Supernatural, Episode 7.21 – Reading is Fundamental

We meet Kevin Tran. A stereotypical AP Asian smarty pants. His girlfriend calls and he stresses over his admission essay and his SAT tomorrow. Meanwhile, Sam and Dean find a new hideout in Chicago and get to work breaking open the Iranian stone. Strangely, every time Dean hits the rock, thunder rolls, Sounds like a warning to stop, but Dean keeps going anyway until they break it open to uncover a tablet with strange writing on it.

At the same time, Kevin gets struck by lightning and collapses to the floor. And over in the looney bin, Meg is surprised when Castiel suddenly sits up in bed.

Next morning, Kevin wakes in a sea of debris from last night and realizes he’s late for his SATs. As he rushes out, his eyes begin glowing. Sam and Dean watch news reports of much of the country getting hit with lightning last night, about the time they broke open the rock.

Meg calls Bullwinkle and Seacrest and tells them about Castiel. They head to the mental hospital while Kevin himself is driving, not really sure why or to where, but knowing that he must.

The Bros arrive to see Castiel in his coat. He asks Dean to pull his finger, which he does causing the lights in the room to explode. He tells them that he remembers who and what he is, but Meg points out he’s still a little loopey, concerned more with honeybees and flowers. He also has an affection for his “thorny” “caretaker.”

He says he heard a ping only angels can hear, right around the time the Bros opened the rock. They show him the tablet.

Of course, it makes sense, he says. “If someone was going to free the Word from the vault of the Earth, it would be you two. I love you guys.” He gives them a big hug.

After mentioning sharp cat penises, Castiel tells them the writing is rubbish to him. It wasn’t written for angels. But he does know who wrote it, Metatron.

“You’re saying a Transformer wrote that!?”
“No, that’s Megatron.”
“What!?”
“The Transformer, it’s Megatron.”
“What!?

Metatron was an angel and the transcriber of God. So the tablet is actually the Word of God. Meg asks to see it, but both Sam and Dean are weary. They get a little testy with each other, causing Castiel, who doesn’t like conflict now, to fly away. He drops the Word of God and breaks it into three chunks.

Meg says he’s likely in the dayroom now, so Dean goes to him. Meg asks Sam what they’ve gotten themselves into now, but he stays silent. She’s tired of being treated like a second class citizen and she storms off. Sam goes after her, but they hear something back in the room. The bag with the Word in it has been taken… by Kevin. They chase him outside.

“You’re not a demon or a chomper. What the hell are you?”
“I’m a Kevin Tran. I’m in Advanced Placement..”

Sam tries to take the bag from him. But he apologizes and says he doesn’t know why, but he can’t let go of it.

In the dayroom, Dean sits with Castiel who pops out a Sorry game, like literally the game of Sorry. Dean says he wishes he could suit up and help them take down the Leviathans. But Castiel stays loopey.

Back in Cas’ room, Sam and Meg sit Kevin down. He takes the pieces out of the bag and they snap back together. He says he can sort of read it. A little blurry, but he reads that the tablet is about the Leviathan. Suddenly, Meg senses something and two angels fly in. They hurl Meg to the wall. Castiel sense Sam is talking to angels and they head back.

The female angel tells Sam and Meg to “step away from the prophet” and orders her partner to “kill the demon and her lover.” Castiel pops in and recognizes the angels as Hester and Inias. They wonder where he’s been and why he killed all those angels. Meg managed to score an angel sword in the last year, but Dean flashes them away with an angel seal.

“What’s happening!?!?!”
“What is that?”
“It’s Kevin Tran, He’s in Advanced Placement.”

They give Kevin a CliffsNotes version of what’s going on.

“So these Leviathans, these monsters are real? And angels, with wings?”
“No, uh, no wings. No anything.”
“No junk! Junkless! So Kevin, you can read the chicken scratch on the God rock huh?”

Kevin explains the tablet is kind of like an “In Case of Emergency” note. He says he doesn’t want to be a prophet and Meg reminds them they need to get going and fast. They drive to Rufus’ cabin. Stopping at a convenience store, Sam sees Kevin has been reported missing and that the feds are on the case. Outside, Meg runs into two demon truckers.

They’re back on the road by nightfall and Meg gets a call from Castiel who says he’s surrounded by hellhounds at a dog track in Perth. She tells him their location and pops into the car in between Meg and Kevin.

He boops Kevin’s nose and they ask why the angels are suddenly after them. Castiel says they’re only following protocol, needing to protect the prophet (he plays with Kevin’s nose again) and take him to the desert to “learn the Word away from men.”

“I can’t live in the desert, I’m applying to Princeton.”

Castiel says they have to duck Hester and the soldiers. Sam asks if Castiel is in their corner, but he says “I don’t fight anymore. I watch the bees.”

