"Our lives are weird, man"

Then.

Today's recap focuses on Dean's miraculous healing, his inability to deal with John's death, and increasing instability.

Now.

After what seems like a messy break-up from her boyfriend Matt, a heart-broken girl named Angela is comforted by her friend Neil, who is blatantly stricken with a bad case of unrequited love. Boyfriend Matt comes looking for Angela, who flees. Matt tries phoning and Angela, in her car and already so tearful she can barely see where she's going, makes the mistake of picking up. She stops looking at the road entirely at this point, so it hardly comes as a surprise when she runs her car right off the road and is killed.

The date on Angela's mobile phone, incidentally, gives the date as 22nd August 2006. That would explain why this episode, in common with those preceding it, looks so summery. It does not, however, explain the time discrepancy of both John and the boys talking about the events of last season as taking place over a period of a year, this period beginning in late October. That's a big round-up.

Fiery titles.

The Impala drives along on what is blatantly a beautiful summer's day. Dean, at the wheel, is trying hard to talk Sam out of going where they are going. Of course, since Dean is driving, if he really didn't want to go there all he'd have to do would be turn the car around, but that isn't the point. He doesn't want to force Sam not to do something he wants to do – he wants Sam to agree with him and decide not to go after all.

For where they are heading is the grave of Mary Winchester. Sam wants to pay his respects. Dean feels this is pointless, since there is no actual grave – there being no body left to bury after the fire – only a headstone erected by an uncle of Mary's that the boys have never met. For Sam this is not the point; he doesn't care that there's no body, no real grave: the headstone provides a focal point for memorial. Not that Sam, of course, remembers Mary, but that also isn't the point. With John gone, and no headstone to mark his passing, it feels like the right thing to do.

Dean doesn't want to go. But he's still driving, albeit trying hard to talk Sam out of his plan. He suggests they swing by Ellen's roadhouse instead to see if there's any news on The Demon. "We should be hunting that ugly son of a bitch down."

That's just about the first time Dean himself has ever suggested actively hunting The Demon – in the past it has always been John or Sam that wanted to direct all their energy into hunting it, and Dean went along with that more for their sake than anything else. Hunting The Demon was never his primary ambition the way it was for the other two. Even now, he's just throwing it out there as a last-ditch attempt to distract Sam from his headstone-visiting plan rather than as something he particularly wants to do for himself.

But Sam simply calls his bluff. "That's a good idea, you should. Just drop me off, and I'll hitch a ride and meet you there tomorrow."

Bluff called, Dean can only flounder his way back out of it again. "Right. Stuck with those people, making awkward small talk till you show up. No thanks."

It's kind of a lame excuse, but he's also perfectly serious. Dean really didn't take to Ellen, mistrusting her on principle. I can well believe that he'd find the roadhouse an uncomfortable place to visit, especially on his own.

Cut to: the headstone of Mary Winchester. Sam kneels alone at the graveside, using a knife to dig a very tiny hole in the grass, and pulls out John's dogtags to bury in this hole, trying in some small way to reunite his parents in death. "I think, um – I think Dad would have wanted you to have these. I love you, Mom."

He's touchingly tearful over the non-grave of the mother he has no memory of – grieving both for what he never had and for what he has so recently lost. For Sam, this little ceremony is an important part of his grieving process, something he needs to do in order to heal and start to move forward.

Dean meanwhile, stands waiting elsewhere in the cemetery, eyeing a headstone commemorating a loving father who'd died at about John's age; Dean's father has no headstone for his sons to pay their respects to and mourn at. Dean is very, very pretty in this scene, in his v-neck t-shirt and blue over-shirt left unbuttoned. He's also wearing a chain around his neck, in addition to his usual Egyptian amulet. That's new.

Since he's just hanging around nowhere near Mary's headstone with nothing to do, Dean has plenty of time and space to notice a dead tree nearby. He wanders over and has a look, seeing as he's got nothing better to do till Sam gets back. Then he takes a step back and realises that more than just the tree is dead – he's standing atop a fresh grave, with every scrap of vegetation in a perfect circle around it stone dead. He bends down to have a look at the name on the cards attached to the flowers left at the graveside, and we get to see that, in addition to the new chain, he also has a new bracelet, with tiny skulls in it, no less. These superficial details are important to the discerning.

Sam returns to find Dean finishing up a conversation with a cemetery attendant, making enquiries about this patch of dead ground. The grave is that of Angela Mason, the girl from the teaser, and no one, apparently, can explain the dead ground. Instantly smelling a potential hunt, Dean theorises about unholy ground desecrated by vengeful spirits, while Sam, still in sombre mood following his private little headstone-side ceremony, doesn't really follow and is very sceptical.

DEAN: "Well, don't get too excited, you might strain something."
SAM: "It's just – stumbling onto a hunt? Here, of all places?"
DEAN: "So?"
SAM: "So, are you sure this is about a hunt, not about something else?"

Hearing this not-so-subtle attempt at psychoanalysis, Dean is instantly on the defensive, giving Sam his most defiant, challenging glare while asking what else it would be about. Sam wearily backs off again and brushes it off.

DEAN: "You can believe what you want, Sam. But I let you drag my ass out here, the least we can do is check this out."

Humouring him, Sam agrees, completely unconvinced. Sam looks much more like himself in this episode, with his hair trimmed tidier.

Dean has already found out that Angela's father is a professor at the university, so that's the first port of call. Sam works his mild-mannered sympathy mojo to gain an audience with Doctor Mason, claiming that they were friends of Angela wanting to offer their condolences. The grief-stricken professor is only to willing to invite them in, show them photos and talk about his daughter, reminiscing and mourning. It falls on Sam to sit with the man offering gentle words of consolation, while Dean prowls around impatiently, picking up and commenting on an 'unusual' book he finds – an ancient Greek tome. It turns out Doctor Mason teaches a course on the subject.

