
Supernatural Season 12, Episode 7
“Rock Never Dies”
Posted by Dawn and Jaymee
Thank Chuck for Robert Berens. The Season 12 head writer never fails to deliver. We have made our love for him clear already, and he is also our favorite SPN writer to flatter on Twitter, because he is doing a hell of a job at the helm. This episode was a little disjointed in places, yes, but it still worked, and it seemed to progress the primary plot line, we think…? Because at this point it’s still not really clear exactly where our main plot is. Stopping Lucifer? Sending him back to the cage? Working on his Daddy issues again? We could speculate all day. The point is, we’re not sure.
DAWN: I am of the opinion that it might have been done that way on purpose, that it was supposed to quick and jarring and a little all over the place in order to set and maintain the tone of chaos that this Lucifer is bringing. Because this Devil DGAF, and he had the monologue to prove it.
JAY: So yeah, this was flash and bang all over the place, jumping from one scene to another, it may have been intentional, most of this ep’s POV was Lucifer, so maybe the viewers were being shown the world from his view but honestly I’m done with this Lucifer. He’s darker than anything we’ve seen on this show in a long time. Even Azazel didn’t make a lady carve his name into her chest. Granted, he did cut open Mommy’s womb and burn her on the ceiling but still, we only got that second-hand. And honestly maybe it was the guy liner, but I don’t think Azazel was ever as creepy as Vince was. Maybe that’s due to Azazel having a plan, having order and Lucifer was pure anarchy. IDK I was creeped out and I’m sorta glad we are done with Rick, who don’t get me wrong was great, but also… really fucking creepy. *shivers*
DAWN: That’s exactly why I love him. We have been missing a real, proper, evil bad guy for a long time. This Lucifer had terrific potential.
We got the band back together!. No, not Ladyheart, but Sam, Dean, Castiel and Crowley, all ready to fight the big baddie himself, Lucifer, still in the form of Vince Vincente, rock star, and a newly — if temporarily — revitalized vessel. Whom our boys have to chase to LA, much to Dean’s chagrin. This episode gave us a few fond family moments, like Dean playing not-Words-with-Friends-at-all-we-swear with Mary, who’s “not quite ready for Snapchat.” (We kinda can’t wait until she is.) Also, the scene with Sam and Dean in the car, with Sam trying everything he can to assure his brother that, no, of course he is not listening to Vince Vincente and Ladyheart! It’s totally just boring history podcasts that Dean would have no interest in whatsoever. But Dean is no fool! He remembers Season 10×17 “Inside Man.”




Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
source: themegalosaurus.tumblr.com
JAY: I really like moments like these because it’s obvious that Sam has an idea of what Dean thinks about him and he tries to play it up, reinforce the nerdy bookworm stereotype as Dean tries to enforce the meathead persona he often has. Also Sam’s not a good liar, especially to people he cares about, and it’s moments like this when he’s put on the spot and has to stumble through that make him so endearing.
DAWN: When Dean finally proves what Sam is listening to, it becomes every conversation I had with my younger sister about music in the late 80s. Dean, I have never felt closer to you.
There are our boys again, snarking at each other and acting like two siblings trapped in a car for far too many hours. Love. So much love.
Before we get into the whole reunion, we need to talk about Mark Sheppard. Hail to the King, baby. Crowley was altogether back this ep, in all his dark, snark, rightfully-arrogant glory, and oh my Chuck, have we missed him. Please, someone give Mark Sheppard some awards, please? No one chews scenery better than him, and his Crowley is just glorious. Also? “Hello boys.” There is no better greeting on this show. Dawn will hear no argument on this.

JAY: Sorry beautiful, I’m totally going to argue for “Hello Dean.” as the most perfect greeting in the show. So… there.
DAWN: You are a treasonous trollop.
Mad props to the special effects makeup department as well, for handling Lucifer’s first appearance after Rowena banished him to the bottom of the ocean in a decaying vessel. That makeup was so well done. You could feel the ick and the ooze.

