Supernatural: Season 14, Episode 13: Lebanon

It is the much vaunted 300th episode of Supernatural. And some people are going to be very very excited.

I am not one of them, to be honest

So in a standard little encounter, Sam and Dean take down someone who murdered a Hunter, to take his shiny collection. They kill him and find a whole host of shinies and promptly take it all back to the Winchester cave

There follows the best part of the episode for me, where Sam and Dean, with an actually home, are now known by the locals and have even become something of an urban legend for the local kids.

We do get some shenanigans with a teen stealing Dean’s car (how very dare they!) followed by a brief appearance of John Wayne Gacy’s ghost (ok… I’ve said before that I’m not exactly 100% comfortable with using real life serial killers for casual, throwaway entertainment like this. I find it pretty distasteful and disrespectful, especially when those serial killers are recent enough that the loved ones of their victims may still be around) which is quickly vanquished but does result in the local teens learning about ghosts and hunters. Maybe this will be a hook for later episodes

Because now we get to the meat of the episode. Among the treasures iks a Chinese pearl which apparently grants wishes - or your heat’s desire

KILL IT! KILL IT WITH FIRE!!!!!

I do not believe for one second that the Winchesters wouldn’t avoid this item like the plague. No magical item that grants wishes comes without the worst of all possible catches. Never ever ever make wishes. Never!

Instead they think this is the ideal solution to their Archangel Michael problem, after all Dean’s greatest desire is to get Michael out of his head

Waaait… how come no-one thinks “hey this could lead to Michael being released, also bad?)

So Dean grabs the pearl and thinks of his heart’s desire… and Negan appears

I mean John Winchester Appears. Yes, daddy dearest. And this is where I depart from a large amount of Supernatural fandom, many of whom like John while I tend to be very firmly in the “fuck John, Bobby is their real dad” camp.

Of course the Winchester brothers react with lots of emotion and rhapsodies and, yes they are very very very very very very good at the emotion, the shock, the pathos, the joy, the grief, it’s all there

Supernatural: Season 14, Episode 12: Prophet and Loss

Ok, Supernatural, is good at angst, emotion and seriously messed up relationships with lots and lots and lots of drama. But this episode turned that to 11. So. Much. Deeply. Unhealthy. Emotion.

So, Dean is still planning to lock himself in a magical metal coffin and have himself dumped in the Pacific ocean. He is conflicted about this because he has terrible nightmares about it. He is clearly really really not happy with his suicidal decision.

Sam hears this and tries to offer comfort to Dean - but Dean obviously pretends nothing is wrong because he’s Dean. To which Sam assures him it’s ok to be traumatised since he’s planning a fate that is utterly worse than death. Just like, so terrible. Sam is probably quite good at comforting - but then he isn’t trying to be comforting. He’s dumping as much awful on Dean as he can to make him reconsider.

Dean is resisting - he insists Sam not to try and distract him; that’s why he never told Castiel or Jack - he is doing this and doesn’t want anyone to shake his resolve

Of course Sam has already told Castiel - and they’ve done everything they can to find an alternative to seal in Michael, even calling in Rowena. They’ve come up with nothing

They begin their road trip to Dean’s horrible fate, Dean begins to talk about their childhood and how he regrets supporting their dad so much when he and Sam were at odds and how his dad, when annoyed at Dean, used to send him away. And as a long term 14 season Supernatural fan, can I say how much this moment mattered - because here we had Dean, Dean of all people, acknowledging that John Winchester was a less than perfect parent (yes I have always been in camp: John Winchester was an abusive father and Bobby was their real dad).

But Sam is not being dragged down painful memory lane, angrily and emotionally shuts Dean down. If he’s going to put Dean in a metal box in the ocean he is not having an emotional recap with him, absolutely not.

While they’re on with that there’s another case building up - a man is killing people in ritual ways and carving into their flesh. Carving enochian into their flesh while making biblical-ish quotes

Sam naturally seizes on this and encourages Dean to go on one last case and it doesn’t take too much of a sell to convince him to come with. They contact Castiel to question who is running around knowing Enochian, suspecting that it may be an angel. Castiel quickly drops that he knows about Dean’s suicide plan (because he’s not great at secrets) and promptly gets on with telling Dean what a terribad awful idea this is.