Dean then stirs himself to enter into the actual conversation, fishing for evidence of supernatural-ness. "It's got to be hard, losing someone like that. Sometimes it's like they're still around – like you can sense their presence. You ever feel anything like that?"

At this point, Sam fixes his eyes worriedly on his brother, and doesn't look away for the remainder of the conversation. He knows exactly who and what Dean is really talking about here, and his pointed remark that it's 'perfectly normal' after what the professor has been through, said while glaring at his brother, makes that clear. Doctor Mason brokenly talks some more about the loss of his daughter, stressing that family is everything, and both boys become uncomfortable, although for different reasons. Dean because the man's words are striking way too close to home for comfort, and Sam because he feels they are intruding. Seeing Dean shut down and adopt his 'I don't care' mask, Sam apologises to the man, and gets them both out of there, fast.

At the latest motel, Dean scours the pages of John's journal, insistent that there is something going on here that they just haven't found yet. Sam remains sceptical, and is fast getting tired of the whole thing.

SAM: "You know what? We never should have bothered that poor man. We shouldn't even be here any more."
DEAN: "So what, Sam? We just bail? Without even figuring out what's going on?"
SAM: "I think I know what's going on here. It's the only reason I went along with you this far."

Dean plays dumb, but this time Sam sticks to his guns. Last episode he was worried about Dean, but it was mixed up with his own issues and got messy. This time around, he's just plain worried because he knows damn well Dean's unravelling fast, no matter how hard he pretends to be perfectly fine. Sam also seems very tired, what with all the grief and worry, and constantly trying to figure out the best way to handle Dean without ever actually finding the right approach – persistently telling him that he isn't coping certainly isn't helping. Sam's not used to being the one trying to hold everything together while those around him slowly self-destruct.

"This is about Mom's grave," Sam challenges, and when Dean tries to laughingly blow him off continues to press the point, intervention-style. "You wouldn't step within a hundred yards of it. Look, maybe you're imagining a hunt where there isn't one so you don't have to think about Mom. Or Dad."

Dean throws the journal down and turns to direct his very best death glare at Sam, his already uncertain temper seriously fraying now. Sam sighs and just looks very, very tired. If Dean is unravelling fast and rapidly approaching the end of his tether, then so is Sam, although in a very different way.

SAM: "You want to take another swing? Go ahead, if it'll make you feel better."

Violence would at least be a reaction he could make sense of, evidence that he's getting through and making some kind of impact. At this stage, anything would be better than the absolute nothing Dean's giving him, complete lockout. But Dean just shakes his head, still glowering, and his voice is very tightly controlled. "I don't need this crap."

He grabs his coat and keys and marches toward the door. When Sam pushes against his emotional walls, Dean walks away from the confrontation. That's been the pattern of the entire season so far: the more Sam pushes, desperate to break through, the more he succeeds only in pushing his brother away. Sam's handling this one a little better than in previous episodes, though; the timing is better, at least. But although his tone is less confrontational than in Bloodlust, he's apparently forgotten that his soothing sympathy voice generally riles his brother when directed toward him. Dean doesn't take sympathy or comfort well at the best of times. Which leaves Sam with the impossible dilemma of having no effective way of approaching Dean on the subject. Anything he tries is going to be wrong, and what Dean actually wants from him – which is space and privacy – Sam can't give because he's too worried to let things slide.

You can't really blame Dean for walking out though, given the accusation Sam just threw at him, no matter how mildly it was stated and no matter how true it may or may not be. Sam wearily asks where Dean is going, and Dean snaps in response that he's going for a drink. Alone. He strides purposefully away, leaving Sam alone. Shut out.

Once upon a time they were so close, but then their world fell apart, and now these two are all that's left of their family. And although Sam still has his brother with him physically, they might as well be on different planets. And Sam is getting so very tired with trying to hold things together. You could, of course, argue that he's just getting a taste of a burden Dean has been struggling to carry for most of his life, but that doesn't take away the impact on Sam, who has never been in this position before.

Elsewhere, dead Angela's boyfriend Matt sits alone in the dark watching a video of the two of them in happier times. Slouching to the kitchen to get a drink, and then slumping back onto the couch, he fails to notice a pot plant on the coffee table curl up and die in about five seconds flat. Wallowing in his grief and remorse, he pauses the video on a close-up of Angela's face and gazes longingly at it. Then he notices a pale figure reflected in the TV – it's Angela! He turns, drifting off-camera. The sound effect of a blade being drawn rings out. Blood splatters across the TV. And that's the end of Matt.

Dean breaks into dead Angela's apartment using one of his many fake credit cards. Because, of course, the proper lock-picking kit is kept by Sam, who he just walked out on because Sam was dismissing his hunch about this case out of hand in favour of trying to persuade him to open up about issues he can't face up to even to himself, never mind to his brother. It's so much more preferable to focus everything he's got on working the case, and leave those issues buried deep in hopes they'll stay buried if he just represses hard enough and long enough. It's always worked for him before.

Inside, he noses around a bit, and picks up a photograph of Angela to look at. Is it normal for someone to keep very large, professional photographs of their self around the place? I mean, I wouldn't dream of it…

Ahem. I digress. Dean sees a girl reflected in the glass…

This is, however, a different reflection than the one that just took out boyfriend Matt. This is Angela's roommate, and since she isn't named on-screen until her final scene, I shall skip ahead for that bit of info. Her name is Lindsey and she is, understandably, freaked out in the extreme at finding a strange man in her apartment. Dean thinks fast, and manages to sell her on the story that he's Angela's cousin come to collect some of her things. "How else would I have the key to your place?" he glibly lies, holding up his own car keys.

Cut to – Lindsey in floods of tears talking incoherently about how great Angela was, with Dean sitting opposite in the deeply uncomfortable pose of a man confronted with a weeping female.

Dean seems paler this season than last – I don't remember Jensen Ackles' freckles being so much in evidence last year.

