The Official Supernatural: “Golden Time” (15.06) Live Recap Thread

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It’s been a tough year, so I’m way behind on my recaps and reviews. I actually intended to be a few reviews more down the road, but the early part of December was busier than I expected and once I did hit a break, I kinda … faceplanted. Sorry. Hoping to be at least caught up with season 15 by the time it comes back from Hellatus in two weeks.

As of this review, I now have 58 episodes left to finish for previous seasons, plus the 14 after this one for the final (15th) season that started on October 10. That’s 72 total by next April. I currently have 151 coffees at $3 each on Ko-Fi (many thanks to those who have contributed so far!). If I get 300 coffees total, I will commit to doing one recap/review per week (retro or Season 15). If I get 400 coffees, I will commit to two. If I get 500 coffees, three reviews. If I get 600 coffees, four reviews. If I get 700 coffees, five reviews per week.

My collected recaps and reviews of season one, which first appeared on Innsmouth Free Press, are up (with a few extras) on Kindle. The Kindle version is available through Amazon. The print version is also up. If you buy the print version, you get a Kindle copy thrown in for free. I also get paid if you get it on Kindle Unlimited (for free), read the Kindle version, or lend it to a friend via the Kindle Owners Lending Library. Reviews also help with sales. Just FYI.

Other that that, any and all contributions are welcome! You can still find my reviews here of North Carolina ghost story books, and notes about my folklore research on Patreon.

Scroll down to find links to all of my recaps and reviews of all seasons up to this point.

Recap: After a rather standard recap of the season so far for Castiel and Rowena’s storylines, we cut to a hallway in a very nice apartment building (all marble walls and such). A young blonde woman in hipster plaid clothing and a long jacket strolls toward a door. She knocks and calls out to “Ms. Mcleod,” claiming to be a concerned neighbor. Yeah, right.

Hearing nothing, she leans down and whispers, “Aperiator” into the keyhole. The door opens.

To Cobra Ramone’s “So Quiet” on the soundtrack (shocker! Some actual rock!), the young woman (rather obviously a rival witch seeking to loot a dead witch’s stuff) starts trashing the place. The fact that she not only is ransacking it, but deliberately smashes things she doesn’t need to, says a lot about what kind of person she is. So, when she gives up for a moment in frustration and yells, “Come on! Where is the good stuff?” it’s hard to feel sorry for her when her nose and eyes start to bleed. Even when she doesn’t quite make it back to the door and the deadly hex Rowena left behind takes her out.

Cue title cards.

At the Bunker, Sam is on his laptop when something transparent, but not quite invisible, comes through the door. Sam senses it, but is more puzzled than alarmed. Dean enters the kitchen at that moment. He’s in a bathrobe and pajamas, eating cereal out of the box and reading the simple jokes on the back, while “marathoning Scooby-Doo.” Even though he is laughing and seems outwardly cheerful, it is clear that Dean is very, very, very depressed and taking a much-needed Mental Health Day. Or maybe a week. Or a month.

Sam decides this is problematical, even though he did exactly the same thing a few episodes ago, for at least a couple of weeks. But nope, he’s over that and busy looking for Chuck and why isn’t Dean taking this seriously? Screw you, Sam.

Dean does ask if Sam has found anything (that’s a big negative) and if he’s had any more dreams (also a big negative). Sam asks if Dean noticed anything when he first came in (nope) and suggests that maybe the dreams have stopped.

Dean is skeptical about that. He figures Chuck still has a plan for them – “The Winchester Bowl: Cain and Abel 2.0” – and won’t let up until it’s finished. “We don’t need to worry about finding him. He’ll find us.”

Meanwhile, Castiel is somewhere woodsy and folksy, getting himself let into Simmzy’s Bait and Tackle Shop. It turns out he’s been fishing to pass the time. He mentions Dean in passing (though not by name).

As he’s getting a new fishing map, Castiel notices that the friendly shop owner, Andy, is drinking the booze early in the morning. Andy admits that he’s a volunteer firefighter and they had a bad call last night. They pulled the dead body of a local teen, Shane Coogan, out of the lake. Andy says the weirdest thing was that the kid’s body was drained of its blood.

Back in Lebanon, Sam is jogging (it’s finally back into Vancouver’s long rainy season/fall, so we’re free of that damned incessant sunshine from the season’s earlier episodes). He quickly realizes something is up when his breath fogs. As he glances over toward the waterside, he sees the same transparency we saw in the Bunker. This time, it resolves into a ghost – that of Eileen Leahy, the badass, Irish (and deaf, thanks to the banshee that killed her parents) Hunter who was murdered-by-Hell Hound in season 12 by Arthur Ketch.

