Halt & Catch Fire Review

So ghosts can travel via Wi-Fi now. Since consciousness is just a series of electrical impulses, it makes sense that someone's soul could be captured by a computer system. This raises interesting questions, like what sort of control the ghost would have over various computer operations (could they browse the web at leisure or check email?) and whether they would be picked up by an antivirus system. Of course, if the ghost had complete control of the machine, they could probably shut down the antivirus program easily. I also don't think a ghost that's holding on because of revenge would be motivated to simply read Facebook unless it was to stalk their target.

It seems that in ghosts stories, the first thing the brothers burn usually doesn't get rid of the ghost. That would make the solution to the episode too easy and there wouldn't be enough of a plot. What usually ends up happening is that they burn the remains, then start packing up to leave when the ghost claims another victim. I don't really remember (having binge-watched seasons 1-8 over two month-long periods in 2012-13), but there may have been episodes where either the brothers simply didn't know whose ghost it was until halfway through the episode or were trapped somewhere by the ghost. Those seem like the only ways for the episode to actually last 40 minutes.

I think Dean is right to give up looking for a cure to the Mark. He, Sam, Cas, and now Charlie have been looking for a cure for the better part of the season and haven't found anything. I still think their best bet to to consult Cain, which they will get a chance to do in the next episode. However, it looks like this week they'll be too busy fighting Cain to ask him any questions about getting rid of the Mark. Even if they do consult Cain about a find a cure, I bet there's some sort of spell involved, since I doubt they're going to get rid of it this far before the season finale. Unless Rowena turns out to be the season boss for the brothers and not just Crowley. In that case, she could easily be featured in the finale rather than the Mark.

The Hunter Games Review

The river ends at the source, that's what Metatron said to Dean about removing the Mark of Cain. We normally think of rivers as beginning at their source. Rivers flow into larger bodies of water, be that another river, a lake, or the ocean. The ocean is the source of all life on Earth. Or perhaps it's the source of the Mark of Cain, the place where Cain killed Able. That would be somewhere in Africa. Rivers in Africa sometimes disappear into aquifers in the ground. Maybe Dean has to perform a ritual with the blade at one of these aquifers.

The fact that Claire's new friends thought they could actually take on Dean in a fight suggests that Claire didn't know enough about him to realize that he's more than a match for two ordinary humans. That would suggest that she hasn't been reading the Supernatural books that exist. Either she doesn't have an interest in that genre, she didn't realize they're real (which is unlikely), or whatever group home she's in doesn't stock violent literature like that. Alternatively, she did know on some level that he would be able to take them and didn't really want him to get hurt that bad. I mean, she did try to stop the fight once she saw the axe.

Rowena probably isn't going to be the villain of the season for the boys. It's more likely she's going to come into conflict with Crowley. The way I see it, she's going to try and take over Hell and either be stopped in a pitched battle against demons, or win and become the Winchesters' new villain next season. The boys seem to be busy with the Mark right now, and that's probably going to occupy them for the rest of the season. I'm not really sure what's going to happen to Castiel. Depending on whether we've seen the last of Claire, either he could mend his relationship with her, or help the boys for the rest of the season.

Soul Survivor Review

Now that Metatron, Abbadon, and demon!Dean are gone, the only things Team Free Will has to worry about are Castiel's grace and the Mark of Cain. The Mark ought to be simple enough, probably the only thing they have to do is find Cain and get him to take it back. Of course, it's probably not going to be that easy: either Cain will refuse or say he can't (there's some sort of spell), they won't be able to find him, or they won't realize the solution is that simple. The grace issue has two solutions, find Cas' grace or make a new one. Either one will probably require either the angel tablet or negotiating with Metatron. Since they can't read the tablet, they'd have to somehow convince Metatron to give up the information and he's probably going to have a price.

So now we have a big bad villain: Rowena. Judging by the guys on the ceiling, I'm guessing she's a demon, though it remains to be seen if that building burns down. The whole angels/demons thing is kinda overused, it'd be neat if they had another story arc about a different supernatural race. The only season we had that didn't deal with angels and demons was season 7 and the Leviathans. I'd really like it if she was something new and deadly. Of course, we still have Cole to deal with, so we'll have to see how he plays into the mix. Maybe the two of them will team up to take down the brothers.

Castiel now owes Crowley, this is going to play out interestingly. Crowley, being the businessman that he is, is definitely going to call in this debt. Seeing as Mark Sheppard is now a series regular, that means Crowley is going to be getting more of an arc this season. He probably has some dubious scheme in mind for the brothers and is going to enlist Cas' help in it. He may even try to convince Cas it's for the brother's own good. Cas has been known to do some bad things for good reasons and this may be one of them. What Crowley has in mind, I have no idea, but I'm sure we'll find out (probably before the Winchesters).

