Supernatural 13x17 "The Thing"

After last week's diversion into the world of Scooby Doo, tonight's episode delved back into the main alternate worlds plot of the season. The Winchesters are looking for everything on their list to complete the ritual to open the portal back to Apocalypse World, and find a lead for where the Seal of Solomon might be. At least, that's what I think was happening in the first few minutes. Guys, I'm gonna be straight with you, I was only half paying attention to the beginning of this episode. Did that matter? Not really!

Anywhoooo, the guys find this secret underground bunker that looks very much like their own bunker, and come upon a room full of books, Sam's favorite thing. But when Sam gets clumsy and knocks over some stuff to just essentially make sure some noise was made in this particular situation (I mean honestly, are the guys ever this clumsy?), they hear a woman calling out for help. Turns out, it's this woman from the opening scene we saw where some dudes in robes were opening a rift with that Seal of Solomon deal, and some tentacles came tumbling out of it. Only that happened in the early 1900s, so how is this lady still alive?

Well, only way to find that out is to take her to a local diner where a waitress gets a bunch of lines, so we know they must be staying here for some length of the episode. Indeed, it just so happens that the man cooking the food at this diner has a men of letters symbol (right? I think that's what the symbol was) tattooed on him, and he along with some of his brethren were holding the girl on purpose. Why's that? We'll come to find out soon enough, after much scuffling and Sam getting taken by these people, that they are the descendants of the men of letters who opened that rift oh so many moons ago, and basically they unleashed this god into this woman's body and have been holding her captive ever since. They said why they opened it, but honestly who cares.

SO, the tentacle god creature needs food and wants a mate, and wouldn't you know it, she's taken a liking to Dean, so she takes him back to the bunker to summon her mate to take over his body. Yada yada, Sam and the others show up in time to close the rift before she can do that, only her tentacle being also takes her back into the other world with it, because that's just so nice and neat of it to do, so they don't have to worry about killing a thing they haven't been able to kill for over 100 years. But hey, now they have the Seal that they needed to open the rift. The last thing they need? An archangel's grace! Wherever will they get such a thing?! Hmmmmmmmmm.....

Why, from Gabriel of course. Asmodeus summons Ketch for who knows why, and Ketch happens to see ole Asmo snacking on Gabriel's grace. After much brouhaha over Ketch basically being Asmodeus' bitch until further notice, Ketch decides he's not so into that deal and steals away Gabriel along with the archangel blade and the leftover bits of Gabe's grace that Asmodeus had already extracted.

Ketch brings Gabe back to the Winchesters as a way to make peace and ask for their protection when Asmodeus comes looking for him. The boys are baffled that Gabe is still alive, but Dean is like whatevs bro, let's get this show on the road, and gets all ready to open up the rift. Sam wants to go with him, but Dean tells him to stay behind with the angel, while Ketch goes with him instead. Sam is not so happy about this plan, and this is where I'm like where the heck is Castiel, and why wouldn't they call him to go with Dean? But whatever, logic.

Random Thoughts:

- What was the point of Dean putting those goofy sticky notes on Sam's back in the beginning when they are essentially just hanging out together alone in the bunker?

- For real, though. Wait, did I just miss in the beginning part where they said where Cas was? I honestly could've, ha. But if not, then seriously, it makes no sense that Dean would take Ketch, particularly seeing as how his mom really hates him and would be the last person she would trust in the other world.

- Lots of plot conveniences here. One, the dude at the diner just happened to be one of the people guarding the god thing, and just happened to keep a big knife of him, and the other god just happened to grab up his mate and take her back to the other world. Okay, then.

- I always get annoyed when the Winchesters get bested in any kind of fighting, particularly when it's by humans and not monsters, seeing as they've had a lot of training over the years. Whoever these men of letters types were, I don't think they would've had as much training as the boys, but whatever.

Quotes:

Dean: Jinkies.
Sam: You're never going to stop saying that, are you?
Dean: I don't know, probably not.

Waitress: String bean. I thought you were dead.
Sam: Not yet.

Dean: Oh my god, that's tragic. It's like a Hallmark movie, but with tentacles.

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