Ghoul, Britannia.
This is a mostly spoiler-free review of Supernatural: Season 12, which is now available on Netflix. That is, until the end of the piece, where a spoiler warning will be provided.
After the huge cosmic scale of Supernatural's Season 11 (that wound up being a strange, zero-sum game by the end), Season 12 brought things back down to earth in a effective, emotional way that involved the miraculous return of Mary Winchester (Samantha Smith) and the shady-turned-diabolical dealings of the British Men of Letters.
Through this arc, the season was able to focus in on a handful of more nuanced themes involving family, wasted potential, and lingering resentment over abandonment. Mary's return was both joyful and painful - for both her and the boys. They welcomed her back warmly, but their relationship was still strained because of how old they were when she was killed and what their childhood was like because of her absence. In particular, Dean and Mary's struggles were more notable because of the fact that he was old enough to remember her being his mom and old enough to take the brunt of John's special form of rearing.
The British Men of Letters storyline gave us a new, formidable villain faction that came with its own interesting complexities. The old "greater good" argument often used to excuse deplorable actions came into play as this overseas organization took a hardline stance toward monsters that left no room for judgement calls or mercy. Toni Bevell (Elizabeth Blackmore), Mick Davies (Adam Fergus), and Mr. Ketch (David Haydn-Jones) were all fun new characters who added a lot to the landscape while also allowing the show to re-explore the idea of hunters themselves. I miss the old Roadhouse days when it felt like the boys were more tethered to the hunter community.
This year though, the excellent "Celebrating the Life of Asa Fox" saw the Winchesters return to the fold a little bit, after so long away, and discover that their exploits are pretty legendary. Other great episodes this season, that darkly celebrated the notion of family and/or hunters, included "Twigs & Twine & Tasha Banes," "Lily Sunder Has Some Regrets," and, of course, the Hitler-killing hilarity of "The One You've Been Waiting For." Also, the Tarantino-homage episode, ""Stuck in the Middle (With You)," felt like a reasonable detour for a show in its twelfth year.
As I touched upon already, Dean carried a much bigger burden than Sam this season with regards to Mary's return. Sam's side of the story dealt more with him beginning to drink the Brit's Kool-Aid -- not in a brainwashing sense, just in a "huh, their way might make sense" sense -- while Dean played a few rounds of emotional tug-o-war with his mom. Character-wise, it worked well. Also, from an acting standpoint, you can count solidly on Jensen Ackles to play all sides and shades of feeling happy, bitter, relieved, and resentful. Often all at the same time. Both Dean and Mary can be stubborn and it made for some great material. Also, Jensen was great in "Regarding Dean," when the eldest Winchester's memory began to fatally fade.
Warning: the following paragraphs contain major spoilers for Season 12! Slip to the Verdict if you want to avoid.
Because Supernatural's so long in the tooth, and still operating with a 23 episode season, they have to run by a certain playbook. Rules that include peripheral characters vanishing and the brothers not being able to locate them. Where's Lucifer? Where's Mary? Where's Cas? Where's Kelly? Where's Cas and Kelly? They'll spend weeks in the bunker searching the web and then go work a case because they're stir crazy. It can feel like a grind sometimes, but with Mary, it worked. Her leaving Sam and Dean, off to find her own place and space in the world, felt right. Out of everyone who had to clear out and disappear for several episodes at a time, her departure felt like it fit the story.
The B-Plot this season -- which I suppose some might consider the A arc since it had the devil and his spawn and apocalyptic shadings -- was the lesser of the two main threads. There was too much of Lucifer lording over Crowley, Crowley trying to do the same to Lucifer (which was bound to backfire, duh), along with way too many meandering pawns/pieces. The boys spent half the season trying to track down the people involved with this arc since they were almost always in hiding. Even Cas just sort of vanished at one point because he just felt bad about messing things up.
The Rick Springfield episodes were fun, and I liked the idea of Lucifer taking over POTUS, but the midseason premiere, which featured the brothers somehow not being able to endure a few months in solitary confinement (where they had a bed, food, and light) even though the two of them had suffered torture and despair on freaking other-worldly planes of existence, was just too silly to believe.
I think part of me was just enjoying the Mary story and the British Men of Letter plot so much that I just didn't want to deal with angels and demons and the looming threat of armageddon this season. I just didn't care about the threat of the Nephilim when the other story had more tangible stakes. Hunters were being targeted for death. Mary was being brainwashed. Dean and Sam were going through complex feelings about their mother coming back into their lives after their entire existence changed so drastically after her death. The world of magic and prophecies just didn't matter as much to me as the here and now. I was more invested in, say, Mary and Jody meeting for the first time than I was in the idea of an antichrist being born.
The finale though, "All Along the Watchtower," was pretty vicious with regards to thinning the herd. Part of me wished that some of the characters killed in "Who We Are," the penultimate episode, had stuck around. Bevell, in particular. I could have also stood to see Davies survive the season, but the entire Brit arc got clean-swept. Right afterword though, it appeared as if we lost, in one episode, Rowena, Crowley, and Cas. Mary and Lucifer are off in that alternate Earth zone so they're not dead, but the other three, for all intents and purposes, are gone.
Now, that doesn't mean the show can't find a way to bring them back. Firstly, there's no way Rowena's dying off-screen like that. Especially since the show already killed her ON screen once and then brought her back. Crowley and Cas are a different story, but with the idea of an alternate Earth being introduced there right in the end, there's now a skeleton key in play that can act as a device for resurrection, I'm sure. It's possible Crowley might not make it back, but Cas pretty much has to. The fandom demands it. Also, it was a shocking way to go, but also so sudden that it was almost flat. You can't tag a Cas death on to the end of a chain that also features Rowena and Crowley. It doesn't work dramatically.
The Verdict
Supernatural became more family-focused this season as Dean and Sam dealt with a complex array of feelings brought on by the return of their mother, Mary. Her reintegration into the world, plus the British Men of Letters' tactics of terror, helped elevate this season greatly after Season 11 dropped the ball when it came to cosmic affairs. In fact, the Mary arc was so strong that it hurt the other major storyline, involving Lucifer, by making end-of-the-world stakes feel rather humdrum in the face of family drama.
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