This week’s episode of The Winchesters sees Carlos talking through a problem in his personal life, which gives a new idea about how to find the Akrida Queen. Millie’s new security system for the Clubhouse proves helpful when Mary and John find an unexpected guest inside. Meanwhile, Latika’s idea brings her and Carlos face to face with an unexpected ally.
Roadside Assistance
We begin in Lawrence in 1957. On the side of a dark road, a woman waits next to her broken-down car. A passerby pulls up, and as luck would have it, she knows her way around an engine. After a quick look under the hood, the helpful driver thinks she might be able to fix it. The stranded woman goes to fetch her husband’s tools. What are the chances a gal who knows about cars would happen down this way? She’s so very lucky … but the passerby isn’t. The woman retrieves a crowbar from the trunk, and after noting the other woman’s name — Dorothea — she knocks her out. As she stands over her, we see three telltale Akrida marks on the back of her neck.
The Things We Do For Love
Back in 1972, Millie has just finished fixing up the clubhouse with an intruder alarm powered by a “rare and dangerous magic called technology.” John and Mary thank her and ask about the Ostium. Unfortunately, she’s not been so successful with the monster box yet. Millie bids the couple goodbye, and they head back to research and review where they’re at: Samuel Campbell and Ada are out looking for magic to defeat the Akrida, and Carlos and Lata are searching for the Akrida Queen, which leaves John and Mary elbow deep in the Men of Letters’ catalog. Looking through a stack of papers, John finds an unopened letter from KSU. Mary reassures him that it’s close to home, and he, in turn, encourages her to open it. Mary got in! John and Mary’s kiss celebrating her little slice of normalcy is interrupted by the new alarm going off.
“Hunting and happy endings don’t usually mix. So, when you get your chance, how far will you go to get it?”
– Dean (Voiceover)
Checking out the Clubhouse after the alarm, John and Mary find a laid tea table with a candle lit in the center. Their lore books have also been alphabetized. Their intruder seems to be the tidy sort. As the pair deliberate a Mary Poppins break-in, a tall man with a British accent strolls into the room with a teapot. (It’s a real “Mrs. Butters” vibe for the Supernatural season 15 fans!)
He introduces himself as Porter J. Hobbs, Men of Letters. He’s come to help them kill the Akrida Queen. John and Mary are suspicious, but he passes the holy water test and has no Akrida marks. Despite some hunter prejudice and a propensity to organize — “Everything in its place” — Porter doesn’t seem especially evil, happily informing them of his past as a neurosurgeon before the Men of Letters recruited him to serve as their master physician. He experimented on the minds of monsters and built the laboratory at the Clubhouse. He retired after the Akrida were last pushed back but continued to study them. He’s come to share what he’s uncovered.
Porter explains to John and Mary how he can produce a neurotoxin to take out the Akrida Queen. He seems eerily pleased that she will suffer before dying. To do it, he needs the stingers from an Akrida victim. Procuring those is hunter work, he says. Eyes rolling, John and Mary tell him that they know a guy.
One fake police scanner dispatch later, and Officer Jones, the Akrida-possessed cop with the sunglasses, interrupts his donut break to walk into Mary and John’s trap. He pulls a gun on Mary, but they quickly subdue him.
Back at the Clubhouse, Porter has Officer Jones on a medical table. He’s happy that he’s so close to finishing and paying back the Akrida for “what they took” from him. Mary and John are increasingly uneasy; this is personal for Porter. He said he didn’t have a family, but John spots a ring mark on his finger.
Mary is researching. She comes across a note about Porter. Or, rather, a note about his assistant Jack, who the records say built the lab that Porter claimed to have built. They pull the file on Jack. He oversaw every aspect of building the lab and received special recognition for following through with his motto: “Everything in its place.” Mary and John share a look before Mary continues reading. Jack was kicked out of the Men of Letters for experimenting on humans.
John and Mary head down to the lab. They flatter and bait Porter, trying to get him to slip up. When he does, forgetting that he’d told them he, Porter, had made the solution to knock out Akrida-controlled humans and crediting it to Jack, his face turns cold. “You are so very like your father, aren’t you, John?” he says before knocking them out.
John wakes with his hands tied. He calls out for Mary, but Porter — actually Jack — tells him that he’s prepped her for surgery. It turns out that he had been watching them, waiting for Carlos and Lata to leave. He did take the stingers out of Officer Jones but lied about him surviving the process. Jack leaves to give Mary her mysterious “procedure,” and John gets to work with a razor blade he’d hidden in his clothes.
Mary wakes under a surgical light next to comatose Dorothea; the woman knocked out by the Akrida in 1957. She’s Jack’s wife; she’s what they took from him. He’s going to use the Akrida stingers for a procedure to put Dorothea’s consciousness into Mary’s body. Then, he will take John for a ride.
John frees himself, but his run to Mary is waylaid by a golem. After being tossed around a bit, he manages to run to the room where Mary is being held. He punches Jack and runs over to unbuckle her. She tells him to get the scroll out of the golem’s mouth, and they fight it together, eventually decapitating it in the incinerator and burning its head to ash. Headless, the golem freezes and topples, crushing Jack. He dies beside Dorothea.
