Review & Commentary on S15ep08

Season 15 episode 08 "Our Father Who Aren't in Heaven," Mid-season finale

Review of this episode with my commentary

By TM Barton, tmbarton1961@gmail.com

Sept. 8, 2020

Summary:

In this much anticipated episode, we finally got to see the day of reckoning for the Winchesters over one of their major hypocrisies, completely abandoning Adam while touting their belief in family.  When Adam was out of their sight, he was out of their minds.  Last season when Dean got his wish from the magic pearl for a brief family reunion, Adam was not invited.  I bet they never told their father what happened to Adam and how they failed their younger half-brother.  Unlike how they would go to Hell and back for each other, Sam and Dean just dropped searching for anyway to free Adam from the cage.  Death was not the only supernatural being who could have freed Adam.

Jake Abel did a superb job of portraying both Adam Milligan and Michael the Archangel.  Both characters had different personalities and points of view that the audience found relatable.  Even though he was in Hell for a decade, Adam appeared to be an enthusiastic young man excited about being free and hopeful about his future.  Michael appeared to be like Adam’s older brother or mentor.  His portrayal, especially the drawl that was his speaking style, reminded me of the stoic warriors or grizzled old gun slingers of Westerns, the types played by Clint Eastwood, Charles Bronson, and John Wayne.  Despite the fact that they were of different species, Adam and Michael formed a symbiotic relationship that the audience found enjoyable to watch, kind of like Eddie Brock and Venom, except Michael is a better looking symbiote.

Their partnership called the Winchester’s out on their hypocrisy about abandoning Adam.  It was a powerful moment when Michael rebuked Sam and Dean for “…letting Lucifer walk free while your own brother sat in Hell.”  That single line was delivered perfectly and was a damning indictment against the Winchesters hypocrisy about family.  It’s too bad that Supernatural saga is ending.  I would have loved to see Adam’s and Michael’s story developed more.  Lucifer was featured in multiple episodes over four seasons.  Adam and Michael got single episodes, one each, in 3 seasons.  The Supernatural audience is being cheated of a great opportunity for Adam and Michael to tell us their stories.  Hopefully, when this series ends, the writers can leave an opening for these two characters to tell us their stories at some future time.

Because of the decade long abandonment of Adam, this episode was an emotionally turbulent one for the main characters and for Adam/Michael.  It could easily have been a two-hour movie, but the writers, director and actors did an excellent job of making a very efficient one-hour show that dealt with the explosive and heartfelt emotions among the characters.  I consider this mid-season finale one of the best mid-season finales.  In my opinion, it is the best Season 15 episode, and it is definitely one of the best single season episodes in the entire Supernatural series.  Top 5 at least in both categories for me.

Below is my review of this episode, scene by scene with my commentary.  In many cases, I support my views with references to previous episodes of Supernatural.  Note: I put my scene-by-scene commentaries in brackets “[ ]”.  I leave them off in my final episode conclusion.  That stands alone and is at the end of this review.

Scene – Lucky Elephant Casino, Milford, NE:

This episode opens inside the Lucky Elephant Casino at the casino’s bar.  A patron’s body wearing a beige jacket is sitting down on a bar stool and slumped over the bar.  Unconscious?  Dead?  Unknown.  No bartender is seen.  As the scene scans to the right, a circular transparent lime green tray holding what appears to be a Mai Tai in the center comes into view. A woman’s hand slides a slice of pineapple topped with a cocktail umbrella onto the glass’ rim.  The serving girl picks up the tray.  She appears a bit apprehensive as she walks away from the bar.

She glances down at the floor.  Inert human bodies, dead bodies, litter the floor.  She tip-toes over a few and navigates around others.  She’s horrified but maintains her composure.  More dead bodies of both casino staff and patrons lie slumped over a craps table.  She feels like crying or screaming as she comes to a stop, trying hard to regain her composure.

A man’s hand slaps a button on a slot machine.  The machine rings in three of a kind, three Lucky Elephants.  A horn blares and lights flash announcing a winner.  Coins fill a stainless steel tray.

The serving girl stops and takes a deep breath before continuing forward.

The slot machine is spinning again and again it gets three of a kind, three Lucky Elephants.  A horn blares and lights flash announcing a winner.  Coins fill a stainless-steel tray.

The serving girl finally arrives at the customer who ordered the drink.  It’s God-Chuck.  He picks up the glass from the tray, makes a motion to sip it, but stops.  He turns his head towards the serving girl and asked, “You went easy on the rum this time, right?”

“Ah, ah,” she nods affirmatively.

“Okay, cool. Cause you know, you don’t want me cranky,” he cajoled with a brief smile and a hint of menace in his tone.

She closes her eyes for a moment and says nothing.

God-Chuck turns towards the slot machine he’s been playing, plucks the umbrella off of the pineapple slice and flicks it at the slot machine.  It lands in the tray of coins in front of him.  “Keep ‘em coming,” he orders.

The serving girl turns, leaves him playing the slot machine, and heads back to the bar.

God-Chuck hits the button of the slot machine.  Again it spins and it gets three of a kind, three Lucky Elephants.  A horn blares and lights flash announcing a winner.  Coins fill a stainless-steel tray.  “That’s a winner,” he says unenthusiastically.

[In this scene, we find God-Chuck in the Lucky Elephant casino gambling at a slot machine, but he is bored by it because he’s always winning.  He appears to be in a funk and/or undergoing a neurotic disorder.

In Season 15 episode 02 titled “Raising Hell,” his sister, Amara the Darkness had sensed his wound that he had received when at the end of season 14, Sam Winchester shot him with the gun, the Equalizer, that he had created to kill the Nephilim Jack Kline.  This wound made God-Chuck incomplete.  He tried to hide it from his sister, but she called his bluff and rejected his entreaties to travel the multiverses with her.

Since being rejected and stranded on Earth by his sister, God-Chuck left Reno, NV and visited his old best fan of his original Supernatural book series, Becky Rosen, who helped him overcome his writer’s block [Season 15 episode 04 title “Atomic Monsters”], but in doing so she helped unleash the monstrous side of him.  She lambasted the hopeless and dark ending he is creating for the Winchesters and she says it’s unfair to the fans.  He doesn’t care because he is God; he is a writer, and he can do anything.  With a snap of his fingers he made Becky and her entire family disappear.  Their location remains unknown at this time, and even though he told Becky that her family was still alive, Chuck has a penchant for lying.  Ask Kevin Tran.  So Becky and her family’s well-being is also unknown at this time.

God-Chuck has exhibited a troubling pattern of behavior over the eons.  He obsessively latches onto some of his creations or creatures and they become his favorites until something ends the relationship and his fascination with that creature declines or ignites his wrath.  That was true for Lucifer, his first favorite angelic son, apparently true for Adam and Eve, his first favorite humans, and even for Michael his eldest and most loyal angelic son.  The Winchesters were his latest favorites until the end of Season 14 when they disobeyed him by refusing to kill the nephilim Jack Kline, accusing him of rigging events against them and their family and friends, and then Sam shot him with the gun he had made for them to kill the nephilim.  He is now obsessed with creating a monumental horrifying ending for his former favorite humans, Sam and Dean.  He knows how the story ends, but he doesn’t know the path or story arc to reach that ending, yet.

In Season 15 episode 5 title “Proverbs 17:3,” we find out that God-Chuck had resurrected the first and one of the most powerful demons, Lilith, to serve him.  He sent her to the Winchesters to find and destroy the gun, the Equalizer, which at that time is the only weapon known to the Winchesters that could kill him.

Raising Lilith appears to be a symptom of his increasing neurotic behavior.  She was a human who Lucifer, Chuck’s first favorite angelic son, transformed into the first demon.  God-Chuck is choosing to lean more and more into his dark side rather than his light side.  If he wanted an advisor or help with his situation, he could have easily contacted his eldest archangel and most loyal son, Michael, whom he had freed from his cage in Hell at the end of Season 14.  Why he didn’t do this is unknown at this time.

Now he’s in Milford, NE in the Lucky Elephant casino.  His ego appears to still be smarting from his sister Amara’s rejection of him and possibly the rejection of his ending for the Winchesters by his old fan, Becky Rosen.  In addition, his limitation, restricted to only roaming the Earth, is starting to fester in him and making him bored and easily irritable.  The only “friends” he has are Lilith and the casino’s serving girl, both of whom he treats more like slaves than friends.

Unfortunately, when a wounded cosmic being like God-Chuck suffers a neurotic disorder, he can be lethal to humans who annoy him.  Looks like everyone in the casino but the serving girl he has enslaved rolled snake eyes in the game of life.  They’re dead while God-Chuck obsessively slaps a button on a slot machine.  It always comes up with three-of-a-kind, three Lucky Elephants, a winning combination.

God-Chuck is the epitome of the House, and the House always wins, doesn’t it?  Why doesn’t always winning feel satisfying?]

Scene – Industrial type place:

Eileen Leahy is in an industrial type building.  Something growls and pushes her against a metallic object.  She turns to face her assailant holding a pistol in her right hand.  As she aims to shoot, a male werewolf grabs her pistol wielding arm and knocks the gun from her hand with a counter attack from his right hand.

With both of his arms, he reaches towards her, claws pointing at her face.  Eileen blocks his attack.  The two struggle, but Eileen gets the upper hand by freeing her right arm from his grip and hitting the werewolf with her right fist.  She then punches the monster in his face with her right elbow.  This frees her from his grip completely so that she can run away from him.

The werewolf pursues her.  Eileen turns and parries his blows.  He doesn’t land a hit on her, but she crosses his face with a right hook. He finally grabs her by her upper arms and she responds by kicking him in his groin.  It has little affect on him and he twirls her around once slamming her back against a yellow painted metal post.

The werewolf attacks Eileen head on with his claws and bares his teeth. She grabs his arms and holds him at bay.  She kicks him in the groin again.  This kick was a bit more effective.  She pushes him out of the way and runs away.  She makes a left turn and runs a bit farther until she stops where she is out of his sight.

While catching her breath for a moment, Eileen grabs a silver knife from its sheath latched to her belt.  Like a stealth predator, she quietly prepares to strike the werewolf.  She cocks the knife above her right shoulder.  She can hear something or someone coming her way.  When she guesses that it is close enough for her to strike, she spins and attacks bringing the knife downwards.  Except, her presumed assailant is not the werewolf.  It’s Sam Winchester.

Sam parries her attack.

“Sam,” she exclaims.  Then she pushes him out of the way and stabs and kills the werewolf who was sneaking up behind him.  It’s the same werewolf she had been hunting.

“Hey,” she greets Sam with a smile.

She and Sam glance around checking for more monsters.  When none appear, Eileen asks Sam, “Were you tailing me?”

Sam replies, “You could have left a note.”

She asks, “You’re worried about me?”

Sam replies, “You think I’m being overprotective?”

She nods in agreement and says, “A little bit.”

Eileen turns to leave, and Sam follows her.

[In this scene we can see that Eileen Leahy has completely recovered from the spell that turned her soul into flesh [Season 15 episode 06 titled “Golden Time”].  A kind of resurrection/reincarnation type of spell that Sam found in Rowena’s secret stash room among her magic books and diaries.  Eileen is in full fighting mode.  No evidence of post traumatic syndrome from being condemned to Hell or from the spell.

Eileen had been killed a few years back by Hell hounds unleashed upon her by the British Men of Letters.  The hounds took her soul to Hell after mauling her.  She had been in Hell until God-Chuck flung open every door in Hell.  She was close to one of those doors and fled Hell as fast and as far as she could, but she had become a ghost, tainted by Hell, roaming the Earth with no hope of getting into Heaven.  The fate of wandering ghosts is to slowly go psychotically insane.

After the Winchesters and Castiel successfully, with Rowena’s spell and sacrifice, ended God-Chuck’s Ghost Apocalypse in Harlan, KS, Eileen contacted Sam while he was jogging alone.  She told him and Dean about her plight.  After making a group decision with their brother Dean to help Eileen, Sam drove to Rowena’s old office, where Eileen, who had accompanied him, helped Sam locate Rowena’s secret stash room of magic.

The spell Sam had found stuffed in one of Rowena’s books was only half completed, but after getting back to the bunker, he was able to complete it and use it successfully on Eileen’s spirit.  Her spirit was made flesh and could roam the Earth like a normal human being.

Sam’s concern for Eileen is touching.  Could a romance be brewing between the two?  If so, then Eileen’s reaction to him is not wanting to be treated as a damsel in distress.  She can hold her own in a fight and doesn’t want his concern for her to be a hindrance to her skill as a monster hunter nor put him in jeopardy if the two fight alongside each other.  Can the two reach a compromise that enhances their strengths as hunters?]

Scene – Winchesters’ Bunker, Lebanon, KS:

In the main room of the bunker and on the big table that is a map, Eileen is enjoying her hamburger, fries and a drink while Sam is eating a salad mix.

Dean runs to the entrance of the room, raises his hand that is holding an object and says, “I got it!”

As Dean enters the room, he walks passed Eileen and says, “The answer,” he pats the object a couple times, “to our problems.  Maybe.”  He continues, “So.”  He lays the object wrapped in a brown leather cloth on the large table near Eileen.  “We know that Chuck is weak.  Right?  So if we are going to take our shot, now is the time, but a weak God is still God, so how are we supposed to take him down?  Well, I’ve been doing some thinking.  What if the answer is right under our noses?”  Dean unwraps the object.

Sam asks, “The demon tablet?”

“Boom,” replies Dean.

Eileen gives and inquisitive look at Sam, who gives her a brief summary of what the demon tablet is.  “This was dictated by God himself.  Instructions on how to seal angels and demons back into Heaven and Hell if they ever tried to take over Earth.”

“Exactly,” said Dean interrupting Sam.  “But if Chuck was so freaking invincible, then why wasn’t he able to protect us from the dick demons or even the dickier angels?  Because remember, these babies were dictated before he took power.”

Eileen asks, “So he was worried about humans if he couldn’t protect them?”

“Yeah,” replies Sam.  “Like, if for some reason, he was out of commission.”

“Which is weird,“ continue Dean.  “Considering he is supposed to be untouchable, unless he’s not untouchable.”

Sam chortles, “So he has an Achilles heel.”

Dean replies, “I’m saying he has a weak spot.”

“Sam responds, “Yeah, that’s.”  Then he cuts off his own sentence realizing that it was pointless to banter with Dean on this minor issue.

Dean continues, “These hunks of rocks are out there.  They are like an advanced directive.  Okay?  In case something happens to Chuck because there is a crack in his invincibility shield.”

Eileen asks, “So you guys can read them?”

Dean replies, “No.  But I got that handled.”

[Earlier this season, Dean was in a funk, like God-Chuck was at the beginning of this episode.  He had been consumed with fear and anger over God-Chuck’s death sentence on him and his brother Sam.  Those feelings snowballed with his feelings of anger and despair about his mother’s death by Jack, Jack’s murder by God-Chuck, the Ghost Apocalypse and Rowena’s death to end it.  Finally, he came up with an idea that he thought would give them the edge against their ultimate villain.  It has given him hope.  Would this idea pan out and would his hopeful feeling last?]

Scene – the prophet Donetello’s home:

Dean sent Castiel to bring the prophet Donatello Redfield back to the bunker because he can translate the demon tablets.

