Supernatural 4.14 Sex and Violence

"We used to be in this together."

Wow. This was a really powerful, intense episode. Also extremely uncomfortable, full of weighty, meaty issues that have been building up for a long time now, and the best – and worst – thing is…it ain't over yet! This was just the tiniest tip of the iceberg.

Then

"Your brother is heading down a dangerous road, Dean," Castiel voiceovers as we see Sam meeting up with Ruby in secret and telling her that he is in, although just what precisely he is agreeing to remains to be seen.

Some time before this, in voiceover of images of Sam exorcising demons with the power of his mind, Ruby asked if Sam was going to tell Dean what they were doing and Sam insisted that he would, but had to figure out the right way to say it. Ruby pointed out that if Dean didn't find out from Sam he would be pissed, which is indeed what happened, but Sam merely snorted that his brother would be pissed anyway.

Having found out what Sam was getting up to behind his back, Dean belted him soundly a couple of times, flailing madly in his panic and fury.

Dean asked Sam why he trusted Ruby so much and Sam evaded that she had helped him go after Lilith. Dean called him on the vagueness of this reply, certain that something major must have happened while he was in hell to bring Sam so close to a demon. Stung, Sam rather viciously suggested that Dean should tell him all the gory details of his torture in hell before he would reciprocate with details on how he and Ruby became so close.

Now

A young wife is busily hammering a slab of meat in the kitchen when her husband gets home from work, late. She comments on how hard his boss is working him, and he is instantly on the defensive, starts snapping and snarling at her about how hard he works. She backtracks and apologises, even though she hasn't done anything wrong, and he then lets her off the hook and apologises in turn.

There's kind of an abusive vibe that runs right through this scene, the husband browbeating the wife at the slightest provocation and the way she tries so hard to please him. I'm not sure how intentional that is, but once we know that he is under the influence of a siren's toxin it makes more sense. Although it would seem that their marriage was maybe rather strained even before the siren's influence, Hubby is under a compulsion to do something he would never normally do and is looking for an excuse that will make it easier.

So, Hubby picks a petty argument with his wife about whether or not he wants to go to a party on Saturday, Wifey having already said yes to the invitation on his behalf, which he takes exception to. After browbeating her into agreeing to recant, he turns around and clubs her to death with the meat tenderiser we saw her using at the top of the scene. Brutal!

Titles

Motel. Early morning

Dean is asleep.


More to the point, Dean is asleep in an actual bed, covers pulled up and everything. We have seen Dean sleeping a lot this season, but this is the first time he has actually looked comfortable.

A passing semi wakes Dean – it's been a while since we saw him woken by anything but nightmares – and he automatically glances across at Sam's bed, only to find it empty. Rumpled, clearly slept in, but empty. Sam himself is in the bathroom, talking on the phone in a low voice about demonic omens, or lack thereof.

Now, Sam could be talking to anyone – Bobby, for example – but Dean immediately looks troubled about this covert conversation he has inadvertently overheard. It is our first clue that he is suspicious of his brother, we viewers having known for a couple of episodes now that Sam is sneaking around behind his back with Ruby once more. Sam has broken Dean's trust too many times now, and trust is a fragile thing at the best of times, very difficult to rebuild. Once bitten twice shy. Of course Dean would be more alert to any dubious behaviour and the possibility of Sam going behind his back again, but still it hurts to see him suspicious of his brother – and to know that he is right.


As Sam finishes his call – quietly noting that he will keep looking and advising the other person to do the same – Dean lies back down and pretends to be sleeping still, so that Sam won't know he has been overheard. One deception begets another. Sliding his phone into a pocket, Sam comes over and smacks his brother's leg with his wash bag to wake him. "Hey. Up and at 'em, kiddo," he calls.

Kiddo. Sam has never called Dean that before – he's never really been one for pet names or diminutives at all. And this one? This is not the kind of endearment a younger brother normally uses toward an elder sibling, quite the reverse. Coming from Sam to Dean, younger to older, it is slightly patronising, in fact, providing us with a subtle early clue to the fact that strained and skewed sibling dynamics will have an important role to play in this episode. After a lifetime of being looked after by his brother, Sam no longer considers himself the junior partner in any way. He is his own man, independent in both thought and deed – his personality inclines that way at the best of times, and the brutal aftermath of Dean's death cemented it. And with Dean being so vulnerable lately, Sam has been picking up a lot of slack, tilting the scales further from equality toward full role reversal as he endeavours to find a way of looking after a broken brother who resists all such efforts in favour of seeking to re-establish a long outdated status quo.