Back at the Bunker, she’s talking to the Brothers and Dean is asking her questions. It turns out that because she was dragged off by the Hell Hound, she ended up in Hell. When Chuck blew open all the doors, she got out of there as fast as she could and cleared the area before Belphegor’s barrier went up (note that this means there could still be some very naughty ghosts out there). It turns out she circled back and has been trying to get the Brothers to see her ever since.

She now has a huge dilemma. She has no desire to go back to Hell, but if she stays a ghost, she’ll “go crazy.” Dean explains to her that they already found out (via Kevin) that souls that have been in Hell can’t go to Heaven afterward (I really hate that stupid bit of LOL!canon the writers pulled out of their asses this season). Obviously, she’s disappointed, though she struggles to be philosophical about it.

As the Brothers go off to consult in the corridor, Sam whines that Dean didn’t “sugar coat it” about what Eileen faces. Dean’s like, whatever. He actually has a different idea. He suggests using a soul catcher (like the crystal Rowena used to capture the Hell ghosts in the first couple of episodes), one which would house only Eileen. It’s at least better than Hell or going insane on earth.

Sam says the magic is complicated, but Dean tells him that he’s now like “Rowena’s protege, Ginger Jr.” and can make it happen. Is Dean … aware of what Sam did to Rowena to force her to help him lift the MoC from Dean’s arm at the end of season 10? Because the writers sure have forgotten and it was actually a pretty ugly incident in Sam’s arc.

Sam admits that if “it’s what Eileen wants,” maybe he can find a crystal at Rowena’s apartment. Seems, after all this bitching at Dean about taking a day off, Sam still hasn’t gone over there to clear out her place. Yeah, seriously, screw you, Sam.

Sam is upset when Dean tells him to go ahead and take care of it. Seems Sam wants Dean to come over with him and hold his hand through the process. Dean points out that it’s “a milk run,” so “kick it in the ass.” And he walks off, leaving Sam looking pissy.

Castiel is at the sheriff’s office, trying to find out more about the dead kid. But it seems the sheriff is out getting his hair cut, as he does every Tuesday (pretty sure this is a Victor/Victoria reference).

A woman also sitting in the waiting room asks Castiel for help, since she’s heard he’s FBI (he says he’s on vacation) and the sheriff’s novel-reading receptionist is useless. Seems the woman is a mother who heard about the dead boy. Now her son is missing after having gone camping the night before. Castiel agrees to help her.

At a SureGas station, Sam is gassing up the Impala, while apologizing to Eileen for her situation and not being able to fix it. Well, turns out Dean was right and Eileen is fine with the solution they’ve got. It sure beats the other alternatives.

Sam then tells her he was once in Hell, too, but she says she doesn’t want to talk about it just yet. He uses sign language and she’s flattered (as a ghost, she wouldn’t be deaf, but the show has been making ghosts way too solid this season, anyway).

I have mixed feelings about this team-up. On the one hand, I liked Eileen and I like Shoshannah Stern. And I like that the show is doing representation for the deaf community with an actress who is actually deaf (not exactly common on television). And she did have chemistry with Sam in her first appearance.

On the other hand, the writing is already de-evolving her from Eileen Badass Scarred Hunter (the deafness being the MOTW-induced scar she grew up with) into Sam’s New Girlfriend We Sure Hope The Show Won’t Kill Off This Time. Sam treats her with a kind of syrupy condescension that doesn’t sit right with me. Even Dean, who is all for the relationship, calls Sam out on decisions Sam keeps making for Eileen instead of helping her with decisions she’s made herself.

Also, I can’t say I’m thrilled they fridged her in the first place, in a way very similar to how they fridged her character in Jericho. So, that leaves a bad taste, too.

Sam and Eileen arrive at the apartment, only to find the place trashed and the Doomed Teaser Witch on the floor. As Sam comes in, a nearby mirror ripples and there’s a quick cut out to a white service van, with the words “Keep ‘er Movin’: “you Go we Pack” on the side, in the parking lot outside. It turns out that two other witches inside it are scrying/spying on Sam as he discovers a convenient tattoo on the dead body that identifies her as a member of the Ordo Maleficarum (Order of Witches). In the van, the older witch has a red hood, violet eyes, and an Oirish accent.

Sam figures the young dead witch sprang a trap, but doesn’t stop to wonder if he will also be affected as he closes the doors and goes off to find the Macguffin somewhere in the apartment.

