Recap of Supernatural
Season 14, Episode 2:
Gods And Monsters
Written by: Brad Buckner and Eugenie Ross-Leming
Directed by: Richard Speight Jr.
Air date: October 18th, 2018
Sam finds a clue to Dean's wherabouts, so he, Mary, and Bobby set out to investigate. Castiel imparts some sage advice to Jack, who, still desperate to belong, seeks out a familial connection.
Tropes
- Body Snatcher: Angels need a vessel in order to walk the earth. Castiel calls it "occupying a vessel", but Nick says that's just a fancy way of saying "stealing". Several characters are dealing with the aftermath of angel occupation.
- Michael double crossed Dean and refused to relinquish control of his vessel, holding Dean hostage in his own body despite Dean specifically demanding Michael get out.
- Cas acknowledges that he is occupying Jimmy Novak's body and that Jimmy died when Cas was attacked by Lucifer, meaning Jimmy will never get his body back.
- Nick's body was possessed by Lucifer off and on for over a decade. Nick is blatantly angry about how his body was used and has flashbacks about the things that Lucifer did while possessing Nick.
- Brainwash Residue: After Nick unintentionally does Lucifer's finishing move when he gets aggravated with Cas, Castiel reads his soul and theorizes that the amount of time Lucifer spent in Nick's vessel may have left a residue behind that's still affecting Nick's behavior.
- Dark and Troubled Past: It's revealed that not only is Nick's family dead, but they were murdered and their case was never solved. Nick was so distraught that it led to him accepting Lucifer's offer when Lucifer appeared to him as Sarah, Nick's murdered wife.
- Despair Event Horizon: Nick's entire life collapsed after his family died. After Lucifer was killed, Nick was doing okay until he was reminded of what happened to his family. Then he quickly cycles through all of the stages of grief except acceptance before flying off the handle.
- Eye Scream: Michael's failed experiments on vampires burn out their eyeballs.
- Game Changer: Due to Michael's interference, werewolves no longer follow the established canonical rules and silver no longer harms them. If he does this with all the monsters, this will put the hunters in significant peril when they try to use the tried and true methods and fail, forcing them to find new ways to kill monsters.
- Humans Are the Real Monsters- Name dropped by Michael when he’s discussing what to do with the food chain and power hierarchy on Earth where humans are currently the apex predator.
- I Should Have Been Better: A repeating theme expressed by Castiel, Jack, and Nick over the course of the episode.
- Loss of Identity: Multiple characters are currently in arcs dealing with this.
- Jack is struggling to find his place in the team and define who or what he is without his powers.
- Nick has trouble accepting that he's no longer a family man and that he wasn't around to protect his wife and son or avenge their deaths.
- Lower-Deck Episode / Villain Episode: This episode focuses largely on Michael, Jack and Nick, with Sam only getting a few scenes, and Dean only appearing briefly and only having a few lines. However, due to Michael possessing Dean's body, it's a rare case of a Lower Deck Episode where one of the leads (Jensen Ackles) still gets a fair amount of screen time.
- The Man in the Mirror Talks Back: When Dean briefly emerges to try and retake control of his body, he manifests this way.
- Mr. Exposition: Cas explains specifically why he can't go on the hunt (Michael would detect his angelic presence) and why it's important for him to stay behind at the bunker (Nick and Jack need supervision and someone capable of protecting them from supernatural threats). He also spends a lot of time explaining to characters what happened when they weren't around. He explains to Nick what happened in season 5 to lead to Nick accepting Lucifer's offer and about Jimmy Novak. He tells Jack the spectrum for grace recovery, about the fall of the angels, and how he survived losing his own grace.
- Mugging the Monster: The female werewolf thinks that she's found a handsome victim and she teases him about being in over his head before revealing that she's a werewolf and attacking... only to find out that he's far more powerful than she is.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Nick is appalled that he would accept Lucifer's offer, but his distress is doubled when he realizes that his decision means no one was around to push the cops to solve his family's murders, leading to the case going cold and no one being held accountable. That's all he can focus on for the rest of the episode.
- My Greatest Failure: Cas states that his biggest regret is destroying Jimmy's life and failing to protect Claire and Amelia, the only thing Jimmy asked in exchange for use of his vessel.
- Pater Familicide: It's subtly hinted that Nick may have either killed his family and repressed the memory or killed them while demon-possessed in order to make him vulnerable to Lucifer's advances. He kills Artie the same way his family was murdered.
- Playing with Syringes: Michael kidnaps an entire nest of vampires, trying to figure out how to use angel grace to make them more powerful. However, the vampires keep imploding similarly to demons when exposed to the grace, possibly because they're undead. Michael then moves on to werewolves who are better able to tolerate grace exposure.
- Police Are Useless: Nick can't get the cops to help him with his family's case. Justified in that they attempted to try the case but couldn't find any evidence. With no new leads, there's nothing for them to investigate.
- Team Mom: Castiel gets a turn as the Team Mom of Team Free Will. He spends most of the episode trying to keep everybody on a mentally, emotionally, and physically even keel, particularly Nick and Jack who are having identity crises.
- Tell Me About My Family: In the absence of the powers inherited from (and stolen by) his father, Jack seeks out his maternal family to learn more about his human side in order to establish an identity that doesn't revolve around his missing angelic grace.
- Trauma Button: Nick's face alone is a trigger for most of Team Free Will, having all been victimized by Lucifer at some point, but Cas is visibly frightened when Nick snaps his fingers at him during an argument, despite Nick not having Lucifer's ability to disintegrate people with a snap of the fingers.
- Unwitting Pawn: Michael knew that if he let the vampire girl escape, she would attract the attention of the hunters and in exchange for her own survival, she would tell them where she'd last seen Michael. The hunters, desperate to save Dean, would then go to whatever location she reported.
- Vegetarian Vampire: The female vampire Sam, Bobby, and Mary talked to said that her nest fed on animals not humans.
- Wham Shot: After cutting to commercial after Nick threatened Artie, we come back to a stunned-looking Nick, covered in blood. He holds up a bloody hammer. The camera pans over to Artie's dead body and then back to the bloody hammer Nick has now abandoned, leaving the audience to wonder if this is evidence that Nick murdered his own family, who were also bludgeoned to death with a hammer.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Michael leaves one vampire alive so that she can lead Sam, Bobby, and Mary into his trap, although she doesn't realize she's being used. Once everything is in place, he kills her.
