With Sam and Dean MIA, it’s up to Jody Mills and a rag-tag group of ladies on a mission to bring them home. Problem is, there’s still Patience’s vision to worry about.
Supernatural – “Wayward Sisters”, Season 13, Episode 10
Airdate: January 18, 2018
Director: Philip Sgriccia
Writers: Robert Berens and Andrew Dabb
Created by: Eric Kripke
What You Should Know:
Sam and Dean finally reunited with Jack and, together with the reluctant help of a frightened Dreamwalker named Kaia, worked to open a portal to the world where Mary Winchester is being held captive. But Kaia couldn’t fully keep from being pulled back to The Bad Place, and in a brilliant flash of light, the doorway opened. Jack was thrown into the room with Mary, landing beside her cage. Kaia landed, unconscious, on the side of a mountain road. And Sam and Dean were sent to The Bad Place.
While they were working on their case, Sam and Dean’s long-time friend Sheriff Jody Mills received a visit from the psychic, Patience Turner. Patience has had an important vision, and at the risk of being disowned by her father, she’s come to warn Jody.
Jody has earned something of a reputation as the unofficial mother of ‘monster orphaned’ girls after having her own hard initiation into the world of hunting. She first adopted Alex Jones, then having been being used by vampires as bait to lure unsuspecting humans into isolation for easy pickings. Later Jody adopted Claire Novak, the biological daughter of Castiel’s vessel, who subsequently lost her mother to a monster and has since decided to become a solo hunter herself.
In addition to the girls she’s taken in, Jody has also made a friend in fellow Sheriff Donna Hanscum. After Donna was unwittingly dragged into a vampire hunt with Sam and Dean, Jody took it upon herself to give Donna a few pointers.
What You’ll Find Out:
Over in Iowa, Claire Novak has just finished rescuing a young girl from a group of werewolves when she gets a call from Jody Mills. Jody gets right to the punch. She’s calling about Sam and Dean. She’s worried because they were out on a hunting trip and she hasn’t heard from them in a few days.
Claire makes her way to Sioux Falls, where Jody lives, finding Jody and her foster sister Alex going over a list of people they’d reached out to so far with no luck. When Claire walks in the initial reunion is awkward, then Jody steps forward and embraces her, making Claire uncomfortable. As Jody steps back Patience enters the room, Jody introduces them, with Claire commenting that Patience is wearing her sweater. When the tension spikes again Claire adjusts the conversation to Sam and Dean and steps into the living room, missing the pointed look Patience gives Jody.
Jody plays a voicemail she has from Sam, roughly three days old, informing them that they’re looking for Kaia Nieves as she might be the key to finding their mother. Jody sums up what she found out about Kaia, including that she escaped from rehab three days earlier. Alex confirms she already checked local hospitals. Meanwhile, Kaia herself is still lying unconscious on the ground beside a road when a driver pulls up beside her and calls 911.
Alex has to leave for the night shift at her job, prompting aggression from Claire, but before she goes she asks Jody if Jody will be all right. Jody promises she will and, ignoring Claire, Alex heads off to get ready. Once Alex is out of the room Claire jumps on Jody, assuming Alex was referring to her going out and hunting by herself. She knows Jody never approved of it, as she snuck off without telling her what she was doing initially, but she insists she’s fine. Jody shouts over her that she isn’t – because Patience had a vision. The vision that brought Patience there in the first place. Patience explains that her vision was of Claire, dead in Jody’s arms.
Claire takes a breath, startled by the news. She asks Patience if she’s ever been wrong and Patience admits she doesn’t know. Claire takes this to mean she’ll be fine and Jody argues that Claire needs to take this more seriously. She’s just trying to protect her (Claire). Claire gets riled again and exclaims that’s always the excuse, and how every time they’d go hunting together she’d end up stuck in the car because Jody was just ‘trying to protect her.’ They argue about whether or not it’s acceptable to jump headfirst into a monster fight, with Claire arguing that’s how she does it because the victims don’t have time for a hunter to come up with The Perfect Plan. Jody demands to know if she’s considered how easily she could die in that situation, and Claire simply says “I won’t” and walks off.
