"That was about as fun as getting kicked in the jewels."

I managed to keep myself completely and utterly unspoiled for this episode, and it was a truly Herculean effort! Worth it, though. I tried not to even speculate what this two-part season finale might hold, although I had my suspicions, given the general trend of the season as a whole. But still: unspoiled. And therefore: damn. Lots and lots of damn! And whoa, and zomg, and then more damn.

Spoiler free really is the only way to fly! I must try to remind myself of that fact over the long summer months when spoilers are all we've got!

So far this season: Dean was tired and Sam was scared. That just about sums up the entire season thus far. But because this is the first of a two-part season finale, the show goes into slightly more detail than that for the recap.

The Road So Far.

Hey, there's music again. Fabulous. Although it lacks the emotional kick of Wayward Son last season.

"Storm's coming, and you boys? You are smack in the middle of it," said Bobby, around about this time last season. And you know what? He wasn't wrong.

Lots and lots of bad things happened. And then some more. And there were psychic children, and we got to meet some of them. Sam was one, obviously, and John admitted to the YED that he knew the truth about his younger son, although just what he knew has never yet been shared with the audience. Andrew Gallagher and Ava Wilson were also psychic. So was Max Miller, but then he died, as did Ansom Weems and Scott Carey. And Ava disappeared, which left Sam and Andy as the only two left standing that we know of.

Gordon heard that the psychics were to act as soldiers in a coming war between demons and men: "Fighting on hell's side." And Sam was well and truly freaked at the prospect of turning into a killer.

"Something big and bad's coming, and it's coming fast, and their side holds all the cards," Ellen warned, somewhat cryptically, for no one really knew what was happening, and they still don't.

"You can't run from this, and you can't protect me," Sam ominously told Dean, who was also freaked at how badly all this was spinning out of control.

Now.

The Impala pulls up outside a café in the middle of nowhere, and Sam prepares to head inside to order. I wonder if they take it in turns picking up the takeout, or if Dean called driver's privilege because of the heavy rain that's a-pouring all around. I also wonder if we'll see Sam behind the wheel of that car ever again. It's been an entire season now.

Handing over some cash – because Dean tends to be the breadwinner of this family, although Sam does usually carry his own supply, what with them holding just about everything in common and all – Dean reminds Sam to order extra onions for him. Sam grumbles about having to ride in the car with his extra onions, and Dean grins, and it's all very domestic and cosy and this, for the dysfunctional Winchesters, is Normal. It's normal, and laid-back, and relaxed, and there's clearly no case being worked right now…and there was also no case-establishing teaser, which can only mean one thing: something really bad is about to happen.

Sam heads into the café. Dean shouts after him to get pie as well, because Dean, as we all know, loves his food. Then he turns the music up louder and settles back to wait. From where he's sitting, he can see Sam walk up to the counter inside the café, but his attention is quickly claimed by static interference on the radio. Since Dean is something of an expert regarding supernatural goings on, he is instantly on the alert, head whipping around to examine his surroundings, not that he can see much, with it being so very pitch dark out there. Then he looks back to the café, only to find that Sam has disappeared.

Dean's out of the car and into the café like a flash. The first thing he sees is a random customer face down in a pool of blood at a nearby table, so out comes a gun, quick smart. Defensive and scared and worried…but seriously – even while not working a job, while driving, he keeps a gun tucked in the back of his jeans? Paranoid. Given present circumstances, justifiably so, but still: paranoid. Probably also rather uncomfortable for driving.

Sam is not in the café. But everyone who is in the café – that random customer and a couple of staff – is dead. It's probably a really good thing Dean waited in the car. A really, really good thing. There is no sign of Sam out back, either, but Dean does find traces of sulphur on the door, and begins to understand just how very, very bad this really is. Leaving his fingerprints at the scene is probably not the smartest move, though. He hurries back to the car, yelling loudly for Sam the whole time, panic levels rising fast.

This is the third time this season that Sam has disappeared on Dean like this, and he went missing once last season, as well. I've said it before and I'll no doubt say it again: Dean really should keep a leash on him, or something. It clearly isn't safe for him to let Sam out of his sight for even two minutes at a time!

Someplace Else Entirely. Sam wakes up. It is now broad daylight, he's lying flat on his back on the ground in the rain, and, as he stumbles to his feet in alarm, the backside of his jeans and jacket are suitably wet and muddy. Having no clue whatsoever where he is or how he got there, he is understandably rather freaked, and – like Dean last episode – his first instinct is to dive for the cellphone and try to call his brother to ask what the hell is going on. Absence of cell reception proves somewhat of a stumbling block, however, and the decades of dereliction on display all around him indicate a good reason for that. It kind of looks like the town that the twentieth century forgot, never mind the twenty-first: your classic, stereotypical frontier ghost town.

Titles.

This is the second week in a row that one of the brothers has been abruptly snatched out of his normal routine and dropped alone into bewildering circumstances. It provides fantastic opportunities to see them coping alone, see how they rise to the occasion – this is the first time that we've seen Sam have to work by himself when he hasn't actively chosen to do so. But I miss seeing them interact with one another!

Sam explores his surroundings, trying very hard not to panic. There is no sign of life anywhere, but then he hears a sound nearby. Being both sensible and well trained, he instantly casts around for a weapon, finding a handy plank of wood nearby that will serve nicely as an impromptu club. Looking more and more nervous, he cautiously edges his way to the corner of the building…which he rounds to find Andy Gallagher, last seen way back in Simon Said a long way from here. Seeing a large lump of wood about to bash his head in, Andy promptly yelps and cringes, and then the boys recognise each other and are both completely and utterly freaked.

Sam: "Andy?"
Andy: "Sam! What are you doing here?"
Sam: "I don't know."
Andy: "What am I doing here?"
Sam: "I don't know, just –"
Andy: "Where are we?"
Sam: "Andy, look, calm down."
Andy: "I can't calm down! I just woke up in friggin' frontierland!"

Ah, Andy. I'd forgotten how much fun he was. Lines like that, with delivery like that, make me want to keep him.

Sam, reasonably enough under the circumstances, asks what's the last thing Andy remembers, and Andy pauses to breathe, tries to think. "Honestly? My fourth bong-load."

Heh. Sam's face is just perfect. All Andy remembers is a really intense smell that Sam guesses was like sulphur, presumably just now remembering that detail from his own abduction experience. Andy wonders how he knew that, but instead of answering the question Sam remembers something else – realises for the first time that maybe he should be worried about something else. "Dean."

"Your brother? Is he here?" Andy squeaks.
"I don't know where he is," Sam admits, looking very, very lost and scared, as he tends to do when he doesn't have his brother's support to fall back on and has to handle dire events all on his own. "I don't know if he's…"

A scream from nearby interrupts before Sam can finish that sentence, but it's actually pretty important to note. Sam does not know if his brother is dead or alive, and he continues to not know for the rest of the episode. He's scared for Dean as well as for himself. But he can't flip out about it, because he's up to his neck in trouble and has innocent people to look after. So he prioritises, and gets on with doing what needs to be done in order to work things through and, hopefully, survive.

Hearing the screaming and cries for help, Andy's eyes just about pop out of his head, and he tries hard not to hyperventilate. Andy wasn't built for extreme circumstances. Fortunately for him, Sam has plenty of experience with dangerous and bizarre, so Andy just trails along after him as he cautiously heads for the source of the sound: a securely padlocked door with a panicking female locked inside.