Back on Castiel’s summer vacation, he’s talking to the sheriff, who is even lazier than his receptionist. The sheriff identifies the woman Castiel just met as one Ellen Krakowski, a woman who just moved into the area and is a frequent complainer at the station. Needless to say, the sheriff is dismissive of her concerns about her son. He also dismisses the recent drowning victim as an OD, saying only tourists go missing in town, not locals.

Castiel makes his hostility about the sheriff’s sloppy detective work obvious, especially when the sheriff insists the body has already been “shipped off to Cheyenne,” so Castiel can’t examine it. The sheriff then starts questioning Castiel’s credentials, so Castiel gives him a number. This number goes to a cell phone in the Bunker that is part of a network similar to the set of landlines Bobby used to have to help Hunters with their fake law enforcement credentials. Dean happens to be walking by in his bathrobe when the phone rings and answers it (after some quick sorting to figure out which one it is and which name to use).

After identifying himself as Castiel’s boss, Dean has the sheriff put Castiel on the line. Very reluctantly, Castiel takes it. After pointing out that Sam has been trying to call him, Dean quickly tells him that Chuck is back and to start checking his messages, already. Then he hangs up. After looking uncomfortable and rubbing his face with the phone, Castiel fakes a response and hands the phone back to the sheriff. This wins a concession from the sheriff to hand over the records for the drowned boy, Shane.

In Rowena’s apartment, Sam realizes that there is nothing of value there. Where is Rowena’s real “stuff”? Eileen gets an idea and walks through a bookshelf wall, then calls out from the other side. It turns out to be small storeroom. Once Sam gets it open, he finds Rowena’s important stuff, including journals that she kept up until her death about all her spellwork. Eileen asks if Sam “missed her” and Sam admits that he killed her as part of a spell to stop the Hell ghosts and save the world.

Sam: You ever feel like you’re the punch line to some cosmic joke?

Eileen [passing her ghost hand through his]: Are you kidding?!

Yeah, Sam, get your head out and get with the program.

Sam says that “Rowena got it. I mean, she didn’t know all the details, but she knew the game was rigged, so this … magic … this was how she kept control.” Well, that’s an awfully benign way to put it, Sam.

As he waves the journal around, Sam accidentally knocks a paper out of it and is surprised to find out it’s a spell. It seems Rowena was trying to bring back Mary (even without a body) until she found out Mary was Heaven and decided not to finish it. However, he thinks he can finish the spell and use it to resurrect Eileen. Well, that’s convenient.

However, as soon as he gets the stuff into the trunk, he’s hexed. He finds the hex bag, just as the other two witches get out of their van and approach him because sure, that’s smart, and the older one calls him by name. Sam signs to Eileen to get Dean, right before the older witch conveniently banishes her, presumably back to the Bunker. Yeah, not the brightest logs on the Yule fire, these two.

Sam wakes up inside the van, tied to a chair (natch). The older witch starts Evil Overlord monologuing about how Rowena’s dead and they came for her stuff, but they didn’t think they could get at it until Sam came bumbling along because Rowena hexed the apartment and only Sam is immune.

The dead witch is Jacinda, her oldest daughter. The other girl is apparently her other daughter. That one has just made a doll from Sam’s hair and hands it to the older witch with a nasty smile. Her mother uses it to torture Sam.

Sam tries to make a deal to get them ingredients (not mentioning that he just put them in the Impala’s trunk, which the witches should have seen already), in exchange for the spell, but the mother refuses. She figures she needs it to bring Jacinda back and Death will only allow the spell to be used once. She’s just going to torture Sam into cooperating, instead.

How have these women lived as long as they have, again?

Meanwhile, Castiel is looking over the records of the dead and missing people around the lake (most of them look young) and making a pattern of x’s on a map. When he goes out to survey it, Ellen follows him (Ellen … Eileen … awfully similar names to use in the same episode for guest characters, Show). Seeing Castiel’s map and getting an explanation out of him, she insists her son wouldn’t come out to the lake because it’s not safe. There’s a silver mine in the area. Castiel has to agree to let her lead him there. She won’t just give him directions. Scenery’s nice, though cold – a foggy BC lake.

Sam is walking up to the apartment with other sister, Sam carrying a cardboard box, she the doll. He works out that her name is Emily and tries to sweet-talk her. It only partially works. She tortures him to make him shut up, but he gets a break when he enters the apartment and she sees her sister’s body.

Her reaction is strange. When Sam offers to cover up the body, she asks if he thinks Jacinda is pretty, since everyone else thought so. Sam points out that Jacinda is dead (i.e., dead bodies aren’t sexually attractive except to necrophiliacs). It turns out Jacinda bullied Emily pretty severely. When Sam shares a story about Dean putting Super Glue in his toothpaste, Emily shares that Jacinda made her invisible for a week, tried to sell her soul to a demon, and murdered her first crush with magic – “then she got mean.” She tells Sam to get packing. Nice family.

