Supernatural 10x09 "The Things We Left Behind"

After a few episodes dabbling in lighter fair, tonight the show got back down to business with the larger arc of the season. This episode was ostensibly about parents and how they can be quite the influential factor in one's life. We even get a little story featuring John Winchester, which is quite nice, as the boys hardly mention him much anymore, and he was the whole impetus for them getting together back in the pilot. Anyway!

Castiel, after his crisis of conscience some time ago, has decided to seek out the daughter of his former vessel, Jimmy Novak. Turns out his daughter Claire is not doing so hot. Her mother took off shortly after the whole incident back in season four, and after her grandmother died, Claire has more or less been on her own. And not doing so well, at that. In and out of foster care, all that fun stuff. Cas, wanting to help her out, decides to break her out of juvy, or wherever she is, and she promptly steals his wallet and runs off back to this guy she apparently was living with for some time.

Thinking this is surely a dire emergency, Cas calls up Sam and Dean to help him track her down. Actually, this episode didn't have really any hunting in it to speak of, or any fighting of creatures or the like. Have they done that before? I mean obviously The Benders were people, but that was more of a mystery. I'm kind of drawing a blank. Interesting!

Anyway, the brothers do, in fact, help track her down, just as she's about to try robbing a convenience store to get money to help out her surrogate father Randy pay off some loan sharks. Honestly this story is a little bit boring. I did enjoy the stories from Dean, but the rest? Eh. Basically, Claire goes back to her beloved Randy, who promptly sells her out to the loan sharks for certainly nefarious purposes, but the boy come just in time to save her.

But, because we've also had renewed worries about Dean's Mark working in mysterious ways, things do not end there. Instead, Dean gets cornered by the loan shark's heavies, which is not so great for them as he's been having dreams about killing people. And... yeah. Those guys didn't stand a chance. Sam is understandably worried about this turn of events, because Dean didn't really have to kill them in that situation. Which means he just killed a bunch of humans rather than a bunch of monsters. Uh oh.

Meanwhile! As you may recall, Crowley captured the witch Rowena, who turns out to be none other than his long lost mother. Apparently she was quite a terrible mother back in the day to her young son Fergus, and the now-named Crowley isn't so hot on forgiving her for abandoning him when he was eight years old. Rowena happens to be quite cunning, though, and manages to turn Crowley against his fellow demon by making him think said demon was working against him. Who knows what her motives are in this situation. Does she actually want to reunite her family with Crowley, or is she just waiting for her chance to abandon him once again?

I'm afraid that's all she wrote for this week, though. And now we're heading into the winter hiatus. I was kind of expecting a more action-packed episode than this one, which was much more contemplative. I'm not sure that's necessarily a bad thing? Hmm.

Random Thoughts:

- When Randy first came on screen, I was like who is that guy! I definitely know him from something. My boyfriend came in and said he looked familiar too. Well, turns out, he used to be on Days of Our Lives. Yes, that's how we both knew who he was. Is that sad or what? haha

- Dean seemed to be eating an awful lot throughout the episode. Did he have a feeling he may be going darkside again, and wanted to enjoy food while he can? He also asked Cas to promise to take him out if he does go down that dark path again, but we never actually heard Castiel promise to do that.

- What happens to Claire now? Will they just send her off somewhere, or will Cas try to be sort of her dad for a while?

- I think one of my issues with the show right now is that there aren't any super clear goals. Like, they want to get rid of the Mark of Cain, sure, but that kind of feels like it's on the backburner right now. What is Cas' deal? He was rounding up angels, now he's feeling guilty about messing with human lives... Not sure where his story is heading. Crowley - I mean, what is his goal? He's the King of Hell, what else is there for him to go for at this point? He seems a bit bored himself. Maybe this is all building to something? Hopefully. I'm not even saying things have been bad, because actually this season has been quite good so far. Anyway, just some random ramblings for you.

Quotes:

Dean: Some chick bolting on you is not an emergency. That's... that's every Friday night for Sam.
Sam: Dude.

Castiel: Is ketchup a vegetable?
Dean: Hell yes.

Gerald: My mom used to burn me with cigarettes.
Crowley: Nobody cares, Gerald.

Dean: Whoa, Miley Cyrus, settle.
Claire: Easy, Hasselhoff.

Castiel: Do you think Claire's in trouble?
Dean: She's hanging out with a guy named Randy. She's in trouble.

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