Dean still won’t be shifted. And no they will never ever give up on talking him out of it.

So onto the case where they interview the twin of one of the victims who talks a lot about just how much his brother meant to him. Uh-huh this is not subtle. Not subtle at all, these pot shots at their feels.

Supernatural: Season 14, Episode 11: Damaged Goods

Time to cut down another storyline - Nick, Lucifer’s ex-host, who is now dealing with serial killer impulses and a desire to get vengeance for his family by finding Abraxas the demon who killed them. This involves finding various people who are probably really eager to co-operate with him but he decides to go with kidnapping threat and torture anyway

Because evil. Oh and he has an angel blade. Do they mass produce these things?!

But we also have Dean. Last episode we were told by Billie that there was just one possible way that Michael doesn’t escape Dean’s head and causes the world to end. Despite a regular habit of disrupting prophecy and rebuilding reality, Dean accepts this

I approve. This is very very very much in character. If it were Sam who was facing this certain horrible death, Dean would end the world first. But since it involves his own martyrdom and his own self-destructive impulses and lack of self worth, this makes perfect sense

Speaking of that unhealthy co-dependence. Dean decides to set that plan in motion by going on a little road trip to see Mary (staying in Donna’s cabin. Alone as she and Bobby had a little tiff but mainly because with this very personal emotional time for Dean I think Bobby-not-Bobby would just really complicate things. The Pseudo-father-figure-who-isn’t would be awkward). And he wants to go alone. He also hugs Sam goodbye

Sam is SUSPICIOUS. Dean does not go places without Sam. He just… doesn’t. That unhealthy attachment ensures it. Dean also doesn’t hug. Dean doesn’t do emotion like that. Hugs mean the end of the world. As Sam says. Which kind of annoys me because I think one of the advantages of having fourteen seasons is that a show doesn’t need to explain things like that, but hey.

Dean heads to Mary, dropping in to see Donna, who is always awesome and show have had her own show like Wayward Sisters and I am NOT OVER THIS.

Donna also notices Dean is acting… oddly but he continues on to see Mary who, thanks to lots of phone calls with Sam, knows Something is Up and they do lots of family bonding and reminiscing while Mary tries to figure out exactly what is happening with Dean. I like this - I like the dynamic and the recognition that everyone is deeply worried but also fully away Dean will neither ask for nor accept help.

Summoned to the Thirteenth Grave (Charley Davidson #13) by Darynda Jones

Charley Davidson has been freed from the dimension she was trapped in… but only to find the real world is under a new threat: a hell dimension is spreading over the city… perhaps the world

A Hell dimension unleashed by Charley and Reyes… and only answering the hidden question of what happened to Charley’s mother may help them save the world and their daughter..

This is the final chapter in the story of Charley Davidson…. Which means I always am going to be quite bleak about all this. I am never happy about a series ending, especially not a series I’ve come to love. I will always be grumpy about this.

And that means I need to do an obligatory bias check - it’s ending and I am unhappy and I hates it I hates it I hates it!

But I do have some issues beyond my utter unwillingness to say goodbye

As I’ve said with this series, the balance of zaniness is a little off kilter. I always liked Charley and her silly habit of naming things (like her breasts: Danger and Will Robinson, or her car, Misery) but then she took it too far and started naming all the things. We still had the humour but it started trying too hard to be silly. This book we pulled that back a lot and got a lot more serious… perhaps even too serious. But it was focused on the plot… but lost some fun along the way

That plot is something I’m torn over. Like previous books towards the latter half of this series there’s a weird split between EPIC WORLD DESTROYING MASSIVENESS with gods and angels and demons and Charley being this incredible epic thing beyond comprehension with massive stakes beyond knowing while also being super super fun…. And then there’s a fairly mundane crime drama. And it feels… odd? Especially because in this book it feels especially strong because while we’re talking about the whole world ending in the not very distant future, neither Charley nor Reyes seem to make this a priority? I think part of this is the way it pans out: this shadowy hell dimension is consuming the city and will expand to consume the world with a side order of dangerous violent possessions. But Charley gets a rather dubious cryptic advice that she basically has to find out something from her past to get the answer. There’s no obvious connection so while the world is ending it feels like Charley is involved in something completely unrelated. While we have a much more focused and excellent classic Charley Davidson storyline of finding some missing people and using magic and investigative shenanigans to great effect - with the added bonus of Charley’s development with her new thread of ruthlessness. It was a great storyline which totally eclipsed the world ending and the actual finale of the series.

