"I'm staring down eternity alone."

Ahhhhhhh. This is an amazing episode. The structure is tight, the pacing spot-on and the character dynamics perfect. Lt's give it up for Sera Gamble and Kim Manners.

"Dad's gone now. He wants us to pick up where he left off. What do you say we kill some evil sons of bitches and we raise a little hell?"

Another re-mix of the opening voiceover.

Then.

The boys met Bela Talbot, a high-class black market dealer in all things supernatural, and she quickly became an almighty pain in both their backsides – and also, rather more literally, in Sam's shoulder when she shot him.

And the boys also met Gordon Walker, who was of the more psychotically insane brand of hunter, specialising in vampires, as a rule. However, Gordon's lethal attention this season has been focused on Sam, and he was last seen preparing himself to bust out of jail with the aid of his equally insane hunter friend Kubrick.

Now.

Somewhere out in the middle of nowhere, Bela Talbot wanders back to her car clutching a briefcase I'm going to assume is stuffed full of cash following her latest business venture. She is perturbed to see movement behind her in the reflection in her car window, and swings around to see Gordon Walker, promptly chiding him for the rudeness of sneaking up on people. She does believe in attack as the best form of defence. Gordon addresses her by name, which Bela does not appreciate, since she has no idea who he is. She recognises his name when she hears it, though – and the dawning of comprehension, and accompanying very slight trepidation at the moment of realisation, is nicely done – and remembers that he's supposed to be in prison. Gordon shrugs that he got out. That easy, clearly. He should give those Prison Break boys a few pointers.

Bela nonchalantly leans into the car to stow her briefcase and surreptitiously reach for something. She reaches in vain, though, for Gordon has already appropriated her gun and disarms it in front of her. "I know you were just in Massachusetts," he announces. "And I know you were with the Winchester boys. Tell me where they are."

He knows how? We aren't told, but it's actually kind of cool to have these kinds of vague references to that covert hunters network in action. They all have their own web of contacts, and all have their own ways of finding things out. It seems perfectly reasonable to me that, having found someone who saw the boys recently, Gordon would use that person as a source of information; could save him a lot of time and footwork.

Bela sweetly tells Gordon that she doesn't think she knows where the boys are now, which is both the truth and nothing to do with protecting them. Bela simply doesn't believe in cooperating with anyone unless there's something in it for her, and takes exception at this stranger confronting her in this way. Gordon promptly whips out his own gun, points it at her head, and suggests that she think a little harder. Bela sighs, looking more annoyed than anything – game face glued in place – and tells him to put it down.

"What's so pressing about finding the boys, anyway?" she wonders.
"Sam Winchester's the anti-Christ," Gordon tells her, deadpan.

Cool as a cucumber, Bela nods that she'd heard something about that, although clearly wasn't impressed by the rumour. Gordon insists it's true. "From my good friend," she continues, awesomely. "The Easter Bunny. Who'd heard it from the Tooth Fairy. Are you off your meds?"

I love that she doesn't believe it for a second. She's met Sam, wasn't especially impressed, and doesn't strike me as a woman who'd be willing to believe any kind of fanciful rumour until presented with cold, hard evidence. In her line of work, she can't afford to get carried away by doubt, suspicion or rumour. She has to make certain of her facts before taking action of any kind, or her reputation would be blown out of the water.

Gordon sombrely intones that the world hangs in the balance and to tell him where the boys are or he'll shoot. He really doesn't have much imagination – threats and intimidation seem to be the one method he knows to get what he wants.

Bela doesn't so much as turn a hair. "Gordon. You and I don't know each other very well. So let me tell you a little something about me. I don't respond well to threats. But you make me an offer? And I think you'll find me highly cooperative."

Gordon nods, lowers the gun, seems to be considering the suggestion, and then makes her an offer, gun swinging right back to her head once more. "How about you tell me where they are, or I'll kill you right now." Heh. There's that lack of imagination again; he really struggles to alter his tried-and-tested tactics.

"Kill me," Bela chirps, unmoved. "Good luck finding Sam and Dean."

She stares down the barrel of the gun, unblinking. Girl's got guts, there's no denying it, and she's reading Gordon accurately. For all the lines he has crossed, he does still consider himself a hunter, not a murderer, and that's important to him. A non-psychic human like Bela, however loathsome she might be, is not on his list of approved prey. Plus, she has a very valid point, although I'm sure he could track the Winchesters down without her help if he put his mind to it; it would just take him a lot longer. Gordon clenches and fumes, but is finally forced to accept the validity of her statement, and tries an alternate offer – one more along the lines of what Bela is looking for. Three grand is as much as he expects to be able to pull together, though, and Bela simply laughs that she doesn't get out of bed for three grand.

Gordon seethes his frustration. He would be able to locate them without her help eventually, I've no doubt, but it would involve a lot of time and effort tracking down alternate leads, and he doesn't want to waste any more time; he wants Sam now. Then Bela sees something hanging from his belt – a little hessian bag that seems to be almost glowing red – and changes her tune instantly. "Scratch that, give me the mojo bag and we'll call it even," she offers.

Gordon protests that it's a century old. Priceless, Bela knows. Neither explains what it is or what it's used for, though, or why Gordon has it. Since Bela tends to sell anything that valuable as fast as possible, I doubt we'll ever find out; the bag is merely a plot device. Just how Gordon got hold of it when he's only just got out of prison is another matter, but I daresay we can assume he had it stashed away someplace. Bela presses home her advantage, asking how badly Gordon wants the Winchesters. Very badly is the answer, as he tosses her the bag without another word of argument.

Bela promptly pulls out her phone and dials. "Hello, Dean? Hey, where are you?"

And damn, it figures that she'd sell the boys out. The whole point of her giving them that money last week was so she wouldn't have to feel she owed them anything. She turned it into a business transaction, which is now concluded, leaving her with no ties to them, and no debt. She has been very clearly established as someone who does not want to feel any kind of loyalty or commitment to anyone, and she has only a passing acquaintance with the boys, which is based more on mutual loathing than anything else. She wouldn't feel that she owed them anything. And double damn because her tone is so chatty, and after their little escapade together Dean's guard would be down; he might not trust her, but he wouldn't suspect this kind of betrayal from her, either.

Titles.

Random warehouse someplace unspecified. Our boys are mid-job, making with the flashlight-fu until they spot a telltale pool of blood, which leads them to a terrified man sprawled on the floor with teeth marks in his neck. Vampire attack. Man, for creatures John had believed extinct, there sure seem to be plenty of them around.

I love that we're meeting the boys mid-job like this, so we know from the start that the vampire case in and of itself isn't going to be the focus of the episode, but rather exists to provide structure to the story of Gordon's escalating hunt for Sam. The writing of this episode is beautifully tight.

Sam soothingly assures the man that they'll get help, while Dean more curtly asks which way 'she' went. The man points, and Dean promptly takes off, leaving Sam to deal with the victim.

Dean cautiously prowls, blade in hand. There is no sign of the vampire. He weighs up his options, makes a decision, and slices his own arm open with the blade. Ouch. "Smell that?" he shouts. "Come and get it!"

John really did teach his oldest some really bad habits about using himself as bait, and this isn't the first time we've seen it, simply the most extreme. Dean always was gung-ho and he always was reckless, but he's taking it to extremes this season, getting a real kick out of the adrenaline rush of living on such a knife edge, and feeling perfectly justified in doing so since his time is running out anyway. If he gets himself killed in the process, he's got nothing to lose but a few months of fear and trepidation, right?



The vampire comes running almost at once, a young blonde woman. Hey! It's Mercedes McNab of Buffy the Vampire Slayer fame. Hee. This is another benefit of being completely unspoiled – little casting details like this come as a total surprise.

"I smell good, don't I?" Dean taunts as she slowly edges closer. "I taste even better."

He holds the blade up for her to see, then tosses it aside, a man with a plan, and tempts her once more with the offer of free lunch. The vampire can't take any more and launches herself at him, and he just barely manages to keep her fangs out of his neck as he slams a hypodermic into her throat, and down she goes. Dead man's blood! That's very cunning. Recklessly dangerous, but cunning.

