Have Patience: Supernatural Review

You may or may not have heard that Supernatural has a spin-off coming called Wayward Sisters, based around my favorite Sheriff Jody Mills. Last week’s episode entitled Patience is the first of three (yes, three!) episodes this season setting up the Wayward series.

The episode begins with a young psychic about to close up shop, when a man comes in asking for a reading. He pulls the “shouldn’t you know why I’m here?” schtick on her before stabbing her hand to the table and busting out his Wraith Wand (yep, that’s what I’m calling it), feeding on her brain and killing her.

The boys and Jack are at the bunker. Dean is drinking his sorrow away in the most healthy way possible, and Sam trying to help Jack adjust. Sam gives Jack the video Kelly made for him and leaves him to himself, before getting a call from my favorite psychic, Missouri Mosely, telling him that her friend Dede was killed and she needs help. Jack, meanwhile, is watching his mother tell him that he can choose who he wants to be and he doesn’t have to be what anyone else tells him. It’s extra poignant when she tells him he has an angel watching over him, since Cas is gone.

Sam tells Dean about Missouri’s call and that he put Jody on it, since he and Dean have enough on their plates what with the son of Satan and all, but Dean gets pissed. Dean is always pissed. Now, I get Dean’s grief. I understand his feelings about Jack, I do, but he’s just being an asshole about Jack at this point and I think everyone from Sam to Jack to the audience is grateful for the angst break when Dean says he’s gonna go help Jody.

Dean arrives in Omaha and meets up with Missouri and Jody. Missouri apologizes for his losses and Jody asks how he’s doing. Dean says he’s “dandy” and literally no one believes him, but they keep quiet and the trio head into the crime scene. Dean and Jody take the more traditional investigative route, but Missouri uses her gift to see what happened. She has a vision of her son James, and tries to call to warn him, but he hangs up on her. Missouri is visibly shaken, and demands that Dean and Jody go protect her family. When Dean says he doesn’t like leaving her here, Missouri says tough, he doesn’t have to like it, but he’s gonna damn well do it. Ugh I love Missouri.

Back at the bunker, Sam is trying to help Jack learn to understand, control, and harness his powers so he doesn’t accidentally hurt himself or anyone else. I like Mr Miyagi Sam. His first exercise for Jack is simple: just move a pencil. Jack seems to have something in common with humanity, though, since the more he focuses on trying to do something, the harder it becomes. Jack can’t move it and berates himself. Sam tries to help by asking him what it was like when he threw people around and opened a hellgate and shit, to which Jack says it was like breathing. Frustrated, they both agree to take a break.

In Omaha, the wraith is back at Dede’s house, and he’s not alone. Missouri is there. She tells him not to bother trying to fool her, she knows what he is and why he’s there. He smiles, anticipating a chase, but Missouri won’t give him the satisfaction. She tell him that she knows she’s dead no matter what she does, but she won’t scream for him. And she doesn’t, but I do. Okay, maybe it’s not a scream so much as an exasperated sigh and a groan. One day, I hope the writers of this show will understand that you can have an origin story for a character without killing everyone they love. I’m not at all surprised that they killed Missouri off, since she had everything working against her, what with being a woman of color that both fans and Dean loved, but hey, it’s par for the course. I figured she wouldn’t make it to the end of the episode breathing as soon as she mentioned not being “in the life” anymore. I understand that, in the writer’s mind, she has to die as the impetus for her granddaughter to get into “the life,” I just disagree. I understand that no one would choose the life of a hunter if they felt they had any other choice, but it would be refreshing if, just once, someone didn’t have to have everyone they love die in order to choose it. Missouri didn’t have to die, and it was a cheap ploy to get the audience to invest in Patience. Anyway, that’s my rant. Dean and Jody are on their way to Georgia when Dean sees on the news that Missouri is as dead as he is inside right now, and he closes in on himself a little more, but is determined to save her family.

Meanwhile, a couple of highschool girls are chatting about volleyball in their school hallway, and after one leaves to go shower, the other notices some flickering lights. Faulty electricity is always a good sign in Supernatural, and she ventures forth to investigate.

The girl sees some blood puddles, and like every good horror character, follows them. The puddles lead to Missouri, her grandmother, and she is grabbed before she wakes up in her own bed. Patience heads downstairs and tells her dad about the nightmare, to which he super convincingly dismisses and “just a dream” and Patience heads off the school. While his daughter is at school, James answers a knock on his door to find none other than Dean and Jody, informing him that his mom was a legitimate psychic, she’s dead, and the thing that killed her is now after his daughter. James takes the news about as well as anyone who’d hung up on their mother mere hours before she was brutally murdered would.