Castiel and Ellen are chatting as they walk to the silver mine. He tries to give her The Talk about monsters (he thinks the MOTW is a djinn, which makes a silver mine a rather strange lair for a creature averse to silver), but it’s interrupted by her son Caleb popping up unexpectedly on the trail.

Back at the apartment, Emily is still talking about how rotten Jacinda was – killing her pet rabbit for the bones, turning her tongue into a snake, which bit and disfigured her. Seeing how much she doesn’t want Jacinda revived, Sam tries to do a deal with her. If she lets him have the spell, he’ll give her Rowena’s books and she can use them to run away and hide from her mother. It doesn’t work. Calling him a liar, Emily takes pleasure in stabbing the doll to make Sam suffer.

Cut back to Castiel’s vacation, where he and Ellen are talking to her son. Caleb is reluctant to tell them what happened, at first, because he thinks they won’t believe him. Castiel reassures him that they will. Caleb then says he saw someone dragging a dead body to the lake. He was going to record it with his phone, but the murderer saw him. When he ran, he broke his ankle. He says the murderer was “a monster.” A literal one.

When Castiel asks if he “got a good look” at the murderer, a voice sounds behind him. It’s the sheriff. He’s the murderer. And he’s also a djinn.

When Castiel pulls out his angel blade, blocking him from shooting Caleb, the sheriff’s eyes glow blue and his djinn tattoos show up. He shoots Castiel. Castiel heals with an angry angel whine (greatly shocking Caleb and Ellen).

Going into a rant about “little men in positions of power,” he takes another a bullet without much harm, then grabs the djinn’s gun from him and throws him to the ground, where he stabs him to death with his angel blade. A whole lot.

Back at the apartment, Sam has the box filled and Emily wants him to hurry up and get out of the apartment with it. But Dean unexpectedly (for Emily) shows up, with Mom Witch at gunpoint. Emily threatens to voodoo-doll Sam to death and Dean says he could just shoot her mother, so they’ve got a “standoff.”

The mother then decides to call up her dead daughter for help. This goes well for the witches, at first, with Jacinda knocking Dean to the end of the hallway. But Ghost!Jacinda takes a little too long to gloat and Emily is distracted. This allows Sam to knock the doll out of her hand, drawing Mom’s attention. Mom starts torturing Sam, yelling at Emily to finish him. Emily picks up the doll and starts twisting it and Sam appears to be losing consciousness.

Meanwhile, Jacinda is still gloating when Eileen appears in front of her (the perils of calling up spirits is that you don’t know who-all will answer). Eileen says, “Not today … bitch!” and knocks her rather bodily back into the apartment. Eileen TKs after her and they have a pretty concrete fight for two ghosts.

This gives Dean the needed breather to recover his gun and shoot Emily, killing her and enraging Mom. Not really good with multi-tasking, Mom then starts killing Dean, but this gives Sam enough time to recover and tackle her. He then shoves a hex bag he stole from the apartment into her mouth and says a killing spell.

Dean rushes into the apartment (whaddaya know? He’s immune to Rowena’s hex, too), where Eileen is getting the worst of the ghost fight. Eileen points at Jacinda’s body and tells him to burn it. Admittedly, this is very much of an As You Know, Bob moment, but in Dean’s defense, this is the first time he’s seen or even known about Jacinda’s body there, so he may not have noticed it in the heat of the moment.

Dean grabs a decanter of (probably very expensive) booze and pours it on the body. Distracted with throttling Eileen, Jacinda takes a little too long to stand up and go after Dean, even as he fumbles the lighter. He torches her body and she goes up in flames, as her mother dies hexed in the hallway.

Back at the lake, Ellen is finally taking The Talk from earlier to heart. Castiel comes up, saying he threw the sheriff’s body into the lake. He then heals Caleb’s leg, but it take a lot more effort than healing himself did. Caleb and Ellen are appropriately amazed and grateful. Ellen asks if Castiel came from God. Castiel says he can’t tell them anything, except that he’s “grateful” he met her and “it’s time to get back in the game.”

In the Bunker, Sam is drawing up a bath and sprinkling it with herbs. He then pulls out Rowena’s spell. Eileen steps into the bath (now, they make her look ethereal?) and lies down, fully submerged. As Sam turns away (unable to look, I guess) and says the spell in Latin (it’s more of a prayer than a spell), Eileen changes from a ghost in full Hunter gear into a live naked girl. She comes up gasping out of the bath and stares at her wet fingers.

