"Dude, you, like, full on had a girl inside you for, like, a whole week. That's pretty naughty."

First thought: this episode is made of awesome. Seriously.

Then. Is it bad that I'm happy to have the recap back? I missed it last week.

We get a brief reminder of the mission statement of the Family Winchester, before Jo angrily tells Dean that his father got her father killed. Sam wonders if the yellow-eyed Demon is pushing his chosen children, trying to break them, and Bobby explains to the boys that Meg is possessed and that the devil's trap on his ceiling will trap any demon. Only it sounds like they re-recorded Bobby's words instead of using the soundtrack from Salvation, for some reason. Unless I'm hearing it wrong. He sounds different. Anyway. Dean confesses to Sam that John's final words were that if he couldn't save Sam, he'd have to kill him, and Sam is furious that this was kept from him. "You're not careful, you will have to waste me one day, Dean," Sam seethes, and the entire viewing audience hopes like hell that those words are not prophetic.

Now.

It is pouring with rain, and Dean is on the phone to Ellen, frantic. Sam has gone missing. Again. I said last week that Dean should put a collar and leash on him. Now I'm thinking a homing device might be more appropriate – one of those little chip things they put under the skin for beloved pets, maybe. I love the editing on this scene, all jerky and stop-start, reflecting Dean's intensely panic-stricken state of mind. "I swear, it's like looking for my dad all over again, I'm losing my mind here."



Fifty-three seconds into the episode and Dean's already losing his mind. Yup, we're in for a roller-coaster ride this week. I love it when they start an episode mid-action like this instead of building up to it slowly. Also – 'it's like looking for dad all over again'? Dean kept such a good lid on his feelings about John's disappearance last season, so rarely allowing the fear to show, but the implication is that deep down he was feeling pretty much like this about it, which is awesome to project back onto those early episodes when he was being so supportive of Sam in his initial Jessica grief. He had to be strong for Sam, and was better able to achieve that then. Now, with John gone and Sam missing, he's unravelling. We can also project this kind of blind panic back onto the early stages of Hunted, where Dean's reaction to Sam taking off was not really shown. And Sam did that on purpose, knowing full well what it would do to his brother.

Dean and Ellen totally relate to one another in a parent kind of way, increasingly so as time goes by, despite the fact that Dean is Sam's brother not his parent. In the midst of parental-style near-hysteria to Ellen about Sam's disappearance, Dean gets call-interrupt, and it's Sam. The panicky scene cutting continues as Dean calms Sam down, gets his location, and takes off. But in the midst of Dean's frantic scene-cuts we get a more lingering shot of Sam putting his phone down, quiet and sombre, with bloody knuckles, and the stillness of that shot is a very effective contrast. Then we're back to the flash-cuts with Dean, speeding toward the town of Twin Lakes. It's totally the same stretch of road used to approach Nazareth in Phantom Traveller, but we'll glide past that fact.

While Sam just sits on the bed in his random motel room, quiet and still, the flash-cutting of Dean's frantic rush to reach him continues as he arrives at the motel, practically sprints down the corridor, checking room numbers, and finally reaches Sam's room.

Dean bangs on the door and calls for Sam, who doesn't answer. The eerie soundtrack I tend to think of as 'demon music' has started to play in the background, which is pretty much the biggest clue of all as to what's going on here. Dean tries the door, finds it unlocked, and very cautiously enters, and I appreciate his caution here so much. Because for all that he is absolutely frantic about Sam, he's still got his wits about him and knows that something is seriously wrong here and that he needs to be careful.

That caution goes out of the window when he sees blood all over Sam's hands and shirt, and he's all, "Are you bleeding?" and pawing at the shirt trying to work out what the injury is, and we're on two minutes exactly and already it's manlove overload. Make the most of it while it lasts. The flash-cutting vanishes the moment Dean's in the room with Sam, which is the moment his oh-my-god-I've-lost-Sammy panic vanishes to be replaced by oh-god-what-the-hell-happened? fear and trepidation.

And I'm going to be spoilerific now, and also be honest and say that I was spoiled before viewing for the fact that Sam was possessed in this episode, but I didn't know when or for how long. Going into the first viewing, I had no idea whether Sam really was possessed all the way through, or if he'd genuinely thrown it off at least for a while, or if it had left him and returned later, or what. From his initial behaviour, he could just as easily have suffered a complete psychotic breakdown, which would be totally plausible given what we know of the yellow-eyed Demon and its plans, and Sam's current state of mind, especially after his loss of faith in Houses of the Holy.

So my initial reaction to Sam throughout the first half of the episode was all about trying to work out if it really was Sam or not. And, of course, now that I know, that knowledge can't help but affect the way I analyse his behaviour. In fact, it makes it pretty much impossible to analyse his behaviour. So I'm just going to state for the record right now that Sam is possessed in this scene, and, in fact, for almost the entire episode hereafter.

But Demon!Sam is very, very good at pretending to be the real thing – almost scarily good. And Dean doesn't let himself see that it is an act, even though there are signs there. He's just so relieved that he's got Sam back where he can see him, he wants to focus on that and worry about the rest later. Sam acts and reacts pretty much just like Sam, and the oddities to his behaviour could be explained by any number of things, none of which Dean really wants to think about, at least not until he has all the facts at his disposal, and maybe not even then. And the pace of events is so fast, Dean doesn't really have time to stop and think things through at all.

Ahem. Back to the action. Sam kind of brokenly chokes that he doesn't think it's his blood. Dean, still frantic but in that tightly controlled way he gets when he's trying to hold things together for Sam's sake, rather than the near hysteria we saw earlier, tries questioning him, but Sam isn't able to answer any of the questions. "Dean, I don't remember anything," he whimpers.

Titles.

Motel. It's a little while later. Dean returns to Sam's room carrying a big brown paper bag of supplies, and a bottle of coke. Dean's shoulders look seriously enormous in this episode, and I can't take my eyes off them. He's also been scouting around for information, which Sam anxiously asks him about.

"You checked in two days ago under the name 'Richard Sambora'," says Dean. "I think the scariest part of this whole thing is the fact that you're a Bon Jovi fan." Hee. And also: classic Dean-style diversion, not wanting to actually deal with what's happening here, using humour to try to ease the tension of a bad situation. Sam's room has been quiet, he continues. Nobody has noticed anything unusual.

"You mean no one saw me walking around covered in blood?" Sam bites out.

"Yeah, that's what I mean," Dean concedes with a dismissive little shrug, having not wanted to actually say that part out loud. Saying things out loud makes them real.

"Then how the hell did I get here, Dean? What happened to me?" Ah, Sam. Even if those questions are partly rhetorical, there's still also, always, more than a hint of little brother expecting big brother to have all the answers, to be able to fix things for him. And that is very convincingly Sam.

"You're okay, that's what matters. Everything else we can deal with," Dean firmly states, which pretty much sums up his entire philosophy of life this season. Dean's whole world, already dangerously small, has shrunk to a pinpoint: Sam and Sam alone, getting him through whatever is coming. There's no room for any thought of after.

Sam isn't giving up the self-flagellation that easily, wondering with some distress if he might have hurt someone, or worse. Dean doesn't want to think about that. Dean gives the impression of wishing he could make all of this go away and never have happened just by ignoring it, if only Sam would play along. But Sam won't stop pushing, in true pessimistic Sam fashion, which is what makes the demon inside him so convincing; this is how Sam would react. "What if this is what Dad warned you about?" he presses, planting the seeds of that possibility in Dean's mind right from the start.

Dean simply will not go down that road. "Whoa, let's not jump the gun here, we don't know what happened." He insists that they have to treat his just like any other job, asking what's the last thing Sam remembers.

The last thing Sam remembers is the two of them at a motel in West Texas going out to grab some burgers, and that, it turns out, was over a week ago. Dean seems pretty incredulous that Sam has lost that much memory, which he surely wouldn't be so much if Sam had been missing that long. So it may have been some time after that that Sam disappeared. I don't think we are ever told exactly how long Sam has been missing, although it is clearly longer than two days, since that's when he checked into this motel. But we don't know when exactly it was that Sam was possessed, or how soon afterward he pulled his disappearing act.

As for how it happened – emotional vulnerability gives the demon an in, we've had that explained to us more than once. And Sam was pretty raw at the end of the last episode, whenever that was; we don't know how much time has passed, beyond that it is clearly at least a couple of weeks. He was vulnerable, and the demon took advantage of that. And now Dean is the only one of the three Winchester boys not to have been possessed by a demon.

Anyway, West Texas was the last thing Sam remembers before waking up bloody in this motel right here, he confirms. "Felt like I'd been asleep for a month."

Dean is working very hard at staying calm and thinking rationally, suggesting that they re-trace Sam's steps, and wandering over to the window to have a look out that way, since the manager never saw him come back after he went out last night. Bloody fingerprints are on the window handle the first thing he sees on pulling back the net curtain. Looks like that's how Sam got back in without being seen. Although surely the manager doesn't just sit there monitoring the front door around the clock? That's what guests have keys for, surely.

Out back of the motel. Having clambered out of the window in order to re-trace Sam's steps, the brothers wander randomly, Dean hoping to trigger a memory for Sam. That eerie demon music starts up again in the background, as the demon possessing Sam does a marvellous job of pulling the wool over his anxious brother's eyes, looking all fearful and uneasy and Sam as he first denies all memory of the place, and then plays at vague déjà vu to direct Dean to a row of lock-ups nearby, even pointing him to the right one, and Dean completely goes with it. I would say I'm disappointed Dean doesn't find this suspicious – he twigged to Demon!John quickly enough, and Sam was onto Shapeshifter!Dean within moments – but Sam has had 'feelings' about stuff like this before, and they've been connected to his vision mojo rather than indicative of demonic possession, so we'll let Dean off the hook for not distrusting him more here. After all, the whole point of re-tracing Sam's steps is to try to trigger his memory of the last few days, so this reaction to the garage is in line with what Dean wanted to achieve, rather than standing out as clearly manipulative.

