Supernatural Season 12: Family Feud

I was sort of dreading the Gavin episode, but it turned out to not be so bad, even though the whole ghost hunting thing felt like an afterthought. I mean really?! Gavin’s girlfriend is going to kill any teachers that wander into her orbit because she had some horrific experiences with one one time? There are a lot of teachers in the US! That’s gonna be a lot of killing.

On a side note, I just started re-reading Anno Dracula by Kim Newman, and there’s a character named Silver Knife, that’s wandering around London’s East End, killing random female vampires. Now, clearly, this character is based on Jack The Ripper (all of the book’s victims have the same names as the real life victims, except in the book they are all vampires). His reason for killing them is that he wishes to stop the vampire plague that’s taken over London,(or at least that’s what he tells himself), and he somehow plans to do this one at a time, I guess. Except there are thousands of vampires in London and the surrounding cities, so that’s a hell of a lot of killing. He could kill them all day, every day, and not make a dent in their numbers.

Whenever I encounter that particular plot point, I always remember that character, and Robert Matheson’s I Am Legend. The main flaw in that kind of psychosis is the person remains thoroughly unconcerned by just how much killing is going to be involved, in stamping out whatever it is they’re trying to stamp out.

Back to the episode. I rather enjoyed this one, but not for the plot this time. I enjoyed it for how it seems to be moving a kind of overall theme forward for the season. The season is slowly starting to turn in a particular direction, which is good because we’re about halfway through, and it’s time to start picking up the pace. I can’t help but think that some of the things we saw, relationship -wise, in this episode, are things that are going to play out in the finale.

Now I could be wrong, but I don’t think Mary is going to last into the next season. I love her fighting skills and she is totally bad-ass, but I think she’s overstayed her welcome, just a tiny bit. I was furious at her for lying to her sons, and then falling for Mr. Ketch’s blandishments. On the other hand, I’m glad she came clean with them at the end of the episode. Sam and Dean are right to feel dubious about her connections with the BMoL, and I wonder what The BMoL are using Mary for. She thinks she’s in some kind of control with them, threatening to leave at any time, but they have already proven they can’t be trusted, when they sent her into a situation with a yellow-eyed demon, without informing her. They don’t give a flying sh*t about any of the American Hunters they’ve tried to recruit. If you’ve been paying attention, the occasional aside about how stupid Hunters are, is a common refrain among The MoL, in general, and the BMoL in particular, and I very much suspect that when her usefulness to them is over, they are going to hang her out to dry.

I did enjoy meeting Dagon, who was mentioned by Ramiel in the previous episode, and who is now in possession of Lucifer’s baby. The last time we encountered the offspring of a demon and a human, it was just a regular garden variety demon. Kelly is going to give birth to the Anti-Christ, so its entirely appropriate that Mark Pellegrino make another appearance on the show. Do I trust Dagon’s little spiel about the baby not being inherently evil? No of course not! I think she has something up her sleeve. She is, after all, a demon, and we have no idea how loyal she is to Lucifer, who is her maker.

Another thing I liked about the episode was Crowley. I’ve been  watching Crowley since his family has come back into his life, and his reaction to the brothers Winchester being in danger last week, was…very interesting. His reaction to losing Gavin this week was also interesting. There’s definitely something going on with this character. There has been something wrong with him for several seasons now, and I wonder where the show is heading with this. I can’t put into words exactly what I’m thinking about Crowley yet, because my thoughts are too nebulous right now, but I’ll keep thinking on it, and get back to you guys.

Is anyone else impressed by Rowena’s extreme pettiness this episode? I mean, Wow! She’s been holding onto that grudge for a while. I had forgotten about what Crowley made her do to get rid of the Mark of Cain, but she didn’t.  I also like the idea that Lucifer is just in a space where he has zero f***s to give, right now. It’s kind of awesome, really, watching him taunt Crowley while he’s all trussed up.

So yeah, the general theme this episode was family, more specifically motherhood: Crowley and Rowena, Rowena and Gavin, The Winchesters, Kelly and her baby, and the kinds of decisions women make to regarding their children, and issues of trust.

Overall, I’m giving this one a 7.5 out of 10.  (I don’t know when I started adding numbers to my reviews, because I once said I wouldn’t do that,  but there you have it.)