#also he’s under appreciated in that scene where he asks mirabel if she’s ok when nobody else does😭

[jacarandaaaas]

idk if this is controversial but I don’t think mariano was ever in love with isabela. I think he loved her but I don’t think he was IN LOVE with her. I could see them being friends and him just having a lot of admiration for her and being in love with the idea of her. I know he swoons over her in the opening song but I mean so does the whole town? Isabela madrigal up until wecid was a performance, a show the literal embodiment of perfection. I think mariano loved her and respected her just not romantically. Most of their “conversations” are hollow and you kinda get the sense both of them don’t really know what they’re doing but they feel they have to put on a display for their families.

Say something about this ship!

[shirtlesssammy]

Lily Sunder Has Some Regrets: Recap

What the ever-loving Chuck were we gifted with this week? My mind is reeling. Fair warning: There’s going to be uncontrolled DeanCas feels in this recap.

Then:

Man, first dates, amirite? Also, Lucifer has a fetus on the loose.

Now:

We open with Super Intense Gamer Girl not taking a single hint from Arcade Employee to get out. She’s got some Rampage to destroy (Is that the right term? My arcade knowledge barely extends beyond Ms. PacMan.)

And from out of nowhere, Nadine Hurley shows up to intimidate Gamer Girl away from her game. 

Gamer Girl isn’t so much a gamer girl, but an angel named Benjamin, and his angel powers don’t work on Nadine –ok, I’ll give up the ghost,  it’s the eponymous Lily Sunder. Lily quickly takes control of the situation, whipping out TWO angel blades and going to Kick-ass town on Benjamin. Before she can end him, Benjamin starts chanting in Enochian. “That’s right, call your friends,” Lily whispers –and we cut to several unknown angels, AND CAS!–before she stabs Benjamin through with her angel blade.

Meanwhile, at the bunker, Dean is busy in the war room looking over Cas’s handy “I’m going to find that Nephilim the old fashioned way” board. Sam wanders in and compliments all of his hard work, but Cas’s pissy husband is less than impressed. Where the heck can this nephilim fetus be hiding? <Insert Brother Banter Mom Talk> Then Sam asks if Dean is talking to Cas yet. Dean responds with a curt, “No.”

I counter with a:

Sam tries to play peacemaker: Cas saved them. Dean admits that he isn’t pissed; he’s grateful (next time buy your husband a dozen roses or a case of artisan mead), but he’s worried about the so-called “cosmic consequences” of the broken deal. Sam insists that Cas thought he was doing the right thing. Always. It’s at that moment that Cas wanders in and confirms that he was doing the right thing, before announcing he has to go. Sam wonders if he’s found Kelly, Lucifer’s baby mamma. No, it’s something personal. “Meaning what?” Dean questions. Cas explains an old friend called out for help, and Cas needs to know if he’s still alive. Sam jumps up eager to join. “We’ll come with you.” “Both of you?” Pause. Pause. Awkward. Pause. And then Dean: “Sure…Gotta make sure you don’t do anything else stupid.” Whew Dean, that was close, you almost let your emotions show for a second. Sidenote: Is the truck parked in the bunker garage next to Baby?

*Awkward Car Scene Alert*

The boys are chewing up the miles in the Impala in complete and uncomfortable silence. Sam practically begs to turn on the music, but is shut down by Dean. Like, what the what? Mr. “I’ll avoid talking about shit forever” wants to sit and stew in this strained miasma? Sam then tries to engage Cas in conversation about what they’re walking into. Cas, too, is apparently enjoying the miasma, but much to Dean’s incredulous reaction, he eventually opens up about Benjamin. Benjamin wouldn’t call for help lightly. And hoo boy, Dean’s apparently done with the silent treatment because the sniping that ensues between these two is pure lover’s quarrel GOLD. Like, Dean almost swerved off the road!

Is this real life? And it only gets better my friends. Cas explains how Benjamin cares greatly for his vessel, and wouldn’t bring harm to her if he could help it. “Wait, so Benjamin’s a woman,” Dean interjects. Benjamin is an angel; his vessel is a woman. And she’s more than just a vessel, she’s….a friend. Air quotes all over that statement.

