#spnwin recap

[spnfanficpond]

Livechat recap: Writing Reader Inserts - How to Reduce the Y/N of It All

We had a great chat in our Discord server about different aspects of writing reader insert fics! Those who were there or have contributed to the discussion after the fact are: @notsofly, @spn-fanfic-reblog-writes, @kazsrm67, @thoughtslikeaminefield, @zepskies, @talltalesandbedtimestories, and @stunudo. Below the cut is a rundown of the points that we discussed!

How do you reduce the use of Y/N and similar placeholders?

Nicknames - This is especially easy when writing SPN because Dean loves giving nicknames to everyone.

For placeholders like Y/H/C and Y/E/C - When writing from the RIC's (Reader Insert Character) POV (Point Of View), this is easy because most people don't consider their own hair or eye color. When writing from another character's POV, like an SPN Character (SPNC), focus on attributes like how eyes can shine, or narrow. Hair can be soft or shiny.

Decide if the detail you're referring to is necessary to the story. If the plot doesn't change without it, do you really need to include it?

How much detail does an RIC need?

Only those details that would change the story if they were different or missing. For example, if a story is about aging/maturity or how a RIC reacts to new tech, then age is necessary.

What specific details should you leave out when possible?

Hair length/style - Some women have very short hair that can't be put into a ponytail or braided. Focus on feel of the hair, not tangling it into someone's fingers.

Weight - You can mention curves and leave the rest to the imagination.

Blushing - You can feel your face get hot, but you can’t really see yourself blushing. Describe the feeling over the appearance. Darker skin tones don't turn noticeably red when blushing.

Race/ethnicity - Unless your story involves ethnic customs or dealing with something specifically racial, this is not a necessary detail.

Clothing - Unless a hunter is dressing up, clothing does not need to be specifically described. Even when dressing up, clothing can be described generically. "A dress in her favorite color that showed off her assets and minimized those little parts of herself she wanted hidden." A job can affect clothing, but just going to the mall or on a date does not. Describe comfort over style.

What is the difference between an OC (Original Character) and a RIC?

Backstory - OC's will usually have a backstory to help define their character. RIC's only need backstory as it pertains to the current story. They can have one, but only what's needed for the story.

Name

Physical description - OC's need to be described but RIC's need to not be described as much as possible.

Does an RI fic need to be in 2nd Person POV?

No. They can also be written in 3rd person omniscient (the audience knows what everyone is thinking) or 3rd person limited POV (the audience only knows what one person is thinking, as if they were in that character's head).

Are RI fics more popular on one platform vs. another?

Yes. RI fics seem to be a lot more popular on Tumblr than on AO3. Tumblr also seems to prefer RIC's over OC's. We don't know why.

Ways to describe eyes that don't involve color?

Focus on the emotions - see emotions in their eyes instead of color

Focus on actions - eyes crinkling, slitting, narrowing, widening. She batted her eyes or looked up at him through her lashes.

Other adjectives besides color - Bright eyes, shining eyes, etc

NO ORBS.

How do you write a Gender Neutral RIC (GNRIC)?

You have to avoid gender stereotypes like women being more emotional and emotionally available while men are more stoic and stubborn. Women and men stereotypically flirt differently. You need to identify those traits in your story and balance them out to neutralize them. Get down to your basic "people" traits for the character.

Who cuddles who? Maybe the SPNC comes to the GNRIC and asks for cuddles? Decide if that kind of thing matters and why.

The GNRIC discussion at the end of our time led to the creation of a writing challenge to explore gender. How would we write a female RIC differently from a male RIC if they were put into the same story? How does knowing this help us to strip gender stereotypes from our story to make a truly gender-neutral RIC? If you would like to know more about this writing challenge and how to participate, click here!

If you have any questions about anything here, or want to add something to this topic, please let us know! You can send an Ask to the blog, add your comments to the #livechat-events channel in our Discord server, or DM one of our admins here or on Discord.

Admins

Michelle - @mrswhozeewhatsis

Marie - @mariekoukie6661

MJ - @thoughtslikeaminefield

Mana - @manawhaat (Founder and Admin Emeritus)

[angelsdean]

i really love reading older meta posts, especially ones from when the show was airing. seasons speculation, episode recaps and analysis. so so good. all of this was also part of why i loved the spnwin era and all the week-to-week theorizing. and why i can't wait for the s16 revival bc i just love love love connecting dots, analyzing, speculating, unraveling, finding patterns and symbolism and collectively posting abt it and bouncing ideas off each other and being excited. it's what fandom is about at it's core, community and collaboration and shared joy in this show we love

[shirtlesssammy]

The Winchesters 1x08: Hang on to Your Life

Kansas City, Missouri

Outside a bar called the Knave of Hearts. (The marquee indicates that Jericho is headlining with Brock Billings. Is Jericho a nice nod to Robbie and Rich’s old show? Love it.) Brock pops out of one of the doors and wanders into a back alley. He scares a poor street cat and promptly burns up for it. 

Oh, wait, there’s got to be something more going on here. A whistling, dapper-dressed man approaches and warms his hands by the glowing charred remains of Brock. 

Mary, Millie, and John are back at Mary’s tending to an unconscious Samuel’s wounds. Ada has prescribed a magical tea to help with the nasty Akrida gash on Samuel’s shoulder. Operation Heavy Flirting has entered its next stage for Mary and John, and Millie knows when to give these two Alone Time. 

Samuel wakes and mumbles that he found a way to find the queen. 

Mary and John tell Carlos and Lata about the Akrida queen. There’s been radio silence from the Akrida since they found Samuel. Carlos did hear about a man burning up outside the Knave of Hearts though. The Knave of Hearts is THE place in the midwest to make it in music. Mary opts to stay behind to help her father mend. John opts to stay behind to simp after Mary. Carlos approves. 

“Being a hunter means living a life of sacrifice – not a lot of room for dreams. But you open your heart and get a little lucky, you’ll find you gain more than you lose.” 

(Boris puts on clown nose)

(Natasha against her better judgment, reluctantly also puts on clown nose)

Once at the bar, the duo sets out to investigate the case. Carlos interrogates the bartender with no luck. Lata finds sigils in Brock’s dressing room. They discuss the meaning of them when Carlos runs into an old music buddy, Jericho. It seems they were a duo once upon a time named Rivers Gemini and The Jericho Kid.  

Operation Flirtfest actually gets to the meat of the situation and John and Mary talk about the kiss. Neither regrets the kiss but Mary doesn’t know what the future holds.

Lata is having the Time of Her Life reminiscing with Rivers Gemini and The Jericho Kid. 

As Carlos and Lata head out, Carlos knocks a hat off the table of another customer. He picks it up and hands it back to the man. 

GABRIEL!!!!! OR LOKI!!!! OR THE TRICKSTER!!!!! THEY”RE ALL THE SAME!!!! AGGGHHHH

Lata’s van research reveals that Brock’s sigils were trying to protect him from dark magic. Lata asks if Carlos wants to go to the show that night. He declines and makes it clear that it was always a choice of careers. “It’s a matter of time before you come across a monster and then something has to die – the dream or the monster.” 

They interview the roadie. He tells them about the hat man following Brock out of the bar the night he died. 

Meanwhile, Millie and Samuel get to know each other. It’s chilly.

He doesn’t want the tea until Millie mentions that Ada prescribed it. Samuel is able to get in quite a few zingers about John. And he learns that Henry was a Men of Letters. (Or as he so Dean-ly says “Mole Men”, and then proceeds to explain the joke and it’s hilarious and not hilarious but at least we know where the Dean Dad humor comes from.) Millie makes it clear that without her “mole man” of a husband, Samuel’s daughter would be dead right now. 

Jericho’s set has begun. Lata spots Gabriel Loki jamming out in the back of the room and alerts Carlos. Jericho starts to smoke and Carlos grabs him and drags him off stage. Lata goes to confront Gabriel Loki but it’s no longer him. Meanwhile, the bartender burns.

Lata and Carlos head backstage later to find Jericho hurriedly packing up. He’s somewhat reluctant to talk, but quickly falls sway to their puppy eyed earnestness. He explains that his solo career fizzled until a few weeks ago. He met Loki and, while drunk, agreed to some kind of deal. He woke up with a flaming tattoo on his forearm. 

After that, his songs light the audience up inside…but in the bad, SPONTANEOUS COMBUSTION way. Each night, one member of his audience dies a terrible, fiery death. If he doesn’t sing to someone (and sentence to burn), then the curse will burn him up instead. When Brock tried to get cut into the mad profits of Jericho’s rising career, Jericho killed him off. Tonight, he tried singing to the guy in the suit who bound him in the deal - some guy named Loki. 

At Casa de Campbell, Samuel stumbles his way into the den, apparently with the intention of grilling John about his dad. Instead, Mary cuts him off. She wants to know more about what Samuel was mumbling in his sleep. How can they find the Akrida queen? Samuel explains that he picked up on some signs and decided to check them out. He’s got three rolls of film (THOSE WERE THE DAYS AMIRITE?) for them to develop and figure out clues. Mary stalks off to play photo lab. John confronts Samuel and tells him to treat Mary like a daughter “and less like a soldier.” Oof. 

Back at the hunt, Lata, Carlos, and Jericho head for the van. Inside the van they find Loki lounging. “You were right about this one,” he says to Jericho, gesturing to Carlos. “He’s got pluck.” 

Jericho’s largely unsurprised to see him, and we quickly find out why. Loki made a deal with Jericho - if he can pass on his curse to another then he can be free from it. Jericho led Loki to Carlos. Before their eyes, Loki transforms, proving his powers, and tells them that Carlos taking on the Mark - I mean, the tattoo - is the only way he can save his friend. Former friend? 

Loki reads us Carlos’ resume, which is very enjoyable for me AND for him! It includes:

Love of modern dance

Gifted typist

Musician, hunter, hair model

He also sees Carlos’s nature, and knows that Carlos won’t walk away and let his friend remain cursed, or die. Against Lata’s protests, Carlos agrees to take on the curse.

Loki zaps Jericho away. Where did he go? “Oh, please, nobody cares. At least I don’t. He’s like a security deposit. Move on from that.” He hands Carlos a.k.a. Rivers Gemini a concert flyer for…his own comeback show. Carlos needs to play that night or face the consequences. 

They bring the news back to the Campbell house. John suggests just removing the tattoo. Please. The only way you can do that is by magically de-aging Carlos for the duration of the episode via an ancient witch’s curse and who has one of THOSE just lying around? The team sets to their research tasks with gusto. 

Samuel watches them spring into action. Carlos and Lata have come very far in just a few months, according to him. John earnestly tells him that it’s all down to Mary’s leadership. The gang settles in for a good old fashioned research and strategy session. Millie hands Carlos a pile of research, and heads off to prepare the “family special” dish for the somber occasion of Carlos’s maybe impending death. Millie’s special dish turns out to be a regular slice right out of my childhood. It appears to be something like…beef stroganoff over toast, with boiled green beans!

As they eat, they continue to research. Lata discovers a clue. Loki’s power is tied to a hand mirror he keeps with him. And sticking with the shiny objects theme, Samuel finds some guidance that says Loki can be killed with a shiny knife imbued with the hunter’s own blood. The gang prepare to slice their palms to seal the magic into their knives. (“Not the palms, my god you need to fight!” I hiss at them, but it’s like I’m watching them on a screen or something and they ignore my sage advice.) 

There’s a brief hiatus where Mary pulls Samuel aside and tries to order him to stay home. It turns into a confrontation about him leaving on his secretive, solo hunt. He tells her that he tries to stay under her radar. He didn’t want her to die like Maggie did. He got her into hunting, just like his dad did…and he hates it. OH THE REGRETSSSS. “When I put that knife in your hands, I chose this life for you. I forced you to follow in my footsteps, just like my dad forced me. It was wrong.” I can barely hear him over the deafening sound of Cat’s in the Cradle and glass crunching between my teeth. But! Mary’s a glass case of emotions as Samuel tells her that he wanted to get rid of all monsters so that Mary could live a life free of hunting. Instead, he stumbled into the looming threat of the Akrida. 

Back inside, the team imbues their knives with blood mojo and then they all head to the bar to finish their hunt. Loki shows up, sassy and saucy and shaking up a cocktail. He sizes up their bloody blades and intentions, and suggests evening the odds. We get a lovely fight scene of Loki, Loki, Loki, Loki, and Loki versus the gang. 

They scuffle to the tune of Saturday Night’s Alright, until Samuel gets pinned down. Mary knifes Loki and smiles triumphantly at her kill, only for Samuel to tell her he won’t fall for any more of her tricks. Samuel knifes her in the gut and then twists it. Mary morphs back into Loki, who topples to the floor, apparently dead. Samuel tells everyone that Loki/Mary attacked with his left hand, so it couldn’t have been Mary. 

Everyone regroups for a moment, until Loki hauls himself up again. ‘Twas but a flesh wound! He gleefully watches as they realize that Carlos still has the tattoo. He snaps his fingers, and the scene gets set. Carlos gets a wardrobe change and appears on stage, decked out in finery with a guitar. Mary, John, Lata, and Samuel immediately find themselves bound to chairs. Just behind Carlos, Jericho sits bound and gagged. Loki suggests Jericho as the ideal target. After all, why should Carlos suffer for Jericho’s misdeed? 

Carlos lifts up the guitar as though to play and then —

Smashes it! Carlos gives us a wild window into his soul, and it’s beautiful. He sacrificed music to hunt, but he gained more than he ever thought he would. Carlos starts to burn when all of a sudden…the smoke rising from his arms turns to GLITTER. NOW it’s a PARTY!

The tattoo zaps away from Carlo’s arm. Loki screams at Carlos and tells him that humanity should always choose the selfish way out. “I am not gonna lose to you!” he exclaims. Just then, a hand mirror crackles from the table. Loki gets sucked into the mirror and a moment later, everyone’s free. Lata delightedly taps at Loki’s trapped visage. 

Carlos tells everyone that they’re his family. HEARTS!

The next day, Millie heads out with the box. She tells a skeptical Samuel that she’s going to try to repair it. She IS a mechanic after all. Samuel tells Millie that she has a “good kid.” You did it, bbys. 

Mary brings out the newly developed photos from Samuel’s reconnaissance. The photos are barely legible - mostly washed out and useless for intel. Samuel tells Mary to take John to reassess the locations. While they do that, he’s headed to Ada to work on figuring out some magical means to defeat the queen. Samuel hands Mary a little recipe for a magical ant-Akrida tattoo. Handy! 

At the venue, Jericho contemplates his guitar. He plans to turn himself into the police, but Carlos tells him that’ll only get him in an institution. Carlos suggests an alternative: move on and put some good in the world. Jericho convinces Carlos to play one last concert. ONE. MORE. TIME!

Cut to the concert, where Lata shrieks at Carlos to play some Sabbath (she’s more of a metal girl). Readers, I love her. 

Carlos plays the theme song of the episode: Hard Times Come Around No More. We flash back to Mary handing her dad his hat and giving him a farewell hug. Elsewhere, Millie opens up the box. In the clubhouse, Lata locks away Loki’s mirror in a trunk. 

Carlos’s song is lovely and all, and I’m experiencing emotions, but also. ALSO. CHUCK IS THERE. IN THE BAND. PLAYING KEYBOARD. Guys. We get some good, clear close-ups of Chuck to really drive it home. Amazing. Love it. 

Later, John and Mary look at the photos and make out. Mary’s ready to take the leap with John. They’re about to kiss again, when John looks down at one of the barely developed photos. He recognizes the man in the photo as being the same person who gave him his dad’s letter. It’s…..

……

……………….

DEAN BEAN WINCHESTER!

For I’ve Got Him, He’s Right Here Science:

Natasha: Okay, Dean in the past is VERY IMPORTANT TO ME but did anyone else get some serious Book of Job / God placing bets for and against humanity. Who was Loki/Gabriel playing against that got him trapped in the mirror? It was someone who thought humanity would pull through and be selfless…

__

Oh Quote Times Come Again No More:

Lata, let’s boogie

I don’t know why everyone that comes in here thinks I’m a shrink. If you wanna cry on something, cry into your glass

It’s a matter of time before you come across a monster and then something has to die – the dream or the monster.