They arrive at Rufus’ cabin and Dean takes Kevin downstairs to translate the tablet.

“This looks like a sex torture dungeon.”

Upstairs, Sam and Castiel talk.

“You seem troubled. Of course, that’s a primary aspect of your personality, so I sometimes ignore it.”

Castiel figures Sam is worried about the burden he literally took from him. Castiel talks about Lucy lingering around his head as a residual from Sam, but after a while, it was the weight of his own mistakes that were filling his mind. “I was lost until I took on your pain,” Castiel says.

We’re going to help you get better, Sam says.
“What do you mean ‘better’?”

Back downstairs, Kevin hyperventilates. “What’s happened to my life,” he says. Dean hands him a brown bag and he calms down.

“I don’t know man, what can I say. You’ve been chosen. And it sucks, believe me.”

“There’s no use asking, why me, because the angels, they don’t care. It just seems that when they try, it breaks them apart.”

“I just wanted to be the first Asian-American president of the United States.”
“Then do your homework.”

Meg sneaks out to meet her two demon trucker friends. They’re ready to bring her to King Crowley, but she easily ganks them. When she gets back to the cabin, they trap her having realized she left.

She tells them, “I’m simpler than you think” and that she just saved their asses. She says she’s learned to find a cause and stick with it. Before it was Lucy and the YED, but your cause can change over time. Now it’s bringing down Crowley.

Thinking she might be sincere, or sincere enough, Sam breaks the seal. But Meg’s good deed has just sent the angels a beacon as to where they are. Sure enough, Hester, Inias and two other angels arrive. They bring Kevin upstairs.

Dean tells Hester they’re actually trying to clean up a mess made by one of their own, but she doesn’t care. She says everything they touch gets corrupted. Castiel stops her from going after Dean saying “They’re the ones we were put her to protect.”

Esther don’t care about no humans and she lets out her frustration from Castiel’s big promises when he was nuGod. She starts punching Castiel in the face until Meg stabs her with the angel blade.

“Someone had to.”

Next morning, Inias talks to Castiel. “These are strange times,” he says,” I wish you’d come with us.” But Castiel says he’s not part of the garrison anymore.

Kevin finishes the translation. Not a lot of people could’ve handled this, Sam says. He’s doing okay with it now and Inias tells the other two angels to bring him back home and they can watch over him there. They fly away and they look at what Kevin’s written.

“Leviathan cannot be slain but by a bone of righteous mortal as light and good as the Leviathan are angry and dark, washed in the three bloods of the fallen: a fallen angel, the ruler of fallen humanity, and a father of fallen beasts.”

Castiel gladly hands them a bottle of their own blood. “Always happy to bleed for the Winchester.”

“What are you going to do Cas?”
“I don’t know, isn’t that amazing?”

Castiel flies away.

Meanwhile, Kevin happily reunites with his mother as she’s being interviewed by an FBI guy. Actually, it’s Edgar the Leviathan and he kills Kevin’s two angel bodyguards.

Darn, Leviathans ruin everything.

Episode Thoughts
That was a great episode. And having just watched episode 20 earlier today, that’s two great, fun episodes in a row.

There were some genuinely nice conversations between Sam & Castiel and Dean & Castiel and Dean & Kevin, plus Meg’s emotional speech. Plus there were a lot of hilarious lines throughout the episode, the most I can remember in recent memory. Snarky Meg definitely helped and Osric Chau as Kevin did great as well.

Two for two on the guest stars too with Felicia Day in the last episode and Osric Chau here. He definitely did well with the character to make you care about so you definitely felt horrible for him at the end. Stupid Leviathans.

Maybe it was also me being a couple years removed from being an Advanced Placement Asian-American teen that made it a fun episode. (Simpler times, hee.) Though I was nowhere near Princeton-ready, nor was I anywhere near prophet-material either. (lol)

So now as it’s always been, we get the answer to our season-long arc when we’re four episodes away from the finale. I hope that definitely means the Leviathans are gone by season’s end because I probably couldn’t take season 8 being about them still. Better not pull a The Killing here Supernatural!

I also thought we got the end of Castiel, at least for this season, when he got trapped with Lucy. But turns out Lucy’s gone and Castiel goes on his merry way. As for Meg, I do hope she’s with the Bros. You can’t expect her to be 100% of course, but at the very least, I hope she’s united with them for their mutual hate for King Crowley. (Who actually better get some depth soon because the character has become pretty forced.)

On the other hand, Castiel and Meg are actually really cute together. lol

Overall, another great, fun episode. Definitely liked it and one of the better ones of the season.


Miss the episode or want to watch it again?
Download full episodes of Supernatural on
Supernatural - Season 7 or at .

Share your thoughts!

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Back to top