Last week, Dean emerged from the Purgatory, a year after boning Dick, looking all happy and relaxed, like a kid emerging from a free-for-all candy store. As AE reader Angel pointed out, Purgatory has been good for Dean, all pornworthy forearms and… oh, the tan! How did you guys miss his tan?! Then, there’s Benny, the vampire, who he dragged out. But there is bound to be bloodshed because he left Cas behind.
Meanwhile, Sam’s hair grew exponentially, he got a dog… and a Vet. I think there’s something strange cooking there, but I’ll save it for next week when she comes on.
And finally, Kevin, the nerdy Asian kid, turned hot Prophet of the Lord, proved his genius and escaped Crowley, but got his girlfriend killed in the process. Also, there’s a second Word of God which gives directions on how to banish all demons off the face of the Earth.
Kevin’s mom, the awesome Ms. Tran
We open with a very old man walking into a safe deposit vault, somewhere in Chicago, IL. He retrieves his deposit, a very old box containing a strange glowing bone, and kills the manager.
Meanwhile, Kevin and Sam goad and bully Dean into visiting Kevin’s mom, in Neighbor, MI, even though it’s in the opposite direction from where Kevin’s hidden the tablet is located.
After ganking the possessed bodyguards - the gardener, the mailman and the neighbor (ah, the irony!), with Sam showcasing his Reverse Exorcism skills – something tells me he was not as idle in the past year as he claims to be – they lay it all out on her, and she agrees to let Kevin accompany them, provided she does too.
Dean agrees to it, provided she gets herself inked with anti-possession tattoo. Same goes for Kevin.
Momma Tran readily agrees. “What? Like it’s my first tattoo?” she deadpans, leaving a very shocked Kevin and a very amused Dean in the wake.
Next stop, Laramie, Wyoming, where Kevin has hidden the tablet in a locker at the bus depot. The hunters open the super-secret locker to find the Tablet missing.
Turns out the lockers were broken into by a disgruntled ex-deputy who wanted to prove just how competent his replacement was. The man is currently in a holding cell at the local county.
Fed Dean waits back patiently while Fed Sam the Longhaired questions the culprit and tries to work out some deal to retrieve the stolen goods. But as the demands increase, Dean’s mind wonders back to his time in the Purg, where he and Benny are questioning Derek… er, I meant a werewolf… about the angel.
The two scenes amazingly intercut, draw parallels of Dean’s renewed interrogation techniques. Badass Dean is back, bitches! Take that, season 6 and 7.
The teenwolf directs them to a stream about 3 days away, where the Angel can be found. Dean believes him, but still happily impales the mutt’s head with his knife.
And I’m almost sure it had nothing to do with losing that Ultimate Slash Tourney, a few weeks ago.
In present time, Dean casually whips off his tie, wraps it around the culprit’s neck, and putting a knife to his throat, questions him again, cold and distant, oblivious to Sam’s panic behind him. The man directs them to a local pawn shop. Dean lets the man live.
The owner of the pawn shop, and a very sexy Red Ferrari, refuses to disclose what happened to stolen goods. With even Dean’s threats coming up short, Kevin’s extraordinarily awesome mom gets the info by threatening to send him the Al Capone way.
Federal inquiry for tax invasion, based on the fact that the Ferrari was illegally imported. And seriously, she got that just by glancing, once, at his expired tags.
Willy Wonka
The pawn shop guy directs them to a motel, where the group is accosted by Willy Wonka, the right hand of Ploutus, the God of Greed. He was the one who bought the Tablet for his liege, who plans to auction it, along with a few other equally unique items.
He invites Kevin to the auction, along with his ensemble, to a place he claims is warded against everyone and everything except the invitees. Black tie, optional.
Which leads to another problem. They have nothing to bid with. Sam eyes the Impala (fuck you, Sammy), but Dean quells it with, “Say it and I’ll kill you and your children. And your grandchildren.”
So Sam, who should be more worried about Dean chopping off his hair mid-sleep, comes with a new plan. Kevin can memorize the spell when the auctioneers showcase the goods to the audience (or is it participants?)