But I digress once more. Dean learns from the tearful Lindsey that, in addition to Angela's tragic death, boyfriend Matt has now also died. Suicide, she believes, explaining that he cut his own throat, and for days beforehand had believed he was seeing Angela everywhere he went. Dean nods, and sympathises, absorbing this new information, and then asks where Matt lived.

Back at the motel, Sam is perched on the edge of the bed focusing very intently on the television…he's watching the motel's on-demand porn! It's wonderfully funny, because – Sam.

And then Dean walks in, and all of a sudden it's funnier still. Sam instantly turns the TV off and tries without success to act nonchalant, while Dean stands there and just looks at him.

SAM: "What?"
DEAN: "Awkward."

ROFL

Sam evades the awkwardness by asking where his brother has been, a valid question since Dean has been out all night and well into the morning. Of course, if this was last season and Dean had gone out for a drink he'd probably just use his imagination rather than asking. But a lot has changed since last season, not least of which is Dean himself.

DEAN: "I was working my imaginary case."
SAM: "Yeah, and?"
DEAN: "Oh well, you were right. I didn't find much…"

Sam's nodding, like this is no more than he expected, completely oblivious to the sarcasm Dean's voice is just about dripping with.

DEAN [cont]: "'Cept Angela's boyfriend died last night. Slit his own throat. But, you know, that's normal. Uh, let's see, what else? Oh, he was seeing Angela everywhere before he died. But you know, I'm sure that's just me transferring my own feelings…"

Sam can take his medicine, and smiles wryly, accepting that he was wrong. "Okay, I get it. I'm sorry. Maybe there is something going on –"

"Maybe?" Dean's temper flares. This was the straw that broke the camel's back last night: not so much the pop psychology, since he's heard all that before, but the slur on his professionalism, his ability to recognise and work a case when he sees one. "Sam, I know how to do my job, despite what you might think."

Sam has clearly learned the lesson of last episode, that there's a time and a place for the pressing of sensitive personal issues, and doesn't rise to the bait, taking on board Dean's own determination to use this case as an avoidance tactic for the time being. He ignores Dean's anger and suggests that they check out Matt's apartment, and Dean accepts the diversion and runs with it. Strictly business is safer.

Dean has already been to Matt's apartment, he tells Sam, and found a pile of dead plants therein, just like at the cemetery, and a dead goldfish, too. He really has had a busy night and morning, and I'm guessing little or no sleep, which isn't going to help with the strung-out-ness of him. On board with the case now, Sam picks up Dean's unholy ground theory of the previous day, but Dean isn't so sure, since he isn't getting the 'angry spirit' vibe from Angela, who he can't find any evidence was anything more than a real nice girl who happened to get herself killed in a car accident. No motive that he's been able to unearth as yet, but he's got a good place to start – Angela's diary.

And I love that Sam is slightly appalled at the idea of stealing and reading Angela's diary, while Dean is completely pragmatic about it, maintaining a professional detachment both from Angela as a person and from the people around her. Anyway, the upshot is that they'll just have to keep digging for clues and talk to more of Angela's friends.

First on the list – or, at least, the only one we get to actually see them interview – is Neil from the teaser. They are posing as grief counsellors. That's the third false identity of the episode – from friends to cousin to grief counsellors. No costumes required. Neil seems bemused at the concept of grief counsellors, insisting that he's perfectly okay. The subject of boyfriend Matt's demise comes up, whereupon Neil coolly states that Matt's motives for killing himself weren't about grief, but guilt. It seems that on the night of her accident, Angela walked in on Matt with another girl…a motive for vengeful spirit-dom, at last.

I love that Sam stands a step down from Dean in this scene, with the net result that he's not towering over his brother as usual, whether that was the intention or not.

Returning to the car, Sam ponders that if Angela has already taken her revenge on Matt, the case could be over and her spirit at rest already. Dean concedes the possibility, but adds that there's only one way to be sure: burn the bones.

SAM: "Burn the bones? Are you high?"
Dean gives him a look like he's actually checking the possibility against a mental inventory!
SAM: [cont.] "Angela died last week."
DEAN: "So?"
SAM: "So, there's not going to be bones. There's gonna be a ripe, rotting body in the coffin."
DEAN: "Since when are you afraid to get dirty?"

Heh. So, that night the boys go grave-robbing, digging down to Angela's coffin. It's hot, dirty work, and it makes them look good. Dean unlatches it, and then turns to Sam. "Ladies first."

No matter how bad he's currently feeling Dean is never going to get bored of being able to put a look like that on Sam's face! Sam doesn't argue, though. Looking more tired than ever after all that hard physical labour he bends to open the coffin…

…to reveal that there is nothing inside. Angela's body is gone. Dean is startled; Sam seems too exhausted to even react.

Meanwhile back at Neil's place, Neil unbolts the door leading down to his cellar, and heads down the stairs. And there is Angela, fully embodied, albeit pale and corpse-like, and she smiles when she sees him. What has he done? He doesn't look entirely sure himself, but when she simpers that she missed him and pulls close for a tender embrace, he's not going to argue, instead leaning in for a passionate kiss.

Fortunately, the scene cuts away before we get to any serious necrophilia.

Back at Angela's grave, Sam has now caught up with Dean in the 'this is seriously weird' stakes as they stand staring in utter incomprehension into Angela's empty coffin. Sam notices that the fabric lining the lid of the coffin is torn, revealing symbols carved into the wood. They bend to take a closer look, and Dean remembers where he's seen those kinds of symbol before.

Cut to – next morning. Judging by their appearance, the boys have been back to the motel to shower and change out of their dirty, sweaty, grave-digging outfits in the meantime, but this has merely given time for Dean's anger and outrage to build. He hammers angrily on Doctor Mason's door, and a very anxious Sam cautions him to take it easy. But Dean is in full-blown loose-canon mode right now, and barely even hears him.

