#the third drawing isn’t a reference to anything I just wanted to draw Crowley Sam in one of his outfits by memory

[artfartt]

[shirtlesssammy]

8x23: Sacrifice

Welcome back to what might be our longest (and last) hellatus. This was a request that we were going to do after the series ended, but here we are. Enjoy!

Then:

Dean Winchester loves needs one (1) angel.

Now:

Jody Mills is on the Bumble date from Hell with “Roderick”. And by that, I mean she’s trying to put herself back out there after grieving the loss of her husband and son --and Roderick is really Crowley. 

Jody heads to the bathroom to pull herself together and Crowley starts his spellwork to threaten the Winchesters --again. Jody starts puking blood in the bathroom while Dean tries throwing his weight around negotiating the trials and demon/angel tablets. They make a deal, so YAY.

Kevin retrieves the demon tablet for the brothers. Dean gives him the key to the bunker. 

Cas, meanwhile, is chilling with his new friend, Metatron. He asks about God. Metatron describes God as “larger than life, gruff, bit of a sexist. But fair --eminently fair.” Hm, Metatron always did like to spin those stories. They’re outside a bar waiting for signs of the next angel trial --retrieving cupid’s bow. 

The brothers head to Sioux Falls to Bobby’s (probably theirs now?) salvage yard. Crowley is there waiting for them and ready to exchange tablets. He’s got a contract for them to sign --well, Sam to sign since he’s doing the trials. Dean demands to read the fine print before Sam signs anything. Sam unleashes his inner Veruca Salt and grabs the pen to sign. The brothers are not on the same page about this it seems. 

In Heaven, Naomi learns where Cas is --and that he’s with Metatron. 

Dean continues to read the contract and Crowley continues to needle him about how his humanity is a handicap. It’s revealed to all be just a ruse to distract Crowley when Dean throws some demon binding handcuffs on him. They tell Crowley that making him mortal is the third trial. 

Cas tries to speed up the love train for the bartender but fails awkwardly.

For Who Gives a Fuck if He’s Awkward Science:

Naomi and her squad show up. They take Metatron, leaving Cas alone. 

The brothers head to the church where the final trial will happen. They tie Crowley up and go over the game plan. Sam will inject purified blood into Crowley once an hour for eight hours. He’s going to have to confess to God to purify his blood and isn’t sure where to begin. Dean has some ideas, and, like, No ? He lists Ruby, Lilith, losing his soul, not looking for Dean in Purgatory ---and Chuck really would like a clip show of his favorite torture moments I’m sure, but support your brother a little, hmmm?

Anyway, while Sam heads to confession, Cas flaps in to ask Dean for help (like, is this the last time he flaps in to see Dean? I...really miss his wings.) He tells Dean that Naomi took Metatron, and explains that they were working on the angel trials --and planning on shutting Heaven and Hell down. 

Naomi wants answers from Metatron, and she pulls out a hand drill to extract them from him. 

Dean tells Cas that Sam needs his help more than Cas does. Sam pops up and tells Dean to go with Cas. Dean agrees and they fly off together while Sam starts the final trial.

Cas and Dean head to the bunker to have Kevin translate the angel tablet. There’s one problem: Kevin has never laid eyes on the thing before. He’s also done with all the prophet stuff. Cas, not done with all the angel badass stuff, begs to differ.

Sam continues to look SUPER rough. He’s doing so poorly, in fact, that Crowley gets the drop on him despite being tied to a chair. Crowley chomps a hole in Sam’s arm so that he can make a bloody phone call to any demon in range as soon as Sam steps away. GROSS

Dean and Cas get shot at by cupid’s arrow as a bow hunting demo airs on the bar’s TVs. Er, they wait for the cupid to arrive while continuing to strike out in the bar. Er, they wait for the cupid to arrive.

*Fourth Wall Dialogue Alert*

Cas: “You really think it’s wise to be drinking on the job?”

Dean: “What show’ve you been watching?”

