So, by the end of the episode, we have a spell, but hoo-boy, it’s one doozy! Although they got the ingredients for the Mark of Cane spell right quick back in season 10, so maybe those four ingredients won’t be as hard to gather as they seem?

Jack In The AU

Jack awakens to the sound of Sam and Dean talking about how happy they are that he is back. The smile on his face quickly dissipates when he smells smoke, and runs out to find Sam and Dean on the other side of a locked door, with smoke and flames licking around the edges.

Turns out it’s all a mind projection by AU Zachariah, at the behest of Michael, tying to break Jack for their own devious purposes. Michael is not happy with the lack of progress.They try one more time with a vision of Jack with Castiel on the shores of a mountain lake. Jack is happy to see Cass, until he figures out, yet again, that what he is experiencing isn’t real. Frustrated, Michael drags Jack to a cell that contains…

Mary Winchester! (Looking pretty good considering all the torture)

Once introductions are made, Mary tells Jack that the weird head feelings they are having is most likely because of super strong warding, which seem to lessen by the window, prompting Jack to use his powers to bust them out of their cell. Once on the outside, they run into AU Bobby, who offers to bring the two to the humans hidden wooded lair.

Bobby and Mary have a nice chat while Jack entertains the kids of the camp with elaborate shadow puppets. Bobby tells Mary that from his vantage point, her making the deal with the demon, saving John and letting them produce the boys who eventually save the world from becoming like the AUs apocalyptic hell seems like the right choice to him.

This comforts Mary, as she has clearly been struggling with the fact that her decisions led her boys down a path of trouble and ugliness and hardship that she feels terrible about. Knowing that her decision, while maybe dooming her boys to a life of blood and misery, may have saved their world from the AUs fate, makes her sacrifices almost okay? IDK, this is a tough one guys.

Although, if Mary hadn’t made that deal, we wouldn’t have Sam and Dean to watch every week for all these years, so in the end, we the fans win. Thanks, Mary!! 😉

Feeling positive after her conversation with Bobby, Mary confesses that Jack is a nephilim, which triggers Bobby’s internal trouble alert, who insists that they leave the camp, because angels, no matter how nice they seem, always turn on the humans.

Mary and Jack are ready to leave the camp when the angels arrive via their preferred method in this world, via meteor-like bombs. Mary tells Jack to hide, but Jack is not one to run from a fight, and he not only uses his time whimey angel ray on Zachariah, he disintegrates him. And then! He disintegrates the incoming angel meteors right out of the sky!

Bobby, having seen this power, quickly decides that he is willing to take the risk of having Jack at his disposal, especially after hearing Jack say that he came back because he knew Sam and Dean wouldn’t run away.

Awww. Jack is so sweet. It’s gonna suck when he goes dark side. (What?? That is PURE speculation on my part. Maybe he will always be good, and be on the show forever fighting alongside Sam and Dean and Cass, but I doubt it.)

(This is your quick reminder that I am TERRIBLE at predicting what happens on this show.)

Sam & Dean & Cass

Back in the bunker, Donatello is feeling the effects of the demon tablet on his non-soul having self, and Castiel is worried.

When Donatello sends Dean and Cass on a wild goose chase, he clocks Sammy with a bottle as Sam is mixing the ingredients for the not-spell.

Cass summons these ancient, loincloth wearing guys, who are not heart-having beings, which is important for the story, but even more important for my enjoyment, because we get this awesome scene with Dean being silly and Cass being earnest, and the show remembers that Castiel is a bad ass. As is Dean, but the show always remembers that.

Once these dudes are defeated, Dean and Cass return to the bunker to find Sam with a bump on the head, and quite irritated, as he had to lock up the now bonkers Donatello in the dungeon. Watching via security cam, we see that Donatello is pacing and raving. Turns out him not having a soul is a big deal, Dean, as the power from the demon tablet doesn’t get filtered without a soul, hence the mumbling (maybe totally evil) mess in the dungeon.

(Funny, how the Winchesters have dealt with so many people not having souls, that it seems almost WhatEvs to them now? Funny weird, not funny HaHa.)

Sam and Dean go to talk to Donatello, and he casts some kind of local suffocating spell on Dean, which drives the boys back out of the room, and pisses off Castiel.

Now that Cass has gone hardcore with the I’m Not Letting Anyone Screw With The People I Love train, he walks away from the moral quandary Sam and Dean are having over what to do with Donatello, and sucks the spell they need right out Donatello’s brain, leaving him brain dead. Dean is a little annoyed, but this whole episode Dean is in a sort of mellow-for-Dean kind of place, even when Cass informs the boys that Donatello was working with Asmodeus, which, for me, makes Castiel’s choice warranted.

No way Donatello recovers from the double whammy of the demon tablet and having no soul. Not to mention the whole Asmodeus thing!

Anyhoo, Cass recites the four ingredients needed for the spell to get to the AU. The first one, arch angel grace, we already knew about, but the other three: A fruit from a Tree of Life; the Seal of Solomon; and the blood of a most Holy Man, all seem pretty hard gets. But the very next episode is called “A Most Holy Man”, so it seems as though we are wasting no time in gathering the ingredients. GOOD.

Quotes!

Dean: “Dude, if bacon’s what kills me, then I win.”

Mary: “You called me Mary Campbell. Do you know me?”  Bobby: “Well, knew you, the other you. She. Well, hell, I thought you were a damn ghost. Turns out you’re just from a whole other world, which is weirder when you think about it.”

Castiel: “Dean, we have a problem. He isn’t human. He appears to be a primitive beast formed of rock and sand.” Dean: “That’s a thing?” Castiel: “Yeah. A very old thing. I thought they’d gone extinct during the flood.”

Dean: “The Muppet professor attacked you? Why?”

Dean: “All right. What else do we know besides all work and no play makes Donatello a homicidal boy?”

Castiel: “Nothing. I took it. If I hadn’t acted we would still be sitting around talking about what to do next, we would be wasting time. And it’s time we don’t have Dean. I told you, war is coming. War. And I did what soldiers do. Now we needed the spell to open the rift, and I got it. We need four major ingredients: The grace of an archangel. A fruit from a tree of life. The Seal of Solomon and the blood of a most holy man. We find those things, we can bring everybody home. And together we can beat Lucifer and Michael. this is the only way we win. This is the only way we survive. It’s like you said Dean. Whatever it takes.”

Next!

Searching for a holy man, I guess!