caranfindel

The "Then" reminds us about Jimmy Novak (and reminds me how much I loved Misha as Jimmy) and Bad Girl Claire, and that Dean is in trouble, and that Sam is going to find a cure and deal with the consequences later (and ooooh, I like that they're reminding us of this, I like it very much).

We open with Jimmy Novak coming home and greeting his wife, one of the many Amelias on this show, and oh, there's one more Amelia to add to the mix, because this one's played by a different actress (and I don't really like her). We know this isn't real because Jimmy's dead, but for those of you who might have forgotten, you'll figure it out when Amelia's arm starts bleeding black goo, and then we see this is just a dream, and someone is taking some glowing blue smoke out of the real Amelia. Soul or grace?

Then Bad Girl Claire, who has gotten rid of her rather silly partial cornrow hairdo from earlier this season, heads into a bar to find someone who her mother was planning to meet with on her journey to "find herself." Claire tells the bartender that her birthday is tomorrow, and I guess she's being truthful, because it keeps coming up. Oh, Claire. Don't expect anything good to happen on your birthday. I mean, it might not be Sam Winchester bad, but it's still not gonna be good. The guy she's looking for - Ronnie - claims he doesn't know Amelia but Claire catches him in a lie, so he leaves her unconscious in the alley. But he calls 911 because he's a good guy.

It turns out she's in Tulsa, as Team Free Will shows up at the hospital, and isn't this the third time we've been in Tulsa this season? Last week Dean took out the nest of vampires there, and the first time we saw Rowena was in Tulsa. Note to self: avoid Tulsa. Or, um, go there immediately. :-D

Is Dean wearing a black shirt and a black jacket? Dude, things are getting dark. But I'm sure it doesn't mean anything.

Cas thinks Sam and Dean can "speak her language," since they were also troubled teens. She reveals that she was looking for her mom, so she can tell her how she ruined her life. And this Amelia storyline has bugged me since Claire first showed up and said her mother left to "find herself." As I said in that review, Amelia seemed extremely protective of her daughter, and it makes no sense at all that she would have just left. The storyline would have been more realistic if she'd left because she became an addict or something. So I'm glad to see they fixed this by saying she was looking for "a miracle" - looking for Castiel, apparently thinking she could rescue Jimmy. Sam's adorable in this scene, by the way, as the one who does the most speaking of Claire's language.

Cas feels guilty, of course, and Sam pragmatically points out that even if it is his fault, there's nothing he can do about it. And I desperately hope they're hinting again that Sam's going to do something bad, badder than what he's already done, and he's gonna let the chips fall where they may. Speaking of bad, Dean's all "give me something to punch already," which earns concerned looks from Cas and Sam before he claims he's kidding. Sam and Cas know he's lying, and so do we.

While they're discussing this in the hall, Claire flees, so Sam goes to her hotel while Dean and Sam check out the bar. In the car, Dean asks Cas why he's even doing this. He's not Claire's father, he's not anything to her except "a constant reminder of what's gone." Um, Dean, have you forgotten? Family don't end in blood, son. I'm pretty sure you quoted Bobby this season. But Dean believes she's survived so far because "she doesn't have anybody to answer to; she doesn't have anybody holding her back. DEAN. WTF. DO NOT TALK ABOUT SAM THAT WAY. AND DON'T THINK FOR A MINUTE THAT WE DON'T KNOW IT'S SAM YOU'RE REALLY TALKING ABOUT. JUST STOP IT. Dean is transparent as fuck when he claims "she might be stronger on her own," but Cas just doesn't seem to catch it.

Question... in what way does Dean think Sam is holding him back at this point? Is it that he won't let Dean go dark, that he's trying to pull him back? Or is it that Dean can't let himself go dark because he's afraid of what it will do to Sam?

What Cas doesn't miss, once they get to the bar and find Ronnie, is that Dean is going off the deep end, pounding on Ronnie a lot harder than necessary. Ronnie reveals he recruited Amelia for a faith healer, one who had cured his own blindness, named Holloway. And that after he discovered Holloway cutting on his recruits, he stopped working with him. Unfortunately for Ronnie, Holloway meets him outside the bar and makes him blind again. Luckily, he's not going to have to deal with it for very long, since he also stabs him.

Meanwhile, Sam's waiting in the room when Claire gets back to the hotel, and he adorably points out that checking in under her own name is an amateur move. But he's impressed by her research, and then they have this conversation.