Genuinely groggy still, having just woken up, Dean observes that Sam is up early and asks what he's doing, offering his brother the opportunity to come clean about the phone call, if it was innocent. Instead, though, Sam says nothing about the call at all, shrugging that he was in the can.

"Yeah?" Dean dubiously presses, recognising the evasion and knowing it to be a falsehood, still trying to coax his brother into honesty. It isn't too late to come clean and set Dean's mind at rest…

Sam, not knowing that Dean knows, does not recognise the opening for honesty for what it is, and merely snorts. "Yeah. Want me to draw you a picture," he snarks. Sam always was snarky, but there's a hard edge to him these days that he never used to have.


Dean declines the offer, carefully concealing his disappointment over Sam's lack of candour, unwilling to confront him with it. He isn't ready to face up to what it means, this continued betrayal of his trust, after everything.

Sam changes the subject, announcing that he has found them a job in Bedford, Iowa – that murderous husband and his unfortunate wife from the teaser. As Dean takes the proffered newspaper and studies it, Sam explains that it was the third such incident in a month, all the couples happily married and none of them with any prior history of violence. Dean agrees that they'd better take a look.

So. It was Sam who found this job, small fry and non-Apocalyptic as it is. This will be a fact well worth bearing in mind later in the episode.

Bedford, Iowa. Prison

Murderous Hubby from the teaser – one Adam Benson – despondently wonders why the PD keeps sending lawyers to see him when he has made it quite clear that he does not want representation.

The brothers are wearing their best black suits for this scene – are be-suited for a fair chunk of the episode, in fact – and now is as good a time as any to observe that they are both looking mighty, mighty fine in this episode. Absolutely smokin', in fact.


Dean rather tactlessly points out that the firing squad is being lined up, but Benson insists that he is pleading guilty.

"Look, you don't want us to represent you, that's fine," Dean smiles, confiding, "In fact it's probably not a bad idea, between you and me…" He shuts up as Sam turns his bitchiest bitchface upon him, reminding him to stay in character. Suitably chastened, Dean cuts to the chase. "We just want to understand what happened," he says, with perfect honesty. "So?"

Sam adds a 'please' to that request, with the full weight of his most sincere puppy-dog eyes behind it. Benson sighs and tells them that what happened was he killed his wife. "You want to know why? Because she made plans without asking me," he very frankly explains.

Well, that's awkward. Dean doesn't seem to know how to respond, but Sam smoothly slides in, asking the man how he felt at the time, if he was at all disoriented or out of control. "Like something possessed you to do it?" Dean chips in with the leading question.


Benson shakes his head, however, and insists that he knew exactly what he was doing, crystal clear. Dean asks why he did it, then. Benson claims not to know, brokenly insisting that he loved his wife and they were happy.

Dean flicks covert side eyes at Sam, who nods. Time to go for the big guns. So, Dean opens a brief case by his side and pulls out a slip of paper, a credit card statement, I believe, pointing to one particularly interesting payment totalling nine grand – a hefty bill by anyone's standards.

Benson asks how they got hold of this private documentation, which is a fair question. Dean tells him it doesn't matter; they have it – a good way of avoiding tedious non-explanations of the brothers' illegitimate means of information gathering. Dean continues that certain payments, the type Benson might not want his wife to know about, tend to show up under shady names like 'M&C Entertainment'. "Dropping plastic at a nudie bar, for instance," he surmises.

Sam presses that they just want to know the truth, whereupon Benson caves and admits that he has been involved with a girl named Jasmine.

"She was a stripper?" asks Sam.

Dean rolls his eyes. "Dude. Her name was Jasmine."

Hey, I've known girls named Jasmine, and none of them were strippers!

Benson defends that he doesn't even like going to strip bars, but his buddy was having a bachelor party and he went along to it, and then there was Jasmine. "She came right up to me, and…I don't know. She was just…perfect. Everything that I wanted."

Dean disapprovingly points out that if you pay enough anybody will be anything, but Benson insists it wasn't about the money, or even about the sex. That line is important – none of this is about the sex, but rather sex is merely one of the tools this creature uses, a means to an end without being an end in itself. Benson doesn't know how to explain what it was about this girl that was so captivating. His wife never had a clue, he adds, and Sam wonders why he killed her, then.

