Supernatural: Girls, Girls, Girls
November 27, 2014 11:39 PM - Season 10, Episode 7 - Subscribe

After a couple of monster of the week episodes we seem to be returning to this season's arc. The Winchester boys aim to break up a demonic bordello but stumble across a powerful witch named Rowena instead.

So, a couple of big things here:
  • Hannah seems to be out of the picture, although who knows if she'll turn up again in a different vessel, Ruby-style?
  • Cole seems to be off of Dean's case for now, although I assume he'll be back in some way or another. Fellow hunter?
  • Crowley has a mom!
posted by brundlefly (10 comments total)
 
This felt pretty lame after the last couple episodes, but I'll admit I mostly watch Supernatural for the meta stuff anymore. ("Clown college Collette?" is gonna crack me up for ages now.)

Let's see... thoughts:
* Hannah's release of her vessel is the first thing a non-Castiel angel has done to impress me in possibly ever. Angels are usually my very least favorite part of Supernatural, as their incredible power level has the writers constantly giving them an Idiot Ball, but her acknowledging the inherent wrongness of what they're doing was nice. I honestly hope she doesn't return to Earth, but that they can talk in Heaven later. Since it's the final season, it would be nice to see the angels willingly decide to start behaving better.

* Cole should probably return. He's seen too much. Plus, it would be fun to see them teaming up.

* Crowley mentioned having a mother who was a witch back during... I wanna say when they were blackmailing him about his bones. Having seen approximately eleventy million hours of Supernatural, I couldn't say, but I remember that bit specifically. I knew she'd be his mom the second they captured her alive, and was a little surprised it took him so long to figure it out.

Hm. For my part, I'm curious how they're going to wrap this all up.
posted by mordax at 9:49 AM on November 28, 2014 [1 favorite]


This was the first episode I've enjoyed in ages. Dean got to be a shameless horn dog and Sam got to snark on him about it. Someone in the writing room had a brilliant idea how to get rid of the f'ing angels once and for all. It negates whatever the storyline was supposed to be for the past few seasons but whatever! I'll take it. There were several good fights, monsters using their powers for normal petty reasons and good secondary characters. I particularly enjoyed how stabby the prostitutes were. Also Cole's jeep. That's totally what he'd drive.
posted by fshgrl at 10:52 AM on November 28, 2014


I'm down with the angels being gone as long as we get to keep Cas.

Yeah, all in all I enjoyed this episode. Rowena is fun to watch. It's an arc episode that generally manages to avoid dourness. Some good action (I dug Dean throwing Cole through the windshield).

Oh, and I loved the (surviving) prostitute telling Rowena to fuck right off.
posted by brundlefly at 1:36 PM on November 28, 2014


Mordax where are you getting your info that seasn 10 is the final one? I can't find anything online to corroberate this and considering the size and passion of the fandom I think it would be splashed across most fan friendly spaces.

Anyhue. I enjoyed this ep, I liked Hannah but did not like the Hannah / Castiel sub-plot because it felt like it had nowhere to go. It was just something the creative team cooked up to give Mischa something to do.

Seven episodes into what is probably a 22 episode run and so far the "Big Bad" appear to mostly be humans. I hope they can pull that kind of storytelling off. It would be refreshing.
posted by Faintdreams at 6:53 AM on December 10, 2014


Of all things, it seems the show is really righting itself.

I don't know if I can survive the loss of Castiel if that's their end game, but I definitely won't mind the Angels staying in heaven for a bit. I do wonder what the ramifications of Hannah's voluntary letting go of her host will be in Heaven, if she will take her guilt and decision back and spread it through the Heavenly Host.

Crowley. Mother issues. This should be interesting. I'm a sucker for Scottish accents, so even though Rowena isn't necessarily the most interesting character, I'm okay that she's living to see another episode. Yup. I'm an accentite.

I know we've encountered covens before and what not, but have we ever run into a "good" Coven of witches?

Cole was cool, but I'll be happy if he can just go back to his family and life. It's the one thing that Sam and Dean simply cannot have, and it would be poignant for someone who is ripe to become a hunter to take the off ramp back to normalcy. This being Supernatural, it probably won't hold.
posted by Atreides at 7:09 AM on December 18, 2014


Quotes

Dean: Is it so hard to believe that an attractive, red-blooded American female could be interested in someone like me?