You came all this way just to tell her off?
You always get along with your mom?
Never got the chance to find out. My mom died when I was a baby.
I'm sorry, I didn't...
Oh no, it's okay. I got to know her later in life, and yeah, I suppose we got along okay.
What?
In this line of work, death isn't always goodbye.

First, "I got to know her later in life" made me laugh out loud. But now, I'm wondering what they're getting at. If this is a hint that someone's going to die - again - but it's not going to mean goodbye. Again. (And I'm absolutely okay with that.)

Claire says she couldn't get access to her mom's credit card information, and Sam - who is STILL adorable - shows her how to hack into her records, and also how to get a fake credit card. I just love the way he's tutoring her. When Dean and Cas arrive, Cas has a birthday present for Claire: a Grumpy Cat plush. And I'm sure the internet figured this out a long time ago, but oh my god, Cas IS Grumpy Cat.

(Yes, the internet is aware.)

He got it at the "Hot Topical," which is a funny shout-out to the teen-oriented store that carries so much Supernatural merchandise (why yes, the miniature Impala I picked up at Hot Topic IS sitting on my desk right, now that you mention it.)

Since Smart!Sam is keeping up on local police alerts, he learns Ronnie is dead. Dean claims he "didn't lay a hand on him," which Cas contradicts, and Sam and Cas give more worried looks. Dean wants to suit up and head to the bar, and Claire and Cas decide to go with him, but Sam stays behind to research Holloway. Before they leave, Cas tells Sam "Dean snapped. He's getting worse." Which is a bad thing, but also a good thing, because we get Sam's beautiful worried face.

Agents Clapton and Page (hee) arrive on scene, and Dean says Claire's with them because it's Bring Your Daughter to Work Day (hee again). Ronnie's stab wound is oddly shaped, like a triangle surrounded by three burn marks, and Cas says it's similar to the wound from an angel blade, but different. Claire calls this the "best birthday ever" and Claire, shut up, you whiny little thing. When you're murdered and your brother sells his soul to the devil on your birthday, then you can whine. When your brother is killed by hellhounds on your birthday, then you can whine. But right now, put your big girl pants on and deal with it.

Sam, who is awesome - have I mentioned that? - finds out Holloway owns a farmhouse nearby, and he cross-referenced it with Amelia's credit card charges to see that she'd been "hitting up Biggersons and Gas N Sips all around the area," and I find it hilarious that Amelia only shops at Supernatural-approved businesses. I guess she couldn't find a Castle Storage? But she was apparently staking Holloway out, so they decide they need to head for the farmhouse. Cas and Sam decide Dean can't be trusted to go, due to his violent beat-down on Ronnie, and Dean's not happy about it.

In the Impala, Cas and Sam have a conversation that's pretty much exactly the opposite of the Dean and Cas talk earlier. Cas asks if he should leave Claire alone and Sam insists he should not, because she's family. Or close enough. Here's their conversation:

You don't think she's better off on her own?
Cas, she just turned 18.
You were alone when you left for college at that age, weren't you?
Yeah, but that's different.
How?
Here's all I know. Going it alone, that's no way to live. You being there for her, even if she thinks she doesn't want you to be there for her, that's good for both of you.

OH SAM. In juxtaposition with Dean's "she's better off alone" speech, this is just heartbreaking. But again, it lets us know what Sam's going to do, and we likes it, my precious. Speaking of juxtaposition, we have some interesting intercutting between Cas/Sam and Dean/Claire throughout this part of the show.

So, Dean and Claire play miniature golf (and Dean admits to having played it in the past, so there's some canon for you) and I got Dean's Caddyshack quote immediately, because that's how old I am. Claire's Happy Gilmore quote went right by me, with a whooshing sound. Because I'm old. But when I die, I'll receive total consciousness.

Dean explains to Claire that Jimmy's sacrifice wasn't meaningless, that it allowed Cas to save the world, so Jimmy was a hero. Which is nice to hear, and Claire and I both appreciate it. And then, Claire dropping her putter in the last hole makes Dean think of burn marks surrounding the knife wound on Ronnie's body, and he realizes the marks came from the hilt of a sword. (How much do I love Smart!Dean? A lot.)

