‘Supernatural’: What Has Jack Been Hiding About the Plan to Stop God? (RECAP)
Spoiler Alert
[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for Season 15, Episode 15 of Supernatural, “Gimme Shelter.”]
It’s time to divide and conquer to investigate a potential hunt and to track down a key player for the plan to kill God (Rob Benedict) as Supernatural‘s final episodes continue.
Sam (Jared Padalecki) and Dean (Jensen Ackles) aren’t the ones going on the hunt, either; the former doesn’t even think it’s one of their cases, but it’s a good distraction, the latter argues, for angel Castiel (Misha Collins) and nephilim Jack (Alexander Calvert) as they remain in a holding pattern. After all, Jack is getting stronger to take out God (and remaining off his radar), per new Death Billie’s (Lisa Berry) instructions.
The Winchesters are busy tracking down God’s sister, Amara (Emily Swallow), and their best lead is to find where there’s (what else?) her namesake: darkness. But getting her on board with their plan — or rather, what they tell her is their plan — is much easier said than done.
Plotting Over Pierogis
Following a blackout in Atlanta City and Amara’s love for keno, Sam and Dean hit the road for a little all-you-can-eat prime rib and lying to one of the most powerful beings in existence. In other words, a Thursday for the Winchesters, sort of.
Because what they’re not telling her is they’re planning on having Jack kill her when he takes out her brother. They are setting her up for her own death, Sam points out, and he’s having a harder time with that than his brother. “Billie called us messengers of God’s destruction,” Dean reminds him. “Did you think that was going to be easy? Bloodless? We knew there was going to be a catch. At least this time, it’s not you or me.” (Hopefully.)
They stop for gas, and just as Dean’s about to head inside to grab pork rinds because there’s traffic, Amara shows up with a better suggestion: pierogis. (“I smelled you from two states over,” she explains, but don’t worry, it’s not creepy like Hannibal. “You have a very distinctive musk,” she adds to Dean.)
While she dines, Dean tells her they need her help taking down her brother. Since she refused to help him, as Sam saw in Chuck’s memories … “Refusing to help him isn’t the same as betraying him,” Amara argues. Yes, she knows her brother’s snuffing out universes (“He’s very nearly done with the others,” she feels), but there’s nothing they can do. That’s where she’s wrong, Dean says. Jack can overpower him and they can trap Chuck, with her help. She refuses, even though Chuck threw her in a cage. It would hurt her too much.
(Colin Bentley/The CW)
But Dean refuses to leave it at that and talks to her solo. “Why did you bring her back? You said you wanted to show me something, that you wanted to teach me something,” he says, speaking about when Amara brought Mary (Samantha Smith) back to life and reminding her his mother is dead (again).
“I wanted you to see that your mother was just a person, that the myth you’d held onto for so long, of a better life, a life where she lived, was just that: a myth. I wanted you to see the real, complicated Mary was better than your childhood dream because she was real, that now is always better than then, that you could finally start to accept your life,” Amara explains.
“I thought having her back would release you, put that fire out your anger, but I guess we both know I failed at that,” she adds. He agrees, calling her, “just another cosmic dick rigging the game,” like God. “I’m furious, to know all my life I’ve been nothing but a hamster in a wheel, stuck in a story, and you know whose fault that is? Chuck’s. And it ain’t just me,” he continues. “We’re all trapped: Sam and Cas and Jack and even you.”
What’s worse is God is out there killing so many people, Amara’s doing nothing to stop him, and her brother doesn’t care about her, Dean says. “I would never hurt you,” he promises. She agrees to think about helping them.
Highway to Heaven, But With Murder
A young man, Connor, is on his way home from a local community center when he hears someone calling to him from an alley. There, he trips over a stuffed bear, which he then sees talking to him before he’s dragged off-screen.