The garage Sam points to is padlocked. He pulls a 'huh?' face, digs a hand into a pocket – and there's the key. A little puzzled, but accepting this as buried memory, Dean opens the door to reveal a dirty, rusting little blue beetle inside. Dean pulls a face reminiscent of his horrified reaction to Jo's musical taste in Simon Said. "Please tell me you didn't steal this?"

Hee. Dean is so fixated on the superficial details throughout this episode, because those are so much more preferable to thinking about the more serious implications. Beneath his businesslike façade, he's freaking out big time, and you can see it in his eyes. And once you've seen the episode through and know that Dean being freaked out, and scared, and desperate is pretty much the whole point of all of this, scenes like this hit all the harder. The demon is toying with him, for the sheer fun of causing and watching his distress.

Our boys examine the car, which – in keeping with the tradition of the show – is unlocked. 'Fingerprints! Please, you're killing me!' I wail at my screen as their bare fingers are run over just about every surface in search of clues of any description. Sam spots more blood on the steering wheel and wipes a finger through it, just to make absolutely sure his fingerprints are present, and is all wide-eyed horrified at the implication – more so than ever when Dean directs his attention to something on the floor behind the driver's seat.



It's a knife, so covered with congealed blood it's sticking to the floor of the car, which is just gruesome. Sam picks it up, dismayed and aghast. "You think I used this on someone?" he quavers, all big scared eyes in that way that always hot-wires straight into Dean's little-brother-protection mechanisms.

"I'm not thinking anything," Dean faux-casually insists, all bravado. And seriously, the evidence against Sam is really stacking up here, but Dean doesn't want to acknowledge any of it. He will not believe, won't allow himself to believe, that Sam could ever be evil. This whole thing must be like the worst imaginable waking nightmare for him, ever since the moment he found Sam missing.

Sam gets all twitchy and scared and starts frantically wiping his prints off the knife with his jacket, and finally! Someone's doing something about the evidence they keep littering around crime scenes, and it took a demon to think of it. Sheesh.

"Okay, now this is disturbing." Dean spots something else – a packet of cigarettes on the floor of the passenger side. He gives Sam a really stern look, like catching little brother smoking is so much worse than the bloody knife. Or, you know, he's clinging to it as potential evidence in Sam's favour. "Come on, man, this couldn't have been you. It had to have been someone else, somebody who smokes [sniff] menthols."

Sam then pulls out a more useful bit of evidence, all solemn earnestness as he waves a receipt from a gas station a few towns over. Now that's a lead that can be followed.

Tasty Express Gas Station. With a job to work, a puzzle to put together, and a Sam to reassure, Dean's in full-on coping mode now, calm and confident and practical. This is a guy who needs to be needed. Sam's need gives him focus and allows him to function, and that's what he's doing here. Take that away from him, and he crumbles.

The gas station isn't ringing any bells for Sam, so they head inside to see if the cashier remembers him.

He does. Vividly. So much so that he immediately snatches up the phone to call the police. Seems Sam made rather a bad impression when he visited the previous day, helping himself to a drink and imbibing on the spot rather than paying, then throwing the bottle at the cashier when he complained and making off with a packet of cigarettes, also unpaid for. The smoking and drinking part of Sam's possession totally doesn't mean anything in plot terms, other than to be out of character and set alarm bells ringing. Not!Sam's shock on hearing all this – feigned as we later know it to be – is spot-on for Real!Sam. And Dean's rising incredulity on hearing the tale is fabulous. "This guy?" he keeps querying, as if he can't quite believe his ears.

With the cashier so hostile, Dean sends Sam to wait in the car so he can talk to the guy alone, asking where Sam went when he took off the previous day. The disgruntled cashier sees no reason in the world why he should answer any questions Dean has, until Dean resignedly hauls out his wallet to pay for whatever Sam took. And then some more, because the guy is totally pushing his luck and Dean wants answers too badly to protest. Dean is all freckles and big green eyes this episode. And shoulders. Mmm.

DEAN: "You saw him smoking?"
CASHIER: "Yeah. Guy's a chimney."

Hee. Also, yuck. The demon has been using Sam's lungs to smoke. If he gets lung cancer, he should totally sue! *G* Dean's incredulity at what Sam's been up to during his absence is just so endearing, especially since the drinking and smoking is what's bothering him the most as out of character for Sam, rather than the blood and knife that he doesn't want to think about. But he hasn't put the pieces together yet – or maybe doesn't want to. Once he's got the information he needs, that Sam headed north on leaving the gas station, out of town on Route 71, he helps himself to a couple of Twix's for his money and departs to pick up the trail once more.

On the road. It's now dark, and it was broad daylight in the last scene, so it seems safe to say the brothers have been driving north for a while now, hoping to pick up some kind of trail. Sam just sits and stares out of the window, impassive, while Dean starts to fidget. "What's going on with you, Sam?" he asks at last. "'Cause smoking, throwing bottles at people – that sounds more like me than you."

Except that we've never seen Dean smoking, and we've never really seen him behave violently toward anyone that didn't deserve it, or that he didn't believe deserved it. But what he means is that belligerence is part of his image, and isn't for Sam.

Sam doesn't answer the question, getting agitated instead and insisting that Dean turn right down a road they are approaching. "I don't know how I know, I just do!" he frets. And, just like with the garage, Dean accepts that, unquestioned, as either instinct or repressed memory coming through, and takes the turn. But he does not look happy.

The Impala pulls up outside a very big, very secure-looking house. Motion detectors cause lights to come on as the car passes, and as the boys approach the house another light comes on to illuminate in their faces for the camera mounted above it. "Whoever lives here, I'd say they don't like being surprised," Sam notes.

"Should we knock?" Dean sounds uncertain now. Sam agrees that they might as well, but as Dean knocks on the door, Sam doesn't bother hanging around to see if anyone will answer. He already knows that they won't. Instead, he draws his brother's attention to a broken window, and Dean is surprised that the cops haven't shown, as this looks like the kind of place that would have an alarm. Sam leaves Dean to examine the window and wanders around to the side of the house so he can draw Dean's attention to the next bit of evidence – the disabled alarm system. And it's all cleverly done, because once you know that Sam is possessed it is easy to see that he is playing games, deliberately pointing out his own handiwork to Dean. But for someone not in the know, like Dean, his actions come across as completely innocent and unremarkable. They are there to case the joint and that's what Sam is doing, and it is something he's done many times before and is good at, so obviously he's going to spot details like the window and alarm.

Inside the house. It is a mess, with broken fixtures and fittings everywhere. Whatever happened here, one hell of a fight went down first. The boys start to search the place, and they still don't have gloves and are still leaving fingerprints everywhere, inciting viewers to absolute despair.

On the floor of the study, the boys find a male corpse lying sprawled on the floor. Dean nudges the body with his foot, just to be sure, and behind him Sam shoots sly little side eyes in his direction that are so easy to miss, just drinking in Dean's reaction and loving it. Sam hits the lights, and Dean rolls the corpse onto his back for examination, which is easier said than done thanks to the vast quantities of congealing blood sticking him to the carpet. Which: gross. The cause of death isn't hard to spot – he's had his throat slit. Dean looks kind of despairing and Sam looks like he's going to be sick. Demon!Sam really has got Real!Sam's emo-ness down to a fine art.



"Dean, I did this," Sam chokes.

"We don't know that," Dean immediately counters, King of Denial as he is. Dean would argue that black is white rather than believe the worst of Sam.

"Dean, what else do you need?" Sam insists, frustrated. And the real Sam is so pessimistic about his fate that he'd take that line, as well, which is why it convinces, but here the demon is totally using Sam's own reactions in order to push Dean, trying to find his breaking point. "I mean how else do you explain the car, the knife, the blood…"

Dean snaps, "I don't know, man, why don't you tell me?" He takes a breath, mind racing in search of potential escape routes from just how bad this is. "Look, even if you did do this, I'm sure you had a reason – self defence, uh, he was a bad son of a bitch, something."

Oh, Dean. So desperate, even in the face of all the evidence against Sam. Behind his back, Sam rolls his eyes at Dean's desperation to rationalise his actions, and is just totally evil for that split second, and then totally emo again a second later.

Dean pats the body down for identification and finds none, and then Sam asks for his lockpick to gain access to a large closet that he has no reason at all to find suspicious. He just wants Dean to know the full and ghastly truth, and Dean is too busy fretting to question him. Inside that closet is a large weapons stash, pages of research pinned all over the walls. The dead man was a hunter, just like the brothers. Things are just looking worse and worse, because Sam turning evil and losing control is what the brothers have been afraid of all season, it's what John warned Dean about. If he can't save Sam, he might have to kill him, and this right here is so very, very bad. If Sam truly did this, how can Dean save him from that?

Dean spots another security camera mounted in a corner of the room, offering conclusive evidence, one way or another, and suggests they find out for sure. Which is sensible, even though he has to realise by now that the evidence is not going to give him the result he so desperately craves.

