Supernatural S13E19 Review: Funeralia

This week on Supernatural, Rowena returned with a new mission. Also, Castiel returned to heaven to seek help and found a familiar face instead.

This week’s Supernatural focused on building alliances for the inevitable arrival of Michael from the Apocalypse World. At least, that’s what it seemed like. Yes, it started with Sam and Dean stopping Rowena from using her suped up powers for evil, however, it ended with them recruiting her for the cause. And Cas’s entire storyline was about him getting help from heaven in the quest to find Gabriel so they could use him for his grace.

Only one seemed to be successful. At least that’s what it seemed like. While in heaven, Cas didn’t encounter Lucifer, which was weird, but he did meet up with someone we thought was dead. It seems death isn’t very permanent for these angels as we thought. Let’s deep dive into the episode and see what happened.

“You never go to parties.”

The episode opens with Rowena answering a call from Sam and Dean. She is in Portland at a fancy party. Sam and Dean need her help. That’s how desperate they are in the quest to find Gabriel. Also, they’re pretty sure Michael’s trek into their world is near, and they need the help. Rowena turns them down, accuses them of being all work and no fun, and hangs up on them. And then she dances with her henchman before using her suped-up powers to kill a random woman.

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Back in the bunker, Cas agrees with Rowena that Sam and Dean never go to parties. And then he volunteers to go into Heaven and get the help of the other angels. Dean is very against this, since the angels hate Cas. Reluctantly, Dean agrees Heaven is the best route to tracking down Gabriel, so with the message of “don’t get dead again,” Dean send Cas to heaven. And Sam and Dean, who have learned about Rowena’s killing people, go off to the Pacific Northwest to solve that problem.

“Ashton’s second greatest movie.”

As Sam and Dean are driving to Portland, they get an unexpected visitor. Jessica, the reaper who Dean met WAY back at the beginning of the season, reveals herself. She tells them that Death has assigned her to watch of Sam and Dean. Constantly. Like a baby monitor.

She tells them that there have been lots of deaths of people before their time in Portland. She explains that it’s a butterfly effect. Too many people’s fates being changed will result in a disaster only a clean slate maneuver can fix. Sam and Dean go investigate the death scene and realize the real reason Jessica was assigned to watch them: Rowena is killing reapers.

Sam and Dean work out that Rowena is working her way through people who work for a pharmaceutical company who have killed a lot of people. It’s a bit conflicting. She’s killing bad people, but they can’t let her just keep killing. They figure out that she’s in the process of killing the CEO, but arrive too late. She’s not only killed him, but also the reaper who came for him. They call her, and she finally answers her phone. She gives them a time and a place to meet her.

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“Of course it’s a trap.”

Sam and Dean meet Rowena, prepared for it to be a trap. She explains why she is killing the reapers. She needs to get Death’s attention. Death has something she wants, or rather someone: Fergus aka Crowley. Sam and Dean try to tell her that bringing Crowley back can’t happen, and she throws their own (multiple) resurrections in their faces. She defends her murderous ways by saying at least she’s killing people who deserve it. However, Sam and Dean don’t care, they go to handcuff her, but she’s an astral projection.

They see her just as she’s exiting. Dean is waylaid by her henchman, Bernard. They have an epic fight in the hallway, with Dean coming out on top. Sam, meanwhile, has followed Rowena out into the alley. He takes a shot at her, and Rowena is hurt that he would actually try and kill her. She casts a spell and takes him with her.

“It’s not fair.”

Rowena has Sam tied up, and she’s planning to use him as bait for Death. Sam tries to talk her out of it, but she’s not listening. She’s too caught up in her own grief. She uses the spell, and Death shows up, looking as nonplussed as always.

Rowena accuses her of taking everything away from her and threatens to kill Sam if she’s not given it back. Death just basically shrugs, saying she can’t be blackmailed. Rowena can’t kill Sam, so she takes her powers out on Death. When Rowena is finished, Death gives an amazing speech about grief and loss and about how life can seem unfair during periods of deep grief. Rowena begs for Death to take her, but Death just tells her it’s not her fate. Death tells Dean she’ll see him again soon and leaves.

In the aftermath, Sam and Dean tell Rowena that Crowley made his own choices, and she shouldn’t feel like anything that happened to him was her fault. They also told her that they need her help to save the world. They think she can be redeemed and this is the ticket to that redemption. They also warn her that Lucifer is back. However, knowing that her death comes at the hands of Sam, not Lucifer, Rowena is no longer as afraid of Lucifer as she once was.

“Everything ends.”

Let’s just put all the heaven stuff in one section, since it’s a pretty simple storyline. After Cas left The Winchesters with a line about how heaven won’t want the world to end, I fully expected an encounter with Lucifer. Especially since Lucifer basically declared last week he wants to start the world from scratch. However, I was pretty let down when we didn’t see Lucifer at all this week. With only four episodes left this season, it seemed like an odd choice to not reveal Lucifer being in charge of heaven to Cas at this point. It seems like something that someone would have mentioned, either Douma or even SURPRISE! Naomi. But he wasn’t even brought up once, and that was very strange for me.

The entire plot of Cas’s trip to heaven was simple: he needed their help. They can’t help, because they’re short staffed. Douma is annoyingly vague until she brings in Naomi, who isn’t dead. Naomi explains to Cas how angels are the batteries that keep heaven powered. And there are only NINE angels in heaven, and TWO on earth left. And with all the stabbing of angels in the past, this doesn’t surprise me.

Naomi tells Cas that if he can get Gabriel to come back to heaven, they will help him when Michael comes over. Until then, they need to stay in heaven, or it will cease to exist and all the spirits will return to the earth as ghosts. That sounds like a terrible thing.

This whole section of the show seemed to set up one of two scenarios: either using the angels from the other world to come power heaven and replenish the population. Or heaven ending and next season dealing with all the souls on earth.

 Performer of the week

Ruth. Connell.

I mean, is there any other choice?

She is killing it this season. Rowena has such a rich storyline this season. After being so sad that they had killed off the character, it’s so refreshing to see her back, and with such complex emotions. In this episode, she’s dealing with not only the grief of losing her son but the guilt of having been the one to push him there. And Connell is just knocking these performances out of the park. The pain in Rowena’s voice when she is begging Death to bring back her son. The anguish when she declares it’s all not fair. I’m just getting choked up typing these words out.

Kudos to the writers for giving Rowena such a complicated story arc this season. Giving Ruth Connell some amazing pieces to work with. I’m excited to see where the story takes her next. I just hope they change her fate. I don’t want Sam to kill her any time soon.

Next: Supernatural recap: Castiel meets an unexpected face in Heaven

So what did you think of last night’s episode? Do you think they’re setting up for angels from the other dimension to power heaven? Do you think Rowena is going to join the boys? When do you think we’ll see Death again? Let us know in the comments below. 

Supernatural airs Thursdays at 8/7c on The CW.