Supern
atural’s “Girls, Girls, Girls” uses several storylines to explore the power of the self-crafted stories that drive its characters. Written by Robert Berens and directed by Robert Singer, the episode’s opening scene is fairly mundane, featuring a woman running from an unseen pursuer who catches up with her. After Raul (Michael Antonakos) promises to punish Tiana, she uses her broken-off high heel to stab him in the eye, but his eyes flash black. Instead of dying, he snaps her neck.
Post-title card, Dean Winchester (Jensen Ackles) and his younger brother Sam (Jared Padalecki) are enjoying a steak lunch at at Lazardo’s. Sam’s perusing the paper for potential cases, but Dean only seems interested in the messages on his phone. Turns out, Dean’s set up a dating profile and is corresponding with a potential match named Shay. Sam mocks Dean’s username – Impala67 – and suggests that Shay’s availability is “too good to be true.” Dean gets defensive and questions if Sam finds it hard to believe that an “attractive red-blooded American female” would be interested in someone like him. Sam didn’t intend to trigger Dean’s insecurities and tries to clarify that Dean can’t trust dating profiles, that for all he knows, Shay is really a “Canadian trucker named Bruce.”
Just as Sam makes that suggestion, Shay shows up, looking exactly like her profile. Sam looks incredulously at his brother, “We detoured eight hours so you could get laid?” Dean confirms that was, in fact, the plan and leaves with Shay. I’ve always loved flirtatious, adorable, sex-positive Dean, but this scene and the brothers’ exchange had me cringing; it reminds me a bit too much of the crossing-the-line-Dean that we saw in “Rock and a Hard Place” (9×8).
While the Winchesters take their detour, Castiel (Misha Collins) and Hannah (Erica Carroll) appear to be staying on track, locating the rogue angels and returning them to heaven. Hannah notes that they’ve accomplished getting all of the higher profile angels back, but Castiel reminds her that the mission is to get them all back. As before, it seems odd to me that Cas has embraced this mission, and I continue to believe the reality of his impending death is motivating him in his attempt(s) to set heaven to rights.
As Castiel discusses strategy and analyzes their notes, Hannah strips. When Castiel notices her nakedness, his discomfort is obvious. He asks what she’s doing, and she matter-of-factly responds that she’s showering. However, when she realizes that Castiel is uncomfortable, she responds, “Good.” This moment seems so incongruous with their previous dynamic; Hannah showed her uncomfortable awareness of Castiel’s partial nudity in the season ten premiere, so this scene suggests a potential for manipulation that I find unsettling. It just doesn’t make sense to me. (Also, there’s the whole angelic sibling dynamic that is apparently more murky than I ever imagined.)
In another motel room, Dean and Shay are getting to know one another – until Shay halts things to discuss “terms.” Dean’s surprised and disappointed to learn that she’s a prostitute and tells her, “I have this code, no cash for ass.” But Shay doesn’t want his cash; she wants his soul. I think that the facial expressions that Ackles employs here say quite a bit about the newly de-demonized Dean’s state of mind. Shay doesn’t know this context and assures him that his soul is only a “trifle” and worth the “absolute physical bliss” he’ll get in return. Dean knows better, though.
Shay claims, “I love my job,” but Dean questions her “cause it doesn’t look like love to me.” This exchange opens up so many possible avenues for interpretation, particularly regarding how each is using “love” in different ways. In regards to this episode’s storylines, I find it most compelling that Dean understands that Shay doesn’t, in fact, love her job – perhaps because he’s in the same situation? It’s also significant that this is Dean demonstrating that he is, in fact, learning about love, which will eventually help him distinguish “love…and love” (9×2). No matter how these lines are interpreted, though, Shay’s revelation that she’s a prostitute ends the illusion: Dean isn’t on a date with a beautiful woman who recognizes his potential. With that reality check, the Winchesters’ storyline moves forward as if the date-that-wasn’t never happened.
A brief scene with Castiel and Hannah shows that their perceptions are about to be similarly adjusted: When Hannah goes to check out, she pulls out her wallet, revealing that her vessel’s name is Caroline Johnson, a resident of Montana. Hannah removes a credit card to use, but before the transaction can be processed, a man grabs her wrist. “Caroline,” he says. “I put an alert on your credit card…I drove all night.”