At the farmhouse, Cas heads for the barn while Sam checks out the house, while Dean and Claire determine Holloway is a grigori, a "watcher angel" variety that might help people or might prey on people. Cas finds Amelia, but as Sam's sneaking through the house, his phone goes off (LOUDEST VIBRATION EVER). And he takes it out of his pocket. (How annoyed am I when they make Sam do stupid things? A LOT. A WHOLE DAMN LOT.) So Holloway knocks him out and Sam ends up cuffed to a chair (what a surprise), but the writers redeem themselves by letting him work a nail out of the chair while Holloway monologues, so he'll be able to undo his cuffs.

Once Dean figures out what Holloway is, he takes off for the farmhouse. He surprises Claire by not only allowing her to come, but giving her a gun. It's funny that both Winchesters are, completely independent of each other, teaching Claire how to become a hunter.

Cas is unable to heal Amelia, but he tells her Jimmy is in Heaven and apologizes for not protecting her family as he had promised. Back in the farmhouse, Sam sasses the naughty angel and gets threatened with a sword, and we get to see him swallow a lot, and let's watch that again, shall we? Because Sam's throat just does things to me.

Dean and Claire show up at the barn, and Claire and Amelia are reunited. Dean and Cas leave them alone while they got to the farmhouse and who, who thought this was a good idea? Not anybody who's seen the show before. When they enter the house, Sam's chair is overturned, empty cuffs dangling from it, and for a second it looks like something bad might have happened, but Sam's actually searching the house. He says he looked everywhere for Holloway, but you didn't look in the barn, did you? Holloway shows up in the barn and Claire shoots him but of course it does nothing, and as he goes to stab her, Amelia throws herself in front of her and takes the bullet. Er, the angel sword. Bye bye, Amelia. Team Free Will shows up, there's a fight, we all know this is going to turn out, so let's move on. Oh, but Claire is the one who actually stabs Holloway with an angel blade, so that's cool.

We cut to the house from Amelia's visions of Heaven, and it turns out we're now seeing Jimmy Novak's actual Heaven, with actual dead Jimmy Novak. They're reunited, and Jimmy asks about Claire, and instead of saying "oh, crap, she was being attacked by a killer angel the last time I saw her, I hope she's okay," Amelia just says she's beautiful and strong. Whatever, Amelia. But Jimmy finally gets part of his little family back, and I'm happy for him.

Back at the hotel, Claire is being sent to live with Jody, and I need to think about Jody Mills and her little damaged band. I need to think about this a lot. Dean gives her a gift of Caddyshack (hee) and a book of Enochian, saying she'll need it if she's going to be a hunter. He retrieves the grigori sword she took, and finds Grumpy Cat in her bag, which makes me happy. He discourages her from going down their path, which makes you wonder why he gave her the Enochian book, but whatever. She apologizes for setting him up earlier, and he says it's in the past, and one can't help but notice that he doesn't apologize for killing her father figure, which is why she set him up in the first place. It's in the past. Oh, Dean. Are you going to be like that when Sam does something awful to save you? (Spoiler alert: No.) She asks if he's going to be okay, and he says "I don't know. But I will keep fighting. I'll keep swinging until I got nothing left." And Dean saying "I don't know if I'll be okay" is, of course, tantamount to Dean saying "No, I won't be okay, and I'm probably not okay even now." He also tells her to do her homework before she does anything stupid, and yes, Dean. THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN HELPFUL EARLIER. LIKE, WHEN YOU ACCEPTED THE MARK OF CAIN.

When the taxi shows up, I'm wondering if she's actually taking a taxi from Tulsa to Sioux Falls, because that's going to cost a lot, and why couldn't they just drive her to the damn bus station? But then the music starts and I'm all, no, they're not doing this, oh yes they are, they're really playing "Blue Eyes Crying In the Rain" and I just have to sit and listen and not think about anything for a while. I mean, on the one hand, what a cliche. Girl leaving Tulsa, probably getting on a bus, let's play some Willie Nelson. But on the other hand, wow, it's just so sweet and sad and perfect. (Also? More songs about blue eyes!)

So. I hope this is the last of Claire. She didn't annoy me the way she did in her previous episodes, but I'm still just not into her story. I did really appreciate that they didn't drop the MOC story as they tend to do when they go on one of these tangents. I can't say I loved this one, but there were a lot of things I liked about it. Someone commented in a previous post that there was one more episode coming from writers who are known to be Not Good. Was this it, or is that one still in between now and the end?

As always, I'm unspoiled, so if you're going to comment, please pretend you haven't even seen the previews. Thanks!