A Quick Guide to Supernatural Season 11

Supernatural Season 11: In which a whole lot of shit happens, we get some nice fan service moments and a few really important ones, and we spin from laughter to tears so fast this season that we often wonder if we are secretly watching Doctor Who

Posted by Dawn and introducing her new SPN partner-in-crime, Jaymee

Caveat: Not caught up? Please don’t read. There will be spoilers.

So the Darkness is born. Err, reborn. Reincarnated? Can immortals be reincarnated? The point is, she’s back, thanks to Sam and Dean releasing that shit when they killed Death, blasted the Mark of Cain off Dean’s arm, and all the blackness of the entire universe apparently came spilling out of the crust of the earth just in time for some random lady in some town to pop out a kid at the exact same moment and BOOM – Amara.

Little baby Amara, who not only has a birthmark of Cain on her chubby little shoulder, but also enjoys nom-nom-nomming on those infant favorites, those happy little human batteries: souls. Kids grow up pretty fast on a healthy diet of human (and demon) souls, as we soon see. Also there was a deadly and super duper scary white fog that turned people into monsters of the 28 Days Later kind, and Sam got infected but managed to save himself at the last moment thanks to that huge throbbing brain of his, because if he hadn’t, we’d have no show.

And Crowley knows all about the wee Darkness. So before long, he shows up to get little 7 (ish) year old Amara off the streets by pulling up in a white windowless van and literally asking, “Want some candy, little girl?” Except by “candy” he means the souls of the helpless family he has tied up in there. Oh, and now he’s Uncle Crowley.

Episode 4 takes place entirely in the car is and called “Baby.” Do not miss this episode. It is one of the all-time best.

OK, we are going to sum-up like crazy for the first half of the season because things get good and complex after the mid-season break. Castiel is still trying to shake off Rowena’s attack dog spell and he surrenders himself over to “heaven’s mercy” because that always worked so well in the past-tiel. He’s tortured by angels. Again. We lose Hannah to a hero’s death. We meet a new Reaper, Billie the BAMF, and boy oh boy, does she have it out for our boys. No more trips to the underworld and free rides back any more. Billie wants to toss their silvery souls right into the abyss. We also meet three new hunters this season, and none of them die! Girl hunter Eileen catches Sammy’s eye in a terrific ep that also includes the luminous Dee Wallace hitting on Dean like a champ, to the point where this happens. Claire Novak pops up again, trying so hard to be a hunter and honestly? She may just make it there. We get the adorable gay hunters Jessy and Cesar, and we wish they had their own show. There are some new monsters that Dean tries get everyone to call them were-pires. Stop trying to make were-pire happen, Dean; it’s not going to happen.

Rowena’s spell sends Cas into actual seizures, so the boys need to find that wicked ginger minx in a hurry. Surprisingly, when they capture her and are all “Hey, witch, please fix our angel,” she does, then promptly escapes because witch got skills, yo, and damn, her eyeshadow game is still on point. The boys bench Cas while he recovers, so he’s stuck on desk duty, i.e. research. He has panic attacks and starts binge watching Netflix, which is an excellent coping mechanism as we all know.

Sam dies. Ish. Dean commits temporary suicide (again) in order to talk to Reaper Billie and offer his life in place of his brother’s (again). Billie is like PSYCH SAM’S ALIVE and we briefly think she is going to add, “But you’re screwed, so welcome to oblivion,” but a doctor brings Dean back and they are both safe and alive again (again).

Episode 16 had Bobby and Rufus in it. And Dean and Bobby seeing each other, oh so briefly. Christ, there weren’t enough tissues in the world.

Amara and Uncle Crowley are hitting some bumps along the road to a happy demonic family, such as Amara eating her way through most of the demons in hell. This displeases Uncle Crowley and he basically grounds her, so she runs off into the human world to snack on more souls. Our boys find Crowley’s “villa” a.k.a. an abandoned insane asylum (horror trope alert, yet somehow it works) and track Amara, now a teenager, there. But oh shit — Dean realizes he can’t hurt her. Not like “she’s invincible” but like “I am incapable of hurting her.” Problematic, no?

Sam is having visions (again) and he thinks they are from God (like you do). We also meet Sam’s imaginary friend Sully and work through some of Sam’s daddy issues (ep directed by our own beloved Gabriel, Richard Speight Jr.).

Amara grows up, is super hot except for the fact that her dress is not doing her boobs any favors, leaves Hell, and starts wreaking major havoc. Heaven tries to smite her; it doesn’t work. So Heaven sends in an “expendable” angel to see what’s up. She dies. The Winchesters send in Cas who, as if he wasn’t already having enough of an identity crisis, is told by Heaven and Amara that he’s expendable. And Amara sends him back to our boys with a message burned into his beautiful chest: I AM COMING.

Sam, Crowley, and Rowena get together so Sam can have a little pow-wow with Lucifer behind Dean’s back, because that always works out so well. Cue massive backfire of plan, with Sam back in the cage and Lucifer taking him down memory lane because it turns out Luci is still all about jumping that hot Winchester vessel’s bones. We feel you, Devil. And it only took 3.5 fucking seasons to happen, but someone FINALLY tells Sam that not going after Dean in season 9 was a shitty thing to do. SPEAK IT, LUCIFER. “After the Leviathans, when your brother was trapped in Purgatory, you were here… with a girl and a dog. You didn’t even bother trying to find him.”

See? Even the Devil knew that storyline was a hot mess.