The ambulance has arrived at the roadside where the Samaritan remains waiting with Kaia. Kaia is loaded into the ambulance, the Samaritan drives away, and all the while something other than human watches from behind the tall bushes.
Claire stops by the local hospital, where Alex works, to talk to her foster sister. Alex admits she knew about the vision, and how Claire would react. Claire comments on Alex’s job, asking what she’s doing helping with the case when she’d wanted out so badly before. Alex says she’s just there for Jody, whatever Jody needs. Help with chores, help with a hunt, it doesn’t matter. Claire reads between the lines and looks away for a moment, understanding she herself has not been around. She tries explaining that if she’d stuck around she’d have just brought Jody more worry, forcing Alex to tell her that Jody worries, anyway. Switching topics, Claire asks to use the hospital’s system to search for possible aliases Sam and Dean might use. Alex assures her she’s searched everything from Metal gods to “obscure hair bands,” but, at Claire’s suggestion, tries a repeat search for Jane Doe in hopes of finding the girl, Kaia. And learns a new Jane Doe was just admitted to that very hospital.
Claire makes her way to Jane Doe’s room, watching through the blind slats in the window as a nurse sets Kaia up with an IV drip. As soon as the nurse leaves Kaia jumps up and goes for her stuff, not intending to stay. Claire steps into the room, declaring herself to be a friend of Sam and Dean Winchester, but instead of relaxing, Kaia tells her to stay away and shoves a rolling table between them to dash out of the room. Kaia makes it out a back entrance, most of her clothes still in a hospital bag, but her flight is waylaid by the arrival of one of the creatures from The Bad Place. She recognizes it immediately and stumbles back as Claire comes out the exit in pursuit of her.
Claire sees the monster, too, extracts a switchblade and races in to fight it off. The creature throws her aside, proceeding toward Kaia once more, but is shot in the back of the leg and then again in the back by Jody. It turns to her as Claire jumps on its back and stabs its face. The creature oozes blue blood and falls to the ground, dead. With the monster out of the way, Claire turns to Kaia and asks if they can talk.
Back at Jody’s, the creature’s corpse is brought inside Jody’s garage for examination. Jody, Alex, and Patience prepare to find out what secrets it holds while Claire goes to talk to Kaia, who’s sitting on the front steps. Kaia tells Claire about The Bad Place, and to make her feel better Claire shows her some of her battle scars. In the garage, Alex takes off a mask piece, revealing a swollen, flesh-colored set of upward-curved, sideways parting jaw/teeth. No one has any idea what they’re looking at as Claire leads Kaia into the room and Claire tells them Kaia knows what it is, or at least where it’s from. Kaia explains she’s a Dreamwalker, and that thing is from The Bad Place. Jody asks how it got to their world if Kaia and the others were only trying to go other worlds, and Claire realizes the only way it could have gotten there was if the door is still open. But Kaia shoots down her optimistic perspective, saying if that’s where Dean and Sam are, they’re already dead.
Elsewhere, Dean and Sam have found some native reptiles to cook up for sustenance. Sam doesn’t seem interested in actually touching his, but Dean’s picking at his lizard – that tastes like lizard, not chicken – as they discuss what to be focusing on. Sam thinks they should keep moving, looking for a door to get back home. Dean argues it’s been days and nobody would have the first clue where to look search for them, so, “eat up.” From the conversation, it’s clear they’ve already run into a few monsters and realize they’re nowhere pleasant. As Dean goes for another bite they hear the ominous roar of the unseen, large creature drawing near. Both agree it’s too close for comfort and they need to get moving. As they run into the trees, neither man realizes they’re also being watched by a fully cloaked mystery woman.
Alex finds Patience packing her suitcase. Patience has decided to try going back home in the hopes that her father will take her back after all. She’s bothered by Claire’s reaction to her vision, but it’s more than that. Things have gotten “way too freaky” for her, an example she offers being that Jody is currently in the backyard burying a monster from another dimension. Alex tries persuading her to stay when Patience insists she’s not a fighter Alex even points out there are other forms of helping. But Patience has made up her mind. This isn’t for her.
