"Dude, your blind man hearing is out of control."

We open on another of those musical recaps, this one focusing entirely on the events of the last episode, with just one or two glimpses of scenes from Devil's Trap thrown in there for good measure. John's sacrifice for Dean is spelled out in painful detail, as is the stormy nature of his last few interactions with Sam. The recaplet ends on John flatlining, and the distressed faces of his sons as the doctors fail to save him.

Now.

In Medford, Wisconsin a carnival is in full swing. It looks like the beautiful summer's day on which it was filmed, although we aren't given a date for this episode. Music fills the air, children laugh and play, and carnival performers perform. A little girl – called Nora by her doting parents, but let us mark her off as Idiot Child #1 – notices a woebegone-looking clown standing off to one side, and waves happily at him. He waves back, glumly. She draws the attention of her doting parents to the clown, but he has vanished, which is not a good sign. Later, while driving home, Idiot Child #1 sees the same clown standing by the side of the road in the dark, and waves again. Again, her parents don't see him.

That night, while lying awake, Idiot Child #1 notices a strange shadow on her bedroom ceiling and looks out of the window to see the clown standing outside in her garden. Despite being more than old enough to know better, she is not the slightest bit concerned about this stalkerish behaviour, but instead rushes trustingly downstairs to let him in…

Fiery new titles.

In homage to Star Wars, not to mention a vast swathe of other warriorly traditions, in a field someplace a makeshift funeral pyre bearing the tightly wrapped – and, presumably, well salted – corpse of John Winchester burns brightly. His grieving sons stand and watch: Sam tearful and just barely hanging onto the last shreds of his composure, Dean stony-faced and grim in his misery. Dean's amulet is back in place, fans are relieved to see, after its enforced absence in the last episode, jewellery and all other personal items being the kind of thing that hospitals like to remove even from patients that aren't critical.

The logistics behind the do-it-yourself cremation are not explained, and are unimportant to the plot. Presumably, John's death was written off by the hospital as attributable to his injuries from the crash – a blood clot, perhaps? Haemorrhage? Not a medical drama, so medical details remain always vague – and if they failed to realise that he was using a false identity, there'd have been no trouble getting the body released for burial. The burning of corpses in the open like this is very illegal, of course, but that's never stopped the Winchesters before. It's far more important, from their point of view, to ensure that John, who lived his life as an unending quest for vengeance for so many years, is not doomed to become in death what he hunted in life.

Sam finally breaks the silence, so choked with tears he can barely speak. "Before…before he…. Did he say anything to you? About anything?"

Dean stands and stares into the flames, stonier than ever. Because John did say something to him before he died, something secret and shocking that the audience was not a party to, a fact said audience is still cursing even now…

"No. Nothing," Dean whispers, lying through his teeth. And this is, I think, the first time we've seen him tell Sam a lie that wasn't what Sam wanted/needed to hear. For whose sake is Dean lying this time? His own? John's? Or is this still, somehow, about protecting Sam, maybe from a truth he isn't prepared to hear?

Viewers everywhere scream in frustration and wonder anew exactly what it was that John said to Dean that he feels unable to share with Sam. Did John tell him not to tell Sam, one last order that he can't disobey? Has he chosen silence himself, maybe not wanting to burden Sam, or because what John told him was too disturbing or shocking or whatever to even contemplate never mind talk about…?

If it's that John told Dean not to share with Sam whatever it was he whispered into his ear that was so shocking, that adds even more weight to whatever new burden it was that he placed on Dean's shoulders, isolating him and creating an artificial division between the brothers at a time when they need each other most.

Offering no indication of whether he believes his brother or not, Sam bites his lip, fighting back the tears. Dean continues to stare stonily into the flames, one small but oh-so telling little tear escaping his rigid control to trickle down one cheek. Viewers everywhere now long to crawl into their TV sets and throw their arms around both boys. The funeral pyre continues to burn.

Cut to – one week later. In a large, sunny yard full of wrecked cars, a pair of distinctly bowed, jean-clad legs stick out from beneath the Impala. It has come a long way since we last saw it, buckled and broken after the accident. It now at least resembles a car once more, from an external point of view, anyway. But it still has a long way to go. Like – the rebuilding of the entire interior including engine. On his back underneath the car, wearing jeans and t-shirt covered with dirt, sweat and oil and no more layers than that, Dean is working hard to complete the restoration of his beloved car, and looks incredibly hot so-doing. Sam comes ambling up to him, wearing two layers of t-shirt, but it's still short sleeves and no more layers than that. That's both of them in the same outdoor scene stripped of their usual many layers for just about the first time ever.

Sam's opening gambit is to ask how the car is coming along, to which the very succint answer is 'slow'; this question has obviously been asked before, many times. He tries again to make idle conversation, asking if Dean needs any help.

DEAN: "What, you under a hood? I'll pass."

Snerk. One scoffing little comment that tells us everything we need to know about Sam and engines. But the car restoration is clearly going well, and Dean seems to be doing it all himself, just like he built that EMF meter himself. Dean likes to keep his hands busy, especially in times of stress. And we remember learning in Home that before taking off to become an itinerant outlaw demon hunter, John had co-owned a garage. In another life, that would have been the family business that Dean inherited and all the signs are that he'd have been good at it and enjoyed it. It's kind of sad to contemplate that.

It has to be said, Dean looks fantastic for a guy who was in a coma at death's door just a week or two ago, although the slowly healing scar across his forehead tells its own story, as do Sam's fading cuts and bruises. Recent events are very fresh and raw, still.

Sam goes on to ask if Dean needs anything else, a little too casually. Dean, sliding out from under the car and heading to a nearby bench covered with tools of the trade, promptly tells him to stop it.

DEAN: "Stop asking if I need anything; stop asking if I'm okay. I'm okay. Really. I promise."

The implication is that Sam has spent much of the past week hovering, maybe a little paranoid since he's just lost his dad and came so close to losing Dean too, maybe just needing the company, needing to share his grief. He can't help worrying. With Dean shutting him down so determinedly, Sam gives up on subtle at this point.

SAM: "We've been at Bobby's for over a week now, and you haven't brought up Dad once."
DEAN: "You know what, you're right. Come here. I'm gonna lay my head gently on your shoulder. Maybe we can cry, hug – maybe even slow-dance."

Oh, Sam's face during this sarcastic little speech: at first totally sucked in and believing he's got through to his brother, and then angry at being spoken to like this. It's so typical of them both – Sam needs to talk things through, while Dean just wants to repress and deny.

SAM: "Don't patronise me, Dean. Dad is dead, the Colt is gone, and it seems pretty damn likely the Demon is behind all this, and you're acting like nothing happened."

So…they've worked out that The Demon is behind John's so sudden death, but if either of them has realised what really happened, that John sacrificed himself to save Dean's life, they absolutely aren't saying so. Do they simply think The Demon sneaked up on John in the hospital somehow and yet chose to ignore the boys completely, despite knowing the interest it has in Sam? Is it that hard to figure out that John did something for Dean to effect that miraculous overnight recovery, especially given John's behaviour afterward? Dean might not fully understand just how serious his condition really was, but Sam certainly should. Maybe it's just more denial. Or maybe they each suspect, but can't bring themselves to admit it.

Because how can they? With their grief so fresh and raw, how could Sam say 'I think Dad sacrificed himself for you' without it sounding like he regrets it? And ditto for Dean – how does he begin to face up to something that huge, even to himself? And so any suspicions that either of them has are being kept firmly to themselves.

DEAN: "What do you want me to say?"
SAM: "Say something, all right. Say anything! Aren't you angry? Don't you want revenge? But all you do is sit out here all day long buried underneath this damned car."