Sam: [to Dean] We detoured eight hours so you could get laid?

Dean: I have a rule: no cash for ass.

Dean: The stories we tell ourselves take us to dark places -- dark places where I beat the crap out of a good man for fun. The people who love us bring us back from that edge. I'm past saving. I know how my story ends -- at the edge of a blade or barrel of a gun.

Hannah: What of the humans we sacrifice in the name of the mission? What of them? We always said humans were the original mission, we should put the humans first
Castiel: What brought this on?
Hannah: Being here on Earth, working with you, the look on his face, her husband, anger, disbelief, Caroline was screaming out from inside me, to take her life back. I've felt things, hunger, passions, taking a shower, the water on my skin, nothing compared to what I felt, these feelings aren't for me, these feelings aren't for us

Shaylene Johnson: We need to discuss my terms.
Dean: Like rules... sexy rules?
Shaylene Johnson: More an issue of payment.

Sam: [reading comments on Dean's dating profile] "Whatever you want, I'm burning up just thinking about you".
Dean: It gets raunchier.
Sam: I can see that; it's like a Penthouse letter.

Dean: [pointing gun at her] Lady, your luck has just run out.
Rowena MacLeod: I'm pretty sure that's not true.
Dean: [turns to see Cole holding a gun on him] Pal, we got to work on your timing.

Sam: So, what are we doing here?
Dean: Reason's right on your plate. Lizardo's porterhouse -- U.S.D.A. prime. It's the only place between Connecticut and the bunker you can get a decent steak under 10 bucks.

Dean: [to Elle and Caitlin] Don't worry, ladies. Our beef's not with you. We're here for the witch... Rowena.
Rowena MacLeod: Always nice to be recognized.

Crowley: You opened a whorehouse in my name?
Gerald: Well, technically, the place was called "Raul's Girls", but... yes.

Gerald: Soul deals way down after the war with Abaddon. You said that you were looking at proactive and out of the box strategies to get numbers back up.
Crowley: So you and your half-wit pal threw me into the sex trade? I'm evil; that's just tacky.

Rowena MacLeod: You have those spells I gave you?
Elle: Yeah, about that? I don't read Spanish.
Rowena MacLeod: It's Latin. Phonetics are on the back, darling.
Elle: [mouths the word "phonetics" to herself; looks bemused]

Rowena MacLeod: The king at last. King of what, Lilliput? I mean I heard you were short, but... well? Get to it. Time for the coup de grace.
Crowley: ...
Rowena MacLeod: Wee boy, is something the matter with you? Cat got your tongue? Hmmm? Meow.
Crowley: Mother?

Sam: You realize there's no guarantee "Shaylene" is even Shaylene. I mean, for all you know, it could be some... Canadian trucker named Bruce.
Dean: [an attractive woman approaches their table] That look like a Bruce to you?

Dean: Can't believe somebody got to kill this Raul tool before we could.

Trivia

The "interests" listed on Dean's dating app, "Rolling through town, no strings attached. Interested?" were the same as what Jensen Ackles gave as an answer to the question, "What would be on Dean's dating profile?" at Comic-Con 2014. Writer Robert Berens later confirmed that he was writing the script when he was at Comic-Con, heard Jensen's reply, and knew he had to put it in the episode.

The title of the episode was originally "Let Her Go" but was changed because it was too reminiscent of the theme song from Disney's Frozen, "Let It Go".

The episode was titled after Mötley Crüe's song "Girls, Girls, Girls".

Rowena takes the two prostitutes to a restaurant named Bistro des Moules. Moules is French for mussels, and since mussels are a type of clam, moules is also French slang for vagina.

Despite playing her son, Mark Sheppard is 15 years older than Ruth Connell.

When Rowena is confronted by Crowley, she makes slighting reference to his height, saying, "King of what, Lilliput? I mean I heard you were short, but...". Rowena is referring to a race of 6-inch-high people in the classic novel Gulliver's Travels, written by Jonathan Swift.

