Supernatural Season 15 Episode 11 Recap: “The Gamblers”

By
Saim Cheeda
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Supernatural Season 15 Episode 11
Hanneke Talbot as Evie, Jensen Ackles as Dean and Jared Padalecki as Sam in ‘Supernatural’ season 15 episode 11 (Photo: Colin Bentley © 2020 The CW Network)

The CW’s Supernatural hopefully is going for an explosive final turn during its last hurrah, because this one, before the show goes on another hiatus, was surprisingly a slow affair. Season 15 episode 11, “The Gamblers,” lacks in pacing, but also delivers big revelations.

We begin where the previous episode left off, with the boys arriving in Alaska (although it absolutely looks nothing like it) following Garth’s tip. Their search leads them to a bar where people play pool, not for money, but for enough luck to turn their lives around. The catch is that losing means a person’s luck is taken away to the point where they’re pretty much guaranteed to die the moment they leave the bar.

Dean (Jensen Ackles) takes up the role as the player, arguing that pool is one thing that Chuck never endowed him with skills, and that he has natural talent. He easily beats a woman called Moira (Lynda Boyd), followed by a challenge by a man called Joey 6. While Dean partakes in the game, Sam (Jared Padalecki) is filled in on the happenings by Evie the bartender (Hanneke Talbot) who warns him that staying too long would make the brothers addicted to gaining luck and that they should run while they can.

After Dean beats Joey 6, who loses after betting all of his luck out, the latter turns out to be a terminal cancer patient and dies almost instantly. Realizing they’ve been had after Dean uncovers that their luck hasn’t changed squat, the boys are confronted by the owner – who is revealed to be Moira.

As it turns out, Moira is the Goddess of Luck, Fortuna. She picks Sam out to play against for the boys to leave with their empowered lucks, and midway through the game answers a big plothole about the Pagan Gods. Moira explains the pagans are also Chuck’s creations. Back then, Chuck had been angered when the first humans had prayed to the elements and not him, so he took his anger out by making the Pagan Gods so that people would blame them for their wishes not coming true. This at least answers a question by fans since the show began over how these pagans had come to be.

Sam tricks Moira and ends up winning, but is baited into playing another game in exchange for the lives of all the patrons in the bar. Unlucky for him, he loses the second time and the brothers lose their own lucks as well. However, Fortuna then frees everyone and relays a message to Sam and Dean that she considers them heroes of lore along the lines of Hercules. So, after becoming “normal” for a while, the Winchesters are back with their immunity over the little things in life; more importantly, Dean is no longer lactose intolerant.

Supernatural Season 15 Episode 11
Jared Padalecki as Sam, Jensen Ackles as Dean, Alexander Calvert as Jack and Misha Collins as Castiel in ‘Supernatural’ season 15 episode 11 (Photo: Cate Cameron © 2020 The CW Network)

Over on the B-story, Castiel (Misha Collins) gets a call from a sheriff looking for Dean, who, back when he was murderously looking for Jack, had posed as the FBI and sent out a search for Jack. The sheriff sends Castiel a video of Jack (Alexander Calvert) alive and well…and also feasting on a man’s heart! Eventually, Castiel uncovers that the person Jack killed was a Grigori angel who had been killing people, and rescues him just when another Grigori almost kills him.

Back at HQ, Jack is reunited with Sam and Dean. Jack explains that Billie kept him alive in the Empty to wait until Chuck was off-world. She resurrected him and told him to empower himself using Grigori hearts because she believes he has it in him to be the one to kill Chuck once and for all.

A pretty slow episode with not much to offer, a consolation was that we got the answer to the Pagan Gods’ existence and everybody’s favorite Nephilim back – although I would’ve preferred a more memorable return for him.




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