At Dean and Shay’s room, the demon arrives, asking, “How we doing? Everybody ready for a good time?” He’s got the paperwork for the deal and doesn’t seem to find it odd that his potential client is sitting with his back to the door. Once the demon walks under the devil’s trap, Dean stands and Sam comes out of the bathroom. The demon knows them immediately: “Winchesters.”
The brothers confront him with the accusations about abduction and forced prostitution, which Sam notes is, “pretty gnarly, even for a demon.” When the demon insults Shay, telling her that a “demon from hell” “beats trash from the street,” she steals Dean’s angel blade and kills him. Though I can appreciate that Shay frees herself from the demon’s hold by doing this, I also find it odd that she manages to not only take Dean’s blade but stab the demon without hesitation. That aside, for a brief moment, it also seems that Shay has killed the Winchesters’ chances of learning about the brothel. Luckily, she saw the demon passing out business cards, and she rifles his pockets until she finds one for Raul’s Girls.
Rowena (Ruth Connell) enters the brothel in question just after its owner informs Gerald not to “leave any marks” on Catlin (Chelsea Hobbs), who’s refusing to wear a certain outfit. Raul rudely tells Rowena that she’s a “little old” to work there, though he’ll happily accept her as a customer. Rowena responds, “I’d rather die than do business of any kind with filth like you.” She tosses a hexbag at Raul, who instinctively catches it. As he begins vomiting what appears to be black goo, Gerald smokes out. Caitlin and Elle (Kirsten Comerford) look on in shock, and when Raul is dead, they leave with Rowena.
With her check-out process decidedly interrupted, Hannah is back in the motel room speaking with Caroline’s husband, Joe. He’s understandably upset about Caroline’s year-long absence and tells her, “I don’t know who’s gotten into your head but something’s going on, and I’m not walking away until I know what.” If only Hannah could explain that she is who has gotten, quite literally, into Caroline’s head. Instead, though Hannah tells him there’s an answer, she clarifies that she can’t share it because he won’t understand.
Just then, Castiel enters the room, and Hannah introduces them. Castiel looks shocked, particularly when Joe asks if they’re together. After her own surprise, Hannah latches onto that reasoning: “What? Yes. I left you, for him. He’s the reason.” She holds Castiel’s hand, even as Joe protests, “I don’t believe it. This guy? You? … You’re not that kind of person.” Hannah impulsively kisses Castiel in front of Joe, who watches Caroline disbelievingly. Hannah apologizes to Joe before telling Castiel, “Let’s go.” Castiel looks uncomfortable through the entire scene, but he does as Hannah says, and they leave Joe in the room, alone.
Dean and Sam arrive at Raul’s Girls and discover the dead demon on the floor. They quickly deduce that he literally “puked himself to death.” They don’t know what could kill a demon in that manner until Sam finds the hexbag that indicates witchcraft.
In the meantime, Rowena has taken Elle and Catlin to the upscale Bistro des Moules. The young women appear uncomfortable, and Catlin points out, “We don’t belong here.” Rowena disregards their unease, and when a waiter approaches to point out the girls’ dress code violations, she casts a spell on him. Instead of ejecting them, the staff brings an array of dishes and wine to their table. When the two women ask how Rowena is doing all of this, she answers, “Magic.”
Crowley (Mark Sheppard) makes his appearance in the episode here when Gerald, in a newly possessed vessel, gives his report. Crowley asks incredulously, “You opened a whorehouse in my name?” Gerald explains that, last month, when Crowley issued a decree looking for proactive strategies to increase soul deals, Raul came up with the idea. Crowley is not impressed: “You and your half-wit pal threw me in the sex trade. I’m evil – that’s just tacky.” Gerald counters that they tried to talk to Crowley but heard he was “distracted…I mean, busy.” The demon tells Crowley he escaped the witch so that he could report directly to the King because an “act of aggression like that didn’t seem like something you could let stand.” Crowley harrumphs. (Based on the demon’s reference, I’m guessing this means Dean has been de-demonized for less than a month?)
While Dean drives, Sam conducts internet research on the spell that killed Raul. He learns that there are eighteenth-century accounts of demons killed by witchcraft, but the spell hasn’t been used in over 300 years and has only been used by the witch who created it: Rowena.