Dean asks Cas about his plan to board up Heaven. He expresses worry that Cas is going to meet a bloody end locked away with the other angels. “So this is it,” Dean says fatalistically. “ET goes home.” He lingers on something unsaid, before a delivery worker arrives and distracts them. (“Nooooo,” I cry. “What were you going to say?”) The delivery lady is super cute. At last the love interest arrives! Is Ed finally going to meet his constant companion?! She bestows a glowing smile on Ed and Rod, the regular patron seated at the bar. Patting them both on the shoulder, she bids them farewell. Astonished, Dean watches the woman just…leave. 

Meanwhile, Ed and Rod mutually admire the drawing of a hunting bow on the TV. They lock eyes. Music swells! It’s love! While Dean stares gormlessly at the two lovebirds, Cas is already two steps ahead and on his way to track down the delivery driver - their cupid. 

Crowley sings Bowie to Sam as the floor cracks and ground shakes. Abaddon enters in all her stitched up glory. 

For Yes Please Science:

Sam gets hurled through a window, but Abaddon….isn’t exactly aiming to help out the current King of Hell. She wallops Crowley instead, intending to claim the throne for herself. Sam races back in, douses Abaddon in fire, and sends her smoky demon form into the night. 

Dean and Cas corner the cupid outside of the bar. Cas demands her bow, blade sliding from his sleeve. In what could be a first for him, Dean counsels, “Talk first, stab later.” MADE FOR EACH OTHER!

The cupid tells Cas that she’s avoided Heaven as its leadership has fallen. She offers the bow freely and Cas raises his blade to cut it from her palm. YIKES

In Heaven, Metatron confronts Naomi with a bloodied eye. (We clutch our blankets to our chests and think of Cas’s “re-programming” with renewed horror.) Metatron reflects that losing God was the worst thing he endured, and then he was run out of Heaven by the upper echelons of Heaven. “Did you really think you could do all of that to me and there would be no payback?” he asks. 

In Hell Quest Central, Sam sets Crowley upright again now that Abaddon has fled the building. He repaints the devil’s trap and continues the trials. Crowley drops movie reference after movie reference and I can’t help but point out that he’s targeting the WRONG WINCHESTER with those overtures. “I deserve to be loved!” Crowley declares at last, and emotion crests over him, taking both Sam and Crowley by surprise. As the cure continues, things get quiet. Crowley asks Sam how he asked for forgiveness because he doesn’t even know where to start with his own soul. 

Kevin can’t find the Heaven trials anywhere in the tablet and while Dean’s arguing with him, Naomi flaps in to talk to Cas. 

Naomi insists that Metatron is playing Cas, lying to him so he can get help enacting his revenge. “This is what you do,” Cas growls. “You twist things.” VALID mistrust! Naomi tells them that Metatron’s plan is to expel all angels from Heaven.

“Our mission was to protect what God created,” Naomi says with tears in her eyes. “I don’t know where we forgot that.” She offers up an overture, telling Dean that if Sam finishes the trials then he will die. Naomi picked that knowledge directly from Metatron’s head. 

After Naomi flaps away, Dean orders Kevin to find out if it’s true that Sam will die. Cas flies Dean to Sam, then flaps away to finish what he started. Just as Sam is about to do the final rite, Dean races into the church and shouts for him to stop.

In Naomi’s office, Cas discovers her sprawled out (mostly) dead on the desk, her probe jabbed into her brain. Metatron confronts Cas with an angel blade to his throat. Naomi was telling the truth! That rumpled eccentric is out for revenge!

Meanwhile, Dean explains to an actual, GLOWING Sam that he’ll die if he completes the trials. “So?” Sam asks. SAM BBY.

Upstairs, Cas is strapped to Naomi’s torture chair while Metatron placates him. 

He cuts a slit in Cas’s throat to extract his grace, and counsels him to go back to Earth and settle down for the rest of his life. Metatron tells Cas that he didn’t endure trials. Instead, he helped Metatron to gather ingredients for a powerful spell. He gathers Cas’s grace to finish the spell and just before he zaps Cas on a one way trip to Earth, he tells him to come see him when he’s dead so he can hear his story. 

Sam argues with Dean about the trials. He insists that Dean absolutely CAN fight the forces of evil on his own. Sam tells him that he’s been a lodestone around Dean’s neck for a long time. His greatest sin was “how many times I let you down.” OH SAMMY! 

