What Might Have Been

Friday's episode of Supernatural, "My Heart Will Go On" was the perfect back-from-hiatus romp that we so desperately needed.  Seriously, this felt like a really long break, and we're impatient to see how the last few episodes of the season go.  When we last saw the Winchesters, they were helping Bobby say goodbye to Rufus, who was unnecessarily killed in the last episode.  Speaking of people who were unnecessarily killed, we saw a familiar face in this episode - but we'll get to that.

SPOILERS!

The episode begins with our soon-to-be-dead person, Garage Door Guy.  We knew immediately that this man would be Garage Door Guy, because the first thing he did was to prop open his garage door with a stick.  Never a good sign.  He starts fiddling with his Saturday project, and discovers that his beer has somehow translocated itself to another workbench.  As he goes for it, he slips on a skateboard and nearly impales his face on some gardening implements.  Close call.  Then he steps on some golf balls, which causes him to fall on his back, his head in the perfect position to be messily severed from his body by the garage door guillotine.  Hence, Garage Door Guy.

The Winchesters warily watch as Bobby leafs through books and pours himself drinks in a flurry of activity.  Neither Sam nor Dean seem to be willing to be the first to speak, but after losing a furious but silent game of Rock, Paper, Scissors, Sam wonders aloud if Bobby might possibly think about taking a break anytime soon?  Please?  Bobby gets all growly and refuses, heading to the kitchen for coffee.  The brothers have a whispered discussion on whether or not to bring Bobby along on a job - the death of Garage Door Guy isn't the only strange fatal accident in that area.  They try to broach the subject, but Bobby shoots them down and tells them to get the hell out of there.  The boys are only too happy to go, and hope that Bobby will start feeling better when "she's" back.  Wait, what?

Then we see the Winchesters climb into the car - no, wait!  That's not their car!  It's a Mustang!  A black Mustang with orange racing stripes!  Where the hell is the Impala?!

When Sam and Dean roll into Garage Door Guy's hometown, they quickly learn that all of the victims of the strange and deadly accidents are from the same extended family.  A quick search of Garage Door Guy's garage yields a strange gold thread.  Sam and Dean decide to split up - Sam to do research (like he does!), and Dean to completely freak out a surviving member of Garage Door Guy's extended family.

Meanwhile, in a "Honey, I'm home!" moment, who should walk into Bobby's house but Ellen?!  That's right, awesome Ellen, who sacrificed herself with her daughter Jo back in the fifth season!  She gives Bobby a quick peck on the cheek and scolds him for not taking care of himself.  She busily unpacks some groceries, mentioning in passing that Jo is away on a hunting job (sadly, we don't get to see her).  The camera lingers on a photo of Bobby and Ellen, arms wrapped around each other, and we realize (with help from the dialogue, of course) that Bobby and Ellen are - somehow - happily married.  Whaaaa?

We see another soon-to-be-dead person, Copy Machine Lady, hard at work in her travel agency office.  How do we know this is Copy Machine Lady?  Because she dumps a stack of paper on the copier, blatantly wearing a long, flowing scarf.  She bustles around, talking on the phone to a prospective traveller to Cuba (Whaaaa?).  She finishes up the conversation and rummages in her bag for her car keys.  They're nowhere to be found - but then she spots them on the floor behind the copier.  As she reaches for them, the inevitable happens, and she is strangled when her scarf is caught by the office machine of death.

Sam calls Ellen when they reach a dead end in the case, and also to make sure that Bobby's all right.  She lets them know that Jo's working on a similar case, and has discovered that all of her victims' ancestors all came to America at the same time.  On the same ship, in fact.  Specifically, the Titanic.  Sam and Dean are baffled - what's the big deal with this ship?  It was just a big boat that crossed the ocean, just like it was supposed to.  They look into the history of the ship, and learn that it had a very close call with an iceberg on its maiden voyage.  The alert crewmember who spotted it just in time was a fellow by the name of I.P. Freely.  Their suspicions aroused, the Winchesters search for a picture, and see a familiar face looking back at them.  It's Balthazar.  They perform a summoning ritual lickety split in order to learn why Balthazar went back in time to save a ship.

