Supernatural: Patience (13x03)

Um... perfect? I loved everything about this episode honestly. I'm actually going to have a hard time thinking of things to complain about.

Cons:

Supernatural has a not so great habit of killing off female characters, so in some ways it was sad to see Missouri go. Obviously I wish that could have played out differently. But if I'm being brutally honest, it wasn't nearly as troubling as some of the other deaths we've had, because Missouri died like a bad ass, and she died in the service of protecting her family. Plus, this show didn't ever have to bring Missouri back into the picture, and the choice to include her just gave her one final time to shine, as well as introduced us to Patience, an interesting, complex, cool female character of color. So... yeah. I do wish they could have found a way to do this without killing Missouri, but in the scheme of things, I do understand.

One small complaint - during the climax fight of the episode, Patience, who is psychic, uses her powers to help Jody, Dean, and her father to fight and kill the wraith that has been targeting psychics. Great idea, but the execution was a little weak. At one point Patience just yells out "Dean!" as a warning, and that manages to help him get out of the way. I wanted more specifics, She tells her dad to move, she warns Jody "behind you!" but Dean's warning just didn't land. I know that sounds like the most nit-picky complaint ever, and... it is. But I noticed it, so I thought I'd say something.

Pros:

Okay, let's start with the Patience plot thread. Basically, a wraith is targeting psychics, Missouri thinks her granddaughter is in trouble, Dean and Jody go to help her out. Missouri is estranged from her son and granddaughter, because she inaccurately predicted that Patience's mom would recover from a serious illness. When she died, Missouri's son could never forgive her for giving him false hope. Now, Patience discovers the truth about her grandmother's powers, but unfortunately it's too late to salvage a relationship with her, as Missouri has already been killed by the wraith. With the help of Patience's newfound abilities, the gang manages to defeat the wraith. Patience gets conflicting advice from the two hunters who have just saved her - Dean tells her to live a normal life and not go into hunting, because it only brings pain and death. Jody, on the other hand, tells her about Claire, and says that she should do whatever it is she really wants to do, even if it's dangerous. She then gives Patience her number and lets her know that she has someone to talk to if she needs it.

Where to start? It was really fun to see Missouri again, despite the ultimate results. Call-backs to the early days of the show were pretty abundant in this episode, which I thought was a nice idea. I like that Missouri was an important figure in John Winchester's life, but she was never best buds with Sam and Dean or anything. Her death was obviously a tragedy, but the show didn't try to tell us that Dean had just lost another family member or anything. She's a distant acquaintance. I'm not trying to sound callous - what I mean is that Missouri was positioned as someone who hasn't been in touch with the Winchesters in a decade, not as someone who just happens to not have been mentioned forever, but that is supposed to be of the utmost importance to the guys. Does that make sense? They played her role out very well.

I love Jody so much, and seeing her always brings me joy. She was a good partner for Dean as they hunted the wraith, but her most important contribution was her little speech to Patience at the end. This gives me so much hope for the spin-off, Supernatural: Wayward Sisters. See, unlike the previous attempted spin-off, this one is about characters we already care about, and we're taking time to plant the seeds in the story proper. They're getting a backdoor pilot, but here we already get a strong introduction to one of the characters, Patience, and we get to see the beginning of a relationship between her and Jody. This shows that the network and show-runners are taking the idea of this show seriously, and putting in real time and attention to making it something special.

Turning to Patience for a moment - she's such a great character! Obviously we didn't have a ton of time to get to know her or anything, but she's smart, strong, and brave, and she straddles this perfect line between being new to the world of the supernatural, without being a totally blank slate. She has family history with the world of monsters and psychics and all of that, but she'll still add a fresh perspective to Wayward Sisters next to the more seasoned experiences of Alex and Claire.

The fight with the wraith was actually super cool. I totally didn't see the psychic vision thing coming, even though I probably should have. The wraith started kicking ass, killing Patience's father, stabbing Jody, and knocking Dean down. I really thought this was all happening. Of course, I didn't think that Jody or Dean were dead, or anything, but I thought they were down for the count and Patience was going to have to find another way to escape and rescue them. The truth was so much cooler, as we snap back to the present and see the fight play out from the beginning once more, only this time Patience is able to give help to the combatants, which ultimately leads to the death of the wraith. Such a cool idea! I hope that Patience gets to do things like that for her foster sisters in the spin-off show. Honestly I'm so excited for this darn show... I wasn't sure I would be, but it looks like it might be really good!!

