One lesson Supernatural has shown us again and again, the things we’ve done in our past will come back to haunt us eventually. This time, it’s Castiel’s turn to have his previous actions bite him in the rear. Season 12 episode 10 begins in a bar, where a woman is playing a retro video game while the bartender impatiently tries getting her to leave so he can close up. Giving her only a couple more minutes, he leaves to take the trash out.
The woman isn’t alone for long, however. Suddenly a red-haired woman with an eyepatch is standing next to her. The conversation gets tense quickly and the redhead won’t let the other woman leave. She even tries using her powers to make the woman with the eyepatch move out of her way, but it doesn’t work. Instead, she gets a laugh and a statement that her angel tricks won’t work on her, revealing the angel’s name to be Benjamin (Miranda Edwards). They both pull out angel blades and the fight is on. In the end, the redhead wins, trapping the angel against a wall, even giving Benjamin time to call out to her angelic friends for help before finishing her.
Jumping to the stars of the show, Dean (Jensen Ackles) and Sam (Jared Padalecki) are at the bunker, looking at their information on where Kelly is. Remember Kelly? The woman pregnant with Lucifer’s child? Well, they still have no clue where she could have possibly gone to and no leads to follow. Mary is evidently out hunting alone, I’m sure we’ll get more on that in the upcoming episodes. We also find out that Dean and Castiel are barely talking after the angel killed Billie. After all, they were warned that there were cosmic consequences for breaking a blood pact. Now everyone is waiting to see what those consequences will be.
Castiel (Misha Collins) interrupts the conversation to let them know he is leaving to check on an old friend. He had heard the call from Benjamin and is concerned. Sam states they should go with him, and Dean agrees to go after some hesitation. There is some definite tension in the car on the way as neither Dean nor Castiel will talk. Sam puts an end to the uncomfortable silence with some wisdom about needing a plan. It results in some bickering between the other two. Yet, they do find out that Benjamin was close to his vessel, very close. And he would never have put her in danger, which is what was driving Castiel’s apprehension.
At the bar, they find the dead angel, the wing burns on the wall. They also find an angel blade and Castiel is able to identify that it is not Benjamin’s. But then Cas hears the call again, only this time it’s coming from the redhead with the eyepatch. Deciding they need to leave right then, the group goes to a restaurant where Cas is set to meet with the other two angels who had heard Benjamin. Castiel enters the building alone since one of the angels, Ishim (Ian Tracey), is not a fan of humans, leaving the Winchesters in the car.
From the conversation, it’s clear that the trio of angels have a lot of history together but have since gone their separate ways. They seem slightly bitter about having fallen from Heaven, partially caused by Castiel. However, there are bigger problems as it turns out that now two of their group have been killed, which is a surprise to Castiel. Not all that surprising, Dean is too impatient to wait and he storms into the restaurant, followed by Sam, to break up the party. Mirabelle, the third angel, goes outside to see if anyone else followed them to the meeting point and is stabbed by the redhead as soon as she walks around the corner.
Inside the restaurant, Ishim is poking at Castiel, saying he has fallen so far since his glory days as a warrior, as a great angel and managing to insult the boys in the process. He now wants to go to a nearby safe house to talk, where it will be more private. Going to look for Mirabelle, Ishim finds the dead angel and is immediately attacked as well. The woman slices him with her angel blade, but he is able to grab hold of her. An attempt at smiting her fails, which results in a comment from her that she isn’t powerless anymore. Castiel arrives at the fight, recognizing the woman. But before he can find out what’s going on, Sam and Dean show up, the woman creates a bright flash of light and is able to speed off in a car.
The remaining group arrives at the safe house mentioned earlier by Ishim, who now is refusing to have his wounds tended to by Castiel. When Cas asks how the woman could possibly still be alive, the brothers realize that they knew her and want answers. We’re told a story about a time well over a hundred years ago when a group of angels had been sent to earth to take care of a problem. An angel had taken a human wife and had a child, a Nephilim, which we now know is a major no-no. They punished the angel by putting him to death and afterward Ishim entered the house where they lived to kill the child. Lily, the mother of the child, was left alive and now she wants revenge.
