Robin’s Rambles: Supernatural 9.17 – “Mother’s Little Helper”
Milton IL, when a hubby doesn’t want meatloaf for dinner, his angry wife kills him with candlestick, rendering HIM meatloaf.
Bunker – Sam brings Dean a case, but Dean tells him to go alone. Dean’s been obsessed since killing Magnus. He wants to kill Abaddon. Sam is concerned about his brother. Dean downs the booze after Sam leaves.
Sam investigates. No sulphur, no weird eyes, but she has killed herself in her cell, hell and death written in her blood on the walls. Sam reports to Dean, no demon. Just crazy. Dean wishes him luck, hangs up. He drank most of the booze in that bottle. Dean vividly recalls killing Magnus and leaves the bunker.
Billy, a hitchhiker, gets a ride with someone he knows. The van is filled with bright light as he screams in pain. Another murder?
Sam enjoys a meal in an eatery. Billy comes in and starts acting nasty, violent. The waitress tells Billy she’s calling his mother; he attacks her with a knife. Sam stops him. Billy is put in jail. Billy tells Sam he wants to act this way. Sam reaches Dean in a bar and says more people are behaving soullessly, like Sam once was. Sam asks him to come. Dean can’t help him, he’s getting close to Abaddon. In truth, Dean is drinking in a bar. Crowley tells him he’s lying to Sam, making him, Crowley, his mistress.
FBI Sam finds an old woman claiming demons are back. She knows about the Men of Letters, they came here in 1958. From the Office of the Inquisition—a priest and a nun—Henry and Abaddon!Â
Dean plays pool. Crowley doubts Abaddon is in this bar; what’s up with Dean? How did it feel to kill Magnus? You felt powerful, virile, afraid—Dean is scared, accuses Crowley.
The old lady learned the names, Henry and Josie. Sam knows them—why were they here. Sister Mary Catherine killed two people before jumping from the bell tower. This is their last assignment before they become full members. He’s worried about his family should anything happen to him. Blood is all over the nun’s walls, along with a crest of the knights of hell. The old/then young nun crept from her bed and saw a black eyed nun. She awoke tied to a chair. There were others, bound and gagged. Henry and Josie saved her, got the demon out of all but one nun—who was actually Knight of Hell Abaddon. Josie revealed to Abaddon that she and Henry were Men of Letters, amusing Abaddon, who wanted to possess Henry. Josie asked her to take her instead of Henry. Josie loved Henry, who loved Josie like a sister. Abaddon entered Josie, who planned to eventually destroy the Men of Letters. Abaddon told Henry they got rid of the demons and hugged him. The ex-nun tells Sam where the old church was.
Crowley tells Dean to stop fighting who he really is; he’s just like Cain. They have the same problems. He asks Dean if he wants to cross streams, lol! Dean spots a guy with a rosary pulling out a knife and follows him. Dean urges the hunter not to go after Crowley. He’ll go after everyone he loves, best to leave it alone. He talks Jake into leaving the bar and urges Crowley to go.
Sam goes to the creepy old convent.Â
Dean urges Crowley to confess to shooting up human blood since he doesn’t take leaks. Dean really wants to kill Abaddon. He and Crowley agree on that—they have to get the blade, Dean and Abaddon in the same place. It turns out Jake was sent by Crowley to get Dean into the right frame of mind.
Convent – Knife drawn, Sam is attacked by the guy with the mustache. He finds bottles filled with glowing orbs. He kills one demon and loses his knife to Agnes. She’s winning by stealing souls. Per Abaddon, if you can’t convince them, make them—she’s turning souls into demons, making an army. They have factories everywhere. She chokes him when he tries to exorcise her, so he presses a button on his phone that recites the exorcism, giving him time to stab her and release a soul from it’s bottle—and into Billy. Others Sam releases go into his cell mates.Â
Sam asks why she didn’t warn Henry about Abaddon. They never told her how to act in the face of true evil. Abaddon scared her. She left the order soon after—she had betrayed the order. You helped me save lives, Sam assures her.Â
Henry tells Abaddon they saved lives, this is a noble calling. Josie says she feels like a whole new person. She glares at the poor young nun.
Sam returns to the bunker and to Dean, who appears to have never left. “You were right,” says Sam, “finding Abaddon ASAP—she’s mining souls to create an army.”
1. Â Oh, dear, there was a time we worried about Azazel creating a demon army. This is bad indeed. What do you think of this development?
2.  What did you think of Crowey’s manipulation of Dean in this episode? He was pretty funny, wasn’t he?
3. Â We saw the origins of Abaddon. It always creeps me out when these monsters start out as nuns or priests. What did you think of how Abaddon came to be?
4.  What do you think Dean’s state of mind is right now? Fearful? Determined? Angry? How do you think he feels about Sam right now?