"For Jasmine," Benson mumbles, eyes downcast. "She said we would be together forever, if only Vicky was…"

So, he killed Vicky because Jasmine told him to, but Jasmine then failed to show up for the meeting they had arranged, which suggests that horror at what he had done failed to set in immediately after the murder, he remained in thrall to the creature for quite some time, still desiring the forever she had promised. He babbles that he doesn't know where Jasmine lives, doesn't know her last name and doesn't even know her real first name, that he is an idiot.

Sam wonders why Benson didn't tell the cops any of this, implying that they don't know any of it. But I would have thought that they could and should have worked most of it out for themselves. After all, even a half-hearted police investigation would have turned up the strip bar connection even without Benson's statement. Just because he turned himself in doesn't mean there would be no investigation at all.


"What for?" Benson growls. "The stripper didn't do it. I did it. And I know what I deserve. Judge doesn't give me the death sentence I'll just do it myself."

Do American prisons have suicide watch? I would imagine that a prisoner known to be suicidal would be kept on 24-hour lockdown to prevent him killing himself – it's what would happen in the UK, at least – so Benson might find it a little harder to carry out this resolution than he perhaps realises.

Hospital

Over at the local hospital, one Dr Cara Roberts is gulping down aspirin when Sam comes knocking at her door. "Rough night?" he politely enquires.

"Fun night. Rough morning," she corrects, and thus Dr Cara is introduced to us as a party girl from the moment we first meet her.

Sam pulls out his badge and introduces himself as Special Agent Stiles, FBI. Questioning reveals that when Dr Cara isn't working at the hospital, she also works with the Sheriff's department. "It's a small town," she shrugs. "We multi-task."

We learn that the murder of Vicky Benson was the third in a string of uroxicides – husbands killing their wives – when Sam asks Dr Cara about them, since she handled the work-ups on both victims and perps. She shrugs that there wasn't anything unusual about any of the cases, cause of death being pretty clear in the victims. Sam asks about the husbands, and she asks to see his badge again before divulging any information.

Sam twitches. It's very faint, but it is there. Operating under false identities is always a risk, every time the brothers do it, and the closer someone looks at those badges the more chance there is that the forgery will be spotted.


Dr Cara's is not a trained eye, however, and apparently Sam's fake FBI badge passes muster, for, having had another look, she admits that there was one thing that struck her as unusual: an anomaly in the blood work. She pulls out the relevant files, explaining that all three men had an unusually high level of oxytocin in their blood, oxytocin being a hormone produced during childbirth, lactation and sex.

"People call it the love hormone," she explains, exchanging flirty little smiles and long, increasingly lust-filled glances with Sam. "You know how it feels when you first fall in love, the whole 'weak in the knees', 'tattoo you on my chest' thing? That's oxytocin. Of course, it eventually fades and then you're stuck with every relationship ever. That and a painful regimen of tattoo removal."

The lust-at-first-sight mutual attraction is pretty blatant, and the actors have great chemistry, which really helps sell it. We didn't see enough of Jessica to know much about her, but Cara added to Madison indicates something of a pattern in the women Sam is attracted to: intelligent and independent, women who've lived a little. As for what Cara sees in Sam…well, I'd say that was fairly obvious!


And it is already established that she is a party girl who likes to play hard, while being jaded and cynical about actual relationships. She's got one-night stand written all over her, but what's really interesting is that it is Sam who is flirting so casually with her, rather than his brother. This is behaviour we really haven't seen from Sam before.

Dean wanders into the room at this point, which disrupts the love-fest just slightly. Sam introduces him as his partner, Agent Murdock, whereupon Dean automatically turns on the charm and suaves, "Please, 'agent' sounds so formal. You can call me Dean."

Cara is having none of it however. "Doctor Roberts," she frostily replies and refocuses right back on Sam. She saw him first and she likes what she sees. Dean is rather taken aback at making so little impression on her.

Sam has just one more question: he'd like to know what might cause such high levels of oxytocin. While Cara sighs that she has no idea what might have caused it, certainly nothing she has ever seen before, he hands the files back and she returns them to the filing cabinet behind her…which draws Dean's attention to the vase of hyacinths she has on the windowsill behind her – subtle, but significant.