“I know we’ve had our disagreements,” Dean argues, “I killed Benny to save you. I’m willing to let this bastard and all the sons of bitches who killed mom walk because of you, so don’t you dare think that there is anything past or present that I would put in front of you.” 

Sam listens to this and finally gasps, “How do I stop?” Dean wraps a handkerchief around Sam’s hand and tells him to let go of the spell. Sam stops glowing…which is great! Except he collapses in agony which is…less great. Dean calls for Cas desperately. 

Cas wakes in a field and strides out to a lakeshore. 

Sirens clang in the bunker, locking Kevin inside. And outside…stars fall. The angels are being expelled from Heaven, their wings burning as they plummet to the Earth. 

We’re just going to end this recap with a bunch of gifs, ‘kay? 

Waiting for a Quote to Fall:

It’s not a date until I’ve cried

This is a secret lair. You understand me? No keggers

Would you say that you're looking for, uh, a partner in crime? Or someone who's into nurse role-play and light domination?

There is no out. Only duty

Do you really think it's wise to be drinking on the job?

Talk first, stab later

Want to read more? Check out our Recap Archive! 

[bibliophileiz]

An ultra-long rant about last night’s episode of Supernatural

So because I’m a masochist, I watched last night’s episode of Supernatural for a second time to figure out all the things wrong with it (and there are many – I picked up even more on the rewatch).

Many people are obviously – vocally – upset about the death in the cold open, and there are a lot of reasons that death is terrible. But it’s not just the death – almost everything in this episode is as poorly done as it could be and most of that is because of lazy writing. Literally everything plot-wise that happens relies on characters being stupid.

Spoilers under the cut.

RIP Eileen

First off, Eileen’s death is more brutal the second time around, despite the fact that it looks shitty. Now one of the things I looked for are weird directing decisions because something I noticed last night was that the episode not only is bad in general but it both begins and ends with the worst shots of the season.

Yeah, Eileen’s death looks fake.

At first I thought that was because the show probably can’t afford to make hellhound deaths look good unless it’s season 3 and it’s Dean Winchester dying and they’re willing to give their hero the benefit of their budget. But we literally had a very nicely done hellhound mauling of an unknown character only a handful of episodes ago, so that can’t be the case. Special effects team, wtf?

So we not only use the cold open to kill off a well-liked female character, the only disabled character the show has given us and who it was hinted multiple times could possibly have a romantic relationship with the hero in the future, but we make the death look shitty.

It’s probably not fair to compare Eileen’s death to Bobby’s or even Charlie’s or Kevin’s – and Charlie’s and Kevin’s deaths were mistakes, but at least there was build-up to them and they didn’t look terrible – because she’d only been in two stand alone episodes, whereas Bobby, Kevin, and to a lesser extent Charlie were all integral parts of the show and the plot by the time they died. But it is not hard to make death on TV look realistic. Like I said, they did it to Gwen’s boyfriend not two months ago. Eileen’s death looked so bad that I literally thought it was dream at first.

And even aside from the fact that they killed off yet another minority female character – aside from the fact that she appears to have been reintroduced three episodes ago just to die in this one – it’s just. Terribly. Written.

Ketch has a hellhound kill her? Because … that’s easier than shooting her? Why does the hellhound listen to him? How does he know where it is? Where did he get the whistle? Where did he get the hellhound? From Crowley? Why the fuck would Crowley give him a hellhound?

(I’ll come back to Crowley.)

Eileen herself gets no say and no agency. Remember how in her first episode she and her surrogate grandma kicked banshee ass while Dean bashed his head against a wall and Sam cried like a baby? Good times.

It was hinted at in her last episode that she shanked Dagon’s demon henchman like a boss. I remember wishing we’d seen it on screen. Oh yeah – who wrote that episode??

I also remember thinking that once the Winchesters realized the BMOL were going after hunters that they’d frantically get in touch with Eileen like, “The British are coming!” and she’d be like, “Oh, hell no, because we Irish hunters don’t let the British Men of Letters in our country” because fuck yeah Ireland.

Instead, she leaves Ireland and randomly is killed in South Carolina. How’d she end up there when she wanted to bunk with her buddies in Kansas? Who knows, who cares, certainly not the writers.

