"I'm proud of you, Sammy."

Interestingly musical recap leading into the moment the last episode left off: Dean's phone rings, Sam answers it. "Dad?"

Whereupon we cut straight to the case-establishing teaser. Burkitsville, Indiana, one year ago. It is night, and a pleasant young couple called Vince and Holly are just leaving a general store attached to a gas station, the proprietors Harley and Stacey just about falling over themselves to be friendly and helpful.

HOLLY: "Hey, we should get lost more often. I mean, everyone in this town is so nice."
VINCE: "Yeah, what's the catch?"

Oh, if they only knew. As they leave, taking directions back to the interstate, Harley and Stacey's niece Emily stops to admire a large and intricate tattoo on Vince's arm, thus drawing the attention of the viewers to it also.

Content in their belief that this is the nicest little town they've ever passed through, Holly and Vince set off on their travels once more, only for their car to unexpectedly break down almost at once. With cell phones also dead, they start walking through the very creepy nearby orchard in search of help, taking a moment to be creeped out by an old scarecrow therein. Again, if only they knew.

The spookiness levels rise and rise, with mysterious rustlings and snappings of branches in the trees around them, and pretty soon there's a lot of running and screaming as they flee an unseen pursuer, and then Vince vanishes. Still running for her life, Holly takes a tumble to the ground and looks to see what she just fell over. Vince. Very dead, and completely skinned. Quick work by whatever attacked him. Holly screams ear-piercingly at the unseen attacker as it advances on her also…

And we cut to the scarecrow's now empty post.

Back to the motel, night following the events at the Asylum. Dean's phone rings. He doesn't wake up, so Sam answers instead, and is jolted fully awake when he realises their long-lost prodigal father is on the line. Unsurprisingly, given the length of John's disappearance and circumstances surrounding it, Sam launches straight into the inquisition.

SAM: "Dad? Are you hurt?"
JOHN: "I'm fine."
SAM: "We've been looking for you everywhere. We didn't know where you were, if you were okay."
JOHN: "Sammy, I'm all right. What about you and Dean?"
SAM: "We're fine. Dad, where are you?"
JOHN: "Sorry, kiddo, I can't tell you that."
SAM: "What? Why not?"
DEAN: "Is that Dad?"

Dean has now woken up, all sleep-mussed and bare-chested, and with no sign of the injuries he should surely have following the events of Asylum, assiduously not referred to in this episode, although the timeline given makes it clear that this is either the same night or only a matter of days later.

JOHN: "Look, I know this is hard for you to understand. You're just gonna have to trust me on this."

Okay, so a line like that might work on Dean, whether he liked it or not, because Dean does trust John, but Sam is a different kettle of fish and is never going to let anything go that easily just because his dad asked him to.

SAM: "You're after it, aren't you? The thing that killed Mom."
JOHN: "Yeah. It's a demon, Sam."
SAM: "A demon? You know for sure?"
DEAN: "A demon? What's he saying?"
JOHN: "I do. Listen, Sammy, I, uh…I also know what happened to your girlfriend. I'm so sorry. I would've done anything to protect you from that."
SAM: "You know where it is?"

Sam can be very single-minded when he wants to be, totally brushing aside the sympathy and concern John is offering him and homing in on the demon information like a heat-seeking missile. As for John…was it Missouri who told him about Jessica? Or did he already know somehow? I find myself hoping he only found out from Missouri the other week, rather than having known for months and chosen to let his son go through all that without so much as a word of comfort. With John, though, it's hard to be sure. But it makes me glad Sam at least had Dean for the immediate aftermath.

JOHN: "Yeah, I think I'm finally closing in on it."
SAM: "Let us help."
JOHN: "You can't. You can't be any part of it."
SAM: "Why not?"
DEAN: "Give me the phone."

Very frustrating, being able to hear only one side of a conversation you've waited months for. And, sadly, Dean has now pulled on a t-shirt to hide his unmarred bare flesh.

JOHN: "Listen, Sammy, that's why I'm calling. You and your brother, you gotta stop looking for me. All right, now, I need you to write down these names."

This is why John called – not to be in touch with his sons or to set their minds at rest, but because he had job-related information that he couldn't simply text to them in the form of coordinates. So…if he hadn't wanted to give them that information and send them off on that job, would he have ever called to offer Sam his sympathy about Jessica or not? All the evidence suggests probably not, unfortunately. Communication is not a strength of the Winchester family, particularly where anything remotely personal or emotional is concerned. If it's not easy to say, then in general they prefer not to try to say it.

That's two jobs John has thrown at the boys in the space of a few days, after months of silence, and he's still giving next to no explanation of why he disappeared like that. Hot on the heels of Asylum and all that happened with that case, Sam reacts accordingly.

SAM: "Names? What names? Dad, talk to me, tell me what's going on."
JOHN: "Look, we don't have time for this. This is bigger than you think; they're everywhere. Even us talking right now, it's not safe."

Curiouser and curiouser. Just talking isn't safe? Why? John's determination to say as little as possible only leaves both Sam and us with more questions than ever.

The initial pleasantries out of the way, both John and Sam are becoming deeply frustrated with one another now, since neither is saying what the other wants to hear, or behaving as the other wants him to behave, and all Dean has got to go on is Sam's end of the conversation.

SAM: "No. All right? No way."
DEAN: "Give me the phone."
JOHN: "I have given you an order. Now, you stop following me, and you do your job. You understand me? Now, take down these names."

