Theresa Meyers Talks About Her Favorite Episode of Season Six

In lieu of our normal Monday news, I'm delighted to host author Theresa Meyers today. She's a great fan of Supernatural, and her upcoming book, The Hunter, is inspired by our favorite show. If I hadn't already decided to buy this book the moment Theresa told me about the premise, I'd be buying it based on the cover alone! Take it away, Theresa...

Okay, I don’t know about you, but I’m a bit of a Supernatural nut. In fact my best friend (who is also addicted to the show) and I get along for the simple reason that she’s a Sam girl and I’m a Dean girl, so we don’t have to fight each other over the same Winchester when we’re watching the show together. Sometimes Supernatural is what gets me through a week of tough writing on the novel in progress.

One of my favorite episodes from this season had to be "Frontierland," not because it was the best written show of the season, but because it touched on some back story of Dean we’d never seen before – his love of all things western.

I know that in an earlier outtake interview (was it season 3?) Kripke talks about how he’d like to do something back in the Old West revolving around Samuel Colt. I think this was their shot at the idea. Did I love the whole idea of the Phoenix being a man that couldn’t die? Oh yeah! That was brilliant.

I also liked how Dean was almost *squee-fan-girl* over the whole chance to go to the Old West, but when he gets there it’s not nearly as romantic as it seemed. (Witness the whiskey that tastes like gasoline and the diseased saloon girl who freaked him out.) And in contrast Sam was totally out of his element (going so far as to try as scrape horse poo of his shoe and carry about his cell phone for comfort.)

Putting Samuel Colt and Elkins in there was a fantastic means to integrate the back story of the revolver (which is almost a character itself in some seasons) with the current hunt the boys are on, and I really liked how they discovered the journal in the Campbell family vault of hunter knowledge. The only thing that would have made the episode better for me was if Dean had gotten to collect the ashes of the Phoenix himself rather than having it all tied in a neat “back-to-the-Future-3” style bow where the ashes miraculously appear just on the right day and the right time after they’ve returned home from their visit to the wild west.

Another reason I loved the episode was because I wanted to see how close it came to the book I just finished writing that comes out in November. The Hunter, which is steampunk and best described as Supernatural meets Wild Wild West with a little bit of Indiana Jones for flavoring, features three brothers all out to unite the Book of Legend, which is kind of the compendium of Hunter knowledge and can help protect against the Gates of Nyx opening and letting all the Darkin into the world (think purgatory and Hell combined). Truth was, while my three brothers hunt down Darkin, they really don’t have anything close to the abundance of resources the Winchesters have. Sure they’ve got cooler steampunk weapons and the hero has a mechanical horse instead of a throaty muscle car, but overall, their world is just a little bit different because the society I’ve created is a little bit different because of the more advanced steam-powered technology. The Supernatural episode was gritty, real west, which I could appreciate. My stories have just a shade more sci-fi and romance.

Sure there were other episodes that were better written than "Frontierland," and certainly those that gave us more eye-candy than others (Souless!Sam, I’m looking at you). But overall, after so many shows in several seasons, it was nice to see a little glimpse of the characters that we didn’t know. Those little nuggets of surprise are part of what keep me addicted to the show—okay, well that and my absolute adoration of Jensen Ackles as Dean Winchester.

So, in looking back at season six, what was your favorite episode?

Goodbye Season 6

Since there's no new episode to recap today, I thought I'd focus on wrapping up season 6 and get a head start on season 7 info.

Articles reference an interview with Sera that addresses, in oblique fashion, what Castiel has become and how that affects the tone of season 7.

All the boys have is each other? I'm on board with that! (Unless that means no Bobby, of course, but I haven't seen a hint of that.)

A new tie-in novel by Rebecca Dessertine fills in the missing year when Dean was domesticated and Sam had no soul.

The Internet is abuzz with the news that Misha Collins will no longer be a series regular. They've been cagey on what this means for how many episodes he'll be in, and whether or not he'll be a season-long "big bad."

