Hail Hail the gang’s all here! “The Bad Seed,” directed by actor Jensen Ackles, reunites Team Free Will for the first time this season as they try to cure Cas (Misha Collins, “24”) of the spell put on him by Rowena (Ruth Connell) in the season 10 finale.
Rowena, who we haven’t seen yet this season, has been running around with the Book of the Damned and trying to create her own “Mega-Coven” of witches, and Sam (Jared Padalecki, “Gilmore Girls”) and Dean (Jensen Ackles, “Smallville”) are splitting time between researching the Darkness and helping Cas. Cas is wrapped up in blankets like an angel burrito, as if the curse is the common cold. It’s adorable, but the spell is getting worse.
Meanwhile in Hell, Crowley (Mark Sheppard) plays caretaker to the young Amara (Gracyn Shinyei, “When Calls The Heart”). Amara worries about God returning to seal her away again. With the hope that he may be able to bend the Darkness to his will, Crowley dotes on her so that she will favor him. He has been feeling a little powerless lately, and with the Darkness on his side, he could become a real player again. He also sends a demon to break up one of Rowena’s meetings. She escapes, but the other witch (Courtney Richter, “Bates Motel”) is taken into custody.
The brothers decide that they need Metatron’s help with the Darkness and begin a search for the car he stole from Cas, but they are interrupted when Cas goes into a seizure and blacks out. When he comes to, he describes it as akin to being a tomato in a blender. Cas explains that all the frantic voices on Angel Radio looking for Metatron isn’t helping his head.
Suddenly, the episode experiences a humourous shift when an angel and a demon walk into a bar … and commiserate over a drink about how messed up things have gotten. The pair have heard all the alarms going off, and the management isn’t looking out for the little guys. It really only makes sense that angels and demons begin to get along, seeing as they all hate the Winchesters.
Sam and Dean pull out their Fed suits and go to interrogate the witch who was brought in for questioning. The witch is sufficiently startled when the brothers ask her why a demon would attack three witches in a diner unless one of them was Rowena. At first the witch plays dumb, but after the contents of her purse provide some pretty damning evidence that she isn’t an innocent bystander, the Winchesters get her to agree to scry using her compact mirror in order to give them Rowena’s whereabouts.
The Brothers catch up with Rowena while she attempts to make an escape in a blond wig. But Dean has a disguise of his own and, posing as her taxi driver, manages to distract her long enough for Sam to get her in handcuffs. But when they drag her back to the bunker, Cas has vanished.
Back in Hell, Crowley is having a hard time getting Amara to come around to his ideas, and she is more interested in eating the souls of his demons.
Sam and Dean reach Cas just in time to stop him from hurting an innocent woman. Just like the last time Cas was being forced to hurt people by the mind control of a redhead, Dean’s voice breaks through the haze and gets Cas to snap out of it long enough for Rowena to lift the spell. Rowena escapes, but Cas is healed so the Winchesters count it as a victory, even if Dean comes out of it with a black eye. Cas offers to heal it for him, but he refuses. Dean believes he deserves it since he left Cas in a worse position at the end of their fight in season 10. Amara (Yasmeene Lily-elle Ball, “The Tree That Saved Christmas”) has gorged herself on souls and has entered her moody teenage years, surprising Crowley and the audience alike with her new look.