Supernatural Season 13 Episode 13 Review: Devil’s Bargain

This Supernatural review contains spoilers.

Supernatural Season 13 Episode 13

What do you get when you mix the Prince of Darkness, a faith healer, the new King of Hell, and an overworked prophet? A pretty damn good episode of Supernatural, that’s what.

There was development on the Lucifer angle here. We’re still not getting anywhere on the Where is Jack/Mom story, but at least we got this. And Mark Pellegrino continues to steal every scene he’s a part of.

As usual, Lucifer handled the one-liners with ease. “What are you gawking at, you never seen the Prince of Darkness before?” he angrily says as he walks through a town nearly defeated. Lucifer’s power level has gotten so low that he starts feeling human needs such as hunger and cold – and he doesn’t like it one bit. He’s not the sort to be humbled by this human experience like our friend Castiel has been in the past. He’s more of a petulant child, demanding he be restored to his former strength. We can’t make him too much of a softie I guess.

This episode introduced Daneel Ackles as the faith healer Sister Jo, who just gets more and more interesting as the episode plays out. She’s actually an angel, using her power for her own financial gain, and she doesn’t balk at Lucifer’s visit. In fact, she sees the opportunity to wheel and deal a bit. “I was a so-so angel,” she said to Lucifer “but it turns out I’m an excellent businesswoman.” If there was any question about this character fitting in to this storyline, I think it was answered.

We get a return from Asmodeus here, stirring the pot as he usually does. His shape shifting power makes him really hard to avoid as he plays a pretty convincing Cas. Three surprises from Asmodeus: 1) he found an archangel blade, a new weapon to add to the mythological arsenal 3) who is going to wield that blade – more on that later and 2) he doesn’t like fried chicken. For a man who looks like he could be a sinister Colonel Sanders, that was a little surprising.

British Men of Letters jerk Mr. Ketch makes a reappearance, now somehow working for Asmodeus. I don’t get when that started to happen, as he felt a bit shoe-horned into this storyline. I might be biased though, since I had some small issues with the British Men of Letters saga anyway. He didn’t serve much of a purpose here except to be captured by the boys, be too late to help with the Lucifer confrontation, and to serve as surrogate audience when Asmodeus narrated about the archangel blade.

The title “Devil’s Bargain” was certainly apropos, as Lucifer struck a couple a deals. First, with Sister Jo, who turned out to be a bit of an ally for him. Second, with the angels who are so desperate to recoup their numbers. The angels are so vain. They’d do anything, including serving the Devil, to get their wings reinstated.

Our final shocking moment was not Lucifer lounging on a throne, but the image of Gabriel (yes, Trickster Gabriel) bound in potential servitude to Asmodeus. It was definitely shocking to see him since he’d seemed to suffer perma-death ages ago, but awesome all the same since he’s such a fan favorite. Alas for him, he didn’t get to say much since his mouth was sewn shut. That’s right, they shut up the funniest guy around just like the Deadpool we don’t speak of anymore. The nerve!

It was a great episode to launch us formally into the second half of the season, as the previous two episodes were more spinoff-centric.