Supernatural 10x18 Book of the Damned

Before I get started on this, I have to admit something: I kinda lost track of the main storyline on Supernatural a few episode back, so this episode was full of surprises and „wait, what?” moments for me. It’s very possible that I’ll be using the phrase „wait, what?” a lot throughout this review, simply because I didn’t remember that any of these things were supposed to be happening. Now, I would hate for anyone to get the wrong idea so let me just say this right now: I love this show. It’s one of my favourites, and I kinda want it to go on forever even though I’m well aware of the fact that the potential for new storylines that are actually interestint and entertaining to watch is getting smaller and smaller each season, and I’m really looking forward for the prospect of seeing these wonderful actors try themselves in something non-Winchester related after the show finally ends... and yet I still hope it gets renewed at the end of every season. So please understand that I only mean it in the best possible way when I say that this Mark of Cain storyline is boring my ass off and as far as I’m concerned it can’t end soon enough, and that is the reason why I’ve been kinda phasing out the last couple of weeks whenever something Mark of Cain-related  came up, and I always let out a sigh of relief whenever I see that an episode is going to be a standard good old-fashioned Monster of the Week one.

That said, this eisode was plenty entertaining, even with all the Mark of Cain (which I’m just gonna calll MoC from now on because typing Mark of Cain every ten seconds is about as boring as hearing about it all the time) stuff going on. Most of the entertainment value came from the fact that Charlie was involved, and she always brings a kind of lighthearted fun to whatever episode she is in, even if said episode would be pretty dark and doom-and-gloomy otherwise. I can only guess that Metatron’s presence was also supposed to provide some comic relief, but I’m so sick of the guy that I could only roll my eyes whenever he was cracking jokes, rather than being actually entertained. But let’s not get too ahead of ourselves, and let’s see what Charlie was up to first.

Charlie was, apparently looking for something called the Book of the Damned all over the world, including places like Alaska and Russia, after previously having found out that it could information on how to get rid of the MoC, which is the first thing in this episode that I didn’t remember at all. The good news is that she has found the book. The bad news is that other people has found her. You see, the book actually belongs to a family called the Steins,and they were hell-bent on getting it back. One of them even went so far as to shoot Charlie in the leg. How could he? But apparently Charlie has retained most of the fighting skills of her evil self from that one previous episode, and she was kicking ass all over the place before finally getting to safety in one of Bobby’s cabins for hunters on the road, and meeting up with the Winchesters. Meanwhile, the boys had a bit of a catching up to do: Dean told Sam about the MoC being an actual curse (okay... so what?), and Sam acted very surprised when he founf out that Rowena was Crowley’s mother. Apparently he had no idea, which is yet again something that I had no idea about. Anyway, despite having decided that he was going to stop looking for a cure for the MoC, Dean was pretty optimistic about eventually getting rid of it. He had all sorts of plans about going on a long, well-deserved vacation to a sandy beach after they’re done with it, which was heartbreaking to listen to because you just know it’s never going to happen. Or is it? Charlie showed up just in time to inform us that the Book of the Damned was actually a „spellbook for creating or undoing any kind of damnation there is”. Now, that IS convenient! Except, you know, the book was written in a language none of them could understand or have ever encountered. Also, according to Charlie, its origin story was terrifyingly awesome: "About 700 years ago a nun locked herself away after having "visions of darkness". After a few decades squirreled away by herself, she emerged with this. Each page is made out of slices of her own skin, and written in her blood." Creepy. Let’s not even get into how many times she must have had to skin herself to have enough material for a whole book. Soon after Sam and Charlie immersed themselves in trying to decipher the text in the book, Dean found himself being inexplicably drawn to it in not a good way, and asked them to destroy the book and instead try and find another way to get rid of the MoC. Sigh. Dean, baby, you’ve been looking for a way for almost a whole season know, and so far literally everyone has told you that there is no way. Now here you have your first possible chance to save your ass. How many more chances do you thing you’re going to get? Not gonna lie, this bothered me to no end.

In any case, there wasn’t much time to ponder over this because that those Stein dudes showed up trying to reclaim what belonged to them, which prompted Dean to shout „Burn it, Sam!”, a couple of times, and Sam to... just obey? Nah. Sure, he burned something all right. But even as I was watching this scene, I was wondering, is it way too obvious that Sam didn’t destroy the book? And sure enough, he didn’t, which was revealed right at the end of the episode. This surprised me because I thought they were gonna let us forget about it only to bring it bac in the season finaly or something, but nope. Sam kept the book, and... asked Rowena to help with it? Oh boy. This is not going to be pretty. I did like the fact that Stein Dude also saw that Sam only pretended to burn the book, and his „Silly boy!” exclamation was actually about him keeping it, because he knew that his family will never stop looking for it... and given the fact that apparently they have some sort of supernatural way of tracking the book, I wonder how long is it before the show up again? Although I guess now that the book is with Rowena, that’s not something the Winchesters have to worry about right now... in any case, Dean isn’t going to be happy about this when he inevitably finds out. This show just wouldn’t quiet be the same without the boys continually taking turns in keeping terrible secrets from each other, would it?

Speaking of keeping secrets, Dean also doesn’t know that Sam and Cas have never stopped looking for a cure, even though he explicitly asked them to do so... which brings us to Cas’ storyline of the week. Cas was taking Metatron on a roadtrip in order to get back his own grace, and Metatron was characteristically being a pain in the ass the whole way. He finally led Cas to a library, where he have given his grace to another angel to hide it so that even Metatron himself can’t find it, or something like back. There were clues hidden in some of his favourite books though, so it should have been easy enough... except that, naturally, Metatron betrayed Cas, somehow rendered him almost dying (it wasn’t really clear to me what he did to him exactly), and then walked off with a hidden Demon Tablet... which, again, I don’t remember why he was looking for. Perhaps so he can become God again? I guess I’m gonna have to wait and see. Anyway, Cas got his grace back on his own which is fantastic news, went to join up with the Winchesters, and lied to Dean a bit more about how he found the grace. According to his story, Hanna got the location out of Metatron, which means that Dean doesn’t even know that he was released? I guess it makes sense, given that the original reason for his release was that so he can help Sam and Cas find a cure to the MoC, but man, I’m so bad at keeping track of everyone’s secrets on this show.

Apart from the final Sam and Rowena scene, the episode ended on a happy note, with Sam finally meeting Cas for the first time (sigh, yet another thing I always assumes has happened long ago) and being totally adorable about it. "I thought you'd be shorter" and "Did we just become best friends?" were both fantastic lines, and watching them play that origami game where you fold and unfold that thingy and it shows different stuff on all sides... I have no idea what that’s called but it was an adorable scene in any case. Can’t wait to find out what Rowena wants in exchange for help next week!

Episode MVP: Misha Collins as Castiel

Quote(s) of the episode:

"Sand between our toes, Sammy... sand between our toes." :’) – Dean Winchester

"O M Me!" – Metatron (as much as I hate the guy, this line made me laugh out loud)

Random tidbits:

 - It was amazing to hear some good old classic rock in the Impala again after such a long time, although I’m not sure the song was exactly appropriate. The boy will only be well and truly back in town once that bloody Mark comes off of Dean’s arm.