Sam finds a large stone with which to smash the padlock, and in no time at all the door has been opened, to reveal…Ava. It's like a convention! Reunion of the Psychics: class of '83.

"Oh my God, Sam!" Ava wails, flinging herself into Sam's arms, borderline hysterical.
"So, I guess you guys know each other," Andy deadpans, a little awkwardly.
"Yeah." Sam is all big eyes and shocked expression, because this is beyond weird.

While Ava continues to moan incoherently, Sam attempts to question her, wondering if she's been here this whole time.
"What whole time?" Ava babbles, still hysterical, protesting that she just woke up half an hour ago.

Freaking out even more, Sam tells her that she's been gone for five months, and that he and his brother have been searching for her everywhere, whereupon Ava makes the transition from voluble full-blown panic to a rather calmer but very strained variety of hysteria to insist that that's impossible: she just saw him two days ago.

Was it two days in between Sam sending Ava home and going with Dean to check up on her? It seemed like less, only one day at most. But what do I know?

Sam very gently insists that it has been five months, and Ava protests that that's impossible, and then starts hyperventilating at the thought of how her fiancé Brady must be feeling if she's been gone so long.

Sam doesn't quite know how to respond to that, since he knows perfectly well that the late lamented Brady isn't feeling much of anything about anything, and hasn't for quite some time now.

Ava is startled out of her panic attack when she notices Andy's presence for the first time.
"Hey. Andy. Also freaking out," he introduces himself.
Ava acknowledges him with an almost dismissive little "okay" as not something she can deal with right now, and I love this actress for her reactions and for the character she's created in such little screen-time. She continues to focus her attention on Sam, as the supposed font of all knowledge. "What's happening?"

I really like that Andy and Ava both automatically defer to Sam as someone they know has experience in the field of weird and freaky, and that, as freaked out and scared as he also is, he rises to the challenge, automatically assuming the leadership role. Sam is a leader by nature, which is one of the reasons he always clashed so badly with John, although he defers to Dean rather more automatically, but he has very little experience of bearing this kind of responsibility alone. He admits that he doesn't know what's happening, adding that he does know what the three of them have in common, but before he can expand upon that at all, another voice is heard calling out nearby.

Where Sam leads, Andy and Ava follow, so all three scurry off in search of the owner of this new voice. They find a soldier called Jake, and a blonde Goth called Lily, who are both freaked, sure, but a lot calmer than either Andy or Ava. Jake is a soldier, well trained. And Lily seems driven by restrained anger more than fear.

Lily: "How'd we even get here? A minute ago I was in San Diego."
Jake: "Well, if it makes you feel any better, I went to sleep last night in Afghanistan." Heh.
Sam: "Let me take a wild guess: you two are both twenty-three? We all are, and we all have…abilities."

Oh, Sam. Did you not notice? You had your 24^th birthday already. Presumably it is still April in the show timeline, then, if Sam thinks he is still 23. We've not had on-screen dating for a few episodes now, not since Roadkill told us it was late February. But still – the psychic children born in 1983 are all turning 24 this year, one by one, and the chances are some will have had birthdays by now, so they really can't keep rounding them all off as being 23. It's a minor quibble, though. On with the story.

Sam continues to explain the whole familiar story about mysterious abilities starting to manifest a little over a year ago – and he's rounding down there, because whichever way you look at it, it's been at least a year and a half now since all this started – and Andy and Ava both nod along behind him, because they at least have heard this speech before. Sam and Ava both have visions, they explain, and Andy rather more enthusiastically describes his ability. "Yeah, and I can put thoughts into peoples' heads. Like, make them do stuff. Oh, but don't worry. I don't think it works on you guys. Oh, but get this. I've been practicing, training my brain, like meditation, right? So now it's not just thoughts I can beam out, but images too, like, anything I want. It's like bam! People, they see it!"

Sam's face is a picture again – that particular expression of resigned disapproval is usually reserved for Dean. Then again, there are reasons Dean and Andy got along so well when they met. Andy continues to describe beaming gay porn into the mind of some "total dick", all over-enthusiastic and giggling at himself, and he's totally on that fourth bong-load high still, now that the initial freak-out is wearing off. And he's really cute, and funny, and provides much-needed comic relief to an otherwise fairly chilling episode. Because…being able to just snatch people out of thin air in the blink of an eye like this, and make them reappear someplace else entirely? That's some scary power that Demon has.

Andy shuts up once he realises his audience is not quite as amused by his gay porn story as he'd thought they would be, and then Lily lets forth a rant about the wussiness of their abilities. "I'd kill for something like that!" So, remembering Scott Carey and his electrified fingers of doom, viewers start wondering just how awful her particular ability is. And Jake, we note, is saying nothing about his for the time being.

Sam tries to calm her down, but Lily refuses to be calmed. "I touch people? Their hearts stop. I can barely leave my house. My life's not exactly improved. So screw you."

Yikes. There's not a lot any of them can say to that. Lily and Jake start bickering, so Sam has to play referee. "Whether we like it or not, we're all here, and so we all have to deal with this."

"Who brought us here?" Andy asks the 64 thousand dollar question.
"It's less of a who, more of a what," says Sam, uncomfortable. They are all looking at him now, and I find myself wondering why Jake and Lily, who have never met him before, aren't more curious, if not outright suspicious, about how much he knows. They should be asking questions like how come you know so much?

"It's a demon," Sam continues, even more uncomfortable, because he obviously never got into this part of it with either Andy or Ava when he met them before, and Jake and Lily know even less about the realm of the supernatural. All four of them stare at him like he's lost his mind.

Someplace Else. Dean and Bobby study a map together, having apparently met up at the side of a random road, no doubt midway between Bobby's house and wherever Sam and Dean were when Sam disappeared. I love Bobby for his readiness to support those boys. He has come through for them every single time they've asked for his help. Must've been an interesting conversation, though. I can just picture it:
'Bobby, Sam's disappeared!'
'What, again? Have you boys been fightin' again?'
'No, it was different this time!'
Or, y'know, words to that effect. *G*

Anyway, Bobby is showing Dean a map of the US on which all the demonic signs and omens of the last month have been plotted out. Turns out, there haven't been any.

"How are we supposed to look for Sam? What, do we just close our eyes and point?" Dean's exasperation knows no bounds, his panic just barely contained and manifesting as anger. His phone rings. It's Ash.

Dean: "Ash, what've you got?"
Ash: "Hey, listen. It's a big negatory on Sam."
Dean: "Oh, come on, man, you've got to give us something – we're looking at a three thousand square mile haystack here!"
Ash: "Listen, Dean. I did find something."

He's whispering now. Dean asks what he's found, and Ash peers around the bar, uncomfortable. I thought he had a room of his own, and find it hard to believe he wouldn't have a cellphone. He didn't need to make this call from a public phone in the middle of a crowded saloon. Especially when it is already known that information has been leaked from that crowded saloon in the past, with near deadly consequences. He says that he can't talk over this line, and Dean protests that he doesn't have time for this.

Ash: "Make time! 'Cause this…" He stops while someone wanders past him, a young man in a cowboy hat. "Not only does this almost definitely help you find your brother, this is…it's huge. So get here. Now."

Ah, so cryptic. He hangs up and checks his watch, which gives the time as about 8.10. The time isn't really important – what we are supposed to make note of here is the watch Ash is wearing. I do find myself curious, though, about the timing, because it's pretty light out for it to be 8.10 in the evening in spring. It was late night that Sam disappeared, and daylight when he woke up, so morning is most likely, and yet the bar is open, which surely it wouldn't be so early in the day. Curious – presumably a production flaw.