Opening the door, Doctor Mason greets them with polite recognition, and Sam starts to smooth their way in, only for Dean to cut across with a belligerent, "We need to talk." Bemused, Doctor Mason invites them in.

Inside the house, Dean's tone is borderline hostile, yet also restrained at this stage, as he shows Doctor Mason a copy of the symbols found in Angela's coffin and asks him what they are, coldly but mildly asking to be humoured when the man expresses confusion.

Still baffled, Doctor Mason stutters that the symbols are an ancient Greek divination ritual, and Dean takes over the translation from there, since as well as stopping off at the motel to shower and change on the way here, the boys also apparently stopped by the library for some research. The symbols are used in necromancy, for communicating with the dead – even bringing the dead back to 'life'. "Full on zombie action."

Doctor Mason agrees, looking bewildered as he adds that this is all mere legend and that he can't see the relevance, wonders what this is all about. Only just hanging on to his temper to begin with, Dean is rapidly losing it now, and Sam is unable to rein him in.

DEAN: "Look, I get it. Okay, there are people that I would give anything to see again. But what gives you the right –?"

He's absolutely seething about this, Sam still can't shut him up, and Doctor Mason is starting to get angry as well, not having the faintest idea what he's talking about.

"What's dead should stay dead," Dean furiously insists. "What you brought back isn't even your daughter any more. These things are vicious, they're violent – they're so nasty they rot the ground around them, I mean, come on: haven't you seen Pet Semetary?"

"You're insane," Doctor Mason concludes, heading for the telephone to call the police.

Blinded by his own wrath at this stage, Dean snatches the phone off him, furiously demanding to be told where Angela is. Starting to seriously panic now, Sam finally gets through to him by pointing out the beautiful, living houseplants dotted around the room. Angela clearly isn't here; her grieving father is innocent. Dean about turns and marches out of the house without another word, and Sam apologises profusely to Doctor Mason before following at speed.

Outside, Sam hurries after Dean, demanding to know what the hell is the matter with him. Not looking at him, not stopping, Dean snarls to back off, but Sam won't let it drop – this has gone too far. Dean ignores him and keeps on about the case, suggesting that maybe Angela is being kept somewhere else. He knows he's out of control, teetering on the edge of a total breakdown at this point, and is clinging to strictly business as a means of staving it off – even though it was the case itself that triggered his current rage. He's got pressures on him that Sam can't see, that he doesn't want Sam to know about, that he can't bring himself to acknowledge even to himself never mind his brother. But trying to repress and internalise what he's going through, as is his usual habit, isn't working, and Sam can't take any more.

SAM: "Enough, Dean. That's enough!"
DEAN: "Sam, I know what I'm doing."
SAM: "No, you don't. At all."

Dean smiles to himself, shaking his head with strained disbelief, but Sam, who is freaking out big time, keeps up his desperate attempt to get through to him and refuses to be brushed off this time.

SAM: "Dean, I don't scare easy, but man – you're scaring the crap out of me."
DEAN: "Don't be over-dramatic, Sam."
SAM: "You're lucky this turned out to be a real case, 'cause if it wasn't, you'd have just found something else to kill."
DEAN: "Wha–?"

Dean stops, looking genuinely startled at this interpretation of his behaviour and attitude. Last episode he was itching for a fight. But this episode he's been desperate for something to do. It's been about the distraction, the desire for something 'normal', something he knows, not the urge for violence. And his reaction to what the case has turned out to be stems from something else entirely.

SAM: "You're on edge. You're erratic. Except for when you're hunting, 'cause then you're downright scary. You're tailspinning, man, and you refuse to talk about it, and you won't let me help you."

Hammering on the emotional walls again, despite the failure of this tactic every single other time he's tried it, but he's frightened and just doesn't know what else to do, can't think of any other way of getting through to his brother. He wants so much to help, for the two of them to share what they are going through, and can't understand why Dean won't let him.

Dean's impassive mask has slid firmly into place while he listened to this heartfelt rant, and he tries to brush it off again. "I can take care of myself, thanks."

But Sam is way past the stage of accepting the brush-off. This is no longer as much about Sam feeling shut out as it is Dean shutting him out – that was last episode. Here and now, Sam has completely forgotten about his own issues and set his own grief aside, he's so desperately worried about his brother, who has been falling apart right before his eyes ever since Devil's Trap. Or even before that – since Salvation.

SAM: "No, you can't. And you know what? You're the only one who thinks you should have to."

But the trouble is that Dean isn't used to accepting emotional support. He's not used to being offered emotional support, having spent so much of his life being strong for the people around him that they mostly seem to have always taken for granted that he could cope with anything. It took the whole of last season for Sam to realise just how much Dean doesn't cope well with, beneath that devil-may-care façade.

SAM [cont.]: "You don't have to handle this on your own, Dean. No one can."
DEAN: "Sam, if you bring up Dad's death one more time, I swear –"
SAM: "Stop. Dean, please. It's killing you. Please."

And that turns full circle on Dean's little speech to Sam way back in Wendigo, that keeping his anger burning over the long haul was going to kill him. And that's what finally gets through. With a little scoff of disbelief, still unwilling to accept what Sam is saying, Dean finally stops and listens, meets his eyes and lets him say his piece, and he's all pale skin, freckles and enormous green eyes, and oh-so pretty.

SAM: "We've already lost Dad. We've lost Mom. I've lost Jessica. And now I'm going to lose you, too?"

Now, that's the key, right there. No longer pushing Dean for Dean's own sake, but for Sam's. Dean will go to immense lengths for Sam where he wouldn't for himself. Here, it doesn't bring about the grand opening up Sam was hoping for – not immediately, anyway – but does very effectively remove the sting of Dean's fury. He already knew he was out of control, and already knew Sam was worried, but Sam laying his fears on the line to him like that is what finally stops him in his tracks and forces him to get a grip on his temper and attitude. No scaring the baby brother.

There's a pause, while Dean fumbles with what he can and can't bring himself to say, and finally opts, as is his wont, for the purely practical. "We'd better get out of here before the cops come." Spoken calmly, the storm over for now.