Supernatural: Season 14, Episode 10: Nihilism

After a very very very long recap - honestly after fourteen seasons it’s amazing every episode isn’t just endless recap - we open with Dean running a bar with Pamela Barnes. She was a recurring character on the show, a psychic and one of Bobby’s contacts who became blind when looking at Castiel’s true form and later died because she’s female and on Supernatural and that’s just dangerous.

He’s having a happy time drinking booze, having no customers, not!flirting with Pamela and killing the odd vampire who shows up. And not selling his bar. This quickly replays on a loop and this is obviously Dean stuck in his headspace

And am I the only one who thinks that there’s absolutely no way Dean’s headspace bar would have country music while classic rock still exists? C’mon Supernatural you know your own soundtrack!

So to everyone else - the terrible plan of terribleness has failed and now Dean is newly possessed by the archangel Michael and there’s an army of monsters about to turn an entire city into monsters. Not an important city or big one, but Supernatural has always had a kind of rural-mid-west thing about it that it’s not going to break that now.

So then the gang throws holy oil at Dean!Michael and manage to get the holy handcuffs on him. Which… well they had a plan B I guess? They could have maybe included this in the planning? Maybe thrown the holy oil at Michael and then gone in with the spear? Or maybe it needed unnecessary gloating to work?

Michael declares that their puny handcuffs totally can’t hold him. Except they can. Or at least for the time being. But they can’t stop him summoning his growing army of monsters who begin banging on the hastily secured doors.

With no idea what to do, Sam decides to call on the Reapers. Billie, the new Death, always has a reaper following the Winchesters around because they’re both a) annoying and b) there’s grudging respect. But mainly A.

So Jessica is their currently assigned Reaper - because they’re so annoying that she’s had to assign shifts of Reapers to watch them. Jessica then explains to Sam that she’s a reaper and it’s so very much not in her job description to save people. Quite the opposite. He tries to invoke some debt the Reapers owe them but she points out the Winchesters can’t fuck things up, then fix said fuck up, then act like everyone owes them for that

I like the Reapers, they’re so very good at calling out Winchester shit

Michael pipes up to say in his world they’ve destroyed death and enslaved all the Reapers. Since people are regularly dying on his world I can assume this is either a) nonsense, b) the writers threw it in to sound ominous without thinking what it meant for their world building) or c) Archangel shenanigans

Thankfully some other mystical force gets in touch and whisks Sam, Castiel, Jack and Dean!Michael to the Winchester cave which is rather surprising but hey good use of Deus Ex. It’s also surprising to Maggie leading the extras to fight the monsters in the city - but thankfully Michael now summons those monsters to the Winchester cave so they stop destroying and recruiting

That leaves Sam & co thinking what to do next and they decide, following a previous experience with Crowley and possession. So they want to go into Dean’s head using shenanigans to snap him out of possession

Archangel's Prophecy (Guild Hunter #11) by Nalini Singh

The Cascade is rising again, the power swelling and ancient angels starting to influence the world with their ancient prophecies

Prophecies which focus a lot on Elena, the only human born angel in existence. She’s gone through many changes - but will she survive how the magic changes her again?

But while the world is shaken there’s a more mundane, but deeply personal threat as well. Someone is killing vampires - including an attempt on her brother in law. She and the world may be under threat from magic - but her family is under threat from a killer and Elena refuses to let that go

I find myself clinging more and more desperately to Nalini Singh’s epic worlds because we’re seeing so few of these beautiful epic series. More and more are closing and, damn it, I love me a long epic! More epics! More book series with more books than I have digits!