At the restaurant, Rowena is spinning her expulsion from the Grand Coven to Elle and Catlin. In an explanation that I feel will prove important, she details that there are “three recognized kinds of witch in the world”: borrowers (the most common kind, those who harness the power of a demon to practice), naturals (the rarest kind, those born with the gift), and students (no natural ability, those who with training, practice, and a good mentor can eek out a “modicum of witchy power”).
Rowena tells Elle and Catlin that she’s not Grand Coven approved because they “disapproved of my methods. Said my magic was too extreme.” Her punishment included prohibition from having students, but Rowena’s delivery promises that she has a calculated plan. She tells Elle and Catlin, “Screw the Grand Coven and their silly rules. You two stick with me and you can have anything, do anything you want whenever you want.” Is Rowena trying to take on Elle and Catlin as students for their sake, though, or for hers? Elle doesn’t care and eagerly asks, “When do we start?” Just then, the head waiter, who’s carrying out plates, begins to act odd. He collapses, his head turning red and steaming. Rowena notices and dispassionately remarks, “I believe that’s our cue.” Catlin wants to know if Rowena injured him, but the witch assures that he’ll be fine and urges the younger women out of the restaurant as emergency workers are called.
We then see a familiar scene: a demon tied to a chair in the center of a devil’s trap as a man throws holy water at him. The demon is unimpressed and tells the man, “I’m your first. That’s why you’re drawing this out… you’re studying me. You’re training…It’s going to take a lot more than that to make me talk.” Of course, the demon’s been captured by Cole (Travis Aaron Wade), who’s ostensibly been studying demons since his fight with demon!Dean in “Soul Survivor” (10×3). Cole promises the demon, “Boy, you will talk and you will tell me everything you know about your buddy Dean Winchester.”
Back on the road, Castiel has stopped to fill up the Casmobile. He still looks uncomfortable and says to Hannah, “At some point, we have to talk about what happened. The – uh –” Cas trails off, as if unsure what to pinpoint, but it doesn’t matter. Hannah begins to speak, voicing that she’s struggling with what she did to Joe. “He wouldn’t listen, Castiel. He wouldn’t let me go. I didn’t want to hurt him. I could have erased his memories, but it didn’t feel right. I thought if he truly believed we were together he’d give up and it worked. So why does it feel so bad?”
Castiel seems to understand and tries to reassure her: “You did the right thing. You hurt him, but you gave him a reason, something he could use to move forward and make sense of his loss. I had to take my vessel from his family, twice actually. Jimmy Novak. He was a good man, was married, had a daughter – Claire…” Cas trails off. “And?,” Hannah asks. “And it was difficult but necessary,” Castiel finishes. “The mission comes first, always.” This exchange is interesting for so many reasons, but for me, especially because it raises the question again of what is “the mission” – who defines it, and who accepts it? Hannah seems to be asking these questions as well. By the time Castiel replaces the gas pump and closes the fuel tank lid and turns around, Hannah is gone.
Dean and Sam continue their pursuit of Rowena. Dean inquires about the head waiter’s untimely and public death and learns about Rowena’s two new friends, while Sam makes calls within the hunter network and learns about a string of grisly murders with “boiled brains’ as the cause of death. I always enjoy references to the hunter network, but at this point in the season ten storyline, I’m curious as to why the network isn’t after Dean, particularly since his shenanigans with Crowley are so well-known throughout the demonic community. That doesn’t come up here, though, with the brothers deciding to use Rowena’s expensive tastes to locate her.
Castiel finds Hannah standing on a small bridge over a small but energetic creek. I like how nature is so often used to symbolize divine connection and purpose, and in this scene, it also symbolizes Hannah’s self-journey. She’s bridging the chasm between heaven and earth, between her selves, and her contemplation leads to a true “revelation.” She apologizes to Castiel and then says, “I’m not going with you. I’m done.” I think it’s also symbolic that Castiel doesn’t meet Hannah at the halfway point on the bridge; there’s a fair amount of distance between them as they talk. Hannah can separate her angelic self from her vessel and her time on earth; I think that Castiel lost that ability a long time ago. Hannah’s ability to do this is, in my opinion, part of why she would be a good leader for the angels.
Walking along the path that runs parallel to the creek, Hannah observes, “It’s hard letting go, the story, the mission – what of the humans whose lives we sacrifice in the name of that mission, what of them? We always said the humans were our original mission, maybe it’s time, Castiel. Time to put them first.” Looking pained, Castiel asks, “Where is all of this coming from?”
