This episode addresses almost all the moving parts of the season, and adds another one or two in the process. There’s so much! Where do I begin???

The AU!

Michael has imprisoned Lucifer and after seeing the gloriousness of our earth by tapping into his cerebral cortex, decides to take some of Lucifer’s grace to cast a spell to open a rift to “Paradise World”. A spell concocted by the prophet Kevin Tran! Not our Kevin, but a zippy, possibly meth-taking AU version of Kevin Tran, who answers to Michael, as their God seems to be dead? Not sure, really.

Anyway, Michael makes the classic BigBad mistake, by taking his victim out of his confines, and telling him exactly what he is up to. So when Kevin’s spell opens the rift, then pulses with an energy surge that knocks everyone off balance, Lucifer takes his opportunity to elbow Michael’s goons in the throat and jump through the rift, which closes up after him.

Lucifer enters back into our world on a busy city sidewalk in MaybeCincinnati, and when a couple of boorish ladies give him some cash, and ask him to not spend it on drugs, Lucifer snaps his fingers to make them go POOF. Unfortunately, the letting of his grace by Michael, has left Lucifer with only the power of red, glowing eyes, and snark.

Back in the real (SPN) world!

Castiel decides that he needs to go in search of Jack, and tells Sam and Dean that he needs to do it alone. His first stop is the playground, aka Heaven’s gate, where he meets the angel Duma, who tells that him that they don’t know where Jack is either, but they think they have the right to him. Seems after the fall, and the civil wars, angelkind is in danger of extinction, and they hope that Jack can help make new angels.

Castiel refuses to help them though, as he is “ever the renegade,” and the show remembers that he is a bad-ass fighter, and I clap and cheer on my couch. I love BadAssCastiel!

No matter how bad ass he is, though, three angels are just a bit too much for Cas, and when Duma holds an angel blade to his throat, and it looks as though all is lost, Lucifer wanders out of the bushes. He uses his glowy eye trick to threaten the angels, and they scamble back through the gate, leaving a winded Lucifer and a suspicious Castiel to circle each other.

The whole conversation between the former rivals/vessel sharers, is magnificent. I could watch a whole episode of Cas and Lucy go back and forth like this. I was tempted to transcribe the whole thing, but just go watch it again. Banter for the ages. Lucifer tells Cas that AU Michael is coming, and that he is a bigger threat than any of the issues between him and Cas. Cas tell Lucifer that his son’s name is Jack. They are both totally cute and funny.

I think that Castiel is almost convinced that Lucifer is telling the truth, but he goes to his standard back-up, putting off making a decision before he talks to Sam and Dean.

Lucifer bangs his head on the table when the Winchesters are mentioned to hilarious effect. Heeeeee.

Never ones to just sit around on their asses, Sam and Dean decide to go take a look into who might be killing witches, serial murder style. Wearing their Fed suits out on the street, they check out some surveillance footage of the last known whereabouts of the latest victims, and Dean spots someone who looks an awful lot like Mr. Ketch.

British Men of letters, shot in the head by Mary Winchester Mr. Ketch! Whaaaaa?? (I was spoiled about Kevin showing up, but completely surprized by the reappearance of this guy.)

While the boys are trying to make sense of what they see on the video, a woman approaches them, tells them that she is a witch, and while they hunt her kind, they are also known to help those in need. She brings Sam and Dean to a cabin in the woods, and tells her tale of being kidnapped and tortured, complete with open wounds on her neck and chest. Seems as though the torturer kept asking about Rowena McCloud, who the boys remind us was burned to death by Lucifer. The witch confirms this story, and when Sam takes out his screengrab of “Mr. Ketch”, the witch also confirms that is who grabbed her.

Instead of spiriting her away, Dean decides that using the witch as bait is a better play, since “Mr. Ketch” doesn’t seem to be taking that Rowena is dead as an answer. And just as they hoped, “Mr. Ketch” shows up, drops tear gas into the cabin, and kicks open the door wearing a gas mask, and shooting round after round throughout the room.

