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If the season had been about five episodes long, this would have been a pretty decent finale. But they spent all that time obsessing over finding the Demon Tablet, translating it, keeping it out of Crowley's grubby paws, and then sending Sam into molecular breakdown in order to complete the Hell Gate Trials... For what, exactly? At the last minute, it's a new character with a new motivation that ends up being the focus of the episode. But I get ahead of myself. Let's start at the beginning.
Crowley pisses off the Winchesters one last time by nearly killing Sheriff Jody, so they agree to meet with him to make a deal. Crowley proves remarkably unsuspicious and gets himself demon-napped by his favorite brotherly duo. They abscond with him to the Abandoned Building of the Week – this time a church – where Sam begins the ritual of curing him. Dean wants nothing more than to be by baby bro's side, but Castiel comes to him in need of help. While Castiel was in the midst of procuring Cupid's bow for the second Angel Trial, Naomi nabbed Metatron and brought him back up to Heaven for a torturous little chat.
Having gotten over last week's butthurt, Dean helps Castiel out, but things soon go hinky. A strangely and suddenly nice Naomi dashes down to Earth to tell them that she's been poking around in Metatron's mind and has found some crazy messed-up crap. It turns out that Metatron isn't trying to shut Heaven's doors, but rather to cast out the angels, like God did to Lucifer. Why? The archangels spurned him and now he wants revenge. Say what? Naomi also tells Dean that completing the final Hell Gate Trial will kill Sam, which, duh. Haven't we all been assuming that? Well, apparently Dean was more optimistic. Silly Dean.
Anyway, Sam's business with Crowley is going relatively well, barring an all-too-brief and unsuccessful interruption by Abaddon. Crowley seems well on his way to being cured when Dean returns just in time to talk Sam down from the sacrificial ledge. There's much crying and brotherly angst and hand-wringing over the old issues of Ruby and soullessness and Dean having vampire friends. They're just never, ever going to get past these things, no matter how many times it seems like they've been resolved or at least put away.
Meanwhile, Castiel returns to Heaven to find Naomi dead, dead, dead. Metatron slits Castiel's throat and vacuums out all his Grace, which he then uses as the final ingredient in his spell to kick out all the angels. He's nice enough to then heal Castiel, who wakes up as a human being back on Earth, just in time to see dozens – perhaps hundreds – of angels plummeting from Heaven like winged meteors. Will the Winchesters now have a buttload of new Lucifer-level problems to deal with? Stay tuned for the full recap.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!So here we are at the yearly Kansas montage. The first time I watched this sequence, I thought some of the clips were kind of an odd choice. After all, it's not like Charlie posing in her Lara Croft/Snake Plissken outfit is going to have anything to do with the finale. Then, after actually watching the finale, I realized how little the season itself had to do with the finale! They could have had whole episodes of that baby sloth that hands out flowers, or random shots of the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, and they wouldn't have ended up being any less relevant than some of the actual "mytharc" episodes we got. But where was I?
Ah, yes: rocking out to "Carry On My Wayward Son." The montage starts with a premise: "I'm about to close the Gates of Hell forever." It's a lie! A dirty rotten lie! "Lay your weary head to rest," says the song over a series of decapitations (har!), and then Dean hugs a bunch of people in time with the beat. (If nothing else, the eighth season will be remembered as the Hugfest of Dean Winchester.) Kevin Tran narrates the trials that Sam has been undertaking for what will turn out to be no reason whatsoever. Then we got to meet Metatron, Scribe of God and sweater-wearing hermit. He talked Castiel into closing the Gates of Heaven in last week's episode because Naomi and the rest of the angels were running amok. Then there's a shot of that scowly golem; remember him? Didn't it seem like the Thule Society was going to figure into things this season? Anyway: Crowley realized that just taunting the brothers wasn't working, so he decided to start killing all the people they've ever saved. The only way to stop him, he said, was to quit the trials and hand over the Demon Tablet. Dean was all raring to keep fighting, but Sam was starting to have doubts. So a baby sloth handed him a flower.