An answer to an After Elton reader question talks about the appeal of shows like Supernatural to the gay community.

Speaking of After Elton, AE readers voted on the World's Hottest 100 Men. Our guys made a respectable showing, with Jensen moving from #14 last year to #8, Jared going from 37 to 16, and Misha climbing a little from 44 to 40.

Supernatural won't be the only supernatural-y series come fall. Besides the other returning shows (like Fringe and Vampire Diaries), the networks are bringing in a plethora of new ones. Grimm appears closest to SPN, with a guy who finds out he's the end of a long line of hunters.

Let It Bleed recap

The first thing I have to say is, my son will love this episode. First, we have a man typing The End on a book in March of 1937, only to have something crash through the window and kill him, spraying his blood on the manuscript, written by H.P. Lovecraft.

Cool!

Meanwhile, back at Bobby’s, Sam, Dean and Bobby are talking about the journals, and H.P. Lovecraft, who often wrote about opening doors between dimensions, when Ben calls. Some men have broken into the house, killed Lisa’s new boyfriend and have taken her, and are coming for Ben. Dean tells Ben to jump out the window, but too late. The phone falls and Crowley picks it up. Crowley’s lines are too great and numerous to recount here, but he wants Dean and “Jolly Green” to stand down, and Lisa and Ben will keep breathing. Dean still wants to go after Ben and Lisa, and they call Balthazar to help. He’s snarky, until they reveal that Castiel is working with Crowley, going halvsies on the souls in purgatory. Balthazar disappears without helping, but he’s clearly surprised by their revelation.

Meanwhile, Bobby follows the Lovecraft lead, to an expert who lives in a basement and has a long-term online relationship. He has some of Lovecraft’s personal papers, and the man asks if he’s working with the other guy, “Trench coat, looks like Columbo, talks like Rain Man.” Bobby said they’re rivals, working on rival magazines. The man tells Bobby that there was a dinner party at Lovecraft’s house, a group of people casting a spell to open a door to another dimension. The man had papers about it, but when he went to fetch them, they were gone. Bobby realizes Castiel took them. He calls Sam to tell him about the dinner party, and the fact that all invited guests were dead or disappeared within a year. Bobby is heading to talk to the maid’s son, who was nine at the time, now 83, locked in a mental ward.

The old man asks about Castiel, calling him a liar. He tells Bobby about the spell, and how it didn’t fail. Something invisible came through, but it came for his mother. It went into her, and then killed the others. Bobby tells him he’s sorry about his mom, the first person to say so. Then he shows Bobby a picture of his mom that shocks Bobby, but we aren’t shown.

Balthazar summons Castiel from a conversation with Crowley to ask him about his involvement with Crowley. Turns out the souls will give him power. Balthazar says it can go wrong, Castiel can explode, taking half the planet with him. Balthazar agrees to go along with the plan, while telling Cass how upset Sam and Dean are.

Sam and Dean are interrogating demons, looking for Ben and Lisa. Dean smudges the devil’s trap and one of the demons gets free and is killing him when Castiel steps in. Dean says he didn’t ask for his help, which surprises Cass, who says, “You’re welcome,” anyway. Castiel tells Dean he didn’t know about Lisa and Ben. Cass says trust should run both ways, but Dean can’t. He’s torn up. Castiel promises to find Lisa and Ben and bring them back, but he wants Dean to stand behind him the one time he asks. He denies Cass’s offer.

Bobby heads for a cabin with a symbol on the door, and a beautiful blonde opens the door. “It’s been awhile,” Bobby says. Not sure if he’s calling her Ellie or Allie, but she’s the woman from the picture. He knows what she is. She’s 900 years old. He asks why she’s taking so long. “You’re from freaking Purgatory. You never thought to mention that when we were sleeping together?” She likes the planet and has been trying to keep purgatory closed for 75 years. Bobby warns her that Castiel is looking for her. He wants to know how to open the door, but she said it’s too dangerous. He offers to protect her but she declines, saying she’s better protecting herself.

