I'm not going to go into a meta rant about Destiel. So if that's what you're looking for with this review, I'm sorry. However, I will inevitably be bringing up the emotionally charged moments between Dean and Cas that occurred in this particular episode. But I'm not freaking out. I'm not despairing about Destiel, and I'm not suddenly ecstatic about its imminent arrival. I'm exactly the same about it as I have been - excited about the possibility, but not holding my breath.
That being said, let us dive straight in to the episode!
This is a Castiel-centric episode, which makes me happy, happy, happy. This character really needs time to to breath on his own. I want him to be with the Winchesters for emotional, personal reasons. Of course I do. But because Cas is a regular now, he needs to develop an identity and a plot arc without Sam and Dean, as well.
The plot was actually very basic. Cas is out on his own, homeless, struggling to get by. He sleeps at shelters, gets together with other homeless people on the street, and anything else he can to get by. He's being tracked by angels, however, led by Bartholomew, a disciple of Naomi. In order to avoid being found, he gets Enochian tattooed on his stomach, which prevents the angels from tracking him.
In the end, he's found by a girl named April. She feeds him, takes him in, and the two have sex. However, it turns out that she is a rogue reaper who had been tracking Castiel. She ties him up and tortures him to find out about Metatron and why the angels fell.
Meanwhile, Sam and Dean are worried about Cas, and they decide to go and find him. They attempt to track him down, but they hit a dead end. Dean asks for Ezekiel's help, and eventually they find Cas - but one second too late! April stabs our poor Castiel with his own angel blade. She almost gets the best of the Winchesters as well, but Dean manages to take her out. It looks like Cas is gone for good (haha yeah right) but Ezekiel steps in and heals him.
Cas comes back to the bunker, happy as can be, but Ezekiel tells Dean that Cas cannot stay. He basically says that if Cas stays in the bunker, it will be too risky, since the other angels might track him down. He threatens that if Cas stays, he'll have to leave.... which would mean Sam would die. Three guesses as to what Dean chooses to do.
We end on a cliffhanger in which Dean tells Cas that he needs to leave, and the entire fandom melts into a puddle of tears.
In the interest of being brief, since everyone has already analyzed every second of this episode and I don't want to be repetitive, let me just do a brief list of elements I really enjoyed.
- Misha's acting. Yeah, kind of obvious, but I'm really enjoying the way he's playing this new human version of Cas. He's obviously different, but yet he's still the same Cas we all know and love.
- Bartholomew. This new threat is very promising. It makes sense that we'd have a new villain guy to represent the bad faction of angels. There's one annoying part of this element thing, though: Naomi seems to be really dead. Ugh, what a waste of a character.
- Sam and Dean: the team! I love how happy and healthy and normal Sam is behaving. Ironically, the happier Sam is, the worse Dean feels, because the guilt is just eating him alive. This is so heartbreaking, and I'm so excited to see the moment when it all blows up. I also loved the moment when they captured the reaper that was following them... these boys are some pretty smart cookies.
- The face cupping. I mean... uh... something more analytic and official sounding. No, basically just the face cupping. Dean's reaction to Cas' death was a thing of beauty. The voice crack as he says Cas' name, and the look on his face when he says "never do that again..." I was squealing with happiness.
- The cliffhanger. I've seen a lot of people hating on this, but I just want to remind everyone - we didn't get to see the whole conversation! We don't know if Dean explained things to Cas or not... we'll find out later! And it was a really important note to go out on. It left the audience feeling shocked and emotional and worried and very eager for next week's episode, which is exactly what they're going for. Personally, I'm hoping that Dean sends Cas to Garth. That would make the most sense. If Cas just gets put back out on the streets, I will pitch a fit.
Things I didn't love? Well, there weren't many, but there were a few.
- April. And I'm not talking about the fact that she de-flowered our precious Castiel. Hell, Cas seemed to enjoy it just fine, and even thinks on the sex fondly after finding out that April is totally evil. So, good for him. The thing I didn't like about April was her characterization. There was really no suspense building up to the fact that she was evil. She wasn't a compelling character, and her mythology was kind of clunky and unexplained. So... she's a reaper. And she's possessing a girl named April, but her name's also April? And why does she care about the angels falling? Who is she working for? Anyone? Considering the fact that they killed her off, it just doesn't seem likely that they will explain these things to us, and I was left feeling pretty unfulfilled.
- Naomi being dead for real. I already said that, but I'm saying it again. Super annoyed.
- Cas' journey as a homeless person. Don't get me wrong, it was all good and lovely and fine. But one thing stopped me from fully enjoying it - why didn't Cas call Sam and Dean again? I mean, the first time Cas called, crazy things were happening and he still thought Hael genuinely wanted his help, and Sam was dying so Dean was obviously worrying about that. But what stopped him from picking up a payphone and calling again? Dean could have rushed out to wherever Cas was, picked him up, and brought him back to the bunker safe and sound. Is there some reason that Cas didn't think of this?
- Ezekiel!Sam. Not a dislike, per say. More... a concern. I hope that this plot ends up being an interesting one for Dean. I hope that Dean will start to rely more and more on using Ezekiel's skills to solve problems, all the while feeling more and more uneasy about keeping the truth from Sam. Zeke is pretty useful, and I want that to be used to further Dean's feelings of guilt. I'm slightly worried that instead, Zeke will just become a constant Deus Ex Machina until he turns evil somehow. That would be annoying. It hasn't happened yet, I just started worrying that it might.
So, in all, I thought this episode was a good one. A lot of people have been saying the dialogue was bad, and I have to say that I didn't notice that. It wasn't like I noticed the dialogue being stupendously amazing either, but it was perfectly on par with any other average episode. I'm very anxious to see what's going to happen with Cas next, and even though I'm excited to see Felicia next week, I wish we could get more Cas immediately!
8/10
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