Supernatural Season 14, Episode 8 review: Byzantium

In this week’s episode, Supernatural splits its time between Heaven and Earth as Jack dies and Sam, Dean, and Cas try and bring him back. 

Well, I didn’t think I would be sad during this episode of Supernatural because I was 99.999% certain Jack was not going to stay dead. However, I was not expecting the reunions and sacrifices made throughout. I’m going to write this review in two parts: Heaven and Earth.

“He’s our kid.”

Let’s start by talking about the Earth storyline. Jack has died. And his three fathers are beside themselves as they struggle with the grief of losing him. They each handle the loss differently, but Sam takes the death of his “son” the hardest.

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When Cas spots him leaving the bunker (sidenote: has anyone else noticed that our bunker is suddenly empty? What happened to the other people?), Dean rushes to stop him from doing something stupid. When Dean and Cas find Sam, he’s collapsed next to Baby. He was trying to build a pyre, but couldn’t finish because the axe broke.

Sam feels like he’s failed Jack. That they didn’t try hard enough. Dean’s solution is that they need to go back to the bunker and get drunk. So they do.

In the morning, we have a new/old person in the bunker. Don’t feel bad if you don’t remember Lily Sunder, I had to look her up on the Wiki. But she’s back, and Sam is hoping she’ll have a solution on fixing Jack since she’s had a lot of experience with angels.

After failing to read Kevin’s translation of the angel tablets, Lily comes up with a different solution that involves her magic and Jack giving up a little bit of his soul. Her trade? She wants to go to Heaven to be reunited with her daughter.  The boys agree, and send Cas off to heaven to retrieve Jack’s soul.

Sam and Dean summon Anubis to see if Lily will go to Heaven or Hell. And his abacus tells her that she’s going to go to Hell. I bet this is not the last we’ll see of Anubis. She decides she’s going to not make good on her promise, but Sam and Dean beg her to help them out. They aren’t handling losing their kid well at all.

Lily decides to help because she doesn’t want anyone to go through what she has gone through. She does the spell, and Jack comes back into his body, reads his part of the spell, and then…he’s fine. This all seemed WAY too easy. And then, Lily dies. Again, pretty anti-climatic

“It’s going to be an adventure.”

Jack’s illness takes him at the beginning of the episode, and then we catch up with him in his Heaven. Which is the part that got me first. His happiest moment is to be on a hunt with Sam, Dea, and Cas.

I mean, yeah. I may have had to wipe a tear away at that moment.

However, because of his angel side, he realizes he’s in Heaven and sets off exploring. He enters a hall where he first encounters the black liquid goo of The Empty.

He escapes and seeks out the one person he has always wanted to meet: Kelly. Their reunion? Probably the best moment in the episode. I cried. Like had to pause the show to wipe tears away from my eyes. Seeing the two together was a good payoff of killing Jack temporarily.

Cas arrives in heaven to find the remnants of The Empty’s attack on Jack. He finds one dead angel and one unconscious one, Duma. Duma goes with him to help him find Jack. Naomi stops them and explains that The Empty wants Jack because of his angel part.

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If they don’t let The Empty take Jack, Heaven will fall. Did we just forget about the storyline last season about Heaven being on the brink of falling for other reasons? I don’t think they’re being very consistent.

Duma and Cas find Jack at Kelly’s and there’s a tearful reunion. Which is short-lived when it’s revealed that Duma has been possessed by The Empty.

The Empty wants Jack really bad. And she’s losing it. But then, in probably the most heartbreaking moment of the episode, Cas steps up and sacrifices himself for Jack. And The Empty accepts, but not right now, she’ll come and take Cas the moment he’s forgotten about the deal and is at his happiest.

Jack says goodbye to Kelly and Cas tells Jack that he was happy to make the sacrifice for him because he loves him. And so do Sam and Dean, who don’t need to know about the deal. And then Jack goes back to Earth.

Naomi thanks Cas for saving Heaven and repays him with the news that she knows where Michael is. Which isn’t shared with the audience, because we all know that Michael is inside Dean. Right?

Performer of the week

I’m giving this to both Jared and Jensen this week. We have watched for over a decade as they played Sam and Dean mourning each other, mourning friends and family, but this week, it was different. They were mourning their kid. And the way they showed that grief was different than any they have shown before.

https://twitter.com/RabbitHole_BB/status/1070927449507000320

Jared showed a grief so deep that Sam couldn’t even get up off the road next to the car. He played the whole episode with unshed tears in his eyes. It was breathtakingly beautiful.

Jensen played it more aloof, but you could see the heartbreak in his face. And the moment Jack was back and he went in for the hug? Beautiful.

What did you think of last night’s episode? What were your favorite parts? Please let us know in the comments below.

Supernatural airs Thursdays at 8/7c on The CW