Hannah answers him directly and honestly, “Being on earth, working with you. I felt things, human things. Passions, hungers. To shower, feel water on my skin, to get closer to you. But all of that was nothing compared to what I felt when I saw him, her husband – his anger, and his grief and Caroline was inside me screaming out for him, for her life back. These feelings they aren’t for me, for us. They belong to her. I know it’s time to step aside.” Castiel doesn’t speak again, but he nods after she pecks him on the cheek and says goodbye. Hannah leaves, and Caroline collapses against Castiel. He starts to introduce himself, but Caroline already knows who he is.
Since her introduction in season nine, Hannah has been a mirror to early-Castiel (S4 & 5) as he struggled with the concept of free will and his allegiances between earth and heaven. Though Hannah addresses Castiel directly when she speaks about the angelic mission, including him – or so it seems – in the “We always said the humans were our original mission” comment, Cas isn’t an angel like Hannah is. He’s literally been human, and though his vessel might have originally belonged to Jimmy Novak, it’s been Cas’s for quite a while now. (Showrunner Jeremy Carver and writer Robbie Thompson have confirmed that Jimmy is gone; Berens tweeted this week that the “question will be addressed in more depth soon.”)
Because of all this, I see Castiel as a hybrid figure, existing between human and angel. And whatever his identity, his loyalties lie with humanity, as he’s proven time and time again, including when he “gave up an entire army for one guy” (9×22). Castiel has been holding onto Hannah’s “story, the mission,” going so far as to accept it as his own, despite his failing health, his worries about Dean, and his long-established personal belief in free will. Hannah leaving, I suspect, bursts Castiel’s illusion just as Shay burst Dean’s. Now, both men have to create a new narrative. Spoilers have revealed that Claire Novak returns in 10×9, and I’m anxious to see how this will impact Cas’s season arc.
With the resolution of Hannah’s decision, the episode shifts gears back to Rowena. At the hotel, she is readying Elle and Catlin to practice spellwork, but demons capture them instead. As the three women are being escorted out, the Winchesters arrive, and Dean kills both demons. He then announces, “We’re here for the witch – Rowena.” Elle asks Rowena to “do something,” and the witch does, casting an attack dog spell on the young woman. As Elle attacks the Winchesters, Rowena and Catlin escape.
Outside, Rowena tries to convince Catlin that where Elle was weak, Catlin is strong and able. Catlin responds, “You’re right. I am [strong].” She then punches Rowena in the face and runs away. Rowena is already casting a spell when Dean speaks: “Not another word.” He’s leveling a gun at Rowena’s head and tells her, “Lady, your luck has just run out.” Rowena smiles and answers, “I’m pretty sure that’s not true.” A whistle from Dean’s right side reveals Cole, who’s leveling a gun at Dean. Considering the three extreme height differences, this scene must have been tricky to film.
Dean drops his gun, and Rowena leaves triumphantly. He apologizes to Cole for how he behaved before, but Cole throws holy water in Dean’s face. (I love Dean’s “did-I-just-get-holy-watered-in-the-face-again” expression.) Dean explains that he’s no longer a demon but admits that he also wasn’t demonic when he killed Cole’s father. “Then you’re still a monster,” Cole says. The two men begin to fight, but this time, it’s more evenly matched.
While Dean fights with Cole, Sam traps Elle in a closet. As he struggles to keep the door shut and keep her contained, he tells her, “Whatever [Rowena] did to you, you have to fight it.” Elle says, “I can’t,” and she screams. Sam has his gun out, but he doesn’t shoot. When Elle goes quiet, he opens the door, and she falls onto the floor, already dead, confirming what Rowena told Catlin, that most people can’t handle that much magic. It’s also a moment that reinforces that, many times, for whatever reason, people can’t resist or refuse being monsters, and it usually ends in death. How will this point (which we’ve seen iterated several times now) play out as season ten progresses?
Dean retrieves his gun, pulling it on Cole, who taunts, “What are you waiting for? Do it.” But Dean refuses, telling Cole that they’re going to talk and if, “after that, you don’t like what you hear, you still want me dead – You take your shot.” Cole obligingly trains the gun on Dean as the latter talks. Contrary to what he said when he was a demon, Dean remembers all the details – Cole’s father, Edward Trenton, was a monster, ripping out peoples’ livers and eating them. Dean said he doesn’t know what kind of monster, though: “Never seen that kind before never seen it again.” He assures Cole that Edward would have killed him too if Dean hadn’t been there to stop it. Cole protests that he heard his father’s human voice, but Dean insists it was a “ploy,” a “monster’s trick.” He adds, “That was not your father, Cole. Your father was already gone.”