Doctor who?

The least you could do is treat her more like a daughter and less like a soldier

Hey guys, monsters that kill to feed and survive are one thing. Ones that kill for kicks - we’re in for a fight

Weird sensation but contemplating my mortality has surprisingly made me hungry. 

For the brains of this operation, you are not the smartest cookies. Cookies aren’t smart to begin with. Think on that.

__

 Want to read more? Check out our Recap Archive!

[shirtlesssammy]

The Winchesters 1x13: Hey, That’s No Way to Say Goodbye

Detroit, Michigan

1972

John Winchester, freshly home from Vietnam, enters a bus station. He doesn’t know what he’s doing (aside from burying a friend, RIP Murph.) He takes a bus schedule from a kindly attendant and sits down on a bench and stares into the abyss for a while. 

Important Dialog Alert!

Dean: John Winchester?

John: Sir

Crops watered, skin hydrated, etc. 

ALSO DEAN IS BACK!!!!!!!!!!!!

I literally blacked out. I don’t know what’s happening right now, and I don’t care. I’m going to float on this bearded, pea coat wearing cloud forever. (Also, [Boris] can exist in two simultaneous worlds where Cas is in the Empty and Dean has to save him still (99.9% of her fanfic thoughts) and Cas is in Heaven and Dean dresses all fancy for him for reasons.)

But for archival purposes, Dean hands John the fateful letter from Henry. John opens it and wonders where the mystery man got it, but he’s gone. 

Okay, he’s not gone, he’s just in the atrium watching over John WITH BOBBY!!! He tells Dean he isn’t supposed to be meddling. Dean counters that he didn’t really meddle, he just gave things a nudge. Bobby tells Dean to pay attention to things “here” and he’ll gather the cavalry. “One last hunt,” they both agree. 

OVER OUR DEAD BODIES. ALL THE HUNTS. ALL THE STORIES. KEEP THEM COMING FOREVER! 

Cue cool new title card!

At Casa Campbell, Samuel confronts Mary about her application (and decline??) to KSU. She tells him she doesn’t want to keep hunting but she doesn’t know what her future holds. Since Samuel is home, Mary guesses he has news. He tells her that he talked to a hunter named Joan who has information about a guy who the Akrida is afraid of. He asks Mary what John thinks about her college non-dreams. (Um, who cares? Sigh.) He doesn’t know because he’s busy worrying about the Akrida, and more immediately, the crystal that will help (BUT AT WHAT COST, ADA!?!)

John, in his best cursed Dean flannel, tells his mom about the crystal and its one-and-done usage (Is this a god object? I guess maybe not? Why would Chuck create these creatures to destroy humanity and then have an object that can defeat said creatures? Why does Chuck do anything?) Millie wonders about the future for John and Mary. 

At the clubhouse, Carlos states the IMPORTANT OBSERVATIONS. “Well, whoever this guy is, he is ruggedly handsome.” 

Lata is superhuman and not affected by the mystery man (just get to know him a little, girl!) They think the mystery man can defeat the Akrida because he is “not of this world.” The Akrida attack is imminent. They look longingly at the crystal for their salvation. Ada decides to drop the soul-bomb, if you will. She has to utter one word and the crystal is activated. They agree to maybe wait on that little bit. Carlos and Ada head out to find the queen while Lata hangs back to look into the lore. She wants to find a way to help Ada grow back her soul if this is the way. 

At a bar, Samuel, Mary, and John meet up with Joan (Hopkins). Joan tells Samuel their families used to hunt together, but her family died out with her “a long time ago.” She tells them about the man with no name. He was digging into the Akrida. But that’s okay because she used the Akrida portal and threw him “and his car” into the abyss. “No human can survive that.” Oh, sweet summer child. Chuck always thought he was king shit, but he’s got NOTHING on free will. She has a journal that looks a lot like John’s journal but ~isn’t~. Mary draws a knife, but Joan tells them they’re in her world now. The rest of the bar’s clientele rise. SHE’S THE AKRIDA QUEEN!

She’s not Akrida apparently. She was a hunter once. She wants them to join her (and to get them out of the clubhouse so she could move in, oops.) LATA!

Mary and John end up in her attic, while Samuel scouts out the clubhouse (guarded) and hunts for the portal. Carlos and Ada show up and they realize that Lata is still in the clubhouse with the Akrida. 

Joan wanders the clubhouse calling for Lata. Our brave pacifist tries fighting.

And cue Classic Robbie Thompson multi-scene mashup!

While Mary spills the beans on Joan (b. 1673, reluctant hunter), Joan tells Lata her life story (lost her family to hunting, decided humans are WORTHLESS (amen).) Lata wonders if the monster essence drove her mad (Mary: yep. She decided to wipe out everyone who needed saving. Hunters + MoL teamed up and banished her from the world.) Joan wants to show Lata how the magical little bugs are cool and shit, but Lata stabs her because she does not care. Things do not go well. 

At Mary’s home, Carlos has an idea. “Was this idea inspired by a drug induced trip I took a few years ago? Yes. Are we judging me for that right now?” he wonders. NO, YOU BRILLIANT SOUL. The others agree! Carlos wonders if they can use the Ostium to bring the mystery man back to them to help. YES! 

At the clubhouse, Joan and a possessed Lata set the place on fire to open the portal. Seems dangerous, but I’ll allow it for narrative progression. 

The gang rushes to the clubhouse to find a possessed Lata telling them they have one more chance to join Joan’s team. “How many Campbells and Winchesters have to die? And for what? History? Legacy?”  

She then goes on to tell them that the Akrida were created by an angry god as a failsafe. They were designed to wipe out all life on all universes (EVEN SQUIRREL WORLD!) “Lata” finishes her little speech and holds a knife to her neck. Without hesitation, Ada brings out the crystal and utters the fateful word. Lata is saved.

At the garage, Lata tells the team everything she’s learned. The queen is at full strength, and she’ll have the portal open by that night (Samuel found the portal at least!) They just need to feed the Ostium the journal and wham! Mystery Man! They need to kill some time until midnight when they can work their magic. 

John pulls Mary aside as they’re heading out. He tells her to stay behind. At first I roll my eyes like, TYPICAL MAN AMIRITE? But instead, he tells her that she’s their general and needs to stay behind so she can lead the Mystery Man into battle when he zaps back into their world. She says she has to tell him something but he defers that conversation for later, and departs. 

Fun fact. I watch these with closed captions while I do my recap, and I’m pleased to say that not only did this week’s closed caption actually correctly translate Carlos’s “querida” to Ada this time, but the next scene opens with the caption over the portal: OTHERWORLDLY WHOOSHING. I love to see it! The Akrida queen holds her palms to the air, where a swirling blue portal otherworldly whooshes. She rolls her eyes and the portal closes as she turns. It’s the Scooby Gang! “Hello, boys.” 

The team pulls out swords as Akrida materialize for the fight. 

While fisticuffs ensue, the women plonk the diary into the Ostium. It gets sucked in and at first it seems like nothing happens. Then Millie points out that something DID happen and the camera pans out to reveal….BABY! The first licks of The Who’s “Baba O’Riley” start up and the music shivers down my spine. I swear, I didn’t get to watch the episode until Friday so I KNEW what was coming (thanks Tumblr) but I am still. SO. AFFECTED. 

The car is empty (like our hearts without Dean) but Mary points out that the car is still not of this earth. “Detroit steel makes a hell of a weapon,” Millie announces as they all pile inside.

Back with the Akrida, the fight persists. It’s not looking good for our hunters. The queen reveals that the Men of Letters tried to fight her, so she used the last of her power to wipe out the MoL, including Henry Winchester. 

Mary pulls up in the car and lines it up with the queen (and John). She orders everyone out juuuuuuust in case she perishes. She guns it towards the queen, who notices the car and opens a portal. In an instant, the car squishes into the queen and all three, uh, entities, disappear into the portal. The Akrida-possessed humans drop their weapons and run, no longer possessed. I can’t blame them for fleeing the sword fight they found themselves in! The boys are JUST starting to mourn Mary’s sacrifice, when a portal zaps open and the Impala races back out! This time, there are TWO people in the car! (ohmygodohmygodohmygoditishim)

For Dimensional Portal to My Heart Science:

Dean Winchester gets out of the car and surveys the fighters. He pulls Mary out of the passenger’s seat, very much alive! 

Dean looks at his parents-not-parents emotionally. “There’s not a lot that can tear me apart,” he tells them. YEAH! I shout, punching the air. “I’m already dead,” he says, and I make a little disgruntled cat frown, and knock over a glass of water. 

He tells them he was stuck “in the world between worlds” and hopped into Baby and grabbed the wheel as soon as he saw his car passing through. Like. LITERALLY BABY IS A TIME AND SPACE TRAVELING MACHINE PLEASE LET THIS CONCEIT CONTINUE.

Ahem. Anyway. Samuel asks the big question: who’s the mystery man? Dean introduces himself as a hunter from another world. He made it to Heaven, hopped into Baby, and went for a drive….into the multi-verse. As one does. “I was looking for my family,” he tells them. He wanted to find a version of Earth where his family had a shot at a happy ending. When he was driving, he caught wind of the Akrida, one of Chuck’s last creations. He knew the Akrida would try to devour his world too. We also get a nod that Carlos IS still alive in his world! I pinch Robbie’s cheeks and tell him he’s done a very good job. A very good job indeed.

And what about the letter to John? Well, “the rules were simple. Don’t mess with anything. Well, I gave it a little nudge.” THAT’S RIGHT YOU DID BABY! “You all can choose your own destiny,” he tells them ICONICALLY. 

Jack and Bobby appear. Dean assures the Scooby Gang that they’re cool. Bobby greets him with a grimace. They’re in trouble with Jack, who set up the worlds to prevent interference from “on high.” Dean argues that the Akrida fight needed to happen to protect his own family as well as the people we’ve grown to love during this season. “If you want to cast me out of heaven, so be it.” Bobby lobbies for a second chance for Dean Winchester. We lobby for like, at least 60-70 chances. Maybe a million? Girls don’t want flowers. They want dimension-tripping Dean Winchester.

“If you’re going to meddle with things,” Jack announces, “finish what you started.” He hands Dean something (and encourages Dean to rest in Heaven - as IF). Dean heads to his parents-not-parents. His dad left him his journal, he tells them. “I lived my whole life by that damn thing,” he says with the perfect mix of love and regret. “This is my hunter’s journal. So if you’re gonna stay in this game, this’ll help guide you through it.” He hands it to John. 

Dean tells Mary that he understands her desire to quit hunting. He also tells her to keep an eye out for a yellow-eyed demon and if she even catches “a hint of that son of a bitch” she should use…the COLT. He hands her the gun that Jack gave him, and she asks him if he found a version of his family with a shot at a happy ending. Dean surveys everyone and announces, “I think I did.” 

John asks Dean’s name and he smiles a little. “Hetfield. James Hetfield,” he tells them. I think about how Metallica was “Dean’s music” in season one and experience feelings. Dean, Jack, Bobby, and Baby flash out of the world. 

The Scooby Gang looks around at each other. It’s time to go home.

We get a montage. Lata and Ada unfurl plant magic and what looks like Ada’s soul wisps back into her body. I have to pause the show and cry a little bit because it’s JUST BEAUTIFUL.

“It’ll take time..” Lata says as Ada feels her soul kindling again, but they did it!

Samuel drives away on another journey, leaving John and Mary to reconnect at the movie theater. John asks Mary what she saw in the portal. Oh, nothing. She just saw EVERY POSSIBLE VERSION OF HERSELF. Badass! She’s going to make her own way, but for that she needs to leave and find herself. John tells her that he’s going to work on the anger that rides inside him so he can be a better hunter and a better person. “No goodbyes,” he tells her, and they kiss.

In the garage the team, minus Mary, talk over a new case. It’s by a BEACH. “Werewolves don’t surf,” Carlos says. “Only one way to find out,” Lata chirps and I NEED TO SEE THIS EPISODE LIKE I NEED AIR. 

A bell tinkles and John heads out to find Mary waiting outside, leaning against her car. She asks John to come with her on a road to self discovery. In the car, John pulls out a box of tapes. Sorry, babe, but Mary was reading Hetfield’s journal and he was VERY SPECIFIC on the topic. “Driver picks the music, shotgun shuts their cake hole,” she tells him, poetically. Mary is literally and figuratively in the driver’s seat, and I couldn’t be happier. 

Led Zeppelin’s Ramble On (Boris: Led Fucking Zeppelin!! A band that does not license their music! And when they do it’s often in the 7 figures!! And it’s Dean’s favorite band! And his favorite song! And when spn couldn’t do/or didn’t want to do it, Mr. Jackles (and co.) DID IT!!) plays us out as they smile and drive through sunlit fields. (Help! My heart!) Hope spreads like sweet air, like sun-warmed ground. They drive off to a montage of their adventures…SO FAR. 

Natasha: From reading Tumblr before actually viewing the episode, I was sliding hard into the Jack-is-Chuck theory. Now that I’ve seen it, I’ve settled into a happy middle place where Jack-is-Jack or Jack-is-corrupted-by-God\-powers or Jack-is-Chuck could all be equally plausible. Honestly, it doesn’t matter to me too much because Dean. Is. Alive. He’s got a dimension-hopping car, and the story possibilities are boundless. I hope we get more of The Winchesters, and more Supernatural, and other worlds as well. I dearly want the SUPERNATURAL CINEMATIC UNIVERSE and frankly, I deserve it because we ALL deserve nice things! The Winchesters is like Supernatural, but also it’s own lovely little thing with a lot more hope and beauty than we got in the “mothership.” I want more. Just like that little soul plant, I want to see where the story grows.

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See You Next Quote-son!

One last hunt…

Whatever this guy is, he is ruggedly handsome

“The queen is about ot sing her swan song. We can’t rewind this tape here.” “What if we could rewind the tape?”

For the first time, I’m running towards hope

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[shirtlesssammy]

The Winchesters 1x12: The Tears of a Clown

Fort Wayne, Indiana

At Hugo’s Midway of Fun! Wally wanders the quiet carnival paths between tents. His friend wonders if this is the best way to spend his last night in Fort Wayne. (I mean, probably? That town can’t offer that much entertainment, right?) Wally just wants to have FUN! You know, A GOOD TIME! And, lo, a ticket for Limbo’s Hall of Happy! appears! (So many exclamation points to start this episode, guys!) 

He picks it up and starts to hear distant, tinny music. A tent appears. His friend does not hear or see the tent. 

Wally wanders closer to the tent, and a kindly clown pops his head out of the tent opening. 

The friend hears a security guard and runs one way, while Wally follows the 100% uncreepy, totally normal, very cool clown into the tent. 

(Boris: I had thoughts of grabbing screenshots of all the posters in the tent, but there are SO many, and my brain started to short-circuit after a while.’Alive! All Alive!’ ‘Freaks!’ (Lol, that’s for us clowns, I presume), ‘The Devil Child’. Hmm, not sure what ‘John: is he a she’ means, but we already have enough to unpack.)

Anyway, Wally finds an open door in the tent and, I presume, decides “In for a penny, in for a pound” and goes into that dark doorway too. He finds himself in a hall of mirrors, where Limbo the Clown’s laughter echoes menacingly. Wally turns and sees a flash of Limbo (NOT SCARY). Suddenly fun times aren’t so fun anymore. He looks in the mirror to find a clown staring back at him. 

“Hunting’s a dishonest business. You gotta lie all the time about who you are and what you do. But the hardest lies aren’t the ones you tell other people. They’re the ones you tell yourself.”

(Jeremy Renner chin hands gif) Tell us more, Dean. 

Mary and John are on the run looking for the mystery man. John managed to snag some sweet sandwiches while on the move (1. Like father, like mystery man son, B. That does not look like a very good sandwich, John). Mary worries about John’s headspace, and John– 

*Credits Alert*

SPECIAL GUEST STAR RUTH CONNELL!!! SQUEEEEEEE!!!!

Sorry, where were we? John is showing why he earned his John Winchester A+ Parenting tag, only he’s being an ass to his future wife. And kudos to this show, and this season, and Drake, for being able to make us genuinely like John, but have his anger and pent up aggression manifest naturally. 