Sam doesn’t turn around until Eileen puts on a towel and steps over the edge of the tub. They touch hands, she signs “Thank you,” and they hug.

Dean is out in the map room/library, drinking his evening sixpack. Dean praises Sam’s baby-witch skills in saving Eileen (who is taking a much-needed nap) and says he didn’t do anything. Sam points out that Dean “killed a witch, saved my ass.”

As Dean looks uncomfortable (and admits that knowing all of their lives has been out of their control “messes with my head”), Sam tells him that they can “find a way to beat [Chuck] … ’cause we’re the guys that break the rules.” But Sam can’t do it alone. He needs Dean. He needs his “big brother.”

Credits

The show dropped in the demo to a 0.2/1 (the first time ever), but rose slightly to 1.14 million in audience.

The preview and synopsis for the next episode is up.

Review: I … didn’t actually hate this one. Mind you, it had issues, but there were some clever bits and it moved faster than previous entries this season (the pacing has been really dreary this year). And it took me awhile to get through the recap because the beginning, especially, post-teaser is rather dull. Still, it was a bit of an improvement on the earlier part of the season.

There was the way they introduced Eileen as a ghost, which was a bit creepy, and the idea of a witch who was also a ghost. Those were clever. Rather less clever (and definitely not ethereal) was the knock-down drag-out between them at the climax, but okay.

I also liked the opening song (which is apparently about a young couple committing suicide by drowning to escape an apocalypse) and the general premise made sense to me. It mirrors what we saw in season one’s “Dead Man’s Blood.” Just as Hunters descend on a dead Hunter’s house and strip it bare, so, too, would witches with one of their own. It’s bleak and Darwinian, but that’s the way the SPNverse is. Or, at least, the way it was before Dabb & Co. got hold of it.

Dean was an unmitigated hoot in his dead man’s robe and hot dog jammies, taking a much-much-much-needed-and-overdue Mental Health Day. He also got to save everyone, though I was irritated at the Dumb on Cue moment where Eileen, of all people, had to remind him to salt-and-burn a corpse to get rid of a ghost.

But even though it had better pacing than previous entries of the season, this one still dragged a tad and felt sluggish, except for the moments when Dean was onscreen. He wasn’t in this one a lot and that killed much of my interest in the goings-on for the other characters. Dean brings considerable energy to the show that is lacking in episodes he’s barely in. Which is why Dean is usually in a lot of episode space, even when he’s acting like expositional wallpaper. I’m sure the showrunners are aware that whenever he leaves, so does most of the dramatic air.

The idea behind the bitter dynamics for the witch family in question wasn’t half-bad, but the execution was lacking. And here is one of my biggest beefs with the story. I’ll grant you that aside from Rowena, the witch characters were never what you’d call fleshed out. Even with the Banes family, which had a clear sense of a loving witch mother and her two witch kids, the two female members were summarily fridged in one episode to motivate the one remaining male member to go dark.

But even the barely-introduced witches in “Regarding Dean” gave off more of a sense of family than the ones here and more of a sense of urgency. Sure, the witches in that one also intended to bring their sibling back, but they intended to do so using human sacrifice, which is no small task and does provide a spiritual engine for the spell (a life for a life). And the sister (who was otherwise a huge and thunderously stupid nutjob) showed real grief over her brother’s death. Death wasn’t just a quickie learning experience for her brother to her. Plus, there was their ugly connection to Rowena’s past.

In this episode, I had a hard time buying that Keegan Connor Tracy’s character (Tracy back for a third and final role on the show) was the other two witch characters’ mother, rather than just their senior. I mean, sure, witches don’t tend to look their age. And I get that she was a cold and indifferent mom, who actively fomented the rivalry between the dead golden girl and the mousy younger sister. But the way she airily talked about how they were just going to walk in there and take Rowena’s magic, while resurrecting the golden girl along the way, pretty much sucked all of the dramatic air out of that situation. If she didn’t care, I sure didn’t, either.

Also, it was flat-out ridiculous how little these witches seemed to know or understand about the Winchester Brothers. Sam and Dean are not obscure players in the SPNverse, and everyone and their witch mom knew Rowena worked with them. Why weren’t these witches prepared for Dean to show up to save Sam, or even for Sam pulling a fast one on them? It’s basically the same plot as for the season 13 episode “Various and Sundry Villains” and it’s not any better this time round.

Speaking of taking Rowena’s magic, I was so over how entitled Sam acted about it, especially when he got on Dean’s case about taking a sick day. Sam spent days, even weeks, sitting in his room moping after Rowena died, instead of sacking up and getting over to her apartment to make sure everything was locked down. What if an innocent civilian had gotten in there and been killed by the hex?