Just last episode Sam predicted, with, as it turns out, 100% accuracy, that when Dean was better he'd want to fix the car, and now he's upset that Dean is doing just that. Except that it isn't the fact of Dean fixing the car he's so worked up about, it's that Dean isn't reacting to their newly orphaned status the way that Sam wants him to, or in a way that Sam considers healthy. Dean is being Dean, to the nth degree: he's clenching and denying for all he's worth, harder than ever, when what Sam wants is company in his misery, and a kindred spirit on the drive for revenge.

And there's that word again: revenge. That's what got them into this situation in the first place – actively pursuing that Demon, attacking whether they had any chance against it or not, no quarter given, no thought spared for consolidation or defence. Kamikaze. Has Sam really not noticed that Dean was never really on the revenge train with him and John? Or maybe he thinks the death of their father should be enough to kick his brother into a full on revenge-at-all-costs drive with him, which wouldn't be an unreasonable supposition given Dean's reaction to the mere idea that John might be dead in Devil's Trap. But that was then and this is now, and instead Dean just simmers at him.

DEAN: "Revenge, huh? Sounds good. You got any leads on where the Demon is? You making heads or tails of any of Dad's research? 'Cause I sure ain't. Do you know what, when we do finally find it…oh. No, wait, like you said – the Colt's gone. But I'm sure you figured out another way to kill it. [beat] We got nothing, Sam. Nothing, okay? So you know what, the only thing I can do is I can work on the car."

Dean's immediate reaction to John's death summed up in a nutshell, although I'm not sure Sam's in any fit state to really recognise or understand that. They have absolutely nothing to go on, no leads to pursue, and no way of taking The Demon on even if they could find it. So Dean is channelling everything he's feeling into rebuilding his car – the car he loves so much, the car that takes the place of the home he doesn't have, the car his father gave him. Because it's all he can do. He can't bring John back. Can't bring Jessica back for Sam, can't bring Mary back, can't change anything that's happened in the past 23 years, can't reclaim anything that Demon has taken from their family, from him – except for the car. Fixing that car is within his power. And the mundane is a welcome refuge in time of crisis: it's something tangible for him to focus on and direct his energies into, and he needs that.

But Sam doesn't have that outlet. All Sam has is his grief and his anger and his guilt, a year's worth of John's research that he doesn't understand, and a brother who's shutting him out.

Sam is so tentative in this scene, trying to reach out for comfort and support, trying to offer comfort and support in return, wanting to share his anger and pain. A year ago – or nine months ago, according to the date on John's heart monitor, to be more precise – after Jessica's death, Dean was a rock of support for Sam to lean on in his grief, but back then Dean could take that position because he was external to the grief itself; he didn't know Jessica. This time around, they are both grieving, and it's harder to provide emotional support for someone else while struggling to cope with your own pain.

Sam then explains that the reason came out here in the first place was to tell Dean that they do have something – which, he really should have just said so, instead of pussyfooting around. Dean can't take comfort and support at the best of times, can't bring himself to open up, and hovering in the way Sam has been is only ever going to put his back up. Sam explains further that he's been working on one of John's old phones – so how many phones did John have, then? Presumably they would only have possession of whatever John had with him at the time of his death, unless they've retrieved the truck from Lincoln – and it seems fairly clear that they haven't.

Anyway, Sam has cracked the code to access John's voicemail. This is how Sam has been occupying himself since John's death, it would seem: puzzling over John's research, trying to hack into his phone… Sam researches and broods, while Dean distracts himself by focusing on the purely practical. Chalk and cheese.

VOICEMAIL: "John, it's Ellen. Again. Look, don't be stubborn; you know I can help you. Call me."

The message is four months old, and John hasn't deleted it. Makes me wonder if any of the messages the boys left have been saved as well, but if Sam has found and played any, he doesn't mention it. Neither of the boys has heard of this 'Ellen', but Sam has traced the phone number and found an address. Dean says he'll ask Bobby for the use of one of his cars…

Cut to: a rusty, squeaky old minivan, a gentle ballad playing, pulling up outside a rather dilapidated roadhouse in the middle of nowhere.

DEAN: "This is humiliating. I feel like a freaking soccer-mom!"
SAM: "It's the only car Bobby had running."

They don't bother locking the minivan. This could be seen as a nod to the fact that they are in the middle of nowhere, with car theft not all that likely, or a sign of how little they care about it, were it not for the fact that they never lock the Impala, either. They peer about and rather half-heartedly call out to see if anyone's around.

DEAN: "Hey, did you bring the, uh –?"
SAM: "Of course."

Heh. Before Dean has even finished the sentence, Sam has pulled out his lock-picking kit to toss over to him. Despite the distance John's death has wrought between them – emotional distance manifesting in the more physical distance they've been maintaining up till now, personal space much wider than it had been at the end of last season – they are still very much in tune with one another in other ways. They are very quick to resort to breaking and entering, though, on very little provocation. And Dean picks the lock – that's usually Sam's job.

Inside, Dean hands the lock-picking kit back to Sam. Because the lock picking is Sam's area of expertise, and thus the kit belongs to him. They peer around the deserted bar. A mullet-haired, check-shirted figure slumped across the snooker table fails to rouse on being greeted, and is discounted as a potential 'Ellen'. Neither of the boys bothers to check on the condition of this comatose figure, recognising a drunken stupor when they see one. Sam wanders into an adjoining room, while Dean continues to potter randomly around the bar, only to come to a complete standstill when a rifle is pressed into the small of his back.

DEAN: "Oh God, please let that be a rifle."
GIRL: "No, I'm just real happy to see you. Don't move."
DEAN: "Not moving. Copy that."

He then goes on to tell her that when holding a rifle on someone, it isn't such a good idea to put it right against their back, because that makes it real easy to…

Spin around and whip the rifle right out of their hands with ease. As he goes on to demonstrate, quickly disarming it for good measure. The girl promptly smacks him hard in the nose and snatches the rifle back off him again. Clutching his face, Dean just gives up and yells for Sam to come help him out. He's way off his game. Plus – he's the one who broke in, and she's just defending her property, which means no fighting back. Sam is the one with the silvery tongue for talking them out of such situations.

Sam returns to the bar, hands pressed against his head. Because he also has a gun trained on him by another, older woman. She stops dead on hearing them address one another as Sam and Dean. "Winchester?" she asks, and both boys chorus an affirmative in varying tones of wary disgruntlement. "I think these are John Winchester's boys," she says, laughing incredulously and introducing herself as Ellen, and her daughter as Jo.

Jo shares a name with me, and for that reason alone I really want to like her. But…well. I shall reserve judgement.

The guns are lowered, while Sam and Dean look startled at how this is panning out. Ellen then provides Dean with something cold in a towel to hold against his abused nose while they talk, and he raises the subject of Ellen's message on John's voicemail offering help – help with what, he asks.

The Demon, of course, says Ellen as if it should be obvious, going on to add that she'd heard that John was closing in on it. How exactly, I wonder. I thought John had broken all contact with everyone during that last year while he was hot on The Demon's trail. The boys are amazed at such frankness regarding their personal family obsession by this complete stranger.

DEAN: "Was there an article in the Demon Hunter's Quarterly that I missed? I mean, who are you, how do you know about all this?"
ELLEN: "Hey, I just run a saloon. But…hunters have been known to pass through now and again. Including your dad a long time ago. John was like family once."

Oh really? When exactly, I now find myself wondering. The boys have never heard of Ellen, so John clearly neither told them about her nor ever took them to meet her. So where were they while he was off being like family to Ellen? Left alone in a dingy motel someplace? Yet again, I find myself wanting to slap John, and I'd thought I was past that now!

Dean is sceptical, asking why, in that case, John has never mentioned her. Ellen guardedly tells him he'd have to ask John that, and the boys shift uncomfortably at this reminder of their recent loss. Defensive, and a little hostile, Dean wonders why exactly they'd need Ellen's help, anyway, and she prickles right back at him in response that John wouldn't have sent them if –

The penny drops, and she regards the boys with some alarm. "He didn't send you." They shift uncomfortably again, exchanging unhappy glances. "He's all right, isn't he?" Ellen presses.

Dean looks at the floor, at the ceiling – anywhere but at anyone else in the room; can't bring himself to reply. It's Sam who answers. "No. No, he isn't. It was the Demon, we think. It, um, just got him before he got it, I guess."

"I'm so sorry," Ellen immediately says, looking stricken, and eyeing Dean with concern – demonstrating an uncomfortable familiarity with Winchester family dynamics for such a total stranger.

Dean instantly manufactures a smile and puts it on, insisting that it's okay, that they're all right. Ellen again pushes the vaguely unsettling 'I know all about your family' angle by trying to tell him she knows how close he and his dad were, but he shuts her down at once, the 'back the hell off' message ringing through loud and clear. If he can't even talk about John's death to Sam, he certainly isn't going to get into it with strangers – especially not strangers who seem to think they know something about him.

Sam comes to the rescue by switching back to the relatively safer subject of Ellen's offer of help, as left on John's voicemail. "We could use all the help we can get." Yeah, no kidding. Sam looks upset and hurting all over again, and Dean's looking angry and hurting all over again. Viewers once more want to crawl into their TVs and hug them both.

Recognising the 'keep it strictly business' message in all that, Ellen briskly informs them that she and Jo can't help – but 'Ash' will. I'm confused as to what prompted her initial offer of help to John, in that case. Is Ash a newcomer on the scene? Ellen calls the name out a little louder – and the mullet-haired, check-shirted figure sprawled across the pool table jerks into life.

SAM [incredulous]: "That's Ash?"
JO: "Uh-huh. He's a genius."

At the bar, with Ash standing there fully alert and not the slightest bit hungover now in all his redneck, mullet-haired glory, Dean mocks, "This guy's no genius – he's a Lynyrd Skynyrd roadie."

"I like you." Ash is unperturbed. Ash remains impervious to Dean's mocking and teasing throughout every scene they share in this episode, and their interaction is all the richer and immensely more amusing for it. Jo defensively snarks to give Ash a chance, and Dean hands him a sheaf of papers – about a year's worth of John's research that he and Sam haven't been able to make head nor tails of.

If they haven't been to retrieve John's truck – and they can't have, because all it needed was new tyres and they wouldn't have had to resort to the squeaky minivan in that case, unless they just couldn't face driving John's car – how have they got all John's paperwork? Where did he leave it that they could access it so readily?

Ash sifts through the papers, wrinkling his nose.

ASH: "Come on. This crap ain't real. Ain't nobody can track a demon like this."
SAM: "Our Dad could."

Ash then reels off a highly technical analysis of the papers he's glancing through, and it all sounds dead impressive. The boys certainly think so, much to their surprise, since this display of sophisticated intelligence is so sharply at odds with Ash's appearance and mannerisms. It takes him about 60 seconds of glancing over the papers to work out what John told the boys back in Salvation – that there are signs of The Demon, and that if you can track those signs, you can track The Demon. Sam asks if Ash can track the signs, and he says yes, he thinks so – but it's going to take time. "Uh, gimme…" he pauses to calculate, and then comes up with a wonderfully random figure. "Fifty-one hours."

Ash scoops up those precious research papers and wanders away with them, leaving the Winchester boys staring bemusedly in his wake. Dean calls after him, his mocking friendlier now, where it was almost challenging earlier.

DEAN: "By the way, I dig the haircut."
ASH: "All business in front; party in the back."

Kind of makes you wonder what exactly Ash's function in the world is, if he can afford to spend all his time drinking and sleeping at the saloon, and drop everything to spend 51 hours working on a massive project like this for a couple of guys he just met. Maybe Ellen and Jo keep him as a useful pet.

Gratuitous shot of Jo's skinny backside as she wiggles through the shot. Dean absent-mindedly watches her wander around behind the bar, presumably helping get set up ready to open. Sam's eyes are elsewhere, and he asks Ellen about something he sees behind the counter. Police scanner, she tells him. They use it to keep tabs on things. Dean peels away from the bar at this point and goes to sit elsewhere while Sam explains that he didn't actually mean that – well, no, because he knows what a police scanner is. They've got one of their own, or at least, they did before the crash. Sam used it in Bugs, albeit off-screen – he was talking about a folder he can see tucked away next to it. Ellen brings it over obligingly enough. "I was going to give this to a friend of mine, but, uh – take a look if you want."

While Sam reads up on a murder in which a couple were killed in their beds, but their young daughter – Idiot Child#1 from the teaser – was left alive, Dean asks Jo how her mother got into all this anyway, and Jo explains that her dad had been a hunter, but that he died a long time ago, when she was just a kid. Which makes me wonder how Ellen's husband got into all this, but Dean doesn't pursue that line of questioning. Jo expresses sympathy about his dad, whose death was, of course, so much more recent, and he shifts uncomfortably again. Really not going to talk about that. He admitted to Sam before John died that he felt he was just barely holding things together, so at this stage the slightest little chink in his armour would be unlikely to remain little for long; that's why he's clamping down so ferociously. Diversion tactic ahoy, as he changes the subject, quick smart, to one that comes almost as naturally to him as breathing when there's a pretty girl around.

DEAN: "So, uh. I guess I got 51 hours to waste. Maybe tonight we should, uh –"

The flirting is sheer habit, and she's exactly the type of pretty little blonde thing he likes to hook up with when he's got time to spare, but he can't even get the pickup line out. Heart just isn't in it any more. Plus, they came here specifically for help, which puts her on their side of the dividing line between them that know and them that don't and complicates things, means she can't be just another blonde barmaid to spend a night with and then leave behind, anyway, even if the slightest chink in the armour wasn't too dangerous to allow right now. Mostly, though, his heart just isn't in it. "You know what, never mind… Wrong place, wrong time."

Jo sasses that she was expecting some cheap pickup line, since that's all she gets from most hunters that come into the bar. It kind of makes you wonder if they ever get any customers that aren't hunters, or if it's only the hunters that bother to hit on her.

"What a bunch of scumbags," Dean mock disapproves, but his banter is half-hearted, just going through the motions. Jo seems kind of piqued that he hasn't followed the example of his fellow hunters by trying it on with her – his disinterest making him all the more appealing to her, which is ironic since under normal circumstances he would have behaved exactly as she expected him to – but he's rescued when Sam calls him over to check out the case file Ellen showed him. Dean ambles over to the bar to take a look. Sam says it looks like it could be a hunt, Dean doesn't seem all that interested, but Sam says he's already told Ellen they'd check it out.

Guess that other friend Ellen was going to give it to – presumably one of those hunters that pass through now and then – just got themselves a free pass from this potential gig. I wonder when exactly this friend was next expected in, how long it would have been before the case had any real attention paid to it, if the boys hadn't turned up when they did – how many lives might have been lost in the meantime. The impression I'm getting is that Ellen knows enough to spot a potential case when she sees one, and is feisty enough to defend her saloon at gunpoint if need be, but she seems pretty passive about the hunting itself. She cares enough to pass on potential cases to those that hunt, but doesn't want to get any more involved than that.

DEAN: "You've got to be kidding me – killer clowns?"

It is night now, and Dean is driving through heavy rain while Sam continues to study the case file. The parents were ripped to bits, it seems, but the child was left unharmed. They'd been at the Cooper Carnival earlier that night, and the cops have no viable leads, but the child claimed it was a clown who'd done it and that he'd vanished into thin air.

Dean is mildly amused at the concept. "Well, I know what you're thinking, Sam: why'd it have to be clowns?"

Sam grumbles discontentedly, and Dean laughs at his disgruntlement about this reminder of a childhood fear. "You still bust out crying when you see Ronald McDonald on television."

SAM: "At least I'm not afraid of flying."
DEAN: "Planes crash."
SAM: "And apparently clowns kill."

Snerk. They're so close to their normal banter. So close, and yet so far: dancing around the real issues, putting on an act. Dean questions Sam further on the research; strictly business is safest. There'd been similar murders back in 1981 linked to a different circus, Sam explains, and they hypothesise that it could be a spirit bound to a cursed object of some kind, being carried around from carnival to carnival.

SAM: "Great. Paranormal scavenger hunt."
DEAN: "This case was your idea. By the way – why is that? I mean you were awfully quick to jump on this job."

Veering right back away from the safety net of business there. Sam's emotions are fair game, as always, because trying to help deal with those is part of the duty of the older sibling; it's Dean's own emotional wounds that are strictly off limits.

Sam is all innocence, but Dean says that it isn't like him. That's not strictly true – Sam has found them plenty of jobs in the past. But I know what he means. He says that he'd thought Sam was hell bent for leather on the Demon hunt, and that's the point – it took him half of last season to get Sam to see the real benefit of taking on other jobs, rather than obsessing solely on his fierce desire for revenge and burning himself out so doing. He was clearly expecting more of the same, this expectation no doubt backed up by the fact of Sam spending the last week since they got to Bobby's poring over John's research, and instead Sam leapt on this job in an instant, the moment he spotted it.

"I don't know. I just think, taking this job – it's what Dad would have wanted us to do," Sam explains, deadly serious.

Dean is incredulous, can't quite believe this line of argument coming from his ever-rebellious little brother, but he doesn't press the point when Sam queries his reaction, not ready to push it any further.

Back at the Carnival, a young lad named Evan is visiting the Fun House with his dad. Say hello to Idiot Child #2. As so often in this age of juvenile sceptics, the youngster is proving to be well and truly steeped in high-tech cynicism, totally unimpressed by the simpler pleasures the Fun House has to offer, despite his dad's best efforts to enthuse him on the subject. But then young Evan finally tears his eyes away from his handheld computer game long enough to notice the reflection of a clown waving from behind him. He turns to see the clown itself…but it isn't there. Dad notices his confusion, and hastens to reassure the lad. "Don't be afraid of clowns. They're nice – they're your friends."

Oh, how he will live to regret those fateful words. Later that night, Dad is roused from a peaceful slumber by a now wide-eyed-with-awe Evan. "Dad. You were right. He is my friend." Dad looks up – to see the young idiot holding tight to the hand of the clown, and reacts with alarm to this midnight intruder…

Next day, a squeal of brakes announces the arrival of the minivan-bound Winchester brothers at Cooper's Carnival. They both look distinctly underwhelmed, not least with the abundance of clown-costumed performers wandering around freely, just to make their investigations that much harder. While Dean wanders off to prowl around a bit, Sam just stands there lurking in a quiet corner and gets into a staring contest with a brightly costumed dwarf lady. He stares at her, either paralysed by fear of the semi-clownish costume, bemused by her minute stature, blinded by the sheer brightness of her outfit, or simply because it's something to do with his eyes – it's impossible to tell from his expression – and she stares back at him, less defensive about him staring at her and more possibly considering his extreme height to be as freakish as her lack thereof. Or maybe she's just curious about all those fading cuts and bruises and the wildness of his hair. It's very hard to be sure, but the overriding impression is one of deep mutual suspicion. Finally she moves on. Sam breathes a sigh of relief, and Dean, wandering back up to him, is amused. "Did you get her number?"

Dean is trying so hard to be his normal, brash, cocky self in this episode, and really not managing to pull it off. Normal, brash and cocky Dean went diving for cover the moment John showed up in Dead Man's Blood and then vanished without trace in Salvation when he realised how close they were to The Demon and just how badly it could turn out, given John and Sam's attitudes. And, after everything that's happened, it's going to take a very long time to genuinely return to anything approaching normality, if at all. Dean seems determined to at least pretend, though.

Sam, who is finding any pretence at normality that much harder since protective camouflaging is not a part of who he is the way it is for Dean, just looks at him and asks what he's found out. Two more murders, says Dean, and I wonder who he spoke to in order to gain this information. A couple, ripped to shreds, and they had a little boy with them…

SAM: "Who fingered a clown."
Dean looks at him, deadpan. Oblivious Sam totally doesn't get it.
SAM: "What?"

Heh. Yes, a clown, Dean confirms, who apparently vanished into thin air.

SAM: "Dean, you know – looking for a cursed object, it's like trying to find a needle in a stack of needles. It could be anything."

Dean suggests that this cursed object is bound to give off EMF, so they'll just have to scan everything, Sam points out how wonderfully non-inconspicuous that would be, and Dean suggests that they try to blend in, noticing a sign nearby proclaiming 'help wanted'. Just the ticket.

Inside the tent in question, the brothers find an old man practicing his knife throwing, and hitting the centre of the target pretty much every time. This deadly accuracy with the knife hurling will be important later. Isn't knife throwing Jensen Ackles' thing? I want to see that one of these episodes!

Anyway, Dean greets the man politely enough. "Excuse me, we're looking for a Mr Cooper. Have you seen him around?"

"What? Is that some kind of joke?" growls the shades-wearing old man. Dean frowns, and Sam starts paying attention to the conversation for the first time. Old Man then whips off his shades to display the silvery, cataract-blinded eyes beneath, and Dean starts to fluster an apology. Blind Old Man is having none of it, and continues to harangue him for the unintended slight. Dean flounders hopelessly, and it is Sam's turn to be amused at his brother's expense.

DEAN: "You want to give me a little help, here?"
SAM: "Not really."

"Hey, Barry, is there a problem?" calls a belligerent voice from behind the boys. They turn to see…turn and look down to see another brightly costumed performing dwarf, looking as menacing as his stature will allow. Which is plenty. It's all in the eyebrows.

"Yeah, this guy hates blind people," Blind Barry growls, which is a pretty big leap to take from one innocent question, and in true pantomime fashion Belligerent Dwarf joins in the 'let's pick on Dean' fest going on here, asking what his problem is while waving a juggling torch threateningly. Dean continues to flounder. He's not so good at talking his way out of trouble at the best of times, and this is a long way from being the best of times.

"Nothing, it's just a little misunderstanding," Dean protests, and Belligerent Dwarf promptly takes extreme offence at his use of the word 'little'. Sam laughs out loud at the predicament Dean has so inadvertently got himself into, looking amazed that he is able to laugh so freely, and Dean, losing patience with the madness surrounding him, yells desperately for someone to please tell him where Mr Cooper is.

Cut to – Mr Cooper himself escorting Dean and Sam into his office trailer. First in, Dean spies the two chairs sitting innocently in front of the desk. The far chair is your bog-standard office variety, but the other is a large, brightly painted, clown-themed throne. He quickly scoots to the lower, normal chair before Sam can get to it. Scowling his discomfort, Sam is forced to sit on the clown, perching right on the edge of the seat ready to run for his life if need be.

Brotherly one-upmanship. It's a familiar pattern, one we saw countless times throughout the first season, but in this episode they are just playing at it, acting out the parts because it feels safer, taking refuge in acts of normality that allow them to pretend their world hasn't just fallen apart completely.

Mr Cooper tells them they've picked a hell of a time to join up, what with the recent spate of murders – a travelling show like theirs tends to be the first place the cops look for suspects. Then he asks if they've ever worked the circuit before. Sam lies through his teeth that they have, "last year through Texas and Arkansas." Doing what? Mr Cooper immediately asks, and there he draws a complete blank. He throws a few examples of carnie-type employment at them, and it is blatantly obvious that neither has the faintest idea what he is talking about.

It's interesting that Sam takes the lead in this conversation, Sam that attempts to lie his way through it, while Dean mostly just smiles and nods and lets him get on with it. It's only when Mr Cooper comes straight out and tells them that they've never worked a show before in their lives that Dean picks up the reigns, while Sam looks disgruntled at his own failure to convince. "No, but we really need the work. And Sam here's got a thing for the bearded lady."

Their usual pattern is the other way around – Dean spinning the lies, and then Sam spinning the truth if that fails. Their world has fallen apart and, as they attempt to rebuild, they are struggling to re-establish their positions in the new order that's emerging from the wreckage.

Mr Cooper points them to a photograph of his father – whereupon Sam starts working his charm once more by commenting on how alike they are – and launches into a lengthy cautionary tale of his family history in the business. The gist is that it isn't the most stable line of work ever. "You see, this place, it's a refuge for outcasts. Always has been. For folks that don't fit in nowhere else."

Both boys react to that – he could almost be describing them, the lifestyle they were raised in, outside of regular society. But Cooper doesn't know that, and continues, "But you two – you should go to school, find a couple of girls, have two-point-five kids, live regular."

Dean's eyes harden and he scoffs quietly to himself as the man describes the kind of lifestyle that Sam has always aspired to and that Dean has always rejected. But before he can say anything, Sam has leant forward, looking oh-so determined.

SAM: "Sir, we don't wanna go to school, and we don't want regular. We want this."

Dean leans back in his chair and eyes his brother very closely, maybe half-hoping that what he's hearing is true, knowing that the truth is far more complex. And once outside, casual employment secured, he calls Sam on it, unable to just let it lie.

DEAN: "That whole 'I don't want to go back to school' thing. Were you just saying that to Cooper? Or were you, you know, saying it?

He sounds tentative; it takes quite a lot for Dean to ask that question. He hates to display any vulnerability, and he's been far more vulnerable than he's comfortable with recently, hence the slamming back into place of his emotional walls this episode – it's self defence. The longer and harder you keep things bottled up, the more dangerous it is to come even close to letting it all out. But now he's heard Sam saying the words he wanted to hear him say, and he's assailed by doubt, and needs to know whether he's safe to hope or not. So he has to ask, edging out onto thin ice.

Sam sighs and ventures that he doesn't know. Dean very guardedly presses further, like he doesn't want to make it seem like a big thing. "I thought that once the Demon was dead and the fat lady sings, that you were going to take off, head back to Wussy State."

He says it in such matter-of-fact fashion, as well, and yet we know how much Dean dreads being left alone. Now that John is dead, it's just him and Sam, but this conversation makes it clear that he fully expects Sam to take off again as soon as this is over, and herein lies another reason for the distance between them in this episode. If he maintains his distance and never loses sight of the fact that Sam wants out when it's all over, maybe it won't hurt so much when it is all over and Sam takes off to 'be a person' again, and Dean is left with nothing but the road ahead and a never-ending succession of evil things to hunt in glorious isolation.

SAM: "I'm having second thoughts."
DEAN: "Really?"
SAM: "Yeah. I think. Dad would have wanted me to stick with the job."
DEAN: "Since when do you give a damn what Dad wanted? You spent half your life doing exactly what he didn't want, Sam."

There's a hard edge to his voice now, that thin ice starting to crack.

"Since he died, okay?" Sam's getting defensive now, doesn't want to confront the real reasons behind his apparent change of heart. "You have a problem with that?"

Dean looks at him for a very long time – and then backs off once more, shaking his head. "No, I don't have a problem at all."

He knows that Sam is doing this for all the wrong reasons, but what Sam is doing for all the wrong reasons is what Dean wanted him to do, and arguing against that raises all kinds of painful issues that he isn't prepared to face up to. Safer to back off and let it drop: avoid falling through that ice and revealing what lies beneath. Dean walks away, while Sam hesitates and watches him go, conflicted.

The fun of the carnival continues all around. Random extras have a fantastic time in the baking heat and glorious sunshine. Kitted out in a prime example of this season's must-have outerwear – a bright red anorak advertising Cooper's Carnival to the world at large – Sam potters around picking up litter and discreetly scanning for EMF while so doing. Covert ops are just so glamorous. But hey – Dean's cunning disguise of the EMF meter comes into its own once again. The headphones and supposed Walkman, tucked into an inside pocket, blend in perfectly.

Sam's getting nothing, however. Abandoning the litter picking, he drifts into the Fun House via the exit. Slacking off on the paid employment, Sammy! I'm shocked. Inside the Fun House, despite the fact that Carnival attendees are clearly wandering around in there also, he gives up on covert, pulls the EMF meter out and starts scanning openly. The flaw in this plan is instantly apparent, as he has to hide it quickly while a couple of girls wander past, but once they are out of sight he continues regardless.

Judging by the look on his face, Sam does not find the Fun House the slightest bit fun, and wouldn't even if he hadn't just lost his father, been creamed by The Demon, and all the rest of it. He's just not a Fun House kind of guy. He finds it even less fun when he turns around just in time for a fake skeleton to drop out of the ceiling in front of him, causing him to almost jump out of his skin. Sam is not amused. But he can't complain, because the gig was his idea in the first place.

Outside, Dean is still busy litter picking, as he's been hired to do, but is also kitted out with EMF meter-in-disguise and earphones. What, they've got two of them now? Dean's been busy. His cell phone rings. It's Sam. Obviously, since who else is likely to be calling him right now? "What's the matter, you sound like you just saw a clown?" he mocks in response to Sam's slightly less than composed greeting.

"Very funny," Sam grumbles, and then admits, "A skeleton, actually."

Since this is Supernatural, Dean is instantly serious and concerned. "Like a real human skeleton?"

In the Fun House, Sam says, and goes on to explain his new theory that maybe the spirit isn't attached to a cursed object, but to its own remains. Since the skeleton he just saw was blatantly plastic, and Sam of all people should be able to tell the difference, I'm not exactly sure where he's going with this, and neither is Dean, who asks if the bones gave off EMF. No, they didn't, Sam admits, whereupon Dean gives in and says maybe they should check it out anyway and that he's coming over to join Sam. Which is clearly what Sam wanted. He's as off kilter as Dean, both of them floundering badly as they try so hard to re-establish what passes for normal in their lives.

Dean doesn't get very far, though, as Blind Barry grabs his arm and brings him to an abrupt standstill, asking what he's doing there. Dean tries to pretend innocence of the "I was just sweeping" variety, but Blind Barry isn't having any of it, questioning him on the conversation he just overheard – skeletons and EMF.

"Dude, your blind man hearing is out of control." Dean is absolutely staggered at being cornered in this manner. He's never been good at talking his way out of trouble, even when the person he's talking to hasn't already heard more than they should.

Blind Barry grouses that the carnies are a tight-knit group, that they take care of their own – that they don't like outsiders. Dean again tries to brush it off, but Blind Barry reminds him that he was the one talking about human bones, and he gives up trying to slide out of it. "Do you believe in ghosts?"

Blind Barry becomes bemused. Dean keeps on with this spinning of truth into half-truth, giving the unbelievable just enough of a twist to make him seem an eccentric crank rather than a raving lunatic – he's taken a similar line before, notably (off-screen) in Hookman. "My brother and me, we're writing a book about them…"

Eventually, having escaped from Blind Barry and his uncomfortably sharp hearing, Dean joins Sam outside the Fun House. Sam grumbles about how long he's taken to get there, Dean wearily tells him it's a long story, and a child's voice calling her mother's attention to a nearby clown interrupts before either can say any more. There are clowns or similarly brightly costumed circus folk everywhere, so why this particular sighting draws their instant attention I'm not sure, unless they are just that sensitive to any mention of the word 'clown' whatsoever.

As it happens, they are right on the money with this one. The little girl's mother can't see the clown she's pointing to. And neither can Sam or Dean. They exchange 'this is it' glances.

The next scene sees Doomed Family #3 arriving home, much later. It is now dark. Sam and Dean pull up opposite their house, and, since it was broad daylight just a moment ago, we can only assume that they've spent the intervening time stalking the family all around the Carnival and then back to their home. So much for the paid employment – they only managed about a sack and a half of litter picking between them before giving up, from what we've seen. I hope they weren't counting on getting paid. Dean has found time during all this stalking to tell Sam about his little encounter with Blind Barry, and Sam cannot believe that he told the old man all about the 'homicidal phantom clown'.

"I told him an urban legend about a homicidal phantom clown," Dean defends. "I never said it was real."

It's all about the semantics. You can get away with talking about ghosts, spirits and homicidal phantom clowns as long as you claim to be playing a practical joke to haze a fellow student, or writing a book on urban legends without actually believing in them, or something of that ilk. Lying with the truth. So much more effective than just coming out and trying to convince the ignorant that the things that go bump in the dark are actually real.

Dean is still off his game, careless, preparing his rock-salt shotgun in plain view of anyone passing by, and Sam is over-cautious and critical, shoving it out of sight again. Rubbing each other up the wrong way, pressing one another's buttons: the comfortable balance so painstakingly achieved over the course of last season has been lost.

Dean continues that he'd mentioned the previous 'evil clown apocalypse' at the Bunker Brothers' Circus in 1981 to Blind Barry, and learned that Mr Cooper had been working for the Bunker Brothers at about that time. Sam is impressed with this intel, hypothesising that whatever the spirit is attached to, Cooper was the one who brought it with him.

DEAN: "I can't believe we keep talking about clowns."

Heh.

Fade to – later the same night. The brothers Winchester continue to stand watch over the house of Doomed Family #3. Except that Dean isn't watching anything, he's fast asleep while Sam keeps watch. And it is entirely unclear whether or not they arranged in advance to watch in shifts and thus take turns sleeping, or if Dean's just that far off his game that he fell asleep on the job, and Sam allowed him to. Although Dean seems healthy enough now, it's little more than a week since he was at death's door and, miraculous healing or no, we learned in the car yard scene earlier that Sam has been doing the anxious hovering routine pretty much since they arrived at Bobby's post-hospital. So either theory is entirely possible. Sam, of course, Does Not Sleep when troubled, so staying awake to play stalker outside the house of random strangers is no problem for him.

Inside the house, a light comes on. Sam snaps onto the alert, and throws an arm out to wake Dean by the simple expedient of thumping him in the chest while calling his name very softly, like he doesn't want to wake the neighbours or something. Through an un-curtained window, they see Idiot Child #3 wandering around, and Dean also instantly snaps onto full alert.

Idiot Child #3 throws the door wide open to welcome in the creepy clown she's seen and waved to exactly once, inviting him to come and play. In the middle of the night. And she clearly sees nothing wrong with this. I thought children of today were raised to be so much more safety conscious than that. The clown enters, and the porch light goes out. Must be Supernatural!

Inside, Idiot Child #3 eagerly leads her silent and creepy new friend through the hallway to meet her parents. And lo! Sam and Dean are already inside, lying in wait. How did they manage that? Climb through a window while the child and clown were at the front door?

Dean watches from a handy doorway as child and clown pass by, and the boys then leap into coordinated action. Waiting in another handy doorway further ahead, Sam jumps out to grab the child and pull her into the relative safety of a side room, while Dean shoots at the clown with his rock-salt loaded shotgun. They are back to that time-honoured routine: Sam gets the innocent to safety, while Dean takes on the Bad Thing. The clown goes down, taking the rock salt blast full in the chest – definitely not a spirit, then. It's corporeal.

Idiot Child #3 screams very loudly and ear-piercingly, as you'd expect when a strange man appears in your home in the middle of the night and grabs you, and another strange man starts firing guns. And yet the creepy clown appearing at the front door in the middle of the night did not bother her at all. Kids are weird.

Then the corporeal killer clown gets back up. Dean raises the shotgun once more and yells for Sam to watch out, Sam being that much closer to it, but instead of attacking, the clown runs for it, disappearing into thin air as it dives out through a nearby window yet clearly remaining corporeal in its invisibility. The Not-so-Doomed parents of Idiot Child #3 come running downstairs, alerted by all the screaming and shooting that something untoward is going on in their house in the middle of the night. And by the time they get there, there is no killer clown in sight – just one strange man clutching their child, while another brandishes a shotgun nearby. This is just one of those situations that not even Sam's silvery tongue stands a hope in hell of talking them out of.

The boys run for it, Dean reaching out as if to grab Sam's wrist and haul him if he doesn't move fast enough under his own steam. That'll be that herding instinct of his kicking back in. In their wake, Idiot Child #3 wails, "Mommy, Daddy – they shot my clown!"

Gah. Idiot Child still doesn't get it!

Morning. In a clearing in the woods, in the middle of nowhere, Sam and Dean finish emptying the minivan of their belongings, taking care not to touch the van itself with their hands, having apparently already carefully wiped it clean of any prints. Shouldn't they have done that after removing all their belongings? Dean has also removed the licence plates, stuffing them into one of his bags, just in case the parents of Idiot Child #3 saw the plates as they made their hasty getaway. The writers/producers totally could not have played this angle if the Impala was still in action, but the use of temporary transport suddenly makes it possible to pick up on this inconvenient side-note of their outlaw rescue attempt. Those people whose home they just invaded will never know that their midnight intruders actually saved their lives, will never know to feel any gratitude for that action. The boys are doomed to be persecuted by the majority of the people they try to save.

Ditching the van is no great loss from Dean's point of view, since he hates it so much anyway, but I can't help wondering what Bobby will say when they tell him they've randomly abandoned the temporary transport he loaned them because they got it associated with a midnight break-and-enter. I've decided I adore Bobby, and he isn't even in this episode. He deserves adoration for everything he's done for those boys in the last couple of episodes/weeks.

The boys begin their long walk back to civilisation, bags in hand, along a bright, sunny little country lane. The gig is the first topic of conversation, a subject both immediate and safe. The events of the night have made it clear that they are not dealing with a spirit – the rock salt hit something solid, as noted previously. So it's some kind of creature, able to make itself invisible, and which dresses up like a clown. There's nothing useful in John's journal, apparently, so Sam hauls out his cell phone to call and see if Ellen or Ash knows anything. And I know that a couple of close contacts of theirs were wiped out recently, but they do know more people than just those new acquaintances to ask for help. Bobby, for one, is clearly more than a little knowledgeable about these things. So why is Ellen suddenly the first port of call for supernatural advice?

SAM: "Hey, you think Dad and Ellen ever had a thing?"
Shifting the conversation back toward less safe territory there, but Sam seems amused at the idea, and being able to talk openly about John is part of the healing process. Dean, however, rejects the notion out of hand.
DEAN: "No way."
SAM: "Then why didn't he tell us about her?"
DEAN: "I don't know. Maybe they had some sort of falling out."
SAM: "Yeah. You ever notice Dad had a falling out with just about everybody?"

How true that is. Dean doesn't answer, and doesn't look at him. Sam, in the process of making that phone call, ends it before anyone has time to answer and goes on the offensive.

SAM: "Well, don't get all maudlin on me, man."
DEAN: "What do you mean?"
SAM: "I mean this strong, silent thing of yours, it's crap. I'm over it. This isn't anyone we're talking about: this is Dad. I know how you felt about the man."

Yeah, I can see where Sam's frustration with Dean's stonewalling and keeping him at arm's length would be about ready to boil over by now, but openly attacking Dean's grieving process isn't a tactic designed to soften him up any. Sam going on the offensive simply forces Dean into a defensive position, even more so than he'd already been adopting.

DEAN: "You know what? Just back off, all right. Just because I'm not caring and sharing like you want me to –"
SAM: "No, no, no. That's not what this is about, Dean. I don't care how you deal with this, but you have to deal with it, man."

Dean smiles wryly to himself and shakes his head in disbelief at that, having already noted with concern Sam's own faltering efforts to deal with John's death.

SAM [cont]: "Listen, I'm your brother, man, I just want to make sure you're okay."
DEAN: "Dude, I'm okay. I'm okay, okay? I swear the next person who asks if I'm okay, I'm gonna start throwing punches. These are your issues, quit dumping them on me."

Way to turn defence into attack, twisting the conversation back around on Sam, who reacts with confusion, apparently seeing nothing wrong at all with his own grieving process. They can each see so clearly that the other isn't coping, and yet are both so much in denial about their own reactions.

DEAN: "I just think it's really interesting, this sudden obedience you have to Dad, it's like, 'Oh, what would Dad want me to do?' Sam, you spent your entire life slugging it out with that man, I mean, hell – you picked a fight with him the last time you ever saw him. And now that he's dead, now you want to make it right? Well, I'm sorry, Sam, but you can't. It's too little, too late."
SAM: "Why are you saying this to me?"
DEAN: "Because I want you to be honest with yourself about this! I'm dealing with Dad's death, are you?"

Exchange of fierce glares. Sam was the one who wanted Dean to talk to him about John's death, but now that he's talking, Dean isn't saying what Sam wanted him to say. Wounded, it's Sam's turn to back off before the conversation can take him any deeper into territory that he doesn't want to explore, and he takes refuge in making that phone call he'd aborted in order to begin this conversation in the first place.

Scene wipe to Sam completing his conversation with Ellen, and we're all business again. Rakshasa, he says, is her best guess. She came up with the answer just like that, in the space of one phone call and based on the limited evidence Sam had to offer her? I'm impressed. But I miss the days of calling Caleb or Pastor Jim for advice, people that the boys actually knew, and had name-dropped previously

Anyway, Sam dons his exposition hat to explain that Rakshasa are a race of ancient Hindu creatures that appear in human form, feed on human flesh, can make themselves invisible, and cannot enter a human home without first being invited. Hence the clownliness and the big ingratiation routine with the idiot children. Why the children aren't also devoured is not known, although Sam suggests that maybe there just isn't enough meat on the bone, which is nice, grim imagery. Rakshasa, Sam continues in info-dump fashion, live in squalor, sleeping on a bed of insects – more nice, grim imagery – and have to feed a few times every 20-30 years. This explains the lengthy gap between the Bunker Brothers' incident in 1981 and the current outbreak of clownly carnage.

The brothers remember that Cooper worked both shows, and Sam recalls how much Cooper looked like the picture of his father, wondering if the likeness is enough for it to actually be the same man. According to legend, only a dagger made of pure brass can kill a Rakshasa. Dean is unfazed, pondering that he thinks he knows where to get one of those.

SAM: "Well, before we go sticking things into Cooper, we want to make damn sure it's him."
DEAN: "Oh, you're such a stickler for detail, Sammy."

Said with a smile on both sides. Quarrel over, for now – it's as close to an apology as either of them is going to get in the circumstances. This is not the time or place for further raking over of their emotional issues, even if they were prepared to go there again. The plan of action is agreed – Dean will source the blade, while Sam checks if Cooper has got bed bugs.

Of course, they have to actually get back to the Carnival first. On foot. From wherever they are in the middle of nowhere.

This journey apparently takes them all day, as night has fallen once more by the time they reach Cooper's Carnival, now closed for the night. Maybe they stopped someplace for food, or to find some alternative transport, somehow. Sam picks the lock on Cooper's office trailer, while Dean heads for Blind Barry to see if he has any brass blades among his sizeable knife collection, as seen being hurled with such deadly accuracy at that target earlier. Keep bearing that deadly knife throwing accuracy in mind. It will become important shortly.

As Sam begins to cut into Cooper's mattress in search of those insects the Rakshasa likes to sleep on, a gun is cocked behind him. It's Cooper, looking deeply unhappy about this nighttime intrusion.

Blind Barry, meanwhile, invites Dean to have a look in his trunk for brass blades – but instead Dean finds a clown costume in there. The same clown costume he fired rock salt into the previous night. The penny drops, and he spins around to see Blind Barry drop his white stick and whip off his shades. The silvery blind eyes beneath have gone, replaced by perfectly normal, seeing eyes, but then his features go all swimmy as he demonstrates the blind version once more, looking amused.

But…Blind Barry totally didn't have time to don that clown suit and get to where Idiot Child #3 saw him in between Dean leaving him after their conversation and reaching Sam!

Forget the continuity bug. Focus on Dean trapped in Not-Blind Barry's trailer with a now invisible Rakshasa hurling knives at him – not aiming to kill, or even to wound, let us note. That much is obvious, given the deadly accuracy displayed earlier. He's just trying to scare him at this stage, for whatever reason, and succeeding. Dean finally gets the door open, rolls out and back onto his feet in the same fluid movement, and runs for it.

He slides to an abrupt halt and hastily reverses when Sam appears and calls him. Sam, not seeming the slightest bit curious about why his brother was sprinting for his life, calmly explains that Cooper now thinks he's a peeping tom, but isn't the Rakshasa. Dean, of course, already knew that. Not-Blind Barry is the Rakshasa, he explains, could be anywhere what with the invisibility and all, and no, he didn't get the brass blade. "It's just been one of those days."

Sam has a lightbulb moment, and leads the way into the Fun House, apparently left unlocked and fully operational despite the fact that the Carnival has closed for the night. Inside, as Sam strides purposefully forward, a sliding door slams shut behind him, separating the brothers. In plot terms, this means nothing whatsoever beyond the fact that Dean has to negotiate the maze while Sam takes the shortcut to the finish. There's a pipe organ there, he'd noticed earlier – an organ with brass pipes. Good thinking, Sammy. The pipes are hot, what with being steam operated and all, but he makes his best effort to prise one of them loose anyway.

Dean has just reached Sam, and expressed puzzlement over the invisibility of the Rakshasa's clothes as well as his person, when a couple of knives come whizzing out of thin air and pin his arm to the wall behind – by the sleeve, I add. There is no piercing of flesh apparent, and we remember again that Not-Blind Barry can throw a knife with deadly accuracy when he wants to. For a supposedly bloodthirsty man-eating creature, the Rakshasa doesn't seem to want to spill Dean's blood – he's had plenty of opportunity. Maybe the writers just wanted to avoid physically damaging either of the boys again so soon.

Sam re-doubles his efforts to pull one of those brass pipes out of the organ, what with this alarming evidence of the Rakshasa's proximity. The pipe comes free, but they can't see where the Rakshasa is, since it's invisible, and Dean is still pinned to the wall, unable to pull the blades out of his sleeve. Sam holds the pipe as if it were a baseball bat, ready to swing. Which – Sam, please: you want to stab the creature, not hit it.

Another knife spins through the air, this time aimed in Sam's general direction, but he avoids it easily. The Rakshasa is toying with them, rather than going straight for the kill. A fatal mistake on his part, as it turns out.

"Dean, where is it?" Sam yells, as if he thinks Dean has a better chance of seeing their invisible opponent than he does, somehow. Dean doesn't know, but it's his turn for a brainwave. He's still pinned to the wall, but he can reach the valve for the pipe organ. He pulls it, and the room is flooded with steam. It's probably unpleasantly hot, but the outline of the Rakshasa suddenly becomes visible amid the steam, right behind Sam.

"Sam, behind you, behind you!" Dean shouts, like he's in pantomime all of a sudden, which kind of ties in with the whole 'fun house clown' theme.