Dean sighs. "I guess we're going to the Roadhouse. Come on."

Bobby's looking a little alarmed about all this, but gets into the Impala without question, and they drive away – leaving Bobby's truck just sitting there at the side of the road. I hope he's taken careful note of where he left it.

Ghost town.

Jake: "So we're soldiers in a demon war to bring on the apocalypse?"
Sam: "When you put it like that…"
Jake: "And we've been picked? Why us?"
Sam: "I'm not sure. Okay, look, but I just know –"

Ava interrupts to say that spoon bending is one thing, but demons? Sam is getting worked up now, because he knows so much more than any of them do, but they don't want to believe him, and he knows that they need to pull together to survive whatever is planned for them. "If we're all gathered here together, that means it's starting. And we gotta –"

"The only thing I gotta do is stay away from whackjobs," says Jake. "I've heard enough, I'm better off on my own. FYI: so are you."

Jake stalks away, ignoring Sam as he calls after him. Left alone with the other three, Sam frets.

Jake, meanwhile, sullenly strides down the street, and then notices a little girl peering through the windowpane of a nearby door. As soon as he's seen her, she vanishes. Jake is weirded out by everything that's going on, but nevertheless he goes into the building to investigate. It turns out to be an old schoolhouse, and childish giggling can be heard as he enters. "It's all right, don't be scared. Are you lost?" he offers, all soldierly and resolute, and I like him for this scene, because in the midst of everything sinister and unexplainable that's happening to him, he thinks there's a child in potential danger here and is trying to do the right thing.

He peers around the schoolroom, and the camera rotates around him, and the squeaking sound of chalk on a blackboard can be heard. Jake makes himself look and sees that the previously blank blackboard now has lines written all over it, over and over again: I will not kill.

This is a nicely eerie episode, it has to be said.

The giggling is heard again, and Jake turns to see the little girl once more. She raises her hands and her fingers elongate to become claws, her face distorting, and she rushes at him. Jake falls back in alarm, and then all of a sudden Sam is there, grabbing an iron from beside the door to swipe at the supposed child, who vanishes in a cloud of black dust and sweeps away over the heads of the other three as they arrive in the doorway, and they are all of them shocked.

"Just so you know," Sam wearily tells them all. "That was a demon."

Outside, Sam demonstrates his demon-hunting credentials by coolly explaining that he thinks what they saw was an Achiri, a demon that likes to disguise itself as a little girl. Sam's command of random information is always impressive. "Still doesn't tell us where we are," he grumbles, morosely.

Again, if I were one of the others, Jake and Lily especially, I'd be asking by now just exactly how he knows so much about demons. Because if I were in their shoes and had just been snatched out of my life and dumped down in the middle of nowhere like this, and one of the other people there seemed to know so much about what was going on, I'd start to wonder if maybe they were in on something I wasn't.

Sam: "Andy, you with me or not?"
Andy: "Give me a minute. I'm still working through 'demons are real'."

Nearby, the intrepid band of psychics comes across a big old bell with a tree engraved on it. Sam takes one look and decides that he's seen it before, and thinks he knows where they are now. "Cold Oak, South Dakota: a town so haunted, every single resident fled."

"Swell," Ava chirps, just this side of panic still. "Good to know we're somewhere so historical!"

Lily grits out a very relevant question: why would the demon bring them here? Sam sighs that he's wondering the same thing. Lily then decides that she doesn't really care why they are there. "Clearly the only sane thing to do is get the hell out of Dodge."

She turns and starts to walk away. Sam calls after her that the only way out is through miles of woods, and she retorts that it beats hanging out with demons. She has a point. I'm still impressed with Sam's ability to not only recognise the ghost town just by sight of one landmark, but to also remember or identify details about the surrounding terrain. Sam is a reader. He likes to store knowledge away in case of future need, in contrast to his brother, who prefers to just research each specific case as and when it arises. Sam protests again that they don't know what's going on or how many demons might be out there, and Jake starts to agree with him, but Lily whirls around in anger.

Lily: "Don't say 'we', I'm not part of 'we', I have nothing in common with any of you."
Sam: "Look, I know –"
Lily: "You don't know anything! I… I accidentally touched my girlfriend."

Since she's already explained the thing where people die if she touches them, she doesn't have to go into any more detail. Everyone is suitably shocked, as she continues that she feels like she's in a nightmare and it just keeps getting worse and worse. The emotion driving her is still anger, rather than fear, and this background information now explains why.

Sam: "I've lost people too. I have a brother out there right now, could be dead for all I know. We're all in bad shape. But I'm telling you, the best way out of this is to stick together."
Lily snaps a reluctant "fine", but she doesn't seem convinced.

It's a nice little character detail that although Sam isn't allowing himself to panic over not knowing what happened to Dean when he was taken, it is clearly very much on his mind, betrayed by his constant references to his brother. He has no way of knowing if Dean is alive or dead and that is a constant source of worry. The two of them have been one another's constant – and virtually sole – companion for a long time now, and for Sam as much as for Dean in the last episode it has to feel very strange to suddenly not have that any more. Also, for all his desire for independence, Sam isn't used to functioning without the safety net Dean has always provided for him. Alone in these circumstances, surrounded by 'civilians', Sam has no option but to prioritise his problems and soldier on, shouldering responsibility for the others and doing whatever he can to keep them all alive.

"We're looking for iron, silver, salt – any kind of weapon," Sam instructs the others as they head back toward the main street of their little ghost town.
"Salt's a weapon?" Jake disbelieves.
"It's a brave new world," Sam lightly observes, rather than attempting to explain all the ins and outs. He is so very much John's son. He could, after all, sit them down to explain everything he knows about spirits and demons in great detail, try to make them all understand as much as he does, but that would take time they may not have. So he's just giving them the barest snippets of what they need to know and using his assumed authority to hold their trust, his own knowledge and expertise to get them all through – makeshift chain of command rather than full disclosure and democratic process. It's exactly what John always used to do, and exactly what Sam always used to rail against, when he was on the other end of it.
"Well, hopefully there's food in your world, 'cause I'm freaking starving," Andy mutters.

As the others make their way into one of the old buildings, Lily hangs back, turns, and strikes out on her own.

Nebraska. The Impala pulls up outside the Roadhouse.

Outside the remains of the Roadhouse, that is, and what is left is not much. The place is completely, utterly gutted – a smouldering shell. And damn, that hurts more than I'd have expected, given that it hasn't been quite such a safe refuge for the boys as initially advertised. It is still daylight, we note. So either it was early morning when Ash called Dean, in which case the bar being open is inexplicable, or they weren't that far away, which doesn't seem likely given that there has been time for the place to be completely razed to the ground and the fire to burn itself out while they were on their way, and it is spring and doesn't stay this light so long into the evening. Maybe Ash's watch was just wrong.

Dean and Bobby are both appalled and hurry into the ruin to sift through the charred remains in a futile search for survivors, or to at least attempt to identify the dead. We catch a glimpse of a scorched cowboy hat last seen, looking rather less scorched at the time, on the head of that man who walked past Ash when he was on the phone to Dean, indicating that whatever happened here probably happened not long after that. The burned bodies on display really are grisly, a scene of utter devastation such as never seen before on this show.