Only the plan “B” fails, when the auctioneers keep the spells covered to prevent exactly this from happening.
Another shock is that Crowley, who can’t resist a good bargain, is also present for the auction. And we get the second “Hello, Boys” of the season, followed by Dean’s long drawn “Crowleah.”
And then, the best thing of the night happens. Crowley sidles up to Kevin’s mom and tries to patronize her, and she delivers a perfect right hook and “Stay away from my son” warning.
What did I tell you? Extraordinarily. Awesome. Mom.
Samandreal or Alfie, “a rose by any other name smells just as sweet”
Ploutus, who looks like a mob boss off the Jersey Shore, invites the participants, which also includes the old guy from the very first scene, to come into the auctioning area. As the showroom clears out, Dean is cornered by an angel, Samandreal (vessel name, Alfie), a cute-button of a guy who inquires about Castiel.
Dean informs him that they were transported to Purgatory while trying to banish the Leviathans and he managed to make it out. But he remains tight-lipped about Castiel.
“You know,” the angel comments, “some of us in Heaven believed that in spite of his mistakes, Castiel’s heart was in the right place.”
“Are you one of them?” Dean asks dryly.
“I think too much heart was always Castiel’s problem,” he replies walking away, leaving Dean to wallow in another Purg flashback.
The Destiel shippers are no doubt drumming up ways to destroy Alfie as we speak.
Back in the Purg, Benny and Dean find a very dirty, very scared and very alone Castiel crouching by the aforementioned stream.
And if the hug Dean and Cas share is anything to go by, we will definitely bank the Slash Tourney next year. Also “Nice face fuzz!” Aww, Dean likes ‘em hairy. Who knew?
Dean introduces Cas to Benny, his other boyfriend… em… er… partner – a very business partner – and there’s certainly no love lost between the two.
Then the profound bond stretches taut and tears the hearts throughout the fandom when Cas acknowledges that yes, he did in fact run away from Dean the second they entered Purg. And yes, it was completely intentional. He wanted to leave Dean alone, because the Leviathans still have a price on his head and it could get even more dangerous for Dean now that they are behind the enemy lines.
“I have been trying to stay one step ahead of them, to… to keep them away from you.” (I need a minute to compose myself) And now he wants Dean to leave him alone. But Dean is having none of it.
Both Benny and Cas try to explain that while Dean may be able to pass through the barrier because he’s a human, Cas being a supernatural entity may not.
“We’ll figure it out. Buddy, I need you,” Dean says and there’s that heart-wrenching eyebrow scrunch that has the fandom crying and flailing and falling all over itself with “feels”.
“And if those Leviathans wanna take a shot at us, let ‘em,” he adds, “But I’m not leaving here without you. Understand?” Cas nods and smiles shyly, “Understand”.
And there’s rainbows and unicorns and candies raining down from the sky...
Back in the present, a very alone Dean joins the group for the auction. Crowley takes a seat beside Samandreal and behind "Samantha".
The auction more or less goes smoothly with prices ranging from 3 tons of gold to “finger bone of a Frost Giant and 5/8ths of a Virgin (bank manager)” which the old man, from the first scene, trades to buy Thor’s Hammer.
With plan “B”, actually bidding for the tablet, failing because they have all of “2 credits cards, $ 2000 and a Costco membership card” between them, Dean tries to sneak into the store room to steal it. But it's heavily guarded. There goes, plan “C”. Crowley suggests they try plan “D. For Dumbass”.
But it all comes to a head when the bidding for the “Word of God” begins. Crowley opens with $ 3 bil., and Alfie ups it with Mona Lisa. Crowley counters with the real Mona Lisa, topless (earning an impressed frown from Dean), and Alfie offers up the Vatican City.
Finally, Crowley offers the Moon (apparently “Buzz” had made a deal to go into space) which he was planning to reserve for Hell, when Willy Wonka decides that the prices they are offering are way too low. So he raises the stakes by adding Kevin to the lot, because he’s the only one who can read it.
