Mid-Season finale is an annoying term as there is nothing final in this episode. I am fairly certain television writers need to dig deep and find better words to describe an episode, seriously, I will give you a thesaurus if you cannot find one in a shop or better yet utilize the computer at your finger tips. Cliffhangers are useful in keeping the viewer rapt with their attention. This episode of Supernatural; The Things We Left Behind is a doozy. We are left with questions about Dean and Castiel and shaking our heads at Crowley for his human weakness and un-evil desire to be loved and cherished by someone.
Many thoughts are like seeds, once planted they take root and grow until we determine if they are weeds or plants worth keeping. Castiel in a bid to right the wrongs of he past tracks down Jimmy Novak’s daughter, Claire. He discovers that the consequences of taking a human host with a family was that it tore the family apart, and set a young life on a path of delinquency in a bid for love and a sense of belonging. He learns the hard lesson of don’t be helpful be harmless.
Claire Novak is in the state system as a ward and she is in solitary because of her delinquent behaviors of stealing. We learn later that she is stealing to pay off the gambling debts of a man who took her in and made her feel wanted. There is a wee bit of the Oliver Twist going on here in the story line with Randy being more than a bit of Fagin to Claire’s Oliver.
Castiel helps Claire escape from her cell and take her to dinner where he tries to convince that he can help, but she has already burnt that bridge from the past and is not truly willing to embrace the idea that Castiel wants to help her. She flees and in the process steals Cas’ wallet.
Caught short at the check out register Castiel calls the only two he knows can help him Sam and Dean. They split up with Dean staying with Cas while Sam goes to see the social worker at the institute where Claire had been held.
Castiel gets through to Dean in a way that Sam never will mostly because Dean is always in protect Sammy mode. It is difficult to undo a lifetime of conditioning. Dean asks Castiel to kill him if the Mark of Cain takes over and turns him evil and uncontrollable.
The lightly threaded story line of Crowley and his mother offers insight into Crowley’s past and why he craves love. Abandoned as a boy of eight by a witch of a mother, Rowena, who has told him he would die in a puddle of his own sick it is easy to see why he turned toward evil, but also why he still craves love and affection. It also allows him to be easily duped by the same woman who left him for dead oh so many years ago, I wonder what havoc she will wreak in Hell now that she has the King’s ear.
Back top side they find out what Claire is up to and Castiel saves her from robbing a shop to get the cash to pay off gambling debts for a man more interested in saving his own skin than providing Claire with an actual support network. However Claire gives the Winchesters and Castiel a fairly firm smack down that they really are not doing her any favors her life is already ruined and she runs back to the man who put her on a life of crime.
The guys retire to a bar where they reminisce about John Winchester’s raising them up right and let Cas know that being a parent is not easy. They decide to save Claire and of course arrive in the nick of time. And then it happens, the foreshadowing from the beginning of the show becomes reality. The Mark of Cain leaps to the surface and in the blink of an eye Dean succumbs to its power and slays a house full of criminals and ne’er do wells but not demons.
So many questions, my heart is heavy pondering the journey and the turn it has taken with this mid-season finale.
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