Welcome to week forty-egiht of the rewatch project, superfans! Over the years our beloved show has given us many varied and interesting female characters. Sadly, the one thing they seem to have common is the tendency to drop like flies. We've barely had time to mourn Ellen and Jo, but it seems it’s time to say goodbye to Anna too. Sigh. At least we still have Becky.
Raise a glass to Becky's health.
THE OFFICIAL FYA SUPERNATURAL DRINKING GAME:
Take a drink every time:
• There’s a corpse
• A demon possesses/de-possesses and/or makes a deal with some hapless schmuck
• A far-off disaster is mentioned but not shown for budgetary reasons
• Dean crams his face full of junk food
• An angel is snotty
• Anyone is tied up
• Either brother picks a lock
• Someone employs a Titan of Classic Rock as an alias
• The Glorious and Faithful Impala is damaged in the line of duty
5x13: The Song Remains the Same
Monster of the Week: Anna
Anna party crashes Dean's stripper-filled dream and says she needs to see him right away. She’s been in Heaven’s prison but now she’s on the run and needs help.
But Cas is the one who shows at the arranged meeting spot warehouse. He doesn’t trust Anna—no one just breaks out of Heaven’s prison. They must have released her to do their dirty work. He’s right as it turns out. Anna shows to the meeting with a knife and instructions to kill Sam and scatter his remains across the universe so Lucifer won’t be able to put him back together. Cas says he’ll kill her first.
He tells the boys of Anna’s plan. Dean is sad that is one-time lover wants is evil and calls her Glenn Close. Cas is annoyed.
Aw. When the apocalypse is over, they should treat him to an 80s movie marathon.
Later, he decides maybe they should kill her anyway, just to be sure. He does a spell and finds she’s time-traveled back to 1978 so she can kill John and Mary before Sam is born. He zaps them all back into the past, but the effort costs him. As soon as they land in 1978, he collapses!
Cas, no! You still haven’t seen Ghostbusters!
He’s out for the count. The boys stash him in a motel and head to their parents’ house. Mary is not pleased to see Dean, remembering him as a hunter from his previous time-travelling jaunt. She tries to shoo them away, but when John comes to the door, Dean pretends they’re Mary’s cousins and gets an invite inside.
Pretending to be John’s boss, Anna calls and says he needs to come into work or he’s fired. Meanwhile, Sam and Dean tell Mary an angel is coming for her. It takes some convincing, but she finally agrees they need to run. But when they call for John, they see he’s left. John finds his boss dead at the shop. Anna’s there! She punches him! Which, why? Her mission is to kill him, she could do it with a touch, but she wastes time punching him. Sigh. Anyways, it’s good news for John that she does because it gives the rest of the Winchesters time to come to the rescue and dismiss her with a blood sigil.
John is dumbfounded by everything he saw. Mary tries to explain the hunting life. He’s not interested in explanations. He just wants to be taught how to draw the blood sigil so he can help.
Meanwhile, Anna calls Uriel. He realizes she’s from the future, but is happy enough to follow her orders to kill some random humans.
While they wait, Mary insists on hearing why an angel is after her. Finally Dean tells her the truth, proving his identity as her son through the reveal of intimate details of the lullabies she used to sing him and the meals she made when he was sick. She’s still reeling from the news when Dean drops another bomb—he tells her about her death at the hands of Azazel, and how she can avoid it. Sam walks in at this point and says that running from Azazel isn’t good enough. She has to leave John now, and make sure neither of them are ever conceived. She protests, but Dean agrees, saying they are giving her permission—they’d rather not be born than only to be born to serve as Heaven and Hell’s pawns. But she tells them it’s too late. She’s already pregnant.
While the family drama is happening, the angels are busy sabotaging all of the Winchesters’ wards and traps. Anna and Uriel stroll in and begin to fight. Anna kills Sam very quickly and backhands John right out of the building. A golden light shines on John’s prostrate form as Anna fights Mary. Suddenly, John walks back into the hideout and calls Anna by name. She recognizes him.
It’s Michael!
Michael knocks Mary out and says he and Dean need to talk. Michael doesn’t want to kill Lucifer any more than Dean would want to kill Sam. But he says he’ll do it because God wills it. They argue free will versus predestination. Ultimately, Michael erases Mary and John’s memories of the last day, heals Sam and teleports them both back to the future. Cas shows up soon after in bad shape.
Dean and Sam share worries over why exactly the angels are so confident they’ll become vessels.
Brotherly Angst Quotient: Closure
John asks Sam how long he’s been a hunter. When he hears that Sam’s dad raised in him in the life, he’s shocked and appalled.
WHO INDEEED?
Surprisingly, Sam defends future John, saying he was trying to protect them. His voice breaks a little as he tells the man who isn’t his father yet, that he loved John. He only wishes he wouldn’t have died before he had the chance to tell him he understands the choices he made and forgives him for what it did to him and Dean.
Paradise Lost of It All: We get our first glimpse of Michael and he’s just as confident Dean will say yes as Lucifer is about Sam.
How Drunk Are We?: Mildly. Take three drinks for a corpse and a pair of snotty angels.
The Quotable Winchesters: “I mean, the mustaches alone!” –Sam, impressed by the 70s.