I mean, it was eye-rolling enough for the script to bang home how suddenly, Sam was a son of a witch (ignoring how Rowena only became the most powerful witch in the world by slaughtering her rivals and stealing their magic) and wasn’t that wonderful? Rowena’s fridging is the gift that keeps on giving for Sam.

But he had a responsibility to her legacy, seeing as how he’d been the one who killed her, and he fell down on the job. If the episode had been written to have him realize that, I’d have been more okay with it, but they glossed over that and also allowed Sam’s berating of Dean (who was still holding down the fort and propping up everyone else emotionally until this week) to go unchallenged.

And apparently, the fact that Sam can now do some basic spells is supposed to make up for that fact that he’s useless as a Hunter these days. It’s yet another case of the show’s writing strenuously snowflaking Sam’s every achievement instead of just letting the audience come to its own conclusions. I already know Sam is an experienced and deadly Hunter. I don’t need to be banged over the head with it.

Speaking of glossing things over, how about the show never even once acknowledging that Ketch was the one who sicced that Hell Hound on poor Eileen? You know, Ketch, the dead character we were supposed to feel sorry for just a few episodes ago? I guess we’re pretending that never happened, now?

Let’s check out the B-story. Well, Castiel is back in this one and it’s not looking good. A lot of his fans on Twitter (those who aren’t fantasizing about how Dean needs to apologize to Castiel for refusing to be his punching bag) focused on his wildly off power and that it’s waning, but less on how it’s waning.

We now seem to have a pretty clear pattern where, when he’s pissed, Castiel powers up just fine and then goes into overkill mode. We saw this with Belphegor and we saw it this week with the sheriff djinn. But when he wants to do something more benign, like heal someone else (rather than himself while in battle mode), it really drains him. The way Chuck is currently writing Castiel amplifies his more negative emotions and affect.

A big problem with this is that this is the final season and that when Castiel gets angry in this way (you know, petulant and feeling sorry for himself), he gets self-righteous. And when he gets self-righteous, that quickly leads to poor decision-making along the lines of Godstiel and Casifer. And I guess I need to remind those same fans that Godstiel was originally intended to be Castiel’s endgame story. He was not supposed to come back from that one, let alone by the end of season seven. So, this isn’t a good look for him or a good sign for his eventual fate this season.

I hope to be wrong. I’m not gonna lie – my idea of a great ending for the series is God!Dean watching Sam – retired or teaching Hunters – while flanked by Billy the Reaper and Castiel all repowered up with wings. Dean then turns to them and says, “We got work to do,” as he sets out to make the SPNverse a kinder and fairer place. But I’m not the writers and there’s no guarantee this lot will even let Castiel get out of the series alive, let alone regaining his wings.


The Kripke Years

Season 1

Season 2

Season 3

Season 4

Season 5

The Gamble Years

Season 6 (with Kripke)

Season 7

The Carver Years

Season 8

Season 9

Season 10

Season 11

The Dabb Years

Season 12

Season 13

Season 14

Season 15


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20 thoughts on “The Official Supernatural: “Golden Time” (15.06) Live Recap Thread”

  1. I forgot to mention yesterday that I watched a Murdoch Mysteries that featured HP Lovecraft (who ‘was’ in Toronto for about 2mo and got involved in some kind of death cult. The neurasthenic young man was most interesting to me.

        1. Is that the last season? I used to watch it when I was in Vancouver, but I lost touch with it when I got back to the States.

  2. Some comments (or ways to understand things that aren’t really understandable) Kevin went to Hell because GOD sent him there. It’s like he was DAMNED by GOD. MAYBE because he was too helpful to Sam and Dean. (That might mean poor Keith Szarabajalka is not long for this plane of existence.)

    Next I do not for one second John knew about Mary being a CAMPBELL of the CAMPBELLS. It almost seemed like they both forgot about her parents due to Michael’s spell.

    NEXT Dean might not have actually seen the face of the dead witch so he might not have known she was the ghost fighting with Eileen.

    The witch-family were ‘really’ weird, it was like Mama got into EVIL. Spell that E-VILL. At least in Various and Sundry Villains the sisters were ‘sisterly’ AND they ‘really’ wanted their mama back.

    I got the impression that Rowena made her apartment ok for WINCHESTER blood to enter. I also like Dean showing up with captured mama. No muss, no fuss, just, I’ll blow your fuckin’ head off. Good ol’ Dean.

  3. What if they end the show with a little time having passed since Deans (and Castiels?) death… Sam comes home calling out for Eileen. No response. Sam stretches out on his bed after having snagged a piece of the bacon (still warm) Eileen left for him when something wet drips on Sams forehead. It’s Eileen (signing Sammmmmm!) burning on the ceiling, torso slashed open just like Mary’s was! Sam screams noooooo! Screen goes black. Series over, come full circle.

