Warning: Spoiler Alert
This One Hurt. A Lot.
We’ve witnessed beloved characters die on The CW series “Supernatural,” since season two, when John Winchester sacrificed his soul to “Yellow-Eyes” to save his son Dean. However there are some characters that have found a special place in our hearts and Charlie Bradbury, ranks high upon that list. Although her story was far from over, Charlie gave up her life to save the world from a very evil family. Once again decisions made by Sam and Dean cost them one of their own, in the episode entitled “Dark Dynasty.”
There are two absolutes in the Supernatural universe, the Winchester brothers will pull out all the stops to save each other’s lives. The other constant in the dynamic’s the fact that they don’t trust one another, to level with each other. Those situations almost always go sour and they usually end up costing them a friend such as Kevin Tran.
Charlie Bradbury explored Europe until she finally found The Book Of The Damned, with hopes the ancient text contained the answer to removing The Mark Of Cain from Dean’s arm. By gaining possession of the book, she became the target for the Styne family, who claim the book’s their property. The family has engineered some of the greatest disasters of the 19th and 20th Centuries, including spreading diseases, inducing the stock market crash of 1929 and wars.
Dean, Sam and Charlie, fought off and killed Jacob Styne, when Dean believed Sam burned the book in the fireplace. However Sam deceived his brother, burning another book in its place. He then made a deal with Crowley’s mother Rowena, to decipher the spell that will remove the Mark from Dean, of course without his older brother’s knowledge.
This episode begins in Omaha, Nebraska as a young woman enters an office to apply for a case study on vision. The man behind the desk looks at her paperwork, then starts to examine her eyes. However he tries to kiss her and she screams, prompting the man to slit her throat. When he does, we see the same tattoo on his arm that Jacob Styne had.
A janitor in the hallway hears the woman’s scream and knocks on the door repeatedly, asking if everything’s okay. The man uses an instrument to scoop out the woman’s eyeballs and he puts them in a thermos-type bottle filled with ice. As the janitor uses his keys to enter the office, the man straps on a backpack and jumps from the third-story window.
We head to where Sam has Rowena chained up as she tries to decipher the book and she tells him she’s yet to make any progress. He tells her she better not be stalling and she tells him that’s ridiculous, she wants out of the cellar and for Sam to kill Crowley, which is what he agreed to do for her in return for the spell. She says that Nadia’s codex is something she can’t crack, Sam says she needs a code-book for the code-book and leaves.
We arrive at the Styne home, where the man from Omaha, Eldon Styne’s getting told how badly he messed up by his father the family patriarch Monroe Styne, for leaving the woman’s body and a witness. His father says the reason the family’s lasted so long is due to discipline and secrecy, his lack of discipline cost the family it’s secrecy.
Eldon says that he hasn’t been thinking clearly since his brother Jacob was murdered and Monroe tells him not to use his brother’s death as an excuse. He says to redeem himself, Eldon needs to clean up his mess in Omaha and to kill the Winchesters. He tells his father he’ll take care of it.
Monroe’s nephew Eli, asks if giving Eldon the task of catching the Winchester’s is a mistake, seeing how he messed up in Nebraska. Monroe reminds his nephew that he’s yet to complete his mission, finding the red-headed woman who stole the book. He says that’s the best way Eli can serve the family.
Over at The Men Of Letters building, Dean reads about the woman found with her eyes harvested and her throat slit and says to Sam the case is for them. He says they’ll head to Omaha first thing in the morning, so Sam might want to get some sleep.
Sam decides to take a road-trip instead, meeting with Charlie to ask for her assistance in cracking the Book Of The Damned. He tells her that he switched books and burned another one and that Dean’s unaware of what he’s doing. He also tells her she’ll be working with one of the most dangerous witches on the planet.
Charlie and Rowena take an instant dislike to each other, but Sam’s got a referee to run interference, Castiel. Both Cas and Charlie are dead-set against doing thing’s behind Dean’s back, but Sam tells them it’s the only solution, or else Dean will go dark-side. They agree to help.
The brothers pull out their suits and their FBI shields and talk to the owner of the building, where Eldon had his office. The man says that Styne had just been there for a month and he only saw him once or twice, but he does have surveillance footage of Eldon jumping from the window. Sam notices something on Eldon’s arm and asks the man to zoom in on it, it’s the same tattoo they saw on Jacob Styne.