Sam is back at Bobby’s, and Balthazar shows up, officially on their team. He’s there for his survival, thinking Castiel is bonkers for wanting to swallow up all those souls. He has found Lisa and Ben, but can’t get them because it’s angel-proof. He takes Sam and Dean to a warehouse, where they stab a demon who’s coming out. They enter the building and split up. Sam gets knocked unconscious and thrown into a dirty cell. Lisa and Ben are tied up, old-fashioned villain style, to a post, and hear fighting outside the door. LOL! The other demons go to investigate, more fighting, a demon comes crashing through the door, and Lisa and Ben see Dean fighting. Dean cuts them loose. But, yikes, as he’s leaving, Lisa grabs Ben back and lifts a knife ♦to his throat. She’s possessed! Didn’t see that coming. Crowley had a demon possess her just in case Dean came. The demon says some crappy things, like Dean being the worst mistake she made, other than keeping Ben. Dean throws holy water on her and she releases Ben, and Dean attacks her, but can’t hit her. He starts exorcising her. She grabs the knife and STABS HERSELF! The demon taunts him to exorcise her now, because she’ll die. He continues the exorcism, crying, and Lisa falls. He can’t reach Sam, who’s been knocked unconscious and locked up. He carries Lisa out, and Ben has to carry the shotgun. He shoots three, then they find Sam, who steals a car and they race to a hospital with a bleeding Lisa.

After the LONGEST COMMERCIAL BREAK EVER, we see Dean and Ben at Lisa’s side in the hospital. She’s intubated and comatose, and Ben’s devastated. He won’t talk to Dean. Castiel walks in and places a hand on Lisa’s head, healing her. Dean is grateful, but it changes nothing. Castiel walks out, saying he wanted to fix what he could. Dean asks for one more favor. When Lisa wakes up, Ben tells her they were in a car crash, which apparently he also believes. And they don’t remember Dean when he shows up, saying he was the guy who hit them. He’d lost control and was glad they were okay, and that their lives could get back to normal. HEARTBREAKING! Poor Dean looks like he’s been hit in the gut.

Sam tells him it’s the crappiest thing he’s ever done, whitewashing their memories. Dean tells Sam never to mention Lisa and Ben to him, or he’ll break his nose. They drive off.

The last scene is Ellie/Allie walking to her car, only to be confronted by Castiel, who takes her away. WHERE???

How awesome was that? Now....the second hour!

Recap of "The Man Who Knew Too Much"

Note: I wanted MJ's first episode recap to appear on the page ahead of this one, but if you get this in a Google Reader or some other kind of feed, please read her recap of "Let it Bleed" first!

We start with the traditional "The Road So Far" reminders to Kansas's "Carry On, Wayward Son, culminating in Cas saying "You have to trust me." Which doesn't bode well for what happens if we do.

We open with Sam on the run from police, frantic. He hides, and a cop car crawls by Castle Storage, which should be a clue (it's Dad's storage place!), especially since Sam doesn't go there. He ducks into a bar and tells the freaked-out bartender that he just needs a minute to think, and he doesn't know who he is. (I love this actress!)

I love the editing on this show. "I don't remember anything" and cut to shattering glass and growls. *sigh* I'm so sad this is the season finale.

The last thing Sam remembers, he woke up on a park bench and clocked the cops trying to take him in (For what, Sam? You hardly look like a vagrant. Clue #2.) The bartender assures Sam it will come to him if he relaxes. He finds an HP Lovecraft book on a shelf, and it triggers a few memories of the last episode, plus a motel. He borrows a laptop and finds the motel, a dump.

Bartender: "Maybe you're a hooker."

She insists on accompanying Sam, who tries to tell her no, but she's as stubborn as he is. When she tells him she's been called crazy, and that she's dying to know how it all turns out, I get a little suspicious that she's not just a random bystander.

