Supernatural Think Tank - Anna's Thinky Thoughts on Supernatural 12x08 "LOTUS"

One of the things I'm grateful for is not only the opportunity to write up a blog for Amy, but that this blog isn't bound by any particular format.  I don't write reviews, that's Amy's domain, though I will express my feelings for an episode, what I love about it, what might not have been that awesome, and of course I always make sure I include accolades to the cast.  Basically, my blog consists mostly of random thoughts that pop in my head.  They can be interesting to some, have deep meaning for others, or can be completely off base in some people's opinion.  Most of the time my ideas come out of left field, but alas that's just the way my brain works...it's chaos I'm not putting myself down, sometimes I actually have deep meaningful coherent opinions that actually make sense.  Then of course there are other times where my theories can be totally "say what"?  Can I have whatever it is you're smoking right now? And then there are times like this where I simply have no coherent thoughts what so ever, but just lots and lots of what just happened moments that leave me like this.  It's these types of eps where I come to you for answers, as my mind is spinning with all sorts of speculations and I'm truly at a loss of what will happen next....and that my friends is what I like to get from a midseason finale. 

I'm going to start with the easy stuff first.  I liked this ep, it had some stuff that could've been shortened, but all in all this was a pretty exciting midseason finale. I liked the creep factor with the whole church scenes.  Pretty gory stuff and the crosses turning upside down as Luci walked by..so cool.   We continued with the myth arc portion of our story so needless to say not as much Sam and Dean emotional stuff as I would've liked to have seen, but I'm greedy when it comes to our boys.   I found this ep kept me interested throughout. It flowed nicely, kept up with continuity, and left me anxious to where this could all be going.  I'm loving Season 12.  I love where the boys are with each other.  I'm enjoying Mary's return.  I'm loving the old school feel.  I'm getting a bit of kick out of Team Crasly. I enjoyed seeing Lucifer as a more menacing character, and with fingers crossed, I'm hoping that the Lucifer walking the earth story has met it's conclusion.  I'm excited to see where the story will lead now with the BMOLs and the new Hell Baby. (great idea by the way)   We are definitely in for an interesting second half.

Here come the accolades

I thought the actor who played the President did a good job.  Everyone had their own take on Luci, and with the exception of Jared who did an amazing job as Samifer, I will admit my favourite version of Luci is Mark Pelligrino's.  Jared did an amazing job providing humour from his exasperation with Crowley, his never tiring bitch face which promptly followed the funniest line of the night provided by our very own Dean Winchester, to his power/strength when yielding the egg to expel Luci, to the utter shock and bewilderment of their success.   Jensen did an equally terrific job, giving us the best inappropriate response to an extreme situation since Jus In Bello. Thanks Dean for the LOL moment. I really enjoyed meeting Mr. Ketch.  He has that delicious wry British humour that I so enjoy, yet it's as clear as day that this guy cannot be trusted AT ALL.  The boys are going to have much to handle in the future and I have a feeling this guy will be among the worst of it, so very excited to see that.  I really enjoyed both Cas and Crowley and Crowley and Rowena. They bring a bit of humour to a pretty serious situation and it's nice to get that giggle in between the holy hells and the what the heck did I just see heres.  Everyone did a great job.

I thought I might just throw in a few of my favourite quotes of the night.  There were so many, I  most likely missed a few, so if I did, please feel free to let me know.

Dean:  I didn't even know he was dating.  (priceless and Sam's reaction...made me laugh out loud.

Sam: Crowley, can we just get the news without the drama?

Crowley: Can I get you without flannel?  No, so I endure.   

Crowley:  Armani

Rowena:  That's the sweetest thing you've ever done for me(after Crowley blows up her ex finance)

Mr. Ketch:  So who's hydrant have you boys been tinkling on? I gotta say pretty much everything the guy said made me giggle.

Dean: Was that a grenade launcher and Sam's hand going up....

Kelly:  Oh, God

Cas:, Actually he left.