A horrified Dean asks an equally horrified Bobby if he can see Ellen, and the older man gulps a bit before saying that no, he can't – or Ash, either. This is the first sign we've had that Bobby and the Roadhouse Crew know one another, although it figures that they would. Be interesting to know how John managed to keep so much about the wider hunters network from the boys, how the friends he did allow them to have contact with managed to keep straight what they could or couldn't know about.

Dean sees a charred hand sticking out of the rubble, and recognises the watch: it's Ash. I can't make out the time given by the watch, though, to know how long after that final phone call this disaster happened.

"Dammit!" Dean curses, partly out of genuine regret at the other man's demise, and partly because he was pinning all his hopes for finding Sam on whatever it was Ash wanted to tell him – information that has, presumably, cost Ash his life. The stakes are being raised awfully high all of a sudden. And this, of course, is the value of peripheral characters such as Ash: the shock value of killing them off!

It occurs to me, though, that Ash's magic demon-predicting computer that he built way back in Everybody Loves A Clown has proved to be of absolutely no use whatsoever. And that for all that Ellen was pestering John with offers of help, which is how the boys found out about her, she hasn't actually turned out to be of much practical assistance at all, not with the Demon. Maybe she just wanted to be in the loop, or maybe, in her ignorance, she thought she'd be able to do more than has turned out. I also wonder how and when Ash learned whatever it was he learned – a startling breakthrough to make in those few hours between Sam disappearing and Ash contacting Dean the next day, considering he's come up with nothing on the Demon since they met him.

Woods. Lily stumbles her way through the trees and bushes in desperate hopes of reaching safety. She hears the sound of girlish giggling someplace nearby, signalling the presence of the Achiri. But she tries to press on regardless.

Ghost town. In an abandoned house, Sam finds an iron knife that he tucks into his belt as a potentially useful weapon. He notices Ava rubbing her temples and gasping as if in pain, and asks if she's all right. She admits to being a little dizzy, and Sam wonders if it's a vision thing. "More like 'I'd kill for a sandwich'," she tells him. "I haven't eaten since…well, who knows. Don't worry, I'm fine – except for every single thing that's happening!"

"You guys, I found something," comes a shout from outside, and Andy comes rushing in, bearing two small sacks of salt and an enormous grin, delighted with himself. Andy is so much fun. But then Sam notices that Lily is not with them, and everyone is concerned – especially when they hear the childish giggle of the Achiri.

Outside, Lily's fate is revealed – she's strung up from the top of a nearby windmill. Everyone is horrified, and the death toll for this episode continues to climb steadily. Have we ever had an episode where so many people died? I can't think of one. I also can't think of an episode where no one was saved at all, but this one is already starting to look like a serious contender for that dubious honour.

Ava goes into hysterics again. "Sam! You said we were chosen for a reason, that is not a reason, that is killed!"

Andy and Ava both want to get out of town before anyone else dies, but it is Jake, rather than Sam, who doubts aloud that they will be able to. Sam agrees, pointing out that Lily was trying to leave and that the Demon isn't going to let them get away that easy. "We've got to gear up for the next attack."

Ava protests that she isn't a soldier and can't do that. Sam bluntly tells her that if she wants to stay alive she's going to have to. He really is John's son – it shines through so strongly at moments like this. Jake quietly offers to climb up and cut Lily down, and I like him for that.

With Ava having stumbled off to be freaked a little more privately, and Jake occupied with Lily's body, Sam and Andy are left alone. Clearly overwhelmed, and allowing that to show for a moment, Sam shudders a sigh. "Just thinking about how much Dean would help right now. I'd give my arm for a working phone."

He seems to be wavering between fearing the worst, that Dean may be dead already, and trusting like hell that he isn't. He's handling this remarkably well, holding the others together and keeping them going, but he isn't used to having to bear this kind of responsibility alone, and he really needs his big brother to come and take over for him. He knows that if Dean is still alive, he'll be moving heaven and earth to try and find him – it's what Dean has done every other time Sam disappeared. If there is one thing in the world Sam still has faith in, it's that Dean will always come for him.

Andy offers that maybe he doesn't need a phone. "I've never tried it long distance before," he admits, asking if Sam has anything of Dean's on him, even just something Dean has touched. Sam digs through his pockets, and I half thought he'd come out with the cash Dean gave him at the top of the hour, but what he actually produces is a MasterCard receipt signed D. Hasselhoff. Andy seems to think that'll work, and I wonder why Sam would be carrying around a receipt that Dean signed.

The D. Hasselhoff part throws Andy slightly. Oblivious, Sam simply points out that it's Dean's signature, and then off Andy's look realises what he means. "It's hard to explain," he splutters. Heh. Sam's so used to the fake identities and credit card fraud that he completely forgets how it looks to outsiders. And Dean's predilection for ridiculous false names is always a good source of amusement. Andy clearly thinks so too, chuckling a little as he concentrates his attention on Dean's phony signature.

Roadhouse Remains. Still horrified, Bobby and Dean pick their way back out of the ruins, wondering what the hell Ash could have known that would draw this kind of devastation down on his head. "We got no way of knowing where Ellen is, or if she's even alive," Dean angrily growls, and my, how the Texas accent is shining through in this episode. "We got no clue what Ash was going to tell us, now how the hell are we going to find Sam?"

Because finding Sam is the most important thing in the world to Dean right now – Sam's safety is always his topmost concern, trumping absolutely everything else. No matter what else is going on, why the Roadhouse was attacked, why all those people inside had to die – he'll worry about all that later. Sam comes first, every time.

"We'll find him," Bobby soothes. I love Bobby. He frowns a little as Dean suddenly clamps a hand to his head, grimacing in pain. Dean tries to say that he's all right, but another wave of pain hits him, along with a flash of that old bell in the ghost town. "What was that?" Bobby demands, alarmed.

Recovering, Dean tries to brush it off as just a headache, but when Bobby reasonably asks if he gets headaches like that a lot has to admit that no, he doesn't. "Must be the stress. I could've sworn I saw something."

"Whaddayou mean, like a vision?" Bobby quizzically questions. "Like what Sam gets?"

I wonder when exactly the boys came clean to Bobby about Sam's visions – before or after Ellen all but forced the truth out of them? I was never sure whether or not they could trust Ellen, and I still don't know. Bobby, at least, has proved how much he can be trusted, time and again. Even in the direst circumstances, he's always come through for them when they came to him for help. Ellen has always talked big, but lacked practical follow-through, and her Roadhouse was never the safe haven it promised to be.

Dean rejects the suggestion that he might have had a vision out of hand, protesting that he isn't a psychic. He might be totally accepting of Sam's abilities for Sam's sake, but that doesn't mean he likes the idea of anyone having psychic powers, least of all himself. But then the pain hits him again, and he all but collapses, and I wonder which is worst – having a vision powered by your own brain, or having one forcibly thrust into your mind from the outside. I'm not sure I like the idea of Andy doing this to people for fun, if this is the effect it has. I'm guessing, though, that the long-distance thing comes into play here – his techniques are probably more refined up close, but from this distance, and not really knowing where Dean is, it works out a lot more crudely.

This time, Andy manages to get more information through, and Dean sees the bell more clearly, sees Sam, as well. By the time Dean comes out of it, Bobby is very worried, and Dean can no longer deny the 'vision' thing. "I saw Sam. I saw him, Bobby."

