Supernatural #9.3 “I’m No Angel” Recap & Review

Summary: A slow episode follows Castiel on a tour of what it’s like to be human, with mixed results.

If you have not seen this episode yet and don’t wish to be spoiled, do not keep reading.

Recap

Castiel has been living in a shelter for men while hiding from the angels. When he realizes that the angels are near and killing people, he continues his journey towards Sam and Dean. After a kerfuffle with an angel, Cas meets April, a girl who’s immediately enamoured with him and takes him in. Meanwhile, Sam and Dean track angel-related murders to try and find Cas, only to be tracked themselves by a Reaper Bounty Hunter that they subsequently defeat. The new man in command who’s been orchestrating these murders is Bartholemew, Naomi’s protoge, and he’s been giving faithful people a chance to give themselves up, to either be vessels die in the process. Eventually, April reveals herself to be a bounty hunter, torturing Cas to find out the truth about how heaven closed. Sam and Dean arrive and save him; Cas dies in the process, but Ezekiel takes over Sam to bring him back. Dean lies to them both, saying he made a deal with the Reaper to bring him back before killing her. At home base, Ezekiel tells Dean that he can’t remain in Sam’s body while Cas is around, for fear that the angels will attack them. Dean reluctantly kicks Cas out.

Review

For a show that began as a horror-movie-of-the-week thriving on thrills and scares, it’s interesting how much it’s evolved to be much…slower. There’s a whole lot of walking and talking going on in “I’m No Angel”…lots and lots and lots of it.

It’s a slow episode, and one that would probably fail miserably if it was about anyone but fan-favorite Castiel, but holds up okay because of its unique introspectiveness. Cas goes on a tour of human life, in a way, meeting people who show him different sides of humanity while he learns the minutiae we all adapted to as infants. There’s plenty of humor here as Cas learns that life ”a’int all just burritos and strippers,” and Misha Collins makes the most of it. But Castiel’s pit stops don’t provide as much insight as the show would like it to, especially considering how insightful the show can be. Instead, the show settles on insisting how humans waste food and feel things. It’s not irrelevant, but there isn’t much we haven’t seen before with Cas; he’s simply in a different position, living it instead of observing.

One of these pit stops is in a church, where Cas is confronted with the idea of faith in Christian God versus faith in the general sense. There’s dark humor in the thought that the majority of the American people still pray to a God that, in the Supernatural universe, has left the building (or wrote a bunch of books about the Winchesters, depending on the theory you subscribe to.) This idea is only more emphasized with heaven being locked up, so it makes sense for it to be brought up. What isn’t appropriate is twisting it into a broad, very Hollywood-y conversation about personal beliefs and faith.

The thing is, Supernatural is built on the idea that the human spirit can prevail against cosmic horrors with grounded methods and creativity. That’s not to say blind faith isn’t a factor; the Winchesters have always had to have faith that their quest to protect free will was the right decision. But that’s not really the discussion here; instead, we’re met with empty comments about how people should have faith just because…well…they should. Because having faith is good. Even if you know for a fact that what you believe in is utterly wrong, faith is good, and you should have it. There’s something to be said about how this show has both attacked and defended religion during its run, but this empty vagueness is never what made it work.

The real meat of the episode comes from Cas’s interactions with April before her reveal as a villain. As per usual, Cas is guilty as all get-out, but his relative acceptance of his mortality is interesting. Cas is in no rush to try to find some magical way to restore his grace, and instead is using this downgrade as penance for his misdeeds. Luckily, he’s not taking full blame for it; he was still used all last season, and he’s not hiding that. The dialogue pre-April reveal is nicely handled, allowing for Cas’s literal comments to be, in theory, taken as general commentary on life as a whole. It doesn’t matter since April is a bounty hunter, but it’s a nice way to handle it.

Also worth noting is that the bounty hunter possessing April established that the angels do know Metatron had a hand in locking Heaven, and thankfully explains the angels’ frustrating vendetta—they simply believe the two were working together. The show has written a potential way out of this storyline, too, by suggesting that Castiel could undo the spell by getting his grace returned to him. This may not be how things play out ultimately, but it does provide some hope that these loose ends could lead to something down the line. It’s okay if the show meanders for a bit early in the season, but eventually it will have to nail down some goals beyond “not be killed by the army of angels,” and playing around with Cas as a potential plot device isn’t a bad way to go about it.

“I’m No Angel” also introduces a potential new Big Bad, though he doesn’t make the impression he’s probably supposed to. Angel Bartholomew seems to be a combination of Naomi and Dick Roman…which is worrisome, because those two villains aren’t exactly Supernatural‘s best or most well-loved. There isn’t much to say about Bart yet, though there’s some old fashioned Supernatural cleverness in the angels playing Russian Roulette with willing human vessels. The fact that this is happening worldwide already is a scary enough concept, especially considering how many people are getting their eyeballs blown out. Keeping in line with the “meteor shower” in the first episode, the people in Supernatural‘s world are very dumb and very oblivious, so chances are the melting-eyeball thing will keep happening without anyone noticing.

The low point of the episode is the last scene, though–wow, is it contrived. Jensen Ackles and Misha Collins sell Dean kicking out Cas the best they can, of course, and in its own bubble it’s a genuinely heartbreaking moment. But…wow, is it forced. The rationalization for keeping Ezekiel a secret from Sam teetered a bit on the contrived side, but it at least made some level of story sense. This is completely out of nowhere, and clearly a way to both force drama and allow Misha Collins to appear in fewer episodes. It’s extra disappointing considering how much foresight the show had in its early years, while now even a perfectly competent storyline still feels like it’s plodding along without much of a trajectory. This is one of those cases where things feel written into a corner, and instead of competently turning things around, we’re thrown in a plot “twist” that had no means of getting there. And honestly, it’s silly that the show couldn’t get some mileage out of a Full House situation, what with Sam, Dean, Kevin, Crowley and Cas all living in the same roof. Bring back Benny, and we’ve got ourselves a pretty great sitcom.

Like the situation with Benny, Dean is being forced to choose another stand-in over the original product (Benny for his brother, Ezekiel for his angel), and his family will surely give him hell about it. There’s a chance for drama later on in the season for how things ended here, but it’s frustrating that there wasn’t a better reason to play it out. Perhaps future episodes of Cas living as Clarence will be more insightful, because it seems we’ll be getting more of them with Cas out on his own.

Odds & Ends

• I like how in-depth this focus on Castiel’s humanity is. I really do. So I’m open to any fan rationalizations for why this is such a big deal when Cas spent, like, half a year as a depowered angel in season 5. Is the implication that losing his grace makes him more human than what happened to him the first time?
• On Twitter, Jared Padalecki noted that he was playing Ezekiel with more human ticks as time went on and he adjusted to being in Sam’s body. It’s interesting how many different ways Padalecki has had to play Sam possessed by, like, everyone ever. He’s gotten good at it.
• Dean really doesn’t know It’s a Wonderful Life? Really?
• Kevin must have been asleep for this whole episode. Budget constraints suck, don’t they?
• “Do you ever tire of urinating? I’ll never get used to it”