    😉

    1. I’m gonna go out on a limb and note that the network still really wants that spin-off. But with Jared Padalecki already signed to another show, about the only main character who can’t be in it at this point is Sam. So, he’s about the only one they seem sure to kill off.

      1. So if Dean is last brother standing I could see him semi retired but still hunting because he would never be able to turn his back on those in need seeing as he knows what’s out there. Missing Sam everyday for the rest of his life. Interesting twist – due to the final agreement/sacrifice/whatever – Sam is gone for good, no resurrection, no redos, no take backs. No bro-union in Heaven, Hell or parts unknown. Done. To quote Dean “The whole Big Goodbye” so all he’s left with are his memories. So he hunts. And lives day by day, hour by hour until his natural death because he promised Sam he would.

        Now if Sams the last man standing then I could see him in the same situation but for a different reason. Yes semi retired and yes, continuing to hunt but not because he wants to or for any altruistic reason but because, after all that’s been said and done he will never allow himself what in the beginning he so sorely desired – a normal life.

        Do you really think if there were ever a spin-off that Jared or Jensen would appear in it – other than initially – to get it off the ground? I honestly doubt there will ever be a movie after the turn off the lights on the show.

        Okay then. If Sam dies then Eileen can go on. :). Wouldn’t it be horrible if Eileen’s return has been orchestrated by Chuck and she was merely a construct of his to mess with Sam making him think Eileen is real and then reveals what might have been? Or Eileen’s like Lilith, tasked with seducing Sam,making him think there is a relationship only to find she’s being forced to work with God to emotionally torture Sam. Else he send her back to Hell. I know, that doesn’t make sense. I just get the feeling that that “love embrace topped off with a passionate kiss” brief glimpse of the forthcoming attractions is to hurt Sam showing him what he can never have. Maybe Chuck will send Eileen to the cornfield in front of Sam while there’re still in that parking garage? Now that I can get behind. :). And who knows, maybe they will find a way to pull people back or Chuck will agree to do so.

        1. There are still too many ways the show could go with this, but I lean toward the Brothers breaking up the band for good and Dean getting a permanent upgrade. Dean’s been on the cusp of that for years, just as Sam has been becoming more and more human. Dean becoming entirely part of the supernatural world would be a fitting “end” to his story (or this part of it). And there’s surely a point where Sam would be human enough to retire.

          I have a bad feeling something horrible is going to happen to Eileen when the show comes back. ‘Fraid that doesn’t make me much of a psychic, either. The foreshadowing of doom surrounding her has been downright suffocating.

          Ackles still seems pretty enthusiastic about the SPNverse. Also, the CW has this odd pattern of pairing up young, new female characters in spin-offs (or new shows) with older male mentors from the previous show or (if it’s a new show) with long and complicated backstories. And yes, I can see Ackles being willing to cross over to a more female-oriented show in that kind of role. He wouldn’t need to be in every episode and he could do other stuff. I think people underestimate how pro-#MeToo and pro-increasing diversity in Hollywood he really is. He’s said enough that fans should see that coming, but it’s funny what fans ignore and what they blow out of proportion.

          But it’s also entirely possible they could end the show with a “We got work to do” ending and S&D heading back out onto the road. It’s not a given the showrunners are going to (be allowed to) go all Ragnarok on Sam and Dean. Remember that WB makes a *lot* of money off syndication, streaming and other residuals. They do not want to pull a Game of Thrones season 8 with this franchise.

  4. I would buy that if I saw a modicum of chemistry or a smidgen of heat between them. Personally I thought the bacon on the plate was hotter. I’m not opposed to Sam having a girlfriend. I am opposed to having her shoved down our throats in such a rushed, non organic way. All that is missing are the cartoon arrows pointing out Eileen in her scenes flashing “SAMS GIRLFRIEND!” Are they building her up to be Sams one true love? Personally I hope they kill the character off sooner rather than later. Or are they building up expectation of the fans for the relationship only to have Sam let her down gently? Please tell me they aren’t going to end the show with Deans death and happily ever after for Eileen and Sam?

    Curious as to when Deans going to break down and call on Amara. Equal in power to Chuck, she clearly cares for Dean – in reality he probably would have requested her help before this.

    Also curious as to when we will see Billie, Jack and the Empity make their reappearance.

    I think the future(s) that Chuck shows Sam are a lie. He’s already proven he isn’t trustworthy. I also wonder if Sam is going to know that Dean and Cas have returned to Purgatory. At least this time Sam knows about Gods Armpit.

