the Bad Place.  She came through the rift to escape a life of running from monsters, but here it’s no different. Michael’s monsters haven’t stopped hunting her.  At least in the Bad Place she understood the world and her place in it.

She explains that the magic from her home doesn’t work here. She needs help.  She needs Jack to open a floating space vagina. Dean agrees and says Jack will do it—knowing full well using that much power will burn a hole in his soul and probably planning to renege.  Kaia rightly doesn’t trust him but considers her options.  She says there are people she feels bound to protect, too.  She reluctantly passes the spear to Dean, but she does so with a warning.  

Bring the spear back or she will find him and kill him.

Sam calls to report that Michael was waiting for them in Joplin, destroyed the Holy Hand Grenade, and kidnaped Jack.

“Drive fast.”

Jack is brought before Michael so the archangel can blah blah about insects and the passage of time.  He says that Jack will eventually become like him.  Jack’s loyalty to Team Free Will will fade—in time.

Sam arrives in KC, and HOLY CRAP YOU GUYS, I’VE BEEN TO THE HATOMI TOWER!

Sam pop upstairs (somehow magically knowing where to find Jack), grabs the kid and Garth, and pops back down to the parking level to wait for Dean and Cas.  It’s a milk run.  Easy like a Sunday morning.

Until Michael triggers Garth to wolf out and forces him to attack Sam and Jack.  Because while it would have been easy enough for Michael to kill them ten times over, crushing insects is beneath him.

Also, you guys.  These teeth they make the enhanced werewolves wear.  Did Show get a bulk discount at Party City? They’re just embarrassing and they need to stop.

Sam manages to subdue Garth and they tuck him up in Baby’s trunk. There was some discussion amongst my viewing buddies that Garth could possibly damage Baby while in his wolfed out state.  And if that were to happen, in my opinion, Garth would have to die.  I’m sorry, but those are the rules.  DEATH.  DEATH TO THOSE WHO DEFILE METALLICAR.

Team Free Will is down a weapon, facing an adversary with no reason to fear them. They’ve lost the element of surprise, and—should they fail—the only thing standing between Kansas City and an army of enhanced vamps and werewolves is the AV Club.

“I wouldn’t bet against us.”

Dean punctuates his optimism with an experimental twirl of Kaia’s spear.

Oh, Dean. Never change (SPOILER ALERT!)

Cas engages Michael first and promptly has his ass handed to him.  Sam and Jack find themselves face down on the floor the minute Michael lays eyes on them.  Dean presses the attack with Kaia’s spear.  He shows greater mastery of it than he did in the parking garage, but he’s still no match for Michael, who quickly disarms him. 

The archangel can’t help evil monologuing.  He taunts that Dean let him in, and now Dean will get to see all the death and bloodshed his mistake made possible.  All that extra blah blahing allows Sam time to crawl over to the spear and push it into Dean’s reach.

Dean slashes at Michael as he comes up off the floor, catching the archangel in the arm. Dean growls that it’s going to leave a scar.  He backs Michael up and seems to have the advantage … until his vision goes fuzzy at the edges.  Michael smiles. 

Moments from his possession flash through Dean’s mind, ending with Michael punching the mirror to silence Dean’s reflection.

Suddenly Dean isn’t there anymore.

All of the kudos, fruit baskets, and a Chuck damned Oscar to Jensen Ackles. How does he do that?  It’s just the slightest shift in his expression, but the moment when Michael reasserts control of Dean is crystal clear.

A moment which, also to be clear, is bullshit.  The idea that an angel—even an archangel—can just “leave a door open” is bullshit.  It goes against everything we know about angels and vessels. 

Remember way back in Season 4 when Castiel possessed Claire? Why would he need to do that if he could just jump back into Jimmy at will without first getting his permission?  Why wouldn’t Lucifer have left the door open to jump back into Sam?

But leaving a door open is just what Michael did.  After snapping Kaia’s spear in two, he tuts at Team Free Will for not questioning why he gave Dean up.  Which, EXCELLENT POINT, MICHAEL. He explains in the panty-droppingest tone of voice that Dean was … resisting him.

Michael says Dean was too attached to Sam—to all of them.  He wouldn’t stop squirming.  So Michael left.

He says it was to break, crush, and disappoint Dean, but … when did any of those things happen? If Michael wanted to break Dean, he would have killed Sam and Cas and melted Baby down into slag. And yeah, the spear is now destroyed, but they’ve figured out how to fix weapons in the past.  That’s not really a crushing loss.

But Michael seems to think that this time Dean will be nice and quiet.  

Buried.  

Gone.

Michael finishes his drink and gloats that he has a whole army out there just waiting for him to Thanos the shit out of this bitch.

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