TFW investigate the murder, and Cas looks at the broken-winged burn marks in pain. The arcade employee is giving his account of the evening, and when Cas abruptly tells him to leave, Sam wonders if Cas is ok. He’s clearly not. He’s baffled how Benjamin, a gifted soldier, could let this happen. It’s then that Dean finds a partially hidden angel blade. Upon touching it Cas realizes that it’s not Benjamin’s, and Lily finds a connection to Cas. (Super cool angel shit that we didn’t know about before!)

They all head out to meet Ishim, another angel Cas served under before he had his own battalion. At the restaurant, Cas tells Sam and Dean to wait outside -Ishim doesn’t like humans. And with one final stab of sarcasm at Dean, Cas mic drops and walks away.

Ishim is at a booth with another angel, Mirabel. Cas comments that they’ve kept their old vessels. There’s some underhanded snarking towards Cas for not being careful with his vessel (thankfully Chuck was on top of that!) AND for helping everyone lose their wings (Grrr, angels are dicks.) AND for killing Uriel and Balthazar (losing Balthazar probably still hurts Cas.). “Are you here to insult me or talk about Benjamin?” Thank you, Cas, for getting to the salient point of this meeting.

Sam and Dean wait patiently -well, Sam does, Dean paces a hole through the sidewalk– outside, until Dean can’t take it anymore. He bolts for the restaurant with Sam in close pursuit.

Omg, Cas’s “DEAN” just slays. Can’t his husband follow just one small request? Nope, because Dean smooshes his way into the booth (He has to get extra close because a moose has to fit beside them)

Ishim sends Mirabel to check for any followers, all the while adding packet after packet after packet of sugar to his coffee. Dude.

Mirabel wanders off alone outside, and promptly gets stabbed by Lily.

Back in the diner, Dean wants pie, and Ishim wants to give Cas shit for mucking it up with humans. #ProtectiveHusband Dean pulls out a ruler. All Destiel Reality aside, it was really great to see Dean and Sam stick up for Cas. Hearts. Ishim then suggests that all of them should head to a safe house to talk more privately. Ishim then heads out to check on Mirabel. Dean and Sam pester Cas about why he’s willing to put up with “Super Dick”. Cas curtly explains that he will put up with Ishim to learn more about why angels are dying. “I have to go.” Stomp. Stomp. Stomp. (Um, note to self: Make Sam reaction shot gifset for this episode.)

Ishim finds the lifeless Mirabel behind the restaurant. Lily strikes with very little warning, but only grazes him. They scuffle, and Ishim tries to smite Lily, “You can’t smite me, Ishim. I’m not powerless anymore.” Oooo, who is Lily?! TFW finds them and Cas takes a slice out of Lily, before recognizing her. I see he’s gifted with the Winchester Photographic Memory. <Flashback to Olde Tyme Lily> Guns drawn the brothers draw her attention away from Cas. “I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t want to hurt any human. Just let me finish what I started,” she says.

Dean: “Not gonna happen, Patches.”

She then lights up the sky, temporarily blinding Dean, and makes off in her get-away convertible.

At the church safe-house, Cas insists on tending to Ishim’s wound. Ishim insists that he’s fine. Cas goes on to wonder how Lily is still alive. Sam is confused that they know her. Dean calls Lily One Eyed Willy. I died laughing over something that wasn’t that funny. Cas then tells the brothers how they know this angel killer.

Flashback!

Maine, 1901.

Ishim’s flight of angels are on Earth to handle an angel that fell in love with a human. They have a child together. Nephilim are forbidden by the oldest laws in heaven and it”s time to set things right. Also: Cas is in a female vessel. Obv. she’s a great-something-something of Jimmy. Also, I want to cosplay as fem!Cas so much. 

The flock of angels confront Lily and her angel lover, and condemn Akobel to death. Ishim then tells the others that he’ll handle the woman and child alone.

Back at the church, Sam and Dean reel over Cas’s revelations. Cas defends it as “horrific but necessary.” We learn that the woman’s name is Lily Sunder, a professor of apocalyptic literature who studied angels and speaks fluent Enochian. Ishim speculates that she’s using demonic magic to keep her young and protect her from angels. (Me: hmmm can’t angels vanquish demons? If demons had THAT kind of magic, wouldn’t they use it?) Sam and Dean want to go talk to her which Cas stridently argues against – it’s too dangerous.

