Previously on Supernatural:

Eldon revealed that the Styne family is actually the Frankenstein family and I laughed for eight years. I wish they were the Frank N. Furter family, instead.



That would have made me look forward to the next episode with antici…

Currently on Supernatural:

A young nerdlinger in Shreveport, Lousiana is leaving school for the day. Is it high school or college? Maybe it’s prep school. He’s just coming out of a building named for the Styne family. What was it Crawdaddy said about operating in total secrecy?

The nerdlinger is accosted by three boys trying way too hard to look street. “Hey, Styne,” the ferret-faced leader says, letting us know the character’s name. He taunts young Styne for being a raging virgin. Fisticuffs nearly ensue, but Eli Styne intervenes. “Cy, we got a problem?” he drawls. “No it’s fine,” Cy says.

But Eli doesn’t let it go. Later, he grabs the bully in an alley, because people on this show always run into goddamn alleys when they’re being followed. I think I figured out what Eli got augmented.

*****************

Somewhere in the misty rain forest of coastal Kansas, the Winchesters build a pyre for Charlie while having flashbacks about her. So… she’s dead? Dead dead? They didn’t call in a certain angel for help when they found her? How did this even go down after they found her?

They light the fire and stand there for a while, watching. Seriously not going to call the angel, huh? The wrapped “body” looked so weird that I momentarily hoped it was a ruse, but then Sam starts to apologize to Charlie and Dean tells him to shut up. “You got her killed. You don’t get to apologize.” That’s… kind of what apologizing is for.

Sam says they were trying to help him. “Dean, you’re all I’ve got.” Especially now that Charlie’s dead. He says he had to fight to save Dean. “I think it should be you up there, not her,” Dean says. Damn, boy! He usually only says that kind of stuff to/about himself! He tells Sam to shut down everything with the book. Then he heads off to hunt down the Stynes. Poor Charlie. Even her funeral isn’t about her.

************

Back in Shreveport, One-Arm Eldon is trying to persuade Crawdaddy not to turn him into a lab rat. Speaking of labs, did they build this set for this one episode?

Because that looks really fancy. I totally want my mad scientist lab to look like that.

Anyway, Eldon says there’s all kinds of magic stuff in the Lair O’ Letters, and he knows just where to find it seeing as how they only chained him up by one hand and he escaped oh my God I’m still not over that.

Crawdaddy summons Cy to the lab and reveals his schoolyard bully, trussed up on an operating table. Crawdaddy plans to use him for “spare parts.” “And you’re gonna carve him up,” he tells a protesting Cy. He’s like an even more rotten John Winchester, telling his young son about the family business. He pushes a scalpel into Cy’s hand and pushes it into the bully’s chest, threatening to do the same to Cy if he doesn’t do as he’s told.

**************************

Without Sam, Dean suddenly can’t look up a license plate and has to call some guy named Rudy to help him track down Eldon. “Isn’t that what Sam’s for?” Rudy wonders. “Sam’s busy,” Dean says.

***************

Rowena is fascinated with Castiel and tells him so. “An angel who rejected Heaven! That’s like a fish that wants to fly or a dog that thinks he’s people.”

Sam finally returns before Rowena can come up with other animal similes. “Where’s Charlie?” Castiel asks. In answer, Sam looks super sad and shakes his head. It was night when Charlie left, day when they burned her body, and now it’s night again. Nobody called him in 24 hours? Really? “What happened?” Castiel asks.



Sam says he’s shutting down the book club. Castiel volunteers to get rid of Rowena: “I’d be happy to kill her; she called me a fish.” THAT’S why he wants to kill her? THAT? Wrong time to try to add humor to the proceedings, Show.