The witch hits the floor, and once “Ketch” stops shooting, he gets shot in the neck with a tranquilizer dart. He collapses on the floor, and Dean steps in and pulls off the gas mask. Even with the beard and messy, curly hair, he looks pretty much exactly like Ketch, and the boys take him back to the bunker to ask some pertinent questions.

The whole time, Ketch insists he’s Alexander, the twin brother of the now deceased Arthur Ketch, and he is not an evil British Men of Letters, but a well paid mercenary who is just like the Winchesters, hunting monsters.

Dean is not buying what this guy is selling, even though there is an impressive paper trail confirming his story. Sam tells “Alexander” how they killed and then disposed of Arthur, mentioning something about dumping the body in the waste canal, and I am all, WTH IS A WASTE CANAL?

Anyhoo, Dean gets a call from Cas, who is trying to hide it from Lucifer. Lucy knows exactly what Cas is up to, and cuts off the call, pinging Dean’s There’sSomethingAmiss alarm, and after stashing Ketch back in the armory, Sam and Dean use the GPS on Cas’ phone to track him down to what is now a dark and empty seeming bar.

You see, while the Winchesters are rushing out to find Cas, Asmodeus and his crew show up at the bar, informing Lu that he is not giving up the rule of Hell, shows that he knows Lu is powered down by flinging him and Castiel across the bar, and takes both Lucifer and his “lap angel” back to his lair, locking those two in cells to use later.

Sam and Dean enter the bar, and after a cursory search, proclaim the place empty. Just then, demons pop out from the shadows, and a crazy battle goes down. The fights this season are brutal! Just, hard core, crunching fights.

It’s fantstic.

Dean ends up in a headlock, and Sam is cornered, and the look on Deans face tells us that he thinks this is the end. Until! Ketch shows up, and boom, all the demons are dead!

Is Ketch’s explanation of how he escaped the bunker, and was able to find the boys in the nick of time completely implausible? Maybe!

Do I care? I do not!!

Thinking he’s gotten on the Winchesters good side, Ketch relaxes, and then Dean pulls a gun on him, telling him he knows he’s Arthur. Ketch finally admits that it is him, and that he survived getting shot in the head because of a charm that he got from Rowena back in the day. He’s been looking for her, because he needs it to be recharged, and when Dean informs him that she is all burned up, Ketch responds with a simple, “Is she?”

WHAAAAAAAA?

How awesome would it be if Rowena was still alive? Remember when Dean was talking to Billie, and one of the ways how Dean could die was being burned by a red-haired witch? Yeah. Don’t be surprized if we see good ol’ Rowena again, my friends. (YAY)

By the end, Ketch escapes the Winchesters, and we see he is now working for Asmodeus, looking all clean and groomed, just like we remember him. Crazy!

Quotes!!!

Lucifer: Okay I get it, I get it. Custody of my son is a non-starter. But if you can please just shelve the eternal enemies thing for a second, we have a situation. And by ‘we,’ I mean everything alive. We’re sorta… all gonna die.

Castiel: Hypothetically, um, let’s say you’re lying, and I help you find your son, and then you kill me again. Lucifer: Cut me a little bit of slack. Please? That unhinged thing and that meth head Kevin Tran are about to bust through that door. God isn’t here! It’s just us. We’re all we got, in case you hadn’t noticed.
Castiel: Well, I-I-I have to talk to Sam and Dean. Lucifer: Why, why, why, why, why, with all their second guessing and their whining? This is an emergency, Castiel, and all they’re gonna wanna do is — is put me back in the Cage.

Ketch: Arthur was the family success story. The… headliner, our Donny Osmond. Dean: Mm. All right, Marie. What’s your story?

Sam: You get a name? Dean: Nope. But, from his description — Evil Colonel Sanders. Asmodeus.

Next!

Looks like it;s a stand alone? Hard to know, but with all the information we gleaned from this last episode, I wouldn’t be surprized if they left us hanging. The Scorpion and the Frog looks heist-y.