Until she gets out to her Jeep and has another vision, this one or more of those creatures ambushing Jody’s home. Too many to fight off. So she runs back inside, loudly calling for everyone to leave, that they’re all in danger. When she says a bunch more are coming Claire says they should fight and Patience says no, they would die. She gets up in Claire’s face and exclaims she doesn’t care what Claire thinks of her or her powers, but right now she needs to listen or they’re all going to die. When the creatures do come crashing through Jody’s windows, tearing her house apart, everyone has heeded Patience’s advice and fled. Claire watches through a camera connected to her phone and Patience asks if she’s become a believer.
The next morning Jody leads their convoy of two to a secluded pullover for a “breather,” saying she’s called in reinforcements. Patience asks if she means the National Guard and Jody scoffs. She’s called better. As she speaks a horn beeps in greeting at them, indicating the arrival of their backup. A pickup pulls in with a personalized license plate reading “D-Train,” and out steps Sheriff Donna Hanscum, who, as Jody explains in her introduction, has “killed a lot of vampires.” Donna immediately pulls Alex and Claire into a big hug before the group gets down to business. She shows the girls her ‘basic’ weapons case, which she keeps with her because she’s “from Minnesota.”
With everyone present, Jody asks Kaia where she was when the door was opened. Kaia admits she doesn’t know; it was dark and she didn’t see a lot of road signs. She tells them where they were headed from and where they were supposed to be going, so Donna takes a logical guess at the road. Kaia explains how they got run off the road into some old shipyard and Alex finds a possible match on her smartphone. Donna takes most of the girls over to see who knows how to fire a flare gun while Jody pulls Claire aside to ask her to please stay behind, to protect the other girls while she and Jody search the shipyard. Jody’s expecting an argument, but after giving it a moment’s thought, Claire calmly agrees. She walks peacefully away, leaving Jody in shock.
Dean and Sam continue trudging through the endless forest, with Sam theorizing that they haven’t just landed on a different world, but in an entirely different universe. Dean doesn’t really care, he only knows that where they are sucks. They pause for a minute to catch their breath and as Dean picks something out of his shoe the mystery woman sneaks up behind them. They turn around, but she quickly knocks them both unconscious.
Donna and Jody pull up to the shipyard Alex found online and Donna spots Dean’s Impala in the lot. It’s definitely the place. The pair gets out and cautiously make their way into the large ship, finding the partially melted angel blades and half a dozen sets of scorched angel wings around them, assuring them they’re where they need to be. Then they spot a golden, shimmering glow coming from an upper level of the ship.
Claire is sitting by herself in the back of one of the trucks, watching Patience and Alex talk when Kaia comes up to sit with her. Kaia notices that Claire seems scared and Claire admits to it, saying she always just assumed she’d die hunting. Jody always told her hunting would be the death of her, and she would always say that was how she wanted to go. Doing something good. But Patience’s vision has her rattled. It’s made her realize she doesn’t actually want to die just yet. For the first time in her life, she’s perfectly fine with the idea of sitting back and letting Jody handle the situation, except that she can’t, because she owes Sam and Dean for having saved her before. Kaia, who’s been terrified of The Bad Place for years, encourages her to fight if she feels she needs to. She promises Claire that if Claire goes there to rescue them, she’ll go, too. They’ll face it together.
Back on the ship, Jody and Donna find the abandoned door at the top level of the ship. Jody puts her gun away and steps forward with the intent of going in on her own, but Donna stops her. She reminds Jody they’d promised to get the rest of the girls. Jody insists, knowing if she doesn’t go now then Claire will go instead. She’s already lost one child, she can’t stomach the thought of losing a second. Jody starts forward again, Donna no longer trying to stop her, when they hear a suspicious noise in another room. They go to investigate it and find several more creatures. Instead of engaging them the women make a quick and quiet escape back to ground level before being caught by another creature. The sound of their gunfire draws more and they’re forced to run.