Those are a few off the top of my head.  I'm sure there's more.  This ep did have it's moments of smiles mixed in.

Ok then, now who's up for some speculating?

Cas' abilities, what is it exactly he can and can't do because I honestly lost track.  When he fell he became human and was no longer able to do much of anything I guess.  I thought somewhere along the line he gained some of his mojo back.  I'm guessing he could heal because once they expelled Gadreel from Sam, Cas started what was left of the healing process.  He uses a car so I'm guessing he can no longer teleport, is that it?  Why would the boys be locked up for six weeks (besides that being the exact time hellatus lasts) without any prior rescue attempt.  Cas found Claire in The Things We Left Behind because he had heard her prayers.  Wouldn't Cas be able to hear Sam or Dean's call?  Is Cas a defective angel?  I like Cas but I don't really pay much attention to him, so I honestly can't recall what he's capable and incapable of doing.  My focus is mainly on the boys.   Even if Cas is a partially functioning angel, Crowley is a full fledged powerful demon who shouldn't really have much of a hard time locating someone, let alone two someones, so I'm really not able to find a logical reason why  it would take so long to find the boys.  Rowena should be able to at the very least, she is a witch.  Do you recall in On the Head of a Pin when Cas and Uriel took Dean.  Sam summoned Ruby, a demon/witch who was able to cast a locating spell.  Apparently the boys are being held by humans, not witches or demons or angels, just humans, so I'm finding it hard to believe that they would be hidden from an angel, demon, hunter and a witch for so long. I'm kind of questioning who really has them locked away.

Who locked up the boys?   So here's the play by play:

Pres Luci tells SS head that two mentally ill cultists are trying to assassinate him and he wants to keep it in the family.

SS follow boys and then, the way it looked to me, were about to shoot them when the black car shows up.

Ketch shows up with a grenade launcher, monologues with the boys and has Cas mind swipe the head of SS.

Then we see team B escort Luci to Plains Motel and they search the room.  Cas pulls a Jedi Mind Trick and Team B lets Pres Luci know coast is clear.

Team B goes back in after he remembers what's going down just in time to arrest the boys for trying to kill the President.

SS Head is standing outside, looking like a robot, as the boys are carted away, Sam giving him this look and SS guy just blank.

So why would a mission as important as this involving the safety of the President be left up to the B Team, when the Head of the SS was personally given this detail by the Pres. himself? 

When we last saw him, Cas was swiping his memories, so then what?  We saw the President leaving with the B Team, so where was he?  Are we to assume he went back to motel and was retold about the two crazies trying to kill the President?  If so why wasn't he with the President when they left for the hotel in the first place.  Why wouldn't he have returned to the President and when asked how it went, he would be clueless as to what the Pres was talking about.  Wouldn't that have been a red flag for Luci who wouldn't have shown up at the motel?

Did he even return to the motel where the President was or when the boys left did Ketch get his hands on the SS agent and convince him that the boys were dangerous and needed to be locked away(as opposed to being killed which they tried to do the first time)

I could've sworn I heard a British accent in the promo.  According to Singer, the BMOL's are supposed to be "helpful" in eppy 9 and then he mentions how later things get more interesting. I'm wondering if what is going on here is just a case of full on deception.

Why would I think that?

I mulled it over a bit and though I'm sure there could be plenty of reasons, this one came to mind first.

The BMOLs, I for one don't trust them as far as I could throw them and I think the same could be said of the Winchesters.  That being the case it would make sense to do something grand to earn such trust, like say aid in their rescue and free the boys of their incarceration.  (it's kind of why I'm leaning to them incarcerating them in the first place).   It's obvious that the BMOLs consider themselves superior on all counts to the Winchesters and the AMOL, and they regard the boys as the problem more than the solution, so why then go through such a ruse in the first place?  There's nothing the Winchesters really have or can do that they already aren't way ahead of the game on themselves. They actually see the boys as a problem than a solution for the most part. The BMOLs have demonstrated and made it clear that whatever the boys can do they can do better and a lot cleaner. They can get into the bunker with no problem, so anything they might want they can steal themselves.