Dean predicted back in Bugs that the moment Sam and John were together again they'd start fighting within five minutes, and he was dead right. At this point he snatches the phone off Sam before he and John can wind each other up any further and so he can talk to his long-lost father himself. It's been a long time, and he's been worried.

DEAN: "Dad, it's me. Where are you? [He listens, impassive expression sliding across his face, which tells us something about the tone being taken] Yes, sir. Uh, yeah, I got a pen. What are the names?"

We only get to see Dean's end of this very brief conversation, but it tells a clear story as his expression slides instantly from anxious son into the blank mask of the obedient soldier having rather abrupt orders barked at him, all feelings being kept well hidden. To the deeply frustrated and belligerent Sam, utterly not in the mood to empathise with his brother in any way, this just looks like Dean instantly kowtowing to John's orders as usual, which is what he got so worked up about last episode. But from Dean's point of view it's got to sting that Sam got all the chitchat and fatherly concern and wasted it arguing, so that by the time Dean got the phone John was too pissed off and in too much of a hurry for any 'how are you, son?'s or 'it's good to speak to you's, but instead launched straight into the command mode that Dean just can't disobey. For all the devil-may-care attitude he presents to the outside world, he has a strong sense of duty, and obedience to orders is practically hard-wired into him, for reasons that don't become clear till much later in the season.

Sam seethes with discontent.

The boys hit the road almost at once, middle of the night or no. They are used to keeping unusual hours. While Sam drives, Dean pieces together the puzzle John has given them, and they discuss what it all means. Basically, the names John gave them are of a bunch of random couples who all took road trips and all disappeared off the face of the earth, one year exactly between each disappearance.

DEAN: "Each one's route took 'em to the same part of Indiana. Always on the second week of April. One year after another after another."
SAM: "This is the second week of April."

That's an important detail right there: the timing of this particular case is crucial. There is only one week each year when these disappearances take place, therefore there is only this one week each year when it is possible to save those lives and work out what is going on to prevent it happening again.

The approximate date given also cements the timeline of the last few episodes. This episode takes place in the second week of April; Bugs took place over a week beginning 20^th March. That tells us that episodes 8-11 all take place within a very tight timeframe. Not much downtime between gigs.

SAM: "So, Dad is sending us to Indiana to go hunting for something before another couple vanishes?"
DEAN: "Yahtzee. Can you imagine putting together a pattern like this? All the different obits Dad had to go through? The man's a master."

Probably not the best line to try with Sam in this mood. Throughout the conversation, Dean has been completely engrossed in working out the details of the case, burying himself in business-as-usual, because that's always Dean's coping strategy for larger issues he has no control over, with Sam rather more reluctantly going along with him while becoming increasingly disgruntled with the whole thing. Sam's final summing up of the situation comes in tones of utter disinterest, although Dean doesn't seem to notice or be bothered by that, probably because he's used to Sam's moods and figures he'll snap out of it eventually, seeing as there are lives on the line.

Dean's hero worship of his dad is another coping mechanism, one he probably isn't even aware of himself. He has to trust that John has good reasons for behaving the way he is, even if he's choosing not to share those reasons, because if there aren't good reasons, then all the principles that he's built his life around start to unravel. And Dean doesn't do personal, not where his own emotions are concerned. He prefers to bury those issues deep and conceal them behind as many masks as it takes to hide them from both the world outside and his own self.

Plus, after working alongside John for years and, more importantly, cooperating with him, as opposed to Sam's defiance, he's probably seen plenty of evidence that John knows what he's talking about and is good at what he does. He trusts his dad for a reason. And the fact that John is asking him to take on this job can be read as John placing equal trust in his son, trusting in Dean's ability to carry out the job effectively since he can't take it on himself for whatever reason. Communication doesn't always come in the form of direct speech.

But praise of John's methodology and supposed dedication to the cause, whether inspired by blind hero worship, justified hero worship, a deep-seated need to believe in John in order to keep himself going, or a combination of the three, is a provocation too far for Sam. Scowling, he pulls the car over to the side of the road.

DEAN: "What are you doing?"
SAM: "We're not going to Indiana."
DEAN: "We're not?"
SAM: "No. We're going to California. Dad called from a payphone. Sacramento area code."
DEAN: "Sam."
SAM: "Dean, if this demon killed Mom and Jess, and Dad's closing in, we've gotta be there. We've gotta help."
DEAN: "Dad doesn't want our help."
SAM: "I don't care."

While Sam seethes over what he sees as John's bloody-mindedness in shutting them out, Dean is showing absolutely no sign whatsoever of how he actually feels about the phone call and John's insistence that they stop searching for him. Focusing absolutely on the case at hand and the practicalities thereof is his way of dealing with the situation, concealing any hurt or disappointment, anger or concern he might be feeling and burying it deep. Sam is too caught up in his own completely unconcealed anger and malcontent to realise that, and since John still isn't there to be angry at in person, the anger is again transferred to Dean instead, since Dean's approach could almost be calculated to wind him up even further.

DEAN: "He's given us an order."
SAM: "I don't care. We don't always have to do what he says."
DEAN: "Sam, Dad is asking us to work jobs, to save lives, it's important."

For Dean, saving lives always comes first, ahead of anything he might be feeling personally – that's a character trait that shines through again and again.

SAM: "All right, I understand, believe me, I understand. But I'm talking one week here, man. To get answers. To get revenge."