Patience,meanwhile, is living up to her name while she chats with her friend (same one from her dream) about boys. Her life is looking suspiciously like her dream as her friend leaves to shower and she once again flashes on Missouri. Sure enough, the wraith is there waiting and attacks Patience, who snaps off his wraith wand before Dean shoots him, then gives chase. After getting nearly ran over, Dean returns to Jody and Patience, who is in full-on denial about her abilities and who her grandma really was. After Dean and Jody assure her that she is in fact psychic and that Missouri wasn’t a fraud (and also not alive), Patience goes home and confronts her dad. James tells her that he stopped believing in his mother when she told him his wife would be okay and she died. He tells her that he didn’t want Patience to have the nomadic, terrifying life he led as a child on the hunt and it makes me wonder just how many kids are being dragged around the country like he and the Winchesters were. James says they’ll figure shit out later, but they need to leave now. Patience goes to pack and for some reason everyone lets her fucking go alone because lazy writing is dragging this episode along, and waddaya know, Patience gets kidnapped by the wraith in her closet; but not before she holds an old broach and remembers her grandma saying goodbye to her as a child at her mother’s funeral.  Well, at least she screams so everyone can get to her room just a little too late to help her.

Back at the Bunker, Sam is reading The Drama of the Gifted Child and my heart swells a little. He’s trying so hard, guys. When he glances up at the monitor he has on Jack, he sees that the biggest newborn alive has vanished and panicking, Sam goes to check on him. Jack is hiding again and tells Sam he moved the pencil. Neither understands why it’s so hard when he tries, but Jack is convinced it’s because it’s in his nature not to do good things. OKay first: moving a pencil is pretty much neutral, and second: fucking thanks a lot, Dean. I’ve never been more annoyed and upset with Dean as I have been in the past three episodes, but at the same time, I’ve never seen the man grieve so hard. I digress: Jack tells Sam that it’s easy to do evil and bad shit with his powers, but doing good is hard, therefore Jack must be evil. Sam, bless him, calls bullshit and tells Jack that he’s not evil and that Dean is full of shit. Sam knows what it’s like to feel like a freak. He understands the anguish of knowing that there is darkness inside that you may not be able to control, and all he wants is to help Jack the way Sam’s family helped him. Aw Moose.

Down in Georgia, where there isn’t a devil but there is a wraith, Dean, Jody, and James try and figure out where Patience is. When the usual means fail, James busts out his mama’s divination stones and uses the same magic he used as a boy to find his daughter. Meanwhile, Patience wakes up bound and has to endure the Villain Monologue while the wraith taunts her about her grandma and then says he’s gonna feed on her slowly. Gross. The calvary shows up in rescue mode and shit does not go well. The wraith kills James while he’s trying to untie Patience, then he uses Jody’s momentum against herself and stabs her in the gut, leaving only Dean… except the wraith gets the drop on him, killing Dean as well. She flashes out of her vision just in time for the trio to actually bust in to save her, and Patience thankfully guides and warns them well enough to keep them safe and kill the wraith. Go Team!

Back at her house, Patience tells them that her dad thinks back to normal ASAP is the way to go, and Dean says he agrees. There is nothing in the hunting life but pain and death, so grab normal if you can. The more practical Jody tells Patience that she can make up her own damn mind and gives Patience her card in case she needs it (I think she will).

When Dean gets back to the bunker he and Sam have yet another fight about Jack. Sam tells Dean that Jack is messed up because of him, and Dean accuses Sam of not giving a shit that their mom and Cas died. Ya know what, I gotta say that Sam got the shaft here. He has to hold his shit together because Dean certainly can’t and someone has to help Jack figure out who and what the fuck he is. Dean is being unreasonable as fuck here, but he has never been one to handle his feelings well. When Sam reminds Dean that he saved Sam when he was lost, Dean shrugs it off because Sam “deserved” it, while Jack doesn’t. Dean can only see the people he lost when he looks at Jack, and then he goes so far as to question Sam’s own motives in helping, telling him that he’s just using Jack, anyway.

Jack is hearing all this, by the way. Like kids always seem to when adults argue. At Dean’s words, Jack whispers “Castiel…” and….

HOLY SHIT IT’S CAS! I mean, dude is in the Big Empty Void, but FUCK THERE HE IS!!!! AND HE’S AWAKE!

 

So what did you think of Patience? Does it make you more or less excited for Wayward sisters?

PS- Fun fact: I was there when they were filming in the highschool… well, I was outside… tomayto tomahto though, right?