NOW! Sheriff Jody Mills (eee!) has gotten herself all dolled up and plunked herself into a booth table at some nameless restaurant and/or bar. It seems fairly upscale compared to the bars in which people usually find themselves on this show, and she appears to be a regular here. The waitress hands her a yummy cocktail, saying, "On the house, Sheriff." Sheriff Jody is a bit perplexed, as she didn't order the drink. At this moment, Crowley slides himself into the booth opposite Sheriff Jody, while the waitress mouths her a good luck wish before dashing off. Sheriff Jody lays her eyes on this fellow who's dressed like a dinner club magician and asks, "Roderick?" Crowley gives her an appreciative look. "Words cannot begin to describe the injustice that picture does to you." She blushes and smiles and takes a sip of her drink. Their date continues from there, and goes on for quite some time until they're the last patrons there. "Look at you," Jody says. "The fancy career, the suit... I'm pretty much what I am -- a small-town girl." Don't be self-deprecating on a first date! Even if it's a fake one set up by the King of Hell. "We do share something, you and I," Crowley says. What would that be? "Loss." Sheriff Jody's smile vanishes. She remembers a time when her hair was longer. And also when her zombie son killed and cannibalized her husband. "How did you know?" she asks, coming back to the present. Crowley lays his hand on top of hers and answers, "I've lost someone, too." Tears well up in Sheriff Jody's eyes. "It's not a date 'til I've cried," she chastises herself. "So now you've cried," he says. She touches his hand. Meanwhile, a piece of delicious-looking cake sits only half-eaten between them.
Sheriff Jody pops into the ladies' room to give herself a pep talk. "Oh, this is crazy," she whispers. Sniffling, she looks at herself in the mirror and dabs away the last of her tears. "I'm crazy," she goes on. She digs through her purse for her lipstick. "He's attractive, though, right?" she asks. She thinks about it for a moment, then answers, "He's hot." He also played the "shared loss" card to get into your pants, lady! Or, rather, to pretend to get into your pants. For, as we see in cutaways, he's at the table with his witchy goods, working a witchy spell to finish off Jody, and not in the sexy way. She finds the tiny hex bag in her purse and barely has a moment to give it a curious look before she begins to choke and cough up blood. At the same time, Crowley gets a call from the Winchersters. (His ringtone? "Baby Got Back," in case you were wondering.) "You have less than one minute before a very dear, attractive and slightly tipsy friend of yours snuffs it," he answers without greeting. "Call it off, Crowley," Dean demands. He says he and Sam want to make a deal. He agrees to hand over the Demon Tablet and stop the trials, on one condition (well, two if you count the not-killing-Jody thing): He wants Crowley to give him the Angel Tablet. "First, I need to hear two little words," Crowley says, fingertips poised to snuff out Sheriff Jody's candle. (Figuratively and literally.) Those words: "I surrender." Dean scowls and looks like he's about to throw up. Before he can say the words, this season's flaming title card flames onto the screen for the last time.
The Winchesters drive up alongside a lovely wooded lake, where Kevin Tran is waiting for them. He's digging up something under a pretty fabulous vintage-looking billboard that employs a cartoon devil to advertise an extra-spicy chili. "You hid the Demon Tablet underneath the devil?" Dean asks, just in case we didn't get the joke. "I was delirious," Kevin says in his defense. He holds both halves of the tablet together until they glow and meld into one. "You're sure this is gonna work?" he asks. "What choice do we have?" Sam asks by way of answering. Dean gives Kevin the key to the Lair O' Letters, like, finally! and tells him to lay low. As the Winchesters head back to the Impala, Kevin calls out to them. "You're doing the right thing." Given their track record, they're almost certainly not doing the right thing, but it's nice of Kevin to say.
Castiel and Metatron are hanging out at a bus stop for some reason. "What was He like?" Castiel asks. Metatron looks up from the book he's reading. "Who?" he asks, having not heard the capitalization in Castiel's choice of pronoun. Castiel just looks at him because, duh, who else would he be talking about? Metatron gets his drift. "God? Pretty much like you'd expect," he says. "Larger than life, gruff, a bit of a sexist." Castiel looks disappointed, so Metatron hurries to add, "But fair! Eminently fair!" Castiel still looks sad, even by usual Castiel standards. Metatron assures him that he did the right thing by killing the Nephilim. Besides, it's time to move on to the trial, which be taking place at Doc Marley's Cocktails across the street. Metatron nods toward a man who's just entering and says his name is Dwight. "I've been listening in on Angel Radio -- Cupid frequency, actually. He is the on their list." Metatron tries to explain what Dwight is in for, using a series of colorful (if dated) euphemisms, but Castiel remains shockingly innocent. "He's slotted to be dinged by Cupid's arrow in the 24 hours," Metatron says. They have to retrieve Cupid's bow as the trial, and promises Castiel that no killing will be involved this time.
