Supernatural: Stuck in the Middle (With You) (12x12)

Woah... Reservoir Dogs + Supernatural + Richard Speight Jr. in the director's chair = amazing episode. Damn.

Cons:

I was having a little trouble with Mary in this episode, honestly. The premise is that the British Men of Letters ask Mary to help them retrieve an item. So, she recruits a friend and has the friend tell Sam, Dean, and Cas that he's calling them in to help kill a demon. Easy, or so Mary thinks, but she doesn't want to tell the boys that she's working with the British. The only trouble is, once she steals the item from this demon's house, everything starts going terribly wrong - her hunter friend is killed, and Cas is mortally wounded, and Ramiel, Prince of Hell, threatens to kill them all unless his stolen item is returned to him. And Mary... does nothing. She doesn't give the item up. She doesn't tell anybody what she's done. And then at the end, she talks to the British Men of Letters, yells at them for throwing her in over her head, but still continues to work with them! She even hands over the thing she stole without a second thought!

Now, I'm all about giving Mary a meatier story line, and having her be at odds with the boys in some way. But it's like Dean says, when they're all discussing the British MOL. "Yeah, they got the gear, but they tried to kill my brother, so..." It's crazy to me that Mary would seriously work with them after this. I'm mighty disappointed in her.

Pros:

That might seem like a big complaint, but in an episode this awesome it's actually just a nitpick.

So, this was a very Quentin Tarantino-esque episode. Lots of really creative editing, lots of moving through time and repeating little bits of scenes with added context. So for example we often see the same conversation twice, once from Cas' perspective and then again from Mary's with added information to deepen our understanding. The fight choreography may be the very best this show has ever done. Fast, dramatic, a little off-kilter, with some crazy kills and one hell of a climax.

Ramiel is an excellent villain. He reminded me a little bit of Cain, in that he was all about his privacy. He's a big, bad-ass powerful demon with yellow eyes - brother, in fact, of the infamous Yellow-Eyes himself, Azazel. But he doesn't want anything to do with the politics of Hell, or with the human world. He just wants to collect old weapons and hang out by himself. When challenged, he's supremely confident in his ability to get what he wants. He'd just rather not have to go through the trouble. That's a pretty cool villain, right there! Sam kills him as this episode ends, but we get some not-so-subtle hints that he has a brother and a sister out there, both of whom I'm sure we'll be meeting soon.

So, the plot is pretty basic, as I discussed above. The one key emotional aspect to all of this is that Cas gets stabbed with a magical weapon by Ramiel: The Lance of Michael. It's basically rotting him to death, and there's no known cure. Cas spends most of the episode lying down and groaning in pain, as black web-like markings cover his skin, and blood oozes out of a gaping stomach wound. Through his pain, he has only one objective: get the Winchesters to leave so that Ramiel won't kill them as well. He makes a speech that I know will go down as one of the most iconic Cas moments in all of Supernatural. He thanks the Winchesters for everything. He says knowing them has been the best part of his life, and that the things they accomplished together have changed him. They're his family. And he actually says it: "I love you. I love you all." Of course, Sam, Dean, and Mary refuse to leave, insisting that they won't leave family behind. Cas starts crying, and let me tell you - Misha gave one hell of a performance. You can tell that Cas is absurdly grateful and honored to have this family, but he's also devastated because he doesn't want his last moments to be spent watching them die. It's a truly stellar moment.

The hits just keep on coming - the reactions of the three Winchesters as Cas slowly dies are just heartbreaking. With Mary, you have the guilt and conflicting feelings. She barely knows Cas, but clearly already considers him family: she even calls him "one of my boys." With Sam, you see his grief quite clearly as he starts to mourn the loss of one of his closest friends. And Dean, quite predictably, gets angry and closed off, refusing to accept the reality of what's happening. He insists there must be a cure, and tells Cas that it's not that bad and he'll be okay in no time. As Cas gasps out what seem to be his final breaths, black goo oozing from his mouth, the Winchesters surround him, each touching him and hoping for a miracle. Sam asks Dean "what do we do?" and Dean just looks down in defeat. Of course, that's when you get the deus ex machina. Or... demon ex machina?

Anyhow. Crowley. There's a part of me that wants to give Sam the MVP for this episode, since he is clearly the most bad-ass when it comes to physical combat, and he's the one who gets to strike the death blow and take out Ramiel. But all things being equal, we've got to give the award to Crowley here.

This episode totally buried the lead, in that I had no idea Crowley was even going to be in it until he just showed up as a scene-break cliffhanger. In a flashback, we see Crowley going to Ramiel several years ago to offer him the throne to Hell, since at this point Azazel, Lilith, Lucifer, and all other serious contenders had been taken out. Ramiel, true to his exclusionary attitude, wants nothing to do with it, and instead says Crowley should just take over. Opportunist that he is, Crowley accepts, after just a moment of stunned hesitation. We also see in these flashbacks that Crowley gives Ramiel two gifts: the Lance of Michael, which we see Ramiel use throughout the episode, and another smaller package, the same one that Mary later steals from Ramiel to give to the Men of Letters. We don't see what's in that one until the end.

Crowley shows up because he promised Ramiel back in the day that he'd keep people away from the Princes of Hell. Now that the Winchesters have meddled, Crowley is in trouble. So what does he do? He tries to save Cas and the Winchesters. He tells Ramiel that the Winchesters are a valuable asset, and he asks Ramiel not to kill them. It was honestly a thing of beauty to hear Crowley talk like that. And he was only just getting started. Crowley is knocked out for the climactic fight with Ramiel, but after Sam kills the Prince of Hell, Crowley awakens, walks over to the fallen Lance of Michael, and breaks the shaft, releasing its powers and curing Cas' cursed wounds. He remembered Ramiel's words about the magic being in the craftsmanship. You might think this is a bit of a quick fix, considering how close Cas was to dying, but I actually really liked it. There's something so unexpected about Crowley being the one to swoop in and save the day. This episode spends a lot of time showing you Crowley's complicated feelings about the Winchesters and Cas. He calls Cas "feathers" at one point, but later says, quite sincerely, "I'm sorry, Castiel," when he reveals that there's no cure. I just love that he saves Cas. There was no real reason to. This might have been a nice way for him to get rid of a powerful frenemy. Instead, he saves his life. It was awesome.

Discussing Crowley leads us nicely into our two big reveals as the episode ends. First of all, Crowley is keeping Lucifer in a cage in Hell. Mark Pellegrino! He's back! Yay. He should be the only person allowed to play Lucifer for more than an episode or two. I'm very excited to see where this goes.

That item that Mary stole from Ramiel to give to the British MOL? The Colt! A gun that can kill any but five living creatures. Oh. My. God. I'm so excited about this. I love how we're bringing back elements from the early days. All of this fits in with the show's goal of scaling things down, while still remaining heavily myth-based. I'm thrilled.

I guess that's it. I love stylized episodes of Supernatural. I love the episodes that take a concept and run with it. I'm not a Tarantino expert or anything, but I really loved this homage to his style.

9.5/10