He blows up at Mary just as Carlos and Lata enter the motel room. Awkward. 

They have a case! 

Mary thinks this missing person case is a good idea while they’re in town. John is still in full surly mode and questions her judgment. Too bad, dude, you’re working the case. 

Meanwhile, after a too long hiatus, Ada is back on our screens, and has found a witches’ gathering hoping to peddle her wares. She’s still a bit of a novice witch though and is clearly intimidated by the others, but she needs magic to stop the Akrida. 

Back at the carnival, the gang hunts a clown. 

Lata, in her best green and blue outfit, is having the time of her life. The rest? Not so much. Mary suggests talking to another carnival clown to start. They pose as journalists to learn more about Wally’s disappearance. He tells them that Wally is, “the latest victim of Limbo. Limbo the Clown.” 

He’s a carnival urban legend. No one knows if he’s a man or a monster. “He goes from carnival to carnival pitching his tent –Limbo’s Hall of Happy-- and luring folks inside. And once he does, no one ever sees you again.” Good times! 

The gang decides to split up to work the case further. Mary starts to suggest Lata and Carlos head back to the motel room, but John jumps in and decides to go back with Lata. Yeah, everything is fine, guys. That leaves a pissed off Mary and Carlos to work the carnival grounds (while a creepy dude tracks them). 

Ada, meanwhile, is playing the poker game of her life. She, sadly, can’t win the game, and she can’t prove that she’s strong enough to handle the magic they have to give her. 

As Ada leaves, a mysterious, hooded witch approaches her. WHO ARE WE KIDDING! It’s Rowena! We’d recognize that accent anywhere! 

At the motel, Lata checks in with John before they deep-dive into clown lore. He’s good. Totes fine. And a lying liar who lies. 

While wandering the midway, Mary confesses to Carlos what’s been happening with John. Carlos hopes that Ada can get the magic, and then Mary bursts into tears and flings herself into Carlos’ arms. Ngl, I was thrown by how bad this acting was, until it was revealed that Mary can’t act! Ha. She noticed the man that’s been following them and needed a way to alert Carlos. Carlos can’t act either because the dude makes him immediately. 

At the motel, Lata has a breakthrough! She finds that Limbo’s real name was Jerome Haskins. He worked with a carnival in the 1920s, but during the depression and dust bowl, the job disappeared. The lore says that he traded his soul for dark magic for a spell that would allow him to forget all his problems so he “could stay happy forever.” 

At the carnival, Mary full-body tackles the stalker. Go Mary! It seems the guy wants to know what they’ve learned about Limbo. He lost his kid brother, Roger, 30 years ago, and he’s never stopped looking for him. Clarence (!!!!) tells the two about how his parents died when he was 18. To cheer up his little brother after the funeral, he took him to the carnival. Only, Roger ran away. Clarence wishes he would have helped his brother through his grief instead of taking him to the carnival. (AND thank you every last Tumblrina for comparing this story to Sam and Dean going to the pie festival in the finale random episode that means nothing and is currently being erased BTTF style.)

The gang has a theory that Limbo is targeting people who are sad. He uses their grief to lure them into his tent. Clarence tells the others that they don’t have much time. The carnival leaves that night. He has research on Limbo that he can give them. The gang splits up again –this time John is stuck working with Mary. 

In the Clubhouse atrium, Ada hangs out with ROWENA. She’s after a grimoire, which Ada will trade back to her in exchange for powerful magic. Typical Rowena, amirite? Except NOPE! Rowena dumps the grimoire on the floor and announces that she was never after the book! “Those hags may have dismissed your green-thumbed magic,” Rowena says, “but not me. I’m here for the demon you trapped in a plant.” (Oh, how I adore the spotlight on this being a unique and possibly rare gift, since it makes the en-plantification extra special.) 

At the carnival, John’s bantering with Mary falls somewhere between passive-aggressive and aggressive-aggressive. Mary proposes that John has been using their new relationship as a happy distraction, so he doesn’t have to actually confront any of his issues. John accuses her of failing to follow up on her normal life plans. 

Dialogue for further GAAAAAAH Supernatural feelings analysis: 

Mary: “Well sorry I’m too busy trying to save the world!”

John: “There it is, Mary. The eternal excuse!”

A cough that suspiciously sounds like “Dean” leaves my lips. Mary dismisses John and strides away, only to find a ticket on the ground. It’s a ticket for…LIMBO THE CLOWN. Mary and John split up to find the clown’s tent. Mary literally walks past this booth called “Sitting Ducks.” SITTING. DUCKS.

For Circus Horror Puns Science:

Somebody please buy the design crew a very large cake. Just past the “Sitting Ducks” booth stands the dark entrance to Limbo’s tent. Mary radios John and then heads in without waiting for him. She disappears into the invisible doorway just as John arrives. 

At the motel, John fills in Lata and Carlos on Mary’s disappearance. Lata’s confused about why Mary got taken by the clown. After all, she wasn’t upset like the others! John makes a face and Lata and Carlos quickly catch on - and Carlos ain’t happy. AWKWARD. Lata pulls out some lore on the occultist who gave Limbo his magic mirror. Limbo can only stay happy if he infects others with his, uh, happiness. If just one person decides to return to the real world, Limbo’s fragile power network collapses and he dies. All they have to do now is find an invisible tent! John brings up the ticket Mary found, and they realize that they need to find a ticket in order to see Limbo’s tent. Carlos remembers one from Clarence’s Creepy Clown Memorabilia Collection™. He pulls out an original ticket from their stash, and they prepare to head out.

Meanwhile, Rowena is cooing over the demon plant. “So much evil in such a small package!” she marvels. And I laugh at what could also be a very apt description of Rowena at this point in her life. Ada’s concerned about Rowena’s sudden interest in demon-kind, but Rowena soothes her. She’s not interested in intervening in the Akrida war. Instead, she wants to interrogate Evil!Bonsai for information about HER SON! (Now, I know some people think this is future!Rowena trying to rescue Crowley which is sweet. But I prefer to see this as past Rowena and we just get…more! More history, more depth. I love it.)

Ada is heavily swayed by the lost child argument for, as you see, she ALSO has a son! But that’s still not enough to let Rowena just sashay out of the Atrium. Instead, as Rowena tries to do just that, Ada shouts at her to stop and vines grow up from the floor to encase Rowena. While Ada stares in shock at WHAT HER HANDS HATH WROUGHT, Rowena blasts her with a ball of purple power and knocks her out.

At the carnival, workers are packing up tents. It’s their last chance to break into Limbo(‘s tent) and save Mary! And also some other people! Carlos, Lata, and John all take hold of the old ticket and the tent shimmers into view. It’s time to monster hunt, babeez. 

For Oh No Don’t Go In There Science:

They head into the ante-tent. While Carlos and Lata examine the periphery, John walks ALONE into the interior doorway. The doors slam shut, trapping him in the giant maze of mirrors. Covering his eyes, John starts looking for Mary. The clown dashes into view, a crackly blur of malevolent grayscale ghoul. 

Limbo taunts John, chuckling, and tells him that he’ll join him soon enough. Limbo’s gleeful, as Mary appears. She smiles beatifically, her voice high and light. Mary tells John to stay in there with her. They can be happy together! “There’s a world out there we have to save,” John begs her. She tells John to give up and look in the mirror behind her. He’ll be caught in the spell. John wheels around away from the mirror only to discover that the enchanted mirror was actually on his other side! Tricksy Limbo!

They’re both immediately CLOWNIFIED. 

Meanwhile, Lata and Carlos are trying to break in to save John and Mary, when a clown car pulls up. “Oh, gross, no!” Carlos says as all of Limbo’s clowns start to decamp. They discover that the tent has sealed itself, trapping Carlos and Lata. Making matters worse, Limbo emerges from his mirrored interior maze with clowned-up John and Mary at his side. Y I K E S

Carlos and Lata beg their friends to return to reality but those feuding sad sacks are happier being clowns. Carlos and Lata flee to the clown car and lock themselves inside, as clowns descend. A small clown child pops up with a grin.

Carlos recognizes Roger, Clarence’s brother. He’s still a little kid! While Lata freaks out, Carlos talks to Carlos. He quickly connects to him, bringing up his own tragic past in losing his parents. “You are not alone. You have a family that loves you.” Carlos tells him that Clarence has been looking for him and never gave up, and Roger’s clown smile falls. He starts to listen to Carlos. Limbo realizes what’s up and shouts at him to “cheer up!” through the window. But it’s to no avail. Carlos breaks through, Limbo shatters, and the tent disappears suddenly. They find themselves in the bright sunshine of the next day. People of many eras mill around and hug each other. They’re gonna have…a LOT to unpack. 

Ada wakes up after getting knocked out, to find Rowena STILL there! She wisely turns down a cup of Rowena’s healing tea and they talk. Rowena announces that Ada passed her test, and invites her to join her coven!

Rowena doesn’t know too much about the Akrida, but she knows the queen is going to use the alignment of five planets to emerge. Ada demands the magic, and Rowena turns over a crystal. The crystal just needs a wee bit of power. It just needs…a piece of her SOUL. (Natasha: Noooooo don’t do it Ada!)

In the field, they mull over the stories of the survivors and their own ordeal. Lata asks if they remembered being clowns. UM YES. Mary thought it was kind of nice, which seems like a major plea for help. John and Mary discuss, and apologize to each other for getting angry. John wants to know if their relationship is solid, but we get NO ANSWER because Millie pulls up. She and Betty found a witness who saw Kyle enter the garage after making his 911 call saying he was already there! Now they just have to drive back to town and clear John’s name. Easy peasy. 

At the clubhouse, the brain trust reviews maps and star charts to try to figure out when the queen will emerge. Ada reveals that she has a major piece of mojo now, but FAILS to reveal the soul shattering secret that powers it. (Millie looks skeptical - I hope she protects Ada!) The gang celebrates until Lata drops a little science fact - the planetary alignment the queen needs to escape has just begun. 

Natasha: We LOVED the retro horror vibe of this episode! It felt like we’d stepped into a Ray Bradbury carnival story. I LOVE that Ada’s magic is explored further as a unique earth-based magic, and that the society of witches exist as a glowing, glitter-dusted dark magic speakeasy. This was all SO GOOD.

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Your Quoteshadow Game Needs Some Work:

Hunting’s a dishonest business. You gotta lie all the time…about who you are and what you do. But the hardest lies aren’t the ones you tell other people. They’re the ones you tell yourself.

“Did we interrupt something?” “I’d like to say the answer is yes, but thank you, Lata, for making things more awkward.”

Don’t let the warded door hit you on the way out

If we survive this, I promise I’m never gonna eat cotton candy again!

Oh my god, we’re going to die in here. In a clown car!

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[shirtlesssammy]

The Winchesters 1x11: You’ve Got a Friend

“Being a hunter means always being on the move. No matter how hard you plan, no matter how hard you work, at a certain point, we all run out of road. It’s what we do with those crossroads that defines us.” 

After the show left us with a thrilling cliffhanger of Kyle getting Akrida-killed, and John getting framed for it, we start this week at the clubhouse. Mary, Carlos, and Lata are cleaning up after the Wilcox invasion (who left behind all his Akrida research). 

They hear a noise and find John, bloody and zombie-like, in the hallway. 

He later fills them in on his escape and the Akridas’ plans. The gang concludes that John and Mary need to get the hell out of Dodge. They can’t trust anyone since the Akrida are everywhere. Lata has a sudden inspiration for figuring out who’s an Akrida. Apparently Maggie had a bracelet that could “pinpoint anyone harboring a dark secret.” They can use it to suss out the Akrida! Lata and Carlos head back to Mary’s house to find the bracelet. 

While hunting for the bracelet, a sweet story of Lata and Maggie seeing Alice Cooper in concert reminds Lata that Maggie loved Toastettes, and she knows where to find the bracelet!

Meanwhile, Mary and John head out to stay at Samuel’s hunting cabin, but get as far as the car’s trunk before Betty finds them. Betty is HALF John’s size, but somehow he doesn’t fight the arrest and she takes him into custody. 

Back on the bracelet hunt, Lata finds a rat poison container (because everyone in the house loved Toastettes so Maggie had to hide them) and the bracelet is inside! 

Lata lets Carlos (and the audience) know that the bracelet was supposedly a creation of Erebus, the god of secrets and shadows, for his followers to discover the hidden secrets of their enemies. Lata makes a move towards the bracelet and then it snaps onto her wrist. WHERPS! The bracelet also comes with its own handy-dandy terror shadow! It locks the duo in the house and takes out all the lights.

Mille and Mary rehash what happened the prior night. Millie thinks they can trust Betty with their hunter/Men of Letters secrets. Listen Millie, the first rule of Hunter Club, is DON’T talk about Hunter Club. She argues they need a cop on the inside. 

At the police station, Betty brings John a coffee in the interrogation room and checks to see how he’s doing. A hold-over from the mid-century good-old-boy detective club, Detective Klett, arrives to bust John down a notch or two. He gives him grief about his ex arresting him, but then plays good cop and tells John he knows he didn’t kill Kyle. He did. HE’S AN AKRIDA, Y’ALL. He pulls out the photo of Dean and demands an answer to who he is. 

Back at the house, Lata reads that if whoever wears the bracelet has a dark secret, they will have to confess or the shadows will consume them. Carlos can’t quite process that his ray of sunshine has a dark secret. The shadow snatches him before they can talk more!

Carlos finds himself stuck in a dark, cold, sparsely decorated room. Lata can hear him calling, and he can hear her back. They call for each other until the shadow manifests itself as Maggie! 

At the clubhouse, Betty gets her first glimpse into all the studying John’s been doing in school. It’s a lot, folks, and Betty’s not having it. 

Before Betty completely storms off, Mary pleads with her to check for the three marks on Kyle’s neck.

Lata confronts the specter masquerading as Maggie, even as Maggie pulls her into soft reminiscing about the time they used to spend together. Maggie tells Lata that she’s harboring a dark secret - and that secret is the key to finding Carlos. Shadow!Maggie smokes out and hauls Lata into the cold room with Carlos. She finds him half frozen on the bed and barely responsive. She lights an oil lamp for some meager warmth - the same one Carlos failed to light. She claims that knowing the knack of lighting the lamp was “muscle memory” and as Carlos watches, Lata reveals that the creepy room was once a part of her home.

At the Clubhouse, Millie tries to talk Mary out of her jailbreak plans. “I was young and dumb once, too.” Lol. Convincing Mary is like talking to a wall. Millie ends up with an assignment to call for backup from Lata and Carlos, while Mary heads out to stake out the precinct. 

At the precinct, Klett, the Akrida detective, smirks. John’s cracked already - he promises to reveal all about Dean Bean. Instead of the man’s identity, John spills out a handful of rock aliases (sooooo accurate though) until Klett catches on. Klett reacts…poorly. But John’s confident that this Akrida framing push reveals something important: Dean Winchester, the man of mystery of the hour, is a threat to the Akrida. “Nothing of this earth can harm you, so if he’s a threat to you and nothing of this earth can harm you… Well. That would mean he’s not of this earth.” We all stroke our chins sagely over this. 

The Akrida cop declares that John’s now of little use to them. He threatens a staged car crash during the transport to state prison, which will kill everybody involved. John’s bravado deflates at that, and he’s left once again to stew in regret and other fun human emotions. 

Back with Lata and Carlos, we get the dime recap. Lata’s dark secret + bracelet = creepy cold room. Soooo the fix is easy! Carlos presses her to drop her secret. “Lata, you know I am prone to long, slow-build, catharsis-driven theater, but I don’t think we have time for a one-act play here.” 

She brings up her origin story as told in episode 6 “Art of dying.” There was something she didn’t say - someONE she didn’t bring up. Lata tells Carlos about Sania, her family’s housekeeper. Sania was like a parent to her, and one day Lata took some leftover food to share with her. When her father found out, he tried to beat Sania. That’s when Lata hit her father with the oil lamp. Carlos tried to declare catharsis between them, but the room holds fast.

We have to wait for the rest of story-time, because Millie is trying to call Carlos and Lata. They won’t pick up, though! It’s still forced-sharing hour.