The Winchesters drive up to a weedy old junkyard in Sioux Falls. It's only when Dean pauses at one particularly weedy car and lets out a wistful sigh that I realize: this is Bobby's old place. Sometimes the show is subtle and beautiful. "Hello, boys," Crowley greets them "What's that old expression? 'Success has many fathers... Failure is a Winchester.'" He chuckles at his own joke. Nobody else laughs, so he pretends like he's more interested in the tablet than in impressing the brothers with his wit. "Where's the stone?" he asks. "You show us yours, we'll show you ours," Dean says. Crowley can't resist cracking wise one more time: "Really, Dean? I'm trying to conduct a professional negotiation here and you want to talk dangly bits?" For all he acts like he wants to kill Sam and Dean, I think he'd really like to take them out for drinks. What's that old expression? Ah, yes: Many a true word is spoken in jest. They take turns flashing their rock-hard tablets, and then Crowley whips out his long, long contract. Crowley sums up the contents of the contract, but Dean is determined to read the whole thing through before letting Sam sign.
Up in Heaven, Naomi gets a visit from a visibly nervous and rosy-cheeked angel. "What is it, Nathaniel?" she asks when he just stands there. "One of our freelancers has reached out to us," he says. He tells her about Castiel hanging out at the bar, which happens to be in my hometown of Houston. He haltingly adds that the Scribe was with him. Naomi makes a face of displeasure so intense that it may well kill Nathaniel where he stands, since we don't hear from him again for the rest of the episode.
Back at the Junkyard That Time Forgot, Crowley is growing weary of Dean slowly reading through the contract and decides to amuse himself with more taunting. "You know why I always defeat you? It's your humanity. It's a built-in handicap. You always put emotion ahead of good old-fashioned common sense." Says the guy who stays up nights coming up with nicknames for the Winchesters. When it's time for Sam to sign, he nods once at Dean, who slaps a pair of handcuffs on Crowley. "Is this a joke?" Crowley asks. "You realize all I have to do is..." He snaps his fingers, but nothing happens. Dean takes the rare opportunity to gloat. "Demonic handcuffs, jackass -- no smoking, no flicking, no teleporting out. Oh, and no deal, which pretty much means that you're our bitch." Crowley punches him in the face. Dean punches him back, then plucks the Angel Tablet from Crowley's coat pocket. Dean busts out his most gravelly to inform Crowley that he's about to become mortal. "You're the third trial, Crowley," Sam tells him. For the first time, Crowley looks a wee bit nervous.
Castiel and Metatron have moved the love search into the bar, where Castiel is currently skimming through local personal ads. "The faster that man finds love, the faster the Cupid will come." The impending love target Dwight approaches their table. "Can I help you gents?" he asks. "Yes!" Castiel answers. Of course, Dwight was offering to take their drinks order, but Castiel is impatient. "Would you say that you're looking for a 'partner in crime,' or, uh..." He glances down at the paper to make sure he gets the wording just right. "...Someone who's 'into nurse roleplay and light domination'?" Metatron looks mortified. Dwight looks puzzled. "Brother, it's 10 AM on a Tuesday," he says, like there's any wrong time for nurse roleplay. Metatron hurries to order two beers, and then fixes his look of horror on Castiel. Before he can get very far into chastising Castiel for his lack of subtlety, Naomi and her minions appear behind him. One guy grabs Metatron while Naomi orders a female angel to kill Castiel. Dwight pops up from behind the bar with a shotgun and dings Metatron's would-be captor. The angel just flutters away and reappears behind Dwight to shove him into a shelf of booze. "Let him go," Castiel says. "Haven't you already caused enough trouble, Castiel?" Naomi asks. Castiel whips out an All-Purpose Angel Sword, but Metatron begs him to stand down lest he make things worse. With that, Naomi and her minions flit away with Metatron in tow.