"It was a vision," Bobby states, concerned, and probably wondering what the hell he's got himself into. Good thing he's long accustomed to the weirdness of the supernatural. Bobby has been more supportive of the boys this year than their own father was ever shown to be last season. John was always so completely devoted to his own single-minded crusade, utterly blinkered in his obsessive pursuit of that goal and refusing to deviate from the course he had chosen, no matter what. Bobby, in contrast, doesn't have that narrowness of focus. He's just a hunter, same as the boys, working each job as it arises without fear of distraction from any supposedly more important ultimate target. But it's still kind of sad to note that this family friend has proved more stalwart in support of the boys than their own father, that he has come through for them every time they've asked for help, whereas John never even returned their calls.

Dean reluctantly agrees that it was a vision. "I don't know how, but yeah. Phew! That was about as fun as getting kicked in the jewels."

Bobby asks what else he saw, and this is a nice little insight for Dean into what the visions are like from Sam's end, with the headaches and the intense questioning that follows. He describes the large bell with the engraving of a tree on it, and I'm impressed with Andy all of a sudden, because he has to have chosen that as a landmark deliberately, remembering that it was how Sam recognised their location.

"Engraving? Was it a tree, like an oak tree?" Bobby asks, and I'm impressed all over again, with Bobby this time. Bobby is who Sam will one day grow into, if he lives long enough – he's another who reads copiously, gathering and retaining information for its own sake, rather than for whatever currently situational use it might have. Bobby and Sam both look to the future; Dean lives very much in the here and now and lets tomorrow take care of itself. Even more impressively than Sam recognising the bell when he saw it, Bobby takes the vague description Dean gives him, and instantly realises where Sam is. His ability to do that kind of thing makes him somewhat of a deus ex machina, a plot mechanism for getting Dean into the right place for the climax of the episode, but since his depth of knowledge has been an established facet of his character from the start, it doesn't jar at all.

I find myself wondering if Andy has any way of knowing for sure that his message has got through or not, if he is able to at least set Sam's mind at rest regarding Dean's safety. From the context of the rest of the episode, I'm guessing probably not.

Cold Oak. Darkness has fallen as Sam and Jake make themselves busy out in the forge, taking things apart for the iron. The more weapons they can accumulate the better. Sam lifts an eyebrow, impressed, when Jake manages to snap a solid iron bar out of its mooring without so much as breaking sweat, and Jake is a little embarrassed. "I'm not Superman, or anything," he hastily explains. "It's no big deal."

Sam gently questions him, in time-honoured Sam fashion – all quiet and sincere and sympathetic. Jake explains that he was in Afghanistan when all this started – first headaches, and then when one of his colleagues was in a car accident, he managed to lift the vehicle off the trapped man as if it was nothing. 'Fluke adrenaline thing' it was explained as at first, he continues. Sam's heard that one before. But then it happened again, and again, although he never told anyone about it. "It was just too crazy."

"Crazy's relative," says Sam, who experiences crazy on a daily basis.
"I'm startin' to get that," Jake snorts, and then awkwardly tells Sam he appreciates what he's doing – keeping calm and keeping the others calm. In other words, the kind of thing Jake is trained to do, as a soldier, but that Sam is proving rather better at under the circumstances, because Sam has also been trained as a soldier, although considerably less officially or formally. The big difference is that Sam was trained specifically to deal with supernatural dangers, whereas Jake is completely out of his depth here.

"Specially considering how freaked to hell you really are," Jake concludes. Sam tries to act like he doesn't know what the other man means, but Jake has got him bang to rights. "I've been in some deep crap before myself, I know the look," he says.

Sam can't deny it any longer. "You want to know the truth? I got this brother, right? And he's always telling me how he's going to watch out for me, how everything's gonna be okay, you know, kind of like I've been telling them. I don't know if I believe it this time. I mean the size of what's coming – it's bigger than anyone's ever seen. I mean it's going to get bad, and I – I don't know if –"
"If we're going to make it," Jake finishes for him, gloomily. "Doesn't matter if we believe it. Only matters that they do."

I like this moment of bonding between these two soldiers, recognizing their responsibility for the civilians in their charge. I especially like that Jake is totally acknowledging Sam as a fellow soldier and his equal, considering that technically Sam is also a civilian. His military-style training shines through, as do his experience and knowledge of what's going on – more than any of the rest of them have got. And if Dean has now got a taste of what it's like to be Sam and get visions, Sam is getting a taste of what it's been like to be Dean all season, bearing such heavy responsibility and trying to keep spirits up, keep everyone going, whether he believes his own words of reassurance or not.

Inside one of the houses, presumably a little later, Sam and Ava lay salt lines across doors and windows. Which is fair enough, except that in Devil's Trap we saw the YED escape from a similarly salt-lined cabin via the floorboards, so I'm not sure all this salt line business is quite as safe as it's cracked up to be. Better than nothing through. Maybe not all demons are bright enough to think of the floorboards.

"My horoscope said I shouldn't have gotten out of bed," Ava sighs. Which kind of begs the question – horoscope for which day, exactly? She's supposedly missing five months. But she's just being facetious, as an icebreaker. She asks how Sam's doing, which is nice because although Sam has totally taken the lead of this eclectic little band, completely calm, competent and efficient, holding them together, he can't keep the fear out of his eyes, and it's only right that the others should notice and show the same concern for him as he has for them.

"I'm okay," Sam insists. "What about you?"
"Not so okay," Ava admits. "Why us, Sam? What did we do to deserve this?"
"Just lucky, I guess," Sam very wryly tells her, channelling Dean big-time in his absence.
"Weren't for bad luck, wouldn't have no luck at all," says Ava with a roll of the eyes, equally wryly. Outside, thunder crashes loudly as she adds: "I can't wait for all this to be over so I can pretend it never happened. I just want to curl up with Brady and watch bad TV."

Sam looks away, uncomfortable, because he's been keeping the news of Brady's demise from her this whole time, taking the decision upon himself that telling her the truth would be counter-productive. It's a very John thing to do. If John or Dean were here and had made that sweeping executive decision, Sam would no doubt play devil's advocate and argue against it, as he has in the past. But it's different when he's the one in charge of all their best interests. Never easy being the one in the hot seat.

Ava notices and gets worried, realises that Sam knows something she doesn't, and asks what it is. Sam can't keep a secret like that any longer, which is very in character, and so gently tells her the awful truth. "When the demon broke into your house to take you, your fiancé didn't make it. I'm sorry."

Ava is aghast and breaks down, and Sam tries to comfort her, all the while despairing of any of their chances of getting out of this alive.

Later. Jake prowls restlessly near the door, nervously fiddling with his impromptu weapon, Sam is slumped disconsolately near the window, Andy is fast asleep at the table, and Ava quietly sits beside him, lost in a world of her own grief. It's late, and Sam's eyes are getting heavy, he struggles to keep himself awake – and then looks up to see a man with yellow eyes standing right behind Jake!

Hey, it's the janitor from In My Time of Dying. The YED apparently really liked using his form, since there's no other reason for it to still be using him like this – other than it being a form the audience will easily recognise, of course. It isn't as if Sam ever saw it in that form; he only recognises it by the yellow eyes. Sam yells a warning, but Jake doesn't so much as twitch, clearly not hearing him.

The YED smiles. "Howdy, Sam."
"I'm dreaming," Sam realises. I've been waiting since Simon Said for the YED to visit Sam in his dreams.

The YED ignores him to suggest that they take a little walk, and the next thing we know they are doing so.

