The Official Stuck in the Middle (With You) (Ep 12.12) Live Recap Discussion Thread


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This  will be the last one I’m posting on IMDb (since the message boards there are closing down this weekend).

I’ll also be simul-recapping on Wayward Children.

Recap starting with some scene snippets and such we haven’t heard before of the underwhelming LoL, the underwhelming Lucifer spawn story, and some stuff about sparkly superweapons (gee, I miss the Colt and the First Blade).

Cut to Mr. Ketch narrating to the audience (oh…no) and then a flashback to 5:20pm sometime before (oh, NOOOOOOO. Stop it with that cliched BS, show!).

Cue the sneak peek. Dean is (totally improbably) striking out with the waitress, who is bored and also into Castiel. A confused conversation of Dean giving dating advice to Castiel, Sam talking about having scanned all the Bunker’s library into his computer (yeah…um…no, show. Really. No), and such before Mary gets them all back to business, which is helping a Hunter who’s normally into hunting rougaru with hunting a demon. Dean gets a date with the waitress for Castiel.

So, then we flash to Mary dragging a wounded Castiel out of a house, while Sam and Dean are fighting demons. By the way? The waitress was possessed. She kills the Doomed Teaser Hunter as Sam is killing another demon, then brags about how famous she’ll be for killing Sam Winchester before Dean stabs her from behind (because demons are definitely stupid).

Cue title cards.

Annnnd, more flashing around because this is a very basic story intentionally being jumbled around like Pulp Fiction, except that this episode, so far, kinda sucks. Like, badly.

So, the upshot is that the demon they’re hunting turns out to be YED. No, it doesn’t make any sense, and I’m sure we’re all going to regret this return a whole lot because so far? This episode kinda sucks. And the music is annoyingly inappropriate.

He kicks their asses and stabs Castiel with a big spear, while snarking. We flash back to the other two demons getting killed…yeah, whatever, show.

Anyhoo, Mary is able to rescue Castiel temporarily by ramming YED with her car (which must have been satisfying), but Castiel can’t heal himself.

Mary tells the Brothers about recognizing YED. We get another annoying-ass flashback to her talking with DTH about how she’s really working with the LoL and how awesome they are. She then gives a list of “accomplishments” the LoL have helped her do that sound like an ordinary month for her sons.

The episode keeps jumping around like a damned spider on acid, so it’s not really clear who’s finding out when where, but we then go forward to Mary talking with Sam briefly about hunting and then finding a safe in the cellar behind that same old painting of Michael killing the Devil. Whatever she finds and opens up glows. And later, she lies to Castiel.

Cut forward again (oh, *enough*, show!) to Mary trying to help Castiel and texting the LoL for help. They are predictably useless.

An awful lot of this is overlapping scenes, which probably means the amount of story we’ll actually get will be maybe twenty minutes worth.

The Brothers come in and tell Mary about DTH. Dean goes to Castiel, who tells him he can’t heal and may be dying.

Crowley shows up unexpectedly and tells them they’re all going to die, while calling them “idiots.”

So, Crowley introduces himself to Mary, who tells him she’ll kill him if he touches her.

Crowley asks if they know who Ramiel is. Only Castiel does. Castiel says that Ramiel is a Prince of Hell. They’re supposed to be superdemons after Lilith (except that, hey, show, Lilith was afraid of the Spork and this new demon is immune to it, remember?). So, a low-rent version of Knights of Hell and MoC folk, basically. Oh, and it seems YED was one.

Another stupid flashback, this time to Crowley giving Ramiel the Lance of Michael. Ramiel blathers over it for a while. It kills evil things and good things slowly. Hmm, how shall we end up killing Ramiel, I wonder?

Crowley also gives him the glow-y box. He wants Ramiel to rule Hell. Ramiel isn’t interested.

Apparently, this flashback is to right after “Swan Song” because Ramiel hands the crown over to Crowley.

Supposedly, there are other Princes of Hell–Asmodeus and Dagon. Ramiel tells Crowley to leave them alone or the Princes will come after Crowley.

Well, after Cain, Dean/MoC, God and Amara, I am pretty unimpressed.