Lily is still alive after all this time and she obviously has powers. Ishim explains that it must be a demonic pact keeping her young and strong and able to seek her vengeance. Castiel knows that she won’t stop until she finishes killing them all. Sam thinks it is worth a try to reason with her, to explain that Castiel is not the same cold, heartless angel he was. Cas insists it won’t work but the boys at least want to make the effort. Meanwhile, we see that Lily has wounds of her own to tend to after the fight and is able to heal herself. It’s clear the powers she’s using are not demonic but are angelic powers.
Sam and Dean are able to track Lily to her hotel using the address on the rental car agreement from the car Sam saw her speed off in earlier. She’s immediately defensive yet quickly realizes that they have some of the story very wrong. Yes, it was her daughter who had been killed. But the child’s father was not an angel but a human. Lily had studied angels all her life and come across a spell to summon an angel, bring Ishim into her life. He had taught her everything she wanted to know about angels and claims to have loved her, a bit obsessively as it seems. Akobel, the angel they had killed, was protecting her from Ishim. Then he had come into the house and killed her daughter out of spite.
Dean tries calling Castiel to find out if this version of the story was true but he doesn’t answer his phone. Before doing anything they need the truth, but Dean doesn’t want to leave Sam alone with Lily. The woman assures them both that she is no threat to any human, which they believe, so Dean takes off to get answers. While they wait, Sam questions Lily about the supposed demonic pact only to find out that she is using Enochian magic she had learned during her study of angels. Every time she uses one of the spells, a piece of her soul burns away. Her eye is part of the price she has paid over the years to stay alive and seek her revenge. Eventually, if she keeps using the magic, she will no longer be human at all.
It took patience and she had to wait until the angels had fallen from Heaven before she could begin to hunt for those that were part of her daughter’s death. She warns Sam that Ishim will kill Dean so as not to have his secret come out. And when that time comes, Sam will fight at her side. She’s willing to wait and be patient for that time as well.
Back at the safe house, Dean tells Lily’s story to Castiel and that he feels she’s telling the truth. A newly healed Ishim joins into the conversation, claiming that Lily is a liar, like all humans, and questions who Castiel is going to listen to. It turns into a heated argument, causing Dean to pull out an angel blade when it was about to get violent. But Ishim is at full power now and tosses him against a wall before turning on Castiel, weak from having used his strength to heal the other angel. It’s not even close to a fair fight as Castiel gets beaten nearly unconscious. Ishim offers to rid his old friend of his softness for humans and goes to kill Dean. The hunter has dealt with his share of jerk angels though and has set up a trap to blow the angel away. Only he can’t because Cas is too close and it could hurt him, especially in his injured state.
At that moment, Lily and Sam show up. Now is the time for her showdown with Ishim, and no one is willing to save his butt this time. The battle begins and Ishim gets the upper hand temporarily able to toss her away, then the brothers when they try to help. Lily rises much more quickly than the brothers are able to and begins another angel spell, holding Ishim against a wall. Sadly, he is stronger and is able to resist, slowly inching his way back toward her. Before he’s able to reach her though, Castiel manages to summon enough energy to plunge his own blade into the man and kill him.
As they look down at the now-dead angel, Dean wants to know what happens now. Lily seems unsure, revenge is all that has been driving her these years. Yet Dean insists that she’d better be done. Castiel knows he was partly responsible, even if given the wrong information, and he apologizes, saying that what they did was wrong. And if she can’t bring herself to forgive him after some time, he’ll be waiting for her punishment. Giving him a nod of agreement, Lily leaves.
Back at the bunker, the guys give Castiel a pep talk. Yes, he’s changed, but it has been for the better, and the things he’s done over the last years have taken real strength. Dean also admits to his angelic friend that he’s worried for him, about what the consequences will be for Castiel after killing Billie. The discussion shifts back to Kelly and what they will do if they ever find her. Will Castiel be able to kill a mother and her child? He states that he knows the child can’t live and once he wouldn’t have hesitated to take care of the problem. Now, he isn’t so sure and won’t know until the time comes. Well, I think many of us can agree to having mixed feelings on this topic. Only time (and several more episodes most likely) will reveal how our guys handle the devil’s child.