Sam wakes up to the familiar sound of Dean calling his name, finding himself – and Dean – tied to sturdy trees. They’re facing a large, ominous skull partially embedded in the ground. The enshrouded mystery woman emerges once they’re both awake and, ignoring Dean’s insulting attempt to get a response and an explanation, deliberately bangs her spear on the side of the skull three times. It releases a loud, resonating sound. She lowers her spear, turns to the Winchesters, and leaves. Sam is perplexed as the distant roaring of the large monster is hear again. Dean starts looking and spots several skeleton fragments near his feet. They’ve just been offered up as dinner.
Claire, with Kaia behind her, walks up to Patience and asks for her keys. She’s tried calling Jody but hasn’t gotten an answer, and that can only mean one thing. Something’s gone wrong.
Jody and Donna have taken refuge in an old car, guns at the ready, knowing they’re only buying time. The creatures are circling the car, looking for a way inside. One jumps on the roof, so Donna shoots at it. Another turns toward Jody’s door as if to break in but is caught in a sudden stream of fire. When the fire disappears, the two creatures gone, Jody and Donna climb from the car and find Claire wielding a flame-thrower with Alex, Patience, and Kaia behind her. At Jody’s look, Claire says “I called, you didn’t answer. We worried.” Claire removes the flame-thrower and sees the glowing doorway, bolting for it with Kaia right behind her. In no time the pair makes it upstairs, finding the portal. And it’s shrinking.
Jody makes it barely in time to stop her from just racing through, reflexively trying to talk her out of it. Claire argues that she knows what Jody’s doing, she understands why, but she has a strong need to rescue Dean and Sam. She insists Jody let her do this. With sad understanding in her eyes, Jody says she knows. Still, at ground level, Donna gives a shotgun to Patience, who’s never shot a gun before. She shows Patience how to load it and explains to point it in the monster’s “general direction and squeeze.” The lesson is interrupted by the arrival of more creatures, so Donna ushers the girls upstairs, calling to Jody for reinforcements. Jody hears them, looks back at Claire with hesitation, and finally tells her to go.
Claire steps up to the portal, takes Kaia’s hand as Kaia gives the portal a fearful look, and together they’re sucked through. Claire and Kaia land in The Bad Place and, after taking a breath, Kaia grabs Claire’s arm and guides her in the direction they need to go. Meanwhile, Jody, Donna, and the girls continue to fight off the horde of creatures in an effort to protect the portal until Claire and the others return.
Dean and Sam continue to struggle fruitlessly against their bonds, the monster they’ve been offered to almost upon them when Claire and Kaia arrive and cut them free. Dean is shocked to see Claire, who looks a little sheepish for a moment, before explaining that the portal’s still open but they need to hurry. When asked, Kaia tells the boys she thinks Jack’s in the other world, with their mom. But the monster’s still coming, so the group runs for the portal.
Jody, Donna, Patience, and Alex take up position in the portal room, determined to kill anything that tries to come in. Donna takes a moment to reassure Patience, knowing the new girl is nervous about fighting, moments before the first creature comes crawling in on the wall. Jody and Donna open fire. The creatures come crawling in from multiple directions, with Donna and Jody doing most of the shooting. Jody at one point chases one to the pony wall of a staircase and shoots down until the creature dies. Patience sees one coming off to the side and shoots, missing, but Alex takes the hint and covers her. Moments later another one comes at Patience and Patience manages to kill it in one shot, impressing everyone.
Claire and Kaia lead the Winchesters to the portal on their end, but just before they can make it through Kaia notices the mystery woman take aim with her spear. Remembering Patience’s vision, she throws Claire out of the way and takes the full impact of the spear, right through the side of her chest. Claire, in shock, reaches over and takes Kaia’s outstretched hand in Kaia’s final moments. Dean and Sam draw their angel blades, ready to fight, but the attacker doesn’t advance. Behind her, out of the darkness, a massive monster begins to appear. With glowing red eyes and a rounded head, it leans forward with a roar and reveals jagged rows of teeth. Claire finally recovers enough for her rage to kick in and goes to charge the woman, but Dean catches her and drags her back, both brothers recognizing that this is the time they need to retreat. They jump through the portal.