We know that Ketch has been following the boys since American Nightmare.  I doubt very much he chooses and selects when he wants to follow them.  My guess is that he is following all the time. That means that regardless of Sam's momentary lapse of faith given that he just lost his music idol and people just keep dying, Ketch knew where the boys were, phone call or not.  Ketch just got lucky that he could use that as a legitimate excuse. Another thing, Mr. Ketch, of all the toys he could've shown the boys, he just happens to pull out the very thing they needed to expel Luci.  Sorry folks, but this girl right here does not believe in coincidences on this show.     The Winchesters have no access anywhere that the BMOL's don't, unless they want to go to hell for some reason. The only thing I can imagine the BMOLs want that they don't have is the BOTD.  If the BMOL's want their hands on that particular toy then the best way to do that is to pull a full on Ruby to gain the trust of both boys in order for them to manipulate them in some way to get to that Book...as it would require the deception of all of them. If there is some maniac at the top of the BMOL food chain that wants more power and his hands on such an item, I would think he would need to use sugar instead of vinegar to manipulate his/her/their way into the Winchester Team.   That's at least my going theory right now.  I would so love to hear what you all think might be going on.

Sam in a cage again?  I hope he can cope in there.  The last time he was locked in a cage it was with Lucifer...and he spent a over a century in the one before that.  I hope he has the strength to bear it this time.  So another debate/question going round is whether or not the eggy thing actually worked.  I would love to hear what you all think on that.  Personally, I think it did.   I hope it did.    Some think that it was all  to easy, but I didn't find it all that much different than it was the first time.  What I mean is, the first time it required some trinkets (four rings) and a spell to open the gate to hell so Sam can jump in.  This time around, it also involved a gadget,( the egg) and Rowena's spell from the not so easy to get BOTD, to open the gate once again.  The main difference here is that instead of Sam jumping in, he expelled Luci from the body so Rowena's spell can send him back for good.  I don't think it was necessarily easier to do this, it's just that this time around they had different tools to get the job done.   Some also don't necessarily believe we haven't see the last of Luci because Mark P is supposed to be coming back.   I'm excited about that bit of news, but I can't see how Mark P can be  the current Lucifer given that the Nick vessel is long gone. I get that Mark was Luci in the Devil in the Details as this was Luci in hell, in the cage and there he can be seen by everyone else in the last vessel he was in.  In order for Luci to get out of the cage he needed a vessel, a real human or in this case angel body. Actually Cas took over Jimmy's vessel permanently so Cas is a human body. Once Luci left the cage he was in angel form, which for all intense purposes seems to be a white light. When Luci was cast out of Cas by Amara, he began to body hop. He had no form, he was a white light, he needed a physical person so I don't see how Mark P can be Lucifer in the present. I figured if he came back it would be as a flashback. The only way I can see Lucifer in the Mark P form presently is if the boys end up in hell somehow, back to the cage where he would be once again confined. I was thinking that perhaps Sam is having a bit of ptsd in the cell.  I thought that it might be possible that Sam could be hallucinating Lucifer, in the Nick visage, as that is his original torturer.   Others think that perhaps the baby spawn will grow rapidly and look like Mark P.  However it turns out, I'm excited by the notion of seeing Mark in the role as Luci in some form.  Other than Jared's stint as Samifer, Mark P. owns the role in my humble opinion.  What is your all take on this?  Would love to hear it.

Just random stuff I noticed.

Crowley and Lucifer both have red eyes.

I guess Lucifer does lie because he sure did con the President.

What exactly does LOTUS mean?  Lucifer of the United States?

Well that's it folks.  This episode has definitely left me with a lot of questions.  I'm looking forward to finding out the answers.  Would so love to hear what you all think.

Thanks for reading. 

Happy Holidays and Merry Hellatus to all!!!!!

-Anna