Moment Most Likely to Inspire Troubling Fan-Fic:
Even in Dean’s sex dreams, the only women paying attention to him are either paid for it or a judgmental ex. This has to be good fodder for angsty intimacy issues fic.
Notable Cameos: None
5x14: My Bloody Valentine
Monster of the Week: Famine
A couple on a first date shyly say goodnight. The boy asks if he can see her again. They share a sweet kiss. It turns into a hot kiss. Then a voracious one. They start making out, seemingly unable to stop until she actually bites him. He bites her back and they literally start eating each other and it is maybe the grossest thing I’ve ever seen, darlings, and I’m including the shapeshifter tearing off his own skin in season 1.
Another couple goes nuts, worrying over things that will keep them apart, like work and family and sleep. A coworker questions their sudden, mad love and they kill him before killing themselves so they can be always together. Sam and Dean investigate the bodies at the morgue and find the hearts have angel sigils inscribed upon them. Cas consults, saying it’s the mark of a cupid, a third class angel.
They head to a bar hoping to catch the cupid in action. Cas suddenly can’t seem to get enough red meat, eating cheeseburger after cheeseburger. Eventually everyone at the bar starts simultaneously making out and Cas says that cupid is among them. He forces the angel to manifest, who turns out to be, well, not what I expected.
Party angel!
He gleefully cuddles everyone present. They are nonplussed.
Spoilsports.
Cupid turns out to be sweet and adorable, and to have had nothing to do with the deaths of the people involved. He was just trying to bring them together as per Heaven’s orders. He mentions that a cupid just like him brought Dean and Sam’s parents together. Dean responds to this news by punching the poor thing.
Other bodies start piling up that have nothing to do with love, including a man with a gastic bypass who crammed twinkies down his throat until his stomach burst. Sam has a couple of run-ins with a strange looking man who captures his attention. He chases him down, saying he knows what he is, he can smell the demon on him. Sam cuts him with his knife and steals his briefcase. As the man runs off, Sam barely stops himself from licking the demon blood off the knife.
Back at the motel, they open the demon’s suitcase. A human soul is trapped inside. Cas, in between bites of cheeseburger, says it all makes sense. The town is suffering from intense hunger. The horseman Famine must be on the loose.
Indeed his is. A cadre of demons wheels a sickly looking man into a diner and people frenzy, stuffing their faces with abandon, reaching directly into the deep fryer to get more potatoes. He’s hungry too, waiting on the briefcase demon to bring him back a soul for lunch. When the demon admits he failed to bring it back because of the Winchesters, he eats the demon’s black smoke essence instead.
Sure, he’s got a lot bad qualities, but at least he’s not a picky eater.
Sam’s bloodlust has grown too strong for him to assist in the fight. He makes Dean chain him to the sink and tells him to destroy Famine before it’s too late. Dean and Cas aren’t gone long when Famine sends a couple of demons by the motel. Sam defeats them and sucks down all their blood.
Cas and Dean track Famine. Cas goes in alone after him, but when he’s been gone for awhile, Dean heads into the diner only to find his angelic companion sitting on the floor shoveling raw hamburger into his mouth. Dean is captured, and Famine mean girls him a little before demon-blood-infused Sam shows up. Famine is delighted to see Sam and offers him all of his bodyguard demons to drink. Sam decides to exorcise them en masse instead.
That sign’s a little on the nose, don’t you think?
Famine just calls all the demon essence back and eats it himself, laughing as it looks like Sam is trying to exorcise him. He says he’s not powerful enough to command a horseman. Sam says he is powerful enough to screw with demons though. He begins manipulating the demons inside Famine until they destroy him.
Later, Sam’s back in Bobby’s demon panic silo, screaming for Dean to let him out. Cas says it’s not really him, and he’ll be okay once he gets the demon blood out of his his system. Dean says he needs air. But once he’s outside, he starts praying for help. I’m not sure he even knows to whom.
Brotherly Angst Quotient: Emptiness
Everyone in town is affected by Famine except for Dean. He doesn’t eat his cheeseburger, he won’t go out looking for ladies on Valentine’s Day/Unattached Drifter Christmas. Sam is worried about him, saying that “when a dog won’t eat, that’s when you know something’s really wrong.”
He’s not far off the mark either. As usual, Dean won’t talk about his feelings, theorizing he’s immune to Famine’s compulsion because he never denies himself anything he wants already. Famine disagrees. He says Dean hungers for nothing because he’s given up on life. He’s already dead inside. Wow, Famine. Way to be dark.
Paradise Lost of It All: The boys manage to stop another horseman of the apocalypse.
How Drunk Are We?: As drunk as if Famine himself strolled into our living rooms. There are too many corpses and demon possessions to easily count, not to mention a little lock-picking and Sam requesting to be tied up.
The Quotable Winchesters: “What I’m saying is a cupid has gone rogue and we have to stop him before he kills again.” –Cas.
Moment Most Likely to Inspire Troubling Fan-Fic:
He asks jokingly. Or is it a joke at all?
Notable Cameos:
Lex Medlin of Drop Dead Diva plays Cupid
Next Week: Sam and Dean are dead. Yes, again.