Sam and Dean are taking a somewhat break from the angel problem in this episode of Supernatural, and decide to join a chastity church group. Impossible, you say? Check out our episode recap of Supernatural and find out why it is all true!
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Supernatural, Season 9 Episode 8: Rock and a Hard Place Recap Overview
Need a quick Supernatural episode recap of episode 8 titled Rock and a Hard Place? Here is a summary of events for the episode. Each event is linked to the more detailed Supernatural episode recap for Rock and a Hard Place if you need more information!
- A seemingly innocent woman is taken by a being covered in blue flame after lifting up a car. Sam and Dean learn of the case from Jody Mills, and they decide to help out.
- Sam and Dean learn that the disappearing victims are members of a chastity group. The missing girl is seen in an underground area, and sees more mysterious blue flame.
- Dean and Sam “share” as they join the chastity group to try to figure out what is going on. Afterwards, Dean tries seducing one of the women–and as Sam and Jody soon figure out, breaking the vow of chastity is what is getting people into trouble–including Dean and Suzy.
- Dean and Suzy are taken to the “holding area” and try to figure a way out.
- Sam and Jody are able to find where Dean is being held. The monster attacks them, and Jody is impaled with the weapon use to kill to the blue flame monster. After much battling, Jody is able to seal the deal.
- After the rescue, Sam and Dean return to their hotel. Sam comments about how he is feeling “broken”, and Dean nearly comes clean about what is going on. Ezekiel pops on, convincing Dean to keep quiet.
Supernatural Episode Recap: Rock and a Hard Place, the Details
Jody Mills is Back
Season 9 Episode 8 of Supernatural, titled Rock and a Hard Place, begins with a woman closing up a diner. She leaves some food for a homeless man, and continues walking. She is startled by some noises. She moves quickly to her car, and drops her keys. She crawls under a car to get them, and gets her taser ready. Someone picks up the car she is under, and he turns to flame. The figure then drops her down into a shaft of some sort.
With Sam and Dean, Sam is napping, and Dean gives him the wake up call. They have some cereal for breakfast, and discuss Kevin not getting anywhere in their search. Dean notices Sam is tired, and Sam says he “can’t get his battery charged”. Jody Mills makes another appearance this episode. She tells them about a case, and they head down.
The Vow of Chastity
She explains about the car being lifted by a figure and that a few people mysteriously disappeared. They all seem to be members of a church group. Sam and Dean discuss potential angel problems. Mills brings the homeless man in to explain what he saw. He seems a bit out of it. He tells them about the blue fire he saw.
They head to church to talk with the people. They act as if they’re joining, but ask about the disappearing people. Apparently the victims were members of a chastity group, so the two join the church in order to join that group. They decide that they can make a “new” vow of chastity, by joining this group.
Back with the girl, she looks around the hole she is in. She sees figures moving about, and becomes very scared. She falls, hurting her ankle. She does manage to find a lantern though. She also finds other people who had been taken. The blue fire returns, and one of the men has disappeared.
Dean’s Overshare
At the church group, Dean and Sam are in attendance. They do some sharing about why they are virgins. Dean’s sharing is a bit funny. All of the girls are getting uncomfortable, or maybe a little too comfortable, with Dean’s description. Dean then asks Sam if he recognizes Suzy, leader of the chastity group. Sam and Dean make the rounds, talking to different people. Dean offers to walk Suzy home, in hopes to break his vow prematurely.
Sam returns to Jody, and it seems that the people being taken broke their chastity vow. Meanwhile, Dean has gotten Suzy home. Dean decides to try to romanticize the mood. Suzy, however, begins crying about her friends disappearing, and asks Dean to pray with her. Sam, in the meantime, has made several calls to Dean and he doesn’t pick up. Suzy provides Dean with plenty of chastity books to read. While looking through her drawers however, Dean discovers that Suzy may be a porn star–which is why he recognized her. He calls her out on it–and showers her with compliments about her old “work”. Of course, she breaks her vow rather quickly.
Sam and Jody head to find Dean and Suzy, figuring they have broken the vow. Sam and Jody are correct, as Suzy and Dean are both hit with the blue flame when they open the door, which knocks them out.
No Cell Reception
Back with the taken groups, the people are beginning to dehydrate and panic. Dean and Suzy are dropped off in the hole, joining the others. Sam and Jody find the porn videos, and figure out what happened to Dean and Suzy. Jody finds some information on Roman history relating fire to virginity.
Dean tries to make a phone call, but he has no reception. He does manage to make a call, but it’s very staticky. They figure it must be near a train station due to the background noises. They figure out a weapon to use against the being, which requires virgin blood. After some convincing, they get this from one of the chastity group members that hasn’t broken their vow. Meanwhile with Dean, one of the captive men wants to “serve” up the weakest person to the blue fire.
Jody Mills Saves the Day
After some searching, Sam locates the hatch that the captives were dropped down. Sam tries to open it, but he is attacked. Turns out Bonnie–the woman trying to get Dean and Sam to be born-again virgins– is the blue flame monster. Bonnie grabs Jody. Jody is being pummeled by Bonnie. Bonnie straps down Jody, to bleed her out, and she plans to eats their livers.