That concludes the interview. With Dean sitting there feeling like a spare part and trying for a suave smirk by way of cover-up and/or second try, Sam and Cara barely even seem aware of his presence as they smile flirtily at one another by way of goodbye.


As the brothers head out of the office, Sam turns back to flirt further by dropping a spot of hard-earned wisdom on the good doctor. "By the way, try a greasy breakfast," he smiles. "Best thing for a hangover."

Heh. Remember back in Playthings when Sam cursed Dean for even mentioning greasy food while he was hungover? How times have changed. How Sam has changed, a fact this episode goes out of its way to highlight.


Cara laughs that she is the MD here, and the mutual attraction is pretty much sealed, much to Dean's chagrin. "Dude, you totally c-blocked me," he grumbles as the brothers make their way out of the building.

C-blocked? Come on, Show, really? And yet they can throw the word 'dick' around as much as they like, it seems.

Anyway, the point is that Dean automatically sees women as being his field, what with Sam always having tended to be such a prude. His reaction to Sam's flirtation with the good doctor here is just another sign of his failure to adjust to the changes in his brother this season – although, to be fair, it's the first time we've seen Sam flirt so openly, so Dean's surprise is understandable.

Downstairs, as the brothers wander to the exit, it is time for a little info-dump as Sam confirms with Dean that the other two perps confessed as well. One emptied his IRA and the other raided his kid's college fund, Dean nods, all for the same thing – a club called the Honey Wagon. Sam asked if these men also had affairs with strippers called Jasmine, but Dean says yes and no, since each guy hooked up with a different chick. Sam wonders if all the girls are connected somehow, and Dean explains that all the men described their women in the exact same way: perfect and everything that they wanted.

"Yeah, at least until Dream Barbie convinced them to murder their wives," Sam snorts and Dean agrees. "It's almost like they were under some kind of love spell," Sam deduces, and Dean agrees again. "Which caused them to become totally psychotic," Sam continues, and Dean chirps another agreement. Sam eyes his brother. "You seem pretty cheery," he notes.

"Strippers, Sammy," Dean enthuses as if it should be obvious, and he looks both bright and bubbly, which makes a refreshing change, he's been so downbeat lately. "Strippers! We are on an actual case involving strippers. Finally." Heh.


The Honey Wagon. Night

For all Dean's enthusiasm at the thought of a case involving strippers, he doesn't actually pay them all that much attention as he enters the Honey Wagon, using his FBI badge to bypass the queue. Show takes advantage of the opportunity to 'entertain' us with a heavy beat and montage of scantily clad women, but although Dean glances at them, he remains focused on his business here, which is locating the woman or women who enticed three men to murder.

Jasmine, Aurora and Ariel are the names that Dean gives the manager, Disney princesses one and all. Manager is utterly unhelpful, however. He deals with too many girls on a daily basis to bother even trying to remember either names or descriptions, and doesn't keep any paperwork, because the 'exotic dancers' are all employed as 'independent contractors' working for cash. Frustrated, Dean reminds him that three of his customers murdered their wives, and Manager agrees that it seems extremely weird, but insists that it is not his problem.

Turning away from the unhelpful man, Dean spots his brother across the room and makes his way over to him, glancing at the dancers as he passes with only the faintest of interest. So how much of his enthusiasm for a case involving strippers was feigned, then, and how much was it genuine, only to fade when he got here and remembered that someone (or several someones) among them is enticing men to kill?

Sam has had slightly more luck than Dean – he has spoken to Bobby, and this conversation has resulted in an official theory for them to work toward: a siren.

"Like Greek myth siren?" Dean frowns. "The Odyssey?" Sam is rather staggered by this display of knowledge, but Dean shrugs it off. "Hey, I read."


He doesn't read much, though, and what he does know he doesn't usually show off, preferring to wind his brother up by playing ignorant for all he's worth. In fact, Dean's knowledge tends to be extremely hit-and-miss in general – it is rarely possible to predict what he will or won't know – but that suits the character. We know that he was never especially interested in school or studying, but rather has picked up most of what he knows piecemeal along the way. It is easy to picture the young Dean paying attention to and working hard at things that interested him, while giving up at an early age on those that didn't interest him so much, or that he struggled with, what with all that skipping from school to school, or that he didn't feel could be remotely useful. The inevitable result is the patchy general knowledge he frequently displays, swinging erratically from unexpected areas of expertise to quite staggering areas of ignorance.