5. Â I thought this was a pretty good episode and I give it an 8. How about you?
Welcome back, WFB!
[b]1. Oh, dear, there was a time we worried about Azazel creating a demon army. This is bad indeed. What do you think of this development?[/b]
This is an interesting concept but doesn’t really fit with over 8 years of demon lore/canon on Supernatural. Since when can demons extract souls from living people? Even angels can’t do that, can they? Human souls used to be tortured/twisted in to demons after a long time in hell. How do you turn a soul stored in a jar in to a demon? Add demon blood, shake and, voila, you have a demon? I usually don’t have a problem with tweaking/additions to canon (i.e. Rogue Reapers) but this kind of takes existing canon and flips it on its head, doesn’t it?
[b]2. What did you think of Crowey’s manipulation of Dean in this episode? He was pretty funny, wasn’t he?[/b]
Absolutely; Crowley’s got something else going on besides wanting Dean to kill Abaddon – just not sure what it is yet.
[b]3. We saw the origins of Abaddon. It always creeps me out when these monsters start out as nuns or priests. What did you think of how Abaddon came to be?[/b]
The back story on Josie was good, though I could have done without the unrequited duckie love backstory; it would have been sufficient for her to do it because Henry had a family and she didn’t.
[b]4. What do you think Dean’s state of mind is right now? Fearful? Determined? Angry? How do you think he feels about Sam right now?[/b]
All of the above; I think what’s scaring Dean is that, when he held the blade, he really, really liked the feeling and that, losing control like that, scares the hell out of him. Dean is intentionally lying to, and isolating himself from Sam, probably a side affect of the Mark of Cain? Sam is getting worried; you can tell in his interactions with Dean that his tone has softened a lot in the last two episodes.
[b]5. I thought this was a pretty good episode and I give it an 8. How about you?[/b]
Directing, acting, camera work, lighting, etc. were all great. I liked the backstory for Henry and Josie. It was pretty obvious to me that the “hunter” in the bar was a demon planted by Crowley. I have a big problem with the whole demons in a jar thing and, because of that, give it a 6.
Presumably Lucifer removed Sam’s soul in the cage. Maybe Knights of hell (Lucifer’s Knights) can do things other demons can’t.
I imagine that the souls could be twisted into demons more powerful than the regular sent to hell demons because the souls are more pure?
Maybe regaining your soul isn’t as painful if they haven’t been tortured and mutilated first.
I don’t think Dean can really think about anything right now other than the Blade. He’s trying to focus but he is finding it more and more difficult. What he said to Crowley was troublesome. He doesn’t care about the consequences as long as the job gets done. Haven’t we learned anything Dean.
Yes, but that was Lucifer and he was an archangel, but we’re really not sure if it was Lucifer that removed Sam’s soul (remember, Michael was a dick, too) or it happened as a result of Castiel raising him from perdition. And, even then, it took Death to retrieve it and put it back. I thought about this being a Knights of Hell thing, but Abaddon wasn’t there in Milton now, it was Agnes and the groundskeeper demons that extracted the soul in the van. I don’t know – just having a big problem with such a big change to canon
I guess I figured since we really don’t know how Sam’s soul was removed we can’t really know who can remove souls and who can’t. Maybe that will be explained later. My problem with the whole soul thing is that Sam put it together pretty quickly. It seemed like kind of a big jump to conclusion for me. I thought it was interesting that Agnes told Sam that “they” were very interested in his soul to join them. I still think that Dean killing Sam is a probability (or at least trying to). That is the only thing that will send Dean down the darkest path that either of them have ever been on. Even Sam’s demon blood thing didn’t take him that far.
I always had the impression that Sam’s soul removal was Cas” fault. Well, I guess I don’t actually have any evidence to support that, just a feeling. And you know what that means? A rewatch of season 6. Again!:)
njspnfan: Oh, poo on canon! Who needs canon, when there are shiny lights and Smart!Sam? Didn’t you think the shiny lights were just pretty? (Sorry ,I’ve had WAY too much coffee today.)
🙂 I’m sorry.. what were you saying? I got distracted by the shiny quarter on my desk.
I never thought Cas intentionally left Sam’s soul behind. In 6.20 The Man That Would Be King, in his confession/one sided conversation with God, it sounded like the signs were there and he just didn’t notice. Give it a rewatch and let me know what you think.
Normally I’m not a stickler for canon but this soul thing is a big change, and I hope they at least try to explain it further at some point.
#4, Yeah, I saw this too. Sam is rightly ,very frightened of what he’s seeing in Dean since @Thinman. I think Dean is sdrinking to forget those feelings you mentioned, but so far hasn’t had any luck getting drunk. I also think he’s drinking because he’s not sleeping. If he could sleep, he would be sleeping to forget or passing out to forget and neither is happening. He goes to Crowley because no matter how much he tries, he can’t.To me, that’s the most frighteneing thing.