The Winchesters arrive at this week's abandoned building with their demonic prisoner. It's not a factory or a warehouse this time, but a church at which only termites have been worshiping for the last 20 or so years. Set against a backdrop of thick gray clouds and a long muddy road that dead-ends at its front steps, it is as gloomy a setting as they could have chosen. Sam clambers out of the driver's seat while Dean exits the back, dragging Crowley after him. What a fun trip that must have been, trapped in the back seat cuffed to Crowley, enduring untold miles of demonic singalongs.
Inside, the brothers make better preparations than they did for Abaddon. This includes shackling Crowley's neck, wrists and ankles and bolting the chains to the floor. Dean then paints a Devil's Trap around him. "You really think this is going to hold me?" Crowley asks, trying to muster up some bravado, but sounding a tad nervous. Now, the Winchesters have obviously learned some things from their debacle last week, but they still leave Crowley unattended while they have a chat outside. Luckily, the script doesn't call for him to escape this time, so they're safe. "How you feeling?" Dean asks Sam, who's pouring himself a jug of holy water. "Honestly, for the first time in a long time, it feels like we're gonna win," Sam says. That's the point at which the universe goes "HAW HAW!" in its best Nelson Muntz voice. Now, even though Sam's been feeling like the trials have purified him, he's still going to follow Father Thompson's recipe and go to confession. "I have no clue what to say," he admits. "I could give you a few suggestions, if you want," Dean says. Just off the top of his head, Dean comes up with Sam's dalliance with Ruby, killing Lilith and letting Lucifer out, losing his soul and not looking for Dean when he went to Purgatory. Now, the first one and the last one are legit, but the stuff in the middle is just more of the merry-go-round of brotherly issues. Sam's heard enough of that shiz, so he goes back inside the church to close himself in one of the dilapidated confessionals. To whom is he supposed to confess? Not only is there no priest in this decrepit establishment, but God's not even on duty anymore.
What he says for his Sacrament of Penance will have to remain a mystery to us for a while, considering we go back to Dean finishing up prep out of the Impala's trunk. Suddenly, a familiar flutter of feathers fills the air. "Dean, I need your help," says Castiel. "I'm a little busy, Cass, take a number," Dean tells him. Dean goes back to his ammo gathering until Castiel says that Naomi has taken Metatron. This is the first that Dean has heard that Castiel even knows Metatron, so Castiel has to catch him up on their Angel Trial team-up.
Metatron is just coming to in Naomi's office. He's been strapped into her fancy dentist's chair and a gleaming drill awaits him on a tidy little table. "Your reputation precedes you," he says, looking at the drill. He starts to say something about the archangels, but Naomi cuts him off. "[They] wanted me to debrief you after God left," she says. He scoffs. "Debrief me? Is that what you call it?" She points out that he ran before he could find out. She wonders why Metatron would suddenly come out of hiding, knowing that they would be looking for him. "And what are you doing with Castiel?" she asks. Instead of answering, he decides to quote Samuel Johnson: "Of the blessings set before you, make your choice and be content." Naomi chooses to drill into his head.
Dean argues that he can't drop everything to help Castiel just now. "If anybody needs a chaperone while doing the heavy lifting, it's Sam." Of course, this is the precise moment that Sam walks up behind them and hears everything. Dean realizes this and makes an "aw, shit!" face. "You should go," Sam tells his brother. Dean is more than a little reluctant to leave him, but Sam eventually talks him into it, pointing out they might be able to get rid of the angels and demons at the same time. "Start the injections," Dean tells him. "If I'm not back in eight hours, finish it -- no question, no hesitation." Dean grabs the Angel Tablet and then, with a hand on his shoulder, Castiel flutters them both away.
Sam returns to the church and draws out the first syringe of his blood. "You really think injecting me with human blood is gonna make me human?" Crowley scoffs. It does sound kind of wonky, doesn't it? After all, a demon's meatsuit is full of human blood! Statistically speaking, at least some of those meatsuits would have had "purified" blood, whether from confession or innocence. Sam doses Crowley with his blood and frowns when there doesn't seem to be any immediate effect. "See you in an hour!" Crowley tells him. As Sam heads back to the altar where he's assembled his tools of the trade, the veins in his arms begin to glow.