Meanwhile, Dean works on escaping. Sam tries to help Jody, but she is impaled. Bonnie attacks Sam and she tells him that he is “all duct tape and safety pins inside” and that his liver is no good. He is confused, and she doesn’t know how he is alive. Jody then stabs Bonnie from behind, killing her.
Dean Almost Gives In
Back at the hotel, Jodie takes off. Sam asks Dean if there is something wrong with him. Dean tries to calm him down, but Sam seems to be becoming more agitated. Dean then wants to come clean, but Ezekiel pops in and tells him not to. Dean backs off, deciding to listen to Ezekiel, but clearly is torn on the issue.
Josh’s Thoughts: Supernatural, Season 9 Episode 8: Rock and a Hard Place
I guess Supernatural wanted to take a break from angels this week, and focus on some “Pagan” mythology, as Bonnie from the episode puts it. I guess it is a nice change of pace, despite the story still revolving around a church group. The “chastity” group was a little bit of a flimsy storyline, and rather lame though, I thought.
I guess Bonnie knew the futility of the chastity group though, which is what made it such easy prey for her I suppose. It was kind of dumb how before we knew what she actually was, she was scoffing at Dean for his blatant attempt to rile up the other girls. It just seemed to be a way for the show to throw a red herring into the show, but that sort of made it more obvious to me.
I really want some progression on Sam’s storyline though! It was neat seeing the monster realize that Sam isn’t right. It was interesting what she said though—that he is dead inside. If Ezekiel is supposed to be healing him, and as Ezekiel says, he is almost done, why is he still nearly dead inside? Shouldn’t he be nearly fixed by now? We almost had some progress too when Dean nearly told Sam about the deal, but Ezekiel had to show up and talk him out of it! That was frustrating.
Another thing that is making me a little more skeptical of Sam is his inability to “recharge” has he says, being tired. A couple of episodes ago, he was saying that he felt great, and now suddenly it has changed. Does this mean something? Considering it was brought up, I would feel that it would have to. Ezekiel certainly acted and sounded like a good angel in the beginning, but now as the episodes progress, I am becoming more concerned. Dean should be as well, I think.
Violet’s Thoughts on Season 9 Episode 8 of Supernatural: Rock and a Hard Place
After the last episode, where Dean got to see a couple of familiar faces from his past, in this episode we get a familiar face that both Sam and Dean know, as well as the audience: Jody Mills. I like when Supernatural randomly brings back old characters that we haven’t seen for awhile. It reminds us that Sam and Dean do have friends out there, and that they keep in touch, even if we don’t always see it.
This episode, though, was pretty lame. It was cool that they went out on the road for another case, and worked with Jody on it, but at least make the story a good one. It became obvious all too quickly that Bonnie was the one behind it all. She was the only one that was not affected by Dean’s speech at the group (which, by the way, I don’t think all those girls would have reacted so strongly to), giving the first indication that something was different about her. Then when we find out that it’s only those who break their vow, well we already had the spiel from Bonnie at the beginning that the purity pledge was more than just a piece of paper, plus she knows who everyone in the group is — it was an easy assumption that she was the bad guy here. Nice guest appearance from Lindy Booth as Bonnie though — she played Night Bitch in Kick-Ass 2.
While we know that Dean is a player, we actually haven’t seen him trying to get any play lately. Usually he and Sam just go on their cases, and that’s that. So it was just a little too convenient that he chooses joining a chastity group, of all times, to try and get some. Not only that, but that he went after a member of the group who seemed so sincere and intent on trying to help Dean out with coping with his chastity — and that she so easily threw away her vow! I was actually looking forward to seeing Dean get shot down. In fact, I thought for a second that Sam and Jody might be the ones to hook up. But nope. Just because Suzy was a porn star, doesn’t mean that she would break her vow that easily. On the contrary, it seems like she would more likely hold out, because she wants to put that aspect of her life behind her. And why does she have DVDs of her own movies?? Anyway, this whole storyline was just overall hard to buy.
We do get a slight return to the overarching story at the end, when Bonnie tells Sam how broken he is inside, and then when Dean nearly spills the beans to Sam, but Ezekiel stops him. Ezekiel tells Dean “just a little bit longer” until he’s done with Sam, but I get the sinking feeling that he’s just using Sam to completely heal himself, and I’m not sure what that will mean for Sam once Ezekiel is completely healed.
We’ll probably find out in the next episode, which is the midseason finale!
Scenes from Supernatural, Season 9 Episode 9: Holy Terror
Here are scenes from next week’s Supernatural episode, titled Holy Terror:
Scenes from Supernatural, Season 9 Episode 9: Holy Terror
What did you think of Season 9 Episode 8 of Supernatural, titled Rock and a Hard Place? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
This was an okay episode. It was nice to see Dean display his player abilities once again after so long.
I didn’t like this episode much. my friends and I feel that Dean’s pressuring Suzy to sleep with him was a major step back in his characterization and generally pretend this episode didn’t happen.