Supernatural – The righteous man who begins it…

…is the only one who can finish it.

After the long mid-season stretch of episodes where our big story was put on the back burner, things have really picked up over the last two weeks. “On The Head Of A Pin” was packed with revelations, while also posing some tough questions for the story to come. We found out who wanted Dean in Hell and how that fit in the plan, saw some dissent within Castiel’s garrison, and learned just what Pamela meant when she whispered in Sam’s ear.

Oh, Dean. As if the elder Winchester didn’t have enough troubles, now the fate of humanity rests on his shoulders. That revelation came as a shock to me. Alastair’s (Christopher Heyerdahl) taunting was very interesting, from John enduring 100 years of torture – “Daddy’s little girl, he broke. He broke in 30″ – to the news that Lilith wanted him in Hell to break the first seal – “And it was written that the first seal will be broken when a righteous man sheds blood in hell. ” – As good as it was though, I wasn’t buying it. He is, after all, a demon.

The confirmation at the end of the episode, from Castiel (Misha Collins), does kind of seal the deal though. Dean’s overwhelmed reaction, and plea for them to find someone else, wasn’t unexpected. The more interesting part though, is what happens next. I like to think this is where we leave the sad-sack, “it’s too much”, Dean behind. The news from an angel that this is his fate, hopefully, will be what finally snaps him out of it and sends him full force into the challenge.

Of course, Castiel has problems of his own with the mutiny of the garrison. Uriel’s (Robert Wisdom) part in that played out very well. His speech about Lucifer – “He didn’t bow to humanity. He was punished for defending us.” – fit so perfectly with what we saw when we first met him. The fact that there are angels actively working to break the seals was a surprise, but upon learning that, Uriel’s involvement made perfect sense. Now, the question is how many angels was Uriel able to convert? He said, “I only killed the ones who said no.” That suggests that he was able to find some likeminded folk.

There was a good bit of misdirection there with Anna (Julie McNiven), as well. When she first appeared, I wasn’t sure at all that this was the Anna we know. It almost came across as being some sort of test for Castiel. She did prove where she stands at the end, but I wonder if I’m the only one that was surprised when the camera pulled back to reveal that she had killed Uriel. They did go out of their way to remind us that only angels can kill angels, but I totally expected it to be Sam, changing rules and making things really crazy.

Not that things with Sam aren’t crazy enough. We’ve been talking for a while now about the switching of roles between Sam and Dean. As if to drive the point home, tonight the show even opened with Sam driving the car. But things have now progressed far beyond any role reversal shenanigans. Sam is in deep. The working with Ruby (Genevieve Cortese) stuff was iffy to start, and kind of hinted at a darker Sam. The sucking demon blood though, not much with the hinting. A lot more with the this can’t end well. And those people that have been saying all along that Ruby’s is part of a darker plan got some good evidence for their case, as seen in the above picture.

It was a lot to take in, and made for a great episode. Where do we go from here? To war, one would suspect. Although, at this point, the story isn’t as much about the going to war as it is about who is going to be on each side.

Clacked by Brett Love
on Mar 20, 2009 @ 12:00 EST5EDT