Supernatural - S10E23 - Brother’s Keeper
Previously on Supernatural, ‘The Prisoner’
The B team
Dean is missing and Sam is getting desperate to find a cure. He threatens to shoot Rowena with hollow-point bullets filled with witch killing brew. Rowena calls his bluff and points out that if Sam kills her, he won’t have anyone to read the spell to cure Dean of the Mark. Rowena wants to renegotiate (since Sam couldn’t kill Crowley) and settles for her freedom and the Codex. Sam ignores Castiel’s warnings and agrees.
First, they will need three rare ingredients to complete the spell: The Forbidden Fruit from the Garden of Eden, The Golden Calf from the Bible, and something Rowena loves for her to sacrifice to the spell. Rowena says she doesn’t love anything, but Castiel searches her memory and finds a shepard boy from 300 years ago. Castiel summons Crowley to help him with the ingredients.
Crowley goes to the diner he was eating at last week to talk to the waiter who happens to be the same Oskar. (Apparently Rowena made him immortal). Crowley brings all the ingredients to Rowena (including Oskar), who tells Crowley this is a new low for him. She proceeds to kill Oskar and uses his blood to consummate the spell. Besides curing the Mark, the spell also makes Rowena uber powerful as she’s able to break free of her chains and immobilize both Castiel and Crowley. Rowena leaves, but not before she casts her “mad dog” spell on Castiel and the scene ends as Cas is about to attack Crowley.
Dean and Death
Dean is a mess, He wakes up in a drunken stupor only to end up guzzling more booze. He tries to stay busy by helping another hunter- Rudy, with a nest of vamps in Nebraska. Dean quickly shows he’s outta fucks as he dismisses Rudy, preferring to work alone, and then bad-mouths the girl who was killed by wondering out loud (and to her parents) why she’s dressed like a skank.
Eventually he finds the nest, but the vamp has taken Rudy as hostage. Dean dares the vamp to kill Rudy then startles him into doing exactly that. Dean beheads the vamp, but the girl he saves is mortified by him. Accepting he’s about to give in to the Mark, Dean summons Death so he can kill Dean. Death tells Dean he couldn’t kill him even if he wanted to because the Mark would protect him. Death then tells the story of how before God created the universe, he and the angels were locked in battle with an evil force called Darkness. God eventually imprisoned Darkness and the key to that prison became the Mark. God entrusted the Mark to Lucifer, but eventually the Mark corrupted him so Lucifer passed the Mark down to Cain who passed it to Dean.
Death tells Dean he can’t take the Mark away because then The Darkness will escape and he can’t have that. Death tells Dean the only way to be rid of the Mark is to transfer it to someone else. Dean tells him not a chance so Death gives him an alternative. He will transport Dean to a faraway place in a different universe where he’s assured he can never hurt anyone again. What’s the catch? Death knows Sam will stop at nothing to bring Dean back so Dean has to kill Sam and Dean agrees.
Brotherly Love
Sam shows up and the brothers get into an intense argument about who’s good and evil. Dean tells Sam he had it right when he sacrificed himself to close the gates of hell (back in season 5) and Dean was wrong for saving him. Dean says the world is better off without them, but Sam still believes they are good people and eventually they get into a fight.
Sam lands a couple of blows, but with the Mark fueling him Dean is too strong. Sam gives up, but tells Dean he will never Dean’s evil. Death gives Dean the Scythe of death and tells Dean to finish it or he will.
Sam hands Dean pictures of their mother with both of them as little kids and tells him to use those pictures as an anchor to find his way back. Dean tells Sam to close his eyes and asks for forgiveness. He swings the scythe, but all the way around to hit Death instead. Ruh roh. Death disintegrates (does this mean no one can die?) Sam is happy (who can blame him?), but before they can celebrate Rowena spell takes effect and removes the Mark from Dean (yay!). But not so fast.
As the boys walk outside they see unnatural clouds forming and a bunch of lightning bolts hit the ground causing black smoke to emerge. The black smoke collates into a massive cloud that presumably is The Darkness. The boys try to get away in Baby, but she gets stuck in a mud hole. The episode ends as The Darkness surrounds Sam and Dean inside the Impala.
So it’s fair to say that I didn’t particularly enjoy this season of Supernatural (Except for the magnificent 200th episode). The Demon Dean plot was okay when it was just about Dean and Crowley bar hopping around town, but once they removed the demon and it became about Dean struggling with the Mark things became too dark and not for the better. As I’ve stated before, Supernatural works best when it doesn’t take itself too seriously. Hopefully now that Dean is cured and back to normal, we can go back to having episodes where the boys work together as equals and not have one go behind the back of the other to save him. It looks like along with The Darkness, Rowena will play a major role next season as a big bad. I have to admit, I did not like the character of Rowena at first, but I’ve warmed up to her and look forward to her role next season.
