Recap: SUPERNATURAL Tortures Sam and the Fans
Season 12, Episode 2 “Mamma Mia”
Written by Brad Buckner
Directed by Thomas J. Wright
We open up the episode to see Sam (Jared Padalecki) rolling around in bed with Toni (Elizabeth Blackmore). What? It’s got to be a dream, or hallucination. And it is. She keeps asking questions and Sam finally comes to the realization that it isn’t real. He wakes up to find himself still in the chair. So he’s not rescued yet? What have Dean (Jensen Ackles) and Cas (Misha Collins) been up to?
Those scenes are guaranteed to make the fans hate her. Even if it was consensual, it would be enough to make the fans irritated with her, but with mind rape, she’s going to be very hated. She can’t use the spell again, so turns to her next favorite form of torture, physical torture. No, not the face!
The next good bit of time in the episode is dedicated to the possession of Rick Springfield. He’s playing a second tier rock star named Vincent Vincente, who is depressed and mourning the death of his wife although she apparently died a long time ago. Lucifer doesn’t just step into his body, he makes blood appear out of the taps and things move around of their own accord, enough bells and whistles to scare the life out of the poor guy. Finally his dead wife shows up, claims to be an angel, and asks to be let in. If they hadn’t already spilled the beans that Rick Springfield was going to be Lucifer, we’d have thought it was an ordinary haunting. All ghosts are vengeful on Supernatural, no matter how loved in life. He gives in to her.
Crowley (Mark Sheppard) hunts down Rowena (Ruth Connell). She’s made herself look as ordinary as possible and is dating a handsome guy (Lochlyn Munro) who is a few hundred years too young for her. Crowley wants her to help with a plan to trap Lucifer and she refuses until he says he will tell her new guy all about her.
Dean and Mary (Samantha Smith) are in the bunker. Dean is anxious about what to tell her. He wants to protect her. He talks to Cas about it on the phone, but of course Cas is not the best person to get advice from. He does surprising well, telling Dean not to do the human thing and make everything too complicated. Mary overhears them and talks to Dean in a direct manner. They have a nice moment together.
More Men of Letters, London Branch, show up in America and find Ms. Watt’s body and the car that was hastily and inexpertly hidden.
Meanwhile, Sam is still captive! Castiel is the one out looking for him. He follows Dean’s advice and looks for recently purchased houses. He calls Dean when he finds the house but can’t approach because it’s warded against him. This part makes no sense. Aldrich, Missouri (whose name was probably chosen because of Aldrich, Devourer of Gods) has all of eighty people in it. They could have knocked on all the doors in the time it took for Dean to go back to Kansas. For that matter, there’s no reason for Dean to have gone back to Kansas. Because Cas can’t approach the house and has to wait for Dean to show up, a lot of time is lost. This is still the slowest rescue I’ve ever seen.
Dean and Mary argue about whether she’s coming with him. He loses, but she stays behind with Cas while he goes to the house. He immediately steps in a trap and gets captured by Toni. Sam is thrilled and horrified to see him. Toni threatens to torture Dean in front of Sam.
Lucifer shows up to find Crowley occupying the throne. Crowley and his mom spring the trap. The devil can’t be sent back to the cage when he’s in a body. Crowley throws acid at the rock star while Rowena makes him paralyzed. Rowena then tries to send him back to the cage, which doesn’t work. I don’t know if it’s because the vessel was not destroyed enough, or because the spell wasn’t strong enough. Lucifer summons his powers — we can see his wings in his shadow — and heals the vessel. You would think he would have given Vincent Vincente a face lift while he was at it. Crowley disappears and Rowena is left to face the musician. He tries to strangle her. Again. But he changes his mind.
Mom Winchester barges in and says “Get your hands off of my boys!” Best line of the episode. I can’t say how many times I have wanted to say that. I would like to say that she rescued them single handed, but there’s a scuffle with Toni and Dean gets loose and joins the fight. He ends up with a gun on Toni and doesn’t shoot! The only reason I can think of that he doesn’t shoot is that she is supposed to be a recurring character. That’s not a good reason.
Enter Mick (Adam Fergus), another of the Men of Letters, with Castiel in tow. Mick looks very Irish. He explains that the Brits thought that there might be something going on with their American counterparts but that Toni had gone too far. He points out that he removed the wards so that Cas could get in, and Cas could do him in without breaking into a sweat. “I don’t sweat under any circumstances,” Cas replies. Second best line of the episode.
The boys go home and have a sweet moment with Mom and some takeout. It turns out that she doesn’t cook. The meatloaf Dean remembers came from Piggly Wiggly. Except of course, there’s no Piggly Wiggly in Lawrence. It’s a southern chain, and hasn’t made it this far north yet. They all agree that they don’t trust the Brits.
After dinner, Sam brings Mary his dad’s diary. He is sweet and shy with her. His face looks fine, so I assume Cas healed him.
Mick drives Toni away, and to my surprise, they were not playing good cop, bad cop. She was supposed to find the American hunters and gain their trust. Toni was not given orders to torture Sam and Dean. She insists she is right. Mick is not as reasonable as he seems, though, since he has already called the big bad torturer that she was reluctant to call in the previous episode. That leads me to wonder what is going on with her. Does she have a personal vendetta against the Winchesters? She asked Sam about Ruby and Dean about Benny. How does she even know about them? Does she think those alliances prove that they are evil themselves?
We have a new show runner for the twelfth season of Supernatural. Andrew Dabb is a long time writer and producer for the show. The previous show runner, Jeremy Carver, left to do Frequency. The transition should be smooth, but the first two episodes of the season are sloppy. The pacing is uneven or just plain wrong, giving us no sense of urgency that Sam needs to be rescued. There are plot holes you could drive a truck through. Supernatural has always been a good show, well crafted, even if you don’t like the supernatural or find it too frightening. I expect better of the show.
There are enjoyable bits about this episode. It’s delightful to see Sam and Dean interacting with their mother. It’s great to see Rick Springfield being Lucifer. The Men of Letters, London Chapter, will be a formidable but confusing opponent. I enjoy seeing Mary Winchester in action.
Mary doesn’t want to hunt. She tried very hard to leave that life. Added to that is the guilt that she was the one who started everything. She made a deal with Azazel that lead to her death and John and the boys becoming hunters . I think she wants out. I don’t know what kind of life she could put together after being dead for thirty years, but I could see her trying.
Supernatural airs on Thursday nights on the CW at 9pm/8c.
