Supernatural: The Hunter Games (10x10)

Okay. We're back from hiatus, and we're jumping right in with the big guns. Let's get going.

Rowena puts some sort of a hex bag under Crowley's chair, which causes him to have nightmares that his loyal servant, Gothrey, and other demons, kill him. Rowena, on the surface, seems to want to repair her relationship with her son, but it would seem that ulterior motives are at play.

Meanwhile, Sam, Dean, and Cas all want to find a way to get rid of the Mark of Cain once and for all. Cas has an idea, but he knows it's risky... they can go to Metatron for help. Cas gets one of the angels to help him spring Metatron free - temporarily - from his Heavenly prison. Back at the bunker, Sam and Dean demand that Metatron tell them how to get rid of the Mark of Cain. Metatron seems to have a soft spot for the Winchesters, so he tells them that they'll need the First Blade before they can do anything else.

Dean calls Crowley, and the Winchesters meet up with him. Crowley is resistant to the idea of getting the First Blade, but Dean assures him that he can hold on to it for the time being, just until Dean knows how to get rid of the Mark. Rowena, using some of her witchy powers, manages to see this conversation, even though she is nowhere around. She sends Gothrey to go fetch the First Blade from where it's hiding with Crowley's bones - she convinces him that this is on Crowley's orders.

Then, when Crowley goes to get the knife, he sees it's not there! He rushes back to find Rowena standing over Gothrey's body. Rowena makes up a story that Gothrey had been spreading rumors among the other demons that Crowley was planning on giving the First Blade to the dangerous Dean Winchester. Gothrey went and got the First Blade to keep it from Crowley, and thus Dean - or so says Rowena. Rowena confronted him about it, and he attacked her! Crowley doesn't want to believe that he was betrayed, but even more than that, he doesn't understand how Gothrey could have known about the Blade and about the Winchesters!

In any case, Crowley has the blade now, and Rowena is worming her way in to Crowley's good graces. Dean decides to confront Metatron, alone, about the next step in getting rid of the Mark. Metatron has decided to demand payment for more information, but Dean is having none of it. He tortures Metatron, nearly killing him, before Sam and Cas realize what's going on and break up the altercation. Cas takes Metatron away, because he promised to return him to Heaven unharmed. Metatron says he'll never help Dean again, and that it's only going to get worse. Sam suggests to Dean that maybe part of the way to get rid of the Mark is inside of Dean himself - after all, Cain managed to live peacefully with the Mark for a long time.

While all of this has been going on, Claire has decided that she can't be around Cas. She's upset about Randy being killed, even though Randy was willing to give her up to get out of trouble. Cas wants to help her, but she says that it's too hard, what with him looking like her dad and everything. She's also pissed off that he would defend Dean, when clearly Dean is a monster.

Claire meets up with this couple who seem to sympathize with her situation. They offer to help her out. Cas asks Dean to call Claire and try to talk to her, one really messed up human to another. Dean agrees to help, and leaves Claire a message. After Metatron has been taken away, Dean gets a call from Claire that says they should meet up and talk in person. It's a trap, though - Claire has her two friends prepped to sneak up and kill Dean with an ax. However, at the last second, Claire can't go through with it and she rushes out of the trailer where she was hiding to save Dean.

Dean fights the couple, nearly killing them, but Claire yells out and Dean manages to stop himself. Claire, on her own, is annoyed to see Cas pull up next to her on the side of the road. Cas says that he heard Claire praying to him. (Or, not praying, exactly, but more sending out a longing to talk to him.) Claire says that she's going to listen to what Cas has been saying and try to live better. She says that she needs to be on her own, though. But maybe she can call and check in!

So. That's the first episode of the second half of Season Ten of Supernatural. With the recent confirmation of Season Eleven still fresh in my mind, I find myself asking all sorts of questions about where this show is going from here. I guess my main complaint about this episode is along that line... I'm just not sure what I'm supposed to be focusing on! It seems clear that Dean's struggle with the Mark of Cain is the central conflict, but that conflict isn't the type of world-ending thing we're used to on this show. We've got a period of relative calm going on in both Heaven and Hell, but the presence of sinister antagonists like Metatron and Rowena reveal that this stability won't last for long. Still - I have absolutely no good guess about where Season Ten will end. Will there be a resolution of an arc, a la Season Five, and then another reboot type experience as we enter Season Eleven, or are we heading for a cliffhanger? What could that cliffhanger possibly be? I don't know if this is even a complaint, really... more of a frustration and a general concern that our precious Supernatural maybe running a bit thin. I can't believe I'm saying this... but for the sake of the wonderful actors and also for the sake of the story's integrity, I'm not sure Season Eleven is even a good idea.