They go to the motel and the room Sam would choose, and break in with a credit card. (I did that once when I locked myself out of my dorm room! I don't remember why I had my keycard in the shower but not my key...) Anyway! The room is full of their old research boards, with data on their current case, though this isn't a method they've used in a long time. An image of Ellie (aka Eleanor, aka Bobby's old squeeze the professor with the dragon sword, aka something out of purgatory) triggers another memory for Sam.

Bobby, Dean, and Sam are trying to find Ellie, who called them to this alley. They call her and hear her phone live, and find her dying. She could have handled the demon, but when the angel got involved... She told them how to open purgatory. She manages to tell them the formula before she dies. Cas arrives with an insincere apology. He tells them to stay out of it, but when they refuse, he says, "I promise when this is over, I'll save Sam. But only if you stand. down." Then he touches Sam.

Who is back to himself again, aware of who he is, and just a little unsettled.

Sam: "I just remember I was with two guys. One was a male model type, and the other was an older guy."

Man, would Dean love that!

Sam finds Bobby's address but not phone number, and is going to head to South Dakota. The bartender (whose name we never do learn) says this is where she gets off. Sam finds car keys and they go outside where he says, "That's mine." Um...really, Sam? LOL

The bartender tells Sam that whatever he's looking for, he may not like what he finds. Again, I'm suspicious. Sam senses something, and the world goes slo-mo. He knocks the bartender down before someone fires on them.

Me and Number One: "Noooo! They shattered the Impala!"

The shooter...

...is Sam. Cold, hard, soulless Sam.

And now we get it. The bartender is calling Sam, but when she says "Sammy," we know that's got to be Dean. And sure enough, we flash into the panic room at Bobby's, angel proofed, with Sam on his cot (yum) and Dean hovering, worried beyond sanity.

I think this is about when I said, "How the hell am I going to recap this episode?!"

We come back to the Rolling Stones "Play with Fire" and Dean struggling to find a solution. Bobby clarifies for us that Cas actually removed the wall in Sam's brain. Now they have 15 hours to stop Cas from opening purgatory and Dean frantic to help Sam, and they have no ideas on how to do any of it.

Back in Sam's head, in the Impala, he smells whisky (whiskey? didn't see what they were drinking LOL). Bartender is no longer happy to be with Sam, but he thinks she's safer with him. Then Dean shines a flashlight in Sam's eye and suddenly he's blinded and it's suddenly daylight. He's freaked, she's freaked, but he hears something in the woods and tells her to get in the car. Then he opens the Impala's trunk and is a bit floored by the arsenal. He loads up and heads into the woods to find whatever's stalking him. A very Sam move, and I think he's starting to read the clues.

And now we slide into Jared Padalecki's greatest performance. We have Less!Than!Sam, a diminished, "gawky," frightened version of himself, face-to-face with Soulless!Sam, who explains that when Cas took down the wall, Sam shattered into pieces. Here are two of them. Soulless!Sam waxes rhapsodic about himself and derides Less!Than!Sam, and decides to take charge around here, before it's too late. But Soulless!Sam is a crappy shot, so when LT!Sam takes off, SL!Sam misses, like, five times.

The pathetic infant isn't so much, though. He tricks SL!Sam with a decoy and circles around, shooting himself in the back. SL!Sam says "You think I'm bad, wait till you meet the other one." Then his piece of soul merges with LT!Sam, to create one close to whole. When he comes out of the woods, he's the Sam we know, remembering who he is, everything he did...and the bartender who isn't, as I thought, just a random bystander. Sam pulled a Speed on her when he was soulless, shooting her to remove a creature's leverage. Sam apologizes, and she says "Not as sorry as you're gonna be" before she fades away.

Balthazar shows up at Bobby's. Dean asks what took him so long, and he says he was trying to decide whether to help them or rip out their sticky bits. Ew. He hands over the address where Cas and Crowley are. 221 Piermont Ave., Bootback, Kansas. Which doesn't exist, unless I'm reading it wrong, but nothing close exists, either. Far as I can tell, Bootback or Bootbock is a tribute to the, what, computer geeks?