Cas has had a rough couple of days so when Sam tries to argue that Lily has a justifiable grievance that might make her less willing to talk if angels show up, Cas takes it personally. In what is surely an echo of his inner monologue he asks, “Are you saying that those angels deserved to die? Do you think I deserve to die?” (Me: hugs Cas SO TIGHT.) In typical Winchester fashion Sam and Dean override Cas and head out.

Lily stands in front of her mirror and pulls up her bloody shirt to reveal a deep gash in her side. She takes a breath against the pain and works up some kind of glowing magic between her fingers before healing herself, angel style.

Back at the abandoned church Castiel tends to Ishim’s wounds. Ishim prattles on at Cas about simians and how Cas should be setting himself above them. “When did you get so gooey?” he asks before speculating that God’s prohibition against angels interacting with mankind was really to protect the angels from corruption.

“My friendship with Sam and Dean has made me stronger,” Cas replies as he prepares to heal Ishim. He pours celestial energy into Ishim and pulls away with a gasp, the job done and his energy expended.

^^ Included purely out of an appreciation for beauty. ^^

Sam and Dean track Lily to a chintzy hotel and corner her in the hallway like she’s a startled raccoon. She whips out two angel blades. (So, a raccoon with angel blades.) “We come in peace,” blusters Sam. After both sides affirm that they’d rather not kill each other, Sam tries to defend Cas. “It’s not Cas’s fault that Heaven has these crazy rules about nephilim.” (Er, probably not the strongest defense in the world, Sam. Might want to go back to law school.)

However, at the mention of nephilim and her daughter, Lily’s face changes. She looks angry for a moment, then drops the blades and approaches them. “Her name was May, and she was beautiful.” We flash back to the day her daughter was killed. On that day, Alkobel told her to take her daughter May and run.

Lily hid inside the house, rapidly gathering papers before a bright light shone in through the windows and she tried to run with her terrified child. As Ishim walked inside the house in her flashback, Lily recounts her history with angels. As a scholar, she found a spell to summon an angel and called Ishim to her. Ishim became obsessed with her and like a super scary domestic abuser, came back into her life later on to destroy it. He killed Akobel, Lily’s protector, and vowed to “break her heart” like she broke his. He murders her daughter and leaves her alive to mourn.

All of this is tragic, of course, but Lily drives the pain home with this: “I had my daughter long before I ever laid eyes on an angel.”

“Oooooh shit,” think Sam and Dean.

Dean, in a comically unsubtle aside, asks Sam if he believes her. Sam mumbles that he does and Dean whispers about calling Cas. After two rings he gives up (Dean. Bean.) and Sam murmurs at him that he should just go and check on Cas…

Lily interjects with all the humor of a centenarian watching two children. “She is no threat whatsoever to humans and she can hear you.” Ha ha ha, Steve Yockey, you magical unicorn. What a delicately balanced scene.

Back at the church Ishim does douche pushups celebrating his revitalized body while Cas slumps nearby, exhausted. Cas fishes around for his cell phone…

At the hotel Sam asks Lily why she waited so long to hunt Ishim’s flight of angels. “Patience is a talent,” she explains (Destiel Fandom: So say we all.) She couldn’t make a move on angels while they had the power of flight but now that their wings are broken, she actually has a chance. Sam asks her about the dark magic but she corrects him. She is using Enochian magic. She points to the eye patch as the visible casualty. The non-visible casualty is that every time she uses an Enochian spell a piece of her soul burns away. She used to dream but not anymore. Sam, as a formerly soulless dude, gets it and gives her the squint of pity.

She tells Sam that Ishim will kill Dean when confronted and this gets Sam’s attention.

Meanwhile, Dean busts into the church to find Cas nursing what looks like a heavenly migraine on the battered sofa. Dean tells Cas that Lily’s daughter was human and that Ishim is playing them. At which point Ishim sidles in, insidiously.

Cas immediately confronts Ishim about the truth about Lily’s daughter. Ishim calls her a liar, to which Dean replies, “If she’s a liar, she’s pretty good at it. You, on the other hand, kind of suck.” Cas turns his sad, angry puppy gaze on Ishim.