Lata was dragged back to the house by her father, and her mother sided with him. Lata, angry, packed up her things and ran away. But Lata’s leaving only protected herself. Her father blamed Sania for what happened and locked her in the cold room one very cold night. Sania froze to death. Lata looks around the room and sees only the terrible ordeal that Sania went through. Carlos pulls her into an embrace and lets her cry. The dark room lifts from them like light and they’re back in the kitchen once more. The bracelet falls off of Lata’s wrist. 

They have barely a moment of breathing time before Millie bursts in. She finds them on the floor looking shocked but apparently being part of Monster Club means that some questions are just exhausting to pursue. Millie shrugs it off. They’ve got bigger fish to fry. After all, “Mary’s gonna need [the bracelet] if she’s gonna bust John out of jail.”

At the precinct, Mary is a COILED TIGER READY TO POUNCE, while the police prepare to move John. Betty confronts her and they fight. It looks like Mary’s doing her early season lone wolf routine, but she announces that she was just playing the role of Betty bait. Uh, Betty distraction? Carlos runs up, announces that “drugs should be legalized,” and helps hold Betty while Lata gives Betty the slap bracelet of doom. Fortunately for everyone present, Betty doesn’t harbor any dark secrets. Instead, she looks around and sees traces of magic everywhere. Green light streams up from every Akrida nearby. Betty’s disbelief falls in one giant domino. I’m impressed at her capitulation, but all she can think of is how to save John. 

As John gets hauled out, Mary holds Betty at gunpoint and orders the cops to let John go. While the cops are distracted, Carlos comes in swinging with the lead pipe. They quickly overpower the cops and activate part two of the plan: RUN! Betty promises John that they’ll catch up later. Before they all go, she asks Carlos to deliver a hit so they believe she was unwilling…and the cop-on-the-inside story is laid. (I switch from side-eyeing the ex-fiance dynamic to wondering if Betty’s going to fall prey to the Supernatural blood cannon someday. Hopefully not!)

Betty and Mary connect outside the Clubhouse as Betty returns the bracelet. She’s not too thrilled to learn the truth of the hidden perils in her world. But she’s adjusted remarkably well. She wishes John and Mary well on their second attempt to flee town. John gives her instructions for the magical anti-Akrida tattoo.

Inside, Lata tells Carlos that she wants to be more open. She tells him that she’s holding one more secret: her parents aren’t dead. Carlos says that Lata’s parents are dead to HIM. We agree! And he ALSO tells her that Mary and John will love her, just like he does. Lata’s story is hers to keep or to tell, and they’re ready to back her no matter what. 

For Snuggly Hug Science:

John and Mary drive out of town and reflect on Kyle’s demise. They vow to find DEAN WINCHESTER ALIVEGIRL EXTRAORDINAIRE!

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Quotes Quotes are No Fun, Quotes Quotes Hurt Someone:

Your past does not define you

People conceal things for all sorts of reasons, logical or not

Stubborness in the face of oblivion. Honestly, that’s one of the few traits I respect about humans

I guess the truth really does set you free

Sometimes doing the right thing means doing the wrong thing

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[shirtlesssammy]

The Winchesters 1x10: Suspicious Minds

Lawrence, Kansas 

1957

On a lonely stretch of highway, a woman paces around her broken-down vehicle. Another woman stops and offers to help.

Unfortunately for her, helping seems to imply getting the ol’ Sam Winchester head treatment. The attacker turns out to be an Akrida! 

Lawrence, Kansas

1972

Millie has installed a state-of-the-art alarm system for the clubhouse in Mary’s home. She bolts when finished, leaving Mary and John to continue their hunt for a way to take out the Akrida. John finds an unopened letter from KSU. Mary applied, but now is too nervous to read the contents of the envelope. 

John opens it for her and she was accepted! This calls for a make-out sesh, but they’re sadly interrupted by the handy bell Millie just installed! 

“Hunting and happy endings don’t usually mix, so when you get your chance, you got to ask yourself, “How far will I go to get it?”’

(Boris: Yes, Dean, over the next four episodes, please enlighten us on how far you’ll go for your happy ending)

Lata and Carlos are at a dead-end with their hunt for the Akrida queen. Carlos seems distracted. When Lata presses for answers, he admits that he can’t stop thinking about Anton. He’s lovesick, guys! And they’re taking it slow, so he’s a mess right now. He resolves to break up with Anton, and forget what he needs to forget. That gives Lata an idea –find someone that was possessed by an Akrida to mine their memories. Carlos has an idea!

Meanwhile, Mary and John sneak into the clubhouse and find (*Fran Fine voice activated*) MR. SHEFFIELD! Or, er, Porter J. Hobbes, Men of Letters. (British Men of Letters?!)

He’s there to help them find and kill the Akrida queen. Mary demands his full CV, so he fills them in on how he was a neurosurgeon until he was recruited into the Men of Letters. He was their resident Dr. Frankenstein, conducting experiments on monsters and turning them into watchdogs for the MoL(e men). He retired about 15 years ago to a quiet life with no family. 

Lata and Carlos head to a motel room of impeccable decor. They found Roxy, and folks, she’s not doing great. (Lata on the other hand is in peak hair, wardrobe, makeup, and accessories mode. She is a vision tonight!) 

They ask her about the Akrida. She can’t remember clearly. She doesn’t want to remember. She’s lost everything: her girlfriend (we keep winning, guys!), her job, and her apartment. Now, she’s just going to drink her way to oblivion. Lata suggests another way. 

Back at the clubhouse, Mr Sheffield Hobbes tells Mary and John that he can create a toxin that will kill the queen but he needs Akrida stingers to make it work. Mary knows of a human under Akrida control. 

Enter Officer Jones, the policeman with the nice mustache. Busy eating doughnuts, he gets a call on the CB for roadside assistance. He’s quickly overpowered by Mary and John. 

At the monthly Akrida Meeting of Minds, a group of Akrida touch on old business: the finer points of diner food (ranch dressing) AND new business: KILLING DEAN WINCHESTER. 

(Yeah, that’ll never be funny, sorry guys!)

In the lab, Hobbes has Officer Jones hooked up to some heavy sedatives. Now is his chance to pay back “those bugs for what they took from [him].” Whoops, not from HIM per se, from EVERYONE. Hahaha. Pay no attention to the ring indentation on his finger.

Carlos arrives back at the motel room with ingredients for Lata’s blood spell. She’s been learning things from Tony in her dreams. Ooohlala. They’re going to extract and then erase Roxy’s memories of the Akrida.

Lata carefully paints the spell onto Roxy’s arms, and the spell ignites blue. Roxy begins to relive her memories of the Akrida attack and possession. Lata reassures her, and asks her for intel on where the Queen is hiding. 

At the Clubhouse, Mary reads up on their new visitor and the MoL’s creepy monster torture lab. She discovers that the actual creator of the lab was credited as the physician’s assistant. When they look up the assistant’s file, they discover that the good-n-creepy doctor is ACTUALLY the assistant, Jack Wilcox! Furthermore, Wilcox was kicked out of the MoL for experimenting on humans (and Henry Winchester turned him in).

Mary and John stroll over to the atrium to confront Wilcox. He reads the room pretty quickly, and chucks yellow powder in their faces, knocking them out. His accent shifts from posh British to southern smarm in an instant. 

At the motel, Carlos digs through Roxy’s belongings and finds a warehouse that matches Roxy’s description of the Queen’s digs. (Pun completely intended.) Lata watches over Roxy, who stirs uncomfortably. She wakes up from what is only stage one of Lata’s forgetting spell with all her trauma still fresh on her mind. Lata reassures her - stage two of the spell is coming - and starts work on it. Carlos offers her come-down tea, and sympathy. Roxy’s expression morphs from agony to determination.

“I don’t want to forget,” she tells them. She wants to remember the Akrida and the torment she went through, so she can ALSO remember that she helped to bring them down. “Time to dry out,” she mutters and grabs her stash of alcohol to pour down the sink. She also offers up her services to take down the queen, should the need arise in the future. YES!

At the Clubhouse, John’s tied up to the stairs in the Atrium. Somebody should travel back in time and tell the MoL to just cut to the chase and build a bunch of chain-cuffs at the foot of the stairs. Save some time AND some rope! The now overtly villainous Wilcox announces that Mary’s been readied for surgery. YIKES. He’s been casing the Scooby gang for a little while and set his sights on John and Mary for his victims. When Lata and Carlos took off in their “hippie van” he swooped in. Oh, and the police officer they rescued? Yeah. He died. Wilcox was more interested in retrieving the stingers than helping anyone. “Anywho,” Wilcox basically says as he strolls away, “I’m off to perform supernatural surgery on your girlfriend.”

Mary SPARKLE EYES Campbell wakes up strapped to a chair in the lab. For a moment I picture Mary Winchester from the latter seasons of Supernatural in sparkle eyeshadow. (Who among us HAS NOT worn large amounts of glitter on one’s face in their youth?) Wilcox congenially introduces Mary to the other occupant of the lab: a comatose woman who turns out to be Dorothea from the cold open, and his wife.

The Akrida took revenge on Wilcox after he was kicked out of the MoL - and took it out in their attack on Dorothea. He took her home and placed her in a suspended magical state. Instead of a true love’s kiss to wake her up, he plans to use the Akrida’s stingers to transfer Dorothea’s consciousness to Mary’s body. “There’s no world worth saving without her in it,” he argues. (I turn this over as a possible thesis statement.)

John slices his way out of his ropes, only to face a hulking golem controlled by Wilcox. In the lab, they hear the fisticuffs ensuing and Wilcox villain-drops how to defeat the golem: remove the scroll from the golem’s mouth. John’s never been up against a golem, and tries to sweet talk his way out of the fight. When he tries to knife the guy and hits stone, he rethinks his plan. 

Wilcox merrily tells Mary that the golem has been instructed not to kill (or presumably severely maim) John because he intends to use John’s body for himself. So that both he AND his wife can traipse about in young, hot bodies. They’ll get revenge on the Akrida and then live their best lives. Adding an extra creep factor, he tells Mary that she won’t DIE. No, it’s SO much better. She’ll ride in the backseat of her own mind and body like some kind of relationship voyeur bonus person? Gross.

John bursts in, pursued by the golem. Mary tells him to get the scroll from his mouth and then wriggles her way out of her bindings. They fight the golem, while Wilcox frantically looks after his wife’s body (who has been unceremoniously dumped onto the floor). During the fight, the golem is beheaded and his head incinerated in the lab’s inciner-monster-inator. The golem solidifies and crushes Wilcox and his Snow White wife to death. (Boris: Yeah, um, having a golem burned in an oven is not a good look. I really have no words.) 

Later, John and Mary bury them in unmarked graves in the forest. Is it their favorite unmarked gravesite? Inquiring minds want to know! Mary muses on Wilcox’s actions. 

Important dialog alert!

Mary: He gave up everything. All so he wouldn’t lose Dorothea.

John: Things we do for love

Mary: ….

Mary: It’s not love

John: What do you mean?

Mary: Jack was only thinking of himself. Of what he wanted. It didn’t matter if it cost him his humanity to get it. That’ll never be us, right?

John: Never

That evening, Lata and Carlos drive. Carlos can’t believe Lata withheld her amazing memory-altering skillz from him. He would have totally asked her to erase Anton from his crush-addled mind. “But seeing Roxy choose to live with her memories of the Akrida and hearing her say she’d be okay in spite of it made me realize that sometimes the things you want to forget are probably the things you shouldn’t.” For Carlos, that’s something SWEET AND LOVELY YAAAAY.

The Mystery Machine arrives at Roxy’s warehouse. It’s looking very abandoned-warehousey, when suddenly one of the Akrida pulls up and strides inside. They found her nest!

We’re ready for an easy, triumphant conclusion, when John gets back to the garage. Kyle’s waiting for him there. “You don’t know it yet, but we’re about to get in a big fight about Mary.” Smirking, Kyle reveals that he’s been carefully setting John up. He’s been writing in his diary about John’s harassment, talking to the cops about his rap sheet, AND he just so happened to call the cops before heading to the garage. John realizes Kyle’s controlled by the Akrida. Kyle smirks and pulls out John’s knife, slicing himself. John begs him to stop, but Kyle - er, the Akrida - stabs himself in the heart.

Kyle dies as Milie arrives back at the garage. In the distance, police sirens wail.

Natasha: Augh, we’re already at episode TEN? These are going by too fast! (Shakes fist at CW)

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These Quotes Go On When I Close My Eyes:

Car trouble? And on my way back from the market with a pot roast in the oven!

A normal life’s right around the corner for you, Campbell

Taking things slow and seeing faces in pancakes is for stupid, boring people who don’t have the fate of the world on their excellently proportioned shoulders

Oh, you dirty dozing tramp. Have you been seeing him in your dreams?

I guess research is just another arrow in my quiver of talents

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[shirtlesssammy]

The Winchesters 1x01: Pilot

*Quick disclaimer: We’re writing this recap in October of 2022. From all that we’re seen and read online, Carlos uses he/him pronouns, though the actor who plays him is nonbinary and uses they/them pronouns. If things change for the character, we’ll adjust accordingly. Just wanted to note this for future readers!*

Then:

Dean died, Cas died, Sam got a bad wig. 

Now: 

Even More Then:

New Orleans

March 1972

Indiana Jones Samuel Campbell finds the secret entrance to the catacombs through the mausoleum entrance adorned with the Men of Letters symbol.

He performs the blood ritual to open the door to doom, unleashing a creature that sends him running back through the cemetery like he’s being chased by a giant stone boulder. He trips, his flashlight skittering across the broken walkway, and the monster attacks. 

Welcome to Lawrence, everyone! Our intrepid hero John Winchester misses the sign for home because he’s busy having war flashbacks on the bus. (we’renotgoingtohavesympathyforthisman, we’renotgoingtohavesympathyforthisman, we’renotgoingtohavesympathyforthisman) He takes a few deep breaths to calm himself and then pulls out an envelope with his name on it AND the Men of Letters symbol! 

Ten Years After’s “I’d Love to Change the World” starts playing, and ALL our Jackles longcon spidey-senses kick into overdrive. 

“March 23rd, 1972, the day Dad came home from the war.” 

SCReamIng, FAinTing, DyING. DEAN IS BACK. THIS IS NOT A DRILL.

Well, in voiceover for now. We watch John walk through Lawrence while Dean tells us he’s going to tell us his parents’ story in a way “that just might surprise [us].” The camera shows us Mary staring quite intently at a movie poster for THX 1138 (“The Future is Here”) before walking away and bumping into John. He’s smitten the moment they meet (So she knocks him flat on his metaphorical ass, I guess.) They talk about candy (GOD, future John, do you care SO little for Dean that you can’t even tell your candy loving son about the most important part of the meeting –THE CANDY?)

They have cute banter and Mary calls him Soldier Boy, which is a delightful wink to the world outside this one.

John walks to Winchester’s Garage, and has a heartfelt reunion with his mother. John grabs himself a beer. (“What? I’m legal now.”) Oh John, this is a path you don’t want to go down. They address the whole John wasn’t old enough to join the Marines situation. (He forged his long lost father’s signature.) And they clarify that he enlisted chasing after said long lost father. (Sidenote: Drake Rodger really has the Sam puppy face down cold!) 

That night, John takes the note and an accompanying key to a mysterious address. 

***DEMON alert!***

Well, John doesn’t know that yet, but once the eyes flash black and he gets picked up by his neck, he knows the guy isn’t Mr. Rogers. 

With a sweep of the leg and a swish of the hair, Mary Campbell saves the day!

Or, she would if John wouldn’t keep getting in the way. He is truly the worst. She eventually dropkicks the demon into a vat of holy water so she can interrogate it in regards to the whereabouts of her father. The demon taunts her over a “Maggie” before Mary exorcises the smoke. I felt a pang of nostalgia hearing those words again. 

“Hey, what was that? No, no, no. His eyes were black and then smoke –smoke just came out of his mouth.” Guys, John is NOT DEALING. 