So now they all have to save Sam’s stupid (hot) ass again, and now Cas and Dean are in the cage while Crowley works on his Oedipus complex by putting Rowena in a Witch’s Collar to force her into creating a spell to get Lucifer back where he belongs and save our boys. It doesn’t work. Why? Because Cas. Wonderful, idiot, identity crisis, self-loathing, self-sacrificing Cas, unbeknownst to all, said yes to Lucifer. Welcome, Casifer (or Lustiel, if you prefer). And lo, there was a mighty trembling in the walls of fan fiction caused by the seismic burst of millions of panties dropping simultaneously.

My panties, your panties, definitely Rowena’s panties, and probably even Dean’s frilly, pink, lace, boyshort panties that his ex-girlfriend made him wear once. All the panties.

So now what? Time to hunt for “hands of God” — powerful objects that were left on earth after being touched by the big man himself– and also killing the Darkness. Along the way, Dean gets sent back in time because he looks hot as fuck in period costumes, and this time he is a sexy sailor, and frankly I don’t know why we all bothered to put our panties back on because BOOM, they’re gone again. Sam figures out Cas is actually Casifer, which means that Dean’s new mission in life is to save him by expelling Lucifer, because that was so easy last time.

They try a bunch of stuff. Nothing works. They find some hands of God. Nothing works.

Casfier rules hell like a boss, which includes putting Crowley in a collar and a dog crate and calling him “puppy” and we’d be lying if we said it wasn’t kind of hot. BUT THEN!!! Eleven seasons in and Daddy finally comes home, and yes, it’s motherfucking CHUCK.

WE CALLED THAT SHIT YEARS AGO! THANK YOU, WRITERS! Unsurprisingly, it turns out that ChuckGod is trying to write a book and Metatron is his editor, which is not a great job to have, quite frankly, because God does not take concrit well.

Oh, wait, we forgot. Casifer kills Rowena. Ish. Except the wily witch had already protected herself against just such an eventuality and double-crosses (triple-crosses? Quadruple-crosses? Rowena has like infinity-crosses, at this point) her way straight to Amara.

Back to the boys. Dean is all gimme back my angel, so he, Sam, Crowley, and Rowena corner Casifer, which fails. Amara shows up and Casifer decides, fuck it, why not, and tries to take her down with the Horn of Joshua, which fails. So she kidnaps him and tortures him, and Sam and Metatron and some prophet who isn’t Kevin save Casifer and bring him back to the bunker for some one-on-one time with Daddy. (Basically this entire show is about daddy issues, have you noticed?) But not before Amara implodes Metatron. Pour one out, fandom. Curtis Armstrong nailed that role and he will be missed.

But now, hot damn, we got the mothafuckin’ band back together. It’s all-in time–demons, and witches (even Rowena), and angels, and the Winchesters are all down with G.O.D. so they can take down his sister.

It goes badly. Amara basically smites ChuckGod and now the sun is dying and fuckballs, so is ChuckGod. But hey, at least Amara rips Lucifer out of Castiel before she pretty much deals the death blow to God and starts the end of, like, EVERYTHING. Time to drink heavily!

But it’s weird now, because Amara’s kind of depressed about it all of a sudden, like “oh, boo, destroying my brother and everything he created isn’t nearly as fun as I thought it would be,” or something. But remember that bond that Dean has with Amara, where he’s the only one who can get really, really close to her? Yeah, that. So they turn Dean into a bomb by infusing him with a ton of souls (even Billie the Reaper helps) because the only thing that can kill Amara is the light of 10 ka-billion suns, and you can only get that from God, who is in shit shape, or a gazillion souls. Why didn’t they do this in the first place, we all ask? Because God didn’t want to kill his sister. But given that they’re all fucked now, including God, it’s gotta happen because He is dying so she has to as well because ying and yang, light and dark, etcetera.

Essentially, Dean has to commit suicide in order to save the world, and goodbyes are said and it’s gut-wrenching and Sam just…won’t.

Cas isn’t in great shape either, especially not after…

And even though we all knew there was going to be a season 12, it was still really tense and awful.

But then, it wasn’t. Everyone leaves, and Dean goes off to explode himself and Amara, but instead he gives her a very Bobby-like “family is family, even when they drive you nuts” kind of talk, and I’ll be Chuck-damned because it works. It fucking works. A Winchester did something that worked, and in a season finale no less, and a sibling admitted they were wrong. OK, not a Winchester sibling, but still. We take progress where we can get it. So there we are, with God and his sister floating off into the sky holding freaking hands. The sun comes back on and Amara heals Chuck and Chuck takes the bomb out of Dean, and then Amara says, “Dean, you gave me what I needed most. I want to do the same for you.” Huh?

Before we get to find out, Sam and Cas, who still believe Dean is dead, mind you, go back to the bunker and wtf – some British chick named Toni (with a goddamn “i”) is there, who banishes Cas and then shoots Sam. Presumably, anyway, because there is a shot and then suddenly it’s…

Back to Dean! On a dirt road and looking about as confused as we are. Then he hears a woman’s voice saying, “Help me… help me.” Dean being Dean, he follows the voice, straight to Amara’s gift. It’s Mom.

MARY FREAKING WINCHESTER IS BACK, Y’ALL. TONI-WITH-A-GODDAMN-I BETTER WATCH HER ASS, BECAUSE MOMMA IS HOME, BITCHES. MOMMA IS HOME.

Supernatural Season 12 kicks off October 13th at 9/8C. Let us know your hopes for the new season in the comments.

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