As they leave the building, Eldon arrives and asks the building owner what he told Sam and Dean. The man says he didn’t give them any information, but Styne guts the guy. As Sam and Dean head back home, we see that Eldon’s trailing them on the highway.
Castiel keeps trying to reach Sam on the phone, but Sam keeps ignoring his calls. Sam’s phone’s sitting on the table next to Dean, when it rings. Dean sees that it’s Castiel and picks up and asks Cas what’s going on. Castiel freezes when he realizes he’s speaking to Dean and says there was no purpose for his call and his ride just arrived. Dean realizes that’s strange even for Cas and asks Sam if he’s spoken to the Angel recently, Sam uncomfortably says he hasn’t.
Charlie asks Rowena about the nun who wrote the Book Of The Damned and Rowena tells her she got burned as a heretic. She said the woman believed in balance, for every spell one breaks, one has to invoke another. She says the nun was a woman ahead of her time, much like Rowena and Charlie. Charlie says other than sharing the same hair color, she doesn’t think they’re alike.
Rowena then tells her she read Charlie the moment she saw her, a sad lonely childhood filled with tragedy. She’s a loner an outsider, whose never felt she belonged. She’s totally dedicated to Sam and Dean, substituting them for the family she never had. Charlie says she loves them, they’re like her brothers. Rowena says she realizes that, then she says that steadfast loyalty will be your undoing girl.
Dean goes to pick up a pizza when Eldon and one of his men show up and try to jump him. Dean kills the henchman and takes Styne prisoner, bringing him back to the bunker. Sam and Dean handcuff one hand to a chain hanging from the ceiling and start interrogating him. He readily admits to butchering the young woman in Omaha, then brings up that they killed his brother Jacob.
Castiel calls again and Sam steps out into the hallway to talk to him. Cas says Charlie wants to leave for a couple of hours to clear her head, Sam tells him that Charlie’s not safe out in the open with the Styne family searching for her. Castiel suggests he go with her and Sam tells him he can’t leave Rowena alone, then he tells the Angel just to handle it.
Eldon tells Dean that his family’s one of the oldest in Europe and they had to change their name due to some unwanted notoriety. He says that a family acquaintance Mary Shelley, exposed the family’s secrets forcing them to change their name from Frankenstein. He then opens his shirt, to reveal stitching on his chest. He says he has two hearts and lots of extra muscles that make him faster and stronger.
He then tells Dean that his family’s been without the Book Of The Damned for the last eighty-years, but once they reclaim it, they’ll be unstoppable. Dean tells him he’s sorry to bust Styne’s balloon but they burned the Book Of The Damned. Eldon responds that’s impossible as the book’s got a spell on it that makes it indestructible. Dean’s head starts to spin when he hears that and he goes out to talk to Sam. As they start talking, they hear the chains rattling, they run back into the room, to find Styne left his arm in the handcuff but he split.
Castiel moves Rowena to another room so Charlie can have some quiet time, but Charlie uses the time to sneak off to a motel. Soon after, Eldon gets a call from Eli telling him that Charlie’s at the Blackbird Motel and wants to know if Eldon wants him to kill her. Eldon says he needs to take care of it himself.
Dean returns from trying to find Eldon and Sam tells him that the Frankenstein family held reign for a thousand-years and were behind some of the worst events in history. Dean then tells Sam that Eldon said the Book Of The Damned can’t be destroyed, right then Castiel calls Sam telling him that Charlie took off.
Charlie’s attempting to come up with some formula to crack the codex in her laptop, but every variable she tries comes up as not a match. She finally finds the right formula, but she hears Eldon trying to break into her room. She takes the laptop and her cellphone into the bathroom, calls Sam and downloads the code she deciphered.
Sam asks if she has the book with her and she says she just has her notes, he tells her to give it to Styne. Dean grabs the phone and he tells Charlie to give Eldon what ever she has, she says she’s sorry but she can’t, then hangs up the phone. When the download’s complete she smashes her laptop, Styne hears her and enters the bathroom. Charlie pulls out a blade and Styne just smiles.
Sam and Dean reach the motel and get to Charlie’s room to find the door’s wide open and there are bloody footprints all over the room. The footprints lead to the bathroom and we can see by the Winchester’s faces what happened, then the camera pans to Charlie’s body. She’s lying in the tub, her abdomen showing multiple stab wounds and blood’s sprayed on her face.
The Story Continues Next Wednesday Night at 9:00 pm on The CW.