Sam arrives a moment too late to actually be of any help and gapes at his brother and the downed vampire, clearly alarmed by the enormous risk Dean just took.

"Cutting it a little close, don't you think?" he observes, making his point but not belabouring it, not yet. Dean is having none of it, simply pointing out that it worked – and adding a little 'ow' as he remembers that self-inflicted arm wound.

House. Or possibly a motel? It looks like the boys are maybe squatting again, but the evidence is inconclusive. The layout suggests motel, but there are several old mattresses leaning against the windows to prevent anyone seeing in, which says squat to me, rather than hired motel room. It could be that finding empty houses or apartments to squat in is their new tactic for staying under the radar, since there are so many people out there looking for them these days – squatting means no credit card trail for anyone to follow, whether FBI or hunters.

They've got the vampire tied to a chair, just waiting for her to wake up, and finally she does. Rather gruesomely, she still has blood from her last meal staining her chin. On waking up, she instantly starts struggling against her bonds, while the brothers question her as to the whereabouts of her nest – and that would be the reason they didn't just kill her on the spot. But she pleads ignorance, whimpering that she doesn't feel good.

"I took something – I'm freaking out, I don't know what's going on!" she cries.

The brothers exchange perplexed and slightly concerned side eyes, having not quite expected this development, as the vampire – Lucy – desperately continues that she can't come down and begs to be released. Sam gives her his very best sincere eyes and sympathetic voice as he agrees to let her go if she tells them what happened, at which Dean looks startled. He knows Sam knows there is no way they can contemplate freeing her, and doesn't expect this kind of duplicity from his brother, wilfully giving her false hope in the interest of garnering information. He plays along, however.

Lucy explains that she was at a club called Spider, and some guy was buying her drinks. Sam asks what this guy looked like. "He was old, like 30," she offers.

On behalf of everyone aged 30 and above: oi!

Lucy goes on to describe the man's brown hair and leather jacket, offering Deacon or Dixon as his name. He'd claimed to be a dealer, and offered her something new, better than anything she'd ever tried before, and put a few drops in her drink. Dean scathingly guesses that the drug was red and thick. "Genius move there," he snorts. "That was vampire blood he dosed you with. You just took a big steaming shot of the nastiest virus out there."

Lucy, freaking out, protests the impossibility of this suggestion, explaining that she'd gone back to Deacon-Dixon's place where he'd told her to wait while he got her something to eat, but she was so hungry she couldn't wait, so she busted out. "But it won't wear off, whatever he gave me," she whimpers.

The parallels with Heart are striking: a pretty girl turned into a ferocious and bloodthirsty creature without even knowing it. Lucy is nothing like Madison, however, and where Madison only changed a few nights a month, but still possessed enough self-awareness and dignity to choose death rather than risk innocent lives, Lucy is a threat to anyone who goes near her all the time, yet is unable to even acknowledge her actions, never mind face up to the reality of her situation.

Dean guesses a few of her symptoms – lights too bright, sunshine hurting the skin – and Lucy adds heightened sense of smell and hearing to the list.

Lucy: "I can hear blood pumping."
Dean: "Well, hate to tell you this, sweetheart, but your blood's never pumping again."
Lucy: "Not mine. Yours. I can hear a heart beating from half a block away!"

Remember this conversation; it will be significant later. Lucy is explaining to us in detail here just how much of a sensory advantage a vampire has over a human. She just wants it to stop, though, not understanding what has happened to her.

"All right, listen, wavy gravy," Dean tells her, brisk and businesslike, but not entirely unsympathetic. "It's never going to stop. You've already killed two people, almost three."

Lucy sobs that she was hallucinating, but Dean presses that he and Sam have been following a sloppy trail of corpses that led straight to her. Lucy still refuses to believe it and begs for help. Sam is looking distressed, no doubt remembering Madison, and gestures with his head for a private chat with his brother. The boys head out into the hallway to talk.

"Poor girl," Sam murmurs.
"We don't have a choice," Dean sympathetically but firmly points out, no doubt half-expecting Sam to argue in favour of expending time and effort on a futile search for some kind of alternative.

Sam glances back at Lucy, then looks at Dean again and shakes his head in unhappy agreement. He learned a lot from his encounter with Madison, one of which was that sometimes there really is nothing they can do, no matter how much they might sympathise. This girl does not have the kind of self-awareness or control that made Lenore's group stand out as unique among vampires. If they let her go, she'd be alone with her blood thirst, and would not stop killing, even if they could persuade her that this is real. Her life as Lucy is already over. This must be one of the worst aspects of the job, having to put down people lacking any awareness or control of the monster they have become, but it's the only way they can help her now.



It is Dean who pulls out his blade, takes a deep breath, and goes back into the room to execute the vampire, in a return to their long-established pattern of Dean taking on the ugliest duties to spare Sam the burden. But Sam turns to watch, rather than keep his eyes averted, flinching at the scream Lucy emits as she is beheaded in yet another parallel with Heart, their roles from that episode reversed in this scene.

I kinda feel they should have put some kind of sheet down to prevent bloodstains on the carpet – no point leaving any evidence of that kind, after all, even it is a squat and therefore harder to trace back to them than a hired motel room might be be. Bela found them easily enough in the last episode, after all. I also wonder just how exactly they plan to dispose of the body.

Hospital. Lucy's one surviving victim is staring at his drip, no doubt contemplating his lucky escape, when a couple of supposed FBI agents arrive to question him. It's Gordon and Kubrick.

It's probably wrong that I love dress up even when it's the wrong hunters. I just really appreciate the casual use of fraud by hunters of all varieties as a means of acquiring necessary information to work cases.

The victim describes the 'super-PCP strength' of his attacker – another warning as to the physical advantage a vampire has over a human – and then Gordon asks if she bled on him. Victim is slightly freaked at the question, protesting that no, of course she didn't. He's even more freaked when he is sombrely told that this woman has 'a very dangerous virus'. He's concerned about his bite wound, and not really mollified on being assured that he'd have to ingest the blood to be infected, especially when Gordon baldly states that if he had been infected they'd have had to kill him. Yeah, that really isn't something an FBI agent would say. I love that Gordon's intensity prevents him really pulling off his undercover role effectively.

Victim relates the part of the attack where two guys found him and chased his attacker down the alley. Gordon's all over that at once, of course, and asks for a description of the two men. "One of them was real tall?" Victim offers, and Gordon is grimly delighted, taking this vague description as evidence that Sam Winchester is close by. It's hilarious, because Sam is far from being the only tall guy out there, but since Gordon knows from Bela that the Winchesters are in the vicinity, it's proof enough for him. Who else would be chasing vampires away from their victims, after all?

Spider bar. The Winchester brothers exit, Dean grumbling about what a waste of time that was. It's not like Dean not to enjoy himself in a bar, even if he was trying to work a job and getting nowhere. Sam, eyes fixed on his brother rather than paying any attention to his surroundings, immediately starts to protest that three blondes have gone missing including Lucy and they were all last sighted at this bar, which means this is the vampire's hunting ground. None of which Dean has denied in any way; all he did was point out that despite being their best lead the bar hasn't provided them with any useable information yet. While Sam talks, Dean is scanning the street, still very much on the job, and interrupts to draw his brother's attention to a young blonde woman heading into a nearby alley with a man wearing a leather jacket.

Alley. The blonde simpers as the vampire prepares to drip a few drops of blood into her mouth with some kind of eyedropper, promising that she'll 'never be the same again'. But before he can actually get the blood into her mouth, Dean appears and punches him hard, knocking him away from the girl. Sam is right behind and tells the girl to run, which she does. He then turns back to the scuffle just in time to see Dean getting slammed head first into the wall, and rushes to his brother while the vampire makes good his escape.



Sam picks Dean up, and the two of them give chase…then skid to a halt as instead of the vampire they run into Gordon and Kubrick, guns at the ready. Damn!

Gordon and Kubrick start shooting, and the Winchester boys dive behind a row of parked cars, and manage to find their way into a little nook that affords at least temporary cover.