Then again, I would have said the same thing if I had been active in the fandom around Season Six. So, we'll see. 

My only other real complaint is about the couple that Claire was with. Who were they? They were awfully nonchalant about this young woman talking about murderers and stuff like that. How did Claire find these people, and what's their deal? Are they sociopaths?

However, as far as the individual elements of this episode go, I enjoyed it quite a bit.

First of all, Metatron. Man, I hate this guy. He knew just how to push Dean's buttons - he brought up Kevin, and Gadreel, and all the lies to Sam, and Dean's "bromancing his way around the country with the king of Hell." Basically, all of Dean's recent sins. He seemed to be egging Dean on, but I'm not sure yet what his motivation is for all of this. In any case, he's just the worst. He really is the Dolores Umbridge of the Supernatural fandom.

Rowena is much more interesting to me now that she's in control again. I loved the detail of her humming "Loch Lomond" to herself as she goes about her evil scheming. That's such a beautiful song, and it was so sinister to hear it coming out of her mouth. I love all the details about Rowena and Crowley's past, too. (Should I be calling him Fergus? Ha). Apparently, Rowena essentially drugged her kid to put him to sleep each night by getting him drunk. She also ran off and abandoned him, and when Crowley gives her a hard time about it, she responds "I will not apologize for being a career woman!" So precious.

Cas and Claire! Such a perfect dynamic between them. Claire really gives us some perspective - from a semi-outside point of view, there's really not much in the way of redeemable qualities about Dean Winchester. Cas, who's much closer to the situation, tries to make excuses, but in doing so he alienates himself from Claire, somebody who he badly wants to help. The final scene between them was just the right mix of hopeful and sad. They can't be anything resembling a family, obviously, but they can help each other out. Claire even advises Cas to get the tie back! Woo!

Also - That little detail about prayers? Golden. Apparently angels can sense a longing, even if it isn't a direct prayer. If that doesn't spawn a bajillion Destiel fics, I don't know what will.

Sam didn't actually have a lot to do in this episode, but I loved it when he said to Metatron: "I don't care what happens to you. You killed my brother." It was just so chilling and perfect. It reminded me of Sam back when Dean was running around as a demon. Sam can be pretty brutal when it comes to his brother being threatened. I also like the way Sam is being understanding of Dean's problem and trying to help him in whatever way he can. It's pretty much the opposite of the way Dean behaved when Sam was addicted to demon blood. I know the two situations are quite different, but I can't help compare Sam's supportive behavior now with Dean's off-the-rails behavior back in Seasons Four and Five.

Cas is such a cutie in this episode - what with his concern for Claire, his mention of emoticons, and his obvious love for Dean. I can't believe he actually sprung Metatron from his Heavenly prison just to help Dean. If you think about it, it makes very little sense. Cas has no reason beyond a personal affection for Dean to bother helping him. It has nothing to do with Cas' larger goals of unifying Heaven and making up for past mistakes. It's pretty much all just because he loves Dean Winchester.

Rowena was a lot of fun, as I've said, but so was Crowley. Watching that scene between Crowley and the Winchesters was so interesting to me, because it's so far from any sort of enmity that it's hard to remember how much the Winchester used to want Crowley dead. In this episode, there wasn't even a token mention of "next time I see you, you're dead." It's like they've given up on the pretense that they're not on the same side as Crowley. Crowley still seems to be hung up on Dean, too, as he went immediately to meet him without knowing why, and just wants to hang out with him in general.

Finally, there's Dean. I'm so worried about him, as I probably should be. Poor thing! I like how he's pretty much totally normal, and you can almost forget about the rage boiling just below the surface. But then, get him alone with Metatron, and the darkest parts of Dean come to the surface. Although, given the fact that it was Metatron, I found myself cheering for Dean rather than wanting him to stop. God, I hate Metatron so much. We see that Dean is still, essentially, Dean, when he refuses to kill Claire's two "friends." It makes it hurt all the more to know that Dean will continue to lose pieces of himself along the way, until maybe he can't differentiate between those who mean him harm and those who he has a duty to protect.

I'll leave off with a final thought... what did Metatron mean by "the river ends at the source"? It seems like it's saying that things loop back to where they begin. Would that be with Cain? My personal wish is that it's like a reverse thing - if Cain had to kill his brother to get the Mark, maybe Dean has to kill his brother to get rid of it. That's not a serious theory, more of a private wish for some Winchester broments. :)

7.5/10