Listen, dumbass writers, a spear and a lance are basically the same thing.

Crowley admits there is no cure for Castiel. Dean points out that they’ve taken down bigger prey (like…oh, YED, by any chance? Can we say “Colt”?). Crowley hedges. Dean tells him to help or get lost, so Crowley gets lost. Sort of. As Ramiel approaches the barn, Crowley tries to make a deal with him.

Ah, I see Ramiel is far too stupid to know who the Winchesters are. Crowley gives his speech about how the Winchesters are too important to kill and tries to make another deal. Instead, Ramiel blows him through the wall of the barn.

More annoying-ass western music. Normally, I like this group (same guys as from “Frontierland,” I think), but boy, does it not work here.

More repeating of scenes crap. So lazy.

After Crowley leaves, Castiel tries to thank the Brothers for being his family. He knows he’s dying and tells them he loves them.

The Nep Duo wrote this tripe, didn’t they? Or was it one of the newbies?

So, Dean’s plan is to “hit ’em with everything we got” and they proceed to use holy fire and magic brass knuckles. Ramiel is unimpressed. I am really unimpressed by the actor.

Ramiel says he doesn’t care about anything. Like…*literally* anything. Which makes him remarkably boring. This guy is no Cain.

He says his sister Dagon is helping that nitwit who got herself preggers by Lucifer. Oh, yay. More Princes of Hell a-coming with *that* useless storyline.

So, Ramiel monologues and says they have 30 seconds to give him back what’s his. The Brothers have no clue what he’s talking about. He brings out the spear (hey! Think that might kill him? I’ll bet it would!) and they attack him.

He’s beating their asses in a pretty desultory way until Sam finally manages to get the drop on Ramiel and stab him. Ramiel starts laughing, then screams as he light up inside and blows apart.

As the others gather around Castiel, who is vomiting black goo, Crowley wakes up and picks up the spear (let’s not secure the really scary new weapon, or anything) and remembers Ramiel talking about runes on the thing. He somehow heals Castiel.

Crowley says, “You’re welcome,” drops the spear, and disappears.

Well…that was underwhelming. And it’s not even over yet.

So, Castiel is cured and asks what Ramiel was babbling on about their supposedly having. Dean says, Who cares? He picks up the spear and they exit.

Cut to a coda with Mr. Ketch–getting dressed down by Mary. Ketch whines, “Is that a threat?” Mary says, “It’s a promise.” If the LoL screw her and her kids over again, she will “burn you all down.”

A bit intimidated, Ketch backs down and apologizes. He asks to see “it.” Lemme guess–it’s the glowy thing.

Though why the Colt was glowing, I don’t know. Ketch is all reverent, which is pretty sad, considering the Brothers discarded it because it didn’t work so well, anymore. Also, why Mary didn’t just USE IT ON RAMIEL, I don’t know. It would have worked.

Oh, and it’s not Ramiel’s or any other Prince of Hell’s. A human made it.

Cut to Crowley realizing it’s slipped from his hands. Also, seems Lucifer can talk to Crowley from the Cage and starts insinuating that Sam and Dean will eventually turn on him (well…duh). Crowley tells him to shut up and calls him “dog.” I sure hope Show won’t be writing Crowley stupid and having him start listening to Lucifer, of all people.

And again, no preview aired so we can instead cut to lame-ass Riverdale.

Welp, *that* sucked. In more adept hands, it might have worked, but thanks to this particular writer, it came off more like spaghetti and meatballs with calamari and ice cream tossed at a wall.

Promo for next week.


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22 thoughts on “The Official Stuck in the Middle (With You) (Ep 12.12) Live Recap Discussion Thread”

  1. TNT is in Season 8 now; I remember I told you I was laid off from my job and just turned on the tv one morning and the first episode I saw was When The Levee Breaks. This morning two really craptard episodes (the man-witch/dog-love episode and Remember the Titans) were on and I realized that if I had happened to turn on the TV on ‘that’ day I would never have fallen in love with the show. Isn’t that incredible? Whenever they talk about Chuck’s ‘work’ they always bring up Bugs. Well, Bugs got NOTHING on these two craptard episodes. (My husband gets up and sits down with his coffee and generally watches at least an episode; this morning he got up, got coffee, sat down, said, the Prometheus episode? Then got up and went to take a shower. The actors aren’t bad in the episode but boy does it stink. Isn’t life funny that way?

