Let’s get that poncho off and start oiling the old glove.
Supernatural Review
Into The Mystic
Mildred. Her name was Mildred. She was a sunny, sexy, senior in Oak Park Retirement Home. Although her name implies that she is a Confederate widow of dour countenance, she is actually pretty and sparkly, and totally doable. Ah, Mildred. Dean should have given you the old Blanche Deveraux (which is 2 parts Blanche DuBois to 1 part Vivian Vance). That may not make sense, but neither does Supernatural. If you get anywhere near it with a critical eye, you immediately start bashing your head against the wall, like the victims in tonight’s episode </segue> which is entitled “Into The Mystic” because, fuck it… Van Morrison is Irish, kinda, and banshees are Irish, or Scottish… whatever. I digress.
Agent Osbourne tells a dick joke.
Agents Osbourne and Butler
The monster of this week is a Banshee. Check your Supernatural bingo card, and if you have Banshee, you win a nonexistent toaster (one winner per household. No habla Sumerian). The episode opens on the Irish moor of yore (30 years yore anyway), where we see a young father of a baby doting upon same.
Door opens mom comes home, happy family, dancing, laughing… banshee. Dad hears a terrible shrieking sound (no, not Metal Machine Music, although nice reference), loses his shit, bashes his head against the wall, while mom books it to the kitchen, where she earnestly gathers a bunch of things that will be used to banish the Banshee. Bansheegone. Banishes banshees beautifully. Buy some now.
Mom isn’t quick enough, Dad dies of self inflicted cranial trauma, and a scary floaty witchy specter appears, and starts consuming dad’s braaaaaaains. Mom finally gets all the shit for the spell, and proceeds to open her arm and bleed out, when all she needed to was slice her palm. Bad judgement in the heat of the moment. She somehow bleeds out in moments, even though that’s not what would happen in real… no no we don’t do that. Anyway, banshee is banished in a flash, dad’s dead and mom dies shortly thereafter. Baby cries, bereft of family. An orphan. And, scene.
30 Years Later
Sam is moping around the bunker, consumed with guilt over not trying to save Dean when he was trapped in Purgatory. Remember that with the vampire from the Bi-you?
Lucifer got in Sam’s head and Dean tries to distract Sam with a case. Luckily there’s one only 15 minutes away. Lucifer ex Machina, indeed.
So detectives Osbourne and Butler (Black Sabbath reference) go to the nicest old folks home in the world, to investigate a possible monster.
Upon arrival at the retirement home the boys upgrade the possible monster to definite banshee.
The victim (Harold) was in a locked room and bashed his own brains out, while screaming, “Get it out of my head!”
No, he wasn’t talking about Ice Ice Baby (although that’s now in your head). The sinister banshee emits a shriek that’s only heard by the intended victim. We learned this when the banshee took her next victim, the manager of the retirement home. He was speaking with the GMILF-y Mildred when he did the old, “Get it out of my head” bit before smashing through a window, and falling to his death. Mildred saw the banshee feed upon the brains of the decedent. Banshee looks up and sees Mildred. Uh oh. Now we know who’s next.
Gotcha, Motherfucker (but not quite as distinct)
A Nice Choice
While investigating the death of Andrew (the second guy who died) Sam interviews Marlene, a maid who is deaf. Why does that matter? It doesn’t really, but it’s a cool direction for the show to take. Turns out (spoiler) she’s a hunter. In fact she’s the baby in the crib at the start of the show (from 30 years ago). The banshee made her deaf, but she was rescued by an Irish hunter, who raised her, and trained her in the ways of hunting. She’s down a major sense and she still kicks ass. Turns out (while chatting w/ Sam) that her late grandfather was a Man of Letters, which makes her a Legacy. Very cool. Could they be setting up the groundwork for a spin off?
Now we have three hunters on the case. You may notice that Marlene is wielding a gold blade (she’s threatening Sam because she thought he and Dean were Banshees due to lip reading and context). That’s what kills banshees. In this scene Dean has popped back to the bunker to get some gold blades. While he’s there he runs into….
Oh Dean, Casifer is gonna use you to get Amara.
Casifer Rising
Castiel, who is possessed by Lucifer (we’ll call them Casifer), is at the Men of Letters bunker looking for clues on how to tackle the Darkness, because he obviously has no idea. I love Cas playing Lucifer playing Cas. I got bored with Castiel seasons ago, but this is great.
Dean confides to Casifer that he is drawn to Amara and the pull is getting stronger. Casifer files that tidbit away in his “Use this to screw Dean over” folder, and then we’re back to the banshee jamboree. As stays behind.
Dean is introduced to Marlene (it’s not her real name but I couldn’t quite hear it so Marlene it is) and then he, Marlene, and Sam work to protect Mildred from the impending Banshee. The girls objectify the boys in a way that if that tables were turned, all the SJWs on Tumblr would explode and coat the earth with self righteous slime. Anyhow, the girls think the boys are cute. Mildred openly comes on to Dean, who begs off. Why? Because he’s decent? No. Mildred susses it out. It’s because he’s SMITTEN with the DARKNESS. This is known as foreshadowing. It means you cast four shadows, like if you were on Tatooine (nerd rage in 3,2,1…)
The banshee comes but…. it’s Dean who is the target! Chaos, bleeding eyes, “get it out of my head”, smash smash.. then…. teamwork as Mildred uses her blood to charge the sigil which binds the banshee. Banshee gets ganked by Marlene, and scene.
Takeaways
There are a few things that were revealed/alluded to in this episode that bear closer examination.
- Dean is increasingly drawn to Amara, not unlike the call of the Mark of Cain from last season. He’s gonna bounce soon. Probably in time for the cliffhanger season finale.
- Casifer is fishing for ways to deal with Amara. Not because he is true to his word, but because if she destroys everything, that will include him. Casifer will use Dean somehow to draw out Amara.
- There are now 3 legacy Men of Letters. I bet there are talks about a spinoff regarding the MoL, or at least they’re testing the waters.
- Only you can prevent forest fires, so stop starting forest fires.
- This joke (below)
Nicely done, Dean.
I really liked this episode, from the dick joke, to the deaf hunter, to sweet ass Mildred, to Casifer. It worked the way it should. No Crowley, Rowena, Angels, Heaven, any of that tired old noise. Just the brothers fighting monsters. And Casifer doing his thing. Good times. Can’t wait for next week.
dale of the dead 