Anyway. Balthazar won't zap them there, because he's betraying a friend, they all are, and he thinks he's stuck his neck out far enough.

Crowley hands over the purgatory power shake to Cas, who "renegotiates" the terms. Crowley gets nothing. Cas gives him two options: flee, or die. I start to have hope that Cas has a big wonderful plan, when he tells Crowley he wasn't going to hand over souls to the King of Hell because he's neither stupid, nor wicked. Crowley chooses, of course, to flee.

Sam is now in a house full of candles and dropcloth-shrouded furniture that turns out to be Bobby's place. In the kitchen is a half-slumped figure. Sam shouts at him, and he raises his head. "Oh. Hi, Sam." And drops it again. Utterly defeated and despairing. Sam asks which one he is, and a bloodied, battered Sam stands up and says "I'm the one who remembers hell."

Bobby finishes packing while Dean leaves the address with Sam's gun next to him, and begs him to wake up and follow them. "Sammy, please" breaks my heart every time.

Hellfire!Sam says he wishes Sam hadn't come. Sam says he had to, that this is where he is in the real world, right? Bobby's? Hellfire!Sam asks how he knows that, and Sam says this whole time he's been smelling Old Spice and whiskey. He figures if he came here, he could snap out of it somehow. HF!Sam says he has to go through him, that Humpty Dumpty has to put himself back together before he can wake up, and he's the last piece. So Sam has to know what happened in the cage in order to go back. HF!Sam says he doesn't want to know it, and begs Sam to stay. He tells Sam he knows him, and that he's not strong enough.

But...but...he's HIM. If Hellfire!Sam is strong enough to withstand it, then Whole!Sam would have to be, right? Of course, HF!Sam is just a manifestation of Whole!Sam's fears that he CAN'T handle it. But Sam won't leave his brother alone out there, so he will do it.

HF!Sam won't fight him. He hands over a knife and Sam stabs himself, writhing and arching and flailing and arching and... ahem. As his soul pieces merge.

Balthazar appears to Cas, who summoned him. Cas says Dean is on his way, that they have a Judas in their midst, and holy hell, none of these angels can lie worth a damn! Cas reads Balthy, of course, and laments how everyone has turned on him. Then he stabs Balthazar through the heart. When Cas says "Yes, I'll always have you," I think he's taking Balthazar's soul! Hmmm. That gives me some ideas for next season's direction...

But I'm jumping ahead. It's really hard to have hope now that Cas has any good left in him. Bobby and Dean are on site now, and they can't take on a dozen angel-mooks, so Bobby says they'll Ninja their way in. Dean says yeah, until Bobby's knee squeaks. But now they have something thudding toward them, and spot a cloud of demons. They get in the car, which gets utterly plowed over as the demons attack the building.

Cas is distracted from the Latin ritual on a piece of paper by the demon attack and Crowley's return. Cas tries to palm him, but Crowley has switched sides. He's protected by Raphael. Cas reveals utter hypocrisy in judging Raphael for consorting with demons. After a mildly amusing exchange in which Crowley can't decide whether to call Raphael a he or she, Raphael says something very telling. "Taking that much power? If anyone is going to be 'the new God,' it's me." Cas says it will bring on the apocalypse. Crowley doesn't care, he just took the best offer on the table. He gives Cas the same offer, to flee or die.

Cas tosses the jar of blood to Crowley and disappears, and god help me, I STILL had hope for a big meaty awesome wonderful plan in which Castiel is still worthy of our love.

Crowley starts the ritual. Dean and Bobby struggle out from the smashed Impala and get inside. Dean flings an angel knife at Raphael, who catches it—not that it had very good aim, anyway. Crowley flings Bobby down the stairs and Dean over a rail onto a table. A shaky, exhausted Sam, struggling to suppress his memories, stumbles by the Impala, further evidence of that wormhole extending from Bobby's to everywhere else in the country. Crowley finishes the ritual, but nothing happens.