"You're awfully quiet, Sam," the YED cheerfully remarks. "You're not mad at me, are you?"
Sam glowers. "I'm going to tear you to shreds, I swear to –"
The YED laughs at him. "When you wake up, tiger, you give it your best shot."
"Where's my brother?" is the next thought on Sam's mind.
"Quit worrying about Dean," the YED advises. "I'd worry more about yourself."
"What? You're gonna kill me?" Sam snits, antagonistic and angry, holding his arms out to present a better target, all bring it on. No one does a better bitch-face than Sam, and he directs a wide array of them at the YED throughout this conversation.
"I'm trying to help you," the YED reproachfully tells him. "That's why we're talking. You're the one I'm rooting for."

Ooh, intriguing, and he's got Sam's full attention all of a sudden. Sam wonders what the hell that's supposed to mean.

YED: "Welcome to the Miss America Pageant. Why do you think you're here? This is a competition. Only one of you crazy kids is going to make it out of here alive."

Sam is stunned, spluttering that he thought they were supposed to be –

YED: "Soldiers? In a coming war? That's true, you are, but here's the thing: I don't need soldiers. I need soldier. I just need the one."
Sam: "Why?"
YED: "Well, I couldn't just come out and say that, could I, Sam? I had to let everyone think they had a fighting chance. But what I need is a leader."

"To lead who?" Sam is getting really scared now, as well he should be. He's been so frightened for such a long time of what the YED has got planned for him, has assumed all kinds of awful things to be in store. Now, at last, he's being given answers, a chance to find out the worst. Although how much of what the Demon tells him can be trusted implicitly is another matter entirely – demons lie, demons twist the truth, and this one has been known to manipulate psychics in their dreams in the past, never with good results.

YED: "Oh, I've already got my army. Or, I will, soon, anyway."

Now that's fairly ominous. We've already seen some of the lesser demons it has working for it, and they were bad enough.

YED: "Honestly, I'm surprised you hadn't guessed. Why do you think so many children flamed out already – Max Miller and Andy's brother, what's his name? They weren't strong enough. I'm looking for the best and brightest of your generation."
Sam: "My generation?"
YED: "Well, there's other generations, but let's just worry about yours."

Interesting, interesting – to know why the Demon has cared so little if its tactics drove the psychics to destruction. Sam was right, way back in Simon Said, when he guessed that it was pushing them, finding ways to break them. As for the generational thing, we saw the Demon putting moves on baby Rosie last season, know that it went into hibernation for 22 years after Mary's death, so the cyclical nature of its activity has already been hinted at, here given a little more substance.

"That's why I'm here, Sam," the YED continues. "I want to give you the inside track. You're tough, you're smart, you're well trained, thanks to your daddy. Sam. Sammy. You're my favourite."
Sam looks revolted. "You ruined my life. You killed everyone I love."

Everyone but Dean, that is, but Sam still doesn't know if his brother is alive or not. He knows that Ava's fiancé was killed when she was taken, so has good reason to fear for Dean's life. He's still wavering between hoping for the best and fearing the worst.

YED: "The cost of doing business, I'm afraid. I mean, sweet little Jessica. She just had to die – you were all set to marry that little blonde thing, become a tax lawyer with two kids, a beer gut, a little McMansion in the suburbs. I needed you sharp, on the road, honing your skills, your gifts."

Interesting, interesting again. Just how random was the timing of the attack on Jessica. Was the date chosen for a reason, it being the anniversary of Mary's death, six months to the day after Sam's birthday? Or was it more random opportunism on the part of the Demon? Did it take advantage of Dean showing up out of the blue like that, being nearby and therefore available to take Sam back on the road? Or would Jessica have been killed regardless of Sam's level of contact with his family? There was no guarantee that her death would drive him back out onto the road, but he's enough like John that it was no doubt worth a shot. There was no guarantee, either, that the fire wouldn't kill him, as well. It seems this Demon is nothing if not opportunistic, and has admitted that it doesn't mind experimenting with the psychic children, doesn't mind if it loses a few or even a lot of them along the way, in search of the right one.

Is Sam really its favourite? Or is that just more mind-messing hype? Does it tell them all the same thing? Or is Sam truly singled out for special attention? After all, it seems safe to say that Sam was the only one tested for immunity to the demonic virus in Croatoan – the infection and disappearance of entire populations is dramatic enough that the boys would have noticed if the same thing had happened in any other towns. And others of the psychic children have been in stable and loving relationships, much like Sam and Jessica, without the YED intervening: Ava was only eight weeks short of her wedding when she was snatched, and that was the first incursion the YED had made on her otherwise utterly average life. Andy likewise seems to have been completely ignored since that nursery fire in his infancy, other than his long-lost twin ignoring the YED's wishes and seeking him out. So maybe the way John raised Sam, training him as a warrior, inadvertently played into the YED's hands by making his son all the more desirable to it.

Having been getting a little concerned of late about how many random details had been left lying loose for so long, wondering whether they would ever be drawn together coherently or might instead be quietly discarded, I just adore how many of those tiny and seemingly incongruous details are being pulled together and explained in this episode. Yes, it's a little exposition-heavy, but absolutely awesome in the fine detail! So many questions answered – and so many new ones posed.

Also – tax lawyer? Sounds dreadfully dull. But then, that's kind of the point – after being raised on the road, with all the dangers involved in hunting evil of the supernatural variety, safe and dull was what Sam was looking for from his life at Stanford. And it's exactly what the Demon didn't want for him.

Sam: "What about my Mom?"
YED: "That was bad luck."
Sam: "Bad luck?"
YED: "She walked in on us. Wrong place, wrong time."

Whoa. Explanation of why only a handful of the psychics had nursery fires, although presumably they were all visited on their six-month birthdays. It was a matter of sheer bad luck if the mother happened to walk in at the exact wrong moment and paid for that with her life. It also explains why Andy's adoptive mother died – the bisection and incineration of mothers, blood relatives, was never a part of the Demon's ritual. That's awesome to know because so much was made of those nursery fires as a pattern for the Demon, it being the only connection anyone had to go on for such a long time. And now it turns out to be a red herring, a mere side effect rather than a part of the demonic master plan. It does make me wonder, though, about the pattern of house fires John pursued in season one, explained in Salvation – did more mothers walk in at the wrong moment in this new generation than the 1983 lot, then?

Sam: "What does that mean?"
YED: "It wasn't about her – it was about you. It's always been about you."

That is exactly what Sam has always been afraid of. Hearing this confirmation, he is stricken, stunned and dismayed. The YED decides that it is in a charitable mood and offers to show him what happened.

One snap of the fingers later and Sam is in his own old nursery, opposite a dark figure standing over the crib containing his infant self. "This is just high-def instant replay," the YED tells him when he tries to intervene. "Enjoy the show."

A half-awake Mary stumbles blearily into the room to ask if the baby is hungry, assuming that the figure standing over the crib is John. Sam is transfixed, because he has only ever seen his mother once, and that was for a matter of mere moments, as a ghost. And viewers are also transfixed because it is so fascinating to see this familiar scene from such a different perspective from that of the Pilot. The demon standing over the crib hushes her and she stumbles blearily back out again, despite Sam's frantic shouts. Rolling his eyes, the YED reminds him that she can't hear him. "This isn't real."

Sam watches, beyond horrified, as the shadowy demonic figure slits its own wrist and allows the blood to drip into the mouth of his infant self.

Sam: "What the hell are you doing to me?"
YED: "Better than mother's milk."
Sam: "Does this mean I have demon blood in me?"