Castiel knocks on Donatello’s front exterior door.  When he gets no answer, the seraph says, “I know you are in there!”  Still no answer so Castiel walks over to a window where he finds Donatello.  He taps on the window to get the prophet’s attention.  “Donatello, would you please,” said the seraph politely badgering the prophet.

The prophet whispers hoarsely, “Go away.” Then he shuts the blinds.

[This episode shows that unlike Eileen, Donatello, is still suffering some kind of post traumatic syndrome from the demon tablet used last season to contact Lucifer in the Empty.

One of the negative hallmarks of the Winchesters is their bullying and badgering habits of their allies, like Rowna and Donatello.  Dean bullied Rowena into helping them in the first episode of this season.  He was fortunate that she trusted him enough to come to Harlan, KS to assist with ending the Ghost Apocalypse because his rude behavior would deter most people from helping them.  What would happen if they finally met someone who resisted their, especially Dean’s, bullying?]

Scene – Winchesters’ Bunker, Lebanon, KS:

The scene opens with the demon tablet exposed lying on its leather wrapping on the large table in the main room of the bunker.

As he raised his head in exasperation, a frustrated Donatello exclaimed, “Er!  Argh!”  Apparently, Donatello surrendered his resistance due to Castiel’s relentless but polite badgering earlier.  The prophet sighed and said, “I’m not sure I’m ready for this.  What you are trying to do, doesn’t sound possible.”

“Dean replied, “Look, we know that Chuck overpowered his sister the Darkness and locked her up, so.”

Castiel finished the thought, “We may be able to lock him up too.”

“Why don’t you just kill him,” asked the prophet.

Sam replied, “God has to exist to maintain the balance of the universe.  Without him, creation would fall apart.”

Dean continues, “Right, so the best thing to do is to toss him into solitary and throw away the key.”

Donatello says, “Okay, but the last time, it took the power of God to do this!  I mean even if he has a hidden flaw, do you have the power of God?”

Sam responds, “You know what?  One step at a time.  You figure out how to lock him up, we’ll take care of the rest.”

Donatello sighs, “Hey guys, when I grow crazy again, just shoot me.”

The scene jumps ahead a bit in time showing Donatello sitting at the large table in the main room reading the tablet.  A coffee cup, a bucket of chicken and some eaten pieces of chicken lie beyond the tablet and his paper notes.

Sam, Castiel and Dean are in the room hawkishly watching the prophet for him to either complete reading the tablet or have a “Eureka” moment.  Donatello finds their eyeballing him annoying and says, “Stop it!”  The four play kind of a cat and mouse game with eyeballing each other.

Finally, Donatello detects something interesting and emits, “Oh.  This is interesting.”

Sam slaps the book he was perusing shut.  He and Dean stand up and approach Donatello who remains seated.

Dean asks, “What?”

Sam mimics Dean, “What is it?”

Donatello reads from his paper notes, “There appears to be annotations, er, ah, personal observations.”

“By Metatron?” Castiel asked as he joined Sam and Dean standing next to Donatello.

“By the scribe, yes,” replied Donatello, “as if he were trying to give some context to God’s actions.”

Dean nods that he understood what the prophet had said so far and continues, “For example?”

Donatello reads a quote from his paper notes, “The Almighty guards his secret fear but it is always there.”

“Fear of what,” asked Sam.

“Fear of what,” continues Donatello reading from his notes, “I do not know.”

Dean gives an exasperated gesture.

Donatello continues, “This he shares only with his favorite.”

Dean’s face contorts with an inquisitive look and he says, “Favorite?”

Castiel answers, “But his favorite.  At the time, at the time this was written, Lucifer had been cast down.  Michael had sealed him in the cage, so Michael was the favorite.”

Dean groaned, “Oh yeah, a real daddy’s boy.”  [The irony of him making that statement was lost on Dean.  Ten seasons ago, the archangel Gabriel told Dean that he and Michael shared a steadfast loyalty to their respective absent fathers.  Takes one to know one.  Even last season due to a magic pearl, Dean got to experience his heart’s desire, a family reunion, minus Adam of course, and more validation from his own father (see Season 14 Episode 13 titled “Lebanon”) ].

Sam interjects, “But if Michael helped Chuck overpower Amara then maybe he also knows how to lock him up.”

Dean nods his head following Sam’s logic.

Castiel says, “Perhaps, but even if we could get to him, he wouldn’t tell us.”

“I don’t know.  I mean if my dad kept me locked up in a cage for ten years, I might be looking to get some payback.  It’s worth a shot," replied Dean

[Dean’s long smoldering anger at Castiel makes him reflexively counter with his arrogant bravado any caution Castiel utters.  Will his anger and habit to override Castiel’s legitimate concerns be a liability in the future?]

Donatello stands up and says, “Swell, so you guys talk to Michael.  Problem solved, right?”

Dean replied, “Not exactly.  Michael is in Hell.”

Castiel informs Donatello, “Yeah, he was possessing Adam, Sam and Dean’s half-brother, when he fell into Hell with Sam, who was possessed by Lucifer, and they were all sealed in the cage.”

Donatello shouts, ”What is it with you people?  Can’t anything you do be easy?  I mean.”  Suddenly, the prophet stops speaking and stands straight up.  His eyes close as he falls back into his chair.  His head lurches backwards then forwards coming to a stop.

Dean gives a silent “what just happened” gesture.

Donatello’s eyes suddenly open and he says, “But where is the fun in that?”  He chuckles and continues, “This story just gets better and better.”

Dean asks, “Donnie, are you going crazy again?”

Donatello replies, “Oh, Donatello is not here any longer.  Hey, guys.”

Dean and Sam look at each other perplexed.

Castiel his face in alarm says, “It’s Chuck!”

Dean who had been sitting on an end of a table near Donatello stood up in alarm and backed away from the prophet.  Sam and Castiel also backed away from the prophet with fear in their eyes.

Chuck via Donatello says, “Prophets speak the Word of God, sometimes indirectly, sometimes by Bluetooth.” He chuckles.  “So, here’s the thing, usually I really love our little process.  I toss the lead to you guys and you slam it right back.  It’s fun!  Like tennis with monsters.  But this, let this one go.”

“Or what,” asks Dean.

“Or I go all powerful,” replied Chuck via Donatello.  “Maybe not on you, not right away, but let’s see, there is Jody, Donna, Eileen.”  Chuck via Donatello looks up at Sam.  “Pretty much everybody on you speed dial.  So drop it.  Okay?”

[God-Chuck using Donatello as a blue-tooth communicator was similar to how Nick, Lucifer’s vessel, and the demons who aided him used the prophet as a wireless radio to communicate with the fallen archangel so that they could plot the devil’s resurrection in Season 14 episode 17 titled “Game Night.”  It was this incident that led to Donatello’s post traumatic syndrome and why he was reluctant to help the Winchesters with their new plan of attack against God-Chuck.]

[Earlier in this scene when they discussed about getting Michael, Castiel pointed out the obvious to the Winchesters, “…even if we could get to [Michael], he wouldn’t tell us.”  Castiel’s concern was legitimate and an assumption that they should have pondered if they actually took some time to develop a negotiation strategy against Michael.  However, due to his smoldering anger at the seraph, Dean interpreted Castiel’s concern as another lame excuse or impediment to stopping God-Chuck.  His anger led the eldest Winchester to leap to the assumption, "… I mean if my dad kept me locked up in a cage for ten years, I might be looking to get some payback."  This was not the only assumption that they should have made, and it was the worse one that they should have used as a basis of their negotiation plan against the archangel because God-Chuck did not directly put Michael in the cage.  Sam, Dean and Castiel helped put him there and before that, Castiel firebombed the archangel, which was extremely painful, so why wouldn’t Michael look to get revenge against them, even if he wanted revenge against his father?  Dean should have heeded Belphegor’s sarcastic warning, “[Michael] wouldn’t hold a grudge, right?”  But the eldest Winchester brother’s arrogant bravado and smoldering anger at Castiel blinded him from even considering other assumptions and possibilities.

If they had consulted with one of their mature and knowledgeable allies, like Sheriff Jody Mills, who was experienced due to her job with negotiating with difficult people, about their negotiating strategy for Michael, she would have pointed out the glaring holes in their strategy and assumptions, but the Winchesters, fearing God-Chuck would beat them to Michael, were too hurried to actually develop a competent negotiation strategy against the archangel.

Will the lack of a competent negotiation strategy against Michael prevent them from achieving their goal of getting God’s secret and using it on Chuck?]

Scene – Winchesters’ Bunker, Lebanon, KS, post possession of Donatello by God-Chuck:

This scene opens with Castiel entering the main room of the bunker.  He had just inspected the bunker’s warding.

“The bunker’s warding is intact, but it clearly doesn’t withstand God,” informed the seraph.  “How much do you think he heard?”

Sam replies, “He heard enough.”

Castiel asks, “So? Do we ‘drop it’?”

Dean says to Donatello, “Donnie, I think it might be safer if you went on home.”

The prophet replied, “Really? I have to leave? Oh, that’s too bad.  I’ll ah.  I’ll get my stuff.”  Donatello bolts out of his chair, grabs a bucket of chicken and his jacket and runs out of the bunker.

Dean watches the prophet exit. “Okay.  Like Hell we’re dropping this.”

Castiel positions himself facing Sam and Dean.  He says, “Donna.  Jody. They are not safe.”

Sam responds, “They’ll never be safe.  As long as Chuck is out there, it’s only a matter of time.”

Dean interjects, “Before he rounds them up and offs them just to watch us suffer.”

Sam continues, “The only way to keep them safe, to keep everyone safe, is to take Chuck down.”

Dean says, “Which is exactly what we’re going to do.”

Castiel asks, “Are we seriously talking about going to Hell to try to speak with Michael, Michael who is in the cage and insane?”

Sam replies, “Who told us that?”

Dean answers, “Lucifer and Chuck.  Now I trust them as far as I can throw them, but Cas, if you want to stay here, then why don’t you stay here.”

Dean gets up and leaves the room.  His quarrel with Castiel still smolders.

[Again, Dean’s smoldering anger at Castiel appears when Castiel raises legitimate concerns about the plan with Michael, and the eldest Winchester mistakes Castiel’s concerns as weakness of Castiel’s character.  Will Dean’s anger issues be an asset or an impediment to achieving their team’s goal of getting God’s secret from Michael?]

Scene – Winchesters’ Bunker, Lebanon, KS, kitchen:

The scene opens in the kitchen with Sam sprinkling a dry spell component in a bowl.  Eileen standing next to him observes what he is doing.   Then he pours a dark liquid in the bowl over the dry component.  Castiel observes from a distance. 

Sam picks up the spell book and the bowl.  He takes them to another table where Dean is sitting.  Castiel gets up and follows Sam.  After Sam sets the bowl down on the table, Deans rises from his chair and pulls out a switchblade.  The elder Winchester brother slices the palm of his left hand.  He squeezes his pal into a fist and lets his blood drip onto the bowl’s contents.

Castiel approaches and stands next to Dean observing the situation.  After Dean completes adding his blood, Castiel says, “Here, let me.” Dean turns his fist over.  Fresh blood stains the palm of his hand.  The seraph places his open hand over Dean’s.  Light emits from Castiel’s palm and heals Dean’s hand.

“Thanks,” says Dean as he inspects his newly healed hand.

“I think we’re done.  It’s exactly the spell Rowena used, just without Rowena,” says Castiel.

“Alright, let’s do her, “says Dean.

When Sam begins the incantation, Castiel takes a book of matches, peels off a match and ignites it.  He then tosses it into the bowl and joins Sam and Dean with touching the rim of the bowl.

A purple-blue light flickers in the bowl.  A wind blows through the kitchen and a noise, sounding like an engine or turbine, is heard.   The wind and noise increase in tempo until a bright white light envelops them.   They disappear leaving Eileen staring in awe at the bowl.  The purple-blue light continues to flicker but the wind and engine noise are gone.

[In this scene, Sam appears to have successfully taken Rowena’s role as a magic user/witch.  He used one of his mentor’s spells to transport them to Hell.  We also see the team working together.  Dean’s anger at Castiel didn’t stop him from thanking the seraph for healing his wound.

Only Castiel had been to Hell after God-Chuck flung open every door.  He had gone there with the demon Belphegor to use Lilith’s crook/horn to command the demons and condemned spirits, who had fled Hell and were trapped in a containment spell in Harlan, KS, to return to Hell while Rowena’s spell closed the rupture.  When the seraph and the demon had arrived in Hell, it was practically empty with only one demon they encountered looting Lilith’s chamber.  After incinerating Belphegor, who had planned on using the horn to empower himself to near god-like abilities with all the demons and spirits, Rowena had to cast a different spell so that her dying body absorbed those same demons and spirits before she fell through the rupture into Hell.  The state of Rowena is assumed to be dead at this time, and the population of Hell is unknown at this time also.  The Winchesters and Castiel are assuming that they will meet little or no resistance in Hell.  Not a bad assumption and worth the risk.  But is Rowena’s body still containing those spirits and demons?]

Scene -- Hell, Hall leading to Lilith’s chamber:

The scene opens with a blinding white light and the engine/turbine noise. After the light and noise disappear, Sam, Dean and Castiel find themselves in one of Hell’s hallways.  Sam and Dean scan the area around them and draw their angel blades.  No demons in sight.

“Now where,” asks Sam in a whisper.

“This way,” replies Castiel.  He had been down here before with the demon Belphegor plus his angelic sense of direction would aide them in their search.

Sam and Dean follow Castiel down the hallway.  When they enter the grand hall before Lilith’s chamber, they stop and look around.  A female demon appears in front of Castiel.  “Sam,” calls Castiel.

Sam looked around and spotted another female demon blocking him.

“Dean,” calls Castiel.  The eldest Winchester turned around and spotted another female demon facing him. 

The demons formed a line blocking the invaders and preparing to defend their home.

“Ladies,” says Dean addressing the demons.  He still held his angel blade but in a lower position to indicate that he didn’t want to fight but would defend himself.  “We’re not looking for trouble, okay?  We just want to talk to.”

The demons attack Sam, Dean and Castiel.  The trio try to fend off the attack but they are overmatched, even Castiel is thrown down to the ground.

“Are any of us winning” asks Dean during a brief moment of respite in his battle against his demon.

Neither of the other two respond.

The battle resumes until the demons have them all pinned down.

A voice shouts, “Stop!”

The demons release Sam, Dean and Castiel.

As Castiel rises from the floor, he turns and sees a familiar face, likewise for Dean and Sam.

Rowena appears wearing a bright red pants suit with three muscular male demons wearing black clothes standing behind her.  Her long red hair is coiffed stylishly letting her locks flow down her right shoulder.

“Hello, boys,” greets Rowena.

[It appears that by absorbing all the demons and condemned souls within Harlan, KS and returning them to Hell, Rowena has become what Belphegor wanted, ruler of Hell.  This is an unexpected bit of good news for the Winchesters and Castiel as she basically saved them from the demons.

Will she aide the Winchesters and Castiel in their quest to speak to Michael?]