Also, this is a pretty big, grand house, with hugely impressive security – unlike any other hunter we've ever seen. Just goes to show how diverse they all are, from the itinerants like the Winchesters and Gordon, to those settled in one spot like Bobby, Pastor Jim, or the Harvelles; from the rough-and-ready to the comfortably well off. So many variations on that one vocation.

The security camera footage is pretty damn damning. It shows Sam, resembling nothing so much as the Incredible Hulk, fighting with the hunter, overpowering him, and slitting his throat. It's probably wrong that I find part of this fight funny as hell, as Sam knocks the guy to the ground and then scuttles over to have at him again, because Sam is just too damn big to scuttle gracefully and kind of lumbers instead, all Hulk-like. But anyway. From where Dean is standing, there can be no two ways about it: Sam killed the guy and now claims to have no memory of the event. The yellow-eyed Demon has plans for Sam and children like him, and nearly every other psychic the brothers have met has left a trail of death and destruction in his or her wake. John warned Dean that if he couldn't save Sam he'd have to kill him.

The demon possessing Sam knows exactly what it is doing here, setting this situation up very, very deliberately. Sam knows Dean better than anyone in the world, knows all his weak spots, and the demon has access to all of that knowledge now that it is inside Sam, and is using it against both of them in order to manoeuvre Dean into a very tight corner from which there can be no escape.

Watching the security footage, Sam pulls his very best wide-eyed puppy-dog, oh-my-god-what-have-I-done? what-am-I-turning-into? look, employing it to best effect. Dean just looks appalled.

We jump forward a few minutes. Dean is now frantically wiping down every surface the brothers could conceivably have laid hands upon, which is twice in this episode that fingerprints have been wiped down, and I'm enormously gratified, but still think gloves would be a safer option. When the going gets tough, Dean gets practical. It's how he copes. He's almost as frantic now as he was at the start of the episode when Sam was missing, only in a more controlled way, because he always tries so hard to hold things together for Sam's sake. Only one of them gets to wig out at a time, and this one is all Sam's. Or would be, if it really was Sam. But Dean doesn't know that, hasn't had time to stop and think things through. He's just reacting to a horrific chain of events that have got to be his worst nightmare come true. Sam, on the other hand, just sits, quietly freaking out, reading a letter from the hunter's daughter, who seems to be away at college. I hope one of them thinks to wipe that letter down, too, because paper retains fingerprints better than a lot of other surfaces.

"How do you erase this?" Dean asks of the security tape footage, making a very conscious decision to keep anyone from ever knowing his brother had any part in this murder. That's aiding and abetting, right? But this situation is for him and Sam to deal with, and them alone, in Dean's opinion; that much is clear. He wants no outside intervention muddying these already murky waters, no matter how this came about, which has yet to be determined. Destroying the evidence at the crime scene buys them a little breathing space; time to process and search for a solution – hopefully a solution that doesn't involve any kind of confirmation that Sam has started down that dark road planned for him by the yellow-eyed demon.

Dean points out that since the dead guy is a hunter, other hunters are likely to come looking for him, which means they have to cover their tracks from them as well as the cops. Sam continues to mope, brokenly, and his misery is every bit as in character as Dean's fierce pragmatism. The demon is doing a very good job of being Sam. The hunter's name was Steve Wandell, Sam says, showing Dean the letter. Naming the victim and acknowledging his loved ones and dependents humanises him, transforms him from anonymous corpse to person, and that is for Dean's benefit, to drive home the enormity of what Sam has done – or rather, what the demon has done using Sam's body. It needs Dean to believe the absolute worst, that this is the big, fat It: point of no return.

There's a pause. Sam sits and stares into thin air, desolate. Dean stands alongside him, almost quivering with desperate energy, trying so hard to process, to think of a way out of this for both of them. So determined not to believe the worst, whatever the evidence might say. He picks up the computer's hard drive and smashes it to bits. Security camera footage erased, I guess, as long as the damage is severe enough. That's one problem removed, and he gives Sam a look that's almost defiant, daring him to argue against covering this up, fierce in his determination to fix this, somehow – anyhow.

Demon!Sam looks ever so slightly awed by the lengths Dean will go to in order to protect his little brother, and also frustrated. Through Sam it knows Dean inside out, and yet it still keeps underestimating him. That probably says something about Sam, come to think about it. Sam knows Dean better than anyone in the world and still doesn't really understand him.

Motel. The brothers arrive back, shattered. "All right, we'll get a couple of hours sleep and then we'll put this place in our rear view mirror," says Dean, as if they can solve the problem simply by putting distance between them and it and pretending it doesn't exist. Denial has been his favoured coping mechanism for so long it's second nature. But Sam isn't going to let him deny his way out of this one and keeps pushing, laying bare the full enormity of what is happening here – what seems to be happening here, what the demon has set it up to look like, which is that Sam murdered an innocent man in cold blood.

"Maybe. We don't kn – shapeshifter!" Dean is clutching at straws now in his panic not to believe the worst. Sam scoffs, pointing out that there was no retinal reaction to the camera, which means it was definitely him. The fatalism is all Sam, but the scorn is all demon, if Dean was in any state of mind to notice that. "It wasn't you!" he insists, desperate and agitated. "I mean, yeah, it might have been you, but it wasn't you." That makes very little sense, and yet is so close to the truth.

"I think it was," Sam gruffly states, diverting Dean's attention back to the train of thought the demon wants him to follow, rather than allowing him to pursue the Not-Sam line of reasoning to its logical conclusion, not giving him time to pause, take stock and rationalise. He ups the ante a little more by telling Dean that for a few weeks now he's been having weird 'feelings'. "Rage. Hate. And I can't stop it. It just gets worse. Day by day, it just gets worse."

Viewers worriedly wonder if that is actually true or if the demon is just lying through Sam's teeth there, and Dean is taken aback, wondering why Sam never told him this.

"I didn't want to scare you," Sam tremulously claims.

Dean rolls his eyes. "Well, bang up job on that." Heh.

Determined to drive his point home, Sam reminds Dean that the yellow-eyed demon has plans for him and has turned other children into killers before.

"No one can control you but you," Dean vehemently insists. Which is totally not true in the present context, since Sam currently has a demon controlling his every move. But in terms of the bigger picture, with the yellow-eyed demon and all, I really hope that the real Sam is awake and listening to that part. He needs that kind of affirmation.

Sam is allowing his fatalism full rein now, wallowing in the awfulness of what is happening to him and how he has to face up to what he is becoming and who he really is. And that the real Sam would react like this if the worst did start to happen is not just believable but probable. Both brothers are getting really steamed up now because Dean does not want to listen to any of this, and Sam is determined that he is going to, reminding him of John's last command. "Dad told you that if it ever came to this…"

Clever use of semantics there, implying that the final hour is already here, that this really is IT, crunch time: no way out. This season has had a tremendous air of impending doom about it, and one of the reasons this episode works so well is that it totally subverts that, making both the characters and viewers believe that the waiting is over and that the worst is upon us already. It's easier in many ways to ride the roller coaster of non-stop action once it starts than it is to just sit in limbo and wait for the worst to hit you, imagining and fearing how bad it could be. At least when it happens you know what the worst looks like and can begin to deal with it. But the twist in the tail is still to come, and with it the second half of this story.

"Dean, you promised him. You promised me." The demon possessing Sam knows exactly which buttons to press, knows exactly where to slide the knife in for maximum effect.

Dean maintains his resolve. "No. Listen to me. We're going to figure this out, okay? I mean there's gotta be a way, right?"

"Yeah, there is," Sam softly tells him, picking up a gun. "I don't wanna hurt anyone else." He holds the gun out, thumping it against Dean's chest. Dean just stares at him in disbelief. "I don't wanna hurt you," Sam continues. Oh, and that's rich once you know it's the demon saying it and that he's saying it specifically to hurt Dean. What it is with these demons and the emotional torture?

"You won't," Dean insists, not moving a muscle to either take the gun or push it away. He's trying to talk Sam down instead. "Whatever this is, you can fight it."

"No, I can't. Not forever." Sam's tearful and distraught, and it's heartbreaking to see, and still a damn good performance by the demon. How complicated must it be, from an acting point of view, to act like someone acting as your regular character? Jared Padalecki gets to play three different personas in this episode: Sam, the demon pretending to be Sam, and the demon itself. He pushes the gun at Dean again. "Here, you got to do it."

Dean still won't take the gun, so Sam places it in his hand and lets go. Dean looks at him, and then down at the gun, deeply distressed. "You know, I've tried so hard to keep you safe."

"I know," Sam chokes, visibly steeling himself for the shot. If Dean did shoot him, he wouldn't die – the demon within would keep him alive. But he would be doomed because the moment the demon left his body, then he'd die. So the big question is: just how far is this demon acting outside of the yellow-eyed demon's control in this, a personal vendetta? Would the yellow-eyed demon be angry if Sam was removed from the picture, or accept it as collateral damage – a potential soldier lost, but also a potential stumbling block removed?

But Dean refuses. "I can't. I'd rather die," he states, very simply, not saying that for dramatic effect in any way but merely telling it like it is. Fangirls flail hopelessly. He drops the gun and walks away, moving behind Sam.



Sam processes this refusal to act upon a promise given, in the face of all the evidence against him, and maintains the act just a little longer. "No, you'll live," he murmurs, picking the gun up once more. Dean sees this and moves toward him again, clearly thinking he's going to have to stop Sam trying to blow his own head off. But Sam's expression and voice harden now as he drops the act completely. "You'll live to regret this."

