'Supernatural' Recap — Episode 8.02, "What's Up, Tiger Mommy?"

The premiere of a television show, whether it’s the pilot or the first of the 8th season, of course has to be packed to overflowing with exposition. It’s a little annoying, but it has to be trudged through. But that of course means that the second episode is where the crew starts to have fun—and oh, fun they did have in this episode.

Of course, we have to begin with the Cold Opening, where a creepy-looking old guy makes a trip to the bank to retrieve a bone from his safe box, and also to kill the girl who helped him get it. We have to let people know he’s evil, after all.

Then we get to the story. Kevin wants to go see his mom. Dean doesn’t want to let him, but eventually gives in anyways. Of course, she seems okay, but the perimeter is surrounded by demons—similar to how Lilith’s house was guarded in season three. Of course, the Winchester’s gank them all—including the neighbor, who’s inside with Kevin’s mom (“Linda,” for the majority of you who seemed to miss it), since she’s of course possessed too.

So, Kevin’s mom freaks out, right?

Well, yeah, a little bit. Then she gets the whole ‘supernatural creatures’ talk, and seems to be fairly at peace with all of it. Except for the fact that demons kidnapped her son,

One degree of separation from everything we’ve ever wanted on this show, ever.

of course. And, to prevent this from happening again, she decides to go with Kevin and the Winchesters to get the Word of God. Not without resistance from the brothers, of course—but, despite being about half their size, she manages to convince them to take her with them on their little trip.

Under the conditions that both her and Kevin get anti-possession tattoos. To which she replies, “Fine. Not like it’s my first tattoo.”

And as if that wasn’t enough, we actually get to see Kevin and his mom get inked up, with Kevin mewling like an injured kitten the whole time and his mom completely stone-faced.

Basically, Linda Tran is a complete badass.

Anyways—Kevin leads the Winchesters to where he stashed the tablet, which happened to be a locker at a bus station. So of course they just pick it up and make their merry way home and the episode ends.

No, definitely not.

Inside the locker is not the Word of God, but a diaper bag. Apparently some guy had been robbing all the lockers, and stuff got moved around. So the Winchesters go to interrogate the robber—who, luckily for them, had already been detained. Not so lucky for the convict that he ran into the Winchesters, though. When he doesn’t cooperate right away, Dean has a Purgatory flashback and ends up grabbing the guy and putting a knife to his throat. In the flashback, he gets directions to where “his angel” is hiding out, finally—in present day, they discover where the pawn shop is that the robber sold the tablet to.

Definitely looks like the kind of car you could owe $10,000 worth of taxes on.

Not without Sam being fairly upset at his brother. But, it got the job done.

They go talk to the pawn shop guy, who’s of course being obstinate. Dean threatens to rough him up…but, he just points out the camera he’s got set up. Not really a good idea for the Winchesters, because the last time they were famous, they were Leviathans on a mass killing spree. But it’s okay, because the Trans take care of it, managing to figure out that the guy owes a good $10,000 taxes on his car, which obviously he doesn’t want to pay.

So, the Winchesters+Tran quartet end up at some hideous bright green motel, where they’re accosted by a guy who looks like Willy Wonka that invites them to an auction, where the tablet’s being sold. Not that they really have much to bid, since Sam’s suggestion to bid the car goes about as well as you’d think. They just decide, hey—let’s go there, look at the tablet on display and get Kevin to memorize it. No currency needed! Except, they get to the tablet and find that it’s covered up in its glass case, therefore completely unreadable.

And, oh yeah, Crowley is there. And oh yeah, Kevin’s mom totally slaps him square in the face.

After that little fiasco, the auction starts, so everyone goes into the little room—except Dean, who gets stopped by Matt the bug kid. Er, I mean, an angel, in the lobby. His angel name is Samandiriel/Simandrael/Samawhatshisface, but his vessel’s name tag says “Alfie” so I have a feeling we’re just going to stick with that. In any case, he asks about Castiel, which triggers the flashback that about 95% of the fandom had been waiting for throughout the first half of this episode.

Dean finally finds Castiel in Purgatory, and gives him a hug. Let me repeat, Castiel finally gets his hug. Introductions between Benny and Cas happen with little event, and

But hey, it’s no big deal. I mean it’s not like we’ve been waiting a good 80 episodes for this or anything.

Castiel gives an explanation of where he had been the whole time. He had run away, sure—but only to keep the Leviathan away from Dean, since they would all be most interested in going after the angel. Benny is all for leaving Castiel again, but Dean insists that they take Cas with them when they go to escape Purgatory.

Dean snaps back to the present, and the auction starts. Altogether, the group manages to scrounge up about $2,000 from their collective fund. So they’ll be able to get something, right?

Well, the bidding starts at three tons of dwarven gold for the first item, so…no. Probably not.

Dean sneaks out to go try an alternative method, finding the guy who’s transporting the items over. But, even after stealing the key, it turns out that there’re people guarding the items in the store room. Wow, who would have thought!

So, he comes back and sits down, not exactly victorious, and the bidding starts on the Word. Prices get ridiculous, but apparently not good enough for the God running the bidding. So…Kevin gets added to the lot. His mother, of course, jumps at it—going as far as to bid her soul, even after being told what kind of things get done to souls that get taken from people. Long story short, it’s not fun. Crowley tries to raise the bid with a million souls from Hell, but the dude ain’t biting. The demon ups the bid to…his own soul. But, apparently he doesn’t have one.

Slightly odd point in the episode, which most likely means there’s something behind it. Maybe we’ll find out later in the season.

Sam and Dean try and comfort Kevin’s mother, but get ushered out of the room, leaving her with the Willy Wonka guy—then Alfie shows up, offering to give the angel’s protection to Kevin. She declines, saying she’ll take her chances with the Winchesters.

But, the time comes, and she steps up to give her soul away…except Dean notices that the tattoo on her arm had been burned off. Which really only means one thing—there was a demon possessing her. Said demon, of course, is Crowley, who was conspiring with the Willy Wonka guy to kill the God running the auction and take all the stuff. They get to the killing part well enough, but the Winchesters put a halt to the rest, protecting Kevin. Crowley runs off, and the Wonka guy starts shooting at people. But Sam spots Thor’s hammer—which was in the auction, by the way—and picks it up to start swinging.

Apparently the King of Hell makes very pretty smoke.

Down goes everyone else in the room, since apparently he’s worthy to wield the power of Thor, and he joins the Crowley chase. But, the King of Hell smokes out of Kevin’s mom, returning to his usual vessel—with newfound knowledge of what they were going to use the tablet for. Namely, closing the gates of Hell. So of course, he makes off with the tablet…leaving Kevin’s mom’s brain thoroughly scrambled, leaving her practically comatose.

The Winchesters leave Kevin alone to talk to his mom, and Dean shows absolutely no remorse over attempting to kill Kevin’s mom while Crowley was possessing her. After a little talk, they go to pick up Kevin again…except him and his mom have somehow made off, leaving a note that says they’re not coming back. Where have they gone? No one knows.

My vote’s with the angel, though.

And oh, speaking of angels, they for some reason decided to close the episode with a clip of Castiel screaming for Dean in Purgatory.

Whyyy?!

We probably won’t find out why, but you might as well tune into the next episode of Supernatural on the CW next Wednesday, October 17th, at 9/8c. I hear there’s organic produce!

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