I Want My Angel Back

After last week's episode of Supernatural, which was a soaring, sweeping and heart-breaking example of what the show's writers, actors and directors are capable of, I had my doubts that such amazing momentum could continue through the two remaining episodes "Let It Bleed" and "The Man Who Knew Too Much".  I hate it when I'm right about things like this.  Because I'm still trying to figure things out and nothing much happened that we didn't already know would happen, I'll do quick recaps of both episodes and move on to an extended Question section.

SPOILERS!

"Let It Bleed"

Dean is still angsty about Cas refusing to abandon his deal with Crowley.  Bobby tells the boys that Cas stole a Campbell journal from them that contains more clues about how to open Purgatory.  Fortunately, Bobby (suspicious bastard) had made a copy, and tries to head Cas off by following the same trail.  Meanwhile, Crowley and his demon thugs kidnap Lisa and Ben, increasing Dean's angst by a factor of ten at the very least.  The brothers call Balthazar for help and fill him in on Cas' plan.  Balthazar zaps away to confirm the facts with Cas and decides to keep helping him anyway.  Dean tries to torture Lisa and Ben's location out of a series of demons, and one of them breaks through the Devil's Trap.  Cas shows up and kills the demon and asks Dean, once again, to trust him.  Dean refuses.  Balthazar shows up, having sussed out the location of Lisa and Ben.  He takes the Winchesters there but is unable to enter the building because Crowley had thoroughly angel-proofed it.  Sam immediately gets knocked out and locked in a closet, and Dean kills some demons and sets Lisa and Ben free - except oh no!  Lisa's actually possessed by a demon!  She threatens Ben and taunts Dean and hints yet again that Dean is actually Ben's father, though she immediately says "Just kidding!"  Dean starts to recite the exorcism ritual and Lisa stabs herself so that she'll die once Dean finishes.  He scoops Lisa up, hands Ben a shotgun, and blasts his way out of there, picking Sam up on the way.  They rush Lisa to the hospital but she's dying anyway.  Cas shows up and apologizes, heals Lisa, and erases any memory of Dean from Lisa and Ben's minds.  Oh so sad.  Bobby follows a trail of Lovecraft clues to his former blonde professor lover, who is actually some kind of monster from Purgatory.  Bobby tells her that she's not safe and that Cas is on his way, but she tells him that she can take care of herself.  Cas snatches her easily.

"The Man Who Knew Too Much"

Sam has lost it.  The wall came down when Cas touched him, in order to prevent Bobby and the Winchesters from being able to stop him from opening Purgatory (the blonde monster lady told him how, and she died).  Now Sam is trapped inside his own mind, surrounded by menacing metaphors and whatnot.  Dean is freaking out, but Bobby tells him that this is exactly what Cas wants, so the two of them head out to stop Cas and Crowley.  Balthazar betrayed their location to them, even though he was harboring doubts about going against Cas.  Cas, holding a jar of blood for the ritual, tells Crowley that once they crack open Purgatory, he's not planning on sharing any of the souls with him.  He tells Crowley to flee or die, and Crowley chooses to flee.  Balthazar shows up and Cas kills him for his betrayal.  Crowley comes back with Rafael, however, having made a new deal.  Raf wants the souls from Purgatory, and tells Cas to flee or die.  Cas flees, after giving Raf the jar of blood.  Crowley and Rafael begin the ritual while Dean and Bobby sneak in the back.  They put up a token resistance but Crowley easily subdues them, and continues with the ritual.  It doesn't work.  Cas shows up, looking very smug.  Crowley realizes that Cas must have tricked them and switched jars.  Cas is now full of souls, demonstrating this by glowing really brightly.  Crowley gets his ass out of there, and Cas snaps his fingers and explodes Rafael.  Dean and Bobby cautiously approach Cas and tell him to put the souls back, but Cas refuses (he's totally high as a kite on all these souls).  Sam (having killed a few versions of himself in his mind) sneaks up behind him and stabs him with an angel sword, but it doesn't work.  Cas claims that he's not an angel anymore - he's a newer, better God, and they'd all better bow down to him before he explodes them, too.

Seriously.  That's it.  Let's get to the Questions part.

Questions that still need some freaking answers already:

WTF?!  (I don't think anything needs to be added to this one.)

So...  How about those Heavenly weapons then?  That sure turned out to be a major plot point - NOT!  We saw two of the weapons and heard vague mentions of others.  There was an entire meta-episode dedicated to Balthazar giving those weapons to Cas.  They were really talked up - remember when Cas said that whoever had the weapons won the war?  Now we get to the season finale and they aren't even mentioned.  Look, I'd accept that the weapons were a red herring if the writers had wrapped it all up a little better, but that didn't happen, and so it annoys me.

What about Death?  Death was the one who got Sam's soul back and told Dean that "it's all about the souls."  And it was.  But what does Death care about souls anyway?  He's just interested in the transitional period, if I understand correctly.  If it was important enough for him to mention, wouldn't it have been important enough for him to show up again at some point?  Apparently not.

Really?  The key to Purgatory was conveniently contained in Bobby's former lady friend?  All it took was some blood and a ritual to open the door?  The Lovecraft thing was cool, but really?  My disbelief can be suspended no further.

Exactly what was Crowley expecting to get out of a deal with Rafael?  Remember the whole Apocalypse thing?  How was he expecting to survive if he turned Rafael into a freaking God?  He's cagier than that.

Why, oh why did they have to bring up the Ben-might-really-be-Dean's-son thing AGAIN?  Hasn't this been asked and answered about a bajillion times? 

Speaking of Lisa and Bobby's blonde lady friend, where is the love for any women on this show?  You've got poor defenseless Lisa who needs to be rescued, but first, a little slut-shaming!  You just can't trust these nasty bitches that sleep with other guys, can you?  And stupid blonde monster lady, thinking that she could possibly protect herself, and then spilling her guts like a weak woman would. 

Why kill Balthazar?  He was entertaining, even though he had almost zero character development, and I would have liked to have seen more of him. 

And now we move on to Castiel.  Look, I like my characters to have a little ambiguity, and Supernatural usually excels at highlighting ambiguity.  What is "good"?  What is "evil"?  What is "right", and what is "wrong"?  Etc., etc., etc.  But what I don't like is a fundamental character change within the space of three episodes (at most).  The only way I can make sense of this is that the strain of dealing with Crowley and fighting a losing War in Heaven pushed Cas over the edge, and he's now gone completely mad.  I'm sure the addition of millions of souls didn't help, either.  Whatever it is that is telling Bobby and the Winchesters to bow down, it's not Cas.  Not really.  Maybe something other than the souls slipped through when Cas did the ritual.  Since Supernatural was kind enough to weave H.P. Lovecraft into all of this, I'm just going to cling to my belief that Cas is being possessed by Cthulu until I find out otherwise.

I want my angel back, damnit, and I feel like this whole season has been mis-handled.  The writers neglected Cas' character until "The Man Who Would Be King", and then shoe-horned in this major character flip.  To me, this speaks of either an inablility or lack of interest in introducing new characters and then keeping them.  I'm okay with Cas getting morally gray, but becoming a tyrannical God?  I'm not buying it, and if things don't progress to my satisfaction when the seventh season starts next fall, then my love for Supernatural beyond the fifth season will officially be dead. 

On the bright side, Burn Notice will start up soon.

Next Season:

Who even knows.