This is where my point about the timing of this case comes into play. Sam said it himself not two minutes ago – if the couples always disappear in the second week of April and this is the second week of April, then there is no time to waste: this is the only chance they have to save the lives of the next random couple-at-risk. That one week he wants to take would make an enormous difference, a fatal difference. Plus, it seems safe to say that John will not be in Sacramento any more by the time they could get there, and will have covered his tracks just as carefully as he has all season. It's a matter of priorities. What's most important? A wild goose chase in search of John and revenge? Or saving the lives of innocent strangers?

Dean feels responsible for those strangers simply because he knows that they are in danger and that he if doesn't try to save them, no one else will. Sam doesn't seem to feel any such responsibility; there is no room for it in his single-minded determination to focus on what he sees as the mission at hand, which is revenge for Jessica. Dean is in it for the innocent lives he saves. Sam isn't. That's the difference. Sam likes to save lives if he can, but that isn't his main priority, and if it's a choice between pursuing revenge and saving innocent lives, he's inclined to go with the revenge and leave those strangers in danger to fend for themselves as best they can.

DEAN: "All right, look, I know how you feel."
SAM: "Do you? How old were you when Mom died? Four? Jess died six months ago. How the hell would you know how I feel?"

Jessica is still topmost in Sam's mind. He's not so much interested in finding John for John's own sake as he just wants in on the revenge.

Dean looks a little shocked, and with good reason, since I don't think he was actually talking about Jessica – he was talking about understanding that Sam wants to get on John's trail before it can go cold again, since Dean too wants very much to find his dad, albeit for largely different reasons. Sam can be cruel at times without even trying, utterly blinkered by his own feelings and desires to the exclusion of all else. It's never fair to compare two different experiences of bereavement and grief, even if Sam was talking about the timing rather than the magnitude of the loss. He probably didn't mean it quite the way Dean seems to take it, but Dean just shuts down at this point, and tries to hide behind practicalities once more.

DEAN: "Dad said it wasn't safe. For any of us. I mean, he obviously knows something that we don't, so if he says to stay away, we stay away."
SAM: "I don't understand the blind faith you have in the man. I mean, it's like you don't even question him."
DEAN: "Yeah, it's called being a good son!"

Again, that's a line that could almost be calculated to wind Sam up even further rather than conciliate, but they are both angry now, each unable to understand why the other can't see where he's coming from. Dean trusts John implicitly, in spite of everything. Sam doesn't. And the fact that this confrontation is coming hot on the heels of the unresolved events of Asylum probably also contributes to neither of them being able to let it go.

Sam storms out of the car, and starts unloading his bags from the trunk. Dean follows and the argument continues, winding up another notch, neither willing to back down.

DEAN: "You're a selfish bastard, you know that? You just do whatever you want. Don't care what anybody thinks."
SAM: "That's what you really think?"
DEAN: "Yes, it is."
SAM: "Well, then this selfish bastard is going to California."

Sam starts walking away, and Dean gets frustrated that he can't persuade his brother to come around to his point of view, not to mention a little anxious about the prospect of leaving him here like this.

DEAN: "Come on, you're not serious."
SAM: "I am serious."
DEAN: "It's the middle of the night! Hey, I'm taking off, I will leave your ass, you hear me?"
SAM: "That's what I want you to do."
[They stare at each other for a few seconds, waiting.]
DEAN: "Goodbye, Sam."

We've never seen Dean force Sam to do anything against his will. Even last episode, when Sam was so unwilling to take on the Asylum case, he could have just said no and refused to help out. Dean would have been immensely pissed off, but there wouldn't have been much he could do about it. Throughout the season, whenever Sam has expressed unhappiness at working a case rather than searching for John, Dean has talked him into it rather than laid down the law and insisted. And Sam has gone along with him because he's always offered compelling and persuasive arguments for doing so.

I'm not sure Dean could force Sam to do anything he doesn't want to – Sam holds all the power, in that sense, because he's stubborn enough and single-minded enough to insist on pursuing his own course rather than bowing to any greater sense of duty or stopping to consider how his actions affect other people. This is the first time Sam has actually said no outright, and we see what happens. Dean can't force him to stay and help – Sam is the one doing all the forcing here – so he lets him go and do his own thing, however misguided he believes that is, and then, fuming, goes and takes care of saving the innocent lives all by himself. And the brothers are separated.

Next day, Dean arrives in Burkitsville, Indiana, in the rain. Parking up, he pulls out his cell phone and scrolls through a bunch of random names in his phonebook until he reaches Sam, whereupon his finger hovers over the button for a moment, trying to decide whether to call or not. He eventually thinks better of it. Too soon. In the last couple of days, Sam has shot him, shouted some hurtful things at him, tried to shoot him again, shouted more hurtful things at him during a blazing row in which they both said things they shouldn't've, and then stormed off on what Dean believes is an irresponsible wild goose chase. It'll take more than one night for all that to cool down enough for effective communication. He puts the phone away, instead getting right down to business.

Business does not go well, right from the start. The first person Dean tries talking to is the utterly humourless Scotty, slouching on the porch outside his café. He proves both curmudgeonly and highly uncooperative. And also blows Dean's fake identity out of the water at once.

DEAN: "Hi, my name's John Bonham."
SCOTTY: "Isn't that the drummer for Led Zeppelin?"
DEAN [taken aback]: "Wow. Good. Classic rock fan."

Heh. Pulling names out of music and film the way he does, it was inevitable that he'd be called on it eventually. Undeterred, he presses on, showing posters of the missing Vince and Holly and claiming to be a friend trying to re-trace their steps. It's a convincing enough story even if he is trying a little too hard. He's had a difficult few days, after all. He hits an absolute stonewall in the form of Scotty's extreme dourness, though, and although Sam has a much more subtle touch I doubt he'd get very far with this one, either.