BAM! He smacks Dean across the head with the butt of the gun, and Dean goes down in slow motion. Damn. Even viewers who were waiting for the other shoe to drop jump out of their skins. Satisfied that his work here is done, Sam turns and walks out of the room, gun still in hand.

And that, right there, that is exactly what I predicted at the end of Playthings: that if the worst did happen and Sam turned, he'd have the advantage over his brother because Dean would hesitate, wanting to save him, but Sam would be evil and therefore wouldn't hesitate. And that is more or less exactly what just happened. Evil Sam has the advantage, very much so.

Hours later, a furious hammering at the door is what finally wakes Dean up. As he slowly picks himself up and tries to piece together what happened, the manager unlocks the door and doesn't so much as bat an eyelid to find him lying on the floor, simply pointing out that it's past check-out and he should be gone by now and will have to pay for an extra day. Dean clambers to his feet and follows the guy back to the door, all dazed and confused. "What?" he gets out at last, in the groggy manner of the mildly concussed.

"It's past check out," the manager repeats, not the slightest bit sympathetic, clearly just assuming he's drunk or hungover. He's got a 'couple' here that need the room, he continues, indicating a hooker and her client, waiting patiently.

"Yeah, I bet they do." Dean rolls his eyes, recovering his wits fast, anxiously asking for the time – 12.30pm – and if the manager has seen the guy he was with.

Sam left before dawn in Dean's car, he is informed. Dean has been unconscious a long time, then, and it seems the manager really does monitor the comings and goings of his clients around the clock. Also – Sam stole the Impala! Dean really is never going to let him drive that car again. We haven't seen Sam behind the wheel of the Impala yet this season, and at this rate never will again.

Still all fuzzy and a little wobbly, Dean curses at how much of a head start Sam has got, although the manager assumes he's protesting against being charged for the extra time in the room, and then asks to use the man's computer. The manager wonders why on earth he would agree to that…

Cut to: the manager counting out a huge wad of cash Dean just handed over, while Dean makes use of both computer and telephone. I guess Dean's lucky the demon didn't clean out everything he had with him, as well, or he really would be in trouble. He's lost the car, but at least he still has whatever was left in the motel room, including weapons and money.

On the phone, Dean spins a story about Sam being his son gone missing after sneaking out to a Justin Timberlake concert. Because Dean will always find a way to embarrass Sam, even when Sam's not there to know anything about it. "What? Uh, yeah, Justin is quite the triple threat." Said with a marvellous roll of the eyes. The story he's spinning about his missing diabetic son is 100% fabrication, but the anxiety behind it is 100% genuine.

'A-lines Mobile Phone Service' declares the website he's hooked into. He's looking up the GPS in Sam's phone. I said he needed a homing device! But why in the world didn't he use this when Sam first went missing? On first viewing, I assumed he must be tracking the car, somehow, because he hadn't been able to track Sam this way previously, but it is clearly the phone he is tracing. I have no explanation, but any rationalisation I took the time to construct would probably revolve around the failings of technology and perils of running into bureaucracy too often.

Also, Dean has logged into the website under the name Dean J. Mahogoff. Is that 'J' a genuine initial or just part of the pseudonym? Mahogoff (and yes, I know the name is a joke) was the name on the credit card he used in Playthings, only now I've seen it written down I know how to spell it properly. Clearly it's also the name he's got his phone registered under. But we've had Nightshifter since then. He knows the Feds are tracking him, and that the trail of credit card fraud is a large part of their investigation. Shouldn't changing all his aliases have been one of the first things he did, no matter how annoying and time-consuming that process might be? Or can he just not be bothered?

Sam's mobile phone number that Dean is tracing is: 785 555 2804, incidentally. But sadly there is no sign of a date on the computer screen during the brief glimpse we get of it.

The GPS traces Sam to the town of Duluth, Minnesota.

Duluth, Minnesota. Hey, it's Jo! Long time no see, and the majority of fans have not missed her in the slightest. She's working in a bar called the Sandpiper, which at first glance seems odd for a girl who was so desperate to get away from her mother's bar and start living her own life as a hunter of the supernatural. But hey, she has to fund what hunting she can manage to fit in around work somehow, and bar work is something she knows only too well. It's logical, and a hell of a lot more legal than the Winchester sources of finance. Although it could also mean that she isn't getting in much in the way of actual hunting, out there on her own, whatever she's allowing Ellen to think.

Jo is closing up all alone when Sam walks in. She's all amazed to see him, and she looks a lot better than she did last time we saw her – more mature, like independence suits her. I think losing the ringlets probably helps with that. "You're about the last person I'd have expected to see," she comments.

"Well, guess I'm full of surprises," Sam apologetically remarks to a backdrop of ominous music, because the other shoe has dropped and now everyone but Jo knows that this isn't the real Sam, that he's dangerous. He's mostly keeping up the Sam act, for the moment, and Jo is as unsuspecting as Dean was, wondering how he found her.

"Well, uh, it's kinda what we do, you know," Sam points out, letting the act slip a little and starting to take a harder, more scornful tone than Sam normally ever employs with anyone but Dean, because people are always harder on their family than outsiders, feeling secure enough to really let rip.

Jo doesn't really notice the edge to his words, wondering why Dean isn't with him, and she's being friendly, but a little awkward, which is understandable under the circumstances. "Couldn't make it." Sam brushes the question off.

Jo wonders what he's doing there, since they didn't exactly part on the best of terms. And that's where the old, less mature Jo is still present, holding a years' old grudge with John against his sons, even after she's had months to think about what her mother told her that day, to process and move on. Ellen raised the issue of John's involvement in Bill's death in the heat of her panic, and just as quickly dropped it again, welcoming John's sons back into her life and providing them with shelter, information and loyal friendship, rather than holding the sins of the father against them. Jo hasn't reached that level of maturity yet, it seems, although she's on the right road at last.

Sam looks anxious, the demon resuming his act once more, and apologetically explains that he's here to see if they can square things. He takes his coat off, and Jo notices something on his arm, commenting that it looks like it hurts, and she's not wrong. Sam lies that he caught his arm on a hot stove, and despite the fact that it is clearly a symbol rather than an ordinary burn, Jo accepts the falsehood. If you want to hurt somebody, using someone they trust is the best way to worm your way past their defences.

"Look, I know how you feel about my dad." Sam resumes his 'squaring things' spiel. Demons like to play games with peoples' heads. "And I can't say I blame you. But he was obsessed, consumed with hunting. And he didn't care who got caught in the crossfire, and I guess that included your dad." See how the demon takes the opportunity to get in a big dig at John, too. "But that was my father – that's not me."

Jo raises an eyebrow, impassive. "What about Dean?" Yeah, she really doesn't care that much about Sam, one way or the other. Dean's the one she's interested in, even now.

"Well, Dean's more like my father than I am…" Sam begins. Which isn't really true, despite outward appearances. Dean might have followed in John's footsteps with regard to hunting and dedication to the cause, but in terms of temperament and character, Sam is the by far the most like John. Anyway, Demon!Sam stops, and chuckles, and starts to let the sympathetic Sam-act drop. "Boy," he laughs, malice underlining his voice. "You're really carrying a torch for him, aren't you?"

Well, yeah, everyone knows that and has done for a long time, even though we've never really seen that much of Jo. That and her Roadhouse pedigree makes her a useful tool for this episode, as opposed to having to spend time building viewer sympathy for a random victim, which this episode doesn't have room for. She becomes uncomfortable, confused by this shift in Sam's attitude and his erratic, incomprehensible mood swings, which are so unlike him.

Demon!Sam starts to really make the most of the opportunity to mock and taunt, and show us just how mean and nasty he can be, as he basically recites for her all the reasons the fangirls have been saying for months as to why Jo would be wrong for Dean – that he likes her, sure, but not in the way she wants, maybe as kind of a little sister, but romance is just out of the question. "He kind of thinks you're a school girl," he laughs, which is pretty much the ultimate insult, given how badly Jo wants to be seen as grown up and independent and worthy of respect as a hunter.

Jo glares. "I'm not trying to hurt you, Jo." Sam slides back into his sympathetic mode just for a moment, to mess with her head a little more. "I'm telling you because I care." He reaches out to touch her hand, his voice becoming menacing as he comes on to her in earnest, and she starts to really freak out, wondering where the hell this is coming from.

"Sam, what's going on?" Jo wants to know, all steely-eyed and suspicious. She tells him to leave, and he agrees and moves away from the bar, and Jo makes the fatal mistake of turning her back on him. Seriously, girl – call yourself a hunter? Whether it be demon, creature or regular human variety bad guy, you never turn your back until you are certain the danger has passed. Even just as a bar maid she should know much, much better than that. She's totally left herself exposed, and a moment later Sam is back and grabbing her from behind. He's enormous and she's tiny and she can't fight him off, although she valiantly tries, grabbing a beer bottle to smack him with only to have it forced out of her hands, and for a moment it totally looks like he's going to rape her right there against the bar, which is all kinds of disturbing.

Instead, he slams her head into the counter and knocks her out cold, then gently lays her down on the bar as if it's an altar or something. "It didn't have to be this way," he croons, brushing her hair out of her face, before chuckling maliciously. "Maybe it did."

Still at the bar. A record begins to play as Jo slowly – nice camera effect – wakes up to find Demon!Sam tying her to a pillar. Taking time to play with the jukebox was a nice touch for the demon. Jo growls for him to explain himself, but Sam ignores the question, perkily wondering exactly what Ellen told Jo about how her dad died.

"You're not Sam," Jo tells him, and viewers are delighted that she's cottoned onto that already.