Robert Berens’ writing of the opening scene went perfectly with it, as two black-robed yahoos tried to summon the devil. It was perfectly reminiscent of so many 80s horror comedies involving that very same trope. Beautifully done, guys.
Oh! And Berens made it clear, via cell phone screen, that it’s Cass, not Cas, and fandom freaked out on Twitter because they are not letting go of “Cas.” It’s kind of adorable how the writer – the HEAD WRITER, people – kind of apologized. The fan service this cast and crew gives us is wonderful, and it’s part of the reason the show and the fandom has held on for so damn long. Robert Berens, never change. Never.
JAY: He didn’t kinda apologize HE SAID HE FAILED US! #CasNotCass He knew what he did and he knew it was wrong….
DAWN: He’s the WRITER. But, yes, ok, saying he failed us was adorable.

DAWN: Also, Headbanger’s Ball references. Like three of them. As we said on our twitter, Berens, we missed you, Never leave us again.
Los Angeles was the main scene for this ep — “My city,” as Crowley calls it, and damn if it isn’t right because it seems accurate to us. Ladyheart’s reunion is all over social media and people are excited, and there are groupies and secret shows. Lucifer has an ulterior motive, of course, and one poor groupie finds that out the hard way. Plus the rest of Ladyheart doesn’t seem as into this as Vince himself. Gee, we wonder why.
Castiel is in prime Sasstiel form for this episode. We aren’t sure if it’s just his new bestie Crowley rubbing off on him or what, but he didn’t let anything get past him this time around.

And we must praise Castiel, for all his sassing back, because it got us Dean in a buttery smooth, black leather jacket. Bad boy fantasies initiate. We are guessing being on the other end of the insults about his fashion didn’t sit as well with Dean as he thought it would.

JAY: Yum. #Sinner
DAWN: I preferred his old one. He didn’t look at comfortable in this one, and a leather needs to feel like a second skin. That’s what makes them sexy.

JAY: I think that was his dad’s and I, for one, am glad its gone. It physically didn’t fit him as well as the black one.
DAWN: Your angel wears one jacket. So there.
Snarky insults to Dean aside, no one was spared from Castiel’s wrath, especially not Crowley, whom Cas is 1000% done with:

Even if Crowley isn’t done with him.

But Cas’ finest moment was the absolute perfection of “HEY ASSBUTT” just before smashing Lucifer in the face with Vincente’s own guitar. Take note, other fandom shows — THAT was fan service done perfectly. Twitter just about exploded.
JAY: I just want to point out here, Castiel only calls Lucifer Assbutt. Siblings, am I right?



Rick Springfield’s Lucifer was balls-to-the-wall nuts this ep. The moment he reveals himself to Russell, who might have been a lesser demon (given that he is familiar and friendly-ish with Crowley) or just a useful and knowledgeable human (given that one stab wound killed him), was one of the darkest devil moment we have ever seen in this show, including Mark Pellegrino’s Lucifer at his most crazy.
JAY: It’s another contrast to how Mark and Rick played this character, Mark was more psychological terror and torture and Rick is more physical torture. Two totally different creatures.
DAWN: Agreed, but Mark always struck me as a bit more playful, if psychotically so. Like the way Freddy Krueger became in later Nightmare on Elm Street movies as opposed to the first one. Rick’s Lucifer just wants to watch the world burn.
Knowing there is nothing to do but stop Lucifer and his desire for blood, which is really his desire for love and adoration (as he clearly states: “I need love. I had a jacked childhood.”), he gets a bit of it from poor Rosaline, the uber-groupie, who thinks little of carving his name into her chest as a show of both obsession and obsequience. But it’s not enough. And if the fans won’t give it, as Crowley intimates, then Lucifer is going to damn well take it, “Because it’s fun. Because I can.” He is just on a rampage now. A rampage that our boys have to stop and once again it’s Castiel who steps up, our sacrificial lamb, to take the brunt of the punishment in order for Dean and Sam to get the fans out of the arenas in time.






source: bridget-malfoy-stillinski-hale.tumblr.com
JAY: I just don’t understand why Dean and Sam don’t try harder to talk Castiel out of doing things like this. Why do they keep letting him ‘sacrifice’ himself for the greater good? I feel like one of them needs to sit Cas down and let him know he’s worthy and wanted, just like Cas did for Dean. OR maybe I just need to go and smack the writers around a little bit because seriously our Angel is carrying around some heavy guilt and pain. Amara saw it, Lucifer sees it, everyone see’s it and no one is stopping him. You’re worthy Castiel, and you deserve happiness. You do not have to keep paying penance.
DAWN: Castiel means “the shield of God.” This is what he does. You can’t fight instinct. He was made for it. Sometimes he gets past it. But at his core, it’s what he is.
Of course, they let him, but what really throws everyone for a loop is Crowley, our surprise fighter in this round. Crowley comes in with the assist, because if Cas can buy them three minutes, Crowley can help make it four. What? He helps.