"Maybe I said it wrong."

"You said it perfectly," says a smug, clearly victorious Cas. Raphael isn't as smart as Crowley, and orders Cas to hand over the blood. Crowley knows it's too late, and invites Cas to display his power, which he does, in a flare of light that calls to mind the rise of Lucifer at the end of last season.

Cas is pretty mellow/high. He lets Crowley go, but says he has plans for him when Raphael protests him letting the demon go but not his own brother. Cas snaps his fingers, and Raphael goes all esplodey. The angel knife clatters to the floor.

Cas is very scary, and Dean plays placater, apologizing and thanking and trying to talk Cas into defusing, into releasing the souls back to purgatory. But it's too late. It's pretty clear what's going to happen immediately next: Sam sneaks in and picks up the angel knife and stabs Cas with it, but...

Cas isn't an angel anymore. He says "You're not my family, Dean. I have no family." And we know he's lost to us. When Sam stabs him and nothing happens, Dean, Sam, and Bobby show nothing but terror.

"I'm your new god. A better one. So you will bow down, profess your love unto me, your lord. Or I shall destroy you."

Aaaaannnnddd....scene.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Random Thoughts:

So the theme of season 6 was apparently hypocrisy. I won't explore all the ways we saw it displayed over 22 episodes, but it culminated in the ultimate hypocrisy: In trying to stop Raphael, Cas became exactly what he was fighting.

I half expected Chuck to appear at the end and say something like "I don't think so." :)

Where the heck is Jesse? I really want to see the Antichrist come back and put some mojo on the boys' side for once.

Part of me mourns the loss of Castiel, but I'm strangely not upset by his transformation. I mean, I am, but it was done so gradually and skillfully (maybe...or maybe it was done so poorly I lost all emotional connection, but I prefer to think that's not it) that I'm shocked and dismayed, but not angry or shredded.

I think this can put the rumors to rest of Misha not returning next season.

I don't think we can call Jensen the better actor anymore. While he may still have a more natural ability to display emotion from within, Jared had to play not just two different versions of himself, but FOUR, with varying levels of subtlety (or lack thereof). I think he was brilliant, giving us the extremes with LessThan!Sam and Soulless!Sam, then merging to Our!Sam and facing poor, damaged Hellfire!Sam. We haven't gotten to see Whole!Sam yet, not really, but I can't wait.

So we had a pretty rocky season 6. The loose threads wove a pretty tight tapestry in the end, but the inability to see any of that picture from early on was frustrating at times. Taken as a whole, I think the season was brilliant, and I can't wait for season 7, when I hope they'll have learned from this season and give us one less haphazard-feeling but still with the depth of emotion we had this year.

Your turn! What did you think of the finale, and the season as a whole? Unleash the Kraken!

Supernatural News the Week of No Show :(

So Smallville will get 2 hours for their finale this week, so SPN gets theirs next week.

This week:

Buddy TV had an exclusive interview with Mark Sheppard.

Supernatural had better ratings than Smallville, so yay!

Sam and Dean were voted second favorite lead male characters by Starpulse, second only to Alex O from Hawaii 5-0, who is hot but not so interesting, actually.

SuperWiki has a Cafe Press store, with "Posse Magnet" shirts, and "Beware of the Jefferson Starships."

That's all I know. You?

The Man Who Would Be King

Then

We see clips from Sam going into the cage, Castiel telling Dean that Sam's soul is missing, the revelation about Cas creating more souls for the war in Heaven through negating the sinking of the Titanic, Eve telling the boys she wants Crowley, and Crowley referring to having to clean up Cas's messes.