Sam informs us that sirens are beautiful creatures that prey on men and entice them with their song. Now Dean does make the most of an opportunity to wind his brother up, by suggesting a few possible songs these sirens might favour. He is rewarded with a disapproving bitchface as Sam loftily informs him that the siren's song isn't so much an actual song and more a metaphor for their allure.

"So they shake their things and the guys zombie out," Dean summarises.

Sam agrees that that is basically it, continuing that sirens lived on islands. Sailors would chase them, completely ignoring the rocky shores, and would dash themselves to pieces. That is a fairly important basic point to note about sirens: in legend, their victims never even got near them. The siren in this episode uses sex as a tool to draw victims in, but, being a siren rather than succubus, isn't in this for the sex. Like the sirens of old, it is all about generating death and destruction.

Dean notes that Benson and the others have pretty much been enticed into a modern equivalent of dashing themselves to bits on rocky shores, and Sam agrees. "If you were a siren in '09 looking to ruin a bunch of morons, where would you set up shop?"

We are 'treated' to another montage of strippers and their clients, just to hammer the point home that men all too often let their lust do the thinking for them, easy prey for a creature like the siren looking for a few easy targets.

"So whatever floats the guy's boat, that's what they look like?" Dean asks.

Sam nods, explaining that sirens can read minds. "They see what you want most, and they can kind of, like, cloak themselves, you know? Like an illusion."


So it could all be the same girl morphing into different dream girls for each victim, Dean belatedly realises, as if the Disney princess naming theme wasn't enough of a giveaway already. Sam agrees that this is probably the case, claiming that sirens are usually pretty solitary.

Really? From my understanding of Greek mythology, I would tend to assume that they actually hunt in packs, as a rule. This particular story requires only one, however, so we won't argue.

Dismayed by all this information, which reveals only too clearly how complicated the case is going to be, Dean asks how they kill the siren. All Sam can say do is shrug that Bobby is working on it. "But even if we figure that out…"

"How the hell are we going to find it?" Dean sighs, glancing around the club at the many, many strippers currently performing. "It could be anybody."


So true, and we pan away from the brothers, following a waitress around the club until the camera settles on an awkward young chap sitting alone at a table. His name is Lenny, we will later learn. One of the strippers joins him, cooing that she thought he'd never get here, and he greets her by name. Belle. Another Disney princess, so we immediately know that this is the siren. They head out of the club together.

Lenny's house

Having brought Belle home, Lenny anxiously checks on the bedridden mother he cares for and is pleased to find her sound asleep. Belle simpers that he is amazing for taking care of his mother like this when most guys would have put her in a nursing home, and Lenny is pleased by such praise. With no further ado, she then unzips and steps out of her little black dress, and that's all the enticement he needs to get down to business right there on the sofa.

While the couple are in the throes of their coital bliss, the camera pans past a photograph of Lenny's elderly mother to a mirror above the fireplace. In it we see the true form of the siren, which is revealed to be a wizened and decidedly androgynous creature, with hollowed out eyes and gruesomely gaping mouth – a far cry from the beautiful woman Lenny is seeing. Yikes.


Later, post-coital, Belle coos that she loves Lenny, especially the way he takes care of her and his mother…but worries that it is too much of a burden for him to carry, since his mother takes up all his time. Interestingly, given the immediate effect the siren's venom will later appear to have, Lenny at first demurs that his mother isn't so bad, rather than instantly agreeing with every word the creature says. Belle keeps whispering enticements, promising to be with him forever, if only his mother wasn't here.

Staring into her eyes, Lenny agrees that he does indeed want to be with Belle forever. Satisfied that she has him well and truly under her control now, Belle tells him to bash his mother's brains in, and Lenny smiles and agrees as calmly as if she just asked him for coffee. He gets up, looking decidedly intoxicated…and also rather too dressed to have had any actual sex. Would he really have pulled his boxers back on for the post-coital snuggling? Anyway, he grabs a fire iron, and marches into his mother's room.

We hear the murder but don't see it – wet thwacks and cries of pain and fear, which soon taper off. Belle sits there looking blissed out on the violence she has wrought, drinking it in and loving it. Then, satisfied with the outcome of her night's work, she steps back into her little black dress, pulls it up, and walks away.

Motel. Day

Sam's cell phone lies atop an open book on the desk, although Sam himself is not around. Dean sits nearby, staring at the phone intently. It is much the same look that he had on his face when he awoke to hear Sam holding that furtive conversation in the bathroom, full of hurt and dread and worry.


Dean suspects that Sam is hiding something from him – in fact, he pretty much knows it, after Sam lied about that phone call earlier. There could still be a simple explanation for that evasion, however. It doesn't have to mean anything sinister. But Dean is worried that it does, and now the phone is right there. He has the power to find out for sure, one way or another…but looking at that phone crosses a line. It forces him to admit that he doesn't trust his brother, and there is no going back from that. What if he is wrong? And what if he is right?

At length, Dean gives in to the temptation, picks up the phone and scrolls through the most recent calls. His own name and Bobby's both feature prominently, but there is a number that he doesn't know, with no name attached – because Sam knows better than to list it.

Also, the phone gives the date as Friday 8 August. However, 8 August fell on a Friday in 2008, and since we know that it is already 2009 on the show (Sam even talked about it being '09 a couple of scenes ago) it is immediately clear that this is merely a production error, rather than the date of this episode.

Dean dials the number…and Ruby answers. Worst fears confirmed. He hangs up immediately, drops the phone as if it was on fire, and presses a fist to his mouth, distressed and betrayed, and deeply concerned about what this means.


Now he knows. Now he knows that he isn't just being paranoid. Sam really is keeping things from him, lying to him, sneaking around behind his back with a demon again, after everything. Breaking his trust just when Dean had thought they were starting to get back on track – just when Dean has been more honest and open with Sam than he has ever been.

Sam himself wanders back into the room at this point, so Dean's timing was impeccable there – a few more seconds and Sam would have caught him in the act. Sam announces that Lenny Bristol was definitely another siren victim, and runs through the story of stripper Belle and the murdered mother. Dean is surprised to hear that it was his mother Lenny killed, but Sam just shrugs that it was the woman he was closest to.

There's another piece of evidence for us to bear in mind about the siren and how it operates. Adam Benson told us that it wasn't about the sex, although sex has played a part in every case so far, because a fulfilled sexual relationship was what all the victims wanted. Lenny Bristol tells us further that the siren doesn't seek to subvert marriages or romantic relationships exclusively, but rather is interested in turning men against the person closest to them, whoever that might be. It uses whatever tools it needs to achieve that. For Lenny it was sex again, because his role as carer for his mother made it difficult for him to attract women, which gave the siren an in. But it doesn't have to be sex because that isn't what the siren is looking for. What it seeks in its victims is a close relationship, of any nature, that can be subverted.


Sam's phone rings, and just the tiniest flash of panic flits across his face as he realises that it is on the table alongside Dean, rather than in his pocket. He has a secret that he doesn't want his brother to learn, and leaving that phone outside of his control was a risk he can't afford. Dean hurriedly reminds his brother that he left it behind and tosses it over to him, hopping to his feet so that Sam can sit down in his place, nervous because investigating Sam's deception is pushing him into deception of his own as he is reluctant to confront his brother, afraid of what that might lead to. It's a downward spiral of lies and evasion and they are both caught in it now.

Now, it could be Ruby phoning back to find out why Sam called and then hung up, which would both drop Sam right in it with Dean and reveal that Dean has been snooping around Sam's phone…but I'm guessing Sam doesn't allow Ruby to call him, ever. That would be too risky, so any phone contact must be initiated by Sam.

It is, in fact, Bobby on the phone. Bobby! It's been far too long since we last saw Bobby on-screen.

Bobby doesn't have much to offer the brothers beyond lore from a 'dusty Greek poem'. "Shockingly, it's a little vague," he snarks.

Sam switches to speakerphone as Bobby continues that they need "a bronze dagger covered in the blood of a sailor under the spell of the song." Dean wonders what the hell that means, and Bobby shrugs. "You got me. We're dealing with three thousand years of the telephone game here."

Why the confusion? Song reference aside, it actually sounds pretty clear to me, and the continuing conversation confirms the ease of translation. Bobby's best guess is that the siren's spell doesn't have anything to do with a song but is more likely to be some kind of toxin or venom that she gets into the victim's blood. Sam posits that they infect the men during sex, and Dean snorts that it's a supernatural STD. Bobby continues that once it is done the siren has to watch her back because if she gets a dose of her own medicine it kills her. "Like a snake getting iced by its own venom."

Dean suggests that they just need to "find a way to juice one of the OJs in jail," but Bobby says that it isn't going to be that easy, since none of those guys are under the spell any more. Again, I wonder how long it took to wear off, since we know that Benson went to his pre-arranged rendezvous point after killing his wife, which suggests he was still very much influenced by the siren at that point. And his perception of it as perfection has never faded, although that is now tempered with suicidal remorse and incomprehension at the actions it enticed him to.

Anyway, Bobby has no clue how the brothers are going to get the blood they need, but Sam has an idea on that score. "Be careful," Bobby warns. "These things are tricky bitches – wrap you up in knots before you know what hit you."

Hospital

Sam leads the way back to Dr Cara's office, because, of course, he knows that she has samples of each victim's blood and that this blood contains the siren's toxin, which showed up on her lab report as oxytocin.

Cara greets Sam by name and flirts that he can't stay away, again ignoring Dean completely. As a guest character, she's a lot of fun, but not what you'd call subtle! Dean's exasperated little eye roll is hilarious. Sam catches the look on his brother's face and hastily wipes the goofy smile off his own, telling Cara that they are here on business: they need the blood samples, the ones with the high levels of oxytocin. It takes him a moment to bring the word back to mind – Sam's slipping! Big words like that used to be his bread and butter…but he's finding Cara distracting.

Cara wonders why they need the blood samples, but before the brothers can offer any explanation, another young man wanders up and interrupts. Dean and Sam promptly whip out their FBI badges to protest the interruption, but the other man counters with an FBI badge of his own, which is awkward, to say the least.


The potential ramifications of the brothers being busted by an actual Fed are huge. Since being declared legally dead after Jus in Bello, they have finally managed to leave their longstanding legal troubles behind them – but this is the second time in just a few episodes that they have found themselves skating on very thin ice once more. Having played the FBI card, however, they can't back down now but instead have to sell it for all they are worth, harder than ever, in order to convince this unexpected agent that they are genuine.

Sam asks Cara to give them a moment, and she drifts away so that the men can sort out their jurisdictional issues in private. The agent introduces himself as Nick Monroe and the brothers introduce themselves as Sam Stiles and Dean Murdock. Heh. Route 66. They demand to know what office Monroe is from. Omaha, Violent Crimes Unit, says Monroe, reciprocating the question. The brothers claim to work out of DC, assigned by the Assistant Director. Monroe suspiciously asks what JD, and Sam immediately, confidently says Mike Kaiser.

They've got this story all worked out well in advance – it's a far cry from the days of season one when the mostly just winged it, making up their plans and identities as they went along.

Monroe is still suspicious and asks for the brothers' badge numbers. Dean snorts that he must be kidding, but Monroe shrugs that he's just following protocol. Sam fishes out a business card and suggests that Monroe call their AD to sort things out, and Monroe does just that – giving us a good look at the card while he's at it, and I think for a moment about the fact that the brothers use different names in every episode and must have to get different cards mocked up every time, as well as the badges.

Monroe dials the office number listed on Sam's business card…and Bobby answers. Of course!

Bobby doesn't so much as blink when Monroe whines that the so-called Stiles and Murdock have been put on his case by mistake, snapping at the man not to question his authority. Hee, and he's taken the call in the kitchen, while frying bacon wearing a well-used 'kiss the cook' apron. Brilliant! Such a hilarious contrast to the persona he so effortlessly assumes for the conversation.


"Last time I checked, son, DC has jurisdiction," Bobby grumps. "Or am I wrong?" Monroe flounders. "Good," Bobby snips. "Well next time you want to waste my time with stupid questions, don't."

Well, that puts Monroe in his place and confirms Dean and Sam's story for him.

"Those idjits," Bobby sighs as he hangs up…revealing that he has a whole row of telephones on his wall, each carefully labelled for a different purpose. FBI, Federal Marshall, CDC, Police and Health Department. HEE! Marvellous, marvellous.

When was all that set up, then? The phones weren't there last time we saw Bobby's kitchen, surely. I wonder how much the line rental for that lot costs him.


I also wonder whose idea it was to set all this up, and whether Bobby provides this service for Dean and Sam exclusively or for select other hunters, as well. Bobby knows everybody, after all. He has a special relationship with the boys – Dean was listed as his emergency contact, we learned last season – but also cares deeply about the safety and security of his other friends among the hunting community. He wouldn't even necessarily need to be kept in the loop as to what pseudonym any of them was using at any given time, needing only to react appropriately to any phone call he received, whatever name was offered – and Bobby is more than sufficiently gifted at improvisation to manage that.