Scene -- Hell, in Hall outside Lilith’s chamber:

“You did say that you wanted to see the one in charge,” says Rowena.  Her security team gracefully, like dancers, escorts her down the stairs.

“Rowena, we thought you were dead,” says Dean still a bit surprised at seeing the former witch.

“Oh, I am, dear.  Pretty much everyone here is,” informs Rowena with a touch of humor.  “When I closed the fissure, it did cost me my life, and my soul went to Hell.  Big surprise!”  She smiles at Dean.

“The demons just handed you the throne,” inquires Castiel.

[In Season 15 episode 03 titled “The Rupture,” Rowena sacrificed her life to end God-Chuck’s ghost apocalypse by using a spell to suck into her dying body every demon and condemned spirit trapped within the magical force-field encircling Harland, KS before throwing herself down the rupture God-Chuck created when he opened all the doors in Hell.]

“No one hands you anything, darling,” she replies.  “I took it!”  [Her response is reminiscent of Lucifer’s in Season 5 episode 19 title “Hammer of the Gods“  when he told the pagan god, Baldur, “No one gives us the right [to own the planet].  We take it.”]

Rowena continues, “So why are you here?”

“Chuck,” replies Dean.  “He’s back and he’s out of control and we need to rein him in.”

“You want to rein in God,” asks Rowena in disbelief.

“We think there is a way,” says Sam nervously eyeing the demons around them.  He approaches Rowena and says, “Listen, we just need to speak with Michael.”

Surprised, Rowena asks, “Michael, the out of his head archangel?”  She laughs at the thought.  “This just gets better.”  She looks at them but they at not laughing.  They are serious.  She continues, “Anyway it doesn’t matter.”

“What,” asks Sam.

“He won’t be in the cage.  Every door was flung wide open when Chuck opened the fissure.  Your archangel could be anywhere in Hell or out of Hell for that matter.”  [Rowena confirms what Belphegor told Dean in the first episode of this season, but with a correction.  Before Belphegor had left Hell after God-Chuck flung open all its doors, the demon heard that Michael was just sitting in the cage.  Apparently since then, the archangel may be on the move and has left the cage, but to where or to whom?]

“Rowena,” says Dean, “we’re running out of time.  Okay, we needed Michael yesterday.”

She stares at Dean and Sam thinking about what they had told her.

Addressing her demons Rowena asks rhetorically, ”Did you not hear the man?”  She pauses and looks around at her subjects, who remain motionless.  Then she yells, “Find him!”  The demons leave the hall and begin searching for Michael.

Rowena smiles and winks at Sam, Dean and Castiel.

[In this scene the boys are fortunate that Rowena, their old friend on Earth, has become Queen of Hell.  She apparently continues to be an ally as Queen of Hell and that’s good fortune for the Winchesters and Castiel.

Dean is less abusive towards Rowena in this scene, but he is still bossy towards her.  If he uses this same attitude with Michael, will the team be able to achieve its goal of getting God’s secret from the archangel?]

Scene – Winchesters’ Bunker, Lebanon, KS, kitchen:

The purple-blue flame rises above magic bowel that sent the Winchesters and Castiel to Hell.  Eileen is sitting at a table reading a book.  Her laptop is open next to her.  A video chat program starts running and it signals an incoming call.

Eileen looks at her laptop, pushes the book to the side and slides the laptop closer to her.  She hits a button to answer the call.

The face of a woman appears on the video chat.  “Eileen,” she exclaims.  “Oh, my God!  I didn’t know if you would pick up.  People are saying you’re.”

“Dead,” says Eileen finishing her friend’s sentence.

“Yeah,” affirms the woman.

“It didn’t take,” replies Eileen.

“Clearly.  Anyways, do you remember?  I’m Sue Barrish.  We worked that ghoul case.”

“I remember,” affirms Eileen.

Sue continues, “I’m following a vamp nest.  They’re migrating looking for decent feeding grounds.  Well, when they get stopped, I’m going to need help cleaning them out.”

Eileen asks, “Where are they now?”

“Moving down I-80 towards Omaha,” Sue replies.

“I’m close to there,” says Eileen.

Sue asks, “So, you’re in?”

Eileen looks at the magic bowl.  The purple-blue flame is still burning.  She turns back to her laptop and says, “I’m kinda in the middle of something, but if I’m free.”

“Cool,” replies Sue.  “I’ll call you.”

Eileen nods in agreement as she ends the call.  Then she moves over to the bowl and adds more fuel to the flame.

[In this scene, Eileen proves that she can be trusted by the Winchesters and Castiel.  She guards the magic bowel and keeps the flame going so that they can return.  When temptation to join a monster hunt comes from an old friend, she passes on it for now because she knows that the Winchesters and Castiel are depending upon her to keep the flame going until they return from Hell.  But after they return, she could be free to assist her friend to take out a vampire nest.

Sue Barrish is a new character and she seems to be more from Eileen’s monster hunting history than the Winchester’s history.  Will be interesting to see how this side story develops.]

Scene -- Hell, Rowena’s throne room:

A red stained glass backdrop with an upside down cross at the top rises above the black throne.  Three cobra heads form the back of the throne and the throne sits on a pedestal.  Rowena sits upon her throne with a pleasant smile.  Her old friends have dropped in for an unexpected visit.  While her demons search for Michael, she will enjoy their company.

As she raises a glass of whisky, scotch or bourbon to her lips, Sam sits on a simple hexagonal shaped chair, which is intentionally positioned so whoever was sitting in those chairs, no matter how tall they were, would always be lower than the Queen.

“Rowena,” says Sam as he looked around nervously.  “I.”

Rowena cuts him off, “Samuel, please.  You killing me was one of the best things that ever happened.  Yes, there are things I miss about being alive.  Flesh-on-flesh sex.”

Dean gives a look of bewilderment and slight disgust at that thought.

Rowena continues, “Amazon doesn’t deliver here, yet!  But lads, I’m Queen!  My subjects revere me.  Well, fear me, which is better.  I should have died a long time ago.”

Sam grimaces, still feeling bad about killing Rowena in Season 15 episode 03 titled “The Rupture.”

“Samuel,“ calls Rowena.  She raises her empty glass and asks him, “Be a dear.”

Sam rises out of his chair and says, “Yeah.”  He proceeds to take the glass from Rowna’s hand.  He makes a motion asking her if he needs to leave the room.  Apparently, she confirms it and Sam walks out of the room.

Dean and Castiel look at each other and then quickly avert each other’s eyes.

This attracts Rowena’s attention. “What am I picking up from you two?  A wee tif?  Tell your Auntie Rowena.”  She ends with a smile and leaning back against her throne.

Dean says, “It’s fine.  Don’t worry about it.”  And at the same, Castiel says, “It’s fine.”

Rowena doesn’t buy their dismissal of their dislike for each other.  She commands them, “Boys, fix it!” She continues, “I don’t have many regrets but the few I do, do still haunt me.  Making Napoleon so short, was just bitchy!  Telling Mick Jagger that he had no future when I dumped him, well, everything with dear Fergus.  Than one day you die.  You go to Hell.  They make you Queen.  You can’t make it right.”  She leans forward and orders them, “Fix it!”

Dean and Castiel sit silently refusing to look at each other but reflecting on what Rowena said.

Sam returns with a new glass of whiskey, scotch or bourbon and hands it to Rowena.

“Thank you, my dove,” says the Queen of Hell to Sam.  Sam continues to stand near Rowena.

“My lady,” says one of her male demons, entering the throne room.

“Aye,” responds Rowena acknowledging the demon.

“Michael, he’s nowhere to be found,” reports the demon with some trepidation in his voice.

“Then where is he,” asks a perplexed Sam.

[So Michael has finally left Hell, but to where or to whom?  Did God-Chuck finally summon his most loyal son and servant?  If so that would derail the Winchesters’ and Castiel’s goal of getting God-Chuck’s secret from the archangel.

It’s unclear if the spell that Rowena had cast in the third episode of this season to absorb all the demons and condemned souls that had fled Hell and were contained in Harlan, KS into her dying body would work on the archangel.  If it could, then it appears that Michael left the cage and Hell sometime after Rowena completed the spell.  As long as angels have wings, which Michael does, he can ascend from Hell on his own power and freely go wherever he wants.]

Scene -- Jaci's Red Wagon diner, locale unknown:

The exterior of Jaci’s Red Wagon diner appears.  Its actual locale is unknown.  From the outside, the diner is shaped in the form of a simple rectangle.  The name of the diner with its logo are displayed on the roof’s overhang facing the public.  Banners of various colors and images hang off a line of light posts going down the street.  The diner appears to be on a Main Street or some type of busy thoroughfare in a town or city, not in a secluded or private place.  There doesn’t appear to be anyone entering the diner at this time.

Inside Jaci's Red Wagon diner, which is decorated with vintage toy trucks and wagons, a country western song is playing and the typical bustling noise of a diner or restaurant can be heard.  The diner is busy serving many customers.  A waitress dressed in a blue diner uniform and a white apron is confidently carrying a plate holding a hamburger and French fries.  She stops at a booth and places the plate on the table.  Next to the plate is a newspaper.  It’s unclear what the newspaper’s name is.

Adam Milligan is the customer the waitress is serving.  He’s sitting in the booth facing away from the main entrance door.  Opposite him is an empty booth seat.  He picks up the hamburger with both hands and takes a bite.  He emits sounds of pleasure as the flavors of the burger melt in his mouth.

Across from him a deep voice, reminiscent of the drawl used by the classic stoic gunslingers played by Clint Eastwood, Charles Bronson and John Wayne, says, "You know that stuff will kill you, right?". The scene stays focused on Adam eating.

“Worth it,” replies Adam in between chewing his food.  “Michael, I haven’t seen a burger in ten years.”  He smiles as he puts down the burger on his plate.  A hand, a right hand, from someone across from him picks up one of his French fries and brings it closer to his face for inspection.  The person is a duplicate image of Adam.  It’s Michael the Archangel.

Michael manifests himself as a mirror or duplicate image of Adam, except his voice is deeper toned and he speaks with a drawl.  The archangel has given control of Adam's body to Adam so the young man can enjoy eating his food.  Despite sharing control of his body with Adam, Michael's duplicate image can move independently of the young man and physically pick up a French fry.

The archangel returns the French fry to Adam's plate and says, "Go for it, kid."

“You know, I don’t need to eat,” says Adam as he picks up a French fry.  “It just tastes so damn good.” He bites the French fry in half.

“I wouldn’t know,” says Michael.  He turns and glances at the other patrons and staff in the diner.  “I don’t know much about any of this,” he continues as he looks back at Adam.  “You’ll be my guide.”  He smiles at Adam.  Unlike his father, God-Chuck, earlier in the episode, Michael appears relaxed, mellow, and somewhat amused by the activity in the diner.

[Michael, being the former Vice-roy of Heaven and restricted to using human vessels from the Winchester line, had little opportunity or time to visit Earth long enough to become acquainted with it.  He relied upon underlings, like Zachariah, to conduct business on Earth.]

A waitress approaches Adam’s booth carrying a pizza.  Michael has disappeared.

While Adam can see Michael and converses with him, it appears that others in the diner see an empty seat, so from everyone else's viewpoint it would look like Adam is talking to himself or to a vacant seat.  [Could this act be what Lucifer saw in the cage and concluded that Michael had gone insane?  Or was it Michael's decision to treat Adam like a partner?  Or was Lucifer just trying to screw and defame his brother, his fiercest enemy, while he roamed Earth?]

After getting his pizza, Adam thanks the waitress.

She smiles at him and says, “You got it.”

[This scene between patron and server is much more benign than the opening scene of this episode at the Lucky Elephant casino, where God-Chuck, Michael’s father, had slaughtered everyone in the Lucky Elephant casino except the one serving girl, who was terrorized into serving him.]

After the waitress drops off the pizza and leaves, Michael is still missing.  Adam leans down to smell the aroma of the hot pizza.  As he rises back up and grabs some spices and granulated cheese to sprinkle on his pizza he says, “So what about you? Are you going to go back to Heaven?”

Michael reappears sitting in the seat opposite from Adam.

“I don’t know,” replied the archangel.  Looking down at the table, he says forlornly, “My brothers are dead.  My father never returned.  In so many ways I’m alone.”

[Like long interned POWs finally being set free, Michael finds that his home, Heaven, has become an alien landscape.  Even though Earth is largely unknown to him, with Adam’s friendship, it appears more hospitable to the lonely archangel.  In a way, Michael is entering a state of mind similar to Ramiel, a demon prince.  In season 12 episode 12 titled “Stuck in the Middle (With You)”, Ramiel had retired from the politics and business of Hell.  He declined Crowley’s request for him to ascend the throne and become the next King of Hell because he preferred a quiet life in the country collecting antique weapons, both human made and supernatural, than the rat race of Hell’s power struggles.]

Adam empathizes and says, “Same here.  It’s not like I have family waiting to see me.”  Little did Adam know that his words were prophetic.

Michael counters, “You have the Winchesters, your brothers.”

Adam stops eating, wipes his face with a napkin and says, “I met them once and they let me rot in Hell.”  [The first time Sam and Dean met Adam was in Season 4 episode 19 “Jump the Shark,” but who they met was actually the ghoul who had eaten him and had absorbed his likeness and memories.  They didn’t formerly meet their half-brother until Season 5 episode 18 titled “Point of No Return.”]

“Family,” says Michael sarcastically.

“Family sucks,” replies Adam with bitterness in his tone.  [Interestedly, God-Chuck used the same word to describe his sister in Season 15 episode 04 title “Atomic Monsters.”  The difference here is that Adam had legitimate grievances against his half-brothers, who had abandoned him completely.  God-Chuck, on the other hand, was trying to deceive Amara about his wound and why he was trying to latch onto her.  She called his bluff and rejected his request to travel with her.]

Even though they are of different species, human and angel, Adam and Michael bond over the fact that they both have had vexatious families.

As Adam leans down and begins eating his pizza, Michael has disappeared.

[The most obvious observation from this scene is that Lucifer and God-Chuck had lied in the past about Michael’s state of being.  Sam and Dean were correct.  Lucifer claimed his brother had gone insane during his imprisonment in the cage and God-Chuck in Season 11 episode 22 titled “We Happy Few” claimed that Michael was in no condition to help them fight the Darkness.  Quite the contrary, Michael looked fit and sane and so did Adam in this scene.

The light hearted and fun atmosphere of Jaci's diner emulates a more friendly Michael and one seeking a less militaristic, nihilistic, and angel supremacist direction for his life as opposed to Apocalypse World Michael, who was a cross between Drs. Frankenstein and Mengele and was obsessed with seeking revenge against God and humans.  More importantly, this scene indicates that Michael is open to change.  Like his aunt Amara, the Darkness, the archangel seems to be open to adapting and spending his new freedom on Earth peacefully with his human partner, Adam.  This behavior is opposite the behaviors of both Apocalypse World Michael and his brother Lucifer.  The former was on a crusade to burn down every one of their father’s worlds, and Lucifer, while adapting tactics in a changing world, still in his heart despised humans and wanted to remake his father’s universe in his image. 

