#and I hope it’s not a ruse to convince me to seek out therapy again

[herawell]

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[shirtlesssammy]

13x09: The Bad Place

Then:

Mary is definitely not in the Good Place.

Now:

WAYWARD!!!!!

Oh, wait, first the cold open.

Artist man and his all-business girlfriend enjoy a little “down time” before she heads off to work. He’s got an interested buyer stopping by to take a look at his work, and who shows up just as the girlfriend is leaving? Jack! I guess he’s worked through his whole “son of the devil” angst period and he’s now a fully grown “time to hang real art on the walls” adult. And because I’m obsessed with doors this episode: We get a first one with Jack entering the art studio.

Jack quickly reveals why he’s really at the studio: Derek is a dreamwalker, a Native American who can see into other worlds. Jack pulls out a wad of cash and tells him he wants Derek to dreamwalk “there” --and then points to a painting of the AU!

Derek gets to dreamwalking, and Jack uses his gold nephilim powers to hitch a ride. Derek screams. Cut to his girlfriend coming home to find him dead on the floor, his eyes burned out. Oh, Jack, what did you do??

And we have our second door, as Dean walks the corridors of the bunker and calls Patience in the hopes that she can help them find Jack. Sam is in the war room and when Dean is done leaving a message for Patience, he asks him if he’s heard from Cas. I can’t decide if I should laugh or cry over this nonsense. CLEARLY, if Asmodeus talked to Dean anymore, Dean would put it together in a heartbeat. He already had suspicions after one brief call. But what is the show trying to say with this? Positive!Boris says it’s exactly that: Casmodeus needs to talk to Sam because the ruse wouldn’t work with Dean, and Asmodeus knows that. Awwwww. Cynic!Boris says this is just the show’s way of making us all just cool our heels after the intensely gay first 6 episodes. Boooo.  

WAYWARD!

Jody calls to interrupt my stewing. She heard about Derek, and reports that Jack was seen at the scene of the crime.

MORE WAYWARD!

Patience is in her room studying, or really staring at the 6 missed calls from Dean. Her father comes to her room to talk about her failing grades.

Let’s get real, she’s a psychic...weren’t trying too hard at that test, were you Patience? That’s ok, you don’t need to go to any of those Ivy League schools, you have monsters to slay. In any event, she confesses to Dean’s calls, but tells her father she didn’t answer, and then (reluctantly) confirms that she hasn’t had any visions recently.

The boys head to Bismark, where they interview the girlfriend. Dean finds the AU painting. They decide to do a little research --with their Dad’s journal.

For Science:

Sam jumps right into the dreamwalking exposition, but Dean wants to talk about the painting. He surmises that Jack ditched them to track down Lucifer. Blarf. NO DEAN. (but I kinda get it). They have to be prepared to kill Jack. Sam wants to know more about Jack’s motivation. And I want to comment on the camera work. This was a really unique episode. The shots in the car are so tight, closed off. Each brother has their thoughts on the situation --they’re coming from different points of view. It’s like things are focused down to just their heads --just their one thought on finding Jack, and the result of that quest.  The camera is filming them from behind though --they’re both looking forward, and at each other, and Sam is able to convince Dean to talk to another dreamwalker, a Kaia Nieves.

WAYWARD!

And we meet Kaia, who’s currently in group therapy with the world’s worst therapy leader. He makes her talk about why she’s in a recovery prison.

Apparently the court sent her here to clean up her act. She admits that she hates using drugs, but it’s the only way she can stay awake. She confesses that “it’s the only thing that keeps me from the bad place.” After the group meeting, she meets a new patient, Jack, a cocaine addict. 

Oh my god, stop being so cute you nougat/cocaine loving son of Satan! How can we build emotional walls to protect us from your eventual turn to the darkside!? (What if he never goes Darkside? What if that’s the tension--our and the Winchester’s anticipation that’ll never happen. Just writing my own facfic with no dramatic payoff here...) Kaia isn’t as taken with this sweet child as we are. Jack tells Kaia that he knows she’s a dreamwalker, and that he needs her help. Jack tells Kaia that he can bust her out of the hospital and they take off, just as Sam and Dean pull up outside.