They don’t get far, our sweet Laurangel and Hardemon. Lucifer’s beat down of Cas and Crowley was brutal; at one point, we really thought he’d caved Crowley’s skull in. They do buy the Winchesters enough time to clear out the arena. But then once again Sam’s bizarre relationship with Lucifer is called into light, as it appears that Lucifer is having trouble pulling Sam away from the exit he is keeping open.

We have some very serious questions about how Sam was able to hold the club doors open while Lucifer in all his glory was trying to force them closed. By rights, Sam’s arms should have snapped like toothpicks, but they didn’t, and we truly hope that gets addressed at some point because WTF. Crowley and Cas get tossed around like ragdolls but human hunter Sam can manage against the power of an insane archangel? How? We are going to need an explanation for that, and we’re looking at you, Berens. Please don’t just let that go.
We have to give Rick Springfield serious credit for Lucifer’s monologue, which was both beautifully written and beautifully delivered. Springfield was completely on with that — he [i]was[/i] the Morning Star, the First of the Fallen, a bastardized archangel who has embraced chaos, jealousy and mad, gleeful apathy. Check it out:

I’m not especially interested in [God’s] opinion. Dear old Dad, he finally apologized for abandoning me. And what’s the very next thing he does? He ditches me. And you, too, by the way. And rides off into the sunset with Auntie Amara. He needed my help, and he’d say anything to get it. His words, your words, they mean nothing. Don’t you get it? This is all meaningless. Heaven, Hell, this world. If it ever meant anything, that moment is past. Nothing down here but a bunch of hopeless distraction addicts, so filled with emptiness, so desperate to fill up the void… they don’t mind being served another stale rerun of a rerun of a rerun. You know what my plan is? I don’t have one. I’m just gonna keep on smashing Daddy’s already broken toys and make you watch.

JAY: GREAAAAAAT, Hold on lemme just call the WHAAAAAAMBLUANCE you big spoiled brat! UGH OMG, if there ever was a tantrum in the toy aisle of your local Target this was it. Give me a break. What did you expect hand holding? Picnics in the park? Maybe building a solar system together? Please! Angel of beauty my ass, more like angel of neediness and attention seeking. Look at me, look at me, love me, boohoo. Maybe someone’s been shooting him up with human blood because obviously Lucifer here thinks he Deserves to be loved! …… Big baby. Like you’re the only one who matters…

DAWN: Oh, I never said he wasn’t whining. But he also has a couple of good points, not the least of which is that God and Auntie Amara did just traipse off into the sunset and leave a world of shit behind them, again. But Lucifer is batshit crazy now. He just doesn’t care. For a moment, he had what he wanted, all he ever wanted, really. And then, poof, gone. Again. If he had a remaining link to humanity or his original angelic goodness, it snapped like a rotten rubber band. Ain’t no going back now.
Sam and Dean try to save the day, and in the end, Lucifer smokes out in a rush of shimmering, silvery angelic smoke (thanks for getting that right, SPN), leaving poor Vince dead and Rick Springfield’s tenure done. Lucifer makes his grand escape, most likely on the hunt for a new vessel, and then from there, who knows? Our team is left grasping at straws and trying to put together the big picture before more innocents lose their lives.

Will this mean Pellegrino’s return? It’s what the fans want, certainly, but nary a “real” rumor has been seen or heard on the matter thus far. It would be one hell of way to end the midseason finale next week, though, don’t you think? And it certainly wouldn’t be the first time they played the return of a fan favorite super close to the vest.
DAWN: ::coughcoughGabrielcoughcough9x18cough::
Guess we’ll find out December 8, 2016.
Follow Dawn and Jaymee on twitter @pieandshotguns, where they live tweet every episode!
My feels are behind the times, so I’ll spare ya, BUT where was Luci’s little reunion show shot? Anybody know? I’m driving myself crazy over how much the layout looks like The Masquerade (Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory) in Atlanta. HALP!