This scene also contrasts with the Lucky Elephant casino scene at the opening of this episode where Michael's father, God-Chuck, who was wounded and "cranky," had killed all the patrons and staff in the casino except the one terrified serving girl.  It also contrasts with the opening scene in Season 05 episode 18 "Point of No Return" where Michael descending to Earth looking for Zachariah, unintentionally but carelessly had killed the humans in the bar.

The end of this scene is the first instance of anger and bitterness we hear from Adam since his return from Hell.  We are not quite sure how much Adam knows about Sam's body and soul being rescued from Hell by Castiel and Death, and if he ever met Lucifer while in the cage.  Adam was right when he told Michael that he had no family waiting for him.  Sam and Dean were only interested in Michael because he carried God’s secret.  They weren’t even planning on asking the archangel about their half-brother’s well-being or freeing their half-brother from Michael, like they had freed the President of the United States from Lucifer in Season 12 episode 08 titled “Lotus”.

Despite being in the cage in Hell for ten years, Adam and Michael appear to be on friendly terms, and Adam seems to be an enthusiastic young man looking forward to a bright future with no obvious bitterness towards Michael, who had bullied the young man into consenting to be possessed by him ten years ago and had gotten Adam imprisoned with him in Hell for a decade.  For his part, Michael seems to have shed his angel supremacist views about humans as he enjoys conversing with and watching Adam take pleasure in consuming his food.

We would have to surmise that it was Michael who had opened dialogue with Adam in the cage since he was in the dominant position at the end of Season 5 when he fell into the cage with Sam, but we don’t know when he initiated that dialogue.  At the very least, it would have to be after Lucifer escaped the cage after their aunt Amara, the Darkness, was unleashed upon the Earth by Dean Winchester in Season 11.

Even though he was an angel supremacist ten years ago, caring for his vessel seemed to be a main character trait in Michael.  In Season 5 episode "Song Remains the Same" he told Dean that he would not leave him like his brothers do their vessels.  This information had contradicted Castiel's conclusion to what would have happened to Dean after being possessed by Michael.  Raphael left his vessels in a vegetative state so that he could repossess them without getting the human's permission again.  We never saw Gabriel interact with his vessel.  On the other hand, Michael chose to leave his vessels in better shape than when he possessed them.

Even Lucifer, who grew accustomed to using Nick as his vessel, never treated Nick like a partner.  We never saw Lucifer have a dialogue with Nick after the devil possessed him and the fallen archangel never displayed any indication that Nick was anything more to him than just a vessel.  Even when Lucifer told Nick how to free him from the Empty, it looked more like Nick was helping the devil to satisfy an addiction to Lucifer’s power than out of friendship for the fallen archangel.

Overall, it appears that Michael has evolved in his attitude towards humans.  Being stuck in the cage alone with Adam, gave Michael an opportunity to get a different and more in-depth perspective about humans.  Adam is not Michael’s true vessel, but the young man appears to be the one best suited to help the archangel evolve to be less lethal to humans as a whole.

Does this mean that there is hope for the Winchesters to win Michael’s support against God-Chuck?  Could Belphegor’s sarcastic warning to Dean about Michael holding a grudge against them be wrong?  Could Adam’s bitterness at his half-brothers be a roadblock to the Winchesters’ goal of getting Michael’s support?]

Scene – Winchesters’ Bunker, Lebanon, KS:

Back in the bunker, Dean is approaching the doorway to the main room.  He’s on the phone talking to the prophet Donatello, “Donnie, hey!  How are you doing pal?  Listen, we got ourselves a little situation here.”

Donatello is in his home sitting on a chair and on the phone replying to Dean, “I thought I was off the case?”

Dean is shown still walking but now inside the main room of the bunker and responds, “Off the case?  No! Come on pal, you’re part of the team.”

Donatello groans, “Gratifying.”

Dean says, “Listen, have you, ah, sensed anything lately?”

“Like” asks Donatello off screen.

“Like, ah, a surge of power.  Not god-like but almost god-like,” asks Dean.

“Ah, no.  No, I don’t think so,” replies the prophet.

“Okay, we kind of got ourselves in an emergency here, so if anything tickles your brain, you let us know,” requests Dean.

Donatello replies, “Tickles my?”

Dean cuts him off, “Gotta go.”

Donatello puts down his phone, looks at it and sighs in a bit of frustration.  The Winchesters’, especially Dean’s, badgering can be vexing.

Dean walks down some stairs and says to Sam, “Well Donnie gots zip.  What about you?”

Sam puts down his electronic tablet and says, "Nothing that screams archangel."

Then Dean decides to change subjects.  “Eileen did good. Right?  She got us back from Hell.  Is she doing okay?”

“Yeah, I guess,” replies Sam surprised Dean brings up Eileen.

Dean asks, “You guess?”

“If she needs something from me, she’ll tell me.  We have an agreement,” replies the younger brother.

A bit surprised, Dean asks, “You have an agreement?”

The two brothers exchange looks.  Sam looks a bit uneasy about discussing his relationship with Dean.

Dean smiles and responds, “That’s adorable.  Look, man, I didn’t want to say anything, okay, because I was kinda in a bad place, and I didn’t want to jinx it or whatever, but you know I tried the family thing, right?”

Sam responds, “Yeah, me too.  It’s not for us.”

Dean replies, “Not really.  But I am just saying if it was to work, Eileen, you know, she gets it.  She gets us.  She gets the life. She’s hot!”

Sam laughs, “Dean, I mean…”

Dean interrupts, “All I’m saying is you, you could do worse.  Okay?  And she can certainly do better.”  Dean rises from his chair.  “Like so much better.”  He walks towards Sam and pats him on the back.  “I’m happy for you Sammy.”  He then walks out of the room.

[While their discussion about Eileen and Sam’s relationship is endearing and fun to watch, neither brother discusses what are they going to do about Adam after they capture Michael.  Provided that they get God’s secret from Michael, should they try to exorcise the archangel from Adam’s body or not?  This shows that Adam was right.  He has no family waiting for him.  With Adam out of their sights, he’s out of the Winchesters’ minds.  Abandoned by his closet blood relations, relations that supposedly take pride in family.]

Scene -- Jaci's Red Wagon diner, locale unknown:

The next scene is back at Jaci’s diner.  With his main meal completed, Adam relaxes and observes the bustling of the diner's staff and patrons.  This gives him an idea.  “Maybe I should pick up some kind of little job.”

“A little job,” asks Michael who has reappeared sitting across from Adam.  As Adam's mirror image, Michael is facing the main entrance door and acts as a lookout.

“Yeah. Yeah, I mean, these are the same clothes we went to Hell in,” replies Adam as he turned to face Michael.  Apparently, the stench of Hell and or not taking a bath in a decade did not accompany them into the diner or the archangel removed it.  “We’re going to have expenses, right?  Whatever change I had, I spent on food, so.  It’s not like I can go back to college, not with an archangel inside of me,” says Adam as he smiles.

While Adam was finishing his last sentence, Michael had recognized someone or something familiar entering the diner.

A hand touches Adam’s shoulder.  As he turns to face the person standing next to him, he sees a young blond hair woman.

“Hello Michael,” she says greeting the archangel. 

Adam’s eyes flash blue as Michael swaps places with Adam.  The booth seat where Michael’s image had been sitting is empty.  “Lilith,” replies the archangel.

Lilith removes her hand from his shoulder and walks towards the empty booth seat.

“You’re dead,” says Michael perplexed at the demon’s appearance.  [At the end of Season 4, she was killed by Sam Winchester.  Her death broke the final seal that had kept Lucifer locked in the cage for eons, and the fallen archangel’s release  triggered the beginning of the Apocalypse, which Sam and Dean aborted by sending Sam, possessed by Lucifer, and Adam, possessed by Michael, into the same cage together.  The cage was the same one that Michael and Adam had recently departed.]

She turns to face him and corrects him, “Was.  But now, I’m back baby!” She responds proudly before plopping down in the booth seat across from Michael.  “And I have been sent to fetch you.”

On the table between them is a dish holding a piece of cake.  Adam’s dessert.

“I’m not accustomed to being fetched,” says an indignant Michael.  “Who sent you?”

She replies, “You have to ask? Your daddy.”  She rolls her eyes.

Michael’s brow narrows and he stares at her incredulously.

“God,” she answers the archangel’s inquisitive look.  “He’d like a word,” she says as she smiles.  Then she swipes a fingertip full of cake icing from the piece in front of her.

“You’re lying,” replies Michael calling what he thinks is her bluff.

“Really not,” she says as she sticks the icing laced finger tip in her mouth.

Lilith’s whole attitude is playfully childish and she acts with overconfidence towards the archangel.

“Then why would he send you?  A demon.  A speck of infernal bile,” asks Michael doubting her story.

Lilith replies a bit stunned at his epitaphs, “One, Ow! Two, maybe because we worked together before.  Remember?  Setting off the Apocalypse.”

“To try and bring God back,” responds Michael justifying why he worked with her to start the Apocalypse.

“Right,” she replies.  “It didn’t work then, but then he came back on his own.  Win?”

Michael leans a bit closer to her and being a bit more menacing, he says “If that’s true, if, he can come talk to me himself.”

“Yeah, except,” replies Lilith frustrated at Michael’s obstinance, “I’m not suppose to leave without you.”

Not convinced by Lilith's explanations, Michael orders her to leave, “Get out!”

“Michael,” she says growing impatient.  She grabs his wrist.

The archangel looks down at her hand.

“I can’t fail him,” she says to the archangel with a note of anxiety in her voice.

Michael processes what Lilith had said, then his eyes flash blue light and he looks towards the demon, who is shocked by his attack.  She is engulfed in a blinding white light.  The light fills the whole diner and radiates past the exterior windows.  An outside observer would wonder if everyone in the diner was injured or killed.

[In this scene we get a small taste of good old angel antipathy towards demons, like we did in Season 04 episode 10 titled “Heaven and Hell”.  Michael called Lilith, the first and most powerful demon, an “infernal spec of bile,” and even though he admitted to working with her to start the Apocalypse ten years ago, he still despised and distrusted her.

Despite the eons old hatred between the species, angels and demons, Lilith tried to leverage her old alliance with Michael to convince him that she is telling him the truth about his father sending her to lead him back to his daddy.  Apparently, God-Chuck did not give her any credentials to show Michael that she was telling the truth.  All she had was circumstantial evidence, that being her resurrection.  We can surmise that Michael knew of other powerful beings besides his father who could resurrect a powerful demon, and the archangel assumed that God resurrecting a demon to serve him is an antithesis of what his father would do.  Why would God resurrect an insidious demon, like Lilith, when his father could have just come to his loyal son directly?  This assumption of Michael’s and Lilith’s lack of credentials allowed the archangel to side with his inherent prejudice against the demon.

Apparently, Lilith underestimated Michael’s antipathy and distrust towards her.  In addition, she had no power or magic to protect her from the archangel’s power.  Lilith was in a Catch-22.  If she failed in her mission, she feared God-Chuck would punish her, so she hoped that Michael’s desire to find his father outweighed his hatred of her.  She was wrong.  Hope is not a plan and she lost her life again.

The question we have is, “Did God-Chuck foresee this happening?”  Or did his wound from the Equalizer blind him from seeing this outcome between Michael and Lilith?  Regardless, Lilith’s death by Michael is a disaster for God-Chuck as it still leaves Michael, the keeper of his secret, in play for the Winchesters to capture.]

Scene – Donatello the Prophet’s kitchen:

In Donatello's kitchen, the prophet is washing a glass when he suddenly detects Michael's power surge.  This surge causes Donatello to instantly drop the glass he was wiping, and it shatters as it hit the inside of the metal sink.  A stunned Donatello backs away from his kitchen’s island sink.

[The prophet detected Michael’s power surge.  We have to assume God-Chuck does too.  But the prophet is also an ally of the Winchesters, so God-Chuck’s loss could be the Winchesters’ gain.]

Scene -- Jaci's Red Wagon diner, locale unknown:

Back inside the diner, Michael faces a pile of ash or charcoal where Lilith once sat.  He also notices that everyone else in the diner, all are alive, is staring at him with fear, shock, and trepidation because they witnessed his incineration of Lilith.  

After assessing the situation, Michael issues a command, "Remember nothing." With a snap of his fingers, Michael erases the memories of Lilith's incineration from everyone in the diner.  Immediately, the diner's staff and patrons resume their bustling lives as if nothing had happened.  As Michael turns and looks down at the table to contemplate his next steps, he pushes the cake that Lilith had taken a swipe if icing from away from him in disgust.

[Michael’s incineration of Lilith brings to mind the warning Dean had told Lilith in Season 4 episode 18 titled “The monster at the End of the Book.”  He told her that she’d be turned into charcoal by the archangel tied to Chuck Shurley, who was known by the Winchesters and the angels as a prophet of the Lord back then.  That archangel was Raphael, Michael’s brother.  She fled the hotel room back then instead of waiting to test the archangel’s wrath.  Apparently, in the previous diner scene of this episode, she feared God-Chuck more than Michael the Archangel and it got her incinerated.

In this scene, Michael’s command to the people in the diner contrasts sharply with Jack’s order last year to everyone in the world to stop lying.  Unlike the young nephilim, Michael demonstrated mastery of his power.  He surgically removed only the memories of his incineration of Lilith from the diner’s occupants.  He didn’t wipe all their memories, nor turn their brains into mush and neither did he extend his command beyond the diner’s occupants.  Whether he could do the same thing that Jack, his nephew, did last year is unclear.  Then, the soulless Jack was fueled by the grace of Apocalypse World Michael, but it’s unclear if the eldest archangel’s doppelgänger was more powerful than Jack’s uncle Michael.  The big difference to-date between Jack and his uncle Michael is that the eldest archangel is wiser and more experienced about how to use his supernatural power efficiently.  His power surge was only detected by Donatello.  We can presume that God-Chuck felt it too.  At the very least, he stayed in tune with the prophet.  However, human monster hunters and other monsters were less likely to detect Michael’s power surge, and by not leaving collateral damage Michael and Adam could continue to roam the Earth without much worry of being pursued.

While Michael has evolved in his attitude towards humans, he demonstrated in this scene that he is not going to trust anyone claiming to be sent from his father unless they have some credentials to prove it.  The scene between Michael and Lilith also serves as a prelude to what will happen when he meets with the Winchesters and Castiel.  Michael displayed trust issues.  Lilith tried to leverage their past alliance and only offered circumstantial evidence about her relationship with God.  Considering he doesn't have Heaven's protection; Michael would naturally be wary of anyone seeking him out especially those he detests or doesn't trust.  He is powerful but also alone and vulnerable, so he chooses discretion until he feels cornered or pinned down.  Then he lashes out lethally, as Lilith experienced.

The scene with Lilith also makes us question why God did not foresee Michael smiting Lilith?  Is it the result of his wound?  Or did he just assume that Michael would follow Lilith because the archangel prided himself on his steadfast loyalty to God and had been obsessed with God's return in the past.  And why did God need Lilith anyway?  He had freed Michael, his loyal son from the cage, so why not summon him directly for his assistance instead of resurrecting a powerful demon, who was in the Empty?  The answers to these questions are unknown at this time.]

Scene – Winchesters’ Bunker, Lebanon, KS:

Back in bunker, Dean’s phone rings.  He picks it up and answers it.  “Yo, Donnie.”