That’s when Extraordinarily Awesome Mom (E.A.M.) takes the matters into her own hands, offering up her soul. Crowley starts to offer all the souls of Hell, but since “it’s not the price, but the sacrifice that matters” (there is a moral here, I suspect) the lot is sold to her. Of course Crowley is pissed and walks off.
Samandreal approaches her to send Kevin and the tablet with them, but E.A.M. refuses saying that the last time angels tried to protect them, they got their asses handed backwards to them by the Levis and Kevin went missing for a year. So, she’s gonna take a chance and trust the Winchesters this time.
The trade starts going pretty smoothly, until Dean realizes that the anti-possession tattoo on her arm is burned off. It’s not E.A.M anymore, it’s Crowley!
Apparently, Willy Wonka was bribed with a private Island and he pitches a stake through Ploutus’ heart.
The fem!Crowley starts walking away with E.A.M meatsuit and the Tablet, with Dean in hot pursuit.
Meanwhile, Sam is ambushed by Willy Wonka and his gun. He jumps behind a chest, already hiding the old Hammer guy. Sam snatches the Hammer and “Hulk smashs” Willy Wonka.
Wait! Is he trying to audition for the next Avengers movie? Coz that would pretty much explain the hair.
Anyways, the old man asks for his hammer back, but Sam wants to know where he got the “5/8ths of a Virgin” from. When he gets no answer, he Hulk-smashes the guy.
Okay, so I’m confused here. First, he says that he doesn’t care what happens to the innocents, because it’s not his responsibility all the time. Now, he cares about one little itty-bitty virgin enough to kill her murderer? Something (years and years of Soap Opera intuition) tells me that there’s much more to his side of the past year, than “I hit a dog and got a girlfriend”.
Also, I hope he keeps the hammer, a la Dean’s demon-killing knife. Because it does suit him and he can definitely swing it.
Dean catches up with Crowley and tries to “Columbian Necktie” the meatsuit. But Kevin distracts him long enough for Crowley to pull out and get back into his own clothes.
He takes the Tablet and makes away with it, but not before giving a parting advice to Kevin. “Run. Because the Winchesters have a habit of using people up and watching them die. Bloody.”
Kevin, Sam and Dean discuss E.A.M’s condition. Apparently, Crowley’s possession sent her into the same catatonic state that Sam fell into, after Castiel destroyed his Hell-Wall. She may or may not recover. Kevin claims he wants to be alone with her for a few minutes, and the brothers leave them alone.
Confession time. Dean admits to Sam, that he would have killed E.A.M, if it meant Crowley’s end. “It would’ve sucked, I would’ve hated myself. But what’s one more nightmare, right?” Sam, thankfully, keeps his thoughts to himself.
Sam and Dean come back to find Kevin and his mom gone. But there’s note saying that since Crowley has the tablet and Kevin’s not needed any more, he and his mom are bolting. Along with it, are explicit orders to not follow them. Yeah, right! Because following orders is the Winchester way.
“What’s he thinking?” Sam panics.
“That people I don’t need end up dead,” Dean deadpans.
“That’s... that not true, you know that,” Sam assures him, but Dean remembers Castiel, in the Purg flashback, trying his damnest to grab onto his hand.
But he either slips, or Dean lets go (no way in Hell, that happened), and somehow Cas is left behind.
The last thing he hears is Cas shouting his name for the last time.
Phew! That was an intense episode, especially the Purgatory flashbacks. If this is how they are gonna deliver this season, I’m praying for the strength to keep recapping because I need at least 10 hours to compose myself enough to write. What do you think?
Tell us in the comments!
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Finally, there’s something I’d like to get off my chest. I noticed a couple of Wincest vs Destiel forums here since Destiel made it to the finals in the Slash Tourney. And while, I personally am a Destiel shipper, I have nothing but love and respect for all the actors and characters (Sam's hair notwithstanding) of the show and their fans and fandoms. And I hope my readers do too.
If you think I’m doing too much Destiel, take it with a pinch of salt and join in the fun. A little bashing and disagreements here and there are fine, but please don’t start Shipper Wars. I’m sure the Mods will agree with me on this.