Speaking of wanting to bunk with her buddies, the letter. Oh, the letter. I would be so much more pissed about the line “I hate to be all girly, but” if it wasn’t the only hint we get this episode that she has a personality.

And except for Sam’s manly jaw clench of pain, there isn’t really much emotional reaction from any of the characters that she’s dead. We don’t even get to hear Jody tell them about it, because why waste valuable screen time showing characters have realistic emotional depth when you could devote half the episode to Crowley acting like a sock puppet in a political satire?

Speaking of…

Crowley deserves better

So … Crowley devises this spell-and-tech combo to keep Lucifer magically trapped in his old vessel and physically forced to do Crowley’s bidding because their DNA is linked or something and yet … doesn’t think it’s problematic that the device can be reversed so that Lucifer can control him … instead?

Also, why is Crowley working with the BMOL? What is the point of that – other then The-Writers-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named apparently thinking he’s a second-rate villain in a Mel Brooks movie who exists to have a British accent, twirl an imaginary mustache and get his ass handed to him in the most slapstick way possible?

Luckily for Crowley, the only person in this episode stupider than him is Lucifer himself who decides to kill Crowley, but draw it so that Crowley has time to smoke out of his meatsuit and into a rat. Lucifer stabs Crowley’s (empty) meatsuit because having a puppet slave who is trusted by and knows everything about your most problematic opponents (Dean, Sam, Castiel, and Rowena) wouldn’t be useful or anything.

The British Men of Letters

But wait, there’s more! The British Men of Letters are equally stupid because they have potent brain-washing serum, but instead of using it on American hunters who they’ve spent all season complaining don’t obey, decide to kill them all in really stupid, pointless ways like siccing hellhounds on them, siccing half-brainwashed assassins on them, and walling them up in their own houses. 

The hellhound successfully kills Eileen, but plot contrivance is the only thing that keeps Ketch from getting ripped to shreds too – have we ever seen a hellhound obey someone who wasn’t a demon? Nameless-but-presumably-cool flannel wearing hunter killed by Mary only dies because his foot slips on a beer bottle at the right moment. And Ketch leaves Toni, Dean, and Sam to die slowly over two or three days from suffocation in their own home despite the fact that he is literally holding not one but TWO guns in his very own hands.

Third place in the stupid awards!

BMOL is only looking for the spawn of Satan – it’s not like eliminating an entire group of people while said spawn is running around with a badass angel of the lord is a waste of time or anything OR like killing all the people who’ve been looking for it all year is a waste of resources OR like using your angel-lore-ridden bunker as the stupidest way to kill someone anyway is another waste of resources. But if there’s anything BMOL and this particular writing duo have in common – other than a tendency to kill people – it’s wasting resources.

The competition between Toni and Ketch for head of the American Men of Letters would actually be cool if not for the following facts: one, that it’s in this episode and two, that it does not in any way match anything we’ve ever learned about Ketch’s character. Lines he delivers in this very episode suggest he does not want to be in charge. He derisively referred to Mick’s “ivory tower” a few episodes ago, and in this one he told Hess he wasn’t the administrative type. So it makes no sense for Ketch to be in competition with Toni – unless he just doesn’t want to take orders from her. That could be it, but the plot still doesn’t really work because Mary apparently sides with him because brain serum even though it was Toni who administered the brain serum. Why would Toni, knowing she’s in competition with Ketch and that he’s a ruthless psychopathic killer, not anticipate Ketch using Mary, who he’s already got a connection to, to kill her?

I refuse to get my hopes up about Toni

I actually love Toni as a villain. She’s sleek and glam and sophisticated and just vulnerable enough to be human (and while most people would credit her son for that, I give all the credit to her lady butler who makes sure to pack Toni’s gun for her). I am hardcore pro her becoming the Big Bad of next season because she would make a much better one than Lucifer-and-nephilim combo. But if the great Rob Thomas can’t even write a good female villain (and my rants on the deaths of Kendall from Veronica Mars and Rita from iZombie are almost as long as this one), then I sure as hell don’t trust Supernatural to do it successfully. I’m sure Toni will die before the end of the season, probably stabbed or shot by a white guy.

At least her death will look realistic.