Supernatural: Stairway to Heaven (9x22)

Dean. What. Dean, sweetie, stop it. Listen to your brother. Listen to your angel boyfriend. Get a goddamn grip on yourself. Let's talk about the plot or something. Dean I'm so angry at you.

In an ice cream parlor, a crazy angel kills himself, acting as something of a suicide bomber and wiping out another angel and several humans all at once. He says that he was doing this "for Castiel."

Sam and Dean show up to help Cas with this situation, and are a bit disturbed to find that Cas' followers are something of a cult, hanging on his every word. Cas promises that he would never order an angel to kill himself. Sam believes him, but Dean has a moment of doubt, remembering what Cas was like the last time he had this much power. While Dean goes to talk to other angels about the suicide bomber, Sam and Cas search for the portal to Heaven.

Sam and Cas find a portal, alright, but it ends up being a trick from Metatron. Meanwhile, Dean questions an angel and finds out that the suicide bomber angel was friends with Tessa, the reaper. Dean finds her and the two of them talk. Cas' other angels think that Dean is just a brute, and don't trust him to interrogate Tessa. They make him leave his angel blade outside when he talks to Tessa. Turns out, Tessa has the same symbols carved into her that the suicidal angel did, and she too is planning on killing herself. Dean pulls out the First Blade (even though he promised Sam he wouldn't bring it along) and Tessa impales herself on it.

When Sam and Cas get back to Cas' base, they see that the other angels have tied Dean up, believing he has killed Tessa. Metatron has been talking to Tyrus, an independent angel with a large following. He wants Tyrus' angels to join his side, but it seems it's not working. He video calls Cas, and in front of all his followers, reveals the truth about Cas' stolen grace. Metatron says that anyone who comes over to his side now will get to go to Heaven. The angels are hesitant. They ask Cas to kill Dean to prove he's loyal to the cause of the angels, and of course Cas can't do it. He loses his army.

Metatron reveals to Gadreel that the suicide bombers were all part of his plan. Allow Cas to get a big army so that he, Metatron, will seem like an underdog. Then, undermine Cas' army's loyalty by making them think Cas is forcing his followers to suicide. Finally, reveal Cas' fatal flaw: "he's in love... with humanity" (*cough*Dean*cough*). Now, Cas is without an army, and Metatron can take over.

Back at the bunker, Gadreel shows up. He says he realizes now that Metatron is off the rails and must be stopped. He knows he's made mistakes, but he wants to help them now. Dean steps forward to shake his hand, but abruptly and unexpectedly cuts Gadreel with the first blade. Cas and Sam rush to subdue him.

Do I have complaints?

I still think Metatron is more silly than he is intimidating. His actions are getting more creepy, sure. I mean... brainwashing people into committing suicide is a really intimidating and scary thing to do. But all his speeches and weird pop culture references just really take me out of the moment. There was a really stupid line about how everyone else is playing checkers, and he's playing Monopoly. That just made me cringe.

I'm also slightly annoyed that they're retconning their own canon when concerning Reapers. Tessa is not supposed to be an angel. It makes no sense that she would have fallen from Heaven when the other angels did, because her rules are completely different. She's not supposed to have a vessel. Nobody should be able to see her unless they're about to die. There was no attempt to explain this whatsoever.

On another note, they killed off another recurring female character. The writers need to cut this crap out. Especially since the fact that it was Tessa really didn't do anything for the story. It could have been any angel at all, but they wanted to bring back someone from Dean's past. Sure, I get that, but it was underutilized and didn't add much to the story.

Now for the good stuff.

Destiel subtext like woah. I feel like at this point they're being irredeemably cruel if they don't follow through with this. The most important part of this episode in regards to Dean/Cas was when Metatron said "he's in love... with humanity." Everyone watching this episode, whether they casually tune in on Tuesdays or whether they're a Cas hater or whatever... when they heard that pause after "he's in love," they all went "WHAT?!" and it put the concept of Destiel into everyone's head, whether they'd heard of it before or not. That's huge. That's powerful.

Of course we also have the fact that Cas chose Dean over an entire army, in an inversion of his decisions from Season Six. We have that little conversation at the end, where Dean manages to smile at Cas and assure him that they're still a team, even as everything else falls down around them. I honestly cannot wait for this finale. I want more Destiel, and I want it now!

Sam and Cas' relationship got some more screen time here. I think it's so wonderful that they're giving us more and more of these two together. If they do follow through with Destiel, it's so important that Sam be assured that he's still a part of the relationship, and an important part at that. By building up Sam and Cas' friendship, we're avoiding a repeat of the Season Eight finale, where Sam doubted Dean's trust and love for him.

The angels abandoning Cas! Like I said before, it's wonderful to see a reversal of Cas' actions from Season Six, as he chooses the Winchesters (Dean specifically!) over power and leadership. Cas really has changed. Now, we can finish this season the way all the fans want it: Team Free Will against the world.

That ending. Dean Winchester you are so grounded. When he attacked Gadreel, I was beyond shocked. It's funny, because I feel like I should have seen it coming, but when it happened, I was just floored. Dean has completely lost it, hasn't he? This finale is going to hurt...

I could keep talking about this episode, both the good and the bad, but honestly all of my energy right now is going towards being hyped for the finale. I can't wait!

8/10