And so we continue to the story of Elena - and I like that we are going back to Elena this book after several books of following more and more of Raphael’s Seven and their relationships, we’re now returning to the original, Elena, the first human born angel and what she means in this changing Cascade world. I like this revisit because we can see so much of how Elena has grown now we’re refocusing on her - another advantage of these long series. Some of this is very personal to Elena which really shows both a lot of her personal growth and journey as well as how she is so very different from other angels. Her relationship with her family, her attitudes towards her brother-in-law, her sister and, above all her father. She has evolved and has some much more mature and nuanced emotions towards her family as she and they have grown. Equally it emphasises she isn’t an Angel - how so many of those angels have no real familial ties of note. But we don’t just see her humanity but also how angelkind has changed her. She looks at angels she thought as cruel and sadistic and now she sees them from a much different perspective - she can see the risks they take with vampires as well as the angel’s cruel response. She’s not as condemnatory even while, at the same time, not quite signing off on it

Throughout the book we see Elena elegantly straddling that line between human and angel - and even her ties with the Guildhunters still putting her both part of the organisation but also apart. I also really like how this is never seen as a bad thing - sure she has lost some commonality over the books with some of her friends, but she still has her ties and in a genre where difference is so often seen as exclusionary or isolating, Elena has a really strong friend network. Which I also appreciate in paranormal romance where so many women seem to live lives with few truly close connections beyond that with their love interest. In fact, huge amounts of this book happen with Elena completely separate from Raphael - I would even say he is a bit character in this book, there more for what he represents than his actual presence. I’m not saying Raphael should be sidelined - but it’s nice to see us revisiting characters in a romance and her having a life that isn’t entirely focused on him

Supernatural: Season 14, Episode 9: The Spear

Time for an epic opening with an epic voice over from Dean about how they are the people who monsters are afraid of. Which is, yes, kinda epic. But this is Supernatural. Epic pre-ambles to any kind of find finale need classic rock. It is known. Know your brand, Supernatural.

So we have a bit of domestic moment with Jack eating late night cereal and asking Castiel not to tell his other dad, Sam, who disapproves of high sugar food. Which is kind of cute and I think a lot more of these would have done a great job of turning Jack into someone I actually care about rather than that extra who keeps tagging along for no apparent reason. But really these scene is for Castiel to remind Jack not to tell anyone about the deal he made with the Empty

We’re already setting that up for a lot of angst because Dean is so super happy because they managed to bring Jack back from the dead and nothing went wrong and they didn’t have to pay a price and everything is awesome

So that’s definitely going to be future angst. But can I say again that we have another angst or personal drama moment that is centring on Dean even when this should be more Cas’s woe. Dean doesn’t have to be the centre of all.

But we’re back on track with Michael. Naomi has told them where Michael is. Kansas City. And he has a new body, a woman’s.

And I’m sure there are many reasons why anyone, let alone an Archangel, would go to Kansas City

I’m sure.

I don’t know what they are, but I’m sure they exist. Yes.

Sam has also snuck Garth into Michaels’ orbit. Since Garth is a werewolf so fits his whole army of monsters thing. Garth hopes to actually not consume the Michael Blood/Grace potion… which doesn’t go to plan because it’s hard to deceive an Archangel and he ends up taking the upgrade potion which is definitely not going to end well.

Between this spying they know Michael’s plan - send his army into Kansas city and turn every one there into more monsters. I am sure there are many… sensible reasons to begin your invasion of North America in Kansas City…

So the counter plan is to get the angel-killing spear from Dark Kaia (Dean and Castiel on that) and Ketch has some mystical golden egg which will help imprison Michael which he’s put in the post. Yes there are convoluted reasons but he still put it in the post. Sam and Jack are off to collect that.

Predictably it all goes horribly horribly wrong

To begin with Sam and Jack are attacked by Michael and it goes horribly wrong because, well, Michael is an Archangel which makes him pretty unassailable. He knocks Sam out, doesn’t kill him because… because… the script says so that’s why! He also destroys the magical egg so that’s out of the picture. Personally I don’t remember the egg was in the picture so there’s that.

Supernatural, Season 14, Episode 8: Byzantium

This episode Jack dies…

That’s pretty much the opening scene - and I give special kudos to Castiel telling Dean to get back to Jack’s bedside because Jack needs support and this really can’t be all about Dean for five seconds.

