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After a couple weeks of light-hearted diversions, “Supernatural” dives headlong back into the Apocalypse and not everyone’s going to get out of this one alive. It’s a reminder to be careful what you wish for, even as it delivers one hell of a powerful episode.
Picking up on last week’s reveal, the Winchesters start by retrieving the Colt (the gun that can kill anything, natch) from the crossroads demon Crowly. Right away we get our first treat as Crowly is played by the ubiquitous Mark Sheppard. He’s a snarky opportunist who enjoys his own existence far too much to get on board with Lucifer’s End Times. He reminds me of Spike from season two of “Buffy.” He has fun being a bad guy and the end of the world would seriously hamper his fun. Plus he suspects that Lucifer, being angel rather than demon, probably wouldn’t stop at the eradication of humanity. Long story short, he gets off a few good zingers at Sam and Dean’s expense and provides them with both the Colt and Lucifer’s location.
Knowing that they’re facing long odds even with the magic gun, Sam and Dean gather some backup. Ellen and Jo Harvelle return and share an amazing scene where they, the Winchesters, Bobby and Castiel spend a little quality time together before setting out. Ellen and Castiel play a drinking game, Dean clumsily attempts to (finally) hit on Jo, and Bobby, softy that he is, takes the time to get one last family photo. It’s a sweet moment, and in a show like this, you just know that something really, really bad is about to happen.
And then they arrive in Carthage, Missouri, it’s obvious that the bad things are already happening. First Castiel notices that the town is empty of people and full of Reapers and goes off for a little face-time with the Devil. Then Meg (the Devil’s daughter) shows up again to set a pack of hellhounds on the hunters, leaving the Winchesters and the Harvelles trapped in an abandoned building with Jo slowly bleeding out from her wounds.
And then things really get bad. At wit’s end, Jo demands that the brothers go on ahead, and she’ll take care of the hellhounds with an improvised bomb. Ellen stays behind as well, both to make the plan work and because she simply will not let her daughter do this terrible thing alone. The good-byes are hard enough, but the moment that yanked my heart out and dropped it in a blender occurred when Ellen realized that her daughter had moved on just a few moments before setting off the bomb.
Sam and Dean finally come face to face with Lucifer, only to find out that the Devil is one of the five things that the Colt apparently can’t kill. Mark Pellegrino again nails the role, from Lucifer’s smooth talk to his pained reaction to being shot point-blank in the head. And then he raises Death – of “Horsemen of the Apocalypse” fame. Things are not going well for either the Winchesters or the planet.
The series ends as it should, with a silent moment shared by the remaining hunters. It’s a testament to the quality of everyone involved that they let the moment simply be, and it’s all the more effective because of it. The series goes on hiatus now until January, but when it does come back, it’s got an awful lot of promise to deliver on.