"All right – run. I'll draw 'em off," Dean breathlessly tells his brother.
"What? No, you're crazy!" Sam instantly protests.

Too late, for Dean has already dived out right in front of those guns, and it's something of a heart-stopping moment as he jumps onto and runs across another line of parked cars, clambers over a nearby wall, and away. There for a second time in this episode is that extreme recklessness that's got Sam so concerned, and frankly it's a miracle he survives this one, with two hunters firing at him at point blank range like that. Kubrick gives chase, which says everything, really, about Kubrick's level of intelligence, since it's clearly Dean he's pursuing and he knows that Sam is meant to be the target.

Rather more focused on his overall objective than his partner, Sam being the focus of his all-consuming obsession, Gordon goes looking for the younger Winchester, only to find that he has taken advantage of the distraction Dean provided and disappeared. Gordon continues to search – but instead of Sam, he runs into vampire Dixon, who takes him out with relative ease. Gordon's meant to be such a badass vampire hunter, but he was so focused on Sam here that he completely forgot there was a vampire on the loose. Everything about Gordon is an object lesson regarding the dangers of allowing oneself to become blinded by obsession.

Squat. The exterior view does look like a motel, but the interior, despite the motel-like layout, has every appearance of derelict squalor, so I still think the brothers are squatting, rather than paying any rent. Alone inside, Sam is fretting over the fact that Dean isn't back yet. Since he last saw his brother throwing himself at a pair of guns wielded by bloodthirsty maniacs, he has every cause for concern. Dean is really reckless in this episode, and it's a major cause of concern for Sam.

The door opens and Dean finally arrives.

"There you are!" Sam instantly states the obvious.
"Sorry, I stopped for a slice," Dean breezes, patting his stomach. Why he'd stop for food, or at least claim that he did, when he knew Sam would be worried is beyond me, but I suppose it's all part of that defence mechanism, trying to pretend none of this is any big deal.
"Nice move you pulled back there, Dean, running right at the weapons," Sam scolds, anxiety manifesting as anger.
"Well, what can I say? I'm a badass," Dean smiles. He's in full-blown denial mode, which follows on neatly from the end of the last episode.

Having been worried sick, Sam seethes, but again doesn't press the point. They've been arguing a lot lately, and he seems reluctant to pick another fight, maybe feeling that it would be a lot like banging his head against a brick wall. Dean takes his turn at stating the obvious, noting that Gordon is out of jail. Sam wonders how Gordon would even know where to find them, and Dean suddenly realises that he's done something very stupid. He hauls out his phone and calls Bela, who greets him with friendly affability, giving nothing away.

I'm going to assume, by the way, that they all swapped phone numbers while coordinating their strategy for the charity ball in Red Sky at Morning, since there is no other reason for Dean and Bela to have one another's numbers, based on their brief and thorny acquaintance.

"Question for you," Dean snarls. "You called me yesterday. It wasn't to thank me for saving your ass, was it?"

Why he'd fall for a line like that in the first place is beyond me. He already knows that Bela doesn't do thanks – that's what the $10,000 cash was all about. But, as I said earlier, after their escapade together his guard would be down. He clearly interpreted that shared adventure and saving of Bela's life as having forged at least some kind of bond between them, if only the level of acquaintance where you don't sell one another out at the first opportunity. That isn't how Bela operates, though, and the brothers have even less reason to trust her than ever after this.

"Gordon Walker paid me to tell him where you were," Bela airily confesses, and Dean can't quite believe what he's hearing. "Well, he had a gun on me. What else was I supposed to do?" she laughs, as if it's all a big game, no harm done.

"I don't know – maybe pick up the phone and tell us that a raging psychopath was dropping by!" Dean fumes.

Bela blithely assures him that she had intended to call, just got a bit sidetracked. I'm sure that would be an enormous comfort if Gordon had managed to kill either or both brothers in the meantime. Dean bellows that Gordon tried to kill them, and Bela rolls her eyes. "I'm sorry," she insincerely assures him. "I didn't realise it was such a big deal. After all, there are two of you and one of him."

It seems to me that Bela simply didn't care enough one way or another to bother calling with any kind of warning. She does not want to get attached to anyone or anything – that is one of the strongest aspects of her characterisation so far. She gave Gordon what he wanted to get herself out of a sticky situation – and in profit, too – decided, based on incomplete information, that he was no match for the Winchesters, and then simply dismissed the whole situation completely as nothing to do with her. Out of sight out of mind.

Dean shakes his head and lets out a humourless chuckle, unable to believe the sheer hide of the woman, and tells her that there were two of them. He doesn't add that the element of surprise would tip the odds in Gordon's favour even if he didn't have backup. All Bela can say is 'oh', beginning to realise that she's miscalculated.

"Bela, if we get out of this alive, the first thing I'm going to do is kill you," Dean promises her, wearing the expression he usually reserves for child-killers. After all, she not only betrayed what little trust he had placed in her, she also endangered Sam, which in Dean's mind is the gravest possible offence. Bela doesn't think he's serious. "Listen to my voice and tell me if I'm serious," he grits, which is a cool new twist on a line he's used previously – in Folsom Prison Blues, for example – about looking into his eyes to judge his sincerity.

Bela is alarmed, and rightly so. I love that Dean can terrify her even down a phone line, especially after all her little digs in the last episode. For all her mockery of him face to face, she knows him well enough to know that he is completely serious, and perfectly capable of carrying out his threat.



Abandoned warehouse. Gordon wakes up to find himself tied down flat on his back on a rusted old bedstead. Nearby he sees the remaining two missing blonde girls, strung up by their wrists with blood staining their mouths. They're both wearing white tops – Lucy was, too – which is a sure sign of either death or evil on this show, in this case both. Vampire Dixon wanders up to tend to the girls, offering a jar of blood for them to drink and crooning that he knows they are uncomfortable, but this is temporary, the hunger will pass and then they'll feel much better. He's obviously learned from the mistake of allowing Lucy free reign.

Dixon notices that Gordon is awake, whereupon Gordon starts asking questions, wanting to know who the girls are. Family, Dixon tells him.

"You always keep your family in shackles?" Gordon counters, deadpan.
"We're still getting to know each other," Dixon calmly replies. "They've just been reborn."
"You mean you just grabbed some poor girls off the street and made them monsters like you," Gordon snarls, proving that he can still display a little compassion for innocent victims.

Dixon insists that he only does what he has to for his dying breed, adding that of course Gordon knows that. He knows exactly who Gordon is: "Gordon Walker. One of the greatest living vampire hunters… You're a big part of why my people are nearly extinct, Gordon."

Gordon snorts that his people are going extinct because they are a bunch of mindless, bloodthirsty animals. But Dixon picks up the demonic theme of the season by protesting that his kind are no more bloodthirsty than humans. "Hunters slaughtered my entire nest like they were having a party. Murdered my daughter."

The picture he shows Gordon of his daughter is of a young blonde girl in Victorian dress. So…is that the only photograph he has of her, and she was killed recently, after being with him over a hundred years? Or was this slaughter that long ago, in which case why is he only now trying to create a replacement for her? I'm assuming that she was his daughter as a human, and they were turned at around about the same time, that he may have even been the one who turned her, to keep her with him after his own transformation. Unless vampires on this show are able to breed, which I doubt.

This show loves to play on symbolism, providing parallels and contrasts in just about any and every situation, and there's another right here. Dean especially, perhaps, could understand Dixon's desire to cling on to what has been lost – he's spent his entire life struggling to hold what's left of his family together and refused to let go of Sam even in death. It's a distorted mirror that Dixon provides, however, demonstrating the extreme end of the spectrum in his murderous attempt to recreate something that has been broken beyond repair, using chains and shackles to hold it together.

"I can't tell you how satisfying this is," Dixon snarls. "Catching a hunter responsible for so many deaths and making you lunch for my new daughters."
"Daughters? Try fang-whores," Gordon taunts. Dixon tells him to watch his mouth, but Gordon's having none of it, mocking and baiting the vampire for spreading his 'filthy disease' so freely. "You've got less humanity than a sewer rat."