[b]1. Oh, dear, there was a time we worried about Azazel creating a demon army. This is bad indeed. What do you think of this development?[/b] I agree with njspnfan, it clashes with canon. As they noted, there has been no indication that demons or anything else can pull souls from bodies. And I don’t understand how they are going to get turned into demons. And why did they start in 1958, when Azazel was (presumably) in charge of Hell? Abaddon’s big beef seems to be that Crowley, mere salesman is in charge of Hell, instead of a worthy demon. Was she unhappy with Azazel, or whoever was running Hell in 1958? Was she under orders from Azazel? Henry didn’t find and release any souls, so were they not pulling souls back then, but just hanging around a convent for grins and giggles?
[b]2. What did you think of Crowey’s manipulation of Dean in this episode? He was pretty funny, wasn’t he?[/b] Crowley was great like always. He know just what he is doing. The Ruby parallels were pretty anvilicious.
[b]3. We saw the origins of Abaddon. It always creeps me out when these monsters start out as nuns or priests. What did you think of how Abaddon came to be?[/b] It was good, but I wish they hadn’t had Josie do it for love of Henry. Because he had a wife and child and she didn’t, and with the heavy implication that she had lost her family, I would have preferred that she did it to spare John and Millie.
[b]4. What do you think Dean’s state of mind is right now? Fearful? Determined? Angry? How do you think he feels about Sam right now?[/b] I think Dean is all of the above, scared, determined and angry. I suspect he is angry and hurt at Sam for not getting over the whole being tricked into being possessed by Gadreel. It was interesting that when Sam told him to be safe, he didn’t tell Sam to do the same. He seems very apathetic about Sam’s safety. He was this way at times in season four, when Sam was going with Ruby and Dean was drinking.
[b]5. I thought this was a pretty good episode and I give it an 8. How about you?[/b] In spite of my complaints I really enjoyed this and I don’t usually care for Adam Glass. I’d give it an 8.
Misha did a great job directing. I loved the look and feel of the episode. Sam is incredibly competent when he is hunting without Dean, much more than when he is with Dean. Dean was drinking in The Milton Bar, which made some people think he followed Sam. I don’t think it lines up, however. First I hate to think of Dean driving that far as drunk as he was. Second, Ohio is a long way from Kansas, and Sam has the Impala that can cross country in 2 hours, while Dean just has the cars in the garage. So I can’t work the logistics of Dean getting there so quickly after he left the bunker. Plus I really buy that Dean is apathetic about Sam and his safety. Finally, it’s also ironic that Dean blew off a job using wanting to find Abaddon as an excuse, then the case has a direct link to Abaddon.
The souls being removed from people who are alive just doesn’t cut it. Seems totally wrong to me.
I welcome back the smart resourceful Sam who has been MIA for too long. I loved that he worked the case alone and came out of it unscathed. Hopefully, this helps his self-confidence. Loved the use of the cell phone to do the exorcism.
I do want Dean to experience what it is like to have an addiction to power. He really beat Sam up for it in S4 and S5 so it will be interesting for him to find out what it feels like. I want him to struggle with it so that he comes to understand what it’s like to have your choices taken away from you as he did to Sam early in S9 with the Gad possession. I keep thinking that maybe he will end up killing someone who he considers family (not Sam), but not sure who that would be, maybe someone we haven’t met yet.
Welcome Back WFB – I was litterally going into withdrawl myself without you!
I did really like this episode alot. Kudos to Misha!, It’s clear that he gets the style and flavor of this show, and even though he wasn’t around in the ‘old days’ this episode had an old school feel to it that I liked, and a creepiness that’s been missing some in recent years. And yeah!!! for SmartSam! It’s soo good to see you! What a clever idea taping the exorcism just in case. I’d like to see that used again in future episodes.
I agree with all the posters who are having trouble with the whole soul thing though. Not the plot point of it; we’ve seen demons want to build up demon armies before, so that whole call back plotwise isn’t the problem. Its more a logistical thing I am having trouble with. Why were the soulless people in this town so out of control vicious? We didn’t see that with Sam or with the boy who was trying to get revenge for his dead brother in season 6. They were more emotionless and calculating than psychotically violent, which doesn’t make much sense to me really. Or maybe if some had been violent and some had been calculating like Sam it would have worked better …. but all of the soulless people in this town acted in the same out of control way, and it was totally different from the way Sam acted pretty much through the first ten episodes of season 6, so continuity wise it just didnt’ work for me. They even had Sam draw a parallel from his behavior while soulless to the towns people’s behavior; a parallel that just didint’ exist IMO.