"Don't be so sure," Sam counters. "Just answer the question." He pulls up a stool to sit right in front of her, brandishing a great big knife not unlike the one Dean offered Jo in No Exit, and he's all menacing and creepy with his insistence that "it's me." Because it so isn't, and Jo knows that, but has no way of knowing what's going on and why he's acting like this. "You can tell me anything, you know that," Sam whispers, sounding so much like his real self, were it not for the fact that he has her tied up and is waving a knife in her face and using it to stroke her hair. Evil Sam is well creepy.

Jo stiffly tells the story Ellen told her at the end of No Exit, that their dads were in California, Devil's Gate Reservoir, setting a trap for some kind of hell spawn. Bill was the bait – that much we already knew, of course. Sam laughs. "That's just like John, oh I bet he dangled Bill like meat on a hook." And the worst part is that that's true, it is just like John. We've seen him using his own son as bait in the past, confident in his own ability to take the creature out before any harm could be done. Jo continues that when the creature showed up, John got too eager, jumped out too soon, and left Bill exposed, whereupon the creature pretty much ripped him to bits.

"Huh. Not quite," Sam casually remarks, piquing Jo's curiosity and then feigning nonchalance when she asks what he means. He lightly explains that the creature didn't actually kill Bill, just damaged him really badly, and laughs that neither she nor her mother know the truth. He leans in close to whisper in her ear that Bill was all clawed up, guts hanging out, praying to see his wife and daughter one last time…and that John killed him. Euthanasia, I guess you'd call it.

"My daddy shot your daddy in the he-ad," Sam chants, all singsong and menacing, and that's the creepiest part of the whole episode. Who knew Jared Padalecki had it in him? Fantastic.

Jo is creeped out and furious. "How could you know that?" she snaps.

"I hear things," Sam perks, shrugging it off.



Jo wants to know why he's doing this to her. "Like daddy like daughter. You're bait," Sam lightly tells her, tying a gag around her mouth to stop her talking or crying out any more, which is excellent timing for just moments later Dean bursts in, gun at the ready. Must have stolen a car to get there; it wouldn't be the first time.

Sam switches from cheerfully evil to absolutely distraught, just like that, in the blink of an eye. And what I love about this scene is that it comes from Jo's point-of-view, so that rather than being a continuation of Dean's distress that we saw earlier, we get to see Sam's switch, and witness the confrontation from the outside, from the point of view of the girl in danger and needing Dean to save her from his inexplicably psychotic brother. Jo doesn't know the back-story, doesn't know that the demon possessing Sam has already built the pressure on Dean up to breaking point, doesn't know any detail about the yellow-eyed demon's plans or the months of fear and apprehension that the brothers have already lived through that have brought them to this place, can't understand why any of this is happening. She is simply a witness to the fallout of all that, lacking any context to place it in.

Sam tearfully shouts that he'd begged Dean to end him, that he can't fight it, can't control himself, that his head is on fire, and damn. It hurts to see Dean being manipulated like that, with every word from Sam's mouth paining him deeply. Sam begs Dean to kill him before he kills Jo, and Dean is just made of desperation this episode, because he can't allow Sam to kill again but there is just no way he is going to shoot his brother. Even though technically he still has the option Sam used in Devil's Trap of shooting to incapacitate, not to kill, it doesn't seem to occur to him. Or maybe he can't bring himself to even hurt his brother that much, no matter what the cost.

Sam takes the knife away from Jo's throat, which is counter productive in terms of what Sam hopes to achieve as it actually reduces the pressure on Dean, and starts waving his arms around, making full use of his massive size as he yells for his brother to shoot him. It's always awesome when JP gets to use his height and build as an acting tool. The tension of the scene is rocketing sky high by now, because what exactly is wrong with Sam hasn't yet been confirmed, and this could so very easily be his 'dark destiny' manifesting, could so very easily be both brothers' worst fears come true. This could so very easily be IT, the point of no return.

But Dean refuses to pull the trigger. Where his family is concerned, talking them down is always the first and maybe only option he'll consider. What would it take for him to reach the point where pulling the trigger is the only way out he can see, even a wounding shot rather than a kill? Would it make a difference if the demon wasn't being so very Sam? If Sam was visibly out of control, rampaging and murdering freely like the infected in Croatoan and recognisably beyond any hope of redemption? Because as things stand, it seems pretty clear that Dean won't shoot if there is even the tiniest hope of saving Sam from whatever is happening to him.

"No, Sammy, come on," Dean implores.

"What the hell's wrong with you, Dean?" Sam bellows in exasperation, as Dean drops the gun and turns away, and Jo gets really scared again at the thought that he's left her at Sam's mercy and still can't understand where all this is coming from. She's on the outside of the story looking in. "Are you that scared of being alone that you'd rather let Jo die?"

Dean is scared of being left alone. We've known that for a long time. But that isn't what this is about, and now we see that Demon!Sam isn't the only one role-playing here, as he has moved away from Jo and toward Dean, and that's all Dean was waiting for. Time for a test – despite the demon's best efforts, he still doesn't see 'manifestation of dark destiny' as the only possibility on the table, and that isn't just denial, that's also his deeply practical nature and hunting instincts asserting themselves over the panic and despair. He whips out that little flask we first saw last week, only this time he hasn't got whisky in it. "That's holy water, you demonic son of a bitch," Dean shouts as he uses the flask to fling that holy water at Sam, who yells and hisses as smoke burns off him. The proof of possession is in the testing for it. Most of the time, anyway.

Sam glares, his eyes revealingly demon-black, and then falls back clutching at his eyes as Dean throws more holy water in his face. There's nothing quite like Dean when he gets all wrathful and outraged. Demon!Sam runs for it, jumping out through a window and away, and behind him Dean looks distressed, as well he might, considering.



"He was possessed?" Jo sounds bemused as Dean releases her, like she hadn't managed to work out that final part of the puzzle yet herself, even though she had realised that it wasn't really Sam. Dean doesn't waste any time answering her as he charges off after Sam, leaving an anxious Jo to stew in her frustration.

Warehouse at the edge of the dock. Gun in hand, Dean angles from one stretch of cover to the next, very cautiously, whipping his head around at every slightest sound. He's at a distinct disadvantage here and he knows it. Demon!Sam rather more boldly strides from one stretch of cover to another, taunting him.

"So who are you?" Dean wonders.

"I've got lots of names," Sam replies. Including, presumably, the name of every person this particular demon has ever possessed, which is kind of schizophrenic when you stop and think about it.

"You've been Sam since he disappeared, haven't you?" Dean observes, rather redundantly, since that much is pretty obvious now.

"Should have seen your face when you thought he murdered that guy. Pathetic," Sam gloats. And throughout all this tense conversation, the two of them are edging from one stretch of cover to another, guns at the ready, trying to get a bead on the other's location.

Genuinely puzzled, Dean asks why Sam didn't just kill him. "You had a dozen chances."

Sam tosses a stone behind him to distract Dean for the second he needs to scoot across a patch of open ground, although why is beyond me, since it isn't as if Dean's actually going to shoot him even if he sees him moving, and both he, Dean and the viewers all know that. "Nah. That would have been too easy. Where's the fun in that? See this was a test. I wanted to see if I could push you far enough to waste Sam. Should've known you wouldn't have the sack. Anyway, fun's over now."

Dean keeps being told that his determination to save Sam is a sign of weakness, that his refusal to remove a potential threat before it can manifest makes him less of a man than his father. So far, he's either not listening or telling himself he doesn't care, that it doesn't matter. Sam is what's important to Dean, no matter what anyone else thinks or says.

Also, as tests go, this is a pretty interesting one, as well as extremely relevant to the yellow-eyed demon's plans and the promise Sam extracted from Dean. What would it take for Dean to actually follow through on that promise? A hell of a lot, judging by this episode. He'd want to exhaust every single other possible option for saving Sam first. And Evil!Sam could in theory wreak a lot of destruction in that time. And yet this demon later reveals that its actions are a personal vendetta against Dean, and not a part of the yellow-eyed demon's plans at all, despite the fact that it was once a loyal and trusted servant of those plans. Says something about the individuality of demons, although of course it might not be telling the truth and there could be a bit of both going on. Removing Dean from the picture would serve the yellow-eyed demon's purpose completely, eliminating that one last hope of salvation that Sam is so desperately clinging to.

Dean seethes at the demon. "Well, I hope you got your kicks, 'cause you're going to pay hell for this, I'll see to that." And what he's angry about is that it took Sam and used him as both weapon and shield, rather than that it has been tormenting Dean himself so specifically.

Demon!Sam laughs. "You can't hurt me," he taunts. "Not without hurting your little brother."

And that, right there, is the advantage this demon has over Dean right now, and also the advantage Sam himself would have over Dean if he genuinely did turn someday. Dean puts his gun away. They both know he isn't going to use it, so what's the point? He pulls out his flask of holy water instead, wanting to incapacitate and capture, not kill.



"See, I think you're going to die, Dean," Sam derisively scoffs. "You and every other hunter I can find. One look at Sam's dewy, sensitive eyes, they'll let me right in the door."

Heh. And once you know who this particular demon is – or rather, who it once was – the dialogue is just so spot on, it's fantastic.

