Supernatural: O Brother Where Art Thou? (11x09)

I mean I'm not surprised, but I am heartbroken for Sam. Seriously I'm so scared for him and I just love him so much I want to wrap him in a blanket and protect him from the world.

Cons:

So, the main thrust of this episode is that Sam insists on talking to Lucifer, and Dean grudgingly agrees they don't have any other option. While Sam is busy with that, Dean gets caught up in following Amara's trail. Turns out that Amara has started to up her game, and is killing people. She ends up whisking Dean away to where they can be alone, and then proceeds to be very creepy and tell Dean they belong together and actually kiss him and ewwwww. Honestly, I have no problem with a romance between Dean and Amara in theory, but in execution everything about this feels wrong. I'm hoping that we're supposed to feel profoundly uncomfortable. As far as I can tell, Dean is under some sort of magical compulsion when it comes to his weird connection to Amara. That is not consent. The actual Dean Winchester, with all his faculties about him, wouldn't be engaged with Amara in this way. It's freakin' disturbing and I can hope it's handled with grace and proper consideration for the issues of sexual assault that are being raised. I'm not optimistic, though.

No Cas this week! I don't care about him not being in the C-plot episodes, but it's a little unpardonable that he wasn't even mentioned this week. Not for any love I have for his character, but for the fact that the Winchesters are dealing with Rowena, Crowley, Amara, and Lucifer here, some of the most powerful players on the board. Why would Cas not be involved? Why would he not be consulted? It's a plot hole.

I am thrilled to have Lucifer back, I truly am... but where are Michael and Adam? It bothered me that they didn't even mention the fact that Lucifer wasn't supposed to have been alone in that cage. Are they going to address that?

I really loved all the conversations in this episode, but I do have to mention that pretty much the entire second half of the episode was people standing around and talking intensely to one another. We kept cutting between Sam and Lucifer, Crowley and Rowena watching Sam and Lucifer, and then Dean and Amara. A little too much exposition, I feel.

Pros:

As much as the Amara/Dean freaks me out, I do genuinely like Amara's presence on the show. Much more so than I would have expected, actually. Amara's confusion about humans and religion was pretty great - she wants to talk to God, so she asks people how to do that. The advice she's given is to pray, which she tries, sincerely hoping to get a direct answer. When she learns that humans believe in God without concrete proof, she becomes furious. Amara's goal seems to be to bring bliss to everybody by enveloping them in darkness. She wants to take away all the rules of the world. I'm not quite sure where this is going yet, but I'm totally on board for the journey.

Props to the effects people this week. Amara's various killing methods were pretty intense. She approaches a group of faithful Christians on the streets, carrying signs, and she smites them all with lightning. Yikes! The burnt bodies were pretty gruesome, and it really helped to up the threat factor of Amara. Thus far, she's been a lot of talk but not a lot of action.

Then there's the other part of the plot thread, which is what makes this episode so brutally AWESOME that I can hardly contain my enthusiasm. Crowley and the Winchesters enlist Rowena's help to read the Book of the Damned, using the codex translated by Charlie, to discover a way to talk to Lucifer without either a) releasing him from the cage or b) putting Sam in it, which Dean staunchly refuses to consider as an option. Rowena manages to find a way to bring Lucifer forward for Sam to talk to, but at one point the wards start to fail. Rowena and Crowley leave in a hurry, while Sam finds himself inside the cage with Lucifer.

First of all, Rowena's sass was dialed up to 110% in this episode, and I loved it. There were too many great moments here to mention. I especially loved her talking to Sam about his unresolved issues with his brother and father, and her obvious glee at the thought of summoning Lucifer. She's pretty insane, and it's a lot of fun. I love how powerful she is. You have to wonder - did she make some sort of a mistake that let Lucifer break the warding around the cage and draw Sam in? Or did she do that on purpose? She seemed awfully chill about it when it happened, and merely calmly ushered Crowley away. I love that we don't know for sure Rowena's motives for anything, and I especially love that she has a big ol' crush on Lucifer.

Throughout this episode, Dean continues to insist that this whole Lucifer and Sam thing is a terrible idea. When Sam tells him that God is definitely talking to him, and he saw a burning bush to prove it, Dean is very skeptical. He can't understand why God would ask this of Sam. More than simply finding the whole thing hard to believe, he's clearly terrified by the idea. He continually tells everybody - Sam, Crowley, and Rowena - that this plan is not going through unless they have a way to make Sam safe. Later, when Dean is off looking in to the mess that Amara has been making, he makes Sam promise that he won't make any moves until he gets back. Sam promises, but then Rowena manages to get the information she needs out of the Book of the Damned, and before Sam knows it he's down in the outskirts of Hell with Crowley and Rowena, approaching a meeting with Lucifer. Dean is not going to be happy when he finds out what happened. I liked seeing those hints of worry and protectiveness from Dean, and I also liked that Sam wasn't trying to hide anything from Dean - he tried to call him, but Dean was caught up with Amara at the time.

The biggest thing to praise here is the triumphant return of Mark Pellegrino as Lucifer. He fulfilled his role perfectly, oscillating between legitimately terrifying and absolutely hilarious. And then there's Jared Padalecki's stellar performance. Sam was so, so terrified of Lucifer and it really shows. You could just see Sam recalling all of the torture and pain he had to go through the last time. When he ends up inside the cage with him, we get the big shocker of this episode. God was never talking to Sam. Lucifer was. It was him the whole time, sending messages to Sam through a small fissure in the Cage that appeared when the Darkness was released. The look on Sam's face is beyond devastated. He's scared out of his mind and totally helpless and alone. Even so, he gears himself up to refuse Lucifer's request. Lucifer is making demands that Sam consent to being his vessel. The creepiest line is Lucifer's very last - he asks Sam if he wants the top bunk or the bottom bunk, or if he wants to share. Is it just me, or is that strongly implying that Lucifer raped Sam when they were in the Cage before? Yikes, that's some heavy stuff. Stay the hell away from Sam, Lucifer. I will mess you up.

I cannot wait to see what happens next. What is Dean going to do when he realizes that Sam is in the Cage?! And what will he do to get him out of there? January can't get here soon enough.

8.5/10