Dixon regards his prisoner for a moment, and then turns to his 'daughters' to apologise for the change of plans. Gordon's utter hatred of vampire kind has struck a nerve and he wants revenge of the worst possible kind, far worse than simply making a meal of the hunter. He slices Gordon's arm open, and then his own. Then, to Gordon's absolute horror, he presses the wounds together, mingling their blood freely. Gordon howls his rage and denial.

Turning Gordon into the thing he hates most, the thing he's devoted his life to hunting? Wow, that really is a cruel, cruel fate. It's a predictable twist, in many ways, but beautifully executed, bringing his character arc to an awful fruition.

Squat. Hey, joint weapons maintenance! Dean is sharpening a blade, while Sam cleans a gun. Fabulous – I don't think we've ever seen them doing that in tandem before. Sam sombrely points out that the vampire is still out there. They still have a job to do, despite Gordon getting in the way in such murderously spectacular fashion.

"First things first," counters Dean. Gordon has to be their priority; there is no way they can hunt effectively while being hunted themselves. "When we find him, or if he finds us first…" he adds, raising this issue carefully, because it's one Sam has reacted to badly in the past, but this needs to be said. "He's not leaving us a whole lot of options."

Sam quietly agrees. "Yeah, I know. We've got to kill him." And it's very true and very practical and the only way to free them from the ongoing and deadly threat Gordon poses, but damn. Dean is surprised not to have any argument from Sam along the lines of killing a human being wrong. He's always relied on Sam to act as his brake, the voice of reason speaking up in favour of his conscience and preventing him from crossing any lines unless absolutely necessary, so to have Sam so readily agree to the killing of a human, however necessary, is a little unsettling for him. It's the reason he's been concerned about Sam all season.

"No, I'm done," Sam shrugs, determined not to make any kind of big deal out of his hardened stance. "I mean, Gordon's not going to stop until we're dead. Or till he is."

I really, really love that they've made this decision before finding out that Gordon has been turned, and it speaks absolute volumes for how much Sam has changed this season, how much his experiences have forced him to toughen up. When they first met Gordon, in Bloodlust, they came into conflict with the other hunter because Sam wanted to spare the lives of a group of vampires he believed were good and no longer any danger to society, Sam's compassion versus Gordon's ruthlessness. Even when Gordon first came after Sam in Hunted, and despite all Gordon's taunting and provocation, Sam chose to deny the other man's assertion that he was no longer human by finding a solution that spared his life. Gordon had added psychic humans to his list of approved prey, and justified it by rationalising that they were not fully human. Yet it was Sam who came out of that confrontation with his humanity and conscience intact by refusing to spill human blood, proving clearly which of them was the real monster.

Now, though, this is the second time this season that Gordon has made a serious attempt on Sam's life, and his hunt for Sam has always endangered Dean as well as Sam himself. Since the vampire hunter has escaped from prison to continue his hunt in person the danger can only increase from here on in. It is clear that lethal measures are the only way to stop him from coming after them, and Sam is now acknowledging that openly, rather than shying away from it as he might have in the past. They've already tried every other avenue open to them for dealing with Gordon; killing him is now the only available option.

Sam has always been the one to argue against killing a fellow human in the past, the one to hesitate and hold back and seek some kind of peaceful resolution if at all possible, but at times it has cost him dear. You don't have to look any further than All Hell Breaks Loose. He spared Jake's life, let his guard down and turned his back on an opponent, and his own death and Dean's death sentence came as a direct result. That was a massive turning point for him, as his later execution of Jake demonstrated. This season, with an entire army of demons on the loose, he knows that he can't afford such squeamishness any more, both for his own sake and for Dean's. He can't to hold back when other lives could be at stake, and he can't afford to keep letting Dean take the hits for him, shielding him from the uglier aspects of the job. The Madison situation in Heart taught him that he can step up and do what's necessary, however distasteful or painful, and he's been determined this season to stand on his own two feet rather than let Dean continue to shield him in the way he always has up till now. He's got a harder edge these days, and is becoming more ruthless than we've ever suspected he could be, but it stems perfectly naturally from his character development. And he is John's son, after all, has had both John and Dean's example before him all his life.

Dean's phone rings, forestalling any further debate of the issue. It's Bela, trying hard to buy her way back into his good graces. He really did scare her! I love that she's taken his threat so very seriously and taken steps to ensure her own safety. It's a plot device, but works well with what we know of her character. She looks after her own interests, first and foremost and whatever that involves, and has no problem switching sides at the drop of a hat because she has no investment in either.

"I don't like it when people hold grudges against me," she announces. "And, more to the point, I'd rather you didn't kill me. So I went ahead and found Gordon's exact location for you." Dean wonders how the hell she'd manage that from a hundred miles away, and she's like, "hello? Purveyor of powerful occult objects? I used a talking board to contact the other side."

I still think her casual use of the occult, this communing with the dead especially, is going to backfire on her one day. It's dangerous, and she's way too flippant about it. Anyway, she describes the location of Dixon's warehouse, plus a message from the spirit. "Leave town, run like hell, and, whatever you do, don't go after Gordon. For what that's worth."

Well, there's a warning and a half.

Warehouse. Just like the girls, Gordon is now strung up by his wrists. He wakes up to the accompaniment of an awesomely ominous backing track to find all his senses preternaturally enhanced – lights are too bright, the tiniest sound too loud (it's just after 11.30, according to the watch he sees on the ground) – and the awful truth of what he has become slowly sinks in. The direction is amazing, really emphasizing the full impact of the transformation.

Gordon strains against his bonds, and manages to use his newly acquired vampire strength to break free. It's probably a good thing the girls never cottoned onto that as a valid option. Seeing him free, they plead for help, and this is where Gordon has a choice to make. Is going to give in to the evil he has become, or is there anything left of the hunter he once was? He met Lenore and her group back in Bloodlust, after all, and so knows, intellectually at least, that it is possible for vampires to resist their bloodlust, that they can choose not to be evil. He rejected that example utterly even at the time, however, and has never been willing to believe in vampires as anything other than bloodthirsty monsters. So who and what will the new Gordon choose be?

Outside. Gordon makes his way down to the street below, still tormented by those heightened senses he hasn't adjusted to yet. A passing car is absolute torture of light and sound. Then a new sound registers – that of a heart heating – and his eyes fall upon a random man changing a tyre. Newly born vampires are appallingly hungry – we've already been told that in this episode, been spoon-fed every scrap of information we need about what is happening to Gordon right now, about the changes he is experiencing. Gordon watches the man, sniffs the air, feels the heartbeat pulsing in his ears, and struggles with himself for a moment. Staring at his reflection in a handy nearby window, he sees his horribly blood-shot eyes, watches his vampire fangs descend. It's an awful echo of that scene in Bloodlust where he pulled his lip back to show the boys that he didn't have a second set of teeth. He does now.



The man finishes changing his tyre and gets back into the car. A moment later, Gordon pops up behind him and lunges for his neck. The car rocks for a moment, screams filling the air, and then blood splatters the windows.

Gordon's come full circle on the flip side, become the thing he hated most – and has embraced it, not even trying to control the bloodlust. He has always believed that the ends justify the means, and has used that excuse to indulge his own increasingly dark impulses for a long time now, although what remained of his moral code was still in operation at the start of the episode when he confronted Bela. The line he drew between human and valid prey was getting narrower all the time – after all, he had clearly added Dean to the target list as necessary collateral damage purely for his devotion to Sam. Now there is no distinction left at all. Gordon believes that all vampires are irredeemably evil by nature, and so, now that he has become one, is embracing all that it entails, allowing his new status as a monster to absolve him utterly of all moral responsibility for his actions. The brakes are off now, and he is capable of anything, nothing at all to hold him back any more.

Warehouse. Ooh, interestingly, Sam is leading the way as the brothers cautiously enter to find Dixon staring in abject misery at the headless corpses of his 'daughters'. It seems that where this nest was concerned, Gordon came down on the side of being a vampire hunter of vampires, or something like that. Behind Dixon's back, Dean uses hand signals to communicate with Sam, putting his gun away and picking up a knife. Of course, they came here looking for Gordon – the human Gordon – and wouldn't have been expecting to find a vampire.

