reviously on Supernatural, aka a limerick for missmanners62, who backed my Kickstarter campaign:

There once as an angel named Metatron,

Whose role just seemed to go on and on.

But the finale comes soon

And well before June,

One hopes that dude will be long gone.



Currently on Supernatural:

I spend about 45 seconds wondering if I accidentally tuned in to the last of Arrow. It’s all dark alleys and swords and hooded figures. Suddenly there’s Charlie Bradbury looking scared, and two guys with terrible “Cajun” accents chasing after her. One guy holds up a Compass of Evil.

The Compass of Evil points him to Charlie. She pops out of a dumpster and cuts them up a bit with a sword. The main guy wants a book in her possession. “It don’t belong to you, girl. It belongs to mah family.” Luckily, he has a family crest tattooed on his wrist in plain sight, which Charlie notices.

She spends so much time noticing it that he slaps her sword away and shoots her. Luckily, as is the case with most villains, he’s not that great a shot and only zings her a little bit. She escapes while he’s staring after her, practicing his menacing smiles instead of chasing her down.



*********

Castiel and Metatron are on a road trip.The rain cloud that usually follows the Impala is now following the Pimpmobile. For some reason, Metatron is not tied up in the trunk, but riding shotgun. Metatron waxes annoying about a number of pop culture topics, from “Ironic” by Alanis Morisette to getting aroused by R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps series. What a gross, gross twerp you are, Metatron.

Castiel calls Sam, voicing his desire to kill Metatron. Sam says he should wait until he gets his grace back.

Metatron says something snarky about Dean, so Castiel punches him. I may have watched this five thousand times. It was very therapeutic.

Sam hangs up when Dean walks into the library wearing a hoodie. The hoodie probably has nothing to do with Sam hanging up, but it needed to be mentioned. Dean makes a confession.

Sam notably does NOT make a confession of his own.

Charlie calls in to tell them about digging up the Book of the Damned and being trailed by the evil compass dudes. The good news is that the book is full of spells to create or undo any damnation. The bad news is that it’s racked up hella library fees over the last 700 years.

********

That rain cloud follows the Winchesters to their meetup with Charlie, but nothing’s gonna rain on Dean’s parade! He feels happy and hopeful for the first time since… well, a while. He talks about wanting to take a vacation after he’s cured. “I’m not talking about sitting in some crap motel watching paper porn, either!”

Hm. That was probably “pay per porn,” but I like my mondegreen better.

He bops along to “The Boys are Back in Town” while Sam stares on in cautious amusement.

*******

Meanwhile, on the road trip of the damned. Metatron is practically having an orgasm over a plate of waffles. Shudder.

They talk about feelings and stuff. Mostly Metatron talks and Castiel just looks so done with all of it. He should have just crammed a gas-station pork rinds into Metatron and been done with it. Feeding him at an actual restaurant is well above the call of duty.



A guy at the counter listens to them and opens his jacket to check on the angel blade hidden therein.

*******



The Winchesters drive up to one of Bobby’s old cabins where they agree to meet Charlie. Even though she was in fear for her life, she did not lock the door and they just waltz right in.

Charlie tells them about the book’s origins. 700 years ago, a nun had “visions of darkness” and locked herself away to write them down. “Each page is made with slices of her own skin and written in her own blood,” Charlie says. Nun must have had a lot of skin. And a killer immune system.

When Dean picks up the book, he starts hearing whispering voices calling to him. The same thing happens to me when I pick up my tablet. “Let’s watch Netflix, Tippi…. Neeeetfliiiixxx.” Charlie says she doesn’t know what the words and pictures in the book mean, but I’ve taken the opportunity to translate some of it to the best of my ability.

Dean hands the book over, saying it’s not a good idea for him to touch it. Sam locks it away in a magical box so it stops tempting Dean with its whispery whispers.



*******



As Castiel and Metatron leave the diner, they’re attacked by the guy from the counter. He pulls his angel blade out from a different part of his jacket than we saw earlier. “I’m an angry, angry cupid,” he tells them. “And I’m a hungry, hungry hippo,” says a board game.

During the scuffle, Metatron gets one of the blades and kills the cupid. Why does anyone even try to kill Castiel anymore? It never works, or at least it never works for very long.

They head to the next stop on Metatron’s list of places to slowly look for Castiel’s grace. Apparently he had some minion hide it without telling him where it was, so it couldn’t be tortured out of him. They consult some of Metatron’s favorite books and find a clue written inside. “‘What’s the maddest thing a man can do?’” Hire Misha Collins to be a regular and hardly put yhim in any episodes?