So we have lots of grieving. And it’s really sad and these actors have spent the best part of a decade perfecting their angsty sad faces. It’s what they do. And of course, especially with us supporting fully the idea that Jack has three dads, they needed to have this dramatic grief. Which is so well done.

But.

But… I’m not feeling it? I mean, do I care about Jack? Does anyone care about Jack? Have we actually built up Jack into someone we all care about? I’m not the only one here right?

So after we lose half of the episode to dramatic, well acted grief, of course we realise death totally doesn’t exist in this world. Sam points out to Dean that they never ever give up on the dead (which is something I think we could explore more) and he’s looked for a solution

Enter Lily Sunder. So back in season 12 Lily was a woman who had a nephilim child who was killed by angels so she went on a rampage using angel magic (powered by her soul) to kill those angels and living for an unnaturally long time to do it. She’s now much older since she’s not using that magic any more. But by using that Jack could be reborn and keep his body going using a shred of his soul

Dean is really against this because he’s super stubborn and doesn’t like her. But Sam points out they actually always do these half-arsed desperate deals. Which is true. Dean points out that they usually bite them in the arse. Which is also true

But can they really not take the chance?

Dean confronts Lily - what’s the catch. Why did she stop using the magic and allow herself age. She points out her dead daughter is in heaven and, with only a shred of her soul left, she could go to heaven to be with her. Which is nice but she did all that angel killing stuff which means she’s probably not that welcome up in heaven. So she wants the Winchesters to guarantee her passage to heaven.

Supernatural: Season 14, Episode 7: Unhuman Nature

Jack collapsed last episode and his three dads are all panicky about how to help. Castiel tries to use his angelic abilities, but he has no idea what is wrong with Jack or how to fix him

In desperation they take him to a hospital, desperately trying to get through his admissions process when he has no surname, family or officially presence. But medical technology also doesn’t work so well with an ailing Nephilim.

Running out of options, with lots of powerful grief and Dean especially falling apart, they turn to Rowena

I always love a visit from Rowena! She isn’t thrilled about helping a nephilim and especially not the son of Satan - thinking that anything to do with satan is better off dead. But she can’t resist Jack’s innocent charm, even if he does kind of accept she may be right

But even Rowena’s magic doesn’t work. She does diagnose him though - a Nephilim needs grace to live. An Archangel Nephilim needs archangel grace. Which is a problem because all the archangels are dead.

Everyone starts brain storming except Jack - who wants to spend some time living and asks Dean to take him out. Which includes Dean showing him how to drive. Yes, drive his car, his baby; he doesn’t even let Sam do that. I like that a series of 14 seasons can have moments like this that have been so well established - and I like that they didn’t feel the need to make that point in this episode. We have fourteen seasons already we don’t need to make this clear.

They also fish with Jack being all gushy about this because he wants to spend more time with dean while he still has time left

And this whole scene, whole arc, is beautiful - but why Dean? There’s Sam and Castiel saying how hard it is to lose a son, and how this hurts more than their previous losses - but even they are talking about how it hurts Dean especially. I think the habit of Supernatural to focus more on Dean than the others takes something from the show. Especially this where Jack has, if anything, been closer to Sam and even closer to Castiel than Dean.

Castiel thought he had managed to track down Sergei, a shaman, who may be able to help - but only seems to exacerbate the problem. Castiel is duly enraged

But they now have no hope for Jack

Paradise Damned (Descent Series #7) by S.M. Reine

Elise is trapped within the Garden of Eden - and it is time for the godslayer to finally comfront God himself. Or at least try to survive his presence...

James has run to the rescue - but he is trapped and lost in endless limbo. While on Earth forces gather, the Union, hunters and even demon/angel hybrids as a cataclysmic event is predicted

This book is an odd book. There is plot but for the most part it doesn’t progress and go anywhere. We follow Elise almost exclusively now she is trapped in The Garden with her long nemesis - Adam, God. The god, the god that she, the godslayer, was always intended to face

But while in that garden she experiences a great deal - but, through sheer powerlessness doesn’t do a great deal or move the plot forward. And I think that works and is very necessary to convey just how very powerless and lost Elise is at this moment - how her just surviving and continuing to go forwards in a realm that is inimical to her very being in the face of a being of literally omnipotent power. Being frustrated, being stuck, seeing no way out but fighting on anyway is the core of this book and Elise herself

And while that happens we have the revelations - oh the revelations and truly fascinating world building and take on the ancient Adam and Eve mythology. The nature of Adam/God, the very different nature of Eve (which definitely flips the power scale before Adam ruined everything) the nature of Lillith, the birth of angels, of demons of humanity, why the whole idea of sacrificing women to the clearly dangerous and broken god keeps working, Metaraon and his motives towards all the events in the series so far, including the shape of this coven - so much is here.