    1. I can believe it. My first episode ever was the first airing of “No Exit” back in 2006. Liked Dean, though Sam was okay (though I utterly failed to catch their names, so it was mostly “The Hot Psycho and his Emo Brother”), *hated* that coda with Jo. Almost never watched the show again, but the Miniature Killer storyline on CSI was really getting on my nerves, so I gave it another chance. Thankfully, my second go was “Houses of the Holy,” which I quite liked and next thing, I was catching up on season one via my local Blockbuster. My first rental disk had “Faith,” “Asylum,” “Scarecrow,” and “Home.” That was pretty much all she wrote.

      But just think how much faster I would have gotten into the show if my first ep had been “Croatoan.”

      “Remember the Titans” is one of those episodes that just…didn’t gel. “Man’s Best Friend with Benefits,” like “Bitten” and “Bloodlust,” was an episode that was an obvious mistake. But RtT seemed like a decent-enough concept, and the acting was okay (well, except for Hayley, who was just all kinds of ugh). It just ended up not working.

  2. Well, I don’t like it.

    Do you have any insight into ‘why’ this happened? Because at least on the spn threads I have not noticed much crap lately (that QueenMean who was around when I first started was quite nasty but s/he got as good as s/he gave). “Were” there more unpleasant things going on than I knew about? It’s like, why will I go there now except to play ‘who’s that actor’?

    1. All I can tell you is what they claimed was the reason, which boiled down to “Blame the Trolls.” Personally, I think they just got lazy and decided to cut it loose. I’m just hoping they weren’t threatened. That would be a bad precedent.

      1. It’s odd that they did not give an incident which tipped the balance; but like I said, it wasn’t ‘our’ site.

        Oh did you follow that Milo Whatever, the guy who led the charge on Gamergate which we discussed at the time when Felicia Day got doxxed, got banned from Twitter over his leading the charge on Leslie Jones, just lost his job at Breitbart AND his book contract over his discussion of non-blame for pedophilia. Could not happen to a nicer guy.

        1. I think it was either a misguided business decision and they dug in their heels, or they were intimidated into shutting the boards down.

          Milo Yiannopoulos is a walking poster child for why schadenfreude feels so good.

  3. Oh, anybody want to bet that Lucifer’s spawn (like Amara) grows super quickly and ‘bonds’ with Dean?

    I was surprised that when Rick Springfield/Lucifer gave his ‘dying’ speech about God ‘ditching’ him again (and the fact he never ever could/would get over his Dad not picking him to be King of the Prom) Dean did not say something about ‘him’ fixing the Amara issue and that Lucifer was actually ‘useless’ in that battle. I mean, Lucifer has ‘got’ to have issues with Dean that are over and beyond everything else. Dean is now Dad’s favorite. Even more than Michael.

    1. I don’t think Lucifer’s hellspawn will turn out to be Good, though Dean may kill him.

      I’m annoyed that they keep ignoring Dean’s part in the Amara story. I get that he’s the one hub of divinity left in the story, and that Ackles has been busy and exhausted this season, but better writers could work around that.

  4. Ok , after rewatch in with my kid , I realize I totally missed that Mary was using the other hunter and he didn’t call them for help. That’s how confusing I found the episode.

  5. Once again, I was unable to watch this until the morning, as it conflicts with my guitar lesson. I’m glad I didn’t skip my lesson for this.

    I have never watched a Tarantino movie, but after watching this, I don’t think I will. Maybe I’m too slow, but the back and forth storytelling makes my head swim. I had to read your recap just to sort out what happened. There is a difference between avoiding making a story too linear, and straightforward storytelling.

    Just a couple of things. I did like the other hunter. Its true that he was not in their league, but he wasn’t arrogant, he knew when he was outclassed, had the sense to call in experts, and was game to try new things with appropriate assistance. Too bad it bit him in the butt in the end. Risk of hunting, I guess.

