The Supernatural season 9 mid-season finale “Holy Terror” aired tonight. Check out our recap below.
Get your tissues, stress balls, and reaction gifs ready because the Supernatural season 9 mid-season finale was a doozy.
Angels at war
In the red corner, we have Bartholomew’s angel faction. In the blue corner, we have Malachi’s.
The episode opens at a biker bar, with Malachi’s followers, possessing a church glee club, decimating Bartholomew’s born-again-biker faction. Malachi, though, is interested in joining forces with Bartholomew to take on Metatron, but power-hungry Bartholomew has no interest.
However, Bartholomew gets some revenge when his faction kills a number of college kids being recruited as vessels for Malachi. Remember when the show used to care about collateral damage of hosts and vessels?
But these two factions are in for it because Metatron returns to sucker punch everyone.
Sam, Dean, and Ezekiel
On the way to the biker bar, Ezekiel assures Dean that Sam is improving so the healing shouldn’t take much longer. But Ezekiel’s been saying this for the last several episodes, and Dean’s impatient.
Zeke, on the other hand, doesn’t like them investigating an angel-related case since it puts him, and therefore Sam, in danger. Dean replies that Sam would be suspicious if they didn’t check it out.
After assuring Dean that he’s not spying on the Winchesters when Sam is in charge, he disappears. Sam resurfaces mid-sentence before noticing he’s missing about 50 miles of drive. Dean makes some more excuses, but Sam is over it.
Cas is back
At the bar Sam and Dean find Castiel posing as an FBI agent. While Sam seems fine with Cas being there, Dean brings up the danger Cas is in by getting involved. Cas, though, thinks the risk is worthwhile, and Zeke isn’t happy with this turn of events.
After investigating, Sam, Dean and Cas end up at a bar. Cas reiterates that he’s part of the bigger plot and a series regular again so he’s sticking around. When he goes for more beers, Zeke wants to know what Dean plans to do about the trench coat-less angel beacon.
When Castiel returns, Zeke heads for the parking lot to pout. While he’s gone, Cas notes that Dean seems uncomfortable whenever Sam mentions Cas leaving, and Dean finally comes clean about Sam’s post-trials condition and Ezekiel’s offer to heal him.
Metatron and not!Ezekiel
In the parking lot, Ezekiel runs into Metatron, who’s bored in Heaven. He recognizes Sam’s passenger but — plot twist — he’s not Ezekiel. He’s Gadreel, the angel tasked with guarding the Garden of Eden. Obviously he screwed that up with the whole Original Sin thing, so God imprisoned him.
But Metatron wants to give Gadreel a chance to regain his reputation by helping him rebuild Heaven as Metatron’s second-in-commmand. Gadreel calls Metatron on his desire for power, but Metatron says he doesn’t want to be God; no, he’ll be called X. Mmkay.
Finally Gadreel agrees to join Metatron, but Metatron demands he prove his fidelity by neutralizing certain threats. Gadreel isn’t here to kill people, but Metatron insists and hands him his first assignment.
Castiel
Elsewhere, Castiel holes up in a motel room and prays for help in a hilarious montage. Finally an angel, Muriel, shows up, though she tries to leave when she recognizes him. Cas, though, says he just wants information. She fills him in on Malachi, Bartholomew, and how both sides are rounding up angels who aren’t choosing sides — just in time for two of Malachi’s cronies to show up.
Malachi believes Cas knows Metatron’s weakness, so he kills Muriel and tortures Cas. He also tells Cas that a lot of angels died in the fall — including Ezekiel. Uh oh.
Malachi leaves Cas to be tortured, but his torturer wants Cas to put in a good word with Metatron for him since he doesn’t think Malachi has a snowball’s chance of winning. Cas plays this up and agrees to talk to Metatron, but when the angel lets him go, Cas steals his grace and kills him. Wait, what?
Re-winged, Cas calls Dean to fill him in on Malachi and Ezekiel. He also says that he has grace again and he needs to be ready for the coming war, but it would be best if they stayed apart.
“I always trust you, and I always end up screwed.”
In the bunker, Dean asks Kevin for a spell to depower an angel so he could, hypothetically, speak with the vessel to convince him to spit the angel out. Kevin finds something and they paint sigils in the storeroom, but Kevin warns that any alteration will mess the spell up.
Kevin also demands an explanation, but Dean just asks for his trust. Kevin replies in the line that we have a sinking feeling just sealed his fate, especially in light of Dean’s “family” line earlier in the season: “I always trust you, and I always end up screwed.”
Dean takes Sam into the storeroom and activates the spell. He tells Sam the truth about the trials, his coma, and not!Ezekiel. Sam is extremely upset and Dean gets it, but he tells Sam to dump his passenger first.
But something is up when Sam doesn’t immediately eject his hitchhiker, instead punching Dean and fleeing. He comes across Kevin and, as we scream obscenities at our televisions, smites him. There are not enough rage gifs on Tumblr to adequately react to this moment.
When Dean tries to stop him, Gadreel incapacitates him and says Sam is gone; he altered the spell and was playing Sam all along. Gadreel leaves and Dean falls to the ground, cries one of his trademark One Perfect Tears, and the screen fades to black.