Sam looks frustrated, taking this as another brush off, but Dean continues: "I hear you. Okay? Yeah, I'm being an ass. And I'm sorry. But right now we've got a freaking zombie running around, we need to figure out how to kill it."

Such a practical soul, right to his core. The job always comes first. He's trying to distract them both with sheer practicalities now, needing to keep going because if he stops now he'll fall. If Sam is emotionally worn out, so is Dean, and he looks so, so earnest. Sam has to laugh, with just a touch of mild hysteria, he's so tired and anxious. "Our lives are weird, man."

"You're telling me," Dean agrees. He continues on to the car, completely focused on the task at hand once more because it's the string holding him together right now. Sam stands and lets out a deep breath, gazing after him with that combination of bone-weariness and extreme anxiety that has filled his entire being throughout the episode.

Cut to: Neil's place. Zombie Angela is still very perky, but Neil is conflicted, knowing in his gut that it was her that killed Matt, despite her denials, and not knowing what to do about it. For all his concern, and for all that he openly acknowledges that she is different, no longer the Angela he knew and loved, she seduces him easily. Again. And again we cut away before the serious necrophilia can begin.

Back at the motel, Sam and Dean try to figure out how to kill zombie Angela.

DEAN: "So we can't just waste her with a headshot?"
SAM: "Dude, you've been watching way too many Romero flicks."

The problem, it seems, is that there is too much lore on zombies, and none of it is consistent. No one seems to agree on how to go about destroying them – Sam has researched a bewildering amount of different theories.

SAM: "Some say setting them on fire. Uh, one said – where is it? Right here. 'Feeding their hearts to wild dogs', that's my personal favourite."

There's no way to tell what's real and what's myth, but a few refer to silver, so that's a place to start, at least. But they still have to find Angela, which means figuring out who brought her back. Since it clearly wasn't her dad, Dean's new number one suspect is Angela's good friend Neil.

"You got your journal, I got mine," he explains, producing Angela's diary, and explaining his theory that the many references to what a loyal, supportive friend Neil is have got 'unrequited ducky love' written all over them. Sam isn't convinced, until Dean pulls out his ace card – Neil is Doctor Mason's TA, with access to all the same books. Definitely the next most likely candidate, Sam has to agree, looking impressed with his brother's investigative skills.

Cut to: Sam and Dean letting themselves into Neil's place.

"Hello? Neil? It's your grief counsellors, we've come to hug." Heh. Dean pulls out his gun, loaded with silver bullets, to back up this claim. "Enough to make her rattle like a change purse."

They search the house, Dean leading, armed, implacable and intense, with Sam bringing up the rear, unarmed and concerned about many things. Sam points out the forlorn and dead pot plants on the sideboard. Angela has definitely been here. Then they reach the securely bolted cellar door.

DEAN: "Unless it's where he keeps his porn."

Hehe – no way he was going to just let that go. Sam looks resigned to the teasing as no more than he expected.

Down in the cellar, they find Neil's little zombie pen. But no Angela. Amusingly, the ceiling is so low Sam can't stand up straight, and Dean only just. The grill across the window has been pulled loose, allowing the zombie to come and go in secret as she pleases.

SAM: "You think Angela's going after somebody?"
DEAN: "Nah, I think she went out to rent Beaches."

Sam gets snotty about this flippancy, earnestly making the point that Angela might kill somebody and that they've got to find her, to which Dean agrees, without pointing out that he's done the lions share of the investigating so far on his own because Sam didn't believe in the case. It's Dean's turn to look tired now. There hasn't been much sleep for either of them the last couple of nights. Dean works through the problem logically – Angela killed Matt because she'd caught him cheating, so –

DEAN: "Well, it takes two to have, you know, hardcore sex."

LOL. Another dig, and this teasing of Sam is so much more like Dean's normal behaviour, for all his unpredictability of late. It's reassuring. Dean waits for Sam's reaction before continuing, remembering that Angela's roommate Lindsey had seemed broken up over Matt's death, really broken up, and deducing that she's as likely a candidate as any.

At Angela and Lindsey's – now just Lindsey's – apartment, Lindsey sits moping over a photograph of Matt and Angela while packing up boxes of presumably Angela's possessions. Hearing a noise outside, she wanders to the door to investigate and, being an idiot, opens the door to see what it is…

It's a nice mislead, because there is nothing outside, although the plants in her hanging basket are very dead, which viewers now know to spot as a warning sign. The danger is already in the apartment with her. Lindsey turns – to find zombie Angela right behind her. "Hi, Lindsey. I'm home," Angela snarls, grabbing her one-time roommate by the hair. Lindsey screams, and the door is slammed shut.

Cut back inside to the same scene. Recovering from her initial paralysing shock, Lindsey breaks free and runs for it, still screaming. Lindsey is a character I can really enjoy just for the sheer interactive entertainment value, vacillating between yelling at her for being an idiot, to cheering her on in this scene. Angela gives chase, snatching up a hefty pair of scissors conveniently left lying around the place. Lindsey squeaks an apology for her little rendezvous with Matt that ended in such tragedy, but zombie Angela is not in any mood to listen, swiping at her with the scissors. Lindsey ducks, proving herself slightly more capable than most females-in-distress. Falling to the ground to avoid the next stab, she kicks out, hard, apparently breaking Angela's leg.

Angela falls facedown on the floor and lies still. Horrified and fearful, Lindsey now wastes all her previous hard work and good sense by turning the zombie over to have a look instead of scarpering. The scissors have plunged into Angela's chest, and she's playing dead. But she's a zombie, already dead, and Lindsey clearly hasn't twigged to the implications of this. With the very shocked and stunned Lindsey leaning over her in a highly vulnerable position, Angela strikes swiftly, grabbing her former friend by the neck in a death grip Lindsey can't escape from, and pulling the scissors from her own chest to finish the job…

Shots ring out. Staggering backward, zombie Angela drops Lindsey. Dean and Sam to the rescue! Angela turns. Dean shoots again, hitting her mid-chest, right in the heart. She staggers again, and then turns and runs, fleeing through the open window that she presumably also got in through. Or that the boys just came through. Dean gives chase, leaving Sam to comfort Lindsey.