And we’re gifted with another door, this time with Jack blasting off the security to help Kaia escape. She decides to bolt once outside though, which doesn’t make Jack too happy, and he grabs her arm. Sam and Dean burst outside and distract Jack, allowing Kaia to kick his ass and punch him in the head before running off. Go Kaia. “She hit me.” Jack is stunned. “Yeah, good.” Dean is pissed. Jack wants to follow Kaia, but the brothers hold him back. Jack tells them that he’s doing all this for them. Dean tells Jack that Derek is dead, and Jack is honestly shocked. Once again, the camera work is spot on and right there --that slight zoom highlighting Jack’s instant emotion. The unsteady camerawork playing with the uncertainty of the situation. They brothers are nervous around Jack, and Jack is confused by their actions. AGH, they’re all uncommunicative Winchesters. Jack admits to the brothers, “I did the thing you wanted the most, I experimented opening doors to other worlds.” Jack’s flashback reveals his dreamwalk through the AU, Mary in the torture cage, and Derek alive.

Jack shows the brothers their mother. This scene! This moment! I already wrote a post on this, but it really got to me. This was such a wonderfully shot moment. Dean has a full-on panic attack after seeing his mother in the AU. To clarify my thoughts on the moment: We saw Dean picture Hell just last week --it’s something that he can readily remember. Seeing his mother tied up, in a world much like Hell? And he thought she was dead and did nothing to find her for weeks (months?). (He’s not flashing back to his own Hell, he’s not having selfish thoughts here.) He’s completely focused on panicking about his mother because he knows what she’s going through. And because he’s Dean, he needs to protect his family--and he needs to do it ASAP (thus the aggressive actions later towards, what he perceives as his only answer to the situation, Kaia).

Kaia, meanwhile, hitches a ride with some dick angels. Like, seriously? She was already willing to get in the car, why’d you have to knock her out? Dicks.

Patience, meanwhile, is most certainly NOT having psychic visions. She sees claws, a giant skull, a spear, Jody injured...

And Kaia wakes up tied to a chair in an abandoned room. The angels tell her that they tortured and killed Derek for news of Jack. Dicks. They tell her she’s bait to lure in the Winchesters and Jack. MEGA DICKS.

Back in the car, Dean admits that Sam was right and vows to find her no matter what. In the back seat Jack is awfully quiet. He tells them that he’s stewing on the fact that the Winchesters assumed he killed Derek. Once again he’s circling around his good/evil/who-am-I question. Yet he also tells them that he doesn’t consider Lucifer to be his family - he wouldn’t seek him out. The Winchesters and Castiel are his family. “Yes, we are,” says Dean. (Me: cries) “Finding Mom. You did a good thing, kid.” Suddenly Jack cries out in pain. It’s angel radio. He learns that the angels have Kaia. The trap is set.

Patience tells her father that she’s leaving to help a friend. She fully admits that she has visions and that they can’t be ignored. She’s accepting who she is. “You raised me to do what’s right. And this is what’s right.” Her father tells her that if she leaves, she isn’t welcome back. (heart breaks) (Boris: a small part of my read James’s lines as if she chooses the hunter’s life, there’s no coming back from that, not that she wouldn’t be welcome in his life anymore.) Patience heads off into the night, setting up Wayward. Yes, yes, I am on board. THANK YOU for not tragically killing off her father and making this about revenge, by the way.

Back with the angels, Kaia protests her value as a hostage. “They won’t come for me. You picked the wrong bait. I’m not the kind of girl folks come for. I’m not white. Rich. Blond.” This line, guys, was SO GOOD. It quietly addresses problems that we have in our actual, real society, while not slowing down the action at all. It makes us root for her, if we weren’t already. (I was.) We desperately want her to survive in part because she’s so certain that she won’t.

Dean, Sam, and Jack head in with an angel held at bay by a blade at his throat. Jack refuses their offer to join the angels’ side and when they move to attack, his power blasts one of them through the wall, then saves Dean from a deadly stabbing.

Jack makes one of the angels kill himself and Dean races off to take care of the presumably unconscious or weakened angel who was flung through the wall. Kaia learns that there are angels (some are bad) and that hunters kill things like them. And Jack’s the son of Satan. No biggie. Surprise! Welcome to the family!

