gabriel! gabriel! gabriel!

only three episodes left til armageddon! kinda wish i had them all at once because the waiting is making me crazy. crazier. scary to think what will happen to me this summer, during my first hellatus...

anyway, onto the recap...

"hammer of the gods" episode 5x19

first of all, kudos to the production staff. the sets for this episode were stunning! especially the transformation of the super spooky abandoned motel into the "4 star hotel on a no star highway." scary or spectacular, you guys do it right, every time. also, there was tons of blood splatter this episode, which always makes me happy.

so who is responsible for the newly spruced up elysian fields? well, this creepy motherfrakker, who we later find out is the roman god mercury. acting as herald, he is sent ahead to clean up the place and make it suitable for holy-types because...
"they're coming. all of them." oh, really, messenger boy? every last god out there? so are we supposed to believe that the deities eventually gathered are the only ones left? 'cause how the hell would mercury survive and not pluto or janus or just about any other roman god? and what about the rest of the norse or hindu pantheons?

anyway, so the boys arrive at the motel amidst a torrential downpour and looking like adorable wet puppies.

they get all checked in, suspicious of the creepy clerk and overly nice digs, until dean finds out there's free pie. which leads to these shenanigans...

lol! he looks like this is the hardest decision he's had to make in months!

oh, dean :-) stay classy, darlin'!

and free pie leads to our first glimpse of kali the destroyer, who looks...odd. srsly, what the hell happened to cylon tori's kali's face? (methinks some botoxing went awry somewhere.) and anyway, who the hell does she think she is, turning down dean winchester? i turn my back to you, crazy lady. and then i mock you.

see?!? her face looks waxen.

dean's face, on the other hand, is doing just fine. fucker.

the boys chat for a bit and there are some intense moments, as per usual. dean tells sam to "unpucker" and to get some sleep, as it looks like they may actually have a night off. sam gets all angsty and implies that dean is unconcerned about their rapidly approaching doom. dean counters with, "nobody's giving up. especially me," delivered with his trademark stoicism.

all is resolved for the moment and the fellas decide to turn in. there is an adorable moment when dean is flabbergasted at their lodging windfall ("we're like the rockefellers!) and becomes overly excited by pillow chocolates and on-demand porn. but the winchesters being the winchesters, happiness is fleeting and they quickly find trouble in the room next door. after informing desk clerk mercury and being further creeped out by him, the boys decide to investigate on their own.

sam's determined face! a hilarious and personal fave from the padalecki oeuvre.

dean with his emf reader! seems like ages since we've seen that. and we've never seen an elephant!

after scoping the joint, the boys find hostages locked in the walk-in freezer and bloody eyeball soup on the stove. yikes! then they get captured and tossed in here...

again, kudos design team! this is spectacular!

...with a roomful of gods! everyone is duly introduced through a series of flashes of "ancient" images and texts intercut with the god in question. it looked super badass. several pagan religions are represented, though haphazardly, and there are a couple of characters that are never introduced and it's nigh impossible to read their name tags. because, yes, the gods are wearing name tags. lol. wouldn't they know each other already after spending several millenia together? sometimes, this show is so silly!

i rest my case. silliest and best line they're ever had on the show.

and then gabriel shows up!! unf unf unf. i love you. i'm so glad you're back.

and i love the boys expression at gabe's grand entrance. priceless padalecki. sam looks like a mentally challenged, wounded rabbit.

so then gabriel zaps team free will back to the room, hits on dean, snarks on everyone and decides to seduce kali to save the day.

"bite me, gabriel" "maybe later, big boy!" (dean/gabe, ftw!)

see, the pagan god collective has decided to wage war on lucifer and stop the xtian apocalypse. easier said than done. since gabriel (as loki) and kali used to be an item, he decides to use his sexual prowess to convince her to not take on his brother.

work it, archangel.

the seduction routine, sadly, does not work out, though there is some rather awkward kissing. turns out kali knows that gabriel is really an archangel and not a norse god. oops.

meanwhile, sam and dean are out trying to save the frozen townspeople and stumble upon a slaughter in progress. sam pulls them against a wall to hide and has to pin dean against the wall, so he doesn't charge in, guns blazing. sam insists, "it's too late" and what appears to be physical pain crosses dean's face. he cannot bear to lose anyone, but sam doesn't think twice about holding him back and sacrificing the victim. is this their true natures coming out? or is sam just more practical/logical? and dean is pure intuition and constant action?

so eventually, everyone gets captured again and kali sprouts a long metal phallus steals gabriel's angel killing sword. then kills him with it. or does she?
so then dean, seemingly at his wits end, gives a seriously xenophobic speech, preaching that they all need to join forces to kill lucifer, using gabriel's pilfered blade. while putting their plan to action, dean discovers that gabriel is still alive and that the blade kali used on him was actually made "out of a can of diet orange slice." (lolwhut? why does gabriel get so many weird lines? also strange, "so i got wings, like kotex.") anyhoo, dean lectures gabe for a while, comparing the two of them, saying, "i see right through you, you know that. the smartass shell, the whole i-could-give-a-crap thing. believe me, it takes one to know one." it's good to know dean is at least a little self-aware, but in the context of a speech about possible fratricide...i just do not like where dean is going with it. at all. you should never kill your brother, dean. no matter the circumstances. never.

but right now, bigger problems. lucifer shows up and wastes everyone with no effort at all. a mind-boggling bloody mess. apparently, lucifer really is the shit, if he can waste a motel full of gods.
kali gets scared and turns on her fighting arms of fire, which, while awesome to behold, don't slow lucy down one bit.


thankfully, gabriel shows up all eleventh hour-like, having decided to take dean's advice and stand up to his big brother. which prompts this look of hotness...

your face is a criminal offense, you so pretty.

gabriel's badass moment. i love that he's dressed like sam and dean.

gabe goes head to head with lucifer, declaring himself a member of team free will. he says things like, "damn right, they're flawed. but a lot of them try to do better, to forgive" and "no one makes us do anything." le sigh. and this is the moment when i knew he was gonna bite it for real. right after joining the gang. because badass or no, gabriel's still no match for lucifer, who "taught him all his tricks." though, lucy sure does look sad after killing his little bro. pellegrino's bringing a nice complexity to the character.

the wings make it true. :-(

the boys escape the lucifer/gabriel melee, with kali and a copy of casa erotica 13, given to dean by gabriel. they stop on the side of the road to watch and discover that the trickster is up to his old tricks. gabe has inserted himself into the porn and proceeds to explain how the winchesters have no hope of icing the devil, but they can lock him back in hell. all they need is the 4 horsemen's power rings. and they already have 2.

this is my fave cap. i love you, impala.

way to subtly work in porn, writers. fanservice?

naturally, cut to max headroom trashcan man pestilence, who is one nasty fucker. i can't wait to see how they take him down! it's bound to be a snotty, bloody mess.

this cap is included simply because damn! vancouver is beautiful.

the third ring of power

free kittens. lol.

oh, show. awesome.

in conclusion, i loved this ep. i loved that sam and dean seemed almost incidental, which makes sense as they are in the company of gods! the winchesters are important sure, but still kinda secondary; just fancy meatsuits. um, other things i haven't mentioned: 1. dean was totally wearing his jacket from "the end." what does it mean? is everything already decided? can the winchesters change destiny? 2. where the fuck is cas? not to mention adam. at least we get crowley back next ep. mark sheppard, always ftw! 3. another not-so-subversive dig at xtianity, as lucifer basically says the god squad rules the world now because they took power by brute force. sheesh, i love this mythology.