Secondly, since when can souls be extracted and/or reintroduced directly through the mouth? I mean, wasn’t there a HUGE deal made of the fact that getting a soul out of a body and putting it back in was something only death could do and that it caused a great deal of pain and was possibly dangerous as well? We saw Castiel check bodies several times for the presence of a soul (in Sam, in the boy from 6×01 and Bobby in the now infamost “I need to touch it.” “Touch it?” “Touch it” scene) but he never removed one or put one back, only Death was seen to do that with Sam’s soul, and Famine was seen to be able to consume removed souls, but it was never shown how those souls were extracted. Now it appears that Abbadon can get the souls and that the souls can float around and then reenter the body from whence they came all by themselves. So, why all the pain and torture in season 6? And why is it that souls can be turned while still on earth? I though they had to reside in hell for milenia for that to happen? Confusing. Anyhoo.. I don’t mind the direction that the story is moving in at all, I just wish that they would clean up the details and make sure everything conformed more to canon. Or if TPTB are going to change canon that they would do so in a way that makes sense instead of a way that appears to be a mistake becuase they’ve forgotten their own show history.
I don’t actually have as much of a problem with all the soul stuff. The nun said that if the jars were broken, the souls should/ would just go back to where they belonged and I didn’t have a problem with that. We’ve never seen demons extract souls from bodies but Famine’s demons had to have that skill to feed him. So maybe its just a special thing only certain demons know how to do, like teleporting.I think all the pain and torture was because Sam’s soul was in Hell being tortured by Lucifer, but without the “become a demon” option. But this is all just me guessing.I have no more clue than anyone else,really.
I’m just as unclear on the turning them into demons on earth part. I dont get that.
I don’t have an issue with the demon army thing. I assumed that Abaddon was under Azazel’s orders and he mentoned his army a couple of times in season two, so I just think she was working on this. But the “Boy King” went bust and Abaddon disappeared for 60 years and the machinery she put in place has just been chugging along, I guess.
I do agree. Sam’s jump to the idea that these people were soulless was a little too quick. They could have waited and just let Juliana tell us when she walked on, rather than have Sam guess this out of the blue,which is what that felt like.
[b]1. Oh, dear, there was a time we worried about Azazel creating a demon army. This is bad indeed. What do you think of this development?
[/b]
The soul thing raised a lot of questions. I think it might be a knight of hell thing. A lot about how and why was left to be interpret by the viewer. The nun demon said that the souls need to be ripped out of the body. Maybe how they do it causes the soulless body be violent and nut jobs. The body can go on without soul. (Sam is the example) and he was different yes. Maybe because he was a hunter and he has violence in general in his life. The victims were normal people. At least they didn’t show it in any other way.
Putting the souls to preserving jars were actually very creepy and I think the jars were suppose to turn demon still downstairs in hell. Maybe souls can be tortured worse as the people haven’t died and turn purer demons? Anyway, it would just be Abaddon’s way of chaos and havoc send the soulless to back to their loved ones and kill them and the soulless just suffer as empty meat suits.
[b]2. What did you think of Crowley’s manipulation of Dean in this episode? He was pretty funny, wasn’t he?[/b]
Crowley is always awesome. Dean has a really good chemistry with him and even Sam. But like I said. All characters in the show are pretty awesome in their own way. And Dean is in loads of trouble.
[b]3. We saw the origins of Abaddon. It always creeps me out when these monsters start out as nuns or priests. What did you think of how Abaddon came to be?[/b]
Only thing what is creepier than nuns/priests are actually porcelain dolls and little children as obsessed/baddies.
[b]4. What do you think Dean’s state of mind is right now? Fearful? Determined? Angry? How do you think he feels about Sam right now?[/b]
All of the above. He is drowning everything to alcohol and he is lying to Sam. And if he is not sleeping it’s way worse. There is also speculation that these are the marks of being soulless or turning to a demon. Or a knight of hell. What ever it will be it’s bad.
[b]5. I thought this was a pretty good episode and I give it an 8. How about you?[/b]
I give it an 8 too. Didn’t have that much problem with the soul thing. It just made me think some more. I can’t wait for the next episode. It’s payback time and story goes forward! And I really love the character/actor of Gadreel so I really, really, really hope they will not off him like Magnus. I want to know more about him.
—
From Jo: “I keep thinking that maybe he will end up killing someone who he considers family (not Sam), but not sure who that would be, maybe someone we haven’t met yet.”
This sentence alone makes me want Sam, Cass and any other that Dean has close as far as they can from him. There has been many parallels on this season and it would make sense that Dean would kill a member of his “family”. That would be the ultimate downfall far him and parallel to Sam/Kevin.
– Lilah