    It seems like the Michael Lance should have been more durable, especially with all the talk about craftsmanship. That was more like Ron Weasely’s wand getting snapped in the second Harry Potter book. Also, I thought the main difference between spears and lances is that lances are intended to be thrown. Ramiel definitely didn’t throw this.

    I suspect the introduction of the Princes of Hell was just to give them a way back to Lucifer’s kid.

    I am starting to wonder if they are going to go anywhere with the theme of motherhood that seems to be present this season. So many episodes have involved mothers. Of course there is Mary’s return. And Lucifer’s “love”child ( which is admittedly lame), grieving mothers and mothers recognizing a child in need (the Foundry), crazy mothers (American Nightmare), angry and frustrated mothers (Asa Fox), vengeful mothers (Lily Sunder). Even Rowena’s and Crowley’s relationship. And at the end of season 11, they made a point of showing that the British LOL had a child, even though it had no bearing on the episode.

    Anyway, just some thoughts.

    1. A lance is a type of spear. This “A spear and a lance are two different things” meme seems to have popped up among SCA fanboys. Now, I like SCA and have hung out with many an SCA group, but it’s still got its share of amateur of historians and reenactors who don’t know what the hell they’re doing or talking about.

      In this instance, it’s a case of ignorance of any tradition not related to Greco-Roman culture. A simple look at Paleolithic and non-European hunter gatherer cultures brings up the “spear thrower” and shows that spears were both thrown and thrust going back hundreds of thousands, even millions, of years.

      Basically, a lance is a type of light spear that is “couched” (carried) by a horseman for both thrusting and throwing purposes. That’s it.

      Why did the show insist on the difference? Well, besides the implication that Davy Perez (writer of last night’s episode) is a poor researcher and a lousy writer, it’s pretty simple. They’re re-doing the Spear of Destiny storyline from last season, just as they redid the Evil Power Baby storyline. And they’re doing both poorly. You see, another name in English for the Spear of Destiny is the Holy Lance. So, a little handwaving about how a lance is not a spear and PRESTO-CHANGO! it’s a different object!

      You’re not missing much with Tarantino. Just sayin’. As for the jumping around, they’ve jumped around just as much on other episodes. It’s just that other writers have done it better.

      Call me cynical, but I think the “mother” theme is mostly about the current writers’ inability to write anything for a woman over thirty besides being a mommy. I suppose I should be grateful they finally got Mary out of that damned nightdress and back hunting.

      I don’t think the Michael Lance is truly broken. It still has lots of information on it and Dean did take it with him. I see the brass knuckles showed up again, so Dean did retrieve them, after all.

  6. Oh, I wonder if the BMOL know how the make the bullets that go into the Colt. “That” took a lot of trial and error (I think in the end all they needed to do was devils’ trap the bullets, but I am not sure: I so hated Ruby in Season 3 I saw Bobby shoot her, smiled, and f/f-d the scene).

    1. That’s a good question. I don’t think so. The reason is that the MoL were contemptuous of Hunters and Samuel Colt (who created the gun) was a Hunter. I didn’t get the impression he would have played well with MoL, so they are unlikely to have the knowledge.

      Carving a devil’s trap on a bullet just makes a devil’s trap that imprisons a demon if you fire it into the demon’s host’s skull. It takes more than that to make a Colt demon-killing bullet.

      No arguments about Ruby. I loathed her, too, especially her season three incarnation.

      1. Did they ever explain the rest of the ‘magic’ that enabled the Colt to work?

        OK: I got your timeline: God/Amara, God creates the Archangels (Amara is mostly ok with that); God/Archangels lock up Amara; God creates Leviathans (when Death came into existence I can’t figure out: he knows about Amara but she doesn’t know about him); decides they were too rapacious and creates Purgatory and sends the Leviathans there and then creates ‘our’ universe; Leviathan Eve becomes the Mother of Monsters and splits with Leviathan Dick (her theory seems to be if you can’t beat ’em join ’em); so we have humans and ‘monsters’ created at approximately the ‘same’ time. Do you ‘see’ it that way?