With that parting shot, Sam makes a dash for freedom, exiting the warehouse via a door leading out onto the boardwalk overlooking the dock. Dean makes haste to follow, but cautiously. He's still at a disadvantage. He won't hurt Sam, but Possessed!Sam will have no qualms about hurting him. First-time viewers chew their fingernails to bits, on the edge of their seats with anxiety, as Dean carefully searches for any sign of Sam, expecting the possessed one to pop up behind him at any moment. Dean searches, and turns, and searches, and turns, and there is no sign of Sam. The tension mounts. Dean walks to the edge of the boardwalk and looks down into the very cold-looking water of the dock down below. No sign of Sam.

He straightens back up, turns – and there's Sam at last, popping up behind him just as viewers have been expecting for quite a while now. Dean freezes like a deer in the headlights, knowing that he's completely exposed, defenceless and out of options. End of the line.

BANG! Without so much as a word, Sam raises his gun and fires. The bullet clips Dean in the shoulder and he falls – right off the edge of the boardwalk and into that cold, probably dirty water so far below. Viewers shriek in horror.

And that, so much more than the scene in the motel, is my Playthings theory confirmed. When Dean had the chance to take the shot, he hesitated and refused, wanting to save Sam and bring him back from whatever was wrong with him, and unwilling to do him any harm no matter what. Possessed!Sam, being evil, didn't hesitate at all and just took the shot. If Sam did turn evil, as the yellow-eyed demon seems to intend, he really would be able to inflict enormous damage upon his brother, and Dean would have no defence against him whatsoever. Sam is both the source of his greatest strength and his greatest weakness.

Why Demon!Sam is such a suck shot is another matter entirely, though.

Sam moves to the edge of the boardwalk and looks down, but there's no sign whatsoever of Dean, and viewers start to wonder if the real Sam is awake at the moment and can see all this, because if so this will be what scares and horrifies him the absolute most: the belief that he really has killed his brother. Possessed!Sam smirks triumphantly, confident that he has achieved the kill.

Warehouse, a little while later. Jo strides through the aisles, flashlight in one hand and cellphone in the other, trying to get through to Dean and only getting voicemail. I'm impressed that she's getting that much – is his phone waterproof or something? She's taken the time to put on a coat, in deference to how cold it clearly is, but doesn't have any weapons anywhere in sight and doesn't seem the slightest bit concerned about her own safety, despite the fact that Sam could easily still be around and took her out so very easily not so long ago. Did she see him get back into the car and drive away, or something, to be so confident of her safety now? Or is she still just that gung-ho and naïve?

She keeps searching, and tries Dean again – must have him on speed dial, which says something about that torch Demon!Sam taunted her about carrying for Dean, since it isn't as if they keep in touch. This time she hears music somewhere nearby as the ringtone sounds, and stops, looking sharply around for the source of the music.

And there's Dean, slumped just barely out of the water at the bottom of a slipway to the side of the boardwalk. Putting the phone away, Jo rushes down to him, and he's all wet and dirty and shivering and in pain, and the first words out of his mouth are, "Where's Sam?" which is just so typical and predictable it's almost funny.

Jo doesn't know, she says, she's been looking for Dean. Which means that she doesn't know for sure that Sam is gone and therefore should have been a lot more careful. Maybe she heard the shot and feared the worst. Maybe she just still hasn't learned to think things through before she acts. She helps Dean up, and between the gunshot and the cold water his legs practically give way beneath him again at once, but between the two of them they manage to get him back to the bar.

The Sandpiper. "Don't be a baby," Jo chides as she digs the bullet out of Dean's shoulder without so much as a sniff of anaesthetic of any kind, other than the whisky bottle he's taking hefty swigs out of. Self-medication at it's finest, to go with the do-it-yourself doctoring. The sound effects are very gory as the bullet comes out, off-screen, and is dropped into a glass of water in all its bloody glory. But then the camera pan actually shows us the patching up of Dean's shoulder, and hey – where's all the blood? Okay, so immersion into icy cold water would probably slow the bleeding right down – although the water in a dock would be all kinds of dirty, so I hope Jo's applying lots of antiseptic there – and we can see that Jo has washed away the blood from his skin as part of the nursing, but surely that shirt he's got on that's been sliced up to the shoulder to allow her access should have at least some blood visible on it? Also, he's remarkably dry already, considering his dip in the dock.

I watch too many medical dramas, clearly, and am over-thinking the trivial details, as usual. Forget all that. Just look at Dean, with the biceps and the shoulders and the ripped t-shirt, and the self-medication straight from the bottle and the pain and the anxiety, and just…GUH.

"You're a butcher," he grumbles.

Jo rolls her eyes and channels her mother. "You're welcome."



"All right, are we done?" Dean fidgets, anxious to get gone already, because Sam is possessed and out there somewhere and has already killed once, assaulted Jo and almost killed Dean. And honestly, if he'd been a better shot and did break free of the possession eventually, can you imagine how Sam would react to all that, completely alone with his last source of support terminally removed by his own demon-possessed hands? How much more vulnerable would he then have been to the yellow-eyed demon's plans? The demon's personal vendetta could well be serving a higher purpose as well as its own.

But seriously, Jo just pulled the bullet out of Dean's shoulder ten seconds ago, of course they aren't done. She rolls her eyes again and channels Ellen more than ever. "Would you give me two minutes to patch you up? You can't help Sam if you're bleeding to death."

Heh. It's cute. Independence and experience have improved Jo a lot, and her interaction with Dean feels so much more natural when she's just getting on with things and being herself rather than trying too hard to project the image she wants him to see, hoping to impress him. But he's hardly likely to bleed to death when there's little or no blood anywhere in sight, no matter how lightly she's taping those few layers of gauze over his gunshot wound without stitching it up first.

Jo asks how Dean knew that Sam was possessed, and he takes another swig of whisky and grimaces with the pain of her ministrations before answering that he didn't, not really, he just knew that it couldn't have been Sam. The holy water was the ultimate test, therefore, and probably pretty much his last throw of the dice before going with the conclusion the demon wanted him to draw and trying however hopelessly to find a solution to that. Desperate times. Possession must actually come as a relief, given what the demon had wanted him to believe. At least he knows what to do about possession, even if it isn't likely to be easy to achieve.

"Hey, Dean." Looking truly sombre now, Jo moves into another issue that's nagging at her. "I know demons lie, but do they ever tell the truth, too?"

"Uh, yeah, sometimes, I guess," he admits, a little absently, mind more on a) the pain in his shoulder, and b) what to do about Sam. "Especially if they know it will mess with your head. Why do you ask?"

Jo looks stricken as she processes this, but brushes it off as nothing. Dean doesn't know about the story Sam told Jo about John's involvement in Bill Harvelle's death. I really, really hope he never finds out, whether the story is true or not, and am proud of Jo for not telling him here in this scene when she's got the chance. But he does realise that Sam must have said something upsetting to her.

With deliberate brightness Jo changes the subject, asking if Dean has any idea where Sam will go next. Dean explains that so far Sam has been going after the nearest hunter, and the closest one he knows of is in South Dakota, so that's where he'll look first. Of course, the fact that that's the closest one Dean knows of doesn't mean that there aren't more closer still, since he doesn't actually know that many, but that aspect is glossed over.

"Okay, good, I'm done. Let's go," Jo grimly chirps, having finished her very slapdash patch job on Dean's shoulder. I find myself hoping he'll make time to have it seen to properly when this is all over, but somehow doubt it.

"You're not coming," Dean immediately tells her, seeming surprised that she'd expect to tag along or even want to, and props to Jensen Ackles because he sounds so very genuinely exhausted and in pain throughout this scene.

"The hell I'm not, I'm a part of this now," Jo stubbornly insists, and Dean equally stubbornly insists that she isn't, and that if she plans on following him he'll just tie her right back to that post and leave her there, and he's not kidding and she knows it.

"This is my fight," he tells her, at his most authoritative. "I'm not getting your blood on my hands."

This little scene shows us what a long way these two have come since No Exit, how much more they understand one another than they did back then. Dean can see that beneath that bravado and naïve determination not to be written off as a useless little girl, Jo genuinely cares and despite everything Sam just put her through is still willing to help, while Jo now finally understands that Dean's insistence on keeping her out of harm's way isn't a reflection on her – although she's clearly too much of a lightweight to be of any real use in a fight – and isn't really even about her, it's about Dean's need to protect both her and Sam, and in that moment she can see clearly just how much he both is and isn't like his father. And that understanding goes unspoken and is all the more beautiful for it.

I like Jo more in this scene than I ever have, simply because she isn't being petulant or sulky or rebellious, she's just getting on with what needs to be done, and backing down and listening to reason instead of pursuing a meaningless fight, and she really is starting to grow up at last. She might not be the most appealing character ever, but she is well drawn as a person, and always has been, which I appreciate, with her development only now beginning to allow viewers to properly engage with her.

She's still pissed at being given the brush off, though, but nevertheless calls Dean back to toss him a bottle of pills, 'for the pain.' Which is a generous thought, and all, but she knows full well that he's just chugged back half a bottle of whisky and is about to get behind the wheel of a car. Mixing alcohol and medication under these circumstances? Not such a bright idea. But it's the thought that counts. And there actually is a splotch of blood starting to soak through the bandage on Dean's shoulder now, so I'm happy, in a morbid and obsessed-with-trivial-details kind of way. ;-)

"I'll call you later, okay," Dean promises as he leaves, but it is clear that Jo is already pretty much the furthest thing from his mind – she was in danger, but now she's not, and she's been a big help to him, but her part in this done, and that's that. She's an outsider, and with everything that's happened this season, with everything that's still to come, Dean's extremely narrow world revolves around Sam, saving Sam. He just doesn't have room for Jo, or anyone else, right now. And with the future so uncertain, there is even less room for any thought of after.