Dean returns just moments later, empty-handed. "Damn, that dead chick can run," he complains.

"What now?" Sam wonders, apparently fresh out of ideas and deferring to his brother's wisdom and leadership on this one, since it is so very much Dean's case and for all his earlier questioning of Dean's ability to function. Sam does this a lot. When he can't think what to do, he automatically defaults to the ingrained expectation that Dean will somehow always be able to come up with a solution, no matter what.

Now they go have another chat with Neil, says Dean, without hesitation.

And…it's worth pointing out here that, his assumption that Angela's father was the guilty party aside, Dean has been right about every single aspect of this case so far, and continues in that vein for the remainder of the episode. In that sense, he's pretty much on fire right now, sharp as a tack where figuring out the case all by himself is concerned, with Sam just along for the ride. Although he might be driven by mostly negative emotions right now in place of his usual more altruistic motivations, and although Dean's general unpredictability and volatility, and aggressive handling of Doctor Mason stand as evidence of his increasing instability, the fact is that he's worked this case incredibly well. He is a good hunter, and has a strong instinct for his work. But his reason for immersing himself in this gig is very much the accusation Sam flung at him earlier. Sam was absolutely right about that.

Dean has thrown himself headlong into this case, focused everything he has on it, because he knows damn well he's on the verge of breaking down, buckling under the pressure of the secrets he's keeping and the responsibility he's bearing, and he's desperate to divert his own attention away from all that. That desperation has given an extra edge to his work, but has only been effective up to a point. Distraction or no, the pressure inside is continuing to steadily build up to breaking point.

Pretty night shot of the Impala driving. Inside, the brothers Winchester brainstorm. The silver bullets did something, but not enough, so Sam is searching through the journal for the next likeliest zombie-killing method. 'Nailing the undead back into their grave beds' is the best he can come up with. This presents a whole new conumdrum – how to get Angela back to the cemetery.

Another pretty external shot of the Impala speeding along closes this scene, but draws close enough to the camera for it to be obvious that stuntmen are inside, rather than Jared Padalecki or Jensen Ackles.

Cut to: Neil's office, presumably at the university. Dean and Sam arrive, and Neil is taken by surprise, off-balance and defensive.

DEAN: "I've heard of people doing some pretty desperate things to get laid, but you – you take the cake."

Neil feigns innocence. The boys are having none of it, and lay their cards out on the table. They know what he did. Neil continues to feign innocence, calling them crazy, but where Doctor Mason earlier was absolutely genuine in his confusion, here Neil is far too calm and dismissive to convince.

DEAN: "Your girlfriend's passed her expiration mark, and we're crazy? When someone's gone they should stay gone. You don't mess with that kind of stuff."

He's repeated that line a couple of times now in this episode, that the dead should stay dead, and to Sam as well as the viewers it sounds very much like his grief over John talking. It isn't until the final scene in this episode that we get the payoff, that the real motivation behind his words and anger is revealed.

Sam takes up the cudgels, sounding almost as vehement as his brother as he tells Neil that Angela killed Matt and tried to kill Lindsey. Again, Neil plays dumb, and Dean runs out of patience, swiftly striding behind the desk to haul the man to his feet.

DEAN: "No more crap, Neil. This blood is on your hands. Now, me and him can make this right, but you got to tell us where she is. Tell us!"

Dean looks very scary in his intensity right now, and Neil crumbles in the face of such wrath. Angela is at his house, he mumbles. Dean lets go of him, glances over his shoulder, and sees a row of dead pot plants, asks if he's sure about that.

Neil looks scared. Dean follows his eyes to see a door in the corner of the room, slightly ajar, gets the message, and comes up with a new plan. Raising his voice, he tells Neil it doesn't really matter where Angela is, to kill her they have to perform another ritual over her grave to reverse the one Neil did. Reinforcing this message, he turns to Sam and casually runs off a list of props they are going to need. Sam frowns slightly, but makes no comment, playing along. Dean concludes that Neil should go to the cemetery with them for this ritual. "I'm serious, Neil. Leave with us. Right now."

Trying so hard to save this guy's life, since he's so obviously conflicted, and scared of a lot more than just them, offering him a way out. But Neil doesn't take it, refusing to go. They can't force him. Dean leans in close, and now lowers his voice to whisper final words of advice. "Listen to me. Get out of here as soon as you can. But most of all be cool. No sudden movements. Don't make her mad."

Nothing more they can do here, the brothers leave. Left alone, Neil goes over to that door, and finds Angela standing behind it. He chastises her for leaving the house, but she shows him her wounds – from the scissors and the silver bullets – and asks him to help her. Backing off, he is horrified. Angela implores him to go to the cemetery with her, to stop the Winchesters from killing her. By killing them first, Neil realises, finally comprehending that what he has brought back really isn't the Angela he loved so much, merely an undead perversion of who she once was. She pleads with him to help her. Fearful, and mindful of Dean's parting advice, he plays along with her, telling her to stay where she is while he goes and gets the car.

Outside, his panic breaks out full force as he tries to make a break for it. But Angela is following, realises that he is trying to leave her, and exacts revenge, neatly snapping his neck.

And once again, the human perpetrator of supernatural evil is killed by that supernatural evil, thus freeing the brothers from the moral dilemma of how to deal with him once it's all over. This is not the first time this has happened, nor, I doubt, will it be the last. In terms of wrapping an episode up neatly in the allotted time without repercussions, it's much cleaner this way, albeit a little too clean at times.

Meanwhile at the cemetery, Sam and Dean are busily lighting candles, making this fake ritual look good in hopes that Angela will show.