To their surprise, without even turning around Dixon mournfully tells them to go ahead and kill him. Losing his new 'daughters' has just knocked the fight right out of him. Sam wonders what happened here, and Dixon has a simple answer for him. "Gordon. Walker. I never should have brought a hunter here."

He tearfully explains that he just wanted some kind of revenge, but that it was stupid to expose his family to Gordon. Dean scoffs at the vampiric notion of family, while Sam carefully moves past the vampire to stand behind him, gun in hand, cutting off any escape routes – not that the gun would have much effect on a vampire.

Dixon continues that they couldn't possibly understand. Dean begins to snarl that he doesn't want to understand, but the vampire interrupts. "I was desperate. You ever felt desperate? I've lost everyone I ever loved. I'm staring down eternity alone. Can you think of a worse hell?"

Dean has been silenced and looks stricken, the vampire's words cutting way, way too close to the bone, because he does know what that feels like, only too well. But he finds his tongue again now. "Well…there's hell," he points out. Hee. Good point.

"I wasn't thinking," Dixon wavers. "I just – I didn't care any more. Do you know what that's like? When you just don't give a damn? It's like…it's like being dead already. So just go ahead. Do it."

It's anvilicious as anything, and it's Dean's reactions we are watching as the vampire narrates pretty much his exact state of mind when he went to the Crossroads Demon. He knows exactly what the vampire means, exactly how it feels to be in that situation. But the words have to be having an impact on Sam, as well, providing him with some measure of insight. He might already feel he understands why Dean did what he did, but hearing the words out loud emphasises the point. He can certainly see that Dean is relating strongly to the vampire's words.



Sam has moved to examine the corpses, and calls to Dean that the heads weren't cut off – they were ripped off, with someone's bare hands. That's just gruesome! He asks Dixon what he did to Gordon, and Dixon starts sobbing. The boys look alarmed as the penny drops. This is what the spirit Bela contacted was trying to warn them about.

Kubrick's RV. Kubrick is pottering around with a gun when he hears a dog bark outside. He puts the gun down to have a look out of the window, then hears a board creak and turns around to find Gordon right behind him.

Whenever anyone sneaks up on someone like that in this show? That's a sure sign of something supernaturally bad going on. Right here is the moment I actually started to get frightened for Kubrick, despite his murderous intent toward Sam. The build up of tension and drama in this episode is outstanding.

Kubrick asks if his fellow hunter is okay, and Gordon shakes his head. "Not even close." At least he's honest about it. Kubrick admits he'd thought Gordon might be dead. He really shouldn't stop thinking that. He asks what's wrong, and Gordon tremulously admits that something happened. "They turned me." He sounds like he still can't quite believe it.

It's been said before, but bears repeating: there really is no comparison between vampires on Supernatural and vampires on other shows, such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer. On BtVS when someone became a vampire their body had to die to effect the transformation, and a demon set up shop in their corpse; it retained their memories and aspects of their personality, but it was no longer the same person. The human was dead, and their corpse animated by the demon inside it. Supernatural vampires are also, effectively, animated corpses, but the body dies as a result of the transformation rather than as a precursor to it. It's the same person, but transformed into something evil and unnatural, rather than a demon taking over their memories and personality post-mortem. That's a big difference.

Kubrick gets it immediately. "I'm sorry," he murmurs, as you might to the recently bereaved, except that in this case he's expressing his condolence to Gordon for Gordon's own death. "You know what this means?"

Gordon's head whips up. "It means you have to kill me. But not yet." Kubrick wonders what he means. Gordon insists that his fellow hunter has to let him do one last thing first. "Kill Sam Winchester."

Kubrick protests, seeing clearly that a vampire Gordon can't be allowed to run loose even for a short while, and I love him for that, even if I hate him for his own part in Gordon's ongoing pursuit of Sam. He's clear-minded, in his own way, believes completely that Sam is not merely a legitimate target but a vital one, and in exactly the same way knows that Gordon must now be put down immediately.

But Gordon's obsession with Sam is as strong as ever, and comes before anything and everything else, even now. "It is the one good thing to come out of this nightmare," he insists. "I'm stronger. I'm faster. I can finish him."
Kubrick says he's sorry again. "You know I can't let you walk out of here."
Gordon pleads with him that nothing is more important, staring up at a figure of Jesus on the wall. "I can do one last good thing for the world."

Behind his back, Kubrick smiles, so we know he's up to something. He agrees and starts to say what Gordon wants to hear as he turns to pick up a blade and advances on his former friend. But Gordon can hear his heartbeat increase and so recognises his betrayal, turns, and just…punches right through Kubrick's ribcage with his bare hands! Damn! He pulls his hand out of the chest cavity dripping with blood, and studies it dispassionately as Kubrick falls against him, dead. Impassive, Gordon embraces him and whispers an apology.

Squat. Day. Sam sits studying a bunch of maps, as Dean comes in and announces that he must have checked three dozen motels, empty buildings, warehouses, and found nothing. Looking and sounding fed up, Sam agrees that his share of the search has proved similarly fruitless. So…they split up to search? Seems a little risky to me, especially given the argument they are about to have.

Sam allows that it's a big city, and Dean snorts that it's like a "giant haystack, and Gordon's a deadly needle." He stomps into the little bathroom and rinses his face before adding that they are running out of daylight and without the sun slowing Gordon down…. He'll be unstoppable, Sam grimly agrees.

Sam tells Dean to give him his phone, and Dean complies even as he asks why. Sam points out that if Gordon knows their cell numbers he can use the signal to track them down. Good point – Dean has used that trick himself more than once. Sam takes the chips out of each of their phones and then stomps on them. I guess they'll just have to let all their trusted contacts have their new numbers when all this is over, unless they decide it's safe to install their old sim cards in the new phones once they manage to rid themselves of Gordon.

While Sam stomps on the phones, Dean is peering out of the window and comes to a decision. He tells Sam to stay here, and purposefully strides across the room to pick up the Colt and box of bullets. Seems they do have quite a sizeable supply of ammunition for that thing. Sam asks where he's going now, and Dean announces that he's going after Gordon. I'm not sure how he plans to accomplish this, given that we know they both just spent the whole day searching and couldn't find any trace of the hunter-turned-vampire, but he's not the most clear-minded he's ever been right now. Sam immediately protests that he isn't going alone, but Dean is having none of it. "Sam, I don't need you to sign me a permission slip. He's after you, not me, and he's turbo-charged. I want you to stay out of harm's way. I'll take care of it."

Yeah, but Gordon wouldn't hesitate to take Dean out as well, especially if he thought it would help him get to Sam; that much has already been made abundantly clear. So the logic doesn't exactly follow. But that's the whole point. Dean isn't thinking logically, he's simply acting on his own reckless impulses without thinking them through. Everything about his and Sam's situation is getting on top of him, and he would always rather take action than sit around fretting.

Sam again points out that if Dean goes after Gordon alone he'll just get himself killed, but Dean simply shrugs that it's just another day at the office. "It's a massively dangerous day at the office…" he allows, the 'but there's nothing unusual about that' left unspoken but heavily implied.

"So, what?" Sam fumes, Dean's increasingly reckless behaviour all through the episode finally pushing him over the edge. "You're the guy with nothing to lose now, huh? Oh wait, let me guess – it's because you're already dead, right?"

Yeah, he absolutely was listening to every word Dixon said, and took note of Dean's reaction, especially since Dean has made similar comments himself in the past. He can see exactly where his brother's head is at right now.

Dean shrugs, blasé. "If the shoe fits."
Sam is furious. "You know, man, I'm sick and tired of your old kamikaze tricks!"
"Whoa, whoa," Dean interrupts, as if the semantics are all that matter here, head buried so deep in denial he can't even see daylight any more. "Kamikaze? I'm more like a ninja."