They head outside but Kaia wants to get the fuck away from all of them. Sam begs her for help. They want her help to open a door to save Mary. It turns out that Derek told Jack about sacred sites where the walls between the worlds are thin. If they travel to the Wind Caves in South Dakota, then Kaia and Jack can team up to open a doorway to apocalypse world. Kaia is not on board with dreamwalking or even speaking to a dream travel agent. Her power is limited; she can’t go to any worlds but the “Bad Place.”

Dean tries to discount her dreamwalking as bad dreams that will haunt her but that she can shrug off. (That’s part of the Dean Winchester playbook, after all.) But Kaia reveals her physical scars and tells them that when she dreamwalks and gets hurt, she returns with all injuries intact. Dreams make her bleed. Sam starts to stumble over plans to find another way to find Mary when Dean whips out his gun. “Get in the car,” he tells her, his meaning clear. Sam’s horrified, Jack watches inscrutably, and Dean...clearly knows he’s doing the wrong thing, but does it anyway. He advances on her and points his gun at her head. She looks resigned, and heads to the car. They drive up the lonely highway.

Sam looks worried. He’s second guessing the plan but Dean tells him they’re getting their mom back no matter what. Dean’s stern and cold. Sam’s worried but not interfering. And Jack - precious nougat - is in the back seat telling Kaia that they both have powers and that powers aren’t inherently bad. Jack begs for five seconds to show Kaia what Derek showed him. There are possibilities beyond the Bad Place.

Kaia smiles for the first time this episode seeing what Jack showed her. “Our powers can be good,” Jack says. “We can do good in this world.” Jack! <3 The sweeter you get, the more I feel like you’ll be leaving this show in a body bag.

A car confronts the Impala with its headlights off, and tries to run them off the road. They retreat to an abandoned ship in a boatyard while Jack agonizes over the scream of angel radio.

AGAIN, fucking gorgeous camera work, my GOD.

Dean confronts the angel in the yard, angel blade at the ready. Unfortunately, more angels pull up to fight. Dean’s no dummy. He grabs their weapons bag and runs onto the ship. They paint sigils on the ship to ward off the angels and the angels spread out. The angels pull out their blades and start to drill power into the earth. It melts the warding sigil by sigil. This is a new power but I’m on board for it. Maybe they’ve never felt the need to expend the effort. Since it melts angel blades it might have been deemed too costly in the past but Jack’s worth it. Anyway, the Winchesters prepare to fight to the death but Kaia tells them she’ll try to help them all escape...by opening a doorway.

As the sigils melt Kaia and Jack work together to find apocalypse world. Kaia finds her way to the Bad Place where there are giant skulls and dark figures lurk in the shadows. Kaia saids she can’t escape it but Jack helps her navigate the other worlds.

It’s beautiful, ya’ll.

Anyway, Jack finds the apocalypse world and makes his way to Mary Winchester’s side where she is totally NOT (totally is) resembling Christ on the cross.

Kaia screams as she takes hold of the new world and Jack opens the doorway. The angels are blasted into wing-prints. The room empties of life. The dimensional door lingers quietly as a waterbird sings in the distance.

Cut to Jody, calling Sam to see if they’re alright. She opens her door to Patience, who tells her that something bad is coming. YES WAYWARD YAAAAAAAAS.

We see the quiet of the shipyard again, and then cut to the fates of all our other parties. Kaia is lying on the side of the road. Jack finds Mary in the apocalypse world. Definitely NOT Christ-like at all. Nope. Nope not at all. 

Meanwhile, Dean wakes up in a forest, angel blade in hand. Sam wakes as well and they pull themselves up from their ferny bed. The lighting is blue-cast, the forest dim. Dean jumps into a hole and the camera pans up and away.

Somewhere in the background of my mind, the Jurassic Park theme plays. There’s a roar and then a thud of monstrous footprints as we fade to black.

INCOHERENT SCREAMING

Jurassic Quotes:

“We want Jack” “Cocaine boy?!”

I just think of him as a small businessman just trying to make it in Trump’s America.

“He’s insane.” “Yeah, the whole world’s insane. You get used to it.”

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