Dean and Castiel bring the Angel Tablet to the Lair O' Letters, where Kevin pooh-poohs the idea of translating it within the few hours. "It took me six months and a dead mom to translate a piece of the Demon Tablet," he reminds them. So, Mama Tran is dead for realsies? That's kind of a bummer. Kevin pours himself a whiskey while Dean looks on in surprise. "According to your own words this morning, this is not what I do -- it's what I did." Castiel picks him up by the front of his shirt so that they're standing nearly nose to nose. "You are a Prophet of the Lord, always and forever," Castiel growls at him. Then he thinks about it for a moment and adds, "Until the day you cease to exist, and another prophet takes your place." Mind you, it's not a threat, but a simple statement of fact, like when Castiel pointed out that his "cool coat" was actually quite warm. Dean rolls his eyes, but doesn't interrupt. Castiel gives Kevin a little shove towards the tablet. "Now, are you clear as to the task before you?" Kevin nods and tries not to cry, and then Castiel and Dean flutter away to their destination.
As we return to the old church, the camera lingers on the wooden crucifix above the OH HOLY CRAP IS THAT EVER CREEPY! Jesus's extremities are still fixed to that thing, but all the middle is gone. It's just disembodied hands and feet on a cross. Oh crap is that creepy... and awesome. Where was I? Oh, right: the camera lingering on the crucifix over the altar. Sam counts down the seconds, and injects Crowley with another dose of Purely Purified Pureness. Crowley grabs Sam's forearm and bites a big chunk out of it. Sam yelps and pulls away. "What the hell, Crowley?" Crowley does his best to look innocent and very nearly resembles a Boston terrier who's just been caught peeing on the sofa. Sam punches him in the face. He really just cannot believe that a demon would bite him. Like, Crowley has flung him into walls and choked him, but biting him is beyond the pale! While Sam scampers off to get an emergency tetanus shot or whatever, Crowley surreptitiously spits Sammy soup into his palm. With a bit of chanting, he actives one of those red blood cellular phones that the demons sometimes seem fond of using. After a backward glance to make sure Sam was dim enough to leave him alone, he begins whispering towards his palm. "For the love of everything, whoever is hearing this -- if anyone is hearing this -- this is your King. Send help immediately." The blood says I'm almost out of minutes!
Dean enjoys some beers at that Houston bar and watches a TV show about bow hunting. It's a bow-themed evening, apparently. Castiel slides into the bar stool beside him. "Anything?" Dean asks. "You've been gone long enough." Castiel looks glum and replies, "Well, there was one female, but... I don't think she was female." He notices that Dean has been putting away quite a few beers. "You think it's wise to be drinking on the job?" he asks. "What show you been watching?" Dean metas. Then he gets serious as he broaches the subject of shutting the doors on Heaven. He doesn't think the angels will be particularly happy to be locked in there with Castiel. Castiel knows there's a chance they'll kill him, so he gets in as much staring at Dean as he can. "So, this is it," Dean says. "E.T. goes home." Castiel looks a little confused by that, but doesn't have time to question it before the door opens.
Eureka! It's a woman! She says her name is Gail and she's dropping off the booze in place of the usual delivery guy. "Show time," Dean says under his breath. Gail smiles at Dwight and at another guy who's sitting at the end of the bar. Dwight introduces them: "Gail, this is Rod. He rides the stool here most days." She pats them both on the shoulder and bids them goodbye. Dean and Castiel are confused when she turns around and leaves, and even more confused when Dwight and Rod begin to flirt with each other. Dean goggles at them like a goldfish that's just had its heteronormative worldview rocked.
Man, Sam is looking sicker by the minute. "Ain't it about time for the love injection?" Crowley taunts him. He sings a few lines from David Bowie's "Changes." Sam doubles over in pain. Oh, come on, it wasn't that bad. His arms glow again. The church begins to shake and a crack forms in the wooden floor, cutting through the outer circle of the Devil's Trap. Crowley's all set to gloat again, but then it turns out the cavalry consists of Abaddon and she's not exactly a fan of his. "Hello, boys," she says. "That's my line," Crowley pouts. Sam reaches for a gun, presumably loaded with another Devil's Trap bullet, but she waves him into the nearest wall. Why doesn't she just kill him outright? Because then she wouldn't get to hurl him through a window, which she does in short order. Crowley commands her to unshackle him, but she'd rather punch him in the face for a while.