Mary and John play a game of “what are you doing here?” chicken, and Mary wins (because she’s already a badass). John fills Mary in on his mysterious Biff Tannen encounter. (WHO IS MESSING WITH THE TIMELINE??) This note was the first he’s heard from his father in 15 years (Spoiler John: He’s in the future, and dead.)

Mary leads John to a building labeled with another Men of Letters symbol and guarded with a devil’s trap. Mary needs John to use his key to open the door so she can keep searching for her father. Once inside, they head down a flight of winding stairs. Mary tells John she’s been a hunter of demons (and monsters) since she was a kid. John asks if she knew of Henry Winchester. “No, sorry.” “Maybe he was one of these paranormal freemasons.” “There’s no such thing.” The flirty, combative vibe is strong with these two. This whole episode is a rollercoaster of reconciling past emotions with current ones. 

They stop flirting long enough to look around and see that they’re in a long abandoned room (a bunker, if you will). They start rooting around and John finds Henry’s locker. It’s been preserved in time. John tells the VERY DEPRESSING story about how when he was a kid, he thought there was a monster under his bed, and Henry told him not to worry, he knew how to trap it. (I AM NOT curled up in a ball crying over Sam’s own monster in the closet story. *crying noise**crying noise*) John grabs a bunch of Henry’s things and Mary miraculously finds the file she needs on her first try. Magic.

John keeps pestering Mary about what all of this means. They’re outside the movie theater again, and he asks for her name. She tells him that “you don’t want any part of this life.” She starts walking away and he tells her his name. She tells her soldier boy to go home, the camera panning up to show Slaughterhouse 5 on the marquee. 

Lubbock, Texas

Ada Monroe, Samuel Campbell’s mysterious contact, looks over a document in her rare bookstore. The lights flicker. She grabs her anti-possession charm and runs, but trips and doesn’t have enough time to grab the charm again before she’s possessed! Sam and Dean getting tattoos was the smartest thing they ever did. 

The next morning, John has a case! He wants to find Ada, the only woman who might have a lead on both their dads.

***Library Alert***

Mary takes John to their local library for research. “I need some iron and buckshot,” she tells the library worker behind the desk. They appear to know each other since Mary easily slides behind the desk. Latika meets John and we meet Latika (Lata to her friends.) Mary catches Lata up on Samuel’s recent shenanigans. 

She tells her they’re heading to Lubbock to find out more. Lata wants to come but Mary vetoes her interest. She suggests having another hunter join –Carlos. Mary is VERY against that (Tupelo, and all.)  

On the road, Mary’s driving and John has more war flashbacks. He remembers a moment when he tried saving his friend Murph’s life. Murph steps on a landmine anyway. John sees Murph sitting in the backseat of the car. Mary breaks up his PTSD attack and asks about it. He thinks he’s haunted, but she reassures him, with her EMF reader, that he is just suffering some good old fashioned serious war fatigue. Mary tells him she still sees all the people she couldn’t save. BONDING. 

John and Mary make it to the bookshop, papers and the smell of sulfur everywhere, but no Ada. They hear someone call for Mary and they run outside to find a demon waiting. 

Hello, Carlos! He hits the demon with his van and enters the scene like a boss.

Mary reluctantly introduces John to Carlos while Carlos grabs John for some serious hunter work. He shoots the demon with a water gun filled with holy water, sprinkles salt around the incapacitated demon, and tells John to recited the description of one delicious sandwich, oh wait, the exorcism script. 

“Jimmi, Janice, Jim Morrison, Amen.” And with that, John(athon) performed his first exorcism. 

They head back inside where John and Mary exchange not-quite-longing-stares. Ooh, la, la. (Ugh, I can’t, they’re really cute but the future weighs so heavy on them.) Mary is confused over how long her dad has been hunting alone. 

Lata and Carlos look for clues and talk about Lata’s relative newness to hunting. We establish that Carlos is a free-wheeling bisexual man who shares Mary’s taste in men. (Eyeballs emoji) Lata finds a book open to a VERY IMPORTANT page. It illustrates the box Samuel was after and shows exactly how it works. So convenient!

The box is a ghostbusters backpack monster trap that sucks monsters in and kills them.

Carlos finds a slip of paper tucked into the book. Mary quickly realizes that her father scrawled coordinates that direct them to New Orleans. Mary demands the keys to Carlos’ van - and I feel emotions about John Winchester’s later first choice of vehicle being a minibus. 

Lata pages through the book in the van, and explains how it works to Mary. She also establishes that Mary is protective about her friends. Lata is determined to search for Samuel out of a sense of obligation - Samuel saved her life. Mary wants Lata to just walk away and save herself. The ghost of Mary’s dead cousin rises between them (metaphorically).

In the back of the van, Carlos and John bond. Carlos quickly peels back his carefree exterior by revealing that his whole family was killed by ghouls - thus, his introduction into hunting. 

For I’m in Love with Him Your Honor Science:

John bats his great big innocent eyes and asks if all hunters start out in tragedy. “The only thing worse than how it starts for a hunter is how it ends,” Carlos tells him. Fucking TRUTH, man. 

The denizens of the Mystery Machine survey the cemetery.

Lata tries to soothe John’s (her) nerves. First hunts go GREAT. Being an amateur is the most effective armor you can find! John comforts her, and they bond while Mary looks on and tries to repress her emotions (#relatable). 

John reveals that this is his second cemetery visit of the week. I question why he isn’t going to a cemetery EVERY day because cemeteries are cool. Er, anyway. We learn the story of Maggie - she was Mary’s cousin and a vampire killed her just as her life was starting. Mary didn’t sign up for the war hunt, but John sure did. (Natasha: I know that people are concerned about sweet little innocent baby John becoming beloved by audiences despite his later blatant child abuse and neglect. To them I say, the seeds of John’s destructive obsession have already been planted in this first episode, and we can love him and hurt for him and also very much hate him because the story exists real-time across all these timelines we’ve watched.)

Mary finds traces of her dad by a strange well cap, marked by Men of Letters symbology. They haul it open and drop a flaming torch down, down, down. “Is no one else weirded out by the fact that there’s a giant hole in the ground of an above ground cemetery?” Lata asks. I’d personally like to know about the MoL magical hydrology.

John and Mary hurl themselves down the pit. They definitely seem matched in recklessness! John picks up the torch from the wet stone floor, astoundingly still lit, and they try to pinpoint the alarming growl that echoes through the caverns. 

Upstairs, Carlos reads symbols on the side of the well and then disappears on Lata. Er, oops.

John and Mary discover the mystical monster-eating box in the extremely elaborately crafted caverns. A monster - a loup garou - greets them with snarly drooly fangs. While John and Mary flee from it, Mary drops a little bit of “silver blade” lore - that’s how to kill it. John whips out a knife (NOT a silver blade) and cuts his friend’s necklace fragment from his skin while Mary looks on in astonishment, horror, etc.

John’s going to buy Mary time. He races off with his little bit of silver necklace, and Mary tears away for the mouth of the well. 

Lata gets confronted by a demon-possessed Ada, but Carlos shows up just in time to squirt her with his never-fail water gun. Unfortunately, his water gun doesn’t fully de-mojo the demon and he gets magically chucked across the room. Mary hauls herself up the well, having passed her gym class rope course with flying colors.

John’s facing his end in front of the loup garou when Mary throws the knife down into a puddle of water down in the pit. Mary gets Lata to open the box. John finds the silver blade. And both baddies are quickly disposed of. John slices off the head of the loup garou without hesitation. Meanwhile, the demon gets magically sucked into the box. Yum yum!

Back at the garage, John’s mom goes through Henry’s things. John’s accusatory - he’s mad that his mom kept Henry’s secrets from her. She defends herself - she was just trying to build a good home for herself and her family. “I knew I would do anything to keep you safe,” she says. “Maybe one day when you have kids you’ll understand.” OUCH. ouch. John thinks his dad was trying to keep him safe, and clearly leans towards Henry’s mission. John hands his mom Henry’s letter and apologizes for not showing her HER HUSBAND’S last missive sooner. Yeah, that seems like some pretty typical John Winchester secrets shit.

John loves the mission - good versus evil. “Saving people, hunting things. I was born to do this.”

John’s all in on the hunting gig, and he joins Mary’s merry band. Lata and Carlos show up. Mary commends their work on the recent hunt. Mary Campbell hands out coffees to each of them like final roses. (She’s prepared their coffee in the way each of them likes it because she’s a magical sunflower.)

They meet with Ada, who tells them that Henry last visited her to find something to kill the Akrida. The Akrida are from another dimension (tentacle joke) and want to destroy everything in the world and take it for themselves. Samuel intended to use the box to stop the Akrida’s invasion. Mary takes the box, and her new group of hunters, and heads out across the country to fulfill her father’s mission. 

Cut to Dean’s narration (third rewatch and I still get chills) telling us that the Akrida are a threat to all of existence. Dean’s investigating, taking notes, and being a VERY GOOD BEAN WHO I LOVE VERY MUCH. “There’s gonna be some surprises. Hell, I’m still trying to find all the puzzle pieces myself. But I’ll explain everything. And until then, I’ll keep picking the music.”

For I’ve Got Him, He’s Right Here Science:

(Boris: He's my best friend, he's my pal, he's my homeboy, my rotten soldier, my sweet cheese, my good time boy.)

Everybody, thank Dean Winchester for picking the music as we get played out of this episode by “I’d love to change the world,” by Ten Years After. YES. GOOD.

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I’d Love to Quote the World:

I know this story might sound familiar. But I’m gonna put the pieces together in a way that just might surprise you. And in order to do that, I have to start all the way at the beginning.

Is it too late to ask for my licorice back? 

Biiiiig freemason vibes

When I was a kid I thought there was a monster under my bed. My dad used to say, “Don’t worry, son. I know how to trap it.”

There’s no secrets in our family

She’s really a lot meaner when you get to know her

The only thing worse than how it starts for a hunter is how it ends

Is no one else weirded out by the fact that there’s a giant hole in the ground of an above ground cemetery? 

Saving people, hunting things. I was born to do this

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[shirtlesssammy]

The Winchesters 1x09: Cast Your Fate to the Wind

On a lonely stretch of highway, our little show starts with an armored truck barreling into a station wagon. Things don’t look good for the folks in the little beat up wagon. It’s okay though! They’re just vampires looking to steal whatever is in the back of the truck (are they possibly vampirates?) They’re looking for a missing amulet, but walk away with maps!

Mary and John are still puzzling over Dean the mystery man that gave John the letter from Henry. John loves the car. Mary thinks her son is a babe. PDA ensues. They run into Kyle, the reporter. Kyle is less than impressed that he ran into them all lovey-dovey. John asks Mary if they should tell the others about them. Mary thinks they should keep things simple. 

Carlos alerts them to the vampire case and they head their separate ways. 

“This isn’t how I saw things going when I pushed over that first domino. Thing is, I’ve had more than a few dances with free will, and fate, but as my dad used to say, ‘Fate is what you make it.’” 

At the crime scene, Lata and Carlos talk with one of the truck drivers. Carlos talks with him and gets the full story, but tells him to stick with the original drug story for others. Lata sees the police box up a Men of Letters box with the initials “RJM'' on it. Mary arrives and asks more about the mysterious box. Lata has been mapping out the bunker and notes that there’s a locker room. She thinks she can trace the initials back to the clubhouse. John’s ex, Betty, arrives in time to ask the driver about our intrepid investigators and look suspicious. 

In the bowels of the clubhouse, Lata gives the others the ultimate home tour. 

They locate the locker room and the locker with the initials “RJM” on it. Very convenient. Mary picks the lock. They find the amulet. John “Sam Winchester is my son and does dumb stuff and takes after me” Winchester holds the amulet. He sees a vision of one of the vampires killing him. He drops the amulet, but not before rune symbols are burned into his palm. Well, John, you’re not a real hunter until you’ve died at least once. 

Lata figures out that the amulet is the Gem of Ursitoare, the Romanian gods of fate. This amulet can tell the future. The group breaks up to find some answers to John’s potential fate. 

Betty visits Millie at the repair shop. She voices her concern about John hanging around people that like to hang around crime scenes. Millie assures her that they’re upstanding citizens, despite their rap sheets. 

Lata and Carlos (with John and Mary right behind them) head out to talk with the lore expert, Diana. Lata laments the fact that Carlos didn’t seem to hit it off with his crush, Anton. Yeah, Carlos, what gives? 

At the lore shop, Diana confirms that what the gem shows, must come to pass. 

Diana explains the connection to the vampires and how the amulet doesn’t necessarily show how you die, but your next fated moment in your life. These vamps, the Il Soarta, want their lost amulet back, and they’re not above bribing lore clerks. Diana! We trusted you! Well, the vamps arrive, and Diana trusts them, but they kill her anyway. Fisticuffs ensue. The big bad vamp finds the amulet and sees his future –and John’s. 

Back at the clubhouse, they decide that it’s too dangerous for John to head out to a vamp hunt when he’s fated to die at the hands of a vampire. Instead, Mary calls his mom for some quick John-sitting duties, and reassures him before she heads out. She WILL kill every last vampire in the area if she has to! 

At the apothecary, the crime scene is taped off and guarded by one highly suspicious Betty. She immediately intercepts Mary before sneaking can commence. Mary tooooootally plays it cool. WHAT? Somebody got MURDERED HERE? Oh, what a world! 

Betty isn’t buying it. She tells Mary that she clocked her at two crime scenes in one day, and it is QUITE suspicious. She expresses concern that John might get hurt. “I would never put John in any kind of danger,” Mary says and - hey. She BELIEVES it, but girl plz. 

Mary scoots behind the building to meet up with Lata and Carlos. She was serving as a distraction for the cops so that Lata and Losie could sneak inside and loot the place for intel. It worked - Carlos and Lata found Diana’s ledger, which will give them a lead on finding the vampires. 

Millie researches in the clubhouse with John, and lets him know about Betty sniffing around. Betty’s worried that John’s backsliding into some of his “old ways” - which presumably involves, idk, punching people on the street and other hooliganisms. Millie DOES express some of her own concern. John’s middle name isn’t, after all, “Healthy Coping Mechanisms.” John insists that he’s FINE. He has heart eyes for Mary, which helps.

Millie tells John to brush aside the fate fixation. “Everyone told me I couldn’t be a mechanic and look at me now.”

“Fate is what you make it,” Millie assures him. (We point and shout at this week’s catch phrase!) And then they settle back into vampire lore. 

Elsewhere, the gang lands at the vampire nest, but it’s empty. They find the heist plans AND a cool new toy - a magic lock pick! 

Carlos whips out some of the paperwork, and they discover that the stolen blueprint from the cold open heist is of the MoL complex. Furthermore, the blueprints reveal a weakness: a THERMAL EXHAUST PORT! I mean, unwarded sewers. Same thing!

John and Millie are still researching when Mary radios them and warns them that the vampirates are on their way. Suddenly, there’s a huge bang and the room shakes. It’s too late for them to escape the clubhouse but they CAN hide! Lata identifies a vault they can lock themselves into. 

John and Millie make a run for it, and the vampires give chase. They lock themselves in the vault just in time, and Millie fixes the electrics to get the lights working. 

The Scooby Gang pulls up to the clubhouse, greeted by vamps. Carlos pulls off his scarf and swings his hair out for Lata. She uncaps a canteen and soaks his hair. “Holy water hair commercial?” Mary asks him. Carlos smiles with confidence, taunts the vampires, and when they try to get bitey he whips his hair around and paints them with holy water, burning them. Carlos THEN takes them out with graceful swings of his blade. Mmmm you know I love to see it!

Millie, meanwhile, gets the lights working. But John’s not too happy about what he finds. It’s….a room swathed in red carpet. 

Mary slices and dices her way through the vampires guarding the clubhouse. And she does it all in TWO INCH HEELS, fellas!

In John’s Death Pit ™, the vampires pound at the vault’s door while Millie frantically tries to find a way to save themselves. John looks at the room fatalistically. There’s nothing they can use to fight except for the extremely unsafe exposed wires. John tosses an idea her way. 

Finally fighting her way past the vamps, Mary arrives to find the vampire already feeding on John. The lead vampire is strong! He’s confident! He’s totally going to murder Mary! But the vampire starts to choke before he can start his impressively acrobatic vampiratical assault. Millie tells Mary that he’s got dead man’s blood in his system. John was already dead when the vampire attacked! 