DEAN: "Scotty, you've got a smile that lights up a room, anybody ever tell you that?"

Getting nowhere with Scotty, he gives up and moves on.

Meanwhile out on the road, Sam is still attempting to hitch his way to California in the surely vain hope that John will still be there when he arrives and that he'll somehow be able to convince his father to let him join the vengeance quest. While wandering aimlessly along, he seems surprised when he realises there is a girl sitting at the edge of the road right in front of him. I don't know why he is so surprised, since it is a long and open road with no cover at all so that he should have been able to see her from a long way off, but he is. Since she is sitting with her back to him listening to loud music through her headphones, she also remains blissfully ignorant of his presence until he makes himself known to her, whereupon she almost jumps out of her skin.

This is Meg. On first viewing I took a dislike to her from her very first word, and that impression only hardens with re-watching. Sam attempts friendly conversation, and she smirks and simpers while blowing him off completely, with provocatively flirtatious pretence at being wary.

SAM: "Uh, so where you headed?"
MEG: "No offence, but no way I'm telling you."
SAM: "Why not?"
MEG: "You could be some kind of freak. I mean, you are hitchhiking."
SAM: "Well, so are you."

A van pulls over, and offers a lift to Meg, but not to Sam, and Meg gleefully agrees.

SAM: "You trust shady van guy and not me?"
MEG: "Definitely."

Tells us everything we need to know about Meg. And Sam is left to continue hitchhiking alone in the rain.

At the General Store in Burkitsville, Dean isn't getting much further with the Jorgesons than he did with Scotty, although they are much more approachable, until young Emily foils their attempt at denying all knowledge by recognising Vince's tattoo in the picture Dean is showing around town. Harley then admits he remembers the couple stopping briefly for gas, and gives Dean the same directions back to the interstate he gave them the previous year.

Dean heads out again. He doesn't get far before his little homemade EMF starts warbling away from a bag on the backseat. He left it turned on? Doesn't that drain the batteries? After rather dangerously trying to reach behind him to grab it with one hand while continuing to drive with the other, he then rather more sensibly pulls over to dig it out and puzzle over what it is telling him about this stretch of road.

The trusty EMF leads him straight to the orchard where Vince and Holly met their grisly fate. The scarecrow draws much the same reaction from him as it did them. "Dude, you're fugly." Quite.

Being sharp-eyed and on the prowl for anything unusual and potentially supernatural, he notices something on the scarecrow's arm, and pulls up a ladder to take a closer look. And there, on the scarecrow's forearm for all the world to see, is Vince's large and intricate tattoo, as so prominently displayed in the picture Dean has got to compare it with. So the scarecrow wears the skins of its victims? Ick.

Since it's now pretty much confirmed that this is the town where all the disappearances take place, if the creepy scarecrow wearing the skin of one of the victims is anything to go by, Dean heads back into town in search of more information. Manning the pumps at the gas station, Emily proves considerably more helpful than the older Burkitsville residents. Not a native of the town, as it turns out, she came there to live with her aunt and uncle after losing her parents at thirteen, and waxes lyrical about what a great place it is to live.

EMILY: "Well, you know, it's the boonies. But I love it. I mean, the towns around us, people are losing their homes, their farms. But here, it's almost like we're blessed."

Dean smiles and nods, and tries not to look worried while pondering all possible meanings of this new information. Further conversation reveals that Emily knows nothing about the scarecrow beyond how creepy it is and that it has always been there, and that the car parked at the garage behind her belongs to a young road-tripping couple just passing through town, who've called in to get it fixed. Dean is troubled to hear this.

How much of a coincidence is it that there's always a young couple passing through town during the crucial week?

Back on the road, Sam has finally made it to a bus station, but his chances of getting to Sacramento while John is still there, always remote, are fading fast.

CLERK: "Sorry, the Sacramento bus doesn't run again till tomorrow. Uh – 5:05 PM."
SAM: "Tomorrow? There's got to be another way."
CLERK: "Well, there is. Buy a car."

Evening the next day puts him at two full days after John's call before he even gets on the bus. Maybe he can still get there in time to pick up the trail before it goes completely cold, but surely even Sam realises that John himself will be long gone by then and probably even by now, and that he'll make sure to cover his tracks but good. It really is a wild goose chase. Downhearted, he pulls out his Palm Pilot and scrolls through until he reaches Dean's number. But before he can decide whether or not to call, and before we can learn what on earth he might have said, a cheerful voice distracts him. It's Meg again. Turning to greet her, he puts his phone away without making the call.

Since Meg is the closest thing to an acquaintance Sam has right here and right now, he chatters away to her happily enough. She simpers that the van guy did turn out to be shady and had to be 'cut loose', and they learn that they are both headed for California, but both have to wait 24 hours for the next bus.

MEG: "What's in Cali that's so important?"
SAM: "Just something I've been looking for. For a long time."
MEG: "Well, then I'm sure it can wait one more day, right?"

Meanwhile at Scotty's café in Burkitsville, Scotty is just about falling over himself to be friendly and kind to the random road-tripping couple when Dean wanders in, greets him cheerfully despite the dour reception he receives, asks for a black coffee – and some of that famous apple-pie, while he's at it – and sits himself down at a nearby table.

