Supernatural S9 Ep18 – Meta Fiction

Supernatural, s9 ep18--Metatron opening title card banner

I don’t know where to start for this one. So much happened. So much character stuff, so much plot stuff, so much Dean IN A SHOWER, it’s just too much. But here we go.

Dean in the shower.

Metatron decided to try his hand at fan fiction in this episode, except without the usual “tongues dueling for dominance” you tend to see. I have a feeling that Metatron’s more of a “closed door” kind of guy anyway, but I digress. Sam, Dean, and Cas (and I’m spelling it Cas, I don’t care that the SPN writers spell it Cass) were on a mission to track down Gadreel, Metatron’s second-in-command, but all three were secretly at the mercy of Metatron’s out-dated typewriter.

Castiel was checking out a strange angel siren that was calling angels to it, only for Gadreel to slaughter them. He called Sam to help figure out what was up. Sam had Cas on speakerphone while they were working things out, but then Dean made a comment and Cas stopped, smiled like the glowing sun, and asked Dean how he was doing, as most people do when they suddenly hear their true love on the other end of the line. This, paired with the Great Dean in the Shower Scene, has me worried that the writers are being nice to fans to make up for the serious sh*t that’s going to go down in the finale. They were just handing the Destiel to us, this can’t be good.

Cas went one way to find Gadreel while Sam and Dean went another, and the brothers eventually succeeded in tracking down Gadreel and set in on him with the torturing that is now part of their repertoire. You would think this would be a big scene for Sam, seeing as how Gadreel took his body for a killing spree, but this actually turned into a Dean moment. While Sam was away trying to contact Cas again, Dean started having murder feels thanks to the Mark of Cain. He resisted Gadreel’s taunts and subtle begging to be killed, only to beat Gadreel into a bloody pulp off screen. Dean looked like he hadn’t been able to control himself. The Mark is taking over.

Side note about Gadreel: I think he wanted to be killed so that he would no longer have to serve Metatron. I think he’s regretting his decision and all that Meta is forcing him to do.

He used most of his juice to get back into porn.

Meanwhile, Cas was also looking for Gadreel only to run into the last person he expected to see: Gabriel. I had avoided all spoilers that I reasonably could for this episode, so I was genuinely surprised to see Gabe/The Trickster show up. But I knew it was a trick. I mean, hello, Trickster! But also, the writers aren’t that nice to us. Gabriel led Cas on a wild ride, with every moment between them too hilarious for me to do justice in this review, but, of course, Cas realized that it was all in his head. Gabriel wasn’t real, he was all an illusion created by Metatron, who clearly has been watching too much Community because he has gone very meta.

Metatron wants Castiel to lead the fallen angles, but not as the hero of some angelic story. No, no, Cas is to be the villain to Metatron’s hero in Meta’s new gospel fanfic. Metatron is taking his love of stories a little too far—he thinks he can write his will into being. He’s no God, even if he wants to be. Sure, he’s taken the prophets out of the picture, but how can he hope to win here? He can escape holy fire and erase angel warding now, but how did he get that powerful? Sam said he was powering up on the angel tablet, but how? What is he doing to gain this level of badasssery? Did God leave a few extra notes lying around that told how to write the story of the universe?

Metatron touching Castiel on the forehead

The power to understand Star Wars references is yours!

Whatever it is that Metatron is doing, Cas was not cowed by it, though he did look nervous when Meta pointed out that Cas’s stolen grace is burning up. Yes, consequences! I had hoped that stealing another angel’s grace wouldn’t be written off as just a quick way for Cas to level up, and though I don’t want Cas to get hurt, I’m glad that they didn’t just drop that potential plot line. But Cas didn’t look like he was going to fall for Metatron’s offer of unlimited angel-grace-batteries in exchange for being Meta’s Voldemort. At least, not until the end. Metatron traded Cas for Gadreel from Sam and Dean, and during Cas’s meet up with the brothers Cas discovered that Dean has the Mark. Cas looked freaked out at that, but Dean, despite his unexpected murder feels, shrugged it off as a “you gotta do what you gotta do to kill a demon” thing. Right after this, however, was when Cas gave in to Metatron’s demands, calling the angels to him so that he could be their leader. I don’t know if those two things were intentionally related, but it certainly looked that way. Dean is giving himself over to the Mark’s control, giving himself over to something evil and brutal as a means to an end. And then Cas did the same thing, giving up his control to Metatron, playing Metatron’s game as another means to an end. I’d like to think it’s not for purely selfish reasons, but as part of a grand scheme of Cas trying to get in good with Metatron to try to take him down. And if that’s not what Cas is doing then I will be so ticked off, because we’ve had the “Cas teams up with a bad guy for a morally questionable purpose” plot line before. Cas never gets to be his own person under his own power. As much as I love him, I almost want the writers to stop writing him because they just don’t know what to do with him. Sigh.

So here’s a quick rundown of all the important things that happened: