Raising Hell
Written by: Brad Buckner and Eugenie Ross-Leming
Directed by: Robert Singer
Air date: October 17, 2019
Sam, Dean and Castiel call on Rowena to help keep the evil souls at bay and get an unexpected assistance from Ketch. Meanwhile, Chuck approaches Amara for help.
Tropes
- Ambiguous Situation: God interrupts Amara's session with a masseuse by replacing the latter mid-treatment. Amara asks if Chuck smote her, but he just shrugs his shoulders.
- The Anti-Nihilist: Like Sam in the previous episode, Cas states that he doesn't care that they were manipulated by Chuck all of their lives. Their choices, and the good they've done, still mattered.
- Beard of Evil: Francis Tumblety, a.k.a. Jack the Ripper, sports a full Van Dyke.
- Blatant Lies: Chuck goes to Amara and suggests they take an extended holiday to another dimension just for the fun of it. Being the older sibling, she sees right through his B.S and recognises he wants to escape this reality but can't because he's been weakened.
- The Bus Came Back: Amara makes her first appearance since taking off with Chuck at the end of Season 11.
- Cerebus Retcon: Turns out, Kevin didn't go to Heaven like Chuck said, but was instead sent to Hell.
- Depower: It turns out being shot by the Equalizer gun actually did hurt Chuck; not enough to kill him or completely drain his power, but he's still weakened to the point where he can't leave Earth. It also looks like the gunshot wound he and Sam share has connected them somehow.
- Despair Event Horizon: Dean has crossed it after the reveal that God has been manipulating them for their entire lives.
- Dirty Coward: After kickstarting a new apocalypse, Chuck just wants to nope out of reality rather than seeing it through or taking any responsibility for his extremely selfish actions. He tries to rope Amara into helping him escape because he's too weak to leave by himself, but she isn't having any of it.
- Hoist by Their Own Petard: The Equalizer gun that Chuck created actually did some lasting damage to him - he's now too weak to escape Earth and might even be dying, just like Sam. Either way, they're both linked together by the mutual wound in their shoulders.
- Jack the Ripper: Appears in this episode as the leader of ghosts from Hell trying to break through Belphegor's warding to escape out into the world. Apparently he's an old flame of Rowena's.
- Kick the Dog: It turns out Chuck sent Kevin Tran to Hell (for no reason other than for kicks, apparently) and lied about it to Sam and Dean; yet another act of petty cruelty to add to Chuck's growing list of sins.
- Loser Deity: Chuck immediately runs to big sis Amara for help when he realizes he's in deep trouble he can't get out of by himself.
- Morton's Fork: A soul who goes to Hell can never ascend to Heaven without God's permission. Therefore, Kevin's only options are either to be tortured in Hell or wander the Earth as a ghost, which will probably drive him insane eventually. He chooses the latter.
- Narcissist: Amara tells Chuck he's still one and always has been. It's the main reason why she's realised she can't stand him, even after their recent reconciliation.
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: The Equalizer gun made by Chuck actually did harm him in the end, despite him appearing to No-Sell the bullet at the end of the previous season. He's possibly injured enough now to be a manageable opponent for Sam and Dean.
- Refuse to Rescue the Disliked: Chuck has come to Amara to get him out of the enormous pickle he's put himself in, but she flatly refuses. She even retorts that their reconciliation helped her to see that he's the same old narcissistic jackass that he always was, and she's happy to let him swing in the wind if he can't clean up his own mess.
- Rerouted from Heaven: Kevin did not end up to Heaven, as Chuck promised, but to Hell. Unfortunately, he cannot enter Heaven, so the next best thing is to wander the Earth as a ghost.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Amara abandons Chuck and doesn't say where she's off to. Not because she's in danger herself, but because she refuses to bail him out of the mess he made for himself.
- Ship Tease: Between Ketch and Rowena, of all people. Not very surprising, considering Rowena's nature...
- Shoot the Hostage: The Jack the Ripper ghost takes Ketch hostage by possessing his body. Dean expels him by shooting Ketch in the shoulder with a bullet that has enough iron in it to do the job.
- Soul Jar: Rowena creates a new one to trap the ghosts' souls like the one she originally made as a bomb against Amara. Unfortunately this new one is an imperfect copy.
- Straw Nihilist: In contrast to Sam and Castiel, Dean has become convinced that everything they've done has been pointless due to just being Chuck's game.
- Take That!: Chuck liked the Game of Thrones finale. Given that he's previously been established as a hack writer, it's clearly not intended as a compliment.
- A Taste of Their Own Medicine: Though she refuses to help mainly because he is a narcissistic jerkass, Amara also reminds Chuck that he sealed her for near-eternity with the Mark of Cain, so she will gladly return the favor by letting him stay trapped on Earth.
- Zerg Rush: The Winchesters manage to trap a decent number of ghosts with Rowena's soul catcher, but ghosts are still emerging from the Hell Gate by the dozens every single second, and will inevitably overrun them.