Since Dean now has the tricky task before him of trying to persuade the couple to get out of this nice friendly town before sundown but without being able to tell them why, he's pretty much boxed into a corner here, without many avenues open to him. He does the best he can, trying to strike up idle conversation. It's not easy going, especially in the face of Scotty's more or less open hostility toward him – and silent refusal to actually serve him – and he's probably not really in much of a mood for it anyway. But he tries, with increasing desperation because he knows this isn't his strong point, and yet it's all he can do. He knows they're in danger but can't tell them why, so has to do whatever else he can to try to save their lives without them ever knowing it.

DEAN: "So, how long till you're up and runnin'?"
MAN: "Sundown."
DEAN: "Really. To fix a brake line? I mean, you know, I know a thing or two about cars. I could probably have you up and running in about an hour. I wouldn't charge you anything."
GIRL: "You know, thanks a lot, but I think we'd rather have a mechanic do it."
DEAN: "Sure. I know. [He pauses, tries and fails to find a line that'll convince.] You know, it's just that these roads. They're not real safe at night."
[The couple exchange a look.]
GIRL: "I'm sorry?"
DEAN [getting desperate]: "I know it sounds strange, but, uh – you might be in danger."
MAN [annoyed]: "Look, we're trying to eat. Okay?"

Give the boy points for trying, even if he is trying a bit too hard here and doing himself no favours in the process. Dean just doesn't do subtle. He can either lie through his teeth with absolute fluency or he can be completely honest, but he struggles to find any halfway house between the two. That's more Sam's style. But Sam isn't here, which puts Dean in the position of being the last man standing when everyone else has jumped ship, having to just carry on alone doing what has to be done, without any backup or support to fall back on, and without a single soul in the world to recognise, acknowledge or appreciate the life-saving work he's doing. Or trying to do. We know he's capable of working gigs alone – he did it before collecting Sam from Stanford. But it's got to be a pretty lonely way of life, on the whole, and Dean doesn't seem to relish working in isolation.

DEAN: "You know, my brother could give you this puppy dog look, and you'd just buy right into it."

He's got used to having Sam around again, knows that Sam is better at this kind of thing than he is. Having Sam around right now would make this particular job a whole lot easier, no doubt. Dean's already bad day gets a whole lot worse when Scotty calls in the local sheriff to give him a police escort out of town for harassing customers and asking difficult questions.

Back at the bus station, Sam and Meg sit and chat over an impromptu junk food dinner. Meg tells Sam some vague story about wanting to be free to live her own life away from her family's expectations of her, a tale guaranteed to resonate perfectly with Sam's current mood. Having found an ally in his 'do it my way' rebellion, he reciprocates in kind.

SAM: "I know how you feel. Remember that brother I mentioned before, that I was road-tripping with? It's, uh, it's kind of the same deal."
MEG: "And that's why you're not riding with him anymore? [Sam shakes his head. Meg raises her beer bottle.] Here's to us. The food might be bad, and the beds might be hard. But at least we're living our own lives. And nobody else's."

Burkitsville after dark: Dean heads back into town, willing to brave the wrath of the sheriff if it means saving the lives of that random road-tripping couple he met earlier. He's just in time.

Grumbling about their disbelief that the car should break down just after they got it fixed, the completely unsuspecting couple stumble across the orchard in search of help, but instead run straight into the man-eating scarecrow. They run for their lives, and then Dean pops up, salt shotgun in hand, to cover their retreat. Rather to his dismay, the rock salt makes no discernable impression on the scarecrow, but his intervention does save the lives of the couple, buying them enough time to get out of the orchard and back to the relative safety of their car. I hope they are properly grateful, since if they'd only listened to him earlier neither they nor he would have been in that position.

Next morning, while Meg snoozes on the floor of the bus station, Sam sits with his ear glued to his cell phone, listening with baited breath to his brother's enthralling tale of the man-eating scarecrow.

SAM [astounded]: "The scarecrow climbed off its cross?"
DEAN: "Yeah, I'm tellin' ya. Burkitsville, Indiana. Fun town."
SAM: "It didn't kill the couple, did it?"
DEAN: "No. I can cope without you, you know."

I'd love to know exactly who called who, who made the first move. They both came close to calling yesterday. I'm tempted to believe it was Dean, though, partly by the tone of the conversation, but also because Dean has a history of making the first move, while Sam has a history of being too proud to do likewise.

SAM: "So, something must be animating it. A spirit."
DEAN: "No, it's more than a spirit. It's a god. A pagan god, anyway."
SAM: "What makes you say that?"
DEAN: "The annual cycle of its killings. And the fact that the victims are always a man and a woman, like some kind of fertility rite. And you should see the locals. The way they treated this couple. Fattenin' 'em up like a Christmas turkey."
SAM: "The last meal, given to sacrificial victims."
DEAN: "Yeah, I'm thinking a ritual sacrifice to appease some pagan god."
SAM: "So, a god possesses the scarecrow…"
DEAN: "And the scarecrow takes its sacrifice. And, for another year, the crops won't wilt, and disease won't spread."

Dean knows his stuff all right. Figured that lot out all by himself, and he proves to be absolutely spot on with every detail. What he doesn't know, however, is which pagan god he's dealing with, or how to destroy it, but he's got that angle covered already, as well.

DEAN: "I'm actually on my way to a local community college. I've got an appointment with a professor. You know, since I don't have my trusty sidekick geek boy to do all the research."
SAM [laughing]: "You know, if you're hinting you need my help, just ask."
DEAN: "I'm not hinting anything. Actually, uh – I want you to know…. I mean, don't think…."
SAM: "Yeah. I'm sorry, too."