Mary slices off the vamp’s head and we catch up via flashback. John had proposed that Millie electrocute him, stop his heart, and let the vampire feast on an already-dead John. Then, they just do some quick CPR and bring him back to life! Easy peasy. John thinks that his preview of death was skewed - it didn’t show him the possibility of life beyond that. 

Mary and Millie perform gentle CPR on him, and it looks like it’s going POORLY. They weep over John’s body for several seconds. Like. SEVERAL SECONDS. And then suddenly John gasps and revives. (Hmmmm sus…) But hooray! He’s great! He sits up and Mary immediately deeply kisses him.

GURL LET THE BOY CATCH HIS BREATH.

Mary admits to their relationship, and Lata and Carlos immediately declare victory. For they hath called it.

Later, Anton patches up Carlos, tenderly cleaning his wounds. Awkward flirting happens. Carlos apologizes for never calling Anton. He was scared, but he’s ready for a second date. They KISS! Doves fly away in formation! Balloons ascend! Roses bloom!

For Cuties Being Cute Science:

Mary and John stow the amulet in a glowing lockbox in the clubhouse. They recap their feelings before heading off to the movies for a real date!

At a diner, Betty talks to Kyle. They discuss that suspicious lass, Mary Campbell.  Betty makes it clear that she’s investigating the Scooby Gang FOR John. Kyle is toooootally just interested as a curious journalist. His collaboration with Betty has nothing to do with the Akrida bite visible on the back of his neck. DUN DUN DUN

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What did the Akrida journalist say to the witness? I just need an A-quote-a:

Office romances can mess up a work dynamic

Loco es mi segundo nombre

I think it might be time to get a clubhouse cat

What can I say? The Campbells know how to have a good time

I did not expect something called hunting to involve so much reading

Bank heisting vampires would make such a fantastic movie

I told your little friend, nothing can stop fate

Hope looks good on you, Campbell

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[shirtlesssammy]

The Winchesters 1x07: Reflections

“Comes a time in every hunt when the fightin’ starts. And the difference between winning and losing isn’t whether you have the holy water, the wooden stake, or the silver bullet. It’s whether you’ve got the grit to get the job done.” 

We open with John and Mary surrounding a radio station tower. The radio tower has been a beacon for all the unicorn monsters who come to Lawrence and then the Akrida feed on their essence. 

They head inside to find the place in shambles. Mary finds her dad’s pack, with blood all over it. 

Meanwhile, at the Bunkerhouse, Carlos and Lata are lamenting the uselessness of the Akrida catching box. They’ve tried everything to make it work again. Ada shows up with a box full of papers from other bunkers. Carlos wonders what happened to all the Men of Letters. <Insert bird ??? gif> He suggests retirement —um, yeah, let’s go with that. 

Mary and John find a dude possessed by an Akrida. He passes along the message that their job at the radio station is done. They’ve acquired all the monster essence they need for their queen. Nothing can stop them now. “We’ve got a box that says different.” YES! A BOX! John coming in with the big guns!! WHOOT! 

Rockin’ Roxy is busy browbeating her nerdy scientist Akrida minion. The dig has begun! Get with it genius dude! (Sidenote: Words that Boris frowns at that have been said in this episode include essence and juicy.) An Akrida monster pops in with an update!

Back at the clubhut, Lata discovers the name of the box. The Ostium! The notes on the box are in code –AND written by Henry Winchester!! If they can translate it, maybe they can figure out the secrets of the box! 

Carlos tries to give Mary a pep talk over her missing/possibly bloody father. He tells her about his own parents. How he wanted a guitar and they went to get it for him, only for them to be killed by ghouls. He got revenge and lives with the guilt.

He helps Mary understand that it’s not her fault for Samuel’s disappearance. 

John brings Millie in on the translation party. 

Carlos and Mary are pulled over by Officer Mustache wearing lovely sunglasses, and Roxy. She needs a word with Mary. She wants the Ostium. She’s willing to trade Samuel for it. Carlos thought ahead and put a hex bag in the cruiser. If they can track Roxy, maybe they can get the jump on her! They rush back to the others and ask Ada to track the hex bag. 

Ada starts on her work in the conservatory. Millie walks in, surprised at everything in the building. They drink and talk about Henry. And generational trauma. “Seeing John here, it’s like history repeating.” 

Lata explains to the others that the Ostium transports monsters –to parts unknown. The Akrida are hive-like monsters that take over worlds. The Akrida are all connected to their queen. Use the Ostium on the queen=kill all the Akrida. Win! Carlos gets morose realizing that if they save Samuel Campbell, the Scooby gang will break up. 

Ada’s spell is working so the gang rush over to watch the magic.

The Akrida are hanging out where Mary was stung. WHY? 

Down in old tiled and bricked over tunnels, Akrida-possessed people dig. And they dig - without care for the bodies of their hosts. (I rock back and forth chanting, “the broken nails are not real the broken nails are not real”)

In the clubhouse, the Scooby gang spin out attack plans while Millie goes over Henry’s notes. Millie tells them about a ritual she discovered - a seance. She proposes raising Henry’s specter and having him translate his notes himself. (As someone with dreadful handwriting, I look forward to having my ghost be summarily raised for future researchers!) We also try to remember just when John had given up on finding his dad alive, but it doesn’t matter, because the gang is all in on this plan. Carlos proposes that they use Millie’s wedding ring as a fulcrum to the spell, but she sold it to fund equipment for the shop. (That’s my girl!) Instead, they choose an emotional keepsake from John. 

Once more down in the pits, one of the Akrida hosts takes a sledgehammer to one of the walls. Breaking it down, they discover an ancient-looking door. 

John gets his old music box from his closet, and fills everyone in on the sad backstory of it. He played it at night as a child. After his dad left, he played it for comfort until he got angry one day and broke it. SYMBOLICALLY. Further driving us into a state of frothy unrest, DEAN’S THEME plays over this confession. And the father/son/anger parallels overwhelm me for a moment and I lie down gaping like a fish suddenly laid out on a rock. For just. Imma need a minute.

The gang preps for the seance. But ooooh there’s a catch. John has to share his emotions with his dad “openly and honestly” in order for the spell to work. LOLOLOL good luck. Millie wants to know if anyone else can talk to Henry and I ache for her a little bit. They chant to work the spell and the candles extinguish at the height of their chanting. Carlos proposes that it was just a drafty room and not the magical workings of spirit magic. 

John storms off, his chair crashing to the floor behind him. Mary finds him in the conservatory, where he bitterly stews over his memory of Henry. John reveals some additional insight into his music box FEELINGS. He also played the music box to drown out the sound of his parents arguing. (Specifically, his parents arguing about HIM and his safety.) Mary concludes that he was angry at himself as well - for failing to be ENOUGH. To keep his dad with him. GAH!

Henry appears, a flickering but warm presence. He assures John that what happened was Henry’s fault, not John.

Mary heads off to get Millie, which gives John and Henry an opportunity to display vulnerability without manly man masks. John cuts to the chase: the Akrida are back. They have the ostium but it’s broken. Henry proposes that the ostium is NOT broken, but instead just needs a quick power-up. The energy source that powers the box ensures the location of the portal on the other end of the transporting ostium. They need to power it up Akrida-style, in order to zap the Akrida back to their world. John has a piece of the Akrida energy source - it’s hidden in the jasmine vine growing along the side of the garage. 

Henry and John spare a moment to talk about John’s larger arc, and Henry warns John that he’s stepped into a dangerous world. “Watch out for yourself, and your mom,” he instructs. And OOOOOOH that’s gonna sting when John fails to save Millie sometime in the future. (I’m sorry, but we’re all thinking it???) 

Millie arrives in time for the flickering Henry to tell her that he loves her - both of them, in fact. He fades away. 

Later, the Scooby Gang passes a rock around - the Akrida energy source. Mary sets it on the box and it glows, opens, and swallows up the rock. BOOM. They head out to the tunnels to track Roxy. If they trap her in the box, the whole colony will collapse. Ada warns that the box won’t be able to swallow up every Akrida. Eventually it will lose power. 

John and Mary head inside, and Akrida-possessed humans step out to block their way. While Mary and John prepare to fight, Mary reminds John that they “have to use demon possession rules” - so, like, be super careful not to kill the hosts. I laugh and laugh and then cry a little too, my fists clenched in voiceless agony. We get a great action fight scene in the hallway, the camera traveling, agile. I enjoy the style! (Good work, Speight)

Elsewhere, Carlos and Lata find the lab from before. They locate the monster essences, but there’s someone at the door before they can do more than run and hide. The Akrida woman who discovered the doors in the tunnel arrives to remove the monster serum and transport it to places unknown. 

Millie and Ada stake out the scene when the cop from before knocks on the window. He orders them to get out of the car and Millie whacks him with a bat in reply. 

John and Mary, meanwhile, encounter Roxy. Mary whips out the box. The ostium sucks in Roxy and one of the Akrida, leaving a third behind to growl angrily. Wherps. Not the queen, then.

Mary and John flee, ending up in a room with no way out. They banter, riffing off of episode one dialogue to reflect on their first monster excursion. Remember all the way back then? Man, they were kids then, amirite? John makes his move and they kiss passionately, to swelling music. The Akrida break down the doors. It’s looking bad for our heroes, when an ostium-like light spills out and the monsters all get sucked inside. It’s…SAMUEL to the rescue! I am seriously just happy enough for Mary that I forget how much I dislike Samuel post-resurrection.

Emotional reunions have to wait, however. The Akrida pulls up to the entrance of the tunnels at their dig site. They gather around the doors and open them up. The Akrida woman with the vials of monster essence heads inside, her eyes full of wonder. She promises to make the Akrida QUEEN strong again.

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Don’t You Quote About Me:

Didn’t any of you guys ever go to Sunday school?

I know what you’re thinking and you’re wrong

“How insane are we talking?” “Certifiable with a side of sassy”

Plants break the earth to reach for the sun

Guess I shouldn’t be surprised he didn’t show up. He didn’t come to my baseball games either

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[shirtlesssammy]

The Winchesters 1x06: Art of Dying

Elk Falls, Kansas

A woman runs through a dark forest. She is being pursued by something but no matter how many times she looks backwards, she doesn’t see it. She does trip though and hurts her ankle. She staggers into the nearest building. A barn with flickering lights. Littlebabyjesusidonothaveitinmewhatishappening

Well, as women are wont to do on this show, she ends up on the ceiling with blood pouring all over the ground beneath her. 

“Hunting has a way of changing a person. After a while, right, wrong, good, evil, they all start to seem the same. And then it makes you start to wonder. Who’s really the monster here –them, or me?” 

Lata takes over the mantle of being the Dean mirror this week. She is meditating (seriously, she’s the Dean mirror this week), but is interrupted by John and Carlos fighting about what their next step is. John’s intensity is enough for both Lata and Carlos to suggest he seek help for his anger. Mary pops up and gets a call from an old friend/quasi-aunt. 

The gang hits the road to find Tracy Gellar, an old friend of Mary’s mom. She’s retired, so it was a shock that she found Darla, an old hunter buddy, in her barn. Apparently there’s a werewolf on the loose. 

They meet up with Tracy and inspect the body. John and Mary discuss getting out of the life. Carlos finds a claw! Lata doesn’t think they’re dealing with a werewolf after all. 

*Hunter Funeral Alert*

After the funeral, the gang sits around trying to find more information on the claw. John ponders if maybe it’s another unicorn monster the Akrida summoned to Lawrence. Mary and Lata point out that even if that’s true and they’re able capture it and use it to lure the Akrida to them, they don’t know how to kill the Akrida. John gets testy. Lata has someone that can help so she and Carlos head out to meet him. On the road, Lata voices her fears that she’s not much of a hunter and she might be a liability for them. 

They get to their destination, which turns out to be a taxidermy shop (well, that’s just the front). Carlos is not impressed, until he sees Lata’s friend, Anton.

Back at the house, Mary and Tracy talk. Mary fills her in on her father, her missing mother, their whole messy marriage. Tracy tells Mary that there’s always going to be a monster. She needs to start “looking out for number one.” Mary asks Tracy if she regrets leaving the life. Nope. 

Anton tries some small talk with Carlos, but our resident disaster bisexual is more of a disaster than usual. He’s all tongue-tied and flustered. And it’s all good because Anton figured out the claw! It’s a soucouyant! A vampire witch! Tracy is overwhelmed by the news. Her last hunt was a soucouyant. 

She and a group of other hunters killed off all but one, but then Mac, another hunter, and that last soucouyant died in a cave-in. Or so she thought. 

Just then the vampire ghost busts through the front door. 

She has fire hands! John uses a fire extinguisher as his weapon of choice, and props, dude. He also takes after the monster before Mary can grab her machete, but she soon catches up to him whaling on the thing. It almost gets the upper hand on him before Mary chops off her arm. The monster darts off into the woods. 

Back at the clubhouse, Carlos stitches John back up while thinking of Anton the whole time. Tracy thinks that the soucouyant is picking off all her hunter buds and now is going after her. 

The stitches are barely tied off in John’s shoulder before he’s bouncing up and ready to kill. Mary needs to take things down a bit. They need to think. Lata thinks there’s some weird things going on with the situation. John bolts out of the room in full dick mode. 

Outside, John angrily hits a punching bag while Mary tries to get him to open up. She brings up the incident with Mars Neto. John brings up Darla’s cremation. He refuses to do the same for Mary, so that means he’s gotta work EXTRA hard and TWICE as emotionally to make sure she survives. Mary calls him on that pile of bull - Millie told her about his tendency to race headlong into danger. 

Lata interrupts - she needs to show them their discovery. At the autopsy table, Lata shows Mary, Carlos, and Tracy the arm. She tells them that the arm was already dead. Like, MEGA dead. The soucouyant was possessed by a g-g-g-ghost! Tracy falls back at the words “vengeful spirit” and we dig to the heart of the matter. Tracy tells them that she and the rest of her now-dead hunting team killed their old partner Mac - and not accidentally.

Tracy fills in the gaps. Mac had a difficult childhood and became a hunter to try to deal with his pain. When hunting didn’t fill the gaps in his soul, he glommed onto dark magic. The pain didn’t go away, but he got more dangerous instead. The soucouyant hunt was the last straw. Mac was violent and paranoid, and the rest of the hunting team decided to take him out. When he went into the cave after the monster, they blew it in with C-4. Tracy insists that they didn’t have a choice. “Violence is always a choice,” Lata interjects. YAAAS. The Scooby gang starts to draw parallels between Mac and John, when Mary realizes something. John isn’t there! 

Cut to John, stalking into Tracy’s barn on his own. (Can’t stop hunting, full of rage.) The soucouyant, or rather, the haunted soucouyant, gets the jump on him. The ghost zips out of the monster and into John. The monster’s body conveniently dissolves into dust. 

The team arrives a LITTLE bit too late. John stands ominously in the barn and when he turns around, ghosty mist swirls in his eyes. Mac uses his ghost mojo to slam shut the barn doors and chuck Carlos across the barn. He smirks at Tracy, hurls Mary out of his way, and then starts to choke Tracy against a barn post. Mary intervenes and they fight. Mary is desperate to avoid hurting John but the Mac-infected John isn’t holding back at all. 

“All I’ve ever known are clenched fists,” Mac muses as he starts to beat Mary down. “There is nothing you can do to me that I haven’t already survived.” Tracy moves in with her shotgun trained on John. Mary pleads for John’s life, but Tracy won’t back down. 

In the end, it’s Lata who makes the fateful move. She throws herself between the shotgun and John. “More violence isn’t the answer. Not when you’ve spent a lifetime with it. When it’s touched everything you ever had.” She confesses that her father was a soldier in the India-Pakistan war (presumably?) and when he came back, he was full of rage and violence - like the war “infected” him. She used to try to hide from him, but eventually she grew angry. She had a deep well of anger but one day she hurt someone. That’s when she chose peace. 

