Supernatural – Stuck in the Middle (With You)

By: Stacy Miller

“So, tell me a story,” says Arthur Ketch (David Haydn-Jones) and thus begins a tale of a hunting adventure starting at a diner where Dean (Jensen Ackles) flirts with a waitress named Mandy (Donna Benedicto) while he gives his order of a cheeseburger (wow, shocker). Sam asks the WiFi password (it is “extra cheese,” cute food themed password for a diner). Mandy takes orders for a hunter named Wally (Donovon Stinson) and Mary before getting Castiel’s order. Mandy calls the angel “handsome” and Castiel (Misha Collins) gets service with a smile.  When Mandy leaves the table, Dean comments how the waitress’ interest in Castiel is a teachable moment. What follows is the men at the table talking at the same time (Sam about the WiFi reception and Dean and Wally and waitresses and flirting tips). That is until Mary (Samantha Smith) orders “Hey, screens down, eyes up. Shut up.”  She explains that their target leaves the house at 8:00PM and returns at 8:45PM.  Wally elaborates that the demon goes night fishing.  He explains that he called them in on the case because he’s the Rugaru expert, but is a newbie when it comes to hunting demons. But once he found out about the cold spots and missing virgins, (“Classic horny demon sign,” Dean says) he knew he needed help. Wally is nervous about this hunt, but Mary assures everything is going to be fine.  She obviously spoke too soon as the next scene cuts to Mary helping a bloody and injured Castiel, Sam and Dean fighting the demons and Wally getting stabbed and killed. “I’m going to be famous, the demon that killed Sam Winchester.  They’re going to tell stories about me,” the female demon who kills Wally brags before Dean kills her with Ruby’s knife. Once upon a time, there was a demon who thought she could kill Sam Winchester…she didn’t…The end.

The Wounded Angel…Earlier

We get a flashback to before All Hell Breaks Loose (sorry, wrong demon hunt) where Mary introduces Sam and Dean to Wally, who’s heard a lot about them from Mary. “Your mom’s real proud of you,” Wally says. Aw…Mary’s bragging about her boys to other hunters. Castiel approaches, he’s had no luck locating Kelly Kline so he’s free to help with the hunt. The Hunter Team walk in slow motion to the diner where we saw them at the beginning of the episode.  They go over the details of the plan to kill them demon. Next, we see them at the demon’s house where Castiel is standing guard, Sam is spray painting Devil’s Traps and Dean is loading his gun with Devil’s Trap bullets. We get a funny scene where Mary tells Castiel that her nervousness resulted in a pee break. “Urination, I understand,” says the ever sensitive Castiel.  Good thing Mary went to the bathroom when she did as the demon (Jerry Trimble) returns sooner than expected, whistling as he walks home carrying his fishing rod. The hunters take their place and Dean fires a shot the minute the demon walks through the door. “You mind explaining why you broke into my house? I know it wasn’t just to ruin the evening’s catch,” the demon says. He removes the rug and uncovers the Devil’s Trap. Dean continues to shoot, but it doesn’t nothing to keep the thing from tossing Sam across the room like a rag doll and then attacking Castiel.  And oh yeah, this demon sports yellow eyes. What in the supernatural is going on here? Castiel gets off the floor and grabs the demon telling Mary to run. But this is one tough demon and fighting an angel is no big deal. The demon throws Castiel out of the window while Wally runs up to the house to tell Sam and Dean that more demons are incoming.  The big bad demon pulls out a lance and says to Castiel, “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen an angel, but not long enough.” He then stabs Castiel with the weapon. The wounded angel tries to crawl away and escape the demon.  Fortunately, Mary drives up in a car, running the demon over.  It disappears and Mary drives Castiel to an abandoned barn down the road.  Castiel tells Mary that something is wrong as he can’t heal himself.  Mary takes out her cell phone and calls Sam and gives her location.  “Are you okay?” Sam asks. Glancing towards Castiel, Mary answers “No.”

9:05PM

Sam and Dean arrive at the farmhouse.  The Winchester boys lament that the target seemed to be able to overpower everything they threw at him. Mary asks her sons whether they seen the demon’s eyes. “He had yellow eyes,” Mary tells them. “Mom, what did you get us into?” Sam asks Mary. Yeah mom, what’s with this crappy hunt and super demon?

Mother Mary…11 Hours Ago (10:07AM)

We see Mary and Wally in their car watching the demon from a distance.  Wally can’t believe that the demon Mary needs help with is some old guy. Technically, Mary is in her sixties, she reminds.  Mary tells Wally she called him even though he is unexperienced hunting demons to keep her sons from asking the wrong questions about the hunt.  Wally questions Mary about working with the British Men of Letters.  Sure, they may have fancy gear and all but usually if something is too good to be true, it usually is.  But since working with the British Men of Letters, Mary has saved a lot of people.

8:23PM

Sam, Dean, Castiel and Mary approach the demon’s house. Mary goes down to the basement.  She removes a painting of Archangel Michael defeating Lucifer to reveal a wall safe, places one of the British Men of Letters gadgets on the safe to open it and then takes out a black box. She wraps something up and puts it in her pants.  And this is when she saw Castiel who asked where she was and she told him she was in the bathroom.  Then, there is the fight with the demon, stabbing Castiel, etc.

9:03PM

Mary bandages Castiel’s wound then sends a text that reads “What the hell did you do? The demon had yellow eyes!” She gets the response “Wasn’t us. Bad intel. You Can’t stay there. He will find you.” Sam and Dean arrive and Castiel tells Dean that he can’t heal himself. “I think I’m going to die,” says Castiel.  This is a sentiment Crowley (Mark Sheppard) echoes with annoyance when he appears, “You idiots. You’re all going to die.”  Crowley explains that the demon is Ramiel, Prince of Hell. The Princes of Hell are the oldest of the demons turned by Lucifer to led demonic armies.  The Princes of Hell have yellow eyes like Azazel. We get a flashback to six years prior when Crowley was still King of the Crossroads and presented Ramiel with the Lance of Michael.  Crowley also gave Ramiel an item in a black box (the thing Mary stole from the safe), which he called Ramiel’s coronation present.  Since Azazel and Lilith are dead and Lucifer was back in the cage, Ramiel was next in line.  But the demon was happy with how he was living his life and didn’t want to be king. He told Crowley that if he wanted to be king to take it. The only condition was for Crowley to assure that he was left alone. In the present, Crowley tells Team Winchester that his demons were there to keep people away from Ramiel and the weapon that wounded Castiel was the Lance of Michael to which there is no cure. We hear the familiar whistling of Ramiel as he approaches the barn.  Crowley goes outside and tries to convince Ramiel not to go inside.  That request is met with Ramiel throwing Crowley threw the barn door. Castiel pleads with his friends to run saying, “You’re my family, I love you.  I love all of you.”  But Dean tells Castiel that he’s family and they don’t leave family behind.  Ramiel enters the burn and is trapped in a circle of holy fire.  He demands that the hunters give him back what they took from him. Ramiel uses the Lance of Michael to break the ring of holy fire. Then, the demon and Dean fight.  But it is Sam who saves the day by getting hold of the Lance of Michael and killing Ramiel. And remembering Ramiel’s words that the magic was in the rune work, the craftsmanship helps Crowley heal Castiel. Sam and Dean take the Lance of Michael and leave the barn with Mary and Castiel

One Last Thing

Mary confronts Mr. Ketch for sending her after a Prince of Hell then gives him the item she stole, The Colt. Meanwhile, Crowley is taunted about working with Sam and Dean. “Shut up dog,” Crowley says.  “That’s not my name,” Lucifer reminds from his cage, flashing red eyes.