Outside the bar, Dean and Castiel confront "Gail." "Hello, brother," she says to God's Dreamiest Angel. "Give us your bow," Castiel says. Without waiting for a response, he flicks the All-Purpose Angel Sword out of his sleeve and into his hand. Dean puts himself between Castiel and Gail. "Talk first, stab later." For some reason, Gail doesn't flit out of there at once.
Back at the church, Abaddon is still testing out her newly reattached hand by beating the ever-loving snot out of Crowley. "Do you know what I find most shocking time-traveling through a closet and landing in the year 2013?" Reality TV? The price of coffee? She lands a blow that knocks Crowley and his chair to the ground and then answers her own question: "Somebody thought it was a good idea to make you the King of Hell." She sees Crowley eying Sam's fallen gun and slides it away from him. For some reason, Crowley thinks it's a good idea to call her a whore. She stomps his head to the ground. Before she can finish him off, Sam pops up and flings some kind of liquid on her. It's probably not holy water, as it catches on fire when he then tosses a book of lit matches at her. She screams and flails as the flames engulf her and smoke pours out of her flambéed meatsuit.
Castiel's chat is going better with Gail now that he's taken imminent death off the table. "I've been afraid to go home for some time now," she admits. "It all seems to be breaking down... You think you can fix that?" Castiel doesn't look especially hopeful, but says, "With time, yes." Gail holds out her hand as the tattoo of a bow appears on her palm. It looks like something she got in a box of Cracker Jack. "Take it," she says. Castiel readies his All-Purpose Angel Sword, even though he could probably remove that thing with soap and water.
Metatron's eye is a bloody mess after Naomi's tinkering. "Why are you doing this?" she asks him, looming over him. Like every other angel (and Winchester), he's got big Daddy Issues. He cries about being chosen by God and longing for Him when He left. "Father's left," he remembers thinking when it happened, "but look what He's left us -- Paradise!" He blames Naomi and the archangels for squandering it all. "You ran me from my home," he seethes. "Did you really think you could do all that to me and there'd be no payback?" Naomi smirks and flits away, leaving Metatron alone to ponder the drill sitting to him. It seems like the Winchesters aren't the only ones who suck at keeping prisoners.
Crowley has currently reached the drunken "I love you, man!" stage of the cure. "You did good back there, Moose," he says when Sam rights his chair. "I'll deny it if you ever quote me, but, man, I'm proud of you." His feelings are hurt when Sam repaints the Devil's Trap, realizing Sam doesn't trust him even after they've been through together. Sam doses him with the injection. Crowley, still stung by the betrayal, begins blathering on about Girls. For some reason, he does so with something approximating an American accent. "You're my Marnie, Moose! And Hannah? She just... she needs to be loved! She deserves it! Don't we all? You, me... I deserve to be loved! I just wanna be loved!" His performance is so hammy that certainly it must be a performance, but Crowley seems just as surprised as Sam to realize what he's just said.
Time passes and Sam gets ready to suck out another syringe of his blood. By now, he looks like a background zombie on The Walking Dead. "Would it be possible, Moose, to ask you a favor?" Crowley asks, his voice even raspier than usual. "Sam, when you were confessing back there, what did you say?" Sam frowns at him, unsure if this is the prelude to some trick. Crowley goes on as a Dean-like single tear falls from his eye, asking, "Where do I even start to look for forgiveness?" Sam holds up the syringe and answers, "How about we start with this?" This time, Crowley doesn't fight, but offers his neck for the injection.