Sam snits that that isn't funny, Dean characteristically counters that it's a little funny, in a total echo of his hospital scene in Faith – same writer, so it's no coincidence – but Sam is done playing these games and firmly repeats that it isn't.

Dean recognises that the flippancy isn't working today. Not that it ever really does, but it does manage to force Sam to back down at least temporarily more often than not. He puts the gun down, and shifts up a gear, his own temper starting to rise now that the issue has been forced. He always reacts badly when he feels he's been backed into a corner. "What do you want me to do, Sam, huh? Sit around all day writing sad poems about how I'm going to die? You know what, I got one – let's see, what rhymes with 'shut up, Sam'?"

Sam wearily smacks the pen and paper out of his hand and tells him to drop the attitude, and the equally weary look on Dean's face, eyes downcast, tells its own story. They are both tired of going around in circles on this.

"Quit turning everything into a punchline," Sam snips. "And you know something else? Stop trying to act like you're not afraid."
"I'm not," Dean immediately insists.
"You're lying," Sam firmly tells him. "And you may as well drop it, 'cause I can see right through you."

Echoes of Faith once again – Sam said the same thing in that episode, too. Then, Dean was too sick and exhausted to argue the point, but here Sam is pressing hard on raw nerves that Dean has been trying hard to conceal by means of all that flippant bravado, and he reacts accordingly.

"You got no idea what you're talking about," Dean sniffs, walking away – only to the other side of the room, but he needs that added distance when the conversation gets this personal, and turns his back so that Sam can't see his face, and he can't see Sam.

Sam isn't going to let it drop this time, though. "Yeah, I do. You're scared, Dean. You're scared 'cause your year is running out, and you're still going to hell, and you're freaked."
"And how do you know that?" snorts Dean.
"Because I know you!" Sam explodes.
"Really?" Dean sceptically mutters.
"Yeah, because I've been following you around my entire life!" Sam points out.

And that one stops Dean dead in his tracks. He just freezes, stops arguing, and starts listening. They've had this argument so many times this season, and each time Sam's angry attack had the opposite to its desired effect, forcing Dean onto the defensive and resulting in his emotional walls being raised higher and higher. This time, though, his anger is quickly fading to be replaced by fear and grief, and Sam's pain is the one thing Dean has never been able to resist.

"I mean, I've been looking up to you since I was four, Dean," Sam continues, his voice starting to crack. "Studying you, trying to be just like my big brother."

This is the first time we've glimpsed a positive childhood memory through Sam's eyes. Most of what we know of their shared childhood comes from Dean's point of view, with Sam merely contributing the odd grumble against their father here and there. This is the first time Sam has offered his perspective on their childhood relationship with one another. And it's gorgeous because it fits so beautifully with what we know of their upbringing: with John away so often, Dean would have been the centre of little Sammy's universe, just as Sam was the centre of Dean's, each of them the most consistent presence in the other's life. Twenty years later that's still true!

What isn't mentioned here, though, is how all that has to have changed when Sam hit his teens, as we know he became fiercely resentful of everything associated with their lifestyle, and that included Dean. One of the themes of season one was how little Sam really knew his brother, following their lengthy estrangement, his memories several years out of date and coming from the perspective of a rebellious teenager, rather than an equal. Even then, though, hints of that childhood hero worship still shone through, and that has never gone away. And after spending the last two years almost exclusively in one another's company, after they've been through so much together, each of them absolutely knows the other inside out, in a way that no one else in the world ever could.

"So yeah, I know you," Sam firmly states. "Better than anyone else in the entire world. And this? This is exactly how you act when you're terrified. And, I mean, I can't blame you. It's just…."

He can't quite go on, but Dean now finds his tongue and asks what he was going to say – actually inviting him to finish the speech, rather than shutting it down as too hard to deal with, because this is now about Sam's hurt, rather than Dean's fate.

"It's just I wish you would drop the show and just be my brother again," Sam finishes. "'Cause…. Just 'cause."

He's got tears in his eyes. And bless his heart, Sam has finally found the right angle to use, the right words to get him past that immense wall of denial via the door, rather than continually trying to batter it down, which would only increase the divide between them. Complete emotional honesty is the key. He's asking Dean to drop his defences for Sam's sake, not for Dean's, and that makes all the difference. We've seen previously that Dean will make the effort for Sam where he wouldn't, or couldn't, for himself – the more afraid he's become, as time goes by, the more he's made light of it, because he is desperate not to have to face up to what lies ahead. But Sam's naked pain will unlock his heart every single time, and Sam is begging his brother here not to shut him out, not to waste the time they have left with empty bravado.

For we are also seeing Sam's own wall of denial coming down here, and that has an equally powerful impact. For all that he's yelled at Dean so many times to face up to what's going to happen and admit that he is afraid, this is the first time he's acknowledged out loud that he might not be able to save his brother, and that therefore the time they have left together is precious – too precious to waste arguing or putting on shows of bravado. It isn't just death that lies ahead, it's hell, and Sam is terrified as well, on Dean's behalf. This a huge moment for them both: a moment that finally sees them meeting in the middle, after being so entrenched in opposition all season so far.



Dean looks down at the floor for a moment, considering – weighing up their options. "All right, we'll hole up," he softly says. "Cover our scent so he can't track us and wait the night out here."

The boys proceed to turn their room into a fortress. Of course, those mattresses already cover the windows, and Dean now barricades the door, as well, while Sam sets up a little dish within which to burn noxious-smelling bundles of herbs to cover their scent. And then they settle in for the night, blades in hand.

Amusingly, Dean sits stroking his blade up his arm in boredom, testing the edge for sharpness and totally shaving all the hairs off in the process. Then his phone rings, and both brothers jump. "You've had that phone two hours, Dean – who'd you give the number to?" Sam asks in disbelief. Hee.

When did they go out to get new phones, then? Before holing up for the night, clearly. Wasn't that a risk? Or did they feel being able to keep in touch with one another was more important despite having just agreed to stick together like glue rather than split up?

Dean defends himself, insisting he hasn't given the number to anyone, and cautiously answers, Sam pulling a chair close to listen as best he can. It's Gordon. Dean asks how he got the number, and Gordon blithely replies that his scent is all over the cellphone store. There's the first use of his new vampire super-senses against them; even though Gordon has never actually encountered either brother as a vampire, he obviously knew them well enough as a human to recognise the scent. Of course he can't smell Dean out now, he adds, and asks where he is. Dean snips that he's going to have to find them, but Gordon has other ideas. He wants the boys to come to him.

"What's the matter, Gordo?" Dean taunts. "Not afraid of us, are you? We're just sitting here – bring it on!"

But Gordon has a hostage, and puts the phone to her ear. She sobs for help, and Dean's expression shifts – this changes everything, having an innocent life at risk. All bets and safety-first agreements are now off because they have to at least try to save this girl's life, despite knowing that it's a trap. Having made his point clear, Gordon gives Dean a location and gives him 20 minutes to get there with Sam or the girl dies.

Dean immediately tries to negotiate. "Don't do this. You don't kill innocent people – you're still a hunter."
"No," Gordon disagrees, glacially calm. "I'm a monster."

He can't say it any more clearly than that: he has embraced his new evil nature wholeheartedly. And yet he does still consider himself a hunter – that's the real irony of the situation. But there was never any reasoning with that man even when he was human. Oh, and his fingernails are still encrusted with blood from when he punched through Kubrick's ribcage. That's gruesomely gory attention to detail!

Factory. Dean and Sam make a very cautious entrance, Dean wielding the Colt while Sam holds his blade at the ready. They find the girl swiftly enough – her wrists have been bound with lengths of wire, it seems, which looks painful. They quickly untie her, Sam offering soothing reassurances the whole while. Then, when she is unable to manage more than a few faltering steps without stumbling, Dean sweeps her up into his arms to carry out of there, with a warning to Sam to stay close. Eh, there's that big brotherliness Sam wanted shining through right there.



But, as the brothers hotfoot it for the exit, a barrier comes crashing down, dividing them. Dean immediately puts the girl down and starts yelling for his brother, who yells back at him, both freaked in the extreme about this development. With the barrier proving immovable, all Dean can do is shout for Sam to be careful. Frustrated and alarmed, Sam turns to look for an alternate way out – whereupon all the lights go out and he is plunged into darkness.