Jo watches him go, and written all across her face now that he isn't looking is all that unrequited affection Sam accused her of earlier, and this moment is the death of any hopes she might still have been harbouring in that regard. "No you won't," she murmurs to herself once he's gone.

I find myself wondering if Jo's mother will ever get to hear about any of this, and suspect probably not. It doesn't seem like Jo keeps in close contact with Ellen these days, as they parted on bad terms and Jo I feel will need more time than this to be able to move past that, although she's moving in the right direction now. Better understanding Dean will, ultimately, help her to better understand Ellen, although we always tend to be more short-sighted about our own family than outsiders. And I really can't see the boys being all that eager to share the story with anyone, least of all Ellen.

I also find myself wondering which side Jo will ultimately come down on, when it all shakes down with that yellow-eyed demon and his chosen children, as it inevitably will. After her experience with Sam in this episode, that she will side with the Winchesters is by no means certain, despite her affection for Dean.

On the road in his stolen car, Dean scrolls through his phone book, selects a number, and dials. He's got the phone in his right hand, which means he's controlling the car with the arm that just had a bullet dug out of it by a barmaid. Ouch.

Outside a house in South Dakota, a phone rings – and then cuts off, as Sam cuts the wire.

Back in his stolen car, Dean curses as the line goes dead before he could get any warnings across.

Tucking a gun into his waistband, Sam approaches the front door and knocks, and the door is answered by…Bobby! All the fans cheer, and then panic, fearing for Bobby's safety. He looks older than he did last time we saw him; he seems to have aged a lot in just a few short months. His face lights up with genuine affection when he sees Sam, and the fans love him for it, and Demon!Sam puts his best smiley Sam face on as Bobby invites him in.

I love Bobby's house. I'd just like to note that for the record right now. It's just so wonderfully cluttered, with stacks and stacks of books piled up on every available surface, mostly the floor.

Bobby wonders what brings Sam to his door so unexpectedly, and Sam's all nonchalance as he spins a story about working a job nearby and figuring he'd stop and say hey, and Bobby's next question is, of course, regarding Dean's whereabouts. "Holed up somewhere with a girl and a twelve-pack," Sam airily dismisses his brother, rolling his eyes behind Bobby's back and pausing at the doorway into the second lounge, casting an eye up toward the ceiling on which is that devil's trap.

"She pretty?" Bobby calls from the kitchen, and Sam smirks, eyes flashing demon-black. "You ask me, he's in way over his head," he scoffs, which is just spiteful since he totally believes that Dean has drowned.

Bobby reappears with a couple of bottles of beer, tells Sam it's good to see him, and proposes a toast to John. "To Dad," Sam sincerely and mistily agrees, tapping his bottle against Bobby's before taking a swig, whereupon…GOTCHA!

Sam promptly collapses, gasping and with smoke pouring out of his mouth. Bobby continues to drink his beer, entirely unruffled, but with a hint of satisfaction that he's a better actor than the demon. "A little holy water in the beer," he explains. "Sam never would have noticed. But then, you're not Sam, are you? Don't try to con a con man."



I love Bobby so much. He's awesome, and needs to be made use of again and again on this show. Does he randomly spike every drink in his house, out of sheer paranoia? I mean, he does keep a devil's trap on his ceiling, after all, so who's to say that paranoia isn't entirely well founded. Or is it a trick he only employs when he has reason to doubt? After all, the boys stayed with him long enough after John's death that he'd have got to know them pretty well, and for Sam to turn up alone and offer that story about Dean and a girl…well, it might have washed last season, but Dean hasn't behaved like that for a long time now. Either way, Bobby has proved more than a match for Demon!Sam, and with one almighty punch takes him down cold. Awesome.

Rather louder eerie demon music plays as Dean slaps Sam awake once more. I'll bet that was an interesting conversation Dean and Bobby had while Sam was unconscious. Sam's now tied to a chair beneath Bobby's ceiling devil's trap, which is all very familiar. Sam sighs in a weary, you've-got-to-be-kidding-me, not again way at the devil's trap above him – probably shouldn't have picked on a hunter who keeps one of them handy, no matter how conveniently near he is, and no matter how much you might be bearing grudges – and then turns a malevolent smile on his brother. "Dean. Back from the dead. Getting to be a regular thing for you, isn't it? Like a cockroach."

JP really is knocking his performance out of the park in this episode. Who knew he had it in him to be so deliciously evil?



"How 'bout I smack that smartass right out of your mouth?" Dean snarls, all wrath and outrage, kinda reminiscent of Devil's Trap.

Sam tuts. "Wouldn't want to bruise this fine packaging."

"Oh don't worry," Dean assures him. "This isn't going to hurt Sam much." I like his use of the word 'much' there. He sloshes a bucketful of holy water over Sam, who gasps and yells as the smoke pours off him. It doesn't look half as bad as the co-pilot in Phantom Traveller, though. Maybe they were using super-strength holy water that day or something. Dean's got his graven image expression locked into place now, but his eyes show how much he hates that this is Sam in there somewhere. And he's still, naturally, holding his left arm awkwardly, because of having been shot and Jo not really counting as proper medical attention for that.

"Careful," Sam snarls. "Sam's still my meat puppet. I'll make him bite off his tongue." Yikes, the imagery. Nasty. Dean tells the demon it won't be in Sam long enough for that, and gives Bobby the nod to start with the exorcism.

Alone, Dean can and will perform an exorcism himself. We saw that in Crossroad Blues. But if he's got someone else with him, he prefers to have them do it. I guess that both allows him to retain control of the situation and also keeps him from having to call on a God he doesn't want to believe in.

Bobby starts Latinating. Sam glares. Dean is stony-faced and rigid with not allowing himself to break down in any way, his lip curling with revulsion for the demon inside his brother as he resolutely insists that: "whatever bitch-boy master plan you demons are cooking up, you're not getting my brother. You understand me? I'm going to kill every one of you first." How's that for a statement of intent?

Sam is clearly feeling the exorcism now, gasping and shaking, and yet…he suddenly burst into hearty laughter, and the exorcism effects stop completely. "You really think that's what this is about?" he sneers. "The master plan? I don't give a rat's ass about the master plan."

Impassive, Dean nods for Bobby to continue, and he does, but Sam just smiles, all cocky and pleased with himself. "Oops. Doesn't seem to be working." No, indeed. "See, I learned a few new tricks." Sam drops his head and starts Latinating himself in growly, sexy fashion. Dean and Bobby look at one another in deep dismay, and the fire roars behind Sam as he chants, and the room starts to shake.

"This isn't going like I pictured, what's going on, Bobby?" Dean shouts above the howling wind that's sprung up.

Bobby steps over to Sam, spots the symbol burned into his arm, and recognises it at once. "It's a binding link. It's like a lock, he's locked himself inside Sam's body!"

I love that Bobby has got the Knowledge, despite his rough-and-ready appearance and mannerisms. I mean, he doesn't keep all those books randomly scattered around his house for nothing. He really, really does know his stuff, inside out. This kind of expertise I can believe in so much more than Ellen's or Ash's, both of whom remain unproven in the field.

"What the hell do we do?" Dean bellows, alarmed, and Bobby bellows back that he doesn't know, equally alarmed. Sam finishes his chant and throws back his head, and the ceiling cracks right across, breaking the devil's trap and setting him free.

Eyes demon-black, Sam flexes the muscles in his neck. "There. That's better," he croons to himself, prior to flinging Bobby into one wall and Dean into another. Dean collapses in a heap, clutching at his damaged shoulder, although I have to say there is no sign of a bullet hole in his coat, which there totally should be. His flask of holy water tumbles to the floor just out of reach as Sam snaps the ropes binding him as if they are made of string and strides over to his brother.

"You know, when people want to describe the worst possible thing," Sam brightly remarks. "They say it's like hell." He grabs a handful of Dean's coat, hauls him upright so he's got a clear shot, and punches him hard in the face, putting his full weight behind the blow. THWACK! "Well, there's a reason for that. Hell is like…" THWACK! "Well, it's like hell. Even for demons." Dazed and in pain, Dean is completely helpless now, can't fight back, all he can do is clutch at Sam's enormous arms and try unsuccessfully to hold him off, blood already trickling from nose and mouth. THWACK! "It's a prison made of bone and flesh and blood and fear." THWACK!

The eerie demon music is softly playing again now, as well, just to add to the tension of the scene. Still firmly gripping Dean's coat in one hand, Sam now uses the other hand to grasp his head, and damn, but he looks so enormous and Dean looks so small, and okay there's a four-inch height difference, but it's still impressive how massive Sam looks compared to Dean here. "And you sent me back there," Sam snarls.

Bloody and beaten, Dean's lip curls as he recognises the demon currently possessing his brother. "Meg." Ding! And all of a sudden the personal vendetta against Dean becomes clear.

And there's a small gender issue I would like to address here, because I've seen a lot of fics and metas playing on the 'fact' of this being a 'female' demon, simply because its previous host was female. Yes, Dean jokes at Sam's expense later about having a 'girl in him', but that's just a joke, trying to lighten the mood after this traumatic experience. It isn't something we are supposed to take literally in any way. Demons don't have gender. They just possess whoever is most convenient or most useful to them at the time, regardless of gender.