On top of that we have nice moments from Nathaniel (James’s son), Elise’s mother Arianne and James himself all adding new shades to their characters both now and going forwards as well as more flashbacks of Elise’s past which helps understand her a bit more. I especially appreciate, after my previous complaints, that Elise and James have a major confrontation over the information he has been hiding from her - and it’s neither dismissed nor swept up. In fact it’s a nice contrast how she kind of rebuilds a lot of bridges with Anthony after their deeply broken relationship after they were both emotionally reeling - but such a neat resolve is denied James

The book ends with epic. And I think it needed to - after so longer with Elise captured and helpless we needed reminding of her awesome strength, we needed reminding that just because she was so helpless in the face of an impossible force doesn’t make her weak. It worked - and I think it worked even more that we had a sort of mini epilogue to basically say that it isn’t over That despite the whole massive, world changing hugeness that just happened, life still goes on and it goes on in quiet, sad and often mundane ways

One odd side effect of all the epic hugeness this is that Lucas, Malcolm and Anthony, making their way to Oymyakon, seeing the Union getting up to various shenanigans is a very fun romp (and I will always kind of love Malcolm, the quintessential rogue) but also jarringly out of place and bizarrely mundane next to all the epic world building and revelations out there - but at the same time the only part of the story that is actually moving forwards

Midnight Texas: Season 2, Episode 2: The Monster of the Week is the Patriarchy

Hail the Cheese!

Nightshift (Midnight Texas #3) by Charlaine Harris

People are committing suicide at the Midnight crossroads. Once is tragic, twice unlikely and three times definitely more than a coincidence

There’s a dark presence under the crossroads. It’s been there for centuries - but it’s waking up. The inhabitants only clue to what it is and what it wants is in a book that none of them can read. They’re running out of time and the dark voice Fiji hears is growing louder

Meanwhile Olivia’s family may have finally caught up with her - with lethal repercussions and increased suspicion about the true motives of her neighbours

I really do like the concept of Midnight - a small town in rural Texas where the supernatural gathers, where people with secrets gather to build their new life. Over the last few books this has developed further as the members of the community have grown closer together. And this is something Charlaine Harris has always been very very good at: building a community, building all those little social interactions, those visits and family histories and little gossips that gives a real sense of community

This does, in some cases, slow the pacing as various characters discuss their issues with each other, then discuss those issues with other characters and all pry into each other’s business - especially since we have a lot of characters all with their own back stories and issues (which I, again, really like). But it works here because the overall story of this small town is the community that has been built here. So I don’t mind that we spend what appears to be a truly unnecessary amount of time discussing Lemuel’s human life even though it adds absolutely nothing to the plot. Or that we have Manfred’s old cronies from Las Vegas living nearby. Or the time spent gossiping around tables discussing what Chuy and Joe are (which is not known for most of this book and these are somewhat peripheral characters - which is a little weird given what they’re facing). It works because that’s what these books are.

I do think Olivia’s story is a little…. Weirdly convoluted. But hey, it’s not completely out there so I can run with it.

At times it seems the characters are somewhat distracted from the main plot, largely waiting for Lemuel to translate a convenient book he’s found - convenient in that it has all the answers and plot convenient in that it’s written in a convoluted ancient language for no good reason (and, honestly it makes little sense and really is just a method of drawing out the main plot so they can focus on the smaller side plots and relations. But it works).

The plot itself does have those convenience issues and does sort of circle slowly towards the ending rather than run for it - and it has some weird road bumps with Olivia’s story kind of running mundanely across the main supernatural - there’s something dark and evil under the crossroads plot line.