Supernatural season 6 episode 19 review: Mommy Dearest

This review contains spoilers.

6.19 Mommy Dearest

With the newly acquired phoenix ashes, the only thing that may destroy Eve, Sam, Dean, Bobby and Castiel track her down to a small town. Once there, they find that Eve has been experimenting with the residents and has an interesting proposition for the Winchesters.

Does it feel boring if I say another great episode? The second half of season six has really kicked the season into overdrive, confirming Supernatural as a fantastic series. This episode ties the whole of the season together whilst at the same time completely changing the game plan and setting the show up for a season finale that no-one expected.

And that’s what this episode does as well. After setting the show up in the first half of the episode, the second half was truly unexpected, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

When Eve wandered into the bar in the beginning of the episode and turned the clientele into ‘Jefferson Starships’, which is a genius name, it reminded me of an outbreak of a zombie epidemic of numerous films and I expected, once Sam and Dean arrived, that they would have to face a mass horde of monsters.

That didn’t happen. Instead the slow build, and the local people not being what they seemed, added to the tension. In addition to this, Castiel, seemingly out of his depth, at the same time revealed, particularly to Bobby, a far more disturbing side of his nature.

A very nice touch in the episode was Sam and Dean saving the two brothers and the car journey they shared. Obviously drawing parallels between the two sets of siblings, I felt it was a thoughtful reminder of what has always been at the core of Supernatural: two brothers looking after each other.

The final confrontation with Eve was almost an anti-climax. Given how much the character of Eve has been built up and how dangerous the audience has seen her be, perhaps I was expecting more of a battle. That’s not to say I was disappointed. I felt it was a logical step, as it was clear that Eve was so incredibly powerful that for Dean to trick her was a great solution.

It seems funny that, in an episode where seemingly the main villain of the season has been destroyed, that’s not the most important event in the show.

Eve reveals that Crowley is still alive and his plan wasn’t just to find Purgatory, he wanted souls, and lots of them. This causes Sam, Dean and Bobby to question what they know, especially about Castiel, and unbeknown to them, Crowley meets with Castiel and it’s very clear that the demon and the angel have been working together.

I am very pleased that Crowley is back. I always liked the character and Mark Sheppard always seems to add so much to the roles he plays.

It also changes Castiel considerably. Way back when I reviewed episode ten, I did suggest that Castiel may have been working with Crowley but, in truth, I didn’t think that to be the case. As the season progressed, I’ve taken it that Castiel is growing more and more desperate and is willing to do more and more reckless acts to ensure victory in the war in Heaven.

But, it’s now revealed that Castiel has been working with Crowley all along, possibly from the very beginning. It may have been Castiel that tasked Crowley with the gathering of souls, and it could have also been Castiel that put Sam and Samuel Campbell back in the land of the living.

This changes things from acts of desperation to cold, calculating plans and deception, but does it change a trusted ally into a dangerous enemy?

One final piece of news is that Supernatural has been confirmed for a seventh season.

I think Misha Collins said it best: “The good news is the reality show I like about the two brothers who take acid and hunt ghosts gets a seventh season.”

Read our review of episode 18, Frontierland, here.