Sam says he LoJacked the Impala recently so they’ll be able to track down Dean. That can’t possibly help much. This is what a day’s travel for the Impala looks like:

While he’s showing Castiel the tracking app, he gets Charlie’s last email with the code translations. Rowena confirms she’ll be able to use the Book of the Damned now. Sam decides he can’t shut down the book club just yet, although Castiel’s not quite sold yet. “I know that he pretends he can ride the Mark out,” Sam says, “but you and I know…where that road ends!” Castiel looks thoughtful; he’s imagining the worst-case scenario…

Rowena insists that Sam kill Crowley before she cures Dean. At least she’s smart enough to the spell is the only bargaining power she has.

************

In Shreveport, Eldon has received the bully’s forearm in place of the one he somehow managed to tear off. I guess I was wrong last week when I said nobody would attach an arm there. It would be so much easier to do it at the joint! Also, the stitches are so big and clumsy.

Cyrus wants to go off somewhere and cry, but Eldon wants him to come along on his ransacking mission.

****************

A podunk sheriff and his deputy pull Dean over not long after he rolls into Shreveport. They bash in the Impala’s taillights, then arrest him when he moves like he’s gonna whoop one of them. Ooh you gonna pay for hurting Baby, assholes.

************

Crowley stops in at a diner for some pie and coffee. He chitchats with the friendly cook, and is just about to bring up the topic of buying the young man’s soul when he gets a call from Dean. “Hey, I need your help,” the familiarly gruff voice says. This is accompanied by a text with an address in Concordia, KS.

*************

The deputies go through a stack of Dean’s terrible fake IDs. Depending on which one you go by, he’s 47, brown-eyed, and 5'6’.

Dean knocks a cup over like he’s Business Cat, then waits for the deputy to pick it up and crushes the guy’s arms between his thighs. I guess there are worse ways to have your arm crushed. He stomps the guy to knock him out, then goes looking for the sheriff.



He finds the sheriff just wrapping up a call with the Stynes. Dean hits him twice–once for Baby woo!–with the butt of his gun. The sheriff eventually confesses that the Stynes told him to nab Dean if he should see him in town. “You can’t take on the Stynes, they’re practically gods around here,” the sheriff grunts. “Yeah, well, I kill gods,” Dean résumés.

***************

Crowley walks into the abandoned factory of the week and finds Sam instead of Dean. Sneaky Sam used an old voicemail from Dean to lure him. Sam shoots him with a devil’s trap bullet. “You’re the reason Dean has the Mark of Cain,” Sam says. Well, no. Dean’s the reason Dean has the Mark of Cain. He’s been in the family business long enough to know what he’s doing and accept the consequences, but Sam doesn’t see it that way. “All of this that’s happening is your fault!”

He stuffs a hex bag into Crowley’s pocket, courtesy of Rowena. “She said to tell you she should have taken the three pigs.” Crowley crumples from magic and/or filial disappointment.

**************

Dean easily takes down the Styne compound’s outside security guards. Maybe they hadn’t gotten their augmentations yet. Inside, he’s met by a dozen men with firearms. They don’t shoot him, though, because that would mess up all his healthy body parts.Some random Styne asphyxiates him with a plastic bag until he passes out.

****************

Sam waits around for the hex bag to slooooooowly kill Crowley. Crowley’s not going down without a lot of talking, though. He says he’s trying to be the good guy. “Do you have any idea what I’ve been up to for the past year?” A lot of really long, slow chats with your mom in Hell? He says he’s made improvements to Hell. He just wants to feeeel again. Sam’s not buying it. “You’ve killed innocent people! People I loved!” I don’t dispute that Crowley’s an evil dude, but who are these people Sam loved?

Crowley spits up some blood. He agrees he’s a monster. “I’ve done horrible, evil things… and I loved every damn minute.” He looks up at Sam with maraschino cherry eyes and digs out the bullet.

Sam poops himself five times in rapid succession. Aw, I’ve missed scary Crowley! I hope he’s here to stay. He flings Sam around a bit, but decides to let him live because the show’s been renewed for another season.

******************



Dean wakes up on the Styne operating table with Crawdaddy staring down at him. The actress hired to play the family nurse does her best to look busy in the background.