Hee. Sam is good at interpreting faltering Dean-speak. And then Dean pulls himself together and gets the words out.

DEAN: "Sam. You were right. You gotta do your own thing. You gotta live your own life."
SAM: "Are you serious?"
DEAN: "You've always known what you want. And you go after it. You stand up to Dad. And you always have. Hell, I wish I – anyway…. I admire that about you. I'm proud of you, Sammy."
SAM [stunned]: "I don't even know what to say."
DEAN: "Say you'll take care of yourself."
SAM: "I will."
DEAN: "Call me when you find Dad."
SAM [sadly]: "Okay. Bye, Dean."

Wow. They actually talked, properly, about their differing issues and approaches and stuff. In their own way, of course. Or rather – Dean talked, about private and personal emotional matters, which is the real rarity. Knock me down with a feather. You could knock Sam down with a feather, too.

Of course, they had to be many, many miles apart in order for this to happen. The telephone is a wonderful invention. It allows two people to have a conversation without any of that pesky face-to-face stuff getting in the way. I've never loved Dean more than I do here, as he completely puts his own feelings aside and tells his brother what he needs to hear. 'I can handle this, go live your life, I'm proud of you.' When we know how much Dean wants to have Sam with him in this life their father chose for him, wants not to be left alone. Wants to hang onto what little family he has left. He puts his own feelings aside and gives Sam his blessing to leave, which is what Sam has always wanted, and that's very important. Sam is now completely free to follow his own road, wherever it takes him, because having that blessing means he's not running away any more.

Of course, now that he's officially not running away any more means, in the cold light of day, that he also can't hide the consequences of his actions behind his anger and rebellion any more. He's on his own now, and has to take full responsibility for whatever he does or doesn't do, and how that affects other people, no matter how it turns out.

Hanging up the phone, Sam looks worried, maybe beginning to wonder if he's doing the right thing after all, at which point Meg wakes up and instantly starts poking her nose into his business.

MEG: "Who was that?"
SAM: "My brother."
MEG: "What'd he say?"
SAM [upset]: "Goodbye."

Dean arrives at that local college he was talking about and meets the professor, who turns out to be the Cigarette Smoking Man. Dean questions him about pagan ideology and the origins of the local settlers, and the man seems helpful enough, apparently gratified that such an interest is being shown. To the professor it's all a matter of academia; Dean's approach is much more down-to-earth.

PROFESSOR: "Well, there are hundreds of Norse gods and goddesses."
DEAN: "I'm actually looking for one. Might live in an orchard."

Flicking through a large reference book the professor provides, Dean quickly spots a woodcut showing a figure bearing a remarkable resemblance to the Burkitsville scarecrow, and studies the information.

DEAN [reading]: "The Vanir were Norse gods of protection and prosperity, keeping the local settlements safe from harm. Some villages built effigies of the Vanir in their fields. Other villages practiced human sacrifice: one male, and one female. [points to the picture] Kind of looks like a scarecrow, huh?"
PROFESSOR: "I suppose."
DEAN: "This particular Vanir, its energy sprung from the sacred tree?"
PROFESSOR: "Well, pagans believed all sorts of things were infused with magic."
DEAN: "So what would happen if the sacred tree was torched? You think it'd kill the god?"
PROFESSOR [laughing]: "Son, these are just legends we're discussing."

Dean takes such a wonderfully matter-of-fact approach to what other people see as nothing more than myths and legends, which frequently leaves bystanders rather bemused. However, it soon turns out that the professor is not all he seems, and that Dean hasn't come far enough away from Burkitsville to carry out his research in safety. The influence of that little town spreads a long way and, for all his unassuming appearance, the professor knows full well that legends are sometimes more than mere legends.

Dean thanks the professor, opens the door to leave – and gets the sheriff's rifle butt smack in the face. Ouch. On first viewing, I was expecting something to happen to him, but that smack in the face was so well directed it still came as a surprise. Nicely done.

Back in Burkitsville, standing under big black umbrellas out in the rain, the sheriff, Scotty, Harley and Stacey hold what would, if it wasn't out in the open, be a highly covert meeting to discuss what to do. This mostly involves Scotty and the sheriff applying a great deal of pressure to Harley and Stacey. So just how much of the community is in on the scarecrow worship? All of them? Or only a part? What about new people migrating in? Maybe that just doesn't happen often enough to be an issue.

Since Dean managed to lose them this year's sacrificial victims, he's been lined up to take their place, which probably seems fair enough from the point of view of residents prepared to sacrifice the lives of strangers every single year for the sake of their own prosperity. But they still need a girl to go with him, and we've only seen one other young person in this town…

HARLEY: "We all close our doors. Look the other way. Pretend we can't hear the screams. But this is different, this – this is murder."
STACEY: "It's angry with us. Already the trees are beginning to die. Tonight's the seventh night of the cycle. Our last chance."
HARLEY: "If the boy has to die, the boy has to die. But why does it have to be her?"

Dean, now sporting a colourful black eye, has been locked away down in a cellar someplace in town to await nightfall. But other than being locked in, he isn't restrained in any way, so I'm a little surprised he doesn't seem to be making any real effort to escape. Seems a little out of character. Maybe he's a tad concussed. He soon has company in his impromptu prison in the form of a very bewildered and scared Emily. Although she might be family to Harley and Stacey, she's also an outsider, not born in the town – I'm guessing that's why she was picked, unless she really is the only young woman in town, which seems unlikely. Plus, chosing her saves having to introduce another random character at this late stage.