It turns out that Balthazar didn't take his little field trip back in time in order to save the ship (and the people onboard), but rather to prevent both the movie Titanic and Celine Dion's lucrative and undeserved singing career (this rant is one of the best parts of the episode).  Unfortunately, the ripple effect of this massive history retcon is that all of the people who died when the Titanic sank went on to finish their lives and have lots of descendents.  Also, the Impala was never made (sob!).  Sam and Dean figure out that something is killing all of the Titanic survivors' progeny - about fifty thousand people.  They demand that Balthazar go back and sink the boat, but Balthazar tells them that if he does that, history will go back to the way it was, which means that Ellen and Jo will be dead.

Sam and Dean discuss all of this as they walk down the street, where they run into Garage Door Guy's distant lawyer relative - the one Dean freaked out when he told him his life was in danger.  They try to warn him, and are barely able to prevent him from being run over by a truck.  The guy is still freaked out, however, and in his efforts to get away from the Winchesters, he's hit by a bus.  Dean notes with amusement that the bus advertisement is for the guy's law practice, and Sam glares at him in disapproval.  Dean says "What?  Too soon?" and Sam replies "Yeah, Dean, I think six seconds is too soon."  Sam notices a woman watching them from the other side of the street, and they go into a large, empty restaurant kitchen to investigate.  Time freezes, and the woman turns on all of the gas burners on the stoves.  Dean's flashlight goes out, and he pulls out his lighter instead.  Just when our boys are going to be blown to smithereens, Castiel yanks them out of harm's way.  He tells them that Fate (one of the three, anyway) is angry about Balthazar's trip to the Titanic, and is trying to put things back into balance by killing all of the people who never should have been born.  Dean is pissed that he and Sam are now Fate's targets because of Balthazar, and he tells Cas that he needs new friends.  Cas angrily replies that he's trying to keep the ones he has.  The angel tells them that the only way for everyone to stay alive (Ellen and Jo, the Titanic progeny, the Winchesters themselves) is to kill Fate.  In order to draw her out into the open, they have to tempt her.

Sam and Dean psych themselves up for their Walk of Death.  They begin their casual stroll down the street and encounter kids on bikes, large scary dogs, jugglers with knives and fire, etc.  They eventually walk directly under a huge container that starts to crash down on them, but time freezes again.  Cas and Fate meet and start discussing the situation.  Fate is angry that she no longer knows what to do now that the Apocalypse has been averted, and refuses to allow the same kind of confusion in past eras in which the Fates had control.  She accuses Cas of trying to "mint souls" for his "war machine" and threatens to kill the Winchesters if he doesn't have Balthazar go back and undo his retcon.  Cas agrees, and stops Balthazar from sneaking up on Fate with his angel sword.

The Winchesters wake up in the Impala (Yes!  All is as it should be!) to the tune of Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On".  They look at each other in astonishment, thinking that they shared a very strange dream.  Cas appears and tells them that it wasn't a dream, and he let them keep their memory of it so that they would know what he did for them.  He tells them that they taught him what freedom was - no destiny, no Fate, no Apocalypse - and that he still believes that it's worth fighting for.  He lets them believe that Balthazar really did change history just to prevent a terrible movie and its theme song, though he looks incredibly guilty about it.  Sam and Dean decide not to tell Bobby about their experience - now that Ellen has gone back to being dead, there's no need to torture him with what might have been.

Questions that still need answers:

What's the deal with the souls?  I'm still holding on to my belief that souls can be used as some sort of power source, and that's why angels and demons have collected them for Heaven and Hell for millennia.  But what is Cas planning, that he needs a lot of souls to do it?  We know that he's trying to win the War in Heaven, and that if he doesn't, the consequences will be terrible.  But he's looking awfully squeamish about the things he's doing to accomplish that.  We were extremely happy to see so much of him in this episode, however!

This is the first time we've really started to warm up to Balthazar, if only that it seems we share his taste in movies and music.  We know that he's likely to die (Come on.  You know it's true.  The most entertaining angels always die.), but we're starting to be really sorry about it. 

It was a cruel tease to briefly bring Ellen back.  She really is an awesome character, and her marriage to Bobby was extremely fitting.  We were very annoyed at the weird camera shots during her tearful moment with Bobby, however.  Close-ups of the eyes?  Really?

Next week:

Sam and Dean ask Castiel to send them back to the Old West to talk to Samuel Colt.  Yup.  That Samuel Colt.  It's going to be awesome!