I don’t generally put spoiler warnings in front of my TV reviews. Maybe I should, but honestly, if you’re looking up Supernatural reviews you should probably be prepared for spoilers. However, I’m going to put one here. If you don’t want to find out about the horrible and very significant thing that happens at the end of this episode, you really want to steer clear of the end of this review. Mmmm, ‘kay?
This episode was in no way a filler (finally) and gave us the angsty angel-filled confrontation we’ve been waiting for. It was also a game changer, which is good, because who wasn’t bored with the Ezekiel storyline. No one? Yah, that’s what I thought.
The episode starts with maybe my favorite cold open in a Supernatural episode ever. A church glee club bus rides up to a biker bar as the members, all wearing sweaters and dresses, sing “This Little Light of Mine.” They enter the bar, startling the bikers, who tell him to leave. “We have as much right to be here as you,” replies the leader of the glee club before pulling out an angel blade. The bikers follow in kind, and, after a series of crashes and flashes, we see glee club girls happily walk out of the bar, covered in the biker’s blood and resuming their rendition of “This Little Light of Mine.” It’s hilarious.
In the Impala, Dean and Ezekiel discuss the Sam issue, with Ezekiel assuring Dean that Sam is nearly healed before flitting out. Sam, now in control again, notices the signs on the road and realizes they’ve jumped 20 miles in a second. Perhaps Dean and Zeke should have been a little slyer with that one? Dean blames it on the trials, but Sam is still clearly worried about his lost time.
At the biker bar, the boys run into Cas, who has taken their trick of posing as a federal agent. Dean and Sam are more a than a little concerned about him getting involved with angel business, since they want to kill him and all, but Cas is adamant that if angels are killing each other then he needs to help. Sam agrees, but Dean is still brooding because of Ezekiel’s less then positive attitude towards Cas.
Meanwhile in a parking lot, Bartholomew’s henchmen meet with Malachi the angel and one of the glee club members. When the henchmen refuse to negotiate with them to help save heaven, Malachi, glee club lady, and co. kill them. “And so it begins,” says Malachi.
At a bar, Cas is being goofy and adorable and expressing his excitement at having his first beer as a human. Zeke, after sending Dean a nasty glare, storms outside, where he’s confronted by none other then Metatron. “I know who you really are, and it isn’t Ezekiel,” he tells him. Well. That’s potentially problematic. He reveals that Ezekiel is really Gadreel, a feared angel who was locked away for failing at his mandate: protecting the Garden of Eden. Metatron all but tells Ezekiel “You had one job!” and Gadreel is clearly upset about the whole thing. Metatron explains that his solitude on Earth is getting too boring and he wants to rebuild Heaven with a select few angels. “No more stupid angels!” He declares. “Maybe some funny ones…” He asks for Gadreel’s help.
Dean once again tells Cas he has to go, and it’s even more annoying this time because we now know that the angel in Sam is not a good guy. He then returns to the bunker, where Sam explains that the killed biker/angels were Boyle converts and therefore Bartholomew’s men, making their slaughter by a somehow worse group even more frightening. Meanwhile, glee club lady is turning a bible studies group into angel hosts when one of Bartholomew’s men comes up behind her and kills her with an angel blade.
Gadreel meets with Metatron and asks him if he intends to be the leader of New Heaven. “It is a burden I must accept,” he replies. Oh, Mettie, always so humble.
Cas, meanwhile, is lost and looking for guidance (probably because his stupid best friend threw him out! Dean!) But his prayers are going unheard. I don’t know who he’s praying to considering all the angels hate him and his track record with God’s existence is sketchy and complicated, but whatever. I guess he’s desperate. An angel, Muriel, shows up at his door but freaks when she realizes it’s Cas calling. He asks her to stay and give him information, comparing her to him because of their mutual dislike of the fanatics and trying to explain that Metatron tricked him. She tells him that the angel faction rivaling Bartholomew’s is led by Malachi, the anarchist. Just then the door is smashed in and in walks Malachi’s men, who capture the two. Malachi demands that Cas tell him about Metatron’s weakness and how to reverse the spell, torturing him, and kills Muriel when Cas doesn’t answer. Malachi explains that many angels were killed in the fall and mentions Ezekiel as one of them, but when Cas is still silent, he leaves him to be tortured and killed by his henchman. It would be intimidating and scary but I’m pretty sure the henchman is Buzz from Psych, and that’s making it kind of hard to be afraid.
In the bunker, Kevin muses over Metatron’s borderline indecipherable spell. Dean finds out about glee club lady’s murder and is able to connect her to the biker massacre.
Just as Cas prepares to be killed, the henchman announces a different plan, asking Cas to speak to Metatron on his behalf, offering to be a soldier in exchange for admittance to heaven. He even offers to talk to Metratron about restoring Cas’ grace. Cas, being sly for once in his life, admits to a “working relationship” with Metatron to get himself freed, and then proceeds to kill the angel and take his grace. That’s cold, Cas. You’re supposed to be the nice one. He calls Dean and explains what’s going on and that the angel in Sam is not Ezekiel. Dean runs to a sleeping Kevin, demanding a spell ASAP. “Everyone always needs a spell and it’s always ASAP,” Kevin mumbles groggily. He asks him to find a way to “power-down” an angel for a few seconds to speak to the host.
Speaking of said angel, he goes to Metatron and agrees to be his second in command. Metatron, however, needs one more thing to prove Gadreel’s loyalty to him. He needs him to kill their enemies, despite Gadreel’s disgust at the idea, and gives him a paper with the first name.
Kevin is suspicious of Dean’s spell and asks for the truth, but Dean tells him he has to trust him. “I always trust you, and I always wind up screwed,” Kevin replies. Oh Kevin, you have no idea how true that is. Keep reading, people. Sam returns and walks right into their trap, where Dean explains that he was in a coma and that there’s an angel inside of him. Sam is pissed off because Dean is a clingy control freak, which is totally legitimate. He then punches Dean in the face, which would also be totally legitimate if it weren’t secretly Gadreel in control. Alas, it is, and he heads upstairs to find the target Metatron sent him after.
That target, as you may have gathered from my clever foreshadowing in the last paragraph, is Kevin, and with no hesitation and little fanfare, Gadreel kills him and burns out his eyes with a single burst of angel light. Whoa. Whoa whoa whoa. Hold up there. Did they actually just kill Kevin Tran? Tell me they didn’t just kill Kevin Tran!
As Dean runs in, Gadreel explains that there is no more Sam and their conversation was merely an act by the angel. He overheard Kevin and Dean’s plan and sabotaged the spell. Then he runs off with the angel tablet, leaving Dean to pitifully repeat Kevin’s name over and over, trying to get him to wake up. But of course, he doesn’t.
I don’t want to jump to an conclusions right now, because it’s not like death on Supernatural is like death in the real world, but things are not looking good for Kevin. His death adds some nice stakes to a fairly flat season, but also shrinks down the already shrunken Supernatural family to….what? Just Dean, Sam, and Cas? Does Crowley count? He has been living in their house for half a season.
Despite my mixed feelings on the ending, this episode took the show back to the mythology and was true to the characters and the show. Here’s hoping we can have more episodes like this when the show returns on January 19th and less about The Wizard of Oz.
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