Now at an immense disadvantage, Sam wields his blade defensively, and starts feeling his way along, shouting out to his attacker. "Gordon? You've got me where you want me – might as well come out and fight."

Gordon's impassive voice announces that he is right there, and Sam whirls around, slashing blindly with the blade, but of course does not hit his intended target. Gordon laughs. He has the incredible night vision of a vampire, able to see Sam clear as day – the blood-red lighting used for that night vision is all kinds of awesomely appropriate – whereas Sam is completely blind, unable to see a thing.

"You have no idea what I've faced to get here," Gordon pompously informs his prey. "I lost everything. My life. But it's worth it. 'Cause I'm finally going to kill the most dangerous thing I ever hunted."

Blindly groping for any kind of cover, or better still an exit, Sam really doesn't look or, I've no doubt, feel the slightest bit dangerous right now. Also, anything Gordon has lost along the way came about because of his own obsession, his blind focus on Sam as the devil's spawn instead of opening his mind to the wider picture, rather than actually having anything directly to do with Sam himself. Gordon lost his liberty because he came after Sam without provocation, and Sam decided that imprisonment was better than death, and he lost his life because he was so obsessed with Sam that he forgot to take precautions against other dangers that he knew were out there. And none of it was worth it; certainly none of it was Sam's fault. Gordon started this.



"You're not human, Sam," Gordon continues.
"Look who's talking," Sam scoffs. He tries another swipe, sensing the vampire close by, but Gordon ducks and easily avoids the blade.
"You're right," Gordon readily agrees. "I'm a bloodthirsty killer."
"Don't talk about it like you don't have a choice," Sam snaps.
"I don't," Gordon calmly says.
"Yes, you do, Gordon," Sam argues.

Sam is clearly remembering Lenore and her group here, remembering the choice they made to deny the evil of their nature in order to coexist peacefully with humanity. But Gordon never accepted the example set by that group, has always refused to believe that vampires can ever be anything but evil, and is not only applying that standard to himself but revelling in it. He really is Sam's polar opposite. Even knowing that he was forced to ingest demon blood as an infant, a secret he is still keeping from Dean, Sam has steadfastly refused to simply give in and accept becoming evil as inevitable. He's become a lot more ruthless this season than he used to be, and his desperation to find a way to save Dean is tempting him toward some morally questionable actions and decisions, but I could never see Sam actively embracing evil in the way that Gordon is – not to mention that Dean would never let Sam slip that far, not while he lives. Gordon's isolationist extremism highlights once again how important it is that the brothers have one another, keeping each other grounded.

"You didn't kill that girl!" Sam desperately points out.
"No, I didn't," agrees Gordon. "I did something much, much worse."

In the next room, in the light, Dean is frantically trying to break through that dividing door to go to Sam's aid. All his efforts are in vain, however, the girl he was rescuing forgotten – until she leaps at him, fangs in full view, growling her desire for her first meal as a vampire. This is another example of just how far Gordon has fallen; he has always believed that the ends he perceives as righteous justify any means, and now further is prepared to use his vampiric nature as validation for any unspeakable act that will help him achieve his goal – in this case turning an innocent girl into a vampire purely as a distraction, to keep Dean occupied while he kills Sam.

The newly reborn vampire throws Dean to the ground, but he keeps his head, hauls the Colt out of his waistband and shoots her even as she advances on him once more. Bang, and she's dead. That rebooted Colt sure is coming in handy, and Gordon wouldn't know that the brothers have it. Dean slowly starts breathing again after that unexpected close call.

In the dark, Gordon is still speechifying. "I've got to hand it to you, Sam. You've got a lot of people fooled. But see, I know the truth. I know what it's like. We're the same now, you and me. I know how it is, walking around with something evil inside you. It's just too bad you won't do the right thing and kill yourself. I'm gonna. Soon as I'm done with you. Two last good deeds: killing you, and killing myself."

He truly, honestly believes that Sam is evil incarnate, despite having no evidence whatsoever to back up that claim. He feels, therefore, that having been turned into his worst nightmare makes him the same as Sam, that they now have something in common And so he holds himself up as a mirror to Sam, unable to see just how great a division exists between himself and both Winchesters, that they have each fought against and overcome their own darkness as completely as Gordon has given in to it.

Unable to see where he is going, Sam has backed himself into a dead end now and has nowhere left to run. Gordon starts to growl, fangs descending. He launches himself at Sam…and they both go crashing through the flimsy wall and onto the floor in the beyond, where the lights are still on. So Gordon's advantage is lost, as Sam can now see again. Not that sight is a great deal of use to him right now, with Gordon using vampire strength to fling him around. Sam goes crashing into nearby shelving, and Gordon turns around to see Dean pointing the Colt at his head.

There's something enormously symbolic about Sam's confrontation with Gordon moving from darkness into light, and also about the fact that Gordon has been unable to divide the brothers for very long. It seems that nothing can keep them apart permanently, which is maybe something we can all take heart from. But, just as he had to be the one who killed Madison in Heart, destroying Gordon is something that Sam really has to do himself, as the culmination of this story arc, and that is also symbolically important.

Gordon's reflexes are like lightning, knocking Dean's arm aside before he can shoot, stunning him with a hefty blow, and slamming him against a nearby wall. And Sam regains his senses just in time to see Gordon sinking his fangs into his brother's neck.

It's a really bad move on Gordon's part, when you think about it, his bloodlust getting the better of him in the heat of the moment, because he has left his back wide open to the prey he considers the most dangerous he has ever hunted. Tactically, he'd have been better off just snapping Dean's neck and having done with it, in order to keep his focus on Sam.

Sam bellows "NO!" and launches himself at Gordon, dragging him off his brother – who slides to the ground bleeding from the neck – and engaging him in unarmed combat. Gordon has the advantage; he's a vampire. He sends Sam reeling into another stack of shelves, upon which sits a hefty reel of steel wire and some handy bits of sacking. Even as Gordon continues to smack him around, Sam uses the sacking to pick up a length of wire, wraps it around the vampire's neck, and starts to pull.

Gordon stops struggling as the wire cuts into his neck, although he does continue to snarl. That's my only quibble with this scene: the ease with which Gordon gives up here. Sam grits his teeth and keeps pulling, and he pulls and he pulls, and there's blood spurting every which way, and the scene goes on forever and ever, and then Gordon's head pops right off!

Man, this is a grisly episode!



Sam gasps and looks startled at what he just did, glancing down at the disembodied head at his feet. Creepily, the lips are still moving very slightly. Then he straightens up, drops the rags, and dazedly stares at his bloody hands.

Of course, Sam should now have Gordon's vampire blood mingling with his, what with the beheading and the mangling of his hands, but we clearly aren't meant to notice that. Croatoan showed us that Sam is immune to demonic virus, so we could argue that this is another example of that: that the demon blood he ingested as an infant maybe renders him immune to any other kind of transformation.

There's been a lot of talk about this being a possible display of super-strength, but I don't see it myself, and it certainly isn't implied in the scene. The wire would have been sharp, Sam had the adrenaline rush of fear for Dean's life to strengthen him, and it is physically possible decapitate someone in this way without any supernatural aid.

Nearby, Dean groans as he clambers back to his feet, grabbing the Colt and clutching at his bloody neck, wobbling and coughing a little. The writing on the wall behind him, incidentally, says 183 days – the factory's record for time between accidents that cost them production time. But since 183 is exactly half of 366, which was the length of the time given to Dean by his crossroads deal, some fans have interpreted this as meaning that he is now exactly halfway through that one year. That would mean that six months have passed in just seven episodes!

The time jump wouldn't surprise me, really – my calculations have put each season so far at around nine months, each following pretty much immediately on from the last, so that the show was lagging further and further behind real time. Skipping forward to catch up with real time makes sense, although the timeline this season really is vague in the extreme.