Do You Believe in Miracles Review

I totally saw this coming. Right from when they first started suggesting that the Blade was affecting Dean, I knew it was going to turn him into a demon. I didn't realize it would take his death for the effect to be total. We already saw him exhibiting telekinetic powers and super-strength, it was only a matter of time before his eyes turned black.

I was kinda hoping an archangel would show up in this episode. At one point, I thought that ginger angel was going to turn out to be Lucifer. Fans on Tumblr had been posting for while about the 2014!endverse (aka that Croatoan apocalypse we saw in season 5), so I figured it was within the realm of possibility. I also thought that since all the angels had been cast out of heaven, it was possible that Michael and Lucifer had been cast out of hell.

I actually thought Dean would defeat Metatron. My money was on him taking the First Blade and killing him. I didn't think it would happen the other way around. Most of the big bad guys in this show end up getting killed. So far, only Lucifer and Metatron have been locked up. Azazel, Lilith, Eve, and Dick Roman all got killed at the end; it only made sense that Metatron would go down the same way.

We still haven't seen the resolution of the issue surrounding Cas' stolen grace. Metatron said something about how it's burning up. Gadriel also said that Cas would get weaker every time he used his powers. I can only see two solutions to the problem. The first is that Cas somehow gets his own grace back. The second is that he uses the angel tablet or some spell to fix the grace he currently has. If neither of those things happen, it's likely he'll either die or return to human form.

The interesting thing about angel radio is that everyone is still calling it by the name the Winchesters gave it back in season 4. It's never been called anything else. That would seem to suggest that it never had any other name. In 13.7 billion years, neither God nor any of the angels gave their telepathic network a name. It's possible, that as their only form of communication (without the use of a vessel), they never thought to give it one. The fact that it took the Winchesters to give it a name seems to suggest that the angels aren't terribly good with names. That, and that they only call each other by first names. None of the angels have a last name of any sort.

King of the Damned Review

Once they showed "Scotland, 1732", I knew right away it was going to be about Crowley. I actually thought at first that Abaddon was going to try to kill Crowley before he became a demon. It turns out she was just after leverage. It's going to be interesting to see how Crowley's kid makes out in the 21st century.

I'm surprised the boys didn't kill Crowley right then and there. He'd exceeded his usefulness, there's no longer any point in keeping him around. If I were Dean, I would have just taken the Blade and chopped off his head.

It seems the remaining two episodes are going to be about Metatron. He and Abaddon haven't had much screen time for the main villains of the season. This season has had a lot of episodes that weren't relevant to the story arc. They've told some great stories, but the big story they're trying to tell has been rather lacking.

Most season finales so far have had some sort of cliffhanger. I'm having a hard time figuring out what this season's is going to be. They had a main character death last season, so we probably won't have one of those this month. My money is on the emergence of a new villain. Either that, or the reappearance of an old one, such as Lucifer. I want that because I want to see more archangels.

Dean is definitely turning into a demon. In this episode he showed clear telekinetic powers and superhuman strength. He needs to get rid of the mark before he turns into a full demon. In fact, the cliffhanger of this season might involve Dean's eyes turning black.

Alex Annie Alexis Ann Review

There really have been too few episodes this season dealing with the main story arc. I mean, about half the episodes haven't mentioned Abaddon or the angels falling at all. We really ought to get to see what the other characters (like Castiel, Abaddon, and Crowley) have been getting up to. Instead, they only show up every few episodes. This is in addition to all the breaks we've been getting between episodes.

It really seems like Sheriff Mills is beginning to be a hunter in her own right. She dispatched that vampire all on her own. I don't even know how she knew it was a vampire, but she knew how to kill it. Sometime next season, the boys are probably going to be calling her for help with a case, instead of the other way around.

That scene with the struggle between Dean and the vampire was definitely supposed to touch on the Mark of Cain. Dean is starting to become too aggressive and violent. I mean, he's always been rather violent (he's a hunter, after all), but the Mark is starting to make him really enjoy it. The Mark is making Dean more demonic, and it's entirely possible his eyes may turn black in a few episodes.

I'm not sure they ever answered the question about the girl's name. I know the reason why the momma vampire called her by a different name was because she was naming her after her own daughter. However, the girl was referred to by three or four different names during the course of the episode. They never explained why the other vampires called her by different names. I mean, they could just be doing the same thing, but what are the chances of them all losing relatives whose names are variations of Ann or Alex?