Dean calls Kevin to check on his progress. "I think I found the angel trials," Kevin says, "but I don't see anything about nephilim or Cupid's bow, or anything like that." Castiel is carrying a plastic baggie of either Hannibal Lecter's midnight snack or Gail's severed hand. Did they really need to take the whole thing? While Dean and Kevin argue over the particulars, Castiel turns to find Naomi standing behind him. "I'm not here to fight you, Castiel. Not anymore." Castiel advances on her. Watch out, Naomi! He's got an extra hand! "Where is Metatron?" he asks. Naomi says that everything Metatron has been telling him is a lie. Kevin overhears this through his call with Dean. "I've been in his head," Naomi says to prove she knows whereof she speaks. To Castiel, this only proves that she has a penchant for noodling around inside angelic heads. "I'm trying to fix Heaven; Metatron is trying to fix Heaven," he says. "Metatron isn't trying to fix anything!" Naomi says. "He's trying to break it -- an act of revenge for driving him away." Dean wants to hear more, but Castiel cuts him off. Nonetheless, Naomi goes on: "[He'll] expel all angels from Heaven, just as God cast out Lucifer." She says he wants to send all the angels to Earth, which doesn't sound so bad unless, like Lucifer, they get really get pissed off and start acting out. It's a mystery why she suddenly seems so repentant as she tearfully explains she lost sight of what God wanted them to do. Now she turns to Dean. "I want nothing more than to see you shut the Gates of Hell... but if Sam completes those trials, he is going to die." She says she saw it in Metatron's head. "It was always God's intention: the ultimate sacrifice." Again, why would God want to make it so difficult to shut up Hell? Why does nobody ask these things? She tells Castiel that Metatron has been "neutralized" and invites God's Dreamiest Angel to come back to Heaven. With that, she flutters away.
The moment Naomi is gone, Dean returns to his phone. Alas, Kevin can't tell from what he's translated whether or not Naomi is lying. Castiel's like, "Of course she's lying!" But Dean can't risk it. "Take me to him, now!"
At the church, Sam utters that "Red Integra" chant over Crowley's shivering form. As Sam slices into his hand for the final part of the ritual, his palm begins to glow.
Outside, Castiel has just delivered Dean to the church's front steps. Why not take him inside? Is it one of those first date things? "Dean, I'm not wrong," he calls out. "I'm going to fix my home." He flits off before Dean can talk some sense into him.
By now, both of Sam's arms are glowing like an aurora cocktail. Just before he can slap his hand over Crowley's kisser, Dean barges into the church. "Sammy! Stop!" Sam makes a face like a puppy who's just been caught squatting on the carpet.
Castiel returns to Heaven to find Naomi slumped over her desk in a pool of her own blood. At least she died as she lived: bureaucratically. As Castiel peers over her body, he sees the drilled jammed into the back of her head. "She told you I lied, didn't she?" asks Metatron, slipping the tip of an All-Purpose Angel Sword beneath his chin. "You should have listened to the bitch." Sometimes I cringe at the show's casual use of certain words. Sometimes, so does Misha Collins.
Meanwhile, back at the church, Dean tells Sam there's been a slight change of plans. "Metatron lied. If you finish this trial, you're dead, Sam." Maybe there was a scene cut out of this, or maybe we're just supposed to assume these conversations happened in some off-screen version of the show, but Metatron never guaranteed Sam's life in any scene we saw. In fact, hasn't it seemed like the Winchesters have been kind of working on the assumption that closing the Gates of Hell required one of them to die? Isn't that why Dean volunteered to throw himself onto that particular pyre? Isn't that why we had to sit through Dean learning from Charlie about letting go of loved ones? Rapidly Decaying Sammy looks all around in a panic, then duhs: "So?"
Before long, Metatron has Castiel in Naomi's old torture chair. "You promise," Castiel gruffs at him, struggling against the shackles. Metatron shoves Castiel's head back and says Heaven doesn't concern him anymore. He draws the tip of the All-Purpose Angel Sword against Castiel's stubbly throat, letting out a bit of blood and a dribble of purplish light. Cast gags and gasps for breath. "These were never trials," Metatron says. "This is a spell." He holds a tiny glass vial up to Castiel's throat and extracts the light. "What I'm taking from you now -- your essence, your grace -- is the last piece." Metatron wipes his hand over the wound, healing all external trace of it. "And now something wonderful is going to happen," Metatron says. "I want you to live this new life to the fullest. Find a wife, make babies! And when you die and your soul comes to Heaven, find me and tell me your story." Since when do angels have souls? Did Metatron slip one in there while nobody was looking? He places a hand on Castiel's worried brow and sends him into the light.