EMILY: "Why are you doing this?"
STACEY: "For the common good."

Back at the bus station, Meg informs Sam that their bus to Sacramento has arrived, but Sam, sitting fretting over his cell phone, seems to have changed his mind. He's been trying to get hold of Dean, he tells her – presumably because he's realised that while he's hanging around this bus station doing very little and going nowhere fast, his brother is out there on his own working a job that could actually be hazardous to life and limb, and so wants to check in to see how it's going – but he can't get through, just getting voicemail every time. I guess the Burkitsville folk must have taken Dean's phone off him. After several hours of silence, Sam is worried enough to give up on the Sacramento wild goose chase and instead head for Burkitsville to see if Dean needs his help.

Meg pouts and tries to talk him out of it, and for a girl who was so evasive when they first met, she's awfully clingy based on a very short acqaintance. That alone should set alarm bells ringing, if Sam was in any mood to pay attention to her. He refuses to budge. Dean could have told her how immovable Sam can be when he's made up his mind about something.

MEG: "But I don't understand. You're running back to your brother? The guy you ran away from? Why, because he won't pick up his phone? Sam – come with me to California."
SAM: "I can't. I'm sorry."
MEG: "Why not?"
SAM: "He's my family."

Sam leaves, and Meg watches him go, all trembling lips and sorrow despite only having met him yesterday. Way to overreact.

Down in the cellar prison, a tearful Emily is trying to make sense of what's happening, while Dean is finally trying to escape but seems utterly thwarted by the solidness of the cellar door.

EMILY: "I don't understand. They're gonna kill us?"
DEAN: "Sacrifice us. Which is, I don't know, classier, I guess?"

Hee. That's such a great way of putting it. Seems Emily really was completely in the dark about the whole torrid affair, which brings us back to my earlier ponderings about just how much of the community is entrusted with this deep dark secret that ensures the prosperity of them all. Only a chosen few, apparently. Emily is distressed, disbelieving and horrified, but Dean keeps things very matter-of-fact for her, telling her he's going to need her help. This tactic not only provides him with a grain of potentially useful information, but also has the desired effect of calming her down a little.

DEAN: "Now, we can destroy the scarecrow, but we gotta find the tree."
EMILY: "What tree?"
DEAN: "Maybe you can help me with that. It would be really old. The locals would treat it with a lot of respect, you know, like it was sacred."
EMILY: "There was this one apple tree. The immigrants brought it over with them. They call it the First Tree."

That's a really lame name for a sacred tree. And she doesn't know which one it is out of the many in the orchard. Before they can discuss the matter any further or try to make escape plans, the door is opened, and numerous shotguns are trained on them to prevent any attempt at heroics. Time's up.

Cut to the orchard, where the guilty townspeople busily set about tying Dean and Emily to a couple of trees, so as to avoid any possibility of escape, and I find myself a little surprised again that Dean hasn't struggled more. I mean, even with the shotguns, you'd expect him to put up more of a fight than this. Or maybe that's just me. He's long established as being pretty good at fighting and escaping from danger, after all. Anyway, they are tied to their trees, arms above their heads, and presumably any knives Dean has about his person safely removed, and he just sits there and throws angry words at his captors.

DEAN: "How many people have you killed, Sheriff? How much blood is on your hands?"
SHERIFF: "We don't kill them."
DEAN: "No, but you sure cover up after. I mean, how many cars have you hidden, clothes have you buried?"

Emily doesn't get any further appealing to her uncle and aunt, although Harley seems a lot more broken up over her impending death than Stacey does.

HARLEY: "I am so sorry, Em. I wish it wasn't you."
STACEY: "Try to understand. It's our responsibility. And there's just no other choice. There's nobody else but you."
EMILY: "I'm your family."
STACEY: "Sweetheart, that's what sacrifice means. Giving up something you love for the greater good."

That is a seriously warped perspective when applied to this context. Once they are finally left alone in the orchard, all shotguns removed to a safe distance, Emily asks Dean what the plan is. Because, obviously, Dean has to think of everything. "I'm working on it, " he tells her, looking worried.

Darkness falls. "You don't have a plan, do you?" Emily realises. Dean doesn't even seem to be trying to work his ropes free which, again, strikes me as slightly out of character – we've seen him escape from heavier bonds than these in the past in a lot less time than this. Now that darkness has fallen, he's starting to get seriously alarmed. The scarecrow comes to life at night, and neither of them can see to know if it is moving yet, but they can hear footsteps coming toward them and now Dean does, finally, start to struggle with the ropes binding him to the tree…

"Dean?" It's Sam, arrived in the nick of time. Dean practically collapses with relief. Or, y'know, he would if he wasn't tied to that tree.

DEAN: "Oh! Oh, I take everything back I said. I'm so happy to see you. Come on. [Sam starts untying him] How'd you get here?
SAM: "I, uh – I stole a car."
DEAN: "Haha! That's my boy! And keep an eye on that scarecrow. He could come alive any minute."
SAM: "What scarecrow?"

The scarecrow is already down from his post and nowhere in sight. With Dean and Emily untied, all three run for it. Nothing else they can do at this stage.

Sam was only just in time – makes you wonder what might have happened if he'd delayed a little longer, how he'd have reacted, and what he'd have done. It would have been too late, at any rate, and he'd have had to live with that.