Still in his kitchen, the prophet is on the phone telling Dean, "I know where he is." 

Dean replies, “Really?”

“I think he’s at…Wow!  There,” Donatello exclaims pointing forward in the air.  “No, there,” he points at another spot in the air.  The prophet can see the archangel flying all over the world and tries to point out each spot.

Dean hears Donatello and it sounds like the prophet has gone a bit crazy.  “Damn it, Donnie,” says Dean.

“He’s hurtling all over, Dean,” explains Donatello.  “There!”  He points in the air one last time.  “Alright, he’s stopped.  He seems to be staying put.”

Dean asks, “Okay, where?”

The prophet responds, “Cairo, Egypt.”  [Dean’s Chevy Impala won’t make it there any time soon.]  “Excuse me.  I need Bourbon,” and an exhausted Donatello hangs up.

In the bunker, Dean informs Castiel, who was standing a few feet behind him, about what Donatello told him, “Alright, well, good news is we know where he is; bad news is that we can’t get to him in time.  Not before he moves again.”

Castiel suggests, "Then we bring him to us."

[We can assume that Michael’s flying all over the globe was him frantically searching for his father or for information that he could trust that would lead him to his father.  Assuming that he doesn’t find the information he is seeking or God-Chuck doesn’t make direct contact with him, this scene shows a point of leverage that the Winchesters can use to attract and persuade Michael to their side – information about what has transpired since he’d been caged and also information about his father.  But will he trust any information they give him?]

Scene – Winchesters’ Bunker, Lebanon, KS, alcove with chess set above main room:

In an alcove in the bunker above the main room, Castiel sits next to a table upon which sets a classic chess set, except that the pieces are brown and white, not black and white.

[A long time ago, this bunker had been called by Peter Jenkins, a Man of Letters agent who was charged with powering up this bunker, “the epicenter of the ultimate chess match between good and evil.”  The chess set is also an apt metaphor for the Winchester's battle with God-Chuck at this point in time.  Michael the Archangel is a powerful supernatural being who could aide either side immensely.  Either capturing or removing him from the "board" would be an asset for either God-Chuck or the Winchesters, but if the Winchesters could make an ally of him, that would help their side more.  God-Chuck already made a play for Michael using Lilith and it failed, so now it's the Winchesters' turn.]

Castiel begins his prayer.

"Michael.  Michael.

This is Castiel.  We didn't know each other very well and our last meeting was unpleasant.

But I know you've been through a terrible ordeal for many years.  You've been beyond the reach of Heaven.  Been beyond the reach of Earth.

Much as changed with both. Heaven is not what it was and your father, your father certainly is not who you knew.

Michael, there is a battle raging, and you are a warrior, but you must know the nature of this fight.

I'm not your enemy anymore.  Now, we all have the same enemy, God himself."

At the conclusion of his prayer, there is a brief pause. Then Castiel's eyes flash blue. Apparently, Michael agrees to meet him.

[Castiel's prayer is well crafted to not offend the archangel but entice him to come to him for information.  He admitted to Michael that he did not know the archangel well and that their last meeting was unpleasant.  One thing that Castiel has mastered during his adventures with the Winchesters is the art of the understatement.  The unpleasant meeting Castiel was referring to was 10 years ago at Stull Cemetery, the ground zero site of Michael's and Lucifer's Apocalyptical battle.  At that place and time Castiel called Michael an epitaph and set him ablaze with holy fire so that Dean could have five minutes alone to talk to Sam, who was possessed by Lucifer, and to try to help his brother break free of Lucifer's control over his body so that they could use the Four Horsemen's rings to seal Lucifer with Sam back in the cage.

Castiel’s prayer succeeded in getting the archangel’s attention, but would a meeting between the seraph, who firebombed Michael ten years ago, end up as an unpleasant surprise for Castiel?  Will Michael put aside any grudge that he may have had against the seraph in order to listen to what Castiel has to say about the nature of the upcoming fight?]

Scene – an abandoned industrial type building

The meeting between Castiel and Michael takes place at an abandoned industrial building.  The seraph looks around apprehensively and in a soft tone of voice calls out Michael's name.  Right now, Castiel is live bait and is unsure of what the archangel’s first move would be.  The Winchesters were nowhere to be seen, so Castiel was going to have to initially absorb whatever his first encounter with Michael in ten years was going to be.

Behind him, Castiel hears the whoosh of angel wings.  He turns around.  Michael appears standing opposite from Castiel and stares at the seraph venomously.  At this point, the sarcastic question of Belphegor from S15ep01 to Dean about the archangel comes to mind, "[Michael] wouldn't hold a grudge, right?"

Castiel says softly, “Thank you for coming.”

Michael remains silent and continues to stare venomously at the seraph.

Cautiously, Castiel asks, “Do you remember me?”  The seraph is extremely vulnerable at this point if the archangel decides to execute him.

Michael answers, "You called me ass-butt and set me on fire!" He pauses, "Then you helped send me to Hell."  Belphegor's sarcastic warning to Dean about Michael rings true.

Castiel unapologetically acknowledges his past actions, “I did.”

With a sardonic attitude, Michael continues, "And now what?  You've come to tell me that God, my father and creator of all things, is my enemy!  Or maybe you just come to beg for forgiveness?"

Castiel regains his composure and says, "Oh, I didn't come to beg."  The seraph then ignites a lighter and tosses it onto the ground near Michael.  A ring of fire quickly encircles the archangel.  Michael is stunned.  He is trapped by a ring of flaming holy oil.

Before Michael can respond, Sam and Dean Winchester march out from their hiding place and approach Michael.  Dean pulls out a pair of magic handcuffs.  The only way Michael is leaving this place is with them and wearing those handcuffs.

Michael turns to Castiel and growls, "Castiel, what have you done?"

[Unlike Lilith, Castiel and the Winchesters prepared to contain Michael's supernatural powers with the flaming ring of holy fire and the magic handcuffs.  This way they could safely force the archangel to accompany them whether he wanted to or not.  Capture complete.  To paraphrase Rowena, "They took him!"  Point for team Winchester.]

Scene – Winchesters’ Bunker, Lebanon, KS, the study with the Winchesters, Castiel, Adam/Michael:

Back at the bunker, Michael is shown wearing the magic handcuffs, but unlike Apocalypse World Michael in the previous season, he was not chained to a pillar.  Either that was done out of difference to Adam, or they had an agreement with Michael that he would not leave the bunker without their permission, or they had the room, which appears to be a study, warded to keep the archangel from leaving the room.  The handcuffs may have prevented Michael from flying away but he could still walk freely.

Despite having Michael in magic handcuffs, Castiel and the Winchesters positioned themselves opposite of Michael with a large wooden table separating them.  Even handcuffed, they respected the archangel's power.

“This is stupid. Especially for you, this is stupid,” said an incredulous Michael to his captors.  [In Season 05 episode 22 titled “Swan Song,” Lucifer, who was possessing Sam at the time, called Dean’s interruption of the archangel’s battle of the Apocalypse “a whole new mountain of stupid.”]

Even though he was handcuffed, Michael stood and walked with the dignified bearing of someone used to being in command of the situation.

The trio opposite from Michael seemed unsure of what to do.  They appeared not to have a plan or at least not have a lead negotiator to deal directly with the archangel.  [They would remind an outside observer of a pack of dogs who caught the car but didn’t know what to do with it.  At the very least, the Winchesters’ negotiation strategy appeared to be an incoherent attempt to gang tackle Michael.]

[We also don't know the parameters of the negotiations that the Winchesters made with Michael, especially what is the end game for Michael.  If negotiations failed, would Team Winchester still free Michael or keep him imprisoned in the bunker?  If the latter was the case, could they ever trust any information Michael gave them about God’s secret?]

Dean responds to Michael by sarcastically greeting the archangel, "It's good to see you too, Mike."  [Dean's hostile attitude indicates that he intended that greeting as an insult to the archangel.  A part of Dean was still at war with the archangel.  Ten years ago, he called Michael a buttercup, but this time he stopped short of using any explicit derogatory epitaphs.  They needed Michael to cooperate with them, but Dean still didn’t like the archangel.  The older Winchester’s hostility towards Michael stems not only from ten years ago when he failed to rescue Adam but also the recent memory of being possessed by Apocalypse World Michael the season before.]

Michael holds his composure but seems confused by Dean's retort.  [In Season 5 episode 1 “Sympathy For The Devil,” Bobby Singer, when possessed by one of Meg’s demons, told them that Michael was the “toughest son-of-a-bitch” Heaven had and he ‘wouldn’t want to meet him in a dark alley.”  That could make Michael Heaven's version of a Navy SEAL or Special Forces soldier.  These cream of the crop of human warriors are psychologically tough and trained to never lose their composure, especially against bullying, insults, and hostile verbal attacks.  Michael appears to have this stoic composure.]

The archangel stares at Dean and sensing that he would get nowhere with him, he turns and addresses the youngest Winchester, who is staring down at the table “Sam, you look well.“  Sam raises his head and looks at Michael, who continues, “Last time I saw you in the cage.”

It's assumed that Michael along with Lucifer had tortured Sam when all 3 were in the cage together, but it's unclear if that was true.  At the very least Michael did not stop Lucifer from torturing Sam or give Sam any solace.  Whatever the reason, Sam cuts off further discussion of that terrible memory.  "It doesn't matter.  We need your help.  God."

[The problem with Sam’s response was that it gave leverage back to Michael.  Up to this point they had leverage over Michael.  They promised the archangel information about the “nature of this fight.”  That’s the reason why he answered Castiel’s prayer and didn’t capture or kill the seraph at the rendezvous point.  Because of his interaction with Lilith, Michael was hungry for information, specifically information he could trust, about his father.  Sam’s response was kind of a “Hail Mary” plea for help.  It signaled to Michael a weakness on their part.  This wasn’t just an information sharing meeting; they wanted something from him.  This would make Michael more wary about dealing with the Winchesters.]

Michael cuts him off, "I've heard, repeatedly," and slowly sits down in a chair.

Castiel interjects, "Then you are aware..."

Sitting in the chair with the confidence of a prince or vice-roy granting an audience to his subjects, Michael interrupts the seraph, "I'm not aware of anything.  You are asking me to trust you.  You,“ he looks at Castiel, “who doomed me.”  “You,“ he looks at the Winchesters, “who let Lucifer walk free while your own brother sat in Hell."

[In one sentence, Michael delivers a damning indictment of the Winchesters’ hypocrisy about their belief in family.  The Winchesters’ day of reckoning about the abandonment of their half-brother, Adam, is at hand.  Sam and Dean claim that Michael is blinded by his unquestioning loyalty to his father, but Sam and Dean are also blind to their own hypocrisy and inconsistencies about their belief in the importance of family.  Their abandonment of Adam is damaging evidence of this flaw in the Winchesters’ code.  While Death was one powerful supernatural being capable of rescuing Adam, he wasn’t the only one.]

Sam steps towards Michael and says, “Doing what we do, we’ve had to get used to losing people.  Probably, too used to it.  With Adam, we said goodbye because we thought we had to.  We were wrong.”

[In translation, Sam’s excuse as to why they abandoned searching for ways to free Adam from Hell, like he would do for Dean and vice-versa, was because Adam wasn’t us.  It was a pretty lame excuse but an honest one.  The only good thing said by Sam was admitting that they were wrong to abandon Adam.]

[At this point the archangel has successfully taken control of the meeting as he put the Winchesters on the defensive.  Point for Michael.]

Feeling confident and wanting to drive the knife of guilt deeper into their psyches, Michael tells Sam, "Oh, don't tell me.  Tell him."  After puzzled looks from both Sam and Dean, Michael's eyes flash blue as he exchanges places with Adam.

Adam greets Sam & Dean, “Hey Sam.  Dean.”

Sam replies, “Adam?”

Adam raises his handcuffed hands a bit, smiles and makes a gesture to indicated that he is in control of his body, “Ah!”

A surprised Dean asks Adam, "Michael, Michael lets you talk?  He lets you be?"

Adam acknowledges the obvious, “Ah, yeah.  In the cage we came to an agreement.  We only had each other.”

Sam and Dean look at each other with surprise about their half brother.

Dean walks up to Adam, who remains sitting in the chair.  "Adam, look.  I know we bailed on you.  Okay and there is nothing we can say to fix that.”

Adam interrupts Dean, "How about 'I'm sorry’?"

Dean is taken aback by Adam’s request.  [In Season 11 episode 22 titled “We Happy Few” Dean had bragged to Lucifer and God-Chuck, who at that time were trying to reconcile so that they could be unified when battling their common enemy at the time, Amara, the Darkness,  “…the great thing about apologies is that you don’t have to mean them.  I lie and tell Sam I’m sorry all the time.”]

Before Dean can respond, Adam’s eyes flash blue and Michael retakes control of Adam's body.  "Enough!"  [The archangel did not want to lose the leverage he had gained in the meeting nor lose momentum in his bid to satisfy his grudge against the Winchesters and Castiel.]

Then Michael asks the trio, "Why am I here?"  Dean realizing that he was a bit too close to the archangel, retreated to his position behind the table.

Castiel says, “Michael.”  The archangel switches his attention from Dean to the seraph. “We needed to speak with you because God is back.  You didn’t think the cage just open on its own, did you?”

In a condescending attitude, Michael responds with his age’s old belief, “If my father is back, he will usher in Paradise.”

Dean strikes back, “No, he won’t.  Because Paradise is boring, and your dad, he is just looking to be entertained.”

Michael switches his gaze from Castiel to Dean.  Anger and contempt etched in his face.

“Which means we are his puppets, all of us, especially you,” said Dean driving every word like a dagger into Michael’s ego.

Michael rockets out of the chair.  Dean and Sam are a bit startled but hold their ground.  “I won’t hear of this.  You’re lying,“ he says scanning the trios’ faces.  Starting with Castiel, Michael points his finger and accuses them, “I don’t know what your agenda is, but you are lying!”  He ends facing Dean, who stares silently back at the archangel.

[Here is another indication of Michael’s evolution and Adam’s influence in it.  Unlike in the finale episode of Season 05 titled “Swan Song”, the archangel refrains from calling Dean a “little maggot,” one of the favorite epitaphs angels used to demean humans.]

“Michael,” calls Castiel.

The archangel turns toward the seraph.  With his eyes flashing blue, Michael storms out of the negotiations leaving Adam to deal with them.

Adam advises the Winchester’s and Castiel, “I’d give it a rest.  He’s not listening.”

[The most obvious conclusion an observer can draw from this scene is that the Winchesters and Castiel put on a clinic about how not to negotiate and Michael showed how, even when handcuffed, one can take control of a meeting from one’s opponents.  Over the years, especially the last two seasons, the Winchesters fell into a bad habit of bullying or badgering their friends, like Rowena and Donatello.  This habit blinded them to the fact that their friends, while not happy with their rude behavior, trusted them when they called for their help.  Michael saw no reason to trust them and his warrior personality was resistant to bullying.