Sam comes up behind Cole then, and Dean calls him off, ordering his brother to lower his gun. Dean reassures Cole that they’re fine, “We’re talking, okay?” Cole doesn’t want to believe anything that Dean is saying because it invalidates something he’s believed his entire life. Dean understands completely: “I get it. That was your story. Look, man, I got one of those too….those stories that we tell that keep us going, sometimes they blind us, they take us to dark places…” This is the second direct reference to “story” (Hannah made the first), and it’s an important element of this episode – What are the stories these characters tell themselves? What are their truths?
Though it’s heavily foreshadowed that Dean will go dark(er) with the Mark of Cain, right now, he’s still recovering from his walk on the demon side. And he realizes that he would still be a demon if it weren’t for Sam and Cas. He tells Cole, “The people who love me, they pulled me back from that edge.” I love that Dean recognizes their love for him and can even state it; this mark of progress is happy-making, but it also makes what Dean says next hurt that much worse.
Dean cautions Cole, “Once you touch that darkness, it never goes away. Now the truth is, I’m past saving. I know how my story ends. It’s at the edge of a blade or the barrel of a gun. So the question is, is that going to be today?” Like Castiel, Dean’s been holding on, following his mission, until his time runs out. I have hopes they’ll all learn that their “missions” won’t end in death and destruction. In Dean’s case, Sam and Cas just pulled him back from the edge, and the audience at least knows they’ll gladly do it again.
Sam doesn’t react to Dean’s words here, instead chiming in his own reminder about Cole’s family. He tells the man, “They need you to come back, and they need you to come back whole.” Cole listens to the Winchesters. In tears, he hands over Dean’s gun.
In Montana, Caroline has returned home. Castiel watches from the car as Joe answers the door and lets Caroline in. Looking pensive, Castiel pulls out his laptop and performs a search for “Jimmy Novak,” pulling up photographs and missing persons information and setting the stage for Claire’s re-introduction.
After Cole takes the Winchesters’s advice and leaves, Sam takes a moment to ask Dean, “What you said, earlier, back there, about being past saving , were you really – ?” Dean shrugs off Sam’s concern, telling his brother, “I was just telling the guy what he needed to hear.” If I didn’t already think he was lying, the sad smirk that Dean throws Sam’s way would have convinced me. Dean tells his brother, “We better go” and walks away. Sam believes Dean as little as I do and looks completely shattered. Still, he follows his brother silently back towards the car.
Just when I thought the episode was over, it reverts to Crowley. Gerald seems more intelligent than most demons appear to be; he knew to have alpha and beta teams in place, and when Rowena escaped from Dean, the beta team captured her. Gerald gleefully tells the King, We got her, right in there, tortured. If you like, I can finish her off.” Of course, Crowley doesn’t allow Gerald to gloat, pointing out the lack of logic in wanting “a medal for cleaning up the mess [he] made.” Muttering about his incompetent help, Crowley enters the cell.
Rowena’s in chains, and though abused, she taunts Crowley. “The King at last – King of what? Lilliput? I mean, I’d heard you were short, but…” Crowley listens to her, but he says nothing, even when she asks, “Cat got your tongue?” Finally, as the camera zooms in comically, he asks a one-word question: “Mother?”
Beren’s deftly balances the narrative in “Girls, Girls, Girls,” though there’s so much going on that it could easily be overwhelming. As someone who loves the heavier myth arc episodes, I wish more than one episode had been allotted to tell these storylines. It seems a bit much to conclude (at least for now) both Hannah and Cole’s storylines and introduce Rowena and her relationship to Crowley. As interesting as Hannah and Cole are, each could have been developed even more, which would have only lent more dramatic weight to the resolutions of their stories. That said, I enjoy this episode and how it furthers the season’s character-driven exploration, and I’m anxious to see how things develop from here.
Next week, sheriffs Jody Mills (Kim Rhodes) and Donna Hanscum (Briana Buckmaster) return in the much-anticipated “Hibbing 911.” Supernatural airs on Tuesdays at 9:00 pm ET on the CW network.