Yikes. So…are the psychics created by means of that demonic blood, in which case you have to wonder how they are chosen – for some other specific reason or more randomly? Or do they each have psychic potential inherent in them, which is why they are singled out by the Demon, and that demonic blood is used to enhance and draw out those latent abilities? It does seem that none of their abilities started to manifest until the Demon came out of hibernation 22 years later, thus somehow triggering them.

The Demon only chuckles, and then Mary races back into the room, having found John asleep downstairs. The Demon standing over the crib whirls around, eyes glinting yellow…and she recognises him. "It's you."

Woo! Now that one comes from left field, for Sam more than anyone. Sam gapes at the revelation that his mother knew the Demon somehow, and viewers remember that Mary apologised to him, way back in Home, for reasons that remain unknown.

Mary is pinned to the wall, dragged up onto the ceiling, and the YED decides that Sam won't want to see the rest. Snap of the fingers! Andy and Jake shake Sam awake to grimly inform him that Ava is missing.

It's all go from here on in. Sam and Jake both hurry out into the streets to search for Ava, leaving Andy alone inside to wait. They split up to cover more ground, and as soon as they are out of sight, Ava appears around a corner, watching them go. Duh! Having been missing for five months, it seems sweet little Ava is no longer as innocent as she's been making out.

Alone inside the house they are using as Psychic HQ, a very nervous Andy waits all alone for the others to get back. He's the most vulnerable of them all. Hearing a noise at the window, he carefully steps over the salt line back into the main room, wherein he finds Ava. Unseen by him, she pulls her fingers through the salt on the windowsill, breaking the line to allow demonic access. It doesn't take Andy long to realise that something is seriously wrong with her attitude, and his relief at her safe return is short-lived. Ava presses her fingers to her temples, just as we saw earlier, when Lily died, and the Achiri demon appears outside the window, presses its way in through that break in the salt line. It manifests, and attacks, and that, unfortunately, is the end of poor little Andy.

It's all rather grisly again. The death toll in this episode is huge. I liked Andy! I'm glad he never turned evil, but I'm so very sad that he died.

Ava watches, satisfied with what she has done, and then once Andy is dead throws back her head and screams loud and long to bring Sam running. He is horrified and dismayed to find Andy dead, wondering how the demon got in. Ava, playing her hysterical innocence act for all she's worth, splutters that she'd just stepped outside for two minutes to get some water from the well. Sam tells her she shouldn't have gone outside, and then notices that the salt line at the window has been deliberately broken, challenges her on it. He knows Andy wouldn't have done it – trusts Andy more than her, since she has five whole months that she can't account for, and he has realised that her headache earlier coincided with Lily's death. Clever boy. A little late, but still clever.

Ava tries to protest her innocence a little longer, but Sam's not having any of it, not after the Demon's revelations, and not with Andy dead. She gives in and drops the act. "Had you going though, didn't I? Yeah, I've been here a long time. And not alone, either – people just keep showing up. Children, like us, batches of three or four at a time."

"You killed them? All of them?" Sam is revolted.
"I'm the undefeated heavyweight champ," Ava tells him, with a touch of pride and just a hint of self-loathing. This is a competition, survival of the fittest, and she has learned how to survive in the worst possible way.

Sam is absolutely horrified, asking how she could do it. "I had no choice," she insists. "It's me or them. After a while, it was easy. It's even kinda fun. I just stopped fighting it."
"Fighting what?" Sam grits out.
"Who we are, Sam," she tells him, as if it should be obvious. "If you just quit your hand-wringing and opened yourself up, you have no idea what you can do."

The show makes clear for us, time and time again, that the reason Sam's powers have not developed beyond intermittent visions is because he has actively avoided developing them at all. He doesn't want to develop his abilities, is uncomfortable enough with what he's already got.

Ava, in contrast, despite her life having remained so untouched for so many years, has become the embodiment of what the YED is trying to achieve with these psychic children. Not that any of them are exactly children any more, but still. "Right circumstances, everyone's capable of murder. Everyone." Sam said that back in Simon Said. The first killing might be hard, but if the same circumstances persist, survival of the fittest, sooner or later the survivor – the killer – becomes desensitised to the slaughter, gets good at it. It's what the YED wants. It isn't enough for them just to kill in the heat of the moment or self defence; the conscience has to go as well for them to be of any real use to it.

Ava has been here for five months, fighting for her life against people no more guilty and no more innocent than herself, probably with the Demon whispering sweet nothings in her dreams, as well, poisoning her mind. It's a tactic it has used before. Enough to drive anyone over the edge, even sweet, normal little Ava. You've got to wonder what she's done for food, water and clean clothes all those months, mind. She looks remarkably clean and healthy for someone who has been trapped here fighting for her life for five months. Has the Demon been providing for her physical needs, as the reigning champion? Also, if Ava is controlling the Achiri demon, is the YED really trapping them here, or can any of them walk away at any time, if only they realised they could and allowed each other to leave, worked together? You've got to assume that it is paying close attention to the goings on here, given how important the results are to it, and it has a vested interest in making sure that they all play the game according to the rules it has set.

I'm curious, though, about how this game works. After all, so far the only overt danger any of them has faced has been caused by Ava and her demon control – other than that, they've all been working together reasonably well, Lily's attempt at striking out on her own aside. When the 'games' first began and the children started being brought here, how did the YED initially go about turning them against one another? Presumably it has all kinds of tricks up its sleeve that have not been brought into play this time because Ava's demon control meant it didn't really need to, other than the occasional dream manipulation. Human paranoia no doubt does a lot of its work for it.

Ava: "The learning curve is so fast, it's crazy – the switches that just flip in your brain. I can't believe I started out just having dreams. Do you know what I can do now?"
Sam: "Control demons."

He's not wrong. In no time at all, Ava has summoned the Achiri again. "I'm sorry, Sam, but – it's over," she tells him as he wields his iron bar and prepares to defend himself.

In the nick of time, Jake appears behind Ava and snaps her neck, just like that. One sharp twist and she's dead, and the Achiri vanishes once more, freed from her control. And then there were two, and now Sam is the only one left not to have killed. Jake is a soldier – he's trained to kill fellow humans if they are deemed enemies. Jake has the advantage.

Outskirts of Cold Oak. The Impala reaches the end of the road – Dean and Bobby will have to make their way on foot from here. We've barely seen Dean in this episode – he's been in, like, four scenes up till now, only five in total for the entire episode. But this is the third time Sam has gone missing this season, and we already know how Dean reacts to that. This episode is all about Sam, all about the mytharc exposition, and all about setting up the second part of the finale next week.

Cold Oak. Sam and Jake wander back out into the street, Sam explaining that he thinks they can make it out of there now. So, as I'd wondered, it doesn't seem like there was ever anything trapping them there other than Ava's demon control and their own fear. But then again, as I also said, it seems fair to assume that the YED will be monitoring events here fairly closely, wanting to know who comes out on top, and if the participants don't play by the rules it won't be happy. As it turns out, though, the YED doesn't need to intervene – human nature and paranoia does the job for it perfectly well, as it no doubt has in every single round of this cage game so far.

Sam: "We've got to go."
Jake: "Not 'we', Sam. Only one of us is getting out of here. I'm sorry."

It turns out that the YED has talked to Jake, too, and made him much the same promises that it gave to Sam. Sam protests that they can't listen to the Demon, but Jake counters that if they try to leave together it will kill them both, that they have to play by the rules of the game. "I like you, man, I do, but do the math here. What good's it do for both of us to die?"

