Then! 

Falling angels, Billie is Death, and Gabriel peaced out.

Now!

Dean and Castiel are in the bunker’s kitchen, trying to will a good idea on how to find arch angels grace, ideally Gabriel’s grace. They are trying really hard. Dean gets them beers, hoping to shake something loose. Castiel offers to go up to Heaven, and beg for some angelic help, even though they all pretty much would like him dead. Dean doesn’t like the idea, but they are rock bottom at this point, so Dean reluctantly agrees.

Enter Sam, who thinks he has tracked down Rowena, who he thinks could track Gabriel. She seems to be up to no good, exploding people, and Dean gets all grumpy about how this is all Sam’s fault.

Sam’s all, I’ll take care of it.

HEAVEN

Castiel finds Indra guarding the gate to Heaven, and Indra has been doing plenty of drinking, if the bottles scattered about tell us anything. After some snarky back and forth about the grim state of everything, Indra tells Cass he is welcome to go up and see heaven for himself.

I was hoping for a little Cass and Lucy reunion, but even though it’s episode 19, it’s still too early for that! Instead, Cass wanders about the place, and not only wonders where everyone is, but why the light is cutting in and out.

Seems as though Heaven is suffering from rolling brownouts, and that’s because Heaven is powered by angels themselves, and there are only nine freakin’ angels in Heaven.

NINE.

Let that sink in for minute.

Not only is that information most troubling, but it turns out Naomi isn’t dead after all. She was only mostly dead. Now that she is almost recovered from a drill to the head, she informs a disturbed Castiel that if Heaven fails, all the souls will plummet back to Earth, and the planet would be swimming in ghosts.

Sam and Dean are good, but billions of ghosts? No bueno!

The angels are willing to help if it means they can get their hands on Gabriel. They are not too happy with their current arch angel, and Lucifer seems to have wandered off anyway, as he is not seen, and barely mentioned.

Naomi accompanies Castiel back down to Earth, tells him they are with him in spirit, but they can’t spare one feathered being at the moment. Hoping that Castiel finds Gabriel, and can convince him to come back home, Naomi says goodbye, and shuts the gates to Heaven.

BACK ON EARTH

But before Castiel leaves for Heaven, the three boys have a flirty and frustrating call to Rowena. Since she doesn’t seem at all contrite for killing that rich lady at the charity event, Sam and Dean pile into Baby and head off to the Pacific Northwest in search of her.

On the road, in the middle of Sam and Dean’s conversation, Jessica the reaper pops into the back seat of Baby. She has been tasked by Death to keep an eye on the boys ever since Dean’s conversation with Billie back at the beginning of the season. Kind of like a celestial baby monitor.

Clearly thrown by this revelation, Dean wants to know if she’s seen everything everything. Heeeee. Jessica only admits to knowing about Sam’s extensive hair product collection, and Dean’s emergency cheeseburger that he keeps under his bed.

Jessica is way more fun that Tessa ever was. (RIP Tessa!)

Anyhoo, seems as though Rowena’s killing spree is causing some consternation with the big boss, because all of these people dying before their time is upsetting fate, or whatever. And while that may be true, the real issue with the big boss is that Rowena is taking out the reapers that have come to collect the souls that Rowena is killing.

And Rowena is doing that to get Death’s attention. Seems as though unlocking her massive witchy powers has also unlocked her motherly sentimental side, and she wants Death to bring back her Fergus.

(Rowena is very clear she is interested in Fergus, before he became Crowley, but Dean either can’t or won’t differentiate the two.)

Sam and Dean meet up with hologram Rowena to ask her to stop killing reapers, which does not go well. Dean ends up in an epic fight with Bernard, Rowena’s willing bodyguard and dance partner, while Sam chases Rowena out the back.

Jessica has told Sam that in all the variations of how Rowena dies, the one thing that is constant is who kills her: SAM. So when he follows her into an alley, and she tells him the only way he can stop her is to shoot her, he reluctantly pulls the trigger.

Only now Rowena has the ability to stop bullets! And she is upset that he actually pulled the trigger, so she casts a sleepy spell on him, and brings him back to her hotel room, intent on killing him to get Death’s attention.

Which totally works!

Except when Rowena grabs a knife and threatens to kill Sam right in front of her, Billie is all, DO IT.

Of course, Rowena can’t do it. She wants to be evil and stuff, but she is not. Not totally. And Death tells her that sometimes life is terrible and there is nothing to be done except to carry on.

I’m paraphrasing, but you get it. You watch this show, of course you get it!!

Dean and Jessica bust in just as Death is wrapping things up, and as she gets ready to leave, she tells Dean:

DAMMIT SHOW, WHY YOU GOTTA BE LIKE THAT?

The episode ends with Sam, Dean, and Rowena sitting on the floor of her hotel room, drinking from the mini-bar, and everyone I know totally relates. BEEN THERE.

Sam tells her that Lucifer is back, and she is not surprized, In fact, she says that she is more afraid of Sam, now that she knows he is the one who kills her, and Sam – ever the optimist – says that if she helps them find Gabriel, maybe she can change her fate.

Let us note that Rowena doesn’t verbally agree to help here, so who knows what she will do in the end.

Quotes! 

Dean: “A rich lady exploded?” Sam: “Yeah. Local cops are — are calling it spontaneous combustion, but… pretty much.”

Castiel: “We must assemble our most powerful allies to rescue our family and confront the archangel Michael. Now he’s in an alternate universe, so…” Rowena: “Oh! The handsome angel is there isn’t he? Hello, Tweetie Pie.”

Sam: “Rowena, are you at a party or something?” Rowena: “I am, but I’m surprised you recognize the sounds of a party seeing as how you’re all work and no play.”

Castiel: “Dumah. I need to talk to you. I know you want to murder me, and I know that you have good reason to want to murder me. But there are events unfolding on Earth, and, um… well… the archangel Gabriel, he’s alive. And I need to find him before Michael, who’s… It’s not our Michael. It’s another much, much worse Michael. I need to find him before that Michael invades this world to… to either subjugate or destroy it. Or both, probably in that order. And there’s also the problem of… of a missing Nephilim and Lucifer. He’s back, too. It’s… it’s been an eventful few weeks.”

Jessica: “Have you ever heard of the Butterfly Effect?” Dean: “Ashton’s second-best movie.”

Billie: “You were never gonna kill him. There was a time you would’ve, but not now. I can see that.” Rowena: “I don’t know what I’m doing.” Billie: “Sometimes life is unfair and sometimes we lose things and sometimes we make mistakes. And some of these things can never be fixed no matter how powerful you become. Some things just are, and everyone has to live with that.”

 

Next!! Gabriel and Mary and Jack! And a hotel with vibrating beds!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhh8CDVG1wQ