With the bodies salted, burned, and buried, John and Mary lean on their shovels. They discuss Jack doing all that so he wouldn’t lose Dorothea. “The things we do for love,” John says. Mary challenges the statement, telling him that it wasn’t love and that Jack was only thinking of himself and what he wanted. It didn’t matter if it cost him his humanity.
Mary: “That’ll never be us, right?”
John: “Never.”
Don’t Forgive and Forget, Remember and Recover
Meanwhile, Lata and Carlos are parked in Carlos’ van, reviewing their fruitless day. None of the locations from Samuel’s photographs gave them any clues. Carlos is distracted. After a lot of prodding, he admits that his thoughts are caught up on Anton. Clearly, the only answer is for Carlos to break up with him and forget what he needs to forget. Carlos is spared Lata’s further berating on his idiocy because his words prompted her to think of something that might help them find the Akrida Queen — the people they freed from the Akrida’s control. If they still have memories from their possession, they might be able to help.
Carlos and Lata knock on a motel door. Inside is pitiful, dusty, and lined with alcohol bottles. Roxy is sprawled face down on the bed. She’s alive, despite first impressions, but not too happy to see them — she recognizes Lata, though she can’t recall how. Roxy has lost everything: her girlfriend, job, and apartment. Carlos and Lata convince her that they are there to help. Her time with the Akrida wasn’t a bad dream; it was all real. Roxy’s memories are fragmented, and she doesn’t want them anymore. Lata tells her that if she helps them, she can help her forget. Roxy’s interest is piqued — as is Carlos’.
Carlos brings supplies from his stash for Lata to perform a blood magic ceremony. She’s going to get Roxy to remember her Akrida memories, then forget them. Lata admits that Tony taught her how to do it. Carlos quickly puts together that Lata has been seeing Tony in her dreams. He wants all the details of her nighttime rendezvous, but they focus on the magic he’s been teaching her.
Roxy appears, arms cleaned and ready to go. With Roxy lying on the bed, Lata paints sigils up her arms. They glow blue. Roxy begins to narrate her memories from when the Akrida found her. Suddenly, Roxy bolts upright and grabs a knife, saying, “I won’t let you do it again!” Carlos pushes in front of Lata, but Lata tells him it’s okay — it’s working. Roxy screams as she relives the Akrida burrowing inside her.
“It’s taking my body … my arms. My voice.”
– Roxy
Lata gently directs Roxy to give them information about where the queen is.
While Roxy rests, Carlos makes some headway, finding a location matching Roxy’s description. When she wakes up, Roxy asks why she still has her memories. Lata explains that it’s a two-step process; excavation, then erasure. She starts preparing the second step, and Carlos asks if Roxy would like some of his come-down tea. After thinking for a minute, Roxy says she doesn’t want to forget. She may have a hellish ordeal in her brain, but she wants to remember that she helped them.
In his van, Carlos berates Lata for holding out on him about Tony and her memory-erasing abilities in his hour of need. Lata refuses to erase Anton for him. Carlos admits that if he’d known before, he probably would have asked. But seeing Roxy say she’d live with her memories and be okay made him realize that sometimes the things you want to forget are the things you shouldn’t. They arrive at the location Roxy described. Checking it out, they see the Akrida-controlled woman who collected the monster essence from the lab where they found Samuel, confirming the Akrida Queen’s location.
Set Up
In a bar, a group of Akrida-controlled humans is meeting. They share their mutual disgust for human foods (other than ranch dressing, which one claims will make a good condiment for humans) and discuss the matter at hand: the hunters. They no longer need monster essence, so why are they keeping them around? Kyle, Mary’s reporter friend turned Akrida host, tells the group that the Queen thinks they may be useful, mainly for leading them to “this bastard.” Kyle drops a photograph of Dean on the table. They think he’s a hunter too, and he’s the reason that “the hunter’s merry band” got together. Kyle has a plan to eliminate him, though. It involves spilling a little human blood, which seems to delight his Akrida friends.
Late that night, John walks into Winchester Garage. With a flick of the lights, he realizes he’s not alone. Kyle was waiting for him. Kyle tells John about a fight they’re about to have, and John asks if he’s been drinking before realizing that Kyle is being controlled. The Akrida set it up to look as if John has been harassing Kyle. John begs him not to do it, but Kyle pulls out a knife and stabs himself multiple times in the chest. John runs to Kyle, and that’s where Millie finds him seconds later when she opens the door. Blood everywhere. Police sirens sound.
Winchester Stupid Count: 2
If you’ve been following our The Winchesters podcast, On The Road Again, you’ll know that we’re keeping track of moments our lovably hardheaded Winchesters have thrown themselves into danger or generally made questionable decisions. Knowing them, the count will be high by the end of the season! Without further ado, this week’s incidents include:
- John’s fight with the golem. Even after Mary tells him about the scroll, he still goes for everything except the mask he’s wearing.
- John running to Kyle instead of fleeing when he stabbed himself. Yeah, there’s a guy in there, but he just told you he was setting you up, dude!
The Winchesters airs on Tuesdays at 9 p.m. ET on The CW. You can find our other coverage of the show here, and be sure to check out On The Road Again, Nerds & Beyond’s podcast covering all things The Winchesters!