In a moment between gunfire, Sam, Dean, and Claire come crashing through the portal just before it closes. Claire collapses to the ground with a scream of “No!” as Jody rushes over, barely acknowledging the boys, desperate to see if Claire is all right. She pulls Claire’s squirming, grieving body into her arms, looking around in a state of confusion for Kaia. She gives Sam and Dean a curious look and they shake their heads, Sam offering a sorrowful frown. Jody pulls Claire closer, realizing Claire isn’t injured but grieving, as Patience and the others join them. Patience nearly drops her gun as the missing pieces of her vision come together and she realizes she misinterpreted it. Jody wasn’t clutching Claire’s dead body; the spear hadn’t penetrated Claire at all. This was what she’d seen all along. Kaia’s death. Claire’s grief. Jody’s confusion and relief.
The next day, as Alex and Patience work on cleaning out some of the broken mess from the house, Jody sees Dean and Sam out to the Impala. Claire’s inside, apparently still incredibly broken up. Dean comments that he tried talking to her, but she was too shut down. So he tells Jody to tell her thank you, from them, when she’s ready to hear it. Then Sam cautions her that the portal was open for days and they’re worried more of those creatures could be lurking about. Jody agrees but assures the brothers she and the girls can handle it. They give her a funny look so she tells them they’re busy enough taking care of the world, “we got Sioux Falls covered.” With a final hug and a wave goodbye, the boys climb into the Impala and drive off.
Jody goes upstairs to check on Claire, who’s quietly crying on her bed. Claire admits Jody was right – she went rushing in without a plan and got someone killed. Jody tries to tell her it’s not entirely on her, but Claire doesn’t hear it. Instead, she tells Jody she understands now why Jody treats her the way she does. Jody stays quiet for a moment before telling Claire she doesn’t have to be alone; that if she wants, when she’s ready, they’ll all be there for her. Claire only nods that she understands.
After Jody leaves the room, heading back downstairs to join the cleanup crew, Claire pulls out her diary. Over that night’s dinner, as she joins everyone, including Donna, she reflects that she returned to Sioux Falls for the purpose of saving Sam and Dean. And that she – they – succeeded. Now they think she’s staying due to her grief over Kaia’s death, but really it’s because she recognizes now that she needs them. Her family; her “army.” And she vows to find the thing that killed Kaia, no matter what it takes, and kill it.
Elsewhere in town, another dimensional portal opens and the mystery woman jumps through. She stands, spear still in hand, and pulls down her hood and face mask. Revealing herself to be the other world’s version of Kaia.
What Does This Mean for the Future?
Sioux Falls has definitely not heard the last of The Bad Place. Jody and the girls are going to have their hands full, whether they get their spinoff series or not. And it looks like the reason Kaia kept being pulled to The Bad Place was because of her other self; most likely her other self-was trying to lure her there to kill and replace her all along. But for what purpose? That remains a mystery.
Dean and Sam are back on the road, but with Kaia dead and both Cas and Jack out of reach, they’re going to have an awfully hard time getting to that other world to rescue their mom. The knowledge that Jack is most likely there with her won’t be much of a reassurance – especially for Dean. Perhaps they’ll pour over any lore they can find relating to portals to other worlds, or search for another Dreamwalker. Or maybe they’ll try getting in touch with Cas and finally get suspicious about how long it’s been since they’ve actually seen him.
Jack, regardless of what traveling to another world may have done to his powers, will surely do his best to rescue Mary. That’s been his goal for a while. Michael, certainly still angry over Lucifer’s escape and his own failure to make it through the first portal, will be a problem. But maybe Jack or Mary will somehow be able to convince Kevin to open a door for them.
Rating: 9/10
Final Thought: What better way is there to start off a Supernatural spinoff series than putting Dean and Sam in John Winchester’s slot in the infamous quote that started it all: “Dad’s on a hunting trip, and he hasn’t been home in a few days.” If that’s not perfection, I don’t know what is. Right there I was sold on giving this spinoff series, starring my favorite Supernatural female, a try!