As strong as the main plot was, the stuff with Jack and Sam was equally compelling. Dean goes off to help Missouri and Jody on the case, but Sam stays behind to try and help Jack. He wants to train him to control his powers, but Jack is having problems even doing simple tasks like moving a pencil with his mind. Sam wonders why Jack is having difficulties, but Jack believes he has the answer: he's evil. That's why he's able to do magic that hurts people, but he can't do this one simple thing that Sam has asked him to do. He also tells Sam about the conversation he had with Dean, which is really upsetting to Sam.

Jack and Sam having this special bond is honestly everything I hoped would come out of this relationship. Sam says the thing that meta writers have been discussing all hiatus - he says that he wants to help Jack because he knows what it feels like to be afraid of what you are, to feel like you don't belong. Dean and Cas helped him through that (debatable, honestly, but that's a conversation for another day), and now Sam wants to help Jack through it too. Jack really is just a scared, impressionable kid. Sam sees that whatever powerful magic he's capable of, it doesn't make him inherently a bad person. He sees that because he knows the kinds of things he was once capable of, and he's come out the other side of that. I want more of this relationship dynamic! The kid playing Jack is doing such a fantastic job.

And then you've got the Dean stuff. He starts the episode being snippy at Sam for wanting to help Jack, but he leaves without much greater protest. And then Dean comes home, and Sam says that Jack is messed up because of what Dean said to him, and things get... intense. Dean accuses Sam of not really caring about Jack, but just wanting to use him to achieve the totally unrealistic goal of getting Mary back from the alternate universe. He calls Jack a "freak" and says he was just being honest with Jack when he told him he'd be the one to kill him. Sam then makes the comparison between himself and Jack, saying that Dean could have put a bullet in his own brother, but he didn't. Instead, he saved Sam. And now Jack deserves the same chance. Dean says that Sam deserved to be saved, but that Jack does not. He says he can't even look at Jack, because all he sees is what they've lost. Sam points out that Mary took a shot at Lucifer of her own free will, and that it's not Jack's fault, and then Dean says "what about Cas?" He says that Jack tricked Cas into thinking there would be paradise on earth, and Cas is dead because of Jack's deception.

Just... where to even start? Again, we have the delicious comparison between Sam and Jack. Sam relates to Jack because of all of the people who have been hurt because of Sam's powers. Obviously it's not Sam's fault that his mother died when he was six months old. It's not his fault that he lost Jess, or that any of his other friends died. But his powers were a big part of the drama of their lives, and if Dean can blame Jack for Cas and Mary, then by that logic, Sam is responsible for a lot of carnage as well. Of course Dean thinks it's different - he'd do anything in the world for Sam, he'd break all of his own rules, he'd be a total hypocrite - we've seen it happen again and again. Jack, on the other hand, is a symbol for Dean of Cas' loss.

Dean blowing up at Sam because of Cas is just everything to me. It's never exactly fun to see the Winchesters at odds, but it adds a lot of interest to the show. I like that we understand the foundation we're resting on at this point. Sam and Dean disagree vehemently about Jack, but they would never leave each other or give up on each other either. Dean is retreating into his typical grieving pattern - he's getting angry, he's closing off, he's in pure kill-the-bad-thing mode. Sam, as is typical for him, tries to fix everything. He becomes over-accommodating and gentle and tries to make everybody happy. But in this final moment, we see Sam get angry. We see him point out Dean's hypocrisy, and dig his heals in a bit. That's wonderful. It proves that we're not just moving in circles. This conversation was everything I wanted it to be. Of course, the evidence that Dean's grief is mostly about losing Cas was kind of wonderful to hear. I know they're just baiting me, but unfortunately it's working.

The tragedy of course is that Jack hears all of this talk about how he's a freak and doesn't deserve to be saved. He also hears Dean talk about Cas. We see Jack say "Castiel" and his eyes flash gold. And then we see Cas wake up in utter blackness, clearly lost and confused. He's back!!!

That review got a little out of hand, but I had a lot to say! This was as close to a perfect episode of Supernatural as I've seen. It managed to make me even more excited about the spin-off, and more excited about the Jack story-line for the season. I'm pretty pleased.

9.5/10