Elysia Rotaru (Shaylene Johnson) appeared previously in "Of Grave Importance" (ep. 7.19). She played a prostitute in both episodes.

When Dean fights with Cole, he throws Cole at a parked car and sends him through the windshield. Modern windshields are made of laminated glass which does not shatter like regular or tempered glass. It would crack into a spiderweb fracture but remain in one piece.
posted by orange swan at 3:17 PM on December 1, 2021


Was Castiel really not interested at all in Hannah? It seemed like he had some feelings for her. It seemed like she loved him, but it also may have been that she was really getting into being human, and sex was part of that.

Enter Rowena (I know we got one quick glimpse of her a few episodes ago, but this is her real debut). She's a lot of fun, and Ruth Connell and Mark Sheppard are always a riot together. I forget... does she ever find out she has a grandson? I'm okay with the age discrepancy between them given that she's a witch who has kept herself artificially young, and he's a demon who is wearing a meat suit, not his own human form. I wondered in a previous episode how Crowley/Fergus had an English accent, but I think the explanation is that it's the real Crowley's native accent.

It was satisfying to see that prostitute stab the demon who'd been terrorizing her and pimping her out against her will.

Does Dean's no cash for ass rule not include strippers? Also... I think he was more than a little slow on the draw when it came to figuring out that the woman he was texting was a hooker. It's not like he's inexperienced with women.
posted by orange swan at 3:22 PM on December 1, 2021


I've been googling Ruth Connell. I was surprised to find out some time back that she's younger than I had first thought. Born in April 1979, she would have been 35 when this episode aired. I wouldn't say she looks old at all, but to me she has a certain mature look that makes her present as older than her chronological age. I suppose this is isn't a bad thing for an actress best known for playing a 350-year-old witch.

Connell grew up on a farm in Scotland. Hilariously, there was initially a lot of criticism of what people supposed to be her stage Scottish accent in the fandom, but she is Scottish and uses her own accent to play Rowena. Connell is a former professional dancer, who danced with the Scottish Ballet. Her nickname is "Toots", heh. There's not a lot of information available about her and she seems to be quite private, but she's funny and friendly on Twitter and her rare political tweets indicate she's on the right side of things.

And here's a surprise... she and Rob Benedict (who was divorced in 2019) appear to be a couple. There doesn't seem to have been an official confirmation, but two began popping up on each other's Instagrams on and off in 2020, with Rob taking a picture of Ruth modeling Genevieve's Kohl's casual wear line, and appeared together at the 2020 Cadillac Oscar Week Celebration in February. In October 2020, there was a Supernatural cast Zoom to raise money for Democratic causes, and the two of them appeared on the same camera, which suggests they were likely quarantining together and/or living together. They retweet each other pretty regularly as well.

Anyway, she's another Supernatural cast member I'm chalking up in the "seems like a decent person so far as Google tells me", and Rob Benedict was in that category too, so I must say it makes me happy to see them together.
posted by orange swan at 4:37 PM on December 1, 2021


Devastated we didn't get the scene where IMPALA67 has to call Sam, who presumably was still eating lunch at the discount steakhouse, to be like no the date's over, in completely unrelated news we have to go fight a demon brothel.

But can you imagine the normal people Shayleen meets this way? Like, you meet someone on a dating app and hey she's a nice sex worker, you have a nice afternoon, then she’s like weird question lol can I call my guy so you can sign paperwork that says he owns your soul? Does that WORK? Then THAT GUY walks in? That's their real actual business model?

The stuff with Hannah’s vessel is soapy and not of much interest to me, but since the angels fell there must be thousands of people whose loved ones peaced out on them with no hope of understanding why.

I am really, really going to make an effort to be less irritated by Rowena this time around. It's not going so hot with Crowley, but I'm going to try.
posted by jameaterblues at 5:05 PM on December 1, 2021


Devastated we didn't get the scene where IMPALA67 has to call Sam, who presumably was still eating lunch at the discount steakhouse, to be like no the date's over, in completely unrelated news we have to go fight a demon brothel.

You know Sam would have rubbed that one in unmercifully.
posted by orange swan at 8:54 AM on December 7, 2021 [1 favorite]


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