Sam still looks a little dazed and exhausted in the aftermath of the battle – it's been quite a day for him, really, all things considered, both physically and emotionally draining. Gathering his senses, Dean gapes at Gordon's headless corpse, and quirks his eyebrows at his brother, all wow, look what you did, and Sam quirks his back at him, like well, what else could I do? A deadly enemy is now off their backs for good.

"You just charged a super-vamped-out Gordon with no weapon," Dean gruffly points out to his brother. "That's a little reckless don't you think?"

Sam can only shrug in response. Yes, attacking a vampire empty handed was every bit as reckless as the behaviour Sam has been chiding Dean for throughout this episode, but that recklessness was inspired by fear for his brother's life. They're both panting, both bleeding, and both stiff and sore as they begin to limp toward the exit once more.

For all that he's been troubled by his brother's newfound ruthlessness this season, Sam's grisly execution of Gordon doesn't seem to be setting off any of Dean's alarm bells about Sam coming back wrong. That has to be a good sign, that this experience with Gordon has perhaps enabled Dean to see past the hardened veneer Sam has worn this season and recognise that his gentle little brother is still there beneath the surface, that there are perfectly normal explanations for Sam toughening up in this way. Maybe Gordon really did accomplish one last good thing after all.

I'm a little surprised, I must confess, to see the Gordon-Kubrick sub-plot come to such a premature end. I'd expected it to be dragged out much further into the season than this. But now that Gordon and Kubrick are both gone we can only wait to see what the fallout will be. The boys, of course, are not going to be spreading any gossip, and they are the only ones who know what happened here. But sooner or later the news that Kubrick and Gordon Walker are dead will start to filter through the hunting community, and we know from The Magnificent Seven that even the more moderate hunters were inclined to be suspicious of the Winchesters following the opening of the devil's gate. Isaac and Tamara's attitude in that episode showed us how easily the details can become fuzzy in the retelling, and if the news of Gordon's vampiric transformation does not spread, while the fact that it was Sam who killed him does, Gordon could easily become a martyr to the cause among the extremists of the community. Creedy, for example, might not have been a wholehearted believer in the way that Gordon and Kubrick were, but he knows enough for the circumstances of their deaths to seem suspicious in the extreme to him, should he learn of them.

On the other hand, the boys – and Bobby, who clearly realised what had happened – have successfully kept the truth of Steve Wandell's murder at Sam's demon-possessed hands a secret all these months. So maybe there will be no consequences to follow from Gordon's death at all. Only time will tell.

Random roadside. Sam lifts the lid of a cool box stuffed full of ice and beer to pull out a bottle each for himself and his brother. We'll ignore the niggling question of just where in the Impala they hide this case – that magical trunk, of course, can conceal absolutely anything – and glide on over to the sheer beauty that is this closing scene. Sam sits on the box, opens one of the beers – neatly flipping the lid off into nearby underbrush, the litterbug – and hands it to Dean, who is buried in the car's engine.

Rather awesomely, because the show doesn't always bother with injury continuity, both still bear the marks of their battle with Gordon: Sam's chin is bruised and one eyebrow split, while Dean still has fang marks puncturing a large bruise on his neck. Sam's hands don't seem at all injured, though, despite the fact that they looked pretty badly shredded in the last scene.

It transpires that the engine was rattling a little, so Dean is taking a look to find out why. Neither seems the slightest bit concerned, so I'm guessing they don't think it is anything major – more an excuse to take a little time out by the side of the road than essential maintenance, really. Dean asks for a tool, which Sam fishes out of the box at his feet, studies it for a moment, then stops and calls his brother. It's perfectly, beautifully played, that moment in which he realises he can use the car to reach out to Sam in the exact way that they both need right now.

Amusingly, Sam immediately assumes he must have picked up the wrong tool, but no, clearly he isn't that clueless when it comes to car repair, for it is the right one – Dean just wants him to come and take a look. Nonplussed, Sam complies. He's even more bewildered when Dean starts to explain that the rattle could be a couple of things, but his best guess is an out of tune carb. Sam kind of smiles and nods and lifts his eyebrows, not having a clue why his brother is telling him this. But he shows willing, picking up a socket wrench that Dean asks for and leaning in to take a look as Dean starts talking him through various bits of the engine, a lesson that goes over my head even more than it does Sam's. Aww, but Sam looks cutely proud of himself when he's able to correctly name the carburettor unprompted.

"What's with the auto shop?" Sam wonders, bemused. In response, Dean hands him the socket wrench, and Sam's jaw just about hits his boots. "What, you don't mean you want –?"
"Yeah," Dean casually replies. "I do. You fix it."
Sam laughs in disbelief. "Dean, you barely let me drive this thing!"

Ain't that the truth! Sam's driven that car onscreen exactly once in 29 episodes now. And that's the whole point. There is a reason why Sam barely touches the car, and that reason is to accentuate the importance and impact of moments such as this.

"It's time," Dean tells him, looking down at the wrench, rather than at Sam. "You should know how to fix it." He looks up to meet his brother's eyes now, to say this next part, needing to know that Sam understands his full meaning. "You're going to need to know these things for the future," he baldly states.

And that's true, and it hurts, and Sam's smile falters as he realises what his brother is saying, that it's the exact same reasoning he used on Dean earlier – the exact same 'just cause'. Time is running out, and there's no solution in sight, and they agreed in that room not to hide from that fact any more, but to face it, head on, together.



"And besides," Dean adds, picking up his beer, as Sam takes the wrench, and regards the engine with slightly anxious resolution. "It's my job, right? Show my little brother the ropes?"

The symbolic use of the Impala here is awesome and powerful, and draws on the entire history of the show. That car represents home to them both, for very different reasons. For Dean, the car represents what little stability and continuity he was able to salvage from his childhood. The Impala was there in the Pilot episode; it belonged to the family before Mary's death, before Dean's whole world exploded in blood and fire, the sole survivor of his life before. It represents the home and life he can never return to. It was his father's car, given to him, and thus symbolises all the love and trust John was never able to verbalise, and the mission John handed on to his son. It's why rebuilding the car mattered so much to Dean in Everybody Loves A Clown, and why his rage and grief were taken out on the car at the end of that episode.

For Sam, on the other hand, the Impala represents Dean, pure and simple. When he looks at that car, he sees Dean. It's why Dean offering to let him drive in Wendigo was such a big deal, and why Sam instantly recognised even then the hidden meaning invested in that offer; it was Dean's way of wordlessly expressing his love and concern, and by taking him up on the offer Sam was equally wordlessly accepting that support. It's why Sam refused to let Bobby junk the car in In My Time of Dying; giving up on the car would have meant giving up on Dean, and Sam refused point blank to allow it.

In just a few short months now, barring a miracle, this car will be all Sam has left of his brother, and in this scene both brothers are silently acknowledging that fact. All through this season Dean has been doing all he can to dissociate and disconnect himself from the world, from cracking jokes and making light of his situation to flat out ordering Sam to take a step back and stop fighting for him. But here, without having to actually say a word out loud, he's taking all of that back and giving Sam everything he's been asking for. It's an acknowledgement that he's going to die, an admission of caring that he's going to die, and an expression of both his desire to spend his remaining time with Sam, and his hope that Sam will make it through in the long-term, once he's gone. It's an incredibly powerful and moving use of symbolism.

Accepting both the challenge, and, more importantly, that perfect gift of love and trust his brother is offering, Sam bends to his task. Dean watches him for a moment, quiet and sad, then nods that he seems to be doing it right and goes to sit down, teasing Sam to put his shoulder into it, because it's the big brother's job to torment the baby brother. In another display of beautiful visual symbolism, Dean pushes the box further away from the car than Sam had it, so that he can sit facing and watch his brother work. Sam had his back to the car, because the car was Dean's domain, something he wasn't a part of. But Dean now sits facing the car to supervise, reversing all that completely; by handing over the tools and imparting his knowledge, Dean is symbolically taking down that barrier and inviting Sam inside, including him in something he had previously been excluded from. And it is beautiful.

Fade out on this lovely moment of brotherly bonding, the perfect blend of practicality and pathos.




November 2007

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