Crawdaddy plans to make a fine lab rat out of Dean, seeing as how he can’t die. Dean coolly points out what a mistake that would be, but Crawdaddy doesn’t listen. The instant Crawdaddy comes at him with a scalpel, Dean busts out of his restraints and headbutts him.



He easily takes down Eli and the nurse, then grabs Crawdaddy in a chokehold. “You took someone from me. Now I’m gonna take everything from you.” With that, he snaps Crawdaddy’s neck. That’s how you know Dean’s not a bad guy yet, because the bad guys in these situations always try to keep their arch enemy alive long enough to see their empire fall.

Dean kicks down the door at the same time Eldon and the rest of the Styne clan are blasting open the door at the Lair O’ Letters.

Castiel gets to the Styne compound sometime later and calls Sam. “Dean killed them all, and brutally.” Good for him! Oh wait. It’s supposed to be a bad thing.

*************



Cy Styne pokes around the LOL’s library for interesting books. “Cool!” he says to himself when he finds the Practitioner’s Guide to Exorcism. He seems to have gotten over killing his classmate for spare parts. Eh, shopping for new books always cheers me up, too.

He tries to talk Eldon out of burning everything, but Eldon’s in the mood for arson. Just then, the third member of their looting party stumbles into the library, a knife protruding from his back. You’d think you’d have to stab those guys at least twice, once for each heart, but whatever. Dean makes his grand entrance a moment later.

Eldon tries to sass him about killing Charlie, but Dean is unflappable. Eldon tries to brag about his new arm (ooh, the arm of a scrawny 19-year-old!), but Dean can’t be provoked to anger. “You can save the speech on your three hearts, two spleens, seven nipples… for the ladies or the fellas, I don’t judge… But with all that, you still only have one brain.”

This whole time, Eldon’s been readying himself for a fistfight, but then Dean just shoots him in the head.

Dean aims at Cy next. “I’m not like them,” Cy says. “I hate my family!” He pulls up his shirt to show he hasn’t been augmented like the others. “There’s bad in you–it’s in your blood,” Dean says. Cy begs for his life. For a second, Dean looks like he’s reconsidering, but then he takes aim again and pulls the trigger. Cy drops to the ground, dead, just as Castiel arrives.

For some reason, Sam is still driving his way back to the LOL. He really did hit a time warp. He should have been able to WALK the 70 miles in the time Dean or Castiel could DRIVE 700.

Dean and Castiel face off in the library. Dean rather calmly explains he doesn’t want any cure from the Book of the Damned because the consequences are too high. He tries to leave, but Castiel stands in his way. “Maybe you could fight the Mark for years, even centuries like Cain did, but you cannot fight it forever.”

Castiel says that after everyone else who loves him is long gone, he’ll be the only one left to watch Dean “murder the world.” He’ll probably only murder people, though, right? The polar bears will be better off, at least.

Dean more or less beats him to a pulp. Neither Castiel nor his stunt man even try to fight back. They probably coulda tried to do a better job of not showing the stunt dudes’ faces. It took me out of an important scene.

Anyway, Castiel even tries his patented “I’m the big spoon and you’re the little spoon” hugging maneuver that’s worked on Dean at least twice in the past. But not this time.

In the end, Dean gets him down on the floor and whips out an angel blade to stab him. “Dean, please,” Castiel says. Dean hesitates, then stabs…

…a book!



“You and Sam stay the hell away from me,” Dean grumbles. “Next time I won’t miss! And neither will my stunt man!”



You know, by itself, this is a pretty good episode. But I can’t forget all the awkward manipulation and plot holes it took to get here. So I give this episode three Hellhounds…

…and a limerick for tikistitch, who backed my Kickstarter recap campaign, and who shares my feeling about Metatron:

There still is a Scribe called Metatron

Whose life somehow just goes on and on.

Please smite him in the face

Or any handy ol’ place

‘Cause, by God, he shoulda been long gone.



(”A Very Supernatural Christmas” cap above is from Home of the Nutty)

– Tippi Blevins

…pation!