Supernatural Recap: “The Scorpion and the Frog”

In last week’s episode, we discovered that Ketch was alive and in business with Asmodeus, who captured Castiel and a recently escaped and powerless Lucifer. All in all, not a great day for the Winchesters. This week’s episode has Sam & Dean working with a crossroads demon to win a spell that can track Jack.

Supernatural Recap: The Scorpion and the Frog
Airdate: November 30, 2017

The episode leads off with a possessed woman sneaking into a museum and stealing some ancient documents. When she’s caught by a guard, the demon inside her switches to the guard’s body and meets a demon outside. He seems to think they’re turning it over to Asmodeus, but surprise! They’re not. The new demon takes the documents and makes a phone call. To Dean. Plot twist!

Sam & Dean listen as the demon requests a meeting, claiming info on Jack. When they meet with him, he has pie waiting, because annoyingly, he claims he knows everything about them and boy does my baby like pie. Dean’s eyeing it from the second he sits down.

Meet Barthmus, the new head Crossroads Demon. He’s got an offer for our boys, who are smart enough to know a crossroad demon never offers something for nothing. And they’re right. He’ll give them the spell, but Barthamus needs a trunk stolen from a murderous collector of the supernatural. He has demon wards all over his place and connections that make it impossible for Bart todo it himself. He also has a vault that can only be opened by the blood of a man who has been to hell and back, cue Dean. And technically Sam, too. They cautiously agree when Bart threatens to turn it over to Asmodeus instead. They have to work with “Smash”, an expert safecracker, and “Grab” a demon that can hack anything.

While Sam goes in undercover to meet with Shryke, the murderous crazy, Dean and Smash sneak into the barn to prepare. They bond over ridiculously powerful energy drinks while Dean works on summoning spell for Grab. When Grab shows up, he drops the bomb that they don’t actually know where the vault is, but that Dean’s blood will lead the way. What follows is Supernatural at its silliest best. Grab casts a spell that causes Dean’s blood to gravitate towards the vault, dragging poor Dean around by the hand, so to speak. It’s complete with silly vaudeville music, as they follow, well, Dean’s hand.

Inside, Sam is admiring Shryke’s collection under the guise of a dealer of supernatural goods. To sell his ruse, he offers Shryke the demon dagger. But Shryke isn’t fooled. He knew Barthamus would be sending someone after him and he attacks Sam. Sam manages to grab the demon blade and stab Shryke but there’s a twist. Shryke can’t be killed as long as he’s on his property. He hits Sam over the head and knocks him out.

Dean’s magic arm leads them to a cellar, where Grab refuses to go. Dean and Smash go into the cellar to see a large, rune covered door with some kind of gargoyle head in the middle. Dean is rightfully nervous about putting his hand in there because hello! There could be spiders! Nevertheless, being the brave manly man Dean is, he puts his hand in there. And promptly begins to freak out as a mechanism turns on, trapping his hand and pricking his finger for blood. The blood unlocks the door, and as Dean recovers from that very traumatizing event, Smash heads in to break into the vault. Dean serves her just before a dart comes flying out of the wall and into her neck, triggered by a booby trap.

Dean barely has time to curse Bart for this turn of events when he turns around to find Shryke standing there. Oh boy. Smash hauls ass out of there, and Dean pulls a gun on Shryke. Obviously, Shryke’s not worried about a gun and advances on Dean, who empties his clip into him. Sam runs in and warns Dean that Shryke is immortal. Dean acts fast and pistol whips him. What a man.

They tie up Shryke but he refuses to tell them how to get across the booby traps. Sam comes up with the hilarious and brilliant plan to tape Shryke to a rolling chair and push him across the booby-traps, setting them off and making them safe for Sam and Dean.

Smash comes back after Bart forces her to and unlocks the vault. She cracks the vault in minutes, and they escape with the trunk. But Shryke escaped too and is waiting on the road for them. Sam shoots out his tires and they’re prepared to kill him when he tells them they’re working for pure evil. He shares his story: he sold his sold to Bart to save his son. But his son only lived a few years before drowning. Shryke went to hell, and when he did, he renegotiated his deal using the contents of the trunk as leverage.

Sam and Dean look horrified at the thought of being on the wrong side of things. They open the trunk to find Bart’s bones, the only way to kill him forever. But before they can react, Bart appears and lips Shryke’s head off with a machete. Looks like they were off property. Sam & Dean decide to break the deal, but Bart threatens to kill Smash, so they give him the bones. Smash goes to collect them, and sees that Dean left the lighter in the box of bones. Smash quickly sets his bones on fire, killing Bart. Unfortunately, Sam doesn’t get to the spell in time and it’s incinerated.

They head back to the bunker and Sam is discouraged by the day’s events. Dean tells him not to worry, because they’ll find another way and if that doesn’t work, they’ll move onto the next thing, because that’s what they do. Sam is relieved that Dean seems to have hope again. It’s a nice way to end the episode, seeing the two brothers come together after a battle they didn’t necessarily win, and still find comfort in each other. Sometimes those quiet moments are the best ones, where the brothers’ bond just shines through.

I’m excited to see what’s in store for next week! Hopefully, we’ll find out what happened to Mary, and see Archangel McSteamy again.