SAM: "All right, now, this sacred tree you're talking about –"
DEAN: "It's the source of its power."
SAM: "So let's find it and burn it."
DEAN: "Nah, in the morning. Let's just shag ass before Leather Face catches up."

'Shag ass'. Now there's an expression that really doesn't translate from one side of the Atlantic to the other. From context, I'm guessing it means something along the lines of 'run for it'. But, on this side of the Pond, it comes across as something rather more inappropriate…

As they reach a clearing at the edge of the orchard, the escape plans start to fall apart. Seems the elderfolk of the town haven't withdrawn very far, clearly not trusting Dean to stay safely tied up where they left him after all the trouble he's already caused. I'm amazed Sam got through unseen, seeing the amount of shotguns being levelled at them now. They are trapped, still in the orchard, and the scarecrow is nearby, closing in.

EMILY: "Please. Let us go."
HARLEY: "It'll be over quickly, I promise."
EMILY: "Please."
HARLEY: "Emily, you have to let him take you. You have to –"

The scarecrow itself settles the issue by selecting its victims from the wide array on offer in the orchard that evening, but it doesn't choose the random and unconnected-to-one-another fresh young things it had been offered. It chooses the married couple. There's something gruesomely fitting about that, tying in well with the mythology behind it.

Emily and Stacey both scream as the scarecrow sticks its sickle right through Harley's chest. Emily buries her face in Dean's chest, because that's what the strong manly types are there for, surely. And then both Harley and Stacey are dragged away and vanish into the mist. The townsfolk run. And so do Dean, Sam and Emily.

Next morning, Dean, Sam and Emily return to the orchard, and seem to have no trouble whatsoever finding that sacred tree. They don't even make a show of looking around; they just go right up to it. The runes carved into the trunk seem to confirm that they've got the right one, so Sam sets about dousing it liberally with gasoline while Dean finds a handy twig to set fire to, and then Emily does the honours.

DEAN: "You know, the whole town's gonna die."
EMILY: "Good."

The tree burns.

With the scarecrow god destroyed and her family dead, Emily boards a bus bound for Boston. I wonder if she had to wait as long for it as Sam did for the Sacramento bus. There to wave her off, the boys express hope that she'll be okay, although it seems a safe bet she'll have some issues to work through, what with having lost the aunt and uncle who raised her to the scarecrow god they'd tried to sacrifice her to.

SAM: "And the rest of the townspeople, they'll just get away with it?"
DEAN: "Well, what'll happen to the town will have to be punishment enough."

Well, yeah – that's the trouble with cases like this. When it's just malignant spirits things are simpler. They can just destroy them, case closed. But here there are people involved, accessories to murders going back years that can never be proved in any court of law. Supernatural evil is within Sam and Dean's jurisdiction, but human evil is out of their hands completely, so it's got to be a little frustrating when the two overlap like this. Maybe that's part of the reason Sam wanted to study law.

Dean still has that rifle-butt shaped bruise over his eye, I'm pleased to see. This show isn't always so consistent with the continuity of injuries received – the rock-salt blast last episode being a perfect example.

DEAN: "So, can I drop you off somewhere?"

He's letting Sam know while that he's grateful that he came back to help with this case, he still accepts Sam's decision to go his own way and is prepared to support that decision, whether he agrees with it or not. Letting Sam go means that the lines of communication stay open. Dean has learned a lot from his father's mistakes. But now that Sam knows he is free to go, he's also realised that maybe it isn't the right thing to do.

SAM: "No, I think you're stuck with me."
DEAN: "What made you change your mind?"
SAM: "I didn't. I still wanna find Dad. And you're still a pain in the ass. But…Jess and Mom – they're both gone. Dad is God knows where. You and me. We're all that's left. So, if we're gonna see this through, we're gonna do it together."

Actual resolution of issues that have been simmering all season. Fantastic. Now that Dean is giving Sam the chance to leave again, to go do his own thing and be his own person, Sam has realised that something else is more important – sticking together as family because each of them is all the other really has. Aww. But saying it out loud like that is way too close to chick-flick for Dean, who just looks at him, absolutely deadpan, and can't resist mocking. "Hold me, Sam. That was beautiful." And they both laugh, harmony restored.

SAM: "You should be kissing my ass, you were dead meat, dude."
DEAN: "Yeah, right. I had a plan, I'd have gotten out."

Elsewhere on some dark, remote highway, Meg has hitched a ride with another shady van guy, having apparently not caught the bus to Sacramento after all. Provocatively flirtatious, as usual, she suggests he pull over, which he is only to happy to do, believing all his Christmasses and birthdays have come at once. Then she tells him she has to make a call, reaches into her bag, and pulls out an ornate silver bowl.

VAN DRIVER: "I've got a cell you could use."
MEG: "It's not that kind of call."

She pulls out a knife and slits his throat, holding the bowl under his neck so that his blood pours into it. "Thanks for the ride."

And the moral of the story is: never trust simpering, flirtatious blondes you pick up at the side of the road – they can be a hell of a lot more dangerous than they look. Meg uses her finger to stir the blood while reciting Latin over the bowl, whereupon a bunch of weird spikes poke up out of the blood. She then talks into it, sounding sulky, and her reasons for being out on the road and then later at the bus station that day start to become clearer.

MEG: "It makes no sense. I could've stopped Sam. Hell, I could've taken them both. Why let them go? [She pauses, apparently listening to someone the audience cannot hear.] Yes. [She pauses again.] Yes. [Another pause.] Yes, Father."

The plot thickens!


September 2006

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