Such warped logic. See how anyone can be corrupted by the conditions the Demon has created, by the mind games it plays out in their dreams. If the psychics all honed their powers and worked together, they might even be a potential threat to the Demon – after all, Ava learned how to control demons – although granted that might be a bit of a long shot, since it seems to have created their powers in the first place, and is so frighteningly powerful itself. But instead its policy of divide and rule is slowly but surely turning them into what it wants them to be: his.

Jake promises that he can get out of there, find the Demon and kill it, and the chilling thing is that he seems to genuinely think he can talk Sam into just giving in and letting himself be killed. Sam protests that they can kill the Demon together, but Jake won't be convinced, refuses to trust him.

Sam throws down his knife as a gesture of faith. "Just come with me, Jake. Don't do this, don't play into what it wants."

Jake seems to be swayed and drops his own weapon, lulling Sam into a false sense of security – and then SLAM! Hits him hard enough that Sam goes flying right through a nearby fence and onto the ground beyond. Jake's power revolves around super-strength, he has a clear advantage here, and I don't like him any more. The YED seems to have got to him awfully easily, but then again we have no idea what it has been whispering in his head to manipulate him into playing its war game.

Sam lies dazed on the ground with Jake advancing on him, intent on finishing him off. Lots of fighting ensues. I can't really describe it – suffice it to say that Sam does not come out of it especially well, since although Sam is extremely well trained, we've seen in the past that his hand-to-hand skills are only really any good when he has the advantage of surprise, which he doesn't here. Plus, Jake has that super-strength going for him. But still, Sam does his best to fight for his life, despite picking up some nasty injuries, in particular a crunching kick to the right shoulder. Luck seems to be on his side, as a misplaced punch causes Jake's hand to get stuck in the fence long enough for Sam to get in a few hefty blows and then kick him through the fence, stunning him slightly.

Kill or be killed. Sam picks up Jake's iron bar and hits him with it as he tries to get back up, knocking him out. And now he comes to the crunch. It's kill or be killed, but this is what the Demon wants, has been trying to goad him into all along – has been trying to goad them all into all along. Sam raises his arm, prepares to deliver the killing blow…

But he can't do it. And I like that this moment is so underplayed, because it really is significant. Turning into what the Demon wants him to be has been Sam's greatest fear from the start. It's why he forced that fateful promise out of Dean. He was afraid that the Demon would flip some kind of switch in his head and transform him into something else. But here it turns out that isn't the case at all. There's no secret evil switch inside his head, nothing but those latent psychic powers and his own conscience, what he knows to be right and wrong. All the Demon wants is for him to take that first step across a crucial dividing line, and then keep walking in that direction until he stops caring and learns to revel in it. Just as Dean has always insisted, Sam retains full control of and responsibility for his own actions.

So many red herrings this show has thrown out along the way, and yet they have all worked perfectly as narrative tools, because the audience is never allowed to know any more than the boys know at any given time. We are on this journey with them, drawing as they do whatever flawed suppositions we can from the limited evidence available along the way. The fact that they know so very little about all of this has been pretty much the whole point, all along.

It's another reason to be cross with John, in fact. Because we know that John knew a lot more than he ever let on, but he chose not to share that information with his sons, instead leaving them to stumble around blindly in the dark. Leaving them vulnerable in all kinds of ways – after all, forewarned is forearmed. Their ignorance and fear have hurt them far more than the truth could have. John always tried to do what he thought was best, but the choices he made were sometimes deeply, deeply flawed.

So anyway, Sam can't do it, can't murder Jake in cold blood: fails the test from the Demon's perspective, but passes it from his own. He drops the iron bar, prepares to stumble away, and then hears his name being bellowed.

It's Dean – and Bobby – come to the rescue at last. Dean's relief at finding Sam in one piece is palpable, and Sam's face positively lights up with joy when he sees that his big brother has come to get him at last. Neither had known for sure until now that the other was still alive. Sam in this moment is so very much the baby brother, believing completely that everything will be all right now simply because Dean is here, and his sheer delight at seeing his brother just kills me, knowing what comes next.

For Sam has made a fatal mistake – he left that knife within easy reach of a homicidal psychic he knows to be out for his blood. Dean bellows a warning too late – Jake plunges the knife deep into Sam's back, and the entire viewing audience shrieks in abject horror.

So does Dean, bellowing "NOOOO!" as he races to his brother.

Jake flees, and Bobby gives chase. Sam collapses to his knees, and Dean catches him before he can fall any further, and there is no way I can do justice to this scene in a mere recap. The CW have put Jensen Ackles forward for an Emmy on the strength of his performance in this two-part season finale, and this scene is part of the reason why. Dean's raw anguish is painful to watch.

Sam is completely limp and unresponsive, head floppy, and I'm impressed with Jared Padalecki, too, because it can't be easy to completely relinquish all muscle control like that. He probably shouldn't let his eyes close like that, though, if he is supposed to be dead rather than just passed out.

Dean holds Sam up and hugs him close, examines his wound, strokes his face and hair, tries to shake him awake, keeps talking to him all the while, and his voice is heartbreakingly gentle as he pleads with his little brother, as if Sam were a baby all over again.

Dean: "Come here, come here. Let me look at you. Look at me. It's not even that bad. It's not even that bad, all right? Sammy? Sam! Listen to me – we're going to patch you up, okay? You'll be good as new. Huh? I'm gonna take care of you. I'm gonna take care of you. I've got you. It's my job, right? Watch out for my pain-in-the-ass little brother. Sam? Sam? Sam! Sammy! No. Nonononono. Oh God. SAM!"

Close on Dean, kneeling in the mud, crying and clinging onto his brother's body.

Trying to keep his family safe has been Dean's strongest motivation ever since we first met him, way back at the start of season one, fighting against overwhelming odds a lot of the time, and his greatest fear has always been that he wouldn't be good enough, that he would fail them. It's the reason he's such a control freak and so obsessed with looking after Sam, struggles to delegate responsibility, although he's a lot better with that these days. John's death almost destroyed him, but he still had Sam to watch out for and protect, a reason to keep going, no matter how hard it was.

Dean will blame himself for this, no doubt about that. He considers looking after Sam to be the most important job that he has, a responsibility he has borne since he was four years old and the last command his father ever gave him, and he will feel that he has failed completely, even though there was absolutely nothing he could have done. If he'd been with Sam when he was taken, he'd be dead like everyone else in that café, end of story. He had no way to predict what would happen, and had no way to stop the Demon from taking Sam in that way. He got here as fast as he could. He couldn't have stopped it happening. But none of that will matter to him – there can be absolutely no doubt that he will hold himself responsible for not protecting Sam better somehow. He'll be out of control, and he'll be beyond desperate.

And, since it seems unlikely that Bobby will be able to catch Jake, there are now no witnesses left to explain what happened here. Dean still doesn't know how he received that 'vision', and no one other than Jake knows why the psychics were brought here or what exactly the Demon has planned for them. Dean and Bobby remain as much in the dark as they have ever been, with the stakes higher than ever.

Dean now has nothing left at all, nothing left to lose whatsoever – that Yellow-Eyed Demon has taken absolutely everything he ever had. The Demon is still out there, its plans approaching fruition, and there's another episode of the season finale still to come in which the big question, given that we know Sam isn't leaving the show and therefore can't stay dead, is this: what the hell will Dean do now?


May 2007

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