Now

Cas is sitting outside saying he's been around a long time and seen many things -- when the first fish crawled out of the ooze, the Tower of Babel ("all 37 feet of it, which I guess was impressive at the time. But come on, dry dung can only be stacked so high."), Cain and Abel, David and Goliath, Sodom and Gomorrah. And he also remembers the most remarkable things, remarkable because they never came to pass, prevented by "two boys, an old drunk and one fallen angel." Of that latter grand story, "We ripped up the ending, and the rules, and destiny, leaving nothing but freedom and choice, which is all well and good except what if I made the wrong choice? How am I supposed to know? But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me tell you my story. Let me tell you everything."

Next we see Dean driving down the road, and Castiel pops into the passenger seat to "check in." Both tell the other they haven't seen anything of "Satan Jr.", aka Crowley. It's painfully obvious that Cas is lying, and it's bothering Dean. But Dean's lying too. Poof, and Cas disappears. He shows up at some gruesome lab where Crowley is doing an autopsy on Eve with a side of torture to another monstery schmuck. Cas refers to Crowley saying Eve could open the door to Purgatory, and Crowley says that he believes she could have if she was still alive.

Crowley: "Your best change to get over the rainbow and the Winchesters killed her."

Crowley tells Cas that he's distracted and that makes Crowley nervous. Cas responds by saying he's holding up his end of their deal, but Crowley isn't happy Cas is still hanging with the Winchester boys.

"The stench of that Impala is all over your overcoat, angel."

Next we're back with Cas, telling his story. "We'd stopped Armageddon, but at a terrible cost." He reveals he's the one who brought Sam back from Hell and says he should have recognized the fact that he hadn't brought all of Sam back as a warning.

Crowley asks Cas to kill Sam and Dean or he'll do it. Cas tells him no and not to worry about them. Crowley begins listing all the people who didn't worry about the boys and died because of it -- Lucifer, Michael, Lilith, Alastair, Azazel.

Castiel: "Just find Purgatory. If you don't, we will both die again and again until the end of time. The Winchesters won't get to you."

When Dean reaches Bobby's, Sam and Bobby are questioning a monster named Red who's been hunting things for Crowley. They want to know where Crowley is, and Red isn't being cooperative. Dean tells Bobby and Sam about Cas popping in and how he fed him a line about being on some "crap monster hunt." They all hate the idea of Cas being in with Crowley, but they're being careful in case he is. Unknown to them, Castiel is in the room listening to their conversation about the fact that maybe he's gone dark side. Red finally reveals that he's never met Crowley, that he deals with The Dispatcher, a demon named Ellwsorth. Cas says that if there's a demon counterpart to Bobby Singer, Ellsworth would be it.

Knowing that Ellsworth and his demons would lead the Winchesters to Crowley, who'd tear their hearts out, Cas takes out Ellsworth and two other demons.

Cas: "I did it to protect the boys, or myself. I don't know anymore."

The boys and Bobby arrive at Ellsworth's place to find it empty. Cas laments the lies, the hiding and the sweeping away of evidence. "My motives used to be so pure." After supposedly saving Sam, Cas returned to Heaven. He says that there isn't one Heaven, that each soul creates its own paradise. He tells the angels they are free to choose what they want to do now. But he says those first weeks back were difficult. "Explaining freedom to angels is a lot like teaching poetry to fish." When he went to see Raphael, he asks whose Heaven he's in and Raphael says it's Ken Lay's and he's borrowing it. Raphael says that Castiel and all the angels will have to kneel to him, that he's going to free Lucifer and Michael and get the apocalypse back on the road.

Sam, Dean and Bobby try to call Cas for help, but he doesn't go to them because they have questions he doesn't want to answer. Then some demons show up and say, "Crowley says, 'Hi'." Cas shows up and smites the demons because the Winchesters and Bobby "are my friends. For a brief moment, I was me again." As they're talking, he slips up and reveals he's lying when he refers to going to the dark side, something the other three had mentioned when they didn't know he was there.

Castiel says that Raphael is stronger than him and he'd never stand a chance in a straight fight, so he went to Dean for help. Only when he thought about all Dean had sacrificed, he couldn't do it. That's when Crowley showed up wanting to make a deal.

"I'm an angel, you ass. I don't have a soul to sell."