SAM: "Really think this is gonna work?"
DEAN: "No, not really. But it was the only thing I could come up with."

Both are tense, waiting for Angela to show up, and yet also calm; personal issues can be buried deep at this stage of a hunt. With danger imminent, everything else just fades away; that was the whole point of this. That clarity was what Dean wanted, as a reprieve from his inner turmoil.

A noise, somewhere nearby, is the signal for action stations, that action very much pre-planned. Pulling a gun out of his waistband, Sam moves off to investigate the noise, leaving Dean at the graveside. Sam is the bait for this trap, moving swiftly but cautiously through the graveyard, gun at the ready, scanning all around for the zombie. He stops, hearing movement behind him, and spins – there's Angela. With the gun pointed at her, she pleads for her unlife. "I didn't ask to be brought back. But it's still me. I'm still a person, please."

Sam hesitates for just a second, and then pulls the trigger, grimacing with distaste as he does so. She looks and sounds just like a real person, after all, and you can see written all over his face how much he hates having to shoot her. He gets her almost dead centre of the forehead, possibly flashing back to Dean's remark earlier about headshots. Angela's head snaps back…and then straightens up again. Not a kill. Now she's just angry. Sam runs for it – heading back toward the grave. Angela pursues, catches up with him and brings him down. And this little incident had to be written into the script to cover the fact that Jared Padalecki had managed to break a bone in his hand while filming an earlier stunt. He'll never be allowed to do his own stunts again. Angela grabs Sam's head, clearly intending to snap his neck just like Neil's…

Dean to the rescue. He fires at her, knocking her away from Sam. Then, as she straightens up once more, he fires again, and again, and again – no squeamish face pulling from Dean, merely grim resolution. Being positioned just perfectly, as good fortune would have it, Angela stumbles backward and falls into her own grave. Then, while Sam rolls around on the ground nursing his hand, Dean leaps into action, sprinting to the grave while pulling out a kind of sword, sliding along the ground and into the grave, and plunging the sword into Angela's abdomen: nailing her back into her gravebed as planned.

Another kill for Dean, and he really is scary, a dark, rageful look in his eyes as he drives that metal stake in deep, but when it's done and he straightens back up he just looks haunted. "What's dead should stay dead," he huskily tells both himself and Angela's corpse. It's enough to make your heart break, knowing what's coming.

Morning. Dean and Sam finish patting down the earth on Angela's grave, newly filled in once more. So – they left the grave lying open all the previous day, the empty coffin displayed for the world to see? Also, how did Sam manage to shovel with his injured hand?

SAM: "Rest in peace."
DEAN: "Yeah, for good, this time, okay."

Sam very nearly chuckles in reaction to his brother's inevitable twisted humour. Then, shouldering his shovel with a little wince and nursing his still painful wrist, he applauds Dean's sharp thinking with the whole fake ritual trap for Angela, before bemoaning his own use as the bait.

DEAN: "I figured you were more her type, you know, she had pretty crappy taste in guys."
SAM: "I think she broke my hand."
DEAN [chuckling]: "You're just too fragile. We'll get it looked at later."

They are now walking back to the car, and this very short route somehow takes them right past Mary Winchester's grave. Even though when Dean originally noticed Angela's grave it was nowhere near where Sam was mourning at Mary's. Anyway, he stops and gazes at his mother's headstone. Sam notices, and quietly asks if he wants to stay for a while. But Dean shakes his head and continues on to the car, still can't bring himself to go anywhere near that headstone. They dump their coats and shovels back in the trunk, and head out of town, Sam still favouring his injured hand, although he has a lot more use of it than you'd expect, given that JP really did have a broken bone in his hand while filming.

On the road, the Impala speeds along through beautiful Canadian scenery there in Kansas, or wherever they are currently meant to be. Inside, Sam looks pensive, while Dean's face is set like stone as he continues to struggle internally. Breaking point finally reached and difficult decision made, he pulls the car over to the side of the road and jumps out. Without a word, he slowly walks to the front of the car and leans against the hood, attempting to hang onto what's left of his composure, which isn't much.

Sam gets out and approaches, but doesn't get too close, keeping the car between them as he asks what's wrong.

Not looking at him, Dean says he's sorry, and Sam asks for what, as if he hasn't just spent half of the episode expressing deep concern over his brother's behaviour, attitude, and refusal to accept help with his grieving process.

"The way I've been acting," Dean says, after a long pause. Sam reads this as a cue that it's safe to get a little closer now, and hesitantly moves to sit alongside his brother on the hood of the car, but not too close. Personal space is still much wider than it had been just a few episodes ago, before everything fell apart so completely.

There's silence for a moment. After all his desperate hammering on Dean's emotional defences for the last few episodes, Sam seems almost afraid to speak now, for fear of breaking the spell, instead allowing Dean to take his time. Still not looking at him, Dean eventually adds: "And for Dad. He was your Dad too."

Sam's head whips around to gaze in some alarm at his brother, who continues to stare fixedly at the road before him.

"It's my fault that he's gone," Dean continues.

Sam doesn't get it yet – doesn't want to get it – and softly asks what he's talking about, keeping his voice low, kind of like you'd talk to a skittish animal you don't want to spook.

DEAN: "I know you've been thinking it, so have I. Doesn't take a genius to figure it out. Back at the hospital, I had a full recovery. It was a miracle."

I said after Everybody Loves A Clown that they had to have figured out what John had done but couldn't bring themselves to admit it, and so it turns out. Dean has turned to meet Sam's eyes now, just for a moment, but this doesn't last long and he quickly looks away once more.

DEAN: "Then five minutes later Dad's dead and the Colt's gone."
SAM: "Dean –"
DEAN: "You can't tell me there's not a connection."