Mac tells Lata that he chose his team, but they gave up on him and betrayed him. Tracy confesses that she was scared. She tells him that she’s sorry. “It’s not too late, Mac,” Lata tells him. “You can still break the cycle.” After a long moment, Mac releases Mary, and then ditches the weapon, and finally, ditches John. Mac leaves, and John collapses (alive but unconscious) onto the barn door. 

Afterward, they load up the still passed-out John in the back of the van. Tracy tells Mary that she’s going to take over Darla’s last werewolf case. It’s her kind of penance. Mary listens to this bleakly and wonders if the lesson is that there is no escape from hunting. “It’s not that you can’t escape the life, Cricket,” Tracy tells her. “You just can’t escape the decisions you make in that life.” Tracy still believes that Mary can leave hunting, and do it the right way (not soaked in regrets). 

At the lab, Carlos sadly moves the soucouyant’s arm to the blast furnace. He’s obsessed with the last thing Anton touched in the lab! Lata’s amused, and Carlos turns her attention on its head. He tells her that he’s proud of what she did. She isn’t a hunter like Mary, John, or himself. She helped Mac instead and that’s (to put words in his mouth) extraordinary. (Me: YES! YES! That’s what I’ve been saying!!!!!! For fifteen seasons!)

Lata rewards that bit of touching attention by pulling out a little card for Carlos. It’s from Anton! OooOOOOoooo! He asks Carlos on a DATE! Carlos and Lata run off to go have a clothing makeover montage (sadly, off camera). 

John wakes up in the Clubhouse. Mary greets him with “Morning, sunshine” which caused a minor Tumblr explosion this week. John brings it back to the serious place. He tells her that he struggled with anger his whole life, and the Neto fight dredged it up in a way he wasn’t prepared to deal with. He’s been using hunting as an excuse - he doesn’t know how to stop it.

Mary tells him that she wants to leave hunting but she won’t do it at John’s expense either. 

Later, John interrupts while Lata is meditating. He thanks her for her intervention and then asks her for help to discover how to live without anger and violence. She tells him that she started with mediation, trying to keep herself in positive mental loops. He asks her for help and she starts to walk him through meditation. I honestly do not know how this fits in with future!John. If the mysterious letter-bearer was from the future, trying to get John involved in the Akrida hunt by getting him involved in the “family business,” then how do these attempts at self-betterment affect future!John (and more importantly, his children)? If canon is…canon…then it’s either amnesia (boring) or a tangled tragedy of lies (interesting, but sad). Yes?

Carlos and Mary burst in, interrupting meditation YET AGAIN. There’s no time for apologies! They haul out the map. They’ve got the Akrida pinned down! They found the radio tower.

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Quotes Leads to Hate, and Hate Leads to Suffering:

Mellow out, amor

So I embellished for dramatic effect. Are we really gonna act surprised by that now?

She thought all of this was past and now it’s splattered all over her walls

I will not be the person to wrap you in a white cloth, put a knife in your hand, and send you off in a blaze of glory

Violence is always a choice

I’m sorry. Tall, dark, and angry can’t come to the phone right now

Hunting sure knows how to make a gal question her morals

Can a girl get ANY zen around here?

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[shirtlesssammy]

The Winchesters 1x05: Legend of a Mind

In this week’s cold open, Councilman Gordon Baxter experiences the worst head trip ever.

“Spending a lifetime of hunting monsters takes its toll. There comes the time when you gotta let out that pain inside you. If you don’t, it’ll eat you alive.”

John is showing Mary around the carburetor of a motorcycle. Not just any motorcycle though! It was a gift his mom gave his dad two weeks before Henry disappeared. John acts nonchalant about teaching Mary about engines but Mary already knows her way around a car. 

John offers Mary a job because he’s a love sick puppy already. Mary doesn’t plan on sticking around Lawrence after she gives up hunting. John doesn’t like that answer so he goes to sulk in the office where Millie is doing paperwork. She sees how her son is looking at Mary Campbell and tells him he should ask her how she feels about him. She’s good for him. Mary interrupts their conversation with a case!

At the clubhouse, the monster gang gets caught up on the dead councilman. Carlos thinks they should track the leader of the Akrida, but Mary wins (again) and the gang heads out to learn more about Gordon Baxter and how his head was turned to mush from the inside. 

They interview Baxter’s campaign assistant. She tells them that he was suffering from nightmares for about a week before he died. They’re dealing with a djinn! Ada fills John in on a djinn’s MO. They then head to an abandoned warehouse to hunt the djinn. 

They immediately find him and chase after him. He escapes with the most elaborate backflip flourish ever. Five stars. Lata asks Ada if she knew him and she admits to them that he was her son. Drama!! Tony is her son and he’s half-djinn. She had a bit of a fling with a djinn back in the day. Ali and Ada were from totally different worlds (a story told by Dean Winchester about a human in love with a non-human? Sounds fake.) Well, anyway, he’s dead. Their half-human kid is struggling with how to not be a monster. (This whole story sounds ABSOLUTELY ridiculous.) 

Carlos believes that the Akrida are involved somehow. John doesn’t care. Monsters must die! Black and white! No room for nuance! He starts sharpening his pitchfork for Tony. Bold move considering you didn’t know what a djinn was five minutes ago! They search his stuff and find a beaded necklace that Ali gave Ada. Tony will be back for it. Ada then pleads with the others to let her try and talk to her son before they kill him. The team decides to break up. Carlos and Ada are going to hang out and hope that Tony comes back. John and Mary head to the police. Lata heads to learn more from the coroner. 

While Mary waits at the car, John talks with Betty. She’s painting a picture of Saint Miguel (MICHAEL). John doesn’t waste time asking about the councilman's death. Betty also thought it was suspicious. There were two other similar deaths. 

John tells Mary his intel and then they have a RIDICULOUS flirt fest.

Meanwhile, Ada and Carlos continue the stakeout. Tony does come back and talks with Ada –in her dreams! He makes it very clear that he’s not a killer. He feeds to survive and helps people. He came to Lawrence to help but the person already had a monster in his head and it was controlling him. It was a giant bug! 

Back at the clubhouse, Lata shows everyone x-rays of Baxter’s head. 

There are three points in the brain that caused the damage. John suggests he and Carlos look into the connections between victims. 

Mary finds Ada, who is busy watering plants in her super awesome bunker garden/library/spell room. She tells her that Lata uncovered proof that absolves Tony. Ada expresses her regrets over the rift between herself and her son, but Mary tries to bolster her spirits. Tony learned his strength from his mom.

John arrives on the scene. Er, actually John arrives outside the door, notices Mary and Ada talking, and decides to skulk behind a door and eavesdrop? John plz. Mary asks Ada if it was worth having a relationship with Ali since they were from “different worlds.” 

“I followed my heart,” Ada tells her because she has all the best lines this episode. “I don’t think that’s ever a mistake.”  

Carlos arrives, in full mission mode. He tracked down the next victim, Jacob Glasier. The team mobilizes and heads out to investigate a rickety old industrial site. They find their would-be victim at work and extremely awkwardly explain their presence as building inspectors. Yeah, they’re….college building inspectors? Jacob sees through their unsteady ruse immediately BUT—

An Akrida bug leaps into the room with them. They flee the beast but can’t evade it for long. It goes for Jacob. Mary hurtles herself between the Akrida and its victim, and collapses to the floor as the Akrida scuttles away. Mary slumps, exposing her neck. There are three ominous holes punched into the base of her skull. 

The scene cuts to the clubhouse. (Man, I just love that we get to call it that. So perfectly Scooby-Doo.) Mary’s barely hanging on, and orders herself tied to a chair. Carlos teasingly asks her for a safeword, beating all of us to that joke. They decide that the spikes in Mary’s brain need a little extra mojo to expel. Mary needs to find them in her mind and destroy them there. The only person who can help is Tony. Ada’s nervous, but she heads out to find her son. 

Ada finds Tony on the bus as it waits at the depot. She tries to assure him that he’s no longer a suspect, and tells him she needs his help. Tony, understandably, isn’t receptive at first. Ada settles next to him and apologizes for all that happened and how she made him feel. “You’re perfect,” she tells him. Tony relents and heads to the clubhouse. 

Tony quickly assesses Mary’s condition and takes charge. As they set up, he explains what happened to the councilman. The Akrida-afflicted get trapped in their darkest memories. The victims are too scared to dig through the memories and find the hidden poisonous barbs, so they end up dying instead. He needs a volunteer to go into Mary’s mind and guide her - someone she’ll listen to. I nominate CARLOS, but Ada offers John instead. 

John, Mary, and Tony join hands. Tony can slip into dreams, Mary’s slipping under control of the poison… So that just leaves John. How does he slip into dreamland? Carlos takes a single, extremely effective swing!

John wakes up in Mary’s dream. They’re in her house, but make it foreboding. 

Meanwhile, Carlos and Lata realize that all the other victims were involved with building a radio tower in town. Lata leaps to the next conclusion: that tower is sending out insidious waves which are luring monsters to Lawrence. 

Mary’s condition worsens as she goes deeper into her house. They find a memory of a young Mary standing over a dead body, looking horrified. The younger version of her is scared and regretful. The kid she killed was part of a werewolf pack and he transformed back into a human and pleaded for his life just before she killed him. This episode is shot in such a beautiful, grim fairy tale stage play kind of way.

For Excellent Work. Director. Science:

Mary tries to comfort her younger self, but there’s no comfort in her memories. They reach a door with a young girl’s “do not enter” sign on the door. Mary doesn’t want to go in, but John tells her that she has to face it or die. He’s there for backup. 

John kicks the door down and discovers a young Mary in bed, clutching a hunting knife as long as her forearm. “You said that you were afraid of a monster under your bed and your parents told you not to worry,” Mary explains. But for her, “my parents told me the monsters I was afraid of were real. And that one day it would be my job to hunt them down.” (I casually pop a shard of glass into my mouth and begin chewing it.)

Mary channels her anger into punching a hole in the wall. She was five the night her parents told her that, handed her a knife, and called it a day. “No kid should ever have to go through that,” John says, but I can barely hear it over the sound of my totally normal glass chewing. He convinces her to talk to her younger self. 

Mary tells herself that it’s okay to be scared - it’s GOOD, even. She tells her that eventually life will be okay. “I’m gonna find a way to open all the doors that were closed for you,” she promises herself. Young Mary uncovers the spines that were hidden under her pillow. Mary takes her knife and destroys them, breaking the Akrida’s hold. She wakes to her mystical support besties gathered around. Tony is a little worse for wear, but he’s okay too! Yay!

Back at the garage, John works on the motorcycle moodily. Millie tries to press him about the whole “opening himself up” plan when Mary shows up. She thanks John for being by her side while she encountered all her sad younger versions. John tells Mary that she should leave Lawrence when she’s done hunting. He’ll give her the motorcycle to give her the FREEDOM OF THE ROAD. I roll my eyes, and tell John that her car is a much more practical home-on-the-highway, and considerably more dry in inclement weather. 

At the clubhouse, Lata and Ada escort Tony outside. Lata gives Tony cute smiles and heart eyes, and Tony gives heart eyes in return!! Oh, also Tony tells them that the Akrida seem to be trying to collect “essence” from the remains of rare monsters. His plan is to drive somewhere far from the Akrida, safe from the signal. Ada and Tony decide to head out together, bond reforging! 

But anyway BACK TO LATA AND TONY. He asks to write to her. She says YES DEFINITELY. 

It is very cute. 

Later at the clubhouse, they wrap their heads around the new radio tower. There’s ONE owner with her hands all over the paperwork. They switch on the radio to hear Roxy roll out Nina Simone’s “I put a spell on you.” One of the Akrida’s minions appears and reports on Mary’s condition. Their plan to take her out failed. Roxy’s not worried about the hunters. She plans to keep the “hits” coming and wear them down.

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On Today’s Quotest Hits:

If they’re hiding in a warehouse, we can track them down easy

Yeah. Of course, tell a group of hunters my son is half monster

What is this? … Saint Miguel. Patron saint of law enforcement

Mary Campbell, she’s easy to talk to

One thing you learn about plants. you can never treat any of the two the same. They each need their own perfect amount of light and water in order to grow. 

Run faster! Definitely run faster!

There’s a supernatural element involved. We’d need a supernatural brain surgeon

Our nightmares are rooted in trauma. They take shape in our darkest memories

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[shirtlesssammy]

The Winchesters 1x02: Teach Your Children Well

Topeka, Kansas 1972

We’re 30 seconds into finding love and peace at a commune in Topeka, Kansas this week when we’re hit with Barry telling Maya this knowledge bomb: “We were like dolls, you know the Russian ones? Trapped inside our parents, and our parents’ parents.” They wander into the forest, Maya wanting to stargaze and Barry wanting to confront his difficult father. It’s convenient for Barry that his dad is already hanging out in the forest! Oh wait, nevermind, it’s just your not-so-standard forest monster!

Savannah, Georgia

The Scooby Gang are hunting zombies while Dean tells us (or SOMEONE?!? WHO?) that our parents might raise us and teach us how to hunt but there comes a time when we have to ditch their drill sergeant, abusive, neglectful asses for a better life (or something like that). The gang is in a warehouse filled with dead bodies. Mary is looking for documents on the Akrida. Ada lets the others know the file cabinets are empty. Mary finds an empty shotgun shell on the ground with her father’s initials on it. Samuel has already been there. 

ZOMBIE ATTACK!

Mary and Carlos take the zombies out (John helps!) while Ada and Lata struggle to get the monster catcher box to work. 

Mary finds a news article about the missing kid, Barry. It seems that Samuel is in the habit of leaving cryptic messages for Mary to find so she knows when and where to work her next case. The time before cell phones was the worst, amirite? Mary “I’m not bossy, I’m the boss” Campbell insists everyone follow her, and with some minor pushback, they all acquiesce. 

In the van, John confesses to Mary that he’s frustrated with their inability to find Samuel. He was a scout in the Marines. (Totally would have guessed this from the 20+ years it took him to find the YED!) He wonders if Henry left that note for him to also follow in his footsteps, but John doesn’t know how. Mary reassures him that it’ll take time to learn this new life. They’re cute and flirty, and honest to god, I just can’t with them. I will temporarily forget the future to find them adorable together, sue me. 

They make it back to Lawrence and one pissed-off Millie. John fights with his mother and then takes off with the others without resolving anything. 

They make it to Topeka where Mary and John dress up in their finest blue and green clothes to interview Barry’s father. John is less than pleased to use the alias “Mick Fleetwood”. The grumpy face genes are strong in this family; Sam would be so proud. They tell him they were friends of Barry’s. 

Lata and Carlos hang out in the motel. Lata tries engaging Carlos with a little gossip but Carlos confides that he is a little put out by not being the only one on the stage. They’re interrupted by a returning John and Mary. Barry’s dad apparently was told by Maya that Barry was taken by a monster in the woods. Remember kids, just say no to drugs! 

The only thing Carlos processes from the story is that they get to go to a commune! And we get to witness a delightful little montage of dancing to Age of Aquarius interspersed with scenes from the commune. 

Lata and Carlos head to interview Maya. She tells them that Barry thought he saw his father in the woods before he was taken. John and Mary (Did I notice the white dress that is not a pink dress but still makes me think about the not-white dress in the pilot? I don’t know, maybe.) interview Clyde, the commune leader. He talks to them about shedding their past, letting go of the people who hurt you, your parents, etc. Mary is suspicious of the necklace that Clyde is wearing so they head back to the van to search through Lata’s books. (Natasha: Mary’s white dress with the medallion hanging over her future stab wound drives me BANANAS. It’s like a little clue!)

Meanwhile, back at the garage, Ada introduces herself to Millie, and lets her know that she knew Henry. She also rats out the kids’ location. There’s jasmine growing on the garage walls and Ada asks if she can take some. Millie doesn’t care. Ada tells her that it’s for protection. (AND SCREAM, maybe we can get a prequel of the prequel about Henry and Millie in their youth.) (Natasha: Nesting dolls all the way down.)

Lata locates the symbol. “It’s Celtic. Triskelion. Symbol for–,” she starts. “Transformation,” John finishes. 

Shapeshifter? 

They head out to find their #1 suspect, Clyde, before he kidnaps again. 