Dean whips out an angel blade to attack Ishim but gets thrown across the room. Cas, still weakened from healing the angel, gets the crap beaten out of him while Dean draws an angel banishing sigil on the wall. Cas’s head rolls back, eyes fluttering shut, while Ishim vows to “cure him of his human weakness.” Ishim takes up a blade and approaches Dean. That’s right. DEAN IS CASTIEL’S HUMAN WEAKNESS, like the good, non-crazy version of Ishim’s obsession with Lily. There’s a reason why #destiel exploded all over Tumblr this week. (Boris interjects: Uriel is sitting back in angel afterlife saying “Called this back in season 4, bitches.”)

Dean has his hand poised over the sigil but Ishim urges him on. Ishim will be fine but Cas, weakened, might end up a “bloody smear on the wall.” Cut to dramatic closeup shots of Ishim, Dean, and a wounded Cas. Dean drops his hand from the sigil BECAUSE HE LOVES HIM TOO. (Guys, I just do not know where these all CAPS interjections are coming from today. So strange.)

Lily busts in, though, ready to kick some ass. She whales on Ishim like a badass.

Dean and Sam try to help but get tossed across the room. Ishim tells her she’s done but she whips off the eyepatch and exposes her angel eye. She uses her mind mojo to hold Ishim back. He starts to pull loose but Cas pops up from behind (for the second episode in a row) and knifes Ishim in the back.

Fuck yeah, Castiel!

Cas collapses, kneeling before her like a penitent (which, you know, he always pretty much is). As Lily stands over Ishim’s body Dean asks her if she’s done. The underlying message being, of course, that she’ll have to watch her back for Winchesters if she tries to go after their Cas.

Cas tries to soften Dean’s aggression a little and apologizes to her. He was wrong but that’s no excuse. If she can’t forgive him, then he’ll be waiting for her.

Back at the bunker Dean drops a beer in front of Cas as both Winchesters settle around him at the map table. “Well, this will do very little for me,” says Cas, “but I appreciate the gesture.”

They both assure Cas that he isn’t weak. He’s loyal and strong. Dean pulls his head out of his ass to kind of slantways apologize to Cas for being a dick about Billie. He’s not mad, he’s worried.

They close out the episode talking about Kelly’s and Lucifer’s unborn child. Cas says that the baby is potentially catastrophically powerful. But now he doesn’t know what he’ll do.

“What’re we gonna do?” Dean asks. (About the child, but also probably generally speaking.)

“Let’s drink and hope we can find a better way,” Cas proposes.

Here fuckin’ here, Cas!

Natasha: So many great things in this episode! I really liked how we learned about Lily’s character. There’s so much we don’t know about all those spaces in her life - her studies, her affairs, her later quest for vengeance. We get to see other angels who have apparently just been lying low on Earth? (Missed a few, Hannah.) Dean and Cas squabble and Sam is just done… You guys a battalion of angels is called a “flight” and I’m crying with joy. And, of course, Castiel is so in love with Dean. flops over and dies

Boris: Read this meta on Lily and Charlie Bradbury. Feels. Also, do you think Andrew Dabb remembers writing about Jesse, the Antichrist? Like, Luci is still out there. I don’t believe for a second that the Holy Hand Grenade worked. So, if Lucifer is walking free, that means Jesse has his powers. He’s got to be more powerful than an arch-angel nephilim. And yeah, this episode. Not only did we get a pre-apocalypse Cas story, but it tied in nicely with the current season’s storylines of Lucifer, and mothers, and Destiel becoming canon. And for everyone predicting Cas’s death and for everyone predicting Sam’s death: STOP. The cosmic consequences simply mean they won’t get their beach vaca this year. *Boris pouts in corner* Finally, I will echo Natasha: Cas is SO in love with Dean.

Lily Sunder Has Many Quotes:

This silent treatment thing is silly.

I’m pretty sure it ain’t jellybeans and g-strings.

Oh, he speaks.

He’s sarcastic. But he’s thoughtful and appreciative too.

If I plan to do anything else stupid, I’ll let you know

When I knew Castiel, he was a woman soldier.

How can anyone know them and not love them?

I’m not a hero. But sometimes doing the right thing requires sacrifices.

These are my friends. My friends who don’t listen very well.