Sam says nothing. There's nothing he can say. He has to have made that same connection himself, whether he wanted to acknowledge it or not. But it doesn't seem to have occurred to him that Dean's recent erratic behaviour was fuelled by anything other than grief pure and simple, similar to his own; hasn't come close to realising just how many other burdens and pressures his brother has been labouring under. Sam is grieving for a father he regrets not having been closer to, and assumed Dean's anguish stemmed very simply from grief for a father he had been very close to. And, as much as he's been putting so much pressure on Dean to share his feelings with him, he was completely unprepared for this confession.

DEAN: "I don't know how the Demon was involved. I don't know how the whole thing went down, exactly. But Dad's dead because of me. That much I do know."

Dean's gazing dead ahead at nothing in particular again, unable to face Sam as he owns up to his perceived culpability and guilt. Sam, for his part, has gone from stricken to deeply concerned to choking up through all this, keeping his eyes firmly fixed on his brother.

SAM: "We don't know that. Not for sure."

That's almost word for word the denial Dean offered Sam back in Salvation, when Sam was swaying beneath the burden of guilt on hearing almost concrete confirmation that Mary and Jessica's deaths had come about because of the Demon's interest in him. The same denial, for the same reason: the desperate need to take a brother's pain away, whether the words of that denial are true or not. And it's not the first time Sam has repeated Dean's advice back at him.

"Sam." Dean almost chokes the word out, and Sam falls silent again, allowing him to finish saying what he needs to say. "You and Dad, you're the most important people in my life. And now? I never should have come back, Sam, it wasn't natural, and now look what's come of it."

It wasn't natural. Now go back and watch the last two episodes again through those eyes. Dean's self-loathing in Bloodlust takes on a whole new level of meaning. 'If it's supernatural, we kill it', he vehemently insisted in that episode. To Dean, supernatural is synonymous with evil, and twice now his life has been bought back by unnatural – supernatural – means, paid for by the life of another. Having devoted his life to saving others, he was horrified enough at the thought of a complete stranger dying for him, believing it a price too high to pay for his own life; how much worse must it be knowing that this time the life exchanged for his was that that of his own father, who he worshipped? Plus, since season one made it clear that Dean suffers from very low self-esteem, never quite believing himself capable of living up to John's expectations of him no matter how hard he tries, he's got to feel enormously unworthy and overwhelmed at the thought of having to continue John's work without him, trying to fill those shoes – trying to somehow make John's sacrifice worth something without ever believing such justification possible.

No wonder he's got such crippling survivor guilt, holding himself responsible for causing death and suffering to the people he loves, robbing John of his life and Sam of his father, when all he's ever really wanted was to have his family together and safe. Dean's own life, his healing, was what destroyed that dream forever. His explosion of helpless rage and frustration at the end of Everybody Loves A Clown also takes on new meaning in the light of this conversation.

DEAN: "I was dead. I should have stayed dead. You wanted to know how I was feeling. Well, that's it."

I should have stayed dead – that level of absolute despair has got to be devastating for Sam to hear. There's just nothing he can say. Father or brother, who would he prefer to lose, who would he prefer to have with him still? It's an impossible choice. For better or worse, John made that choice for all three of them, which was an amazing thing to do for his son – greater love hath no man, and all that – but he's not the one that has to live with the consequences.

Dean's eyes are brimming with tears, and Sam has to look away, biting back tears of his own. He wanted to know, and he wanted to help, but now he just feels helpless. All this time, he hadn't realised just how much weight his brother has been carrying around, weight that his own grief and intense pressure to share has only added to, and now that he knows, there's nothing he can do or say to make it better.

Having kept his eyes firmly averted throughout, Dean now turns to face Sam, manly tears spilling down his cheeks. "So tell me, what could you possibly say to make that all right?"

After so stubbornly resisting Sam's attempts at making him open up for so long, Dean is laying himself right on the line now, absolutely naked. For someone like Dean, that takes a hell of a lot of trust, and it can't be taken back later. Sam will always know what lies behind the mask now.

Sam has to look away. He pushed those defences until they finally came down right on top of him, and he wasn't prepared for what lay behind. There's absolutely nothing he can say to make this any better, and any attempt before he's had a chance to process would probably only make things worse. Dean nods, as though this reaction is no more than he was expecting, and averts his eyes once more.

Dean almost never externalises his emotions and, on the very rare occasions that he does, the confidence is generally brought about by pressure from outside and is made as a simple statement of fact, discouraging further conversation, rather than in either desire or expectation of getting anything back. In Something Wicked it was necessary to relate a painful experience for the sake of the case; in Shadow things were coming to an alarming head and Sam caught him off-guard then pushed his back against the wall until he snapped and confessed what he really thought; and in Salvation – which was the most emotionally exposed he's ever been before this scene – it was the only way to bring Sam down from his near-suicidal death-or-glory charge.

Here, Dean's question was rhetorical – he's not expecting Sam to answer, and he's not looking for comfort. He knows in his heart that there's nothing to say, and just wants Sam to understand why talking about it isn't going to help. He's confiding in Sam because he can't keep it in any longer, and because Sam has asked it of him, because Sam's words earlier made him see just how badly he was failing in internalising his trauma and how much he was hurting his brother with the attempt. So – having waited for a time and place where he can at least maintain a little control, rather than unleashing in the heat of an argument – he's just apologising for his behaviour, and attempting to explain it. Sam, bless his well-meaning heart, has been so insistent that Dean would feel better if he just talked about it and allowed Sam to help, and been hurt by Dean's refusal of that help, so Dean is trying to explain why Sam can't help him. This is about trying to quell Sam's fears and gain his understanding, not asking Sam to ease his own pain.

Just listening in silence, as he does, is the best comfort Sam can offer at this stage. Trying to validate Dean's continued existence is a much bigger job that's going to take a hell of a long time, and this just isn't the time or place for it. Dean isn't ready to hear it, having been taken for granted by too many people for too much of his life, and being consumed with pain just at the moment. And Sam still doesn't know the half of it.

Close on the boys, distressed.


October 2006

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