In the interest of full disclosure, I must admit I was hesitantly hopeful about this backdoor pilot. Especially in light of the last one, from a couple of seasons ago. But the premise seemed more likely to succeed and the title was catchier, so that was at least something. Plus I’m a big Jody fan. Not so much a Claire fan. Still, I wanted it to do well. It never hurts to do anything that will garner more or fresh interest in a series. And a female-led horror/action/drama? Seems like that would get a little attention.
Well let me say, I was not disappointed! Jody, as I knew she would, delivered a star performance. I, of course, wasn’t expecting the hidden detail of Patience’s vision to have been presumably about Claire’s death, which made for some nice added drama and conflicting motivation for several characters. That, combined with introducing a rookie (Patience) to the world of hunting and the group coming together as a whole (including Kaia) to rescue Dean and Sam, was a great dynamic. A beautiful beginning, or potential beginning, for the Wayward Sisters spinoff the creators have been talking about.
I was a little underwhelmed at first to realize the episode was going to be centrally focused around Claire’s point of view, but I have to say, this episode has given me a new perspective of her character. Before she’s been more of a pain in the butt brat in my opinion, the kind of character I’d rather smack some sense into than sympathize with. Here Claire finally shows signs of growth and maturity. We see the stubborn, eye-rolling, bratty side, too, but we get a better understanding of what’s behind it. We see it go from a hard defense mechanism to a reflex and then, in the end, she finally realizes what her family has been trying to tell her – she’s not an island.
It was nice to see Alex again, too. We got a little bit of her a season or two back but haven’t really known what she’s been up to since. Now Alex has her life together and instead of refusing to be a part of the hunting life she’s stepping up to be supportive of the woman who saved her life – Jody Mills.
Patience and Kaia behaved about the way I expected them to, with the brief exception of Patience’s panicked flight attempt. They did a good job demonstrating Patience’s naivety of their world, despite her psychic abilities, as well as her mixed interest and fear in them. At the end of the episode, she says “I killed a monster!” It was an amusing but clever way to show her growing into the role she’s semi-voluntarily jumped into. Kaia was understandably skittish and uncomfortable, being the newest and most fearful of the situation. She found a kindred spirit in Claire which emboldened her to help, the only real way her voluntary help would have been believable. And while I was sad to see her die, she was the most realistic choice to be killed off (if she’s been truly killed off – this is Supernatural). I never truly believed Claire would die at the end of the episode, so something had to be done to alter Patience’s vision. Or, in this case, her interpretation.
All of that said, and even though I still absolutely love Jody Mills, badass Sheriff of Sioux Falls, I have a confession. Sheriff Donna Hanscum just sailed from being an entertaining side character to possibly my hero. Not even kidding. Seasons ago when she was introduced she was a chubby, endearingly naïve, lover of sweets. A Sheriff who simply got unfortunately entangled in a case, but was entertaining enough that writers decided to bring her back a little later for another episode. Where she met Jody. She’d lost some weight (as she’d been trying to do before) but was still struggling to ‘better’ herself in other areas, still unaware of the supernatural side of things, and once again got dragged into a case. But this time she was the witness. And of course, she remembered Sam and Dean, who weren’t roleplaying the same federal agents as before (initially). She was scared and confused for at least half the episode, could barely handle the idea of vampires, and only at the end did Jody offer to give her those pointers.
Now we see her again. Still keeping her weight off, but with a brand new aura of confidence and inner strength, all while retaining that sense of cheerful energy and goofiness everyone enjoys in her. She’s taken Jody’s “pointers” and, apparently, become a damn good hunter. It was awesome to see her finally having found herself, and watching her ‘strut her stuff’ if you will, I couldn’t help but think, damn, I’m impressed. Good for you, Donna. I could stand to learn a few of those lessons myself.
So all in all, I hope we see more of these Wayward Sisters!
Supernatural airs on The CW on Thursdays. Check your local listings for times.
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