The end of this scene leans more towards a loss for the Winchesters than a score for Michael.  Michael storming out of these negotiations and leaving Adam to deal with them is a tiny bit similar to Lucifer throwing a strategic temper tantrum at God-Chuck in Season 11 episode 22 “We Happy Few” when the fallen archangel locked himself in Castiel’s room and blared rock music as loud as he could from it until his father agreed to apologize to him.  Michael’s explosive exit was just as tactical in that the Winchesters were browbeating him about his father with no solid evidence to support their accusations.  Why should he stay and endure the verbal abuse?  By swapping places with Adam, he showed the Winchesters that they were not in charge.  With Michael not willing to listen to them at this point, negotiations with the eldest archangel are on the precipice of failure, thus the Winchesters’ goal of getting God’s secret from Michael is in dire jeopardy.

It’s also obvious in this scene’s last exchange that Michael has been out of the information loop about current events.  To paraphrase Belphegor, it sounds like Hell’s newspapers didn’t reach the cage.  Since the cage was near the bottom of Hell, Michael may not have heard the billions of demons and souls fleeing the Pit after every door was flung open.  Neither are we sure if he noticed the sparse population of demons and spirits as he ascended out of Hell.

The eldest archangel assumes that the Winchesters and Castiel have offended his father, like Lucifer did when he rebelled eons ago, and sees no reason to help them.

As we say in his exchange with Lilith, Michael has trust issues, justifiably so.  He is by his own inherent nature a powerful supernatural being than can help tilt a battle or war towards one side or the other.  For the Winchesters, it was a good thing the archangel has trust issues, else Michael would have gone off with Lilith and they would have had no hope of ever getting God’s secret.  It is also a bad thing because of their turbulent histories with Michael and Adam.  Relying upon the Winchesters’ reputation wasn’t going to work with Michael, like it does with their allies Rowena and Donatello.

All negotiations are about building trust.  Without trust you can’t make agreements.  This point seems lost on the Winchesters and Castiel with Michael.  They had the correct information about God-Chuck, but having it is useless unless the other side trusts you or you have solid evidence to back up your accusations.  Sam and Eileen made an agreement earlier because they trusted each other and apparently Adam and Michael grew to trust each other over the years imprisoned in the cage to forge a partnership.  Lilith failed to win over Michael because he didn’t trust her, and she had no credentials from God-Chuck to prove her claim to the archangel that his father had sent her.

The Winchesters also started their negotiations from the bad assumption that Michael wanted revenge against his father for keeping him locked up for ten Earth years.  Even if Michael had an unspoken grudge against his father, they should have also acknowledged to themselves that he would have also had a grudge against them.  They put him and Adam in the cage.

In addition to the bad assumption, Dean’s hostile attitude towards Michael was a toxin to building trust.  It was as if the eldest Winchester was still at war with the archangel.  He wasn’t.  His team needed Michael’s willing cooperation.  That required a different negotiation strategy than bullying and badgering.  Dean missed a major opportunity here to build trust with Michael.  Ten years ago, the archangel Gabriel pointed out to the eldest Winchester brother that he and Michael shared a steadfast loyalty towards their respective absent fathers.  If Dean had not been pent up with rage, he could have leveraged his empathy about his loyalty to his father to improve their chances of building trust with Michael and eventually the archangel’s cooperation, but to paraphrase Donatello, nothing they do is ever easy.

What Dean’s hostility would accomplish is at the very least send subliminal messages to Michael that these negotiations were untrustworthy, thus Dean’s hostile antagonism was sabotaging their team’s goal of getting God’s secret from Michael.  Dean’s innate habit of sabotaging his team’s negotiating goals is not knew.  He did it, in a less hostile manner, in Season 11 episode 22 titled “We Happy Few,” when he and Sam were playing Dr. Phil to God-Chuck and Lucifer.  The fallen archangel had demanded an apology from his father before he would assist with battling the Darkness.  Dean tried to coax God-Chuck to apologize because apologies are just mere words that don’t have to mean anything.  That didn’t sit well with either Lucifer or God-Chuck, who then teleported the Winchesters to another side of the bunker so that he could privately address Lucifer.

With negotiations stalled, at the very least, can the talks with Michael resume?  If so, what will it cost?]

Scene – Winchesters’ Bunker, Lebanon, KS, the study, just Adam and Michael:

In the bunker’s study, it is just Adam and Michael.  Adam walking from left to right is wearing the magic handcuffs; whereas, Michael, who is leaning against a cabinet, has his hands stuffed in his jacket’s pockets.  Adam says to Michael, “So I’ve been thinking.  Maybe they are not lying.”

[It appears that part of Adam’s and Michael’s agreement is that Adam can eavesdrop on conversations Michael has even when the archangel is dominant.  This scene shows that Adam had been listening in on Michael’s confrontation with the Winchesters.]

Michael groans in disbelief that Adam is starting to take sides with his half-brothers.  He stands straight and shadows Adam’s movements for a bit as the human approaches the chair next to the table and sits in it.  The archangel slides his hands out of the jacket’s pockets revealing that unlike Adam’s, his hands are unbound by handcuffs.  [Does this mean that the magic handcuffs may not be working fully?]

Adam continues addressing Michael, “Hear me out. Sam and Dean try to be on the right side of things.  They really do.  They tried to talk me out of taking you on, for example, out of all of this.”  Adam ends the sentence with a note of sadness and a feeling of deja vu.  [Ten years ago, he, like Michael now, did not trust and adamantly refused to believe Sam and Dean about the angels and the Apocalypse.  Was history, in a way, repeating itself?]

“So you forgive them?” Michael says disappointed.  [Was Adam betraying him?]

“Oh, Hell no!  No!“ Adam snaps back. Then the young man sets about to convince Michael to at least consider what the Winchesters are telling him about God.  “But that is not what this is about.  It’s…. Look, if they tell you something is off with God, it’s because they believe it’s true, and if they believe it, it’s probably true.”

[The fact that Adam can only say that the Winchesters argument about God was “probably true” just shows how weak their argument was to Michael.  Even Adam couldn’t muster a “certainly true” about the Winchesters claims about God.  All the young man could do was leverage his past experiences with his half-brothers.

The main problem the Winchesters had was that they lacked any solid evidence to support their accusations against God-Chuck to Michael.  From the archangel’s viewpoint, it was a “he said/God said” argument.  If they still had the Equalizer or pictures of it so that Michael could read the runes, they may have increased their chances of persuading Michael to help them.  Like Lilith, they only had circumstantial evidence to support their claims about God.

In addition, it appears that they did not mention their encounter with the resurrected Lilith.  Maybe, if they had mentioned their encounter with the powerful demon, they may have had a chance of building a cornerstone of trust with the archangel because their encounters with the resurrected Lilith is where they cross with Michael’s experiences with her.  She told both parties that God had sent her to them.  This would have troubled Michael because he would have had to ponder why his father just didn’t summon him after the cage opened, or at the very least it would have given Adam a major bit of evidence to undermine the pillar of the archangel’s unquestioning devotion to his father.]

Michael sighs and appears to grapple with Adam’s argument.  With the attitude of an older brother giving wisdom to a younger one, Michael counters, “You and I have been together for years.  My father and I have been together for eternity.  I exist because he willed it!”

[Fathers, parents are cornerstones of a child’s self-identity.  Most children, including abused ones, will rarely betray their parents, even if they have disagreements with them, and asking them to betray their parents without solid evidence to support the accusations is primarily going to fail.  To Michael, the Winchester’s were untrustworthy, and since his father wasn’t around to offer his side of the disagreement, Michael was going to give his father the benefit of any doubt he had, just like Dean used to do when Sam questioned their absent father’s actions and decisions.

Fifteen years ago, when Sam challenged their father’s actions and absence, Dean would instinctually defend him from Sam. [See Season 01 episodes 20-22 and Season 02 episode 01]. Last season, Sam and Dean enjoyed the validation from their father when he told them that he was proud of them [Season 14 episode 13].  Why wouldn’t Michael long for the same kind of validation and reconciliation from his father?  With Dean’s and Sam’s help in Season 11 episode 22, Lucifer actually got an apology from God-Chuck.  If Dean had been less belligerent towards Michael at the beginning of their negotiations and more empathetic, he may have been able to build a bridge of trust with the archangel, whose brother Gabriel had pointed out to Dean ten seasons ago that the two had much in common about how they viewed their respective absentee fathers.]

Frustrated by Michael’s counter argument, Adam tries a different line of reasoning, “So he’s having a mid-eternity crisis.  Or! Or maybe you don’t know your dad as well as you think you do.”

[Adam, on the other hand, had a very threadbare relationship with his father, John Winchester, who was also Sam and Dean’s father.  John only visited Adam once a year starting when he was twelve years old.  His visits were positive moments for Adam, but they were so infrequent that they were more like a dream or a wish that quickly faded from his memories.]

Michael starts to get angry and tries to control it because he respects Adam but the young man is questioning his absolute faith in his father.  The archangel climbs stairs to an alcove in the study feeling the need to separate himself from Adam, and being under attack, he feels the warrior’s instinct to take the high ground.

Undeterred by Michael’s rising anger, Adam continues to press the archangel, “The point is, parents keep secrets.  Right? Does it hurt to ask the question?”

[John Winchester had kept the family business of monster hunting a secret from Adam, including the case that brought him to his mother’s town.  That secret led to Adam being eaten alive by the children of the ghoul his father had slain.  Those ghouls also murdered his mother.  He never forgot this nightmare even after he was resurrected by Heaven in Season 05 episode 18 titled “Point of No Return.”  That traumatic event dominated his perception about his father more than the positive moments he shared with him, and it morphed into the cornerstone of his anger towards his father and was the root of his distrust about the Winchesters.  He emphasized to Sam and Dean back then that his mother, not their father, was who he considered his family.  Unfortunately for Adam back then, his anger and distrust of the Winchesters blinded him to the real agenda that Michael and the angels had for him specifically.  Originally, the angels told him that he would be Michael’s vessel and would help defeat the devil in the upcoming Apocalypse, but in actuality they were using him as bait to lure his half-brother Dean, Michael’s true vessel, into a trap to force the eldest Winchester brother to consent to being Michael’s vessel.  Dean’s last second rejection of being possessed by Michael led to a hurried exit as Michael descended from Heaven, but before Adam could escape, Michael still in his angelic form, telepathically slammed the door shut on the only exit out of the Green Room.  Under the pressure of a deadline to his battle with Lucifer, Michael refused to let Adam leave and barred Dean, who had escaped, from opening the door by making the door handle too hot to touch.  Michael could not lead Heaven’s army on Earth without a human vessel.  Adam started out as bait for a trap but ended up becoming Michael’s backup vessel in preparation for the Apocalypse and his battle against Lucifer.]

“Yes!” Michael shouted back angrily.  He grabs the alcove’s railing and leans down towards the young man.

Adam realizes that Michael’s unquestioning faith in his father is a roadblock to negotiations with the Winchesters and an obstacle for Michael to at least consider that there is a problem with his father, a problem that could be lethal to both of them.

Michael continues to explain his reason, “It would.  It would mean that I doubt him. The good son, the favorite doubts his father.”

Adam, vexed by the archangel’s steadfast devotion to his father, again challenges Michael’s excuse, “You still care about that after he left you in the cage?”

Michael releases his hold on the railing and stands straight up still visibly angry but he has no answer to Adam’s last question.

[From this exchange, we can see that even though Michael and Adam forged a close friendship and partnership during their long incarceration in Hell, they were light years apart in how they viewed their respective fathers.  Michael’s attitude about his father is almost identical to Dean Winchester’s about his and Adam’s father, John Winchester.

We can also see that Dean’s earlier assumption about Michael was not only wrong, it was the worse one that they could have chosen as the basis of their negotiation with the eldest archangel.  For Michael being the favorite son is central to his self-identity.  With only circumstantial evidence, asking him to betray his father is asking him to voluntary undergo an identity crisis.  No one will do that.  And most kids, including abused children, will rarely betray their parents unless strong evidence and protection is provided.  Another point to make is if God-Chuck could easily smite Jack, who was more powerful than Michael, then God-Chuck could do the same to Michael.  Why should the archangel risk his life and Adam’s by betraying his father with at best circumstantial evidence?

We can only surmise that the title “favorite son,” which was once held by Lucifer was coveted by all the archangels, at least by Michael and Lucifer.  The latter lost that title when he rebelled.  By staying loyal to his father and caging Lucifer in Hell per his father’s orders, the title passed to Michael.  It’s not a title that Michael would give-up easily or voluntarily and only based upon circumstantial evidence.  Michael needed solid evidence before making a seismic change in his identity and rebelling against and betraying his father.

In modern times, parents playing favorites with their children is a form of child abuse as it creates disorder within the family and sows seeds of jealousy among the siblings.  In ancient times, because children often died young, parents, especially of the poor and working poor, designated a favorite child, usually a son, as an evolutionary and socio-economic strategy to continue the family legacy.  This child would get the best out of the family’s limited resources so that the odds of that child reaching adulthood were increased and thus increasing the odds of continuing the family legacy.  Even wealthy families did the same by nominating one of their children as the heir to the family fortune.

Angels were immortal, so God-Chuck playing favorites was a form of child abuse.  What is unclear is if he was doing it maliciously or out of inexperience and/or immaturity as a parent.  His sister, Amara, called God-Chuck narcissistic and petulant.  Those character traits are the indicators of immaturity but also of sociopathic and psychopathic behavior.

Of course, like with some human children and pets, Lucifer could have wormed his way into his father’s vanity and that is how he became the first favorite son.  Per myth, Lucifer is a seducer and seducers develop empathy with their targets so that they can exploit it in order to get into their target’s good graces and manipulate them to their desires.  Amara dismissed Chuck as narcissistic and petulant.  Lucifer, unlike his aunt, could have intentionally sucked up to his father’s ego to get preferential treatment and attention.

This theory has credibility in light of how Lucifer, Jack’s father by birth, tried to seduce his nephilim son in Season 13 episode 23 title “Let the Good Times Roll.”  In that episode, Lucifer tried to seduce Jack with the allure of a father-son bond.  They were both powerful supernatural beings who had killed humans.

“Humans are limited and fragile…no matter how much you try to do right around them, something always goes wrong” said the devil.

Jack agreed.

“…It’s not their fault or ours.  It’s just us and humans.  We are like oil and water, sardines and strawberries…,” concluded Lucifer.

After convincing Jack to see things his way, the devil tried to coax Jack to leave Earth and explore the Universe, even offering to create a wookie for him.  Jack found the temptation appealing and agreed to go with his supernatural father if Lucifer first resurrected his human friend Maggie.  It’s unclear if Jack was explicitly testing Lucifer’s honesty or he just didn’t know how to resurrect humans, but the request became a kind of defacto test of trust between Jack and Lucifer.  The fallen archangel agreed to resurrect Jack’s friend and it set off a chain of events that led to Jack learning that Lucifer is the one who had murdered Maggie to begin with.  Jack rejected Lucifer and that led the fallen archangel to steal Jack’s power, the nephilim’s grace, so he could do what he had been planning to do with Jack all along, recreate the universe in his, the devil’s, image.

Michael and the other archangels were not of the same temperament as Lucifer, so they did not seek to exploit their father’s vanity.  Michael believed that unquestioning obedience and loyalty was how he won his father’s support, which he believes the title “favorite” designated.  Until the archangel gets hard evidence otherwise, he was going to give his father the benefit of the doubt, just like Dean had done in the past with his father against Sam’s criticisms of their patriarch’s actions and decisions.