Sam doesn’t think it’s a case for them, but it’s something for Castiel and Jack (who’s excited to wear matching ties as fake FBI agents) to do. At the crime scene, the sheriff is skeptical of the clearly young Jack, who doesn’t help matters by telling her, “I just graduated from CSI” (proudly) and recognizing the bear as “Marvelous Marvin, the talking teddy. I have one … for my stepson, Ronald.” But that’s not that strange, considering Castiel and Jack also fire questions at her about bags with chicken bones, smelling sulfur, and cold spots. No, there was none of that, she confirms, but someone carved LIAR into his body and cut off his fingers one by one and shoved them down his throat.
(Katie Yu/The CW)
Jack signs up for social media to dig into the victim’s life; he’ll probably appreciate all the cat photos more than Castiel did. (“It says I need a parent or guardian’s permission to join,” Jack says, and the angel gives it.)
In case it is demon-related, Castiel summons a crossroads demon, Zack, who is probably the most interesting part of this case. He can’t help, but he does catch them up on the new happenings in hell under Rowena’s leadership: no deals and a “hard people will end up where they belong philosophy.” Therefore, he needs a new gig, even offering to be their driver. It doesn’t look like they’re dealing with a monster, but “sometimes humans can be the worst kind of monsters,” Castiel notes. (The Season 1 episode “The Benders” is proof of that.)
Still, they can help, especially after another member of the Patchwork Community Center, who steals money from the donation box, goes missing. While Valerie’s trapped in a room somewhere for being a thief and having her fingers chopped off by mini-guillotines, Jack goes undercover in the center and Castiel walks in with his fake badge. As Jack learns the pastor’s daughter dated Connor years ago, the pastor tells Castiel how he changed the place to a “faith-based community,” one that accepts all faiths and backgrounds (Connor was gay).
And it’s Castiel who steps up to give testimony when Jack hesitates during prayer later. “I do know what blind faith is. I used to just follow orders without question, and I did some pretty terrible things. I would never look beyond the plan, and then of course when it all came crashing down, I found myself lost,” the angel says, and it’s especially poignant knowing the end is approaching (and his deal with the Empty). “I didn’t know what my purpose was anymore. Then one day something changed, something amazing. I guess I found a family, and I became a father. And in that, I rediscovered my faith. I rediscovered who I am.”
When Valerie’s torture appears on the TV in the center, Castiel thinks it’s the work of Patchwork’s former tech guy, who maybe didn’t leave as amicably as the pastor said. But he and Jack find the guy dead in his apartment, and he’s clearly been like that a long time. LUST is written on the wall.
So who’s responsible? It’s the pastor’s daughter, Sylvia, who’s been keeping Valerie in the storage room of the center. Her father tries to talk her down, but he’s of no use since she doesn’t like how he changed the church. Jack tries to intervene, but she stabs him. It heals, to her and the pastor’s amazement. Castiel steps in and puts her to sleep before healing Valerie’s fingers. After that, he has no choice but to tell the pastor he’s an angel. As the pastor says he’ll take care of his daughter, she’s escorted into a patrol car with Zack in the driver’s seat.
(Colin Bentley/The CW)
An Unacceptable Plan
It’s on their way back to the bunker that Jack admits he’s been lying to everyone. “I’m going to die. When we, when I kill Chuck and Amara, I’ll die, too,” he reveals to Castiel. “Billie’s spell’s been turning me into some kind of bomb, and when I go off, God and Amara will cease to exist, and I won’t survive.” He doesn’t want him to tell Sam and Dean. “They won’t understand,” Jack says. “I know this is the only way they’ll ever forgive me,” after he killed their mother.
“I watched you die once, and I will not do it again,” Castiel insists. And that’s why Dean finds him on his way out of the bunker later. He’s “going to look for another way,” he tells the hunter, and “in case something goes wrong, and I don’t make it back, there’s something you and Sam need to know.”
Sure, we’re worried about Jack’s fate, given it’s unlikely Castiel will find another way to kill God and Amara and there are now only five episodes left. But we’re now also worried about Sam and Dean after their conversation in “Gimme Shelter.” Because this is Supernatural, it’s too much to hope that everyone lives, right?
Supernatural, Thursdays, 8/7c, The CW