Crowley shows Cas how he's redone hell. Everyone there is having to stand in an endless line, and when they get to the front they just come back to the end again. Crowley proposes an alliance in which each of them will get half the souls in Purgatory for his own use -- Cas for a civil war in Heaven, and Crowley to shore up his position as the king of Hell. He offers to float Cas a loan of 50,000 souls from the pit. Prideful, Cas accepts the deal and declares war on Raphael so he can avoid the apocalypse.

Back to the present, Bobby and the boys call Cas and when he arrives they trap him in the ring of fire and force him to tell the truth. Honestly, at this point I feel sorry for Cas because he seems like an angel who was in between a rock and a hard place. He might have made the wrong choices, but he had good intentions. But we all know what road is paved with good intentions. Dean tells him that he should have come to them for help.

Crowley shows up, and Cas tells Sam, Dean and Bobby to run, which they do. Crowley asks Cas what he's willing to do. Cas goes to Dean to try to explain, and Dean tells Cas that he's like a brother to him and asks him to stop this quest for Purgatory with Crowley. And if he doesn't, Dean says he'll do whatever he has to in order to stop him. Cas says he's sorry and disappears. Then we're back to Cas praying to God for a sign that he's on the right path. "Because if you don't, I'm going to do whatever I must." When no sign his offered, he drops his head.

The End Approaches

Is it me, or did this season just fly by? I mean, I don't feel like I ever stopped longing for the show to come back, and now we're about to say goodbye again. But I also can't wait to see how it ends.

Back in January, I was talking about season 6 with some friends. A couple of them expressed some of the same disappointment a lot of you have, and said the season has felt sloppier or more haphazard, with too much going on.

At the time, I agreed but said I had hopes that it wasn't going to end up that way overall. I thought that once we got to the end of the season, we'd look back or rewatch and find it extremely well done. And it's shaping up to be that way.

It's DIFFERENT, for sure. In all the past seasons, we knew what the goal was, and every detail fed that goal. We had the framework of a puzzle already put together, and every piece of information filled it in and gave us a better picture.

This season, we started with a jumble of pieces and no picture of what we were making. As we got pieces and started to fit things together, we got different parts of the whole put together. Instead of filling in from, say, top to bottom, we got two pieces in the top left corner, and then a chunk in the middle, and a bit from the right side.

Now we only have a few key pieces missing, and everything fits together. I really can't wait to see the end and then watch again from the beginning.

Going back to last week's episode...

I loved that they kept Mark Sheppard's name out of the opening credits. When he was killed, I felt let down because it seemed so easy and final. I always had a tiny seed of hope that it wasn't the end of him. And then the big reveal came, and it would have been totally ruined if we knew he was going to be there. (I'm good at avoiding spoilers during the week, but despite hating to know ahead of time, I can't stop myself from reading the guest star list!)

I also liked that once they came up against the "big bad," they vanquished her in the clever, determined way they used to do. They could have dragged it out longer, but making the Mother more powerful than Lucifer would have been a mistake, in my opinion.

So now we have three episodes left, and we finally can see a glimmer of everything tying together. I'm thinking it all comes down to the war in heaven. Purgatory, the Mother, the souls, bringing back the Campbells, maybe even leaving Sam's soul in the pit all connect to whatever stakes Cas is fighting for (or against).

I'm betting next week's Cas-centric episode will give us a lot of the answers, and then the last two episodes will be the big fight and the setup for season 7.

You know what? I might just go start watching season 6 from the beginning right now...

SPN in the news

Of course, the biggest news over the last week was (as has already been mentioned here) the renewal for season 7! Other mentions include:

A slide show of Season 6 questions we hope to see answered:

Questions


A summary of SPOILERS for the last three eps of the season:

Final Three

There were also, I am sad to say, a slew of rumors about Misha not coming back after this season. But (the good news is) I was never able to find official confirmation of that!

Besides, even if someone does "leave" the show, they could always come back, right, Crowley?