Sam is still all het up to finish the last trial. "Look at him," he says, pointing at Crowley. "Look how close we are!" At the very least, they're this close to having someone they can watch Girls with! "Other people will die if I don't finish this," Sam says. While it's nice to see a change from the Sam "It's Not My Responsibility" Winchester of earlier this season, I'm still not entirely sure how we got to this. Sam makes a face like he really needs to sneeze but is trying to hold it back. "Think about what we know," Dean reasons with him. "Pulling souls from Hell, curing demons -- hell, ganking a hellhound! We have enough knowledge on our side to turn the tide here, but I can't do it without you." He's talking like they're going to start spending eight hours per demon curing them, when they couldn't be bothered to spend eight minutes exorcising them from their meatsuits. Anyway, this turns out not to be a convincing argument for a Sam. "You can barely do it with me! I mean, you think I screw up everything I try, you think I need a chaperone!" Dean tries to explain that's not what he meant, but Sam's epic butthurt will not be assuaged. "You know what I confessed in there? What my biggest sin was? It was how many times I'd let you down."
Dean's eyes widen, but he shouldn't be shocked for long because Sam's feelings of personal failure are about to take an outward turn. "What happens when you've decided I can't be trusted again?" Sam asks. Note that it's not, "What happens when I do something untrustworthy again?" It's not about Sam's actions, but about how Dean "decides" to respond to them. "I mean, who you gonna turn to time instead of me? Another angel? Another vampire?" Sam is just pouring snot and tears at this point. It's almost as horrific as that hands-and-feet crucifix. "Do you have any idea what it feels like to watch your brother--" Dean cuts him off, telling him that none of it is true. "I know I've said some junk that set you back on your heels, but Sammy, come on. I killed Benny to save you! I'm willing to let this bastard --" He gestures at Crowley. "--and all the sons of bitches that killed Mom walk because of you! Don't you dare think that there isn't anything past or present I wouldn't put in front of you!"
Sam thinks about this for a long time and then, despite the Demon Tablet arc of this entire season and the Hell Gate Trials arc for the last ten episodes, he stands down. "Just let it go," Dean tells him. Sam says he doesn't know how. "It's in me," he sobs. Dean wraps Sam's wounded hand in a bandana and tells him, "We'll figure it out, just like we always do." They'll figure it out for half a season and then, at the last second, do something else. With the magical healing powers of one of Dean Winchester's patented Full-Body Manly Hugs, the sizzling glow in Sam's arms begins to dissipate. Sam nearly laughs with relief. That's when some kind of seizure hits him and he stumbles down the church's front steps. Dean is so freaked out that he ditches the diminutive and calls out to Castiel by his full name.
Of course, what he doesn't know is that Castiel is more or less human now, and unable to call on his old angelic mojo. He's only now coming to, somewhere on the forest floor.
At the same time, the Lair O' Letters goes on some kind of automatic lockdown, complete with flashing red lights and blaring sirens. As Kevin watches, all of the decades-old communications equipment in the hub switches on. The map table lights up with hotspots showing on every continent.
Dean, huddled with Sam against the Impala, looks up just as pinpricks of light brighten the storm clouds. "No, Cass," he whispers, understanding what's happening, but not what caused it. The former angel emerges from the woods to watch with tear-filled eyes as the points of light fall towards Earth. One angel's wings burn away moments before he rockets into a lake, the force of the impact sending up a geyser of water and steam. Sam, perhaps as a symptom of his molecular-level change, seems to feel the impact. "What's happening?" he acts. "Angels," Dean says. "They're falling." Hundreds of them light up the night sky just before the screen blinks to black.
That last scene is actually a beautiful one, and has that great epic feel that the show's finales have been missing for a long time. In that way, it's great. If most of the lead-up can be ignored, it's fantastic. But the lead-up happened. It exists, and, unlike Castiel's grace, it can't be ripped away. Though we've known of the Angel Tablet for a while, the trials (really, a spell) only began in the penultimate episode of the season. Not only that, but Metatron's true motivation only came out in this episode. Would the resolution have been more epic had we been allowed to follow more of this story? Or would a satisfying ending have been snatched away at the last moment anyway? At least it seems that they've set up a potentially interesting storyline for season. Are the angels fallen like Lucifer? New babies like Anna? Adult humans like Castiel? Does the show itself even know at this point?
Tippi Blevins has been possessed by a recapping demon. Send holy water to b_tippi@yahoo.com, or chant spells at her on Twitter: @TippiB.