This scene points more to a loss for the Winchesters than a gain for Michael.]

Scene – Winchesters’ Bunker, Lebanon, KS, the library with Eileen alone:

The next scene shows Eileen in the bunker’s library doing research.  She gets a video call on her laptop from an old friend, Sue Barrish, who claims to be tracking a vampire nest.

“The vamps have stopped moving outside Omaha,” reported Sue.  “They will start setting up a nest.  We need to move on them before they get their defenses in place.  Can you help?”

Eileen absorbs what her friend reported and hesitates to volunteer.  “I.”  She looks away from her laptop and is unsure of what to do and say.

Sue scolds her, “What?  Do you have to ask for permission?”

This question causes Eileen to change her mind. 

“Send me the directions,” requested Eileen.

Sue Barrish looks downwards as if she is doing something with her hands or fingers.  “I just texted them to you,” she tells Eileen.

Eileen’s phone makes a vibrating noise. She picks up her phone and looks at the screen.

Then her friend appears to be under attack.  Sue exclaims with surprise in her face, “Son of a bitch!”  The video conference ends abruptly.

Eileen goes to Sam’s bedroom, and knocks on the door.  Sam opens the door.  Per their agreement, she informs Sam about the urgency of her friend’s plight before heading out to help.  “I was talking to a friend.  She’s working a vamp case.  She’s in trouble!”

Sam replies, “Okay.  Let’s go!” And he makes the sign language equivalent of his last sentence.

Sam grabs his coat and the two leave the bunker together.

[In this scene, we get to see Eileen’s and Sam’s agreement in action.  Before heading out of the bunker to aide her friend, she informs Sam, who joins her.  What this does is now separate Sam and Eileen form Dean and Castiel.  Will this pose a problem with getting God’s secret from Michael or pose another problem in the future?]

Scene – Winchesters’ Bunker, Lebanon, KS, the study with Castiel and Michael only:

Castiel opens the door to the study and gently calls out, "Adam?"

Adam’s head was looking downwards as if in contemplation.

As his head looks upward at the seraph, a sardonic grin crosses his face and Michael’s voice responds, "Not this time."

It was Michael, not Adam, that had been looking downwards contemplating what had transpired during the negotiations and his discourse with Adam.  [It’s unclear at this time if Michael was considering trusting what the Winchesters and Castiel had told him about his father or not.]

The archangel smugly continued, "I'll spare you the effort.  I won't betray my father and everything I believe in.”  [With that statement, negotiations have collapsed.  Castiel’s fear earlier in the episode comes true, “…even if we could get to him [Michael] wouldn’t tell us.”  This is a major defeat for the Winchesters and Castiel. and a major setback in their war against God-Chuck.]

[Michael appears to have interpreted his confrontation with the Winchester’s and Castiel as a test of his faith and loyalty to his father, God, with Adam representing his self-doubt.  He feels vindicated, like he passed the test.  Like the Winchester’s earlier in the episode who made a bad assumption about Michael, so Michael makes a bad assumption about his father.  Like most zealots, he has constructed a false idol of God in his mind.  He takes pride in his steadfast loyalty to his father because he believes that is what his father wants of him.]

"Why not?  He betrayed you," Castiel parries Michael’s blind belief in his father.

Michael does not respond but eyes the seraph.  He’s a tad curious and puzzled by Castiel’s new line of attack.

With Michael terminating the negotiations and without helping them, the seraph’s frustration and anger rise.  They had no plan if Castiel's assumption came true so the seraph was going to "wing it."

[Unlike his prayer earlier, Castiel wanted to hurt Michael by attacking the obstinate archangel's ego and pride.  The same targets Dean attacked earlier.  Castiel's seething animosity towards God-Chuck led him to intensely attack any figure that reminded him of God-Chuck, whether it be the demon Belphegor, who possessed Jack's corpse because God had murdered the nephilim, his surrogate son, and flung open every door in Hell releasing the Winchesters’ and Castiel’s old enemies, or the Jinn, who masqueraded as a local police officer, and used his position of authority to murder with impunity unwary humans, and finally the epitome of God's loyal son and servant, Michael the Archangel.

With the negotiations collapsed, what did Castiel have to lose with a direct attack on the archangel’s ego?  Michael was handcuffed.  What could go wrong?]

As the seraph entered the room, he says, "You know Michael, I never really liked you.  Even when I was just another angel, I thought you were too haughty.  To paraphrase a friend, you had an entire oak tree shoved up your ass"  The seraph slowly paced parallel to the table.  [Castiel’s innate knack for getting the metaphor wrong continues.]  The seraph stopped and stood facing opposite the archangel keeping the table between them.

Michael continued to sit and remained silent. The archangel maintained his stoic composure but with a touch of anger in his face.  [He probably faced worse insults from Lucifer in the past.]

[Like Castiel, Michael also had a seething animosity, but it was directed towards the seraph. For ten years he had been nursing a grudge against the rebellious angel for not only setting him on fire, which was painful, but also helping the Winchesters thwart his plans for the Apocalypse, which he believed would bring God back, and helping put Michael in a position to be pulled into the cage in Hell by Sam.

A titanic clash between the angels, seraph vs archangel, was inevitable.]

“Now, looking at you,” continues Castiel. “I just pity you because you were never God’s favorite.”  Instead of belligerence, like Dean, the seraph chose to mock the archangel’s ego.

Michael glares back at the seraph but maintains his composure and silence.

“You were just a little part of his story, a tiny part of his story.  You weren’t even a star,” derided Castiel.  Then the seraph changes direction and starts walking towards the archangel.

Michael detects the change in Castiel’s direction.

The seraph continues, “At least Lucifer knew that God can’t be trusted.”

Like a stealth predator, Michael continued to hold his composure under the verbal assault.  Rowena didn’t have to tell him what Napoleon Bonaparte once said, "Never interrupt your opponent when he is making a mistake."

“Well, I guess he was always the smart one,” taunted Castiel as he leaned down on the table staring Michael in the eyes.  Then he smirked at the archangel.

[Castiel got a bit cocky reprimanding Michael for being arrogant.  When you poke the tiger, you shouldn’t put yourself where his paws can reach you.  His taunting and positioning himself within reach of Michael would be the dumbest and most careless acts the seraph has made in a long time.  Castiel should have also remembered Lucifer’s warning to him from a decade ago [S05ep10 "Abandon All Hope"], "Almost all of Heaven wants to see me dead and if they succeed, guess what?  You [Castiel] are their new public enemy #1."  Michael ruled Heaven back then and would have made that designation.]

Michael met Castiel’s gaze, until the temptation to satisfy his grudge against the former traitorous angel was too much. With a burst of speed and ferocity that surprised the seraph, the archangel grabbed Castiel’s coat and shirt collars, slammed the seraph’s smirking face into the table before throwing him on the ground stunned.  Then he put Castiel in a chokehold.

Michael was still wearing the magic handcuffs, which prevented him from incinerating Castiel like he had done with Lilith, when he attacked the seraph, but unlike his doppelgänger last season who had been chained to a pillar, Michael was free to employ martial arts.  Another oversight by Castiel.  Hatred and anger etched the archangel’s face as he squeezed the seraph’s windpipe.

Realizing that he was in mortal danger, Castiel tried to break Michael’s grip but the archangel was too strong.  He couldn’t call out to Dean for help because of the chokehold.  Fortunately for the seraph, he was an experienced scrappy fighter.  Castiel saw an opportunity to salvage their goal with Michael and possibly save his life.  He noticed that he could reach Michael’s head with his hands.  With one hand he grabbed one side of Michael’s head.

“See the truth for yourself,” ordered Castiel as he grabbed the other side of his former commander’s head.  Then the seraph twisted both of his hands to trigger a mind meld where he forcibly shared his memories about his encounters with God-Chuck with the archangel.

Michael’s facial expression instantly changes to one where he is in shock, surprised by the seraph’s counter maneuver.  His eyes bulge as he tries to resist the mind meld, but he couldn’t break free.  He’s locked in a kind of deadly embrace.

The first memory was of God-Chuck and Castiel from the last episode of  season 14 in an office gone amuck because Jack had ordered everyone on Earth to tell the truth.  Chuck says, “I’m a writer and lying is kinda what we do.”

Michael’s face becomes beet red and contorted as he tries to resist the torrent of Castiel’s memories flooding his mind.

The next memory is God-Chuck saying, “Of all the Sams and Deans in all the multiverses, you are my favorite show.”  Images of hands typing flicker during the memory as God-Chuck speaks.

The third, fourth, and fifth memories flash quickly together.  The memory opens with Dean standing resolute pointing the Equalizer at someone off screen.  Jack’s voice is telling Dean, “You were right.”  The next image is of someone, God-Chuck, typing the prologue of the last episode of Season 5 title “Swan Song.”  The paragraphs described Dean’s Impala as the most important object.  The next image is of Jack kneeling, looking up and saying, “I am a monster.”  The next image is of God-Chuck luridly smiling at something off screen and Sam asking him, “You’re enjoying this?”  Then it shows hands typing on a keyboard with a glass of whiskey next to it.  Then it shifts back to God-Chuck and Sam with the former saying to Sam, “Shh,” so he can concentrate on the event unfolding before him.

The sixth memory depicts Amara, The Darkness, hoisting God-Chuck in the air with her supernatural power.  Swirls of darkness surround them and like arrows, penetrate God-Chuck’s body which omits beams of light.  God-Chuck says, “This is not how the story is supposed to end.”  Images of God-Chuck typing are interspersed between the images of him being attacked by Amara.  Dean replies offscreen, “Story? What are you saying?”  Sam replies, “He’s saying that he has been playing us, this whole time.”

Michael is still trying to resist but he also is captivated by what he is seeing.

The memory continues depicting Dean and Sam from the end of Season 14 when they confronted God-Chuck.  Sam continues addressing God-Chuck, “Everything, this is all you because you wrote it all!”  Image switches to God-Chuck who is silent but looks a bit unease while nodding his head in disagreement in the face of Sam’s accusations.  “Right?” continues Sam, “Because we’re your favorite show?” Image switches back to God-Chuck from Season 5 typing a story on his typewriter.  Sam carries on, “Because we’re a part of your story?”

The seventh image starts with Apocalypse World Michael exiting the gas station from Season 13.  Dean off screen saying, “The Apocalypse.” Image of God-Chuck taking a swig of whisky while he previews what he wrote flickers.

Michael, still fighting Castiel’s mind meld, suddenly takes interest when the Apocalypse is mentioned and is shocked as he sees his doppelgänger from the alternate universe arrive on his Earth.

Dean continues, “Lucifer and Michael, you knew everything that was going on!”  Images of Apocalypse World Michael entering the bunker and God-Chuck typing flicker while Dean speaks.  “Why didn’t you just snap your fingers and end it?”  Image switches to God-Chuck snapping his fingers. Then it shows Jack standing innocently, until his eyes and mouth burst with light radiating from them, and he screams in agony as God-Chuck murdered the young nephilim.

[In cosmic terms, Jack was a child, and the eons old archangel was horrified watching his father effortlessly and callously murder a child, his father’s grandson and Michael’s nephew.  “Your father certainly is not who you knew,” said Castiel in his prayer earlier to Michael.  The seraph was right.

In many ways, God-Chuck’s malicious smiting of Jack was of the same vein as Lucifer’s when the fallen archangel stole Jack’s grace and threatened to kill him after Jack rejected him.  Like father, like fallen archangel son?  God-Chuck did tell Lucifer in Season 11 episode 22 that the fallen archangel was his most cherished son.]

The last memory begins with God-Chuck saying, “Fine!  That’s the way you want it!” Image switches to the end of Season 5 when God-Chuck typed “The End” at the conclusion of his story.  God-Chuck says over this image, “The story is over.”  Then the image switches to God-Chuck from the last episode of Season 14 telling Sam and Dean, “Welcome to the end.”  [Ironically, this last sentence was also said verbatim by Chuck’s sister, Amara, in Season 11 episode 22 titled “We Happy Few,” after she mortally wounded God-Chuck and the entire universe began to die.]

Traumatized by the memories he saw, Michael releases his chokehold on Castiel.  The truth set the seraph free as he rolls over gasping for air while Michael suffers mental anguish.  This was Michael’s “Road to Damascus” moment as the archangel wrestles with the visions Castiel passed to him.

[The only memories not pictured here but would have been the most devastating to Michael’s unquestioning belief in his father was the ones from Season 11 episode 22 titled “We Happy Few” when God-Chuck apologized to Lucifer.  He told the fallen angel that he wasn’t supposed to have favorites but Lucifer was his favorite and most cherished son.  Later on, God-Chuck told Sam and Dean that Michael should not join them against Amara because the eldest archangel wasn’t in any shape to battle the Darkness.  That contradicted the healing of a severely injured Lucifer with one swipe of his finger in that season’s episode 21 titled “All in the Family.”  Most likely God didn’t want Michael present because Lucifer most likely would have rubbed his apology from their father in Michaels’ face causing more friction and enmity between the archangels and God-Chuck.  Maybe Castiel chose not to show those memories or they were Lucifer’s memories and not the seraph’s.

Last season, Apocalypse World Michael discovered what God was really doing after he possessed Dean and got full access to Dean’s memories, which included Dean’s meetings with God-Chuck.  From Dean’s memories, the alternate world’s Michael passed his knowledge about what God really had been doing to Castiel in a conversation.  At that time the seraph refused to believe him.  It would take the murder of his surrogate son, Jack, by God-Chuck to convince the seraph of the truth about what that archangel had told him.  Now, the roles between archangel and seraph were reversed and it was the seraph who passed his memories about God-Chuck onto his universe’s Michael.  The question is, “Would it be enough to break Michael from his zealous faith in and loyalty to his father?  Would it be enough to convince the archangel to help them?”

This scene shows that the Winchesters and Castiel get a failing grade on their negotiation strategy and tactics.  The talks between them and Michael collapsed and largely due to their bullying tactics and lack of solid evidence to support their accusations about God-Chuck to Michael.  Castiel gets an A+ for being one of the toughest scrappy fighters in the universe.  He saved his life while trying to salvage his team’s main goal, but in the end will his memory sharing tactic succeed in getting God’s secret from Michael?  Or has it irreparably damaged the archangel?]

Scene – Winchesters’ Bunker, Lebanon, KS, the kitchen with Castiel, and Dean:

Dean walks into the kitchen.  He sees Castiel sitting at a table agonizing over whether his memory meld was too much for Michael and destroyed any hope of getting the archangel’s help.  Did he screw up again and drive Michael into insanity?

Castiel looks up and sees Dean enter the room.  He sighs.  Their quarrel still rages. Dean walks over to the refrigerators, grabs a bottle of beer and stands opposite Castiel with the table between them.

After popping the cap off the bottle and mindlessly tossing it onto the table in front of Castiel, Dean says, “Maybe you went too far.”

Castiel responds, “Maybe.”

Dean says, “I mean he’s been in locked down for for quite awhile.  You know, maybe you just, ah, went too fast.  What’s he doing now?”

“No idea,” replied Castiel.  “He was very distraught.”

“Yeah, but what did he exactly say?” inquired Dean.