        1. I think it’s more that Chuck created the Archangels. Amara got mad. Chuck and the Archangels locked her up. Then Chuck created Creation and the Leviathans as an early sentient species. It’s unclear whether Eve came before the (other?) Leviathans or was one of them, but she ruled Purgatory, so she was definitely more powerful than any of them, including Dick Roman.

          They never made much attempt to explain the Colt.

  7. I liked it a lot more than you did; a lot.

    My husband suddenly piped up with a thought: Mary is ‘very’ much like Samuel. He started out as a really nice guy (I thought) but then his agenda took over his life. He led ALL his young relatives to their deaths by committing them to a job which was un-doable (catching the Alphas for Crowley); in the end he led his grandsons to their deaths (that they escaped was because under no circumstances would Cas permit Dean to be killed was unknowable by him). The Campbell family were nothing to him; I also bet he had ‘good’ fatherly relations with them. Everybody liked and admired him.

    Why didn’t Mr Ketch go get the Colt? Why didn’t Mary work with ‘him’ rather than her sons and poor Walt (who really knew nothing about killin’ no demons)? He seems to be the kind of person who only does clean-ups.

    A discussion what the heck the Lance of Michael was: I believe it was Michael’s Angel Blade. He was the Crown Prince, his Angel Blade was particular to HIM. That bit about the five beings…God/Amara are one ‘type’ we have the Leviathans (the first creation, God locked them away too) the Archangels (my husband said there is an inconsistency, because God used the Archangels to put Amara away, which came first: I said the Leviathans were created, locked away, then the Archangels, then the Angels, then the rest of humanity; my opinion).

    I think the Princes of Hell are going to be shown to be fallen angels who went to Hell with Lucifer; again we had another re-do of the Hierarchy of Hell but my understanding was Lilith was First Demon and she was neck deep in the pit next to Lucifer’s cage; Azazel was King of Hell; the other Princes of Hell appear to have given up a ‘long’ time ago (and I honestly did not see that Rameel did bad stuff; he just wanted to whistle and fish) then we have monsters created by Leviathan Eve (who appeared to not be allied with Leviathan Dick at all) and humans created at about the same time. If you have a list of the creations which differs (I mean we all are sometimes confused by the canon of a 11-1/2 season show) I would like to hear it.

    1. The episode states that the YEDs were created after Lilith. The Knights aren’t mentioned. The YEDs, like Lilith, used to be human.

      I assume Mr. Ketch didn’t go after the Colt because Mr. Ketch, like all the LoL, is all talk.

      I disagree that Mary is like Samuel. Mary has put herself at risk for the Brothers, was willing to die for them a few episodes ago, and even stood up for them to Ketch. I think there are some major problems with the way the show has been writing her arc, but I disagree that she is cold or a sociopath. The show needs to play up a lot more that Mary and Dean have been bonding (mostly between episodes) over the phone enough that when Dean’s broke last episode, Sam had to text her to reassure her things were okay. They weren’t, but Dean begged Sam not to tell Mary or Castiel, so….

      The archangels predate the Leviathan. We know this because they and God fought together to put Amara away before God made *this* current universe and the Leviathans were an early part of this current universe. So, the archangels predate the current universe and, therefore, the Leviathan.

      Michael’s Sword is Dean. Michael also had his own archangel sword. This is something different. Basically, it’s just a retcon of the Spear of Destiny that Casifer used on Amara last season. Another word for the Spear of Destiny is the Holy Lance.

  8. They did “Reservoir Dogs”. Apparently newbie writer (and fairly newbie director) are big Tarantino fans.

    Started around a diner table planning a heist/mission, flashed forward to a team member bleeding because said heist/mission went bad. Non-linear storyline. “Chapter” cards introducing character backstory / perspective (“Mr Crowley” instead of “Mr Pink”). Team standing around an abandoned warehouse with bleeding team member talking about what went wrong.

    They lifted the entire movie. They must be BIG fans.

    I did find it entertaining to see Dean as Harvey Keitel in “the walking scene”. They’re both so badass.

    1. I know. I didn’t like Reservoir Dogs. I found it boring and nihilistic.

      As a matter of fact, I am not a Tarantino fan at all. The only one of his films I liked was Jackie Brown.

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