"No, not any more," the demon tells him. "Now I'm Sam." THWACK! Dean gasps and chokes, and the demon changes tack, gripping his damaged shoulder in an enormous hand and squeezing, hard, pressing his thumb right into the wound. Dean cries out in agony, and continues to groan and writhe as Sam continues to both torture and talk. "By the way, I saw your dad there. He says 'howdy'. All that I had to hold on to was that I'd climb out one day and that I was going to torture you, nice and slow, like pulling the wings off an insect. But whatever I do to you, it's nothing compared to what you do to yourself, is it? I can see it in your eyes, Dean. You're worthless. You couldn't save your dad. And deep down, you know that you can't save your brother. They'd have been better off without you."

So many demons keep going out of their way to tell Dean how unimportant and worthless he is, but seriously, if that were true, why on earth would any of them take the time to bother with him? Demons like to twist the truth in order to hurt, but they also lie.

Sam raises his hand for another blow, but is so focused on Dean that he doesn't notice Bobby coming up behind him. The Meg-demon never was that bright. Bobby grabs his arm and presses a red-hot iron from the fire onto it, right across the binding symbol – breaking the symbol breaks the lock. Sam screams and the demon-smoke rushes out of him at last, up the chimney and away, recognising defeat. Yay for Bobby.



Sam collapses in a heap, and then wakes up all groggy and confused and alarmed, clutching at his burnt arm, and this is the first time we've seen the real Sam all episode. Dean slumps sideways against a nearby bookcase, exhausted. "Sammy?" he grunts, pained and bloody and hardly daring to believe that this is over at last.

Eyes wide with shock, Sam flicks his gaze from Bobby standing on one side of him to Dean slumped all bloody and breathless at the other side. "Did I miss anything?" he quips, which is more idiotic than Dean can take right now, so he reaches across and smacks Sam one across the face for saying something so stupid, before collapsing in a heap clutching at his abused shoulder.

Later. Dean sits holding an ice bag to his face, and I sincerely hope that someone has taken the time to re-dress his gunshot wound as well, since if it wasn't bleeding much before it certainly will be now, after all that punishment. Unless Sam doesn't remember that part and Dean doesn't want to bring it to his attention. Man, he looks beat to hell now that the bruises are starting to come out.

Sam, sitting quietly nearby, all tentative and abashed, with an ice pack clamped to the burns on his arm, points this out to him. "By the way, you look like crap, Dean." Probably not the best line to take with the guy you just beat to a bloody pulp, but Sam is clearly unsure how to play things after everything that's happened, and that's pretty much 'I'm sorry' in Winchester speak.

"Yeah, right back atcha," Dean grunts, which is Winchester speak for, 'yeah, I know', and that's as much as either of them is going to say on the subject until they are properly alone. There's a lot they just can't talk about in company, and as much of a good friend Bobby is, he classes as company.

Bobby wanders up to them, looking grave, and asks if they've ever heard of a hunter called Steve Wandell. So quickly do the crimes of the demon return to haunt Sam, and through him, Dean. Both brothers freeze for a moment before Dean impassively asks why Bobby asks, and Bobby explains that he just heard from a friend – so I guess he fixed his phone line, or has a mobile – about Wandell's murder. Sam twitches uneasily as Bobby asks if they know anything about it, but Dean's game face doesn't so much as flicker, despite the fact that this is an old and trusted friend he is lying to. "No sir, I've never heard of the guy."

"Dean," Sam quietly interjects, clearly wanting to confess everything and get his remorse off his chest, but Bobby cuts right across him. "Good. Keep it that way."

I love Bobby. He continues that Wandell's buddies are looking for someone or something to string up and won't slow down to listen to reason, and he's totally worked out what happened, and won't commit any of them by coming out and saying so out loud, but he's coming down on the boys' side, and God, do they need someone they can truly count on to be on their side. He isn't offering to put them up for what's left of the night so they can get a bit of much-needed rest, though, despite their injuries. More important to put some distance between themselves and the general vicinity of Wandell's murder, clearly.

Wandell's murder by a demon wearing Sam's body means that the brothers are more isolated than ever from the hunting fraternity, at a time when they need support the most. The increasing isolation of the Winchesters has been the most consistent theme of this season.

The message gets across loud and clear, and it is time for the brothers to leave – "If you can remember where we parked the car," Dean lightly tosses at Sam without even a hint of resentment for anything that's happened, because what happened wasn't Sam's fault, and he's just happy to have his brother back, relieved that the worst hasn't hit them yet. Before they go, Bobby has a parting gift for them. A couple of charms, one each: "They'll fend off possession. That demon's still out there; this'll stop it from getting back up in you."

"That sounds vaguely dirty, but, uh, thanks," Dean gruffly tells him, and then with one last mutual appeal to be careful, the boys set off on their way. Once they've gone, Bobby looks grave and concerned. He's an old and trusted friend, and has been through a lot with the Winchesters. But if he continues to support them into the coming war, how long before he, too, finds himself isolated from the other hunters? If a time comes when battle lines are drawn and sides must be taken, when what they are facing is more serious than demonic possession because it comes from within not without, will the boys always be able to rely on him? Or will he find his loyalties drawn more toward the hunting community at large, and mankind's greater good?

It's worth pondering the fact that Demon!Sam continued his hunter-hunting activities even after he believed Dean had been killed, no longer laying a trail for Dean to follow and yet still actively taking out hunters. Did the demon target Bobby in particular for his part in the exorcism last season? Has it simply made an active choice to take out as many hunters as possible? Or is this, in fact, a part of the yellow-eyed demon's plans? If the latter couple of options, possibly a combination of both, that means that the hunting community remains in grave danger. All the demon needs is another body to possess, and the killing spree can continue, should it so choose. And yet the community can't be warned of that possibility, not without giving away what happened, which endangers Sam.

On the road. Dean is driving, one-handed, despite everything. After Sam stole his car, he's just never going to let his brother behind the wheel again, no matter how much his arm hurts, clearly. What's the betting that both of their injuries will be healed without trace by next episode?

"You okay?" Dean asks after a while, stealing a few appraising sideways glances at Sam, who is sitting there all glum and upset. Sam doesn't answer. "Sam? Is that you in there?" And he's already willing to joke about it, anything to lighten the mood and clear the air and potentially reassure Sam.

Sam finally speaks, admitting – like Meg before him – that he was awake for some of his possession. "I watched myself kill Wandell with my own two hands. I saw the light go out in his eyes."

"That must have been awful," Dean sympathises, but instead of accepting the sympathy Sam just gets frustrated that Dean isn't grasping the point he's trying to make, probably because he hasn't made it yet. It kind of stands out a mile, though, that Sam was the one who got possessed, killed and attacked people, and tortured his brother mercilessly, and yet Sam is the one who is resentful of Dean's actions, rather than Dean holding any of it against Sam in any way.

"I almost carved up Jo, too," Sam continues, getting snotty now. "But no matter what I did you wouldn't shoot." Promise broken, from his point of view, and he trusted Dean so very implicitly.

"It was the right move, Sam, it wasn't you," Dean points out, but Sam isn't reassured. It clearly hadn't occurred to him until now that when it came to the crunch Dean might not be able to follow through on that promise Sam wrested out of him.

"This time," he concedes. "What about next time?"

That there will be a next time is something neither of them has bothered to doubt for a while now. Whatever the yellow-eyed demon is planning is going to happen sooner or later, and until they know what it is, they can't make any real contingency plans for it.

Dean sees what Sam is getting at, which is the thorny, gut-wrenching issue he spent most of the first half of the season struggling with, and refers him to the other, more immediately relevant side of that promise, which is what he is clinging to in order to keep himself sane. "Sam, when Dad told me that I might have to kill you, that was only if I couldn't save you. Now, if it's the last thing I do, I'm going to save you."

Fangirl flail hopelessly. Again. 'Nuff said.

Having issued his statement of intent and succeeded in at least partially reassuring Sam once more, Dean quickly moves to lighten the mood, chuckling to himself and thus drawing Sam's curiosity. He's always been good at distracting Sam from whatever funk he's got himself into.

"Dude, you, like, full on had a girl inside you for, like, a whole week. That's pretty naughty." Hee. Dean chuckles to himself some more, and Sam accepts the teasing for what it is and joins in that laughter, because allowing the mood to be lightened is infinitely preferable to facing up to what just happened and is still likely to happen at some point.

And, yeah, you might have expected there to be more acknowledgement from Sam of what he did to Dean and Jo, as well as Wandell, but this show has always made a very clear distinction between a person and the actions they commit while possessed. The demon did all those things, not Sam. And okay, sooner or later Sam is going to have to deal with what memories he has of his possession, and the consequences of the demon's actions while in his body. Those he attacked will have to deal with the fact that it was Sam's face, Sam's voice, Sam's hand on the trigger. But Sam wasn't responsible for those actions any more than John was responsible for what the yellow-eyed demon did while possessing him, and neither son held that against him in any way, just as they made a clear distinction between the human Meg and the demon inside her.

Therefore, what is concerning Sam most right now is the fact that this was, in effect, a trial run for what could happen to him further down the line. Dean didn't know he was possessed, not for a long time; it could so easily have been his dark destiny manifesting, and Dean refused to take lethal measures to contain that threat, not until he'd exhausted every other option, and that that would be the case doesn't seem to have occurred to Sam before now. He was expecting, presumably, that Dean would just gather his resolve and take him out the moment he showed signs of being dangerous, and that would be that. For Sam, anyway. Instead, Dean is determined to either prevent it from ever happening, or to find a way of bringing Sam back if the worst does come to the worst. Right now, Sam can take great comfort in that resolve. But it means that they are still approaching the coming danger from different directions, and they can't afford such divisions among themselves.

The Impala speeds on.


February 2007

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