Sam reacts instantly, stabbing blindly behind him with the pipe. It works. Blood comes spurting out of the pipe in deliciously gruesome fashion from the still invisible Rakshasa as it collapses to the floor. Dean finally gets his arm free and turns off the steam so they can see properly again, and the steam clears to reveal the bloodied pipe lying forlorn atop a bundle of crumpled clown costume. The Rakshasa is gone. Case closed. And that's an honest-to-goodness kill for Sammy. He doesn't get many of those – Dean is usually the one at the sharp end when it comes to the crunch. Sam does his fair share of life saving, but he's almost never the one to actually kill the creatures they encounter.

DEAN: "I hate fun houses."

Cut to: Ellen's roadhouse. How did they get there? They've clearly acquired alternative transport, somehow. Unless they hitched. The bar is open, this time, with a couple of random guys sitting near the window playing with their guns. Sam and Dean loiter at the bar as Ellen brings them a couple of beers. "You boys did a hell of a job. Your dad would be proud."

Sam thanks her; Dean is silent. He really doesn't want to talk about John with Ellen, at all. Jo appears and sits alongside him, staring meaningfully at Sam until he gets the 'please give us a moment alone' message. Dean doesn't look all that bothered, either way, and just carries on nonchalantly glugging his beer – quietly enjoying Jo's obvious interest, but not so much that he's going to act on it.

SAM: "Oh, yeah, I, uh – I gotta go…over there…right now."

Sam makes a sharp exit, leaving Dean and Jo alone at the bar. And let us bear in mind here that Jo has met Dean precisely once prior to this, at which time they shared one brief private conversation in which Dean made it clear that he wasn't looking to get involved in any way – not even for his habitual one-night-stand – and wherein he was very clearly grieving for his very recently deceased father. This attitude has obviously just made him all the more desirable to her, where if he'd been his normal self she'd have simply written him off as yet another horndog hunter looking to get his leg over. By reversing his normal stance, Dean has presented Jo with a challenge, and she's young enough and buoyant enough to want to take up that challenge. And here she's trying to do just that, unable to fully respect the distance his obvious grief needs – and, indeed, that he's asked for – because, as her opening question makes clear, she simply doesn't know if she's going to get another opportunity.

So, Jo asks if she's going to see him again. Dean asks if she wants to, rousing himself out of his subdued and world-weary mood enough to take an interest in the conversation. Jo says that she wouldn't hate it, and it's very nearly all systems normal flirting…but not quite. Jo is flirting; Dean not so much, but her attention is at the very least a welcome distraction from his own inner turmoil.

Behind the bar, we get a shot of Ellen cleaning glasses with her back to them, listening in.

DEAN: "Can I be honest with you? You see, normally, I'd be hitting on you so fast it'd make your head spin. But, uh, these days… I don't know."
JO: "Wrong place, wrong time? It's okay, I get it."

No, I'm not so sure she does, judging by how perky she remains. But the arrival of Ash forestalls any further conversation along those lines, fortunately, and he demands to know where they've been, since he's been waiting for them. I guess that 51 hours was up long ago. Sam, lurking randomly at the pool table in the absence of any place else to be, informs him that they've been working a job, and Dean asks if he's got something for them. And that he does. Something to show them, anyway – some kind of souped-up uber-geek laptop, criss-crossing wires exposed everywhere.

Sam immediately asks if Ash has found The Demon, the eagerness in his voice telling a clear story – temporary distraction provided by intermediate gigs or not, this is what he's really interested in, what he really wants. The Demon remains primary target number one, for Sam at least. What Dean really wants these days is anyone's guess. I'm not sure even he knows. Having his family together and safe was always his ultimate goal in the past, but John's death has destroyed that dream forever.

Ash, however, promptly nixes any immediate ambitions Sam has in the direction of revenge. The Demon is nowhere around, he says – at least nowhere he can find. But if it raises its head anywhere, he's on it.

ASH: "Any of those signs or omens appear, anywhere in the world, my rig'll go off, like a fire alarm."

Anywhere in the world? Makes me wonder what the boys would do if it did show up someplace on the other side of the globe.

I like Ash. Despite appearances, he takes all this deadly seriously. And he just dropped anything else he might have had on to set this up for them, unless he really didn't have anything better to do. Dean seems impressed, reaching out to touch the keyboard… Ash just looks at him, and he drops his hand once more. No touching the rig, gotcha.

SAM: "Ash, where did you learn to do all this?"
ASH: "MIT, before I got bounced, for…fighting."
SAM: "MIT?"
ASH: "It's a school in Boston."

Yup. I like Ash, just for the way he deals with the boys' incredulity regarding his brains and ability wrapped up in such an unlikely exterior. Dean rounds off the conversation by asking Ash to give them a call if he finds something – if that fire alarm goes off – Ash agrees, and it's time for the boys to hit the road once more. In their unseen new transport, which presumably will be handed over to Bobby as recompense for that squeaky minivan of his that they ditched.

Love that Ash picks up and finishes off the dregs of Dean's abandoned beer. Waste not, want not, right?

As the boys reach the door, Ellen calls after them that if they need a place to stay, she's got a couple of beds out back. It is unclear if she means just for the night, or as a more permanent arrangement while they are getting back on their feet, and if the latter, she really is straining the bonds of a very brief acquaintance, generous though the offer is. Either way, they don't take her up on it. Dean has something to finish.

Back at Bobby's, Dean gets on with just that: fixing the Impala. Sam wanders out to talk to him again, and we've come full circle to that first post-funeral scene once more. And they've lost their coats again. We're back to t-shirted one layer eye candy! Praise be to the costume department, and to the sheer heat of the day(s) they filmed these scenes.

This time around, Sam doesn't waste any time attempting small talk, just gets right down to it and says what he wants to say. "You were right."

Dean spares him the briefest of glances and continues to work. "About what?"

SAM: "About me and Dad. I'm sorry that the last time I was with him I tried to pick a fight."
Dean stops working on the car, and gives Sam his full attention at this point.
SAM [cont]: "I'm sorry that I spent most of my life angry at him. I mean, for all I know, he died thinking that I hate him."

Nicely confusing mix of tenses there, Sam. But the meaning is clear. Sam's all broken up, fighting back tears again. Dean remains silent, listening impassively and letting Sam say what he needs to say but utterly unable to open up in like fashion himself. Too afraid of what might come out.

SAM [cont]: "So, you're right. What I'm doing right now, it's too little, too late… I miss him, man. And I feel guilty as hell. And I'm not all right. Not at all. But neither are you. That much I know."

Dean still doesn't say anything, can't say anything. Those emotional walls of his have come crashing back into place, but there are cracks that weren't there previously, and he's been desperately trying to shore them up again all episode, refusing to let his control slide, especially not in front of Sam. He's been holding too much inside for too long to let it go now, but the pressure is fast reaching boiling point.

Sam, for his part, doesn't seem to expect him to say anything at this stage, simply adding that he'll let him get back to work.

Exit Sam. Dean gazes after him, anguished. Isolated. A pressure cooker with the release valve jammed tight shut; twenty-three years worth of rage and pain and despair burning away inside, seething and needing to be vented.

He picks up a crowbar, and…

Smash! Shatters the window of a handy nearby wrecked car in a sudden explosion of anger. Then he turns and sees the Impala, half-rebuilt, symbolising the ruins of his life. Despair bubbles over, and that angry rage is suddenly directed at the car as he starts hammering blows down on the hood of the trunk, over and over and over, tearing a huge hole in it. That desperate rage is painful to watch: grief, in its rawest form.

Think for a moment about what that car represents to Dean, bearing the brunt of his desolation and being torn to shreds here. That's huge.

Finally, the crowbar is dropped as the surge of anger fades, leaving bitter despair in its wake. A little bit of steam has been vented. But not enough. Inside, he's still cooking.

Fade out on Dean, a powder keg primed and ready to explode.


October 2006

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