********



Back at the cabin, Sam and Charlie have no luck cracking the nun’s code. “I have tried every cryptographic algorithm there is,” Charlie says. Really? It’s been, what, an hour since you started?

Dean has dug through reams of information and found out that the “southerners” tracking Charlie are from the Styne family. They used spells to reap wealth, start wars and help the Nazis before they lost the book. Dean points out that using the book has terrible consequences.

An argument ensues. Dean wants to burn the book. Charlie thinks he’s giving up. Sam doesn’t want to see his brother become a demon again. “I can’t do that,” he says. “I won’t do that!”

They finally sort of deal with that awful talk they had in “The Purge.” Sam says he didn’t mean it, which is kind of a cop out, but Dean shuts him down. Then he leaves to go buy some snacks.

**********



Back to the lie-brary. Metatron distracts Castiel by pestering him with just being himself. “Who are you now?” he asks. “You’re obviously not an angel of the Lord.”

He taps into Castiel’s existential angst. He’s not a man, not yet an angel. Britney Spears had a song about this very thing. “What is your mission now?” he wants to know. Castiel moves his jaw muscles around for a bit then tells Metatron to get back to the search.

Metatron has used this time to draw sigils all over books (VANDALISM!) with his own blood. When he activates them, Castiel looks like he’s about to give birth to quintuplets through his urethra.

**********

Sam and Charlie have a fireside Sit-n-Chat. Sam recaps almost dying to close the Gates of Hell and Dean saving him against his wishes. Charlie fills in the blanks for herself. Then they talk about the hunting life. Charlie misses her old dreams. Sam, however loves his life now. “But I can’t do it without my brother,” he says.



*******

While Castiel writhes around with his labor pains, Metatron retrieves the demon tablet that was hidden in the stacks. Is he going to bargain with Crowley? It’s not like he needs it for his own edification; he wrote it! At the same time, Castiel manages to inchworm his way over to Don Quixote and find his grace hidden therein. The shock wave as they’re reunited sends books exploding off the shelves. Oh, the poor librarian who’s going to have to deal with this mess.

Metatron escapes while Castiel is busy picking a photogenically symmetrical place to reveal his tattered wings and halo.

*********

Dean is just now arriving at the convenience store for snacks. Did he drive to another state? Styne, having murdered the clerk, stands behind the counter. Dean recognizes the tattoo and pulls out his gun. Styne throws a handful of money at Dean’s face to distract him.

A minion grabs Dean, pinning his arm behind his head. Styne notices the Mark of Cain because Dean, with only three shirts and no bulky coat, is practically naked before him.

A lot of drawled conversation takes place. The gist of it is that the book can remove the Mark, but with the dire consequences Dean was already pretty sure of.

Fisticuffs ensue! Dean breaks free, grabs his gun and shoots the minion, which just pisses the minion right off. Dean shoots him a whole bunch before it seems to make much difference.

Dean rushes back to the cabin. (Styne disappeared during the fight, I guess?) He starts tossing holy oil into the fireplace and tells Sam to burn the book. Dire consequences and so forth.

While Sam dithers about the book, Styne and his minions burst into the cabin. Charlie puts up a good fight with her sword and skewers one guy through the abdomen a few times. Dean fights off another minion and plugs Styne full of sweet, hot lead. Sam tosses the book into the fire and stabs Styne, finally killing him. Sad woodwinds play as the book roasts into nun chicharrones.

********

At the Lair O’ Letters, Castiel mopes to Sam about screwing up with Metatron. How did Metatron, with his human body and gunshot leg, get away from him? Before much else can be said, Charlie and Dean return from their pizza run. Charlie, seeing Castiel for the first time, has a slight fangirl moment.

She finds out he can’t cure Dean, but he can fix her bad carpal tunnel and bullet wound. He lies to Dean about how he got his powers back. He feels so bad about it that “Behind Blue Eyes” starts playing for emphasis. I hate this song so bad, unlike what seems to be the rest of tumblr.

Everyone sits around eating pizza, drinking beers, and laughing uproariously. Well, mostly Dean laughs, because he’s totally in the dark. Sam looks like his pizza was seasoned with bitteroni. If you look closely, you can see they even got a special pizza for Castiel:

Only we, the viewers, get to see that Sam didn’t really burn the book. Sam’s whole thing this season is not burning nun books when he’s told. Instead, he took it to Rowena. ROWENA. The witch he knows tried to kill his brother.



I give this episode 3.5 Hellhounds

and a set of blue eyes so you can stand behind them and see what it’s like to be the sad man:



– Tippi Blevins