Mother's Little Helper Review

This episode explains what Abaddon has been up to since we last saw her, which was all the way back in Road Trip. For the season villain, she sure doesn't get much screen time. She's been mentioned in more episodes than she's actually been in. Not many demons would be ruthless enough to manufacture their own armies. Crowley, Azazel, and Lilith were all happy with the share of souls that hell got. Abaddon has been doing everything in her power to increase that number. We've already seen that she's been calling in contracts early and now she's stealing souls from still-living people. If the boys don't stop her soon, she's going to have quite the army on her hands. It's actually a wonder none of the angels have gotten involved. Now that they're stuck on Earth, you'd think they'd be paying closer attention to cleaning it up.

Finally, after nine seasons, the Winchesters have gotten some sense knocked into them. They actually went out and recorded an exorcism on their phones. Another group of hunters did that all the way back in season 5, and this is the first we've seen the Winchesters do it. If I were them, I'd have it ready to go on my phone, in the tape deck in the Impala, and on boom boxes stationed throughout the bunker. I might it even set it as my ringtone in the hopes of catching demons off-guard when I receive a phone call.

I'm rather concerned about the fact that Crowley "tested" Dean in this episode. I'm not sure what the test was in preparation for, but it seems to be whether he'd be willing to protect Crowley. It's possible Crowley is experimenting with some sort of mind control to get Dean to do his bidding. Or maybe it's something to do with the mark of Cain. Maybe it's slowly turning him into a demon. I have the feeling Crowley knows more about the mark and the blade than he's letting on.

Blade Runners Review

I always knew there had to be someone else left from the Men of Letters. However, I always thought it would be more than one person. It made more sense to me for there to be an entire secret society out there. It didn't seem like there were only six or seven members in the organization. I thought there would be hundreds, all across the world. That, of course, would raise the question of why the guy didn't give the key to the bunker to them. The thing that always got me was where the power and water in the bunker was coming from. There's the possibility that it's provided by some sort of spell, but I always thought someone was paying the bills. Though, if they'd been paying the bills for fifty years, you'd think they'd use the place.

The show seems to have taken an awfully long break from the First Blade plotline. There were an entire four episodes with barely a mention of the blade or the Mark of Cain. They did mention the angel war a couple episodes ago, so that was good. I know the show does periodically take breaks from the story arc, but normally it's only for one or two episodes, not four.

It seems unlikely that the guy would coop himself up in a building with no doors and windows for 50 years. Sooner or later, he's going to catch cabin fever and go insane. If I could live forever, I'd want someone to spend the time with. You'd think he would have a girlfriend or something. All he's got is the monsters in his "zoo". He's got no one to spend eternity with, yet he doesn't seem the least bit lonely. Unless of course, that's why he wanted Dean.

Given how long ago Crowley first injected human blood, it's surprising that his addiction has only just now surfaced. He blames Sam and Dean for getting him addicted, which is a reference to the end of season 8. That was months ago in the show's timeframe and we've seen him quite a bit since then. In all that time, human blood was not mentioned once. Perhaps it's not addictive at first, but has to be injected multiple times in order to develop a dependency.

First Born Review

Day 1 of Winchester separation saw both brothers making bad decisions. Dean decided to take the mark of Cain, which could have unforeseen consequences down the road. Sam was so pushed by guilt that he pushed Cas to continue extracting grace from him when it nearly killed him. We know from the trailer that next week they'll be back together. I really think they need more time apart to learn to make decision that account for their own well being without being pushed into it by the other.

I'm predicting this mark is going to have some sort of effect on Dean. My guess is that it's going to make him more of a cold-hearted killer than before. The brothers have always been violent, but this will probably magnify that effect. In fact, it may even make him more violent towards people he wouldn't otherwise be violent towards, like Sam and Cas.

This story certainly has some implications for the mythology of the show. Sam and Dean are supposed to be direct descendants of Cain and Able. Cain said that Able was being tempted by Lucifer and that he made a deal with Lucifer to kill Able and send him to heaven. Cain would then serve Lucifer in Able's place. This has a certain parallel to how Sam was tempted to become Lucifer's vessel. The only question is whether the story will conclude in the same way, with Dean killing Sam in order to save him.

We learned in this episode that a bit of grace is left behind whenever an angel leaves its vessel. It'd be interesting to see if that grace had any potential side effects. Perhaps it makes it easier for the vessel to be found again. It might also establish some sort of bond between angel and vessel. Castiel said there wasn't enough grace left for them to use a spell to summon Gadriel. I wonder it there's just the teeniest bit of Lucifer's grace left in Sam. It wouldn't be very much, just enough to skew the effects of the spell.