    Do you think this SamCraft is a bit of a stretch? Yes Sam has cast spells but so has Dean. Most of the time it’s just a matter of Sam having the right spell and ingredients. I have never gotten major Warlock mojo from him. If you think about it there are so many incidences of Sam being the one with the spell so he casts it. If roles had been switched it would have been Dean who did it.

    1. I’m wondering if the SamCraft stuff might be a red herring. If you think about it, while Chuck focused on Dean much more heavily (to the point of almost ignoring Sam), he was fine with favoring Sam as a way to “punish” Dean. Remember when Sam had the Mark of Cain for a hot minute for no damned good reason? Like that. That’s what this Craft stuff could be all about.

      I would rather they not kill Eileen off again. It was bad enough the way they fridged her before and killing her off now would *definitely* be a fridging.

      On the other hand, making her a love interest wouldn’t be much better than killing her off. Shoshannah Stern would get to pay the rent and add to her resume and ply her craft for a while, which is no small thing in Hollywood for a woman in her thirties (especially one with a disability). But I already see the Eileen we liked and who had potential in her first episode slipping away and being replaced by a generic Girlfriend for Sam. I just don’t understand why the show couldn’t bring Eileen back and make her a *good* character in her own right, a la Jody and Donna. Stern could certainly sell that.

  5. Is being dragged off by a hellhound all it takes to wind up in hell? If so, isn’t that rather arbitrary? Don’t hellhounds depend on some superior, divine or semi-divine, authority with regard to whom they drag? I can’t believe that the vindictiveness of a mortal such as Ketch would be sufficient. If it were, hell would become overflooded with undeserving prisoners! Did I miss it, or did Eileen actually cross a line at some point that rendered her eligible for damnation?

    I know there wasn’t much to suggest this, except the slight gesture at the end of the episode. But do you think it possible, or even probable, that Sam and Eileen will become an item? And if so, would that be in any way groundbreaking, in view of the fact that both the character and the actress are deaf?

    1. According to the new LOL!canon, yes, all it takes for a soul to be condemned to Hell forever is for that soul to get stuck down there in the first place. If a human enemy manages to get you dragged off by a Hell Hound, you are condemned forever, regardless of your innocence or guilt. Yes, that sucks. No, that doesn’t make sense in light of previous canon (at the very least, people made deals to go way down south, if they hadn’t done anything else bad). It’s just a cheap way to build outrage against Chuck as a supervillain.

      Slight spoiler alert–yes, they get together later on.

      1. Woah, woah, woah… is your spoiler alert based on the quick flash in the preview? If so that could be intentionally misleading. Maybe our timeline, maybe alt uni? KISS could be interrupted before more happens… or Sam changes his mind/comes to his senses… Lots of possibilities! :).

        I’m so not buying the Sam/Eileen love connection. It’s about as believable as the Amelia/Sam one. And about as much chemistry too.

          1. Bleah. Okay, I wasn’t ever against Eileen and Sam hooking up, but I can’t say I’m too thrilled with how it’s turning her into Sam’s “Special” Girlfriend wallpaper, either. There’s gotta be a less condescending way to show her deafness than Sam being all cutesy about using ASL for a hot minute here and there.

            As for the article, it has a major error right off. Sam has had three on-screen long-term girlfriends before Eileen, not one. Jessica may have died in the Pilot, but she was a longterm girlfriend for over a year before that and he moped over her for almost a full season afterward. She can’t be discounted. She was a major influence on him.

            Then there’s Ruby. Yeah, Ruby was Sam’s girlfriend. They had sex and everything, and he even ditched Dean for her. They were together for over a year and it was not a fun or pleasant or healthy relationship, on either side. I’m not surprised, though, that the author of the article conveniently forgot about her, since that would negate her characterization down-article of Sam as “sweet.” Sam’s a lot of things, but sweet ain’t one of them. There is a reason his girlfriends keep ending up evil, dead, or both, and they’re not the problem.

            Third, the only one of Sam’s girlfriends that Dean didn’t like was Ruby (okay, there was Amy Pond for a nanosecond, but Dean was right about her, too) and he was totally right to be down on her. Ruby was, to quote Dean, “poison” for Sam. Dean liked all the others he knew about (he never met Amelia), even the one-night stands. So, it’s no big shout-out for Eileen that Dean likes her, and likes her and Sam hooking up.

            1. Yeah, they’ve sexied up her wardrobe since she came back, which is out of character for how she was before. Notice that Sam isn’t dressing up at all, so I guess they have to give Eileen a sexier wardrobe to give us that relationship subtext.

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