Meanwhile, Clyde is luring a young woman into the woods. He spots a nun in the foliage (and that split second shot of a nun in a full habit was kinda creepy. Good job, show!) He runs to Sister Bernadete, the source of his childhood trauma. Without a word, tree roots envelope him and he’s sucked underground. 

The Scooby gang finds the woman wandering in the woods. They also find green blood. Mary says they’re dealing with a mimic. They need copper to kill it. Unfortunately Carlos does not carry cheap garbage weaponry made out of pennies. John hatches a plan to become a copper thief and grab the copper pipes from their motel. Lata thinks that the green blood is really sap and the purple flowers on the ground are strange. Mary digs in her heels and tells John to grab the pipes. Lata collects the flowers just in case. 

Ada prepares herself a nice, soothing cup of tea when Lata calls asking for help to identify the flower. They identify it as a rare plant from Columbia, and Lata heads to her stash of books in the bookmobile - er, van. 

For Ray of Sunshine Science:

Ada settles in with her tea and a sheaf of paper. She clears her throat delicately, then the magic takes her. She casts her head back and her hand starts writing. (Can that tea help with writer’s block? Seems handy.)

Mary and Carlos talk it out. Carlos accuses her of being too much like her dad - ignoring the people around her. He brings up MARY’S frustration with her dad, and Mary appears to chew on that. Lata emerges from the woods in a rush - she’s figured it out. And it’s not a mimic! 

Lata shows them the book passage. La Tunda was a real woman who abused her children. When the children tried to escape, she killed them and buried them in the garden. The children’s remains cast a curse on the woman, transforming her into a hungry monster who goes after disobedient children. She lures in her victims with a familiar face before trapping them and feeding on them slowly. 

Mary realizes that John had JUST been wandering around the woods, morosely and rebelliously talking about his relationship with his mother. John’s the next victim! They race off. (It’s good to see that the monster of the week continues to be a Metaphor of Character Development.)

Back at the motel, John tears out the copper piping. His mom shows up at the motel. “A child’s job is to rebel,” she tells him, normally. He begs her to believe in him - he’s strong enough to hunt. She tells him that his dad never believed in him, as evidenced by his failure to train John in the Men of Letters. (I feel like this is more groundwork laid on John’s future parenting philosophy.) Her words are carefully hurtful, and we can already tell that it’s out of character for Millie. (Millie, you would have taken SUCH good care of John and Mary’s boys ;_;) But John swallows it hook, line, and sinker until the monster slips up and brings up Samuel. He never told his mom about Samuel and Mary! Openness is out of character! John tries to whack her with a copper pipe, but gets sucked into La Tunda’s magical forest lair. 

Mary apologizes to Lata and Losy. She should have listened to Lata and Carlos, but instead John’s been captured by a hungry monster. The gang metaphorically hugs it out and resolves to rescue John.

John wakes up bound in the woods, and we discover that Barry and Clyde are still alive (but with overall morale down to epically low levels). 

At the motel, Lata learns that La Tunda can only be killed by something as strong as her. Mary quickly reads between the lines, and summarizes Lata’s plan for the kids in the audience - they’ll use La Tunda’s own leg bone to stab her in the heart. “That is sick and twisted enough, it might just work,” Carlos declares. “I love that deeply weird side of you.”

John watches his mom pace around the clearing and proceed to emotionally torture and feed on Barry (as Barry’s dad). While La Tunda feeds, John sets himself and Clyde free and then confronts the monster. “Come on, John,” she says, smirking. “You think you can stand up to me? You don’t have it in you.” I AM FERAL PICTURING DEAN FIGHTING HIS DAD LIKE THIS. Hilarious that John’s fighting his mom because she tried to protect him. Anyway, it’s looking bad for John, when the Scooby Gang arrives. Mary confronts the monster and they rumble. 

John kicks out La Tunda’s leg (because he believes in himself. Boy power!) and it fractures. Mary grabs the bone and stabs the monster, spewing John with goo in a callback gag to the first monster-hunting open. The showrunners clearly understand our need to see John comically undermined.

A little while later, John and Mary watch Barry reunite with his dad and share a hug. Soft music plays while they exchange meaningful looks. Afterwards, they head to the garage where Millie greets them. Mary gets introduced to her, and Millie tells her that she fixed her car for free. Noice! Mary heads off and John addresses his mom. 

He tells her he wasn’t angry at her - he was angry at dad. He took out on Millie what he couldn’t take out on Henry. (Hurls self out window.) She tells him that she believes in him. She also gives him a little insight into her relationship with Henry - they fought over the Men of Letters but they still told each other ‘I love you’ at the end of the day.

Later, Carlos brings pizza and levity to the clubhouse. Mary and John address their parent issues briefly, when a secret door opens and Ada appears. She leads them into the hidden spell chamber from her tea drinking scene, nbd. There are apparently more rooms in the bunker, and I look forward to discovering them to further the plot! They find the papers she wrote under the influence of tea. Ada tells them it’s automatic writing - she did it to tap into the latent memories of the demon who possessed her. 

They think that the demon who possessed Ada knew who was after the box, and about Samuel and the Akrida. They can do it! They can track the demon and Samuel down with Ada’s purloined knowledge! Carlos interrupts. GUYS. THE PIZZA IS GETTING COLD. 

For Scooby Snack Time Science:

They head back for pizza while “Teach your children well” plays us out. Or, almost out. While the Scooby Gang bonds, Millie smiles over a sprig of Henry’s jasmine and a photo of herself and John. In the woods where the gang hunted La Tunda, a cloaked figure stalks, sucking up red magic and accompanied by a host of unearthly, scuttling creatures. YES! 

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It’s the Dawning of the Age of Aquotious:

I’m following in my father’s footsteps

You’re built for a band, Lata. I’m not

A commune, you say? 

We found her wandering in a daze, and not the fun drug-induced kind

A child’s job is to rebel

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[shirtlesssammy]

The Winchesters 1x03: You’re Lost Little Girl

Lawrence, Kansas

Big Rig Mama and Twinkle Star have a heart to heart over the CB radio about lost toys and being brave while parents are away. After signing off Twinkle Star Carrie finds a mysterious bag on her bedroom floor, and her favorite toy inside! Mystery solved. Let’s pack this episode up for the night! 

Oh wait, the CREEPY FUCKING HANDS crawling out of the bag on the floor are telling me a different story! 

“There’s no map to being a hunter. No playbook. You gotta follow your gut. But that can only take you so far. Truth is you can’t do it all on your own. You need other people to help guide the way. Your friends, your family, otherwise you’ll just end up lost.”

Mary Campbell’s MOTHER is now missing. This girl has officially run out of parents to lose. Also, the Parents’ Campbell are separated. Well, they must get back together before they’re both killed in a year. Fun times. 

Mary is also still bummed they have no lead on her missing father. John gives her a little pep talk. And Mary confesses that the last time they talked they had a huge fight about her quitting hunting. Mary feels like she’s getting the silent treatment. Lata suggests that maybe he’s proving to her that he can do this without her. Then she suggests Mary and John go see a movie *wink, wink*. 

Team Prequel checks in with Ada and her trance doodles. She informs them that the demons want the demon killing box. And it is still not working. They need to find the demon that attacked them. Ada has an address. 

They’re interrupted by Carlos who has come to tell Mary cops are swarming her neighbor's house. Mary and John head out together to check it out. Ada and Carlos head out to check out the address. Lata is their Bobby and is going to hang out with the lore. 

Once at Mary’s house, John runs into an old friend, Betty. They hug and Mary’s side-eye is killer. (She’s always been one to figure out the meaning behind a hug *coughseason12cough*)

Then Betty tells Mary that Ford is here and she’s supposed to watch after him. Carrie is missing. 

John and Betty reconnect (well, John lies about joining a study group for the community college he isn’t in, and Betty is just happy he made it home alive.) 

Meanwhile, Ford tells Mary that he saw the monster that took Carrie. He saw the bag and what grabbed her disappear into nothing. 

John and Mary head to Carrie’s room to investigate. They banter a bit before John hits on a mighty important detail: Who is Mary Campbell? What does she want to do if she’s not a hunter? What did she dream about being as a kid? Mary dismisses it all because she didn’t have a normal childhood and hunting was her only option. Then they find a piece of the sack. 

Meanwhile, inside the bag, the delightfully creepy monster stalks children’s toys but can’t find one well hidden Carrie. 

*Exposition for the newbies Alert*

Ford’s chilling at Casa Campbell while Mary tells John about hex bags and protection. Ford asks John about “that lady cop”. John stumbles but redirects to making sure Ford is safe. Ford gets angry (at himself) because he was in charge. He was supposed to watch out for his little sister. Lolololol, Love me some parallels, show. Mary breaks the cardinal rule of hunting and tells Ford about their little monster club.

Ada and Carlos are busy staking out the address, while pirate DJ Rockin’ Roxy entertains them on the radio. Carlos wants to bust open the place but the demon finds them first! Carlos shoots him with his holy water gun (and why is it so funny?!) and then tosses him into the back of the demon trapped van. 

Carlos thinks they should tell the others what they have but Ada wants to talk to him alone first.

Mary and John check in with Lata, who has identified the writing on the scrap of bag. It’s North Indian and over 1,000 years old. They’re dealing with Bori Baba, or Father Sack. Bori Baba lures people with well-loved missing items. Mary thinks there’s a connection to their latest cases to the Akrida. John reminds her they still need to find the kids. Lata doesn’t have too much more to go on, as Bori Baba was mainly an oral story passed down through the generations. Her father told her the story when she was young. John tells her to contact her parents. Mary tells John Lata’s parents died years ago. Awkward. More absent parents!

Ford hears a knock at the door and ANSWERS IT!?? Kid! Anyway, there’s a bag! SURPRISE! And the promise of finding his sister. Cue creepy hands dragging him into the bag! 

Mary and John come back to an empty house. There’s a knock at the door and it’s Betty! I just have to say that John lying about the study group reminded me of Sam sooooo much. Awkward, dumb moose. Betty reminds John that they promised to talk when he got home. He tells her that some things about his dad came up but there’s no hard feelings on his end. Mary, meanwhile, finds the open door and a bit of sack left behind.

After Betty leaves, John hears Mary’s voice coming out of the CB radio in her house. Mary’s over at Ford’s house, and reports that the boy disappeared, taken by Bori Baba. She’s planning to get herself trapped by Bori Baba so she can save the kids. As John races over to stop Mary, she pictures her missing dad and pulls out his hat. Foreboding hands shadow her face and– John arrives to find nothing but a wriggling bit of sack cloth on the floor.

Cut to Bori Baba’s lair, where we open up on a Dean Winchester set design easter egg. (Yes, he IS my lost thing! This looks like Dean wearing a colander like a helmet, though some have proposed it’s a lamp.)

The blanket fort is crammed full of missing objects and blankets. Mary settles her dad’s hat on her head - SO INDIANA JONES - and heads off to save the day. 

Back with Ada and Carlos, the demon seethes and taunts Ada for attempting to be a witch. She ignores him and carefully marks her bonsai tree. We learn that demons can possess non-human living things, like plants. (This firmly cements me as a whale and dinosaur!Cas truther.) 

The demon panics, and talks. The box is too small, too insignificant to make a dent in the Akrida threat. However, the demon still made a deal with the Akrida to purloin the box for them. And the leader is hiding inside a human. Instead of sending the demon back to Hell where it can hobnob with others, Ada finishes her spell and sucks the demon right into…….the bonsai tree. I’ll be honest, I thought she was bluffing but I am utterly DELIGHTED to get new lore. For your homework, class, I want at least twenty fanfics of demon-possessed ancient trees on my desk by the end of the week. 

Back with the A plot, John paces while Lata researches Bori Baba. She has to talk him out of hurling himself into the sack as well. “I can’t lose her,” he says VERY INTENTLY. It’s sweet but also, you know, dial it down a notch, loverboy. You and Mary are still newly acquainted. Lata thinks of one other person back home that she hasn’t tried, implying some serious burned bridges - but she’ll try if it means they can save Mary Campbell and, er, the kids.

Back in Bori Baba’s lair, the two children have found each other and are on the run, pursued through his maze. Bori Baba corners them, but (in a seriously great shot) Mary slices him apart, piece by piece. He falls, to reveal Mary with a machete, her dad’s hat, and a give ‘em hell attitude!

Mary connects with the kids (“Monster club sucks.” “Tell me about it.”). They flee as Bori Baba re-forms. 

Lata makes her phone call, and we learn that her mom is NOT dead. But Lata and her mother are definitely estranged. She tells John that Bori Baba can be destroyed by burning all the sack remnants the monster leaves behind. However, first they have to free Mary and the kids, or they all go up in smoke. The good news is that everyone trapped in the sack is pinned inside by their attachment to the item they lost. If they give it up, they’ll poof back into the real world. John decides to try to use a CB radio to contact Mary, deciding that if Bori Baba had been collecting stuff for centuries, there may very well be one in his lair. 

John starts calling for Mary via radio. Down below, Mary hears John’s voice. She and the kids follow it to a storage bin with a metal door, and she closes them inside to talk to John. He tells them to willingly let go of their objects to escape. Mary turns around, prepared to cajole Carrie into letting go of her stuffed rabbit. But Carrie ruthlessly rips her bunny in two, declaring, “it’s time to go home!”

Ford snaps his sister’s charm in half, and both the kids zap back into the bedroom. Mary pulls out a lighter and her dad’s hat, but it won’t burn. Bori Baba finds his way to her hideaway and tries to claw his way to her under the door. On the radio, John tries to talk Mary through a quick therapy session about her dad’s hat. He realizes that she’s hung up on what life might look like after hunting. 

“Hunting is all I have. I’m not like you, John,” she realizes. “I never dreamed I could do anything else. I was raised to hunt, and if I give up hunting I don’t know who I am.” I take a tiny break from this recap to angrily hurl myself out a lighthouse window to the churning sea below. When I get back, dripping wet and worse for wear, Mary and John bond further. John tells her that letting the hat burn is a way to take her first step towards figuring out a new life post-hunting. As Bori Baba finds its way inside, Mary learns how to make the hat burn. 

Back in Carrie’s bedroom, Monster Club celebrates. They’re reunited! The story’s over! Except…Bori Baba emerges while they’re celebrating. 

Lata gives the monster an angry shove, and John beheads the monster swiftly. Okay, NOW it’s time to celebrate. The childrens’ mom returns home with a tearful reunion. John looks on alongside Betty, and feeds her a story about Carrie wandering off to look for a stuffed bunny. 

Betty pulls out something John’s been missing - it’s an ENGAGEMENT RING. We learn that Betty was the one who put their relationship on hold. “We were too young. I was moving too fast,” John confesses. I compare this to John’s declarations to Lata about desperately needing Mary to continue his new life’s work, and I shake my head. John “Fast Moves but Not in a Good Way” Winchester promises to always be friends with Betty. 

Mary stumbles her way towards thanking John for his help, but he tosses the accolades back at her. She tells John that she plans to take the night off from searching for her dad. I assume that it’s John and Mary’s first date time…but instead Mary ends up going to the theater alone.

She meets a young man there, and flirting is exchanged. They decide to watch The Omega Man together, but not TOGETHER together. (Or DO they?)

Back in the clubhouse, John and Lata decompress, when Carlos and Ada finally return. They tell them about the new Akrida intell. In the background, Rockin’ Roxy slips her smooth song introductions across the airwaves. She promises all manner of hell-raisers heading for Lawrence. While Percy Sledge’s “Spooky” plays, John starts to burn Bori Baba’s sack. He walks away for a moment (no, John, BAD), when the little scorpion monster from the previous episode scuttles in to steal the sack. The scorpion heads to an old warehouse where a redhead waits for it. She opens a flask over Bori Baba’s bag, and another red spark flows up into her vial.

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Playing Over the Quotewaves:

What did Mary Campbell want to be when she grew up? Doctor? Lawyer? Astronaut?

The first rule: monster club is a secret

You found me once, John Winchester. I have faith that you’ll do it again

Demons can possess non-human living things too. Even bonsai trees

You are a deep mystery, Ada Monroe, and honestly? I kinda dig that about you

None of this works without Mary. I need her. 

Monster club sucks!

Happy endings aren’t always a part of the job, you know?

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