“Leave.  Get out.  I want you dead.  We didn’t bond,” replied the seraph.  [Apparently, Michael was going to milk his grudge with Castiel for everything he could get out of it.]

Dean and Castiel remained silent as neither looked at each other.  Then Castiel asked, “Where’s Sam?”

Dean replies, “Eileen hit a snag with a case.  So, he won’t be gone long.”  Dean looked downwards.

After a brief moment, the room and bunker shakes, like during an earthquake.  Both Dean and Castiel look up and around in shock.

Castiel rises from his chair and says, “Michael.”  One of the archangel’s supernatural powers is creating earthquakes.  Was he escaping or going to bring down the bunker on top of them all?

The next scene then shows Michael sitting on the floor using a cabinet to support his back.  He is intently staring ahead and a bit downwards.  The earthquake ends and Michael exhales.

Castiel and Dean enter the study and look at Michael sitting on the floor.  The two remain silent but they hear Michael say, “God lied to me.”

Castiel and Dean remain silent and continue watching Michael.

“I gave everything for him,” continues Michael.  “I loved him.  Why?  I’m not even the only Michael.”  The archangel was undergoing a seismic shift in his beliefs and attitude about his father.

[In this instance, Michael is like POWs who return home from war to find that the nation or government they fought for had lied them into a war and prefers to either ignore them or use them as props instead of giving them the respect, benefits and help that they are owed for their sacrifices.  In addition, the archangel is also like workers who gave decades of loyalty and service to a company only to be laid off just before they could collect their retirement pensions so that Wall Street can increase their obscene profits.  Both feel betrayed and are initially in shock when they discover the truth that the “powers that be” never cared about them.]

Scene – indoor parking garage, locale unknown but must be near the Winchesters’ bunker:

Sam and Eileen are driving into an indoor parking garage.  It’s where Eileen’s friend told her to meet her.  A vacant pickup truck is parked there with the driver’s side door open. 

Sam says, “Ok.”  He nods his head and indicates that they should exit their car.   He and Eileen slowly approach the abandoned pickup truck.  Using a flashlight, Sam investigates the interior of the truck looking for signs.  No one and no piece of anyone is in the truck.  Then Sam scans the parking garage.  Perplexed, he asks Eileen, “She said that she saw vampires here?”

Eileen nods affirmatively.

“It looks empty,” says Sam.

A voice off screen, Sue Barrish’s voice, says “Look again!”. The scene shifts to Eileen’s friend standing next to a pillar.

“Sue,” says Eileen looking relieved.  “You’re Okay.  Thank God!”  Eileen approaches her friend.

The scene shifts to Sue Barrish leaning against the pillar.  Then Eileen’s friend vaporizes and is replaced by God-Chuck who responds, “Any time.”

God-Chuck approaches Sam and Eileen.  He looks at Sam and says, “Hi, Sam.”

Sam’s face grimaces, trying to hold back his fear.  He’s been captured by God-Chuck, their most powerful enemy to date.

[Combined with the previous scenes with Eileen and Sue, we now know that God-Chuck had been planning his next step after learning about the Winchesters’ plan to get his secret from Michael.  He had to send Lilith to fetch Michael because he had been busy laying a trap to capture Sam and Eileen.  His plan to capture Michael failed, but was trading Michael for Sam and Eileen a winning move for God-Chuck?]

Scene – Winchesters’ Bunker, Lebanon, KS, the study with Dean, Castiel, and Adam/Michael:

Back inside the study in the bunker, Michael rises from the floor and stands straight up facing Sam and Dean.  The archangel maintains his innate dignified bearing but this time his demeanor is unpresuming.  “So yes, I will help you.”  The seismic shift is complete.

Dean and Castiel stared a bit shocked at what Michael said.  [Even though they had physically captured and restrained Michael, they never had the power to, to paraphrase Rowena, take God’s secret away from him.  That power was always in the archangel’s hands.]

“What was done to the Darkness can be done to God if he is as weak as you say,“ continues Michael as he took a couple steps towards them, “and I know how.”

Dean and Castiel look inquisitively at Michael.

Michael puts his right hand next to his left pocket and his fingers pull out a piece of white paper.  He walks towards the table and puts the paper on it.  As Dean and Castiel approach the table, Michael says, “That’s the spell.”

[Apparently, Michael found Castiel’s memories trustworthy.  When the archangel finally got what he was really seeking, information that he could trust about his father, the archangel, unlike his doppelgänger and tempered by long imprisonment and befriending Adam, could overcome his zealotry to make a rational decision.]  Contrary to what Rowena said, “No one gives you  anything,” Michael handed to them God’s secret, the spell used to cage the Darkness.

Castiel picks up the paper, opens it and reads it.

Michael watches silently.

“And the ingredients,” inquires Castiel.

“Myrrh. Casia. Rockrose,” replied Michael.

“We got that,” interrupted Dean.

“And to bind the spell together, nectar from a Leviathan blossom,” added Michael.

Castiel raises his head in silent alarm and disbelief when he hears the word Leviathan.  [Donatello’s earlier words echo in his mind, “What is it with you people!  Can’t anything you do be easy?”]

With an inquisitive look, Dean asks, “Leviathan blossom?  What? Is that like a flower?”

“A flower that only grows in one place,” responded Michael.

Dean realizes regrettably what that means.

“Purgatory,” finished Michael.

Dean gives his “oh crap” expression silently.

While Dean and Castiel are pondering their next steps, Michael raises his handcuffed hands, and snaps his fingers with his left hand.  Instantly, a portal to Purgatory appears.

Dean and Castiel are surprised at what Michael did while handcuffed.  [We can surmise that the magic handcuffs protected Castiel and the Winchesters from a direct attack, like incineration, but allows the archangel to employ non-lethal powers.  Apocalypse World Michael was able to summon his monster army telepathically while handcuffed.  Telepathy is not an offensive weapon.  Opening a portal to Purgatory would not be considered a direct threat to Michael’s captors.]

“That’s the door,” said Michael nodding towards the portal.  “It‘ll remain open for 12 hours.”

Dean looks down at his watch and sets a timer.

Michael looks at Dean and Castiel, raises his handcuffed hands and says, “If you, please.”  [Appending the polite word “please” to the request to remove the handcuffs was a jab at Castiel’s accusation earlier that he had been too haughty, and it signaled the end of his grudge against the seraph and the Winchesters.  Like his youngest brother Gabriel, Michael has transformed from antagonist to ally for the Winchesters by betraying his family.  Ten years ago, it was Gabriel who told the Winchesters how they could stop the Apocalypse by putting Lucifer back in the cage using the Four Horseman’s rings.  Ironically, Gabriel didn’t intend for Michael to be locked in the cage with Lucifer, but it ended up being the best solution at the time and that ordeal made the current alliance possible.]

Dean looks at Castiel and the seraph nods affirmatively to release Michael from the handcuffs.  Dean pulls out the keys from his right pocket.  Michael steps a bit closer and Dean unlocks the handcuffs and puts them on the table.

While Michael inspects his hands, Dean asks him, “You coming with us?”

“No,” replied Michael looking up at Dean. Then the archangel walks passed Castiel towards the exit.  Castiel stands emotionless and deferential as Michael passes him.  The seraph’s seething anger was gone.  [Like with Michael’s zealotry, Castiel’s anger, righteous or not, could also blind him to the perils of the situations he will encounter.  He couldn’t afford to make a stupid mortal mistake against God-Chuck or during their journey to Purgatory.  He had to keep a sober mind.]

Before Michael reaches the door, Dean interjects, “Before you go.”  Dean turns to look at Michael.  “Can I talk to him?”

Michael pauses for a moment, maybe asking Adam what he wants to do, then he raises his head and his eyes flash blue as he switches with Adam.

Adam turns to face Dean and says, “Yup?”

Unlike earlier in the episode when a cocky Dean rushed through developing a strategy to capture Michael, when facing Adam now, he carefully chooses his words, and with more humility than we have seen from the older Winchester brother in a long time, he says, “Adam, I want you to know.  We are sorry.”

[Dean’s heartfelt apology is a complete reversal from his past view of apologies.  In Season 11 episode 22 titled “We Happy Few”, Dean mocked apologies as just mere words that you could say and at the same time not mean what they say.  He admitted back then that he quite often lied to Sam when he apologized.  Now with Adam, his brother that he had abandoned, standing before him, that cocky old self-righteous dick of a Dean disappeared into the dustbin of his family’s history.]

Adam stares silently at Dean a bit stunned at finally hearing a sincere apology from his half-brother.

“What happened to you. You’re a good man.  You didn’t deserve that,” continued Dean.

Adam smiles as he absorbs what Dean has said.  After collecting his thoughts, Adam smiles and says to Dean, “Since when do we get what we deserve?”

[These last two lines from Dean and Adam are interesting in that they are derivatives of lines from the climax of Clint Eastwood’s movie “Unforgiven.”  Gene Hackman’s character Little Bill is lying on the floor, shot in the stomach.  He says to Clint Eastwood’s character Will Munny, “I don’t deserve this.  To die like this.  I was building a house.”  Munny responds, “Deserve has nothing to do with it.”  Little Bill realizing he wasn’t going to survive this encounter says, “I’ll see you in hell, Will Munny.”   Munny cocks his rifle and says, “Yeah.”  Then after slowly taking aim at his victim, making Little Bill suffer hopelessness a few moments more, he shoots the corrupt sheriff dead.

Unlike Little Bill and Will Munny, Dean’s and Adam’s exchange, while subdued, was a tad more hopeful.]

Adam looks at both Dean and Castiel and wishes them “Good luck.”  Then he turns and exits the room and the bunker.

It’s unclear if Adam formerly forgave Dean in this scene, but it appears he accepted his apology.

Dean and Castiel turn and look at the portal to Purgatory that Michael opened for them.  Their immediate future and next steps into “reigning in God-Chuck” is at hand.

[This scene of Dean apologizing to Adam brings to mine, will Dean ever be able to forgive Castiel and resolve the quarrel that still rages between them?  One of the key phrases in the prayer “Our Father” is “[Father] forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who have trespassed against us.”   Dean is a hero but even heroes make mistakes.  Just ask Adam.  Castiel had been his closest friend and confidante.  Would Dean allow his anger to forever destroy their bond?]

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End of Episode conclusions

In this much anticipated episode, we got a very exciting and satisfying resolution to Adam’s and Michael’s story to date.  We finally got to see a glimpse of what happened to Adam and Michael over the decade that they were imprisoned.  Michael was neither insane as Lucifer claimed nor in “no condition to fight” as God-Chuck said in Season 11.  The human and archangel actually formed a partnership and it seemed a very positive one.  How they did this would be worth exploring further.  Did Michael apologize to Adam for bullying the human into consenting to be possessed by him ten seasons ago?  Some sort of Truth and Reconciliation event must have happened between them because Adam showed no signs of bitterness towards Michael in the Jaci diner scenes or elsewhere.  Their relationship was as close as Dean’s and Castiel’s was before the latter’s latest estrangement caused by Jack losing his soul and the nephilim accidentally killing Dean’s mother.  A longer story arc for Adam and Michael could have been a welcome addition to the Supernatural saga if the show was to continue.  Adam is a Winchester by blood and his relationship to Michael is similar to the symbiotic relationship of Eddie Brock and Venom, except that Michael is a better looking symbiote.

The conclusion of this emotionally turbulent episode ends up as a hard-fought win for the Winchesters and Castiel, a win for Adam and a win for Michael.  The former achieved their win despite failing at negotiating and relying upon an act of desperation by Castiel to save their goal.  This appears to be one of the points of this story and fits with the characters’ personalities and the states of their minds up to this episode.  There was a lot of anger issues among the characters, especially between Dean and Castiel.  Dean’s long simmering anger at Castiel led to the collapse of negotiations with Michael because Dean refused to heed any of Castiel’s legitimate concerns about dealing with Michael.  Physically apprehending the archangel was the easy part, but negotiating with him would require more finesse, which wasn’t Dean’s strength, especially when his anger and anxiety over God-Chuck’s death sentence was at a high level.

Thanks to Castiel’s act of desperation, a mind meld with Michael, the Winchesters got God’s secret from Michael plus an informal alliance with the eldest archangel.  Adam got an apology from Dean Winchester and some long overdue respect.  Michael got information he could trust about his father, God-Chuck, from Castiel’s memories, plus he got some payback against both the Winchesters and Castiel, who had firebombed him ten seasons ago.  In addition, Michael seems to be on a path similar to his youngest brother Gabriel, transitioning from antagonist to ally of the Winchesters by betraying his family, specifically his father.

The main losers were Lilith, who lost her life, and God-Chuck, who lost his most loyal son and servant along with his secret to how the Darkness was caged, a secret that can be used against him.  While losing Michael, God-Chuck captured Sam and Eileen, but in the long run, will losing his most loyal son, Michael, damage God-Chuck in his war against the Winchesters more than gaining the missing piece of his essence back from Sam Winchester?  That has yet to be seen.

A positive ending in Supernatural is a rare event.  The last major one was in Season 11 when Amara the Darkness and God-Chuck reconciled.  Ironically, that moment could have been used by Dean to ask God-Chuck to free Adam from the cage but he didn’t do it then.  However, during that Season when God-Chuck told the Winchesters that it was time for Kevin Tran to go to Heaven and he made a motion that appeared to send the former prophet’s soul to Heaven, we find out in Season 15 episode 02 titled “Raising Hell” that God-Chuck had actually sent Kevin to Hell instead of Heaven.  God-Chuck lied to them.  Considering what God-Chuck had done to Kevin Tran, it’s possible that God-Chuck would have done something similar to Adam, like keeping him in the cage or worse freed him and let him get mauled by another ghoul or turned into another type of monster that the Winchesters would have had to track down and execute.  In a way, Adam was better off partnered with Michael, especially now that the latter has a more sober view of his father.

If Supernatural decides to make additional stories after Season 15, a story arc for Adam and Michael would be most welcome.  Jake Abel did a fantastic job portraying both Adam and the eldest archangel, Michael.  The two characters were distinct from each other, but they also were bonded like partners or like older brother to younger brother.  Each had their own issues with the Winchesters and Castiel, and they had different perspectives on what the Winchesters were telling them about God-Chuck.  Adam was inclined to side with his older half-brothers.  Michael, like Dean did with his father, gave his father the benefit of the doubt, but after getting information he could trust, Michael was able to rationally change his perspective about his father and ally himself with the Winchesters. 

These two characters, Adam and Michael, could have some interesting adventures together plus their characters have a lot of room to grow.  Michael adjusts to living on Earth while Adam guides him.  Of course, both characters have histories that could haunt them in their future endeavors.  Could Adam reconcile with his father John Winchester?  Sam and Dean did.  Would be interesting story arc for Adam.  Michael is an archangel.  Which prophets were his responsibility to protect and how did he do with them?  Adam could also work to get a college degree.  Online university courses have been available for a few years and with the COVID pandemic, they are becoming more the norm.

Supernatural may have run out of stories for Sam and Dean, but Adam and Michael could produce an entertaining addition to the Supernatural saga.  Adam is a Winchester by blood.  There is no reason why his and Michael’s partnership couldn’t provide interesting stories to tell.