Supernatural Continues Its Final Season With Some Guest Stars

I’ve really struggled with this recap. Not because I couldn’t handle writing about it, but because I don’t know what to think about it. It has made me completely rethink what this season is. Where I was certain of the ongoing conflict and what it would for the gang before, I now have no clue what anything is. That can be exhilarating, but in this case I feel empty. Like there’s no direction even as I logically know there must be.

‘Raising Hell’ continues the conflict of the prior episode with a bunch of ghosts trapped in Harlon, Kansas. Sam, Dean, and Castiel are stalling with the inhabitants, trying to keep them out of the town and in their school gym/emergency bunker. Rowena shows up to help, as does Ketch. Those two are the best part of this episode. They have this attraction to each other that is both completely random and entirely natural. It is very charming and leads to scenes where they independently ask Dean about each other like high schoolers with crushes. It also highlights the way in which my appreciation of the characters has changed since my recent rewatch of the show. Rowena was a character I despised while I was ambivalent towards Ketch. But they’re both deep, complex characters that are 100% going to bang.

Kevin Tran also returned this episode as one of the many spirits that has been freed from Hell. Kevin is a character I never get tired of seeing and wish he had stayed longer. The team is able to temporarily cut a hole in Belphagor’s seal to let Kevin out in the world and he leaves to roam the earth. I assume he’ll be back.

Of course, this all happens after Rowena builds a God bomb and they decide to use it as a prison for the spirits in Harlon. Except they don’t get them all so the problem is still not solved at the end of the episode. Also, if this isn’t the clearest instance o Chekhov’s God Bomb, I don’t know what is. But again, there’s a GOD BOMB just chilling in Rowena’s handbag. No thinks we should do something about this?

The other plot in this episode is a few short scenes with Chuck and Amara. She’s on vacation and he tries to butter her up so that she can help him leave this universe. You see, when Sam shot him last season it weakened Chuck too much for him to be able to leave on his own (Also, Sam’s bullet wound is basically Harry Potter’s scar). Amara is real tired of her brother’s bullshit though, and she decides he can hang out in this universe while she takes her vacation from him. Emily Swallow seems to be having a ball as this new, more human Amara and it makes the character even more interesting than she already was.

               This week’s best quotes:

·        Castiel: “Dean, you asked what of all of this real? We are.”

·        Kevin: “Kevin Tran, Former Prophet”

Ketch: “Arthur Ketch, former assassin, Mostly.”

·        Francis Tumblety (AKA Jack the Ripper): “You know how the hellspawn are. All they talk about is Sam and Dean. Sam and Dean.”