How they manage when Bobby is away is another question entirely.

Another point worth pondering is that, on top of the fact of him simply being here at all, Monroe's insistence on checking Dean and Sam out, claiming protocol, has thrown them onto the back foot. They feel at a disadvantage, knowing that they are impostors and believing him to be genuine, need to prove themselves to him without pushing too hard or rocking the boat in any way, want to just convince him and then get rid of him as quickly as possible. And so it never once occurs to them to check out his story or question that he is who he claims to be.

Suitably chastened, Monroe turns sheepishly back to Dean and Sam, apologises and asks where they are at with the investigation. Dean promptly turns the question back around on him, asking where Monroe is at with it. Still abashed having been put soundly in his place, he mumbles that he was about to run the perps' blood work.

Of course, the brothers can't be having that, since they want the blood themselves, so Sam immediately, very smoothly, lies that he already checked and it's a dead end.

Monroe confides that he thinks he has found a connection between the murderers. "They were all banging strippers from the same club," he announces, proud of his cleverness. Dean and Sam pretend to be impressed by this detective work and Monroe, thus encouraged, suggests they all go down there and check it out.

Dean starts to brush him off, not wanting to have anything more to do with an actual Fed than absolutely necessary, not least because prolonged proximity increases the danger of exposure, but Sam hurriedly interrupts that it sounds like an excellent idea and pulls Dean aside for a quick chat. "Dude, you've got to stay with him," he insists, much to Dean's surprise. "Keep him out of the way."

Dean wants to know why he should be the one stuck with babysitting duty, and Sam explains that he has to get the blood sample. Of course, there is no reason why Dean shouldn't be the one to get the blood sample while Sam babysat the Fed, other than that Sam has struck up a rapport with the doctor and now sees an opportunity to spend some time alone with her.

Splitting up on a job is rarely a good idea, however.

"What am I supposed to do with him?" Dean demands, exasperated. He has not had good experiences with the FBI, in general.

"Just take him to the strip club," Sam shrugs. "Keep an eye out for the siren. Come on, Dean. Just focus on the naked girls – you'll forget he's even there."

Motivational speaking, Sam-style.

Dean still does not look happy. "I'm not doing this for you. I'm doing this for the girls," he snips with as much dignity as he can muster, and then turns to collect Monroe.

Street

Still disgruntled about being saddled with babysitting an FBI agent, Dean gruffly insists that they are taking his car and there is to be no complaining about the tunes. He is very quickly mollified, however, when Monroe starts to rave over the Impala – always a swift way to Dean's heart. That car is the one thing in his life that has never let him down.


Monroe is definitely impressed, and Dean is both touched and delighted at so unexpectedly discovering a kindred spirit.

Hospital

Dr Cara wonders why Sam wants the blood samples, and by way of non-answer, he vagues that they would like to run some tests. Cara promptly points out that she has already run every test there is, since that is, in fact, her job – hence the lab coat she is wearing. There isn't a lot Sam can say to that by way of convincing argument, really, so he even more vaguely lies that they know a specialist who would like to try out a theory.

Cara eyes him sceptically for a moment longer before deciding to buy this explanation, mostly because she really doesn't care enough to argue the toss in any way. She heads over to the cabinet to get the samples…only to find that they have disappeared.

Hmm. Who did we see coming from the direction of Cara's office just before the brothers arrived to claim the blood samples? Monroe. He had the opportunity…but is never once considered a suspect, his FBI status the perfect disguise, even from old hands at masquerade like Dean and Sam.

The Honey Wagon

At the strip club, neither Dean nor Monroe is paying the blindest bit of attention to the scantily clad girls gyrating around the place. Having discovered a mutual love of classic rock, as well as classic cars, they are having an absolute blast downing shots (only one apiece, though, by the looks of it, being more or less on duty) while testing one another's knowledge.

Dean looks more relaxed than we've seen him in a long time, and it's kind of sad to reflect on that. He's enjoying himself, enjoying the opportunity to kick back and have a fun, non-work related conversation with someone who knows nothing about his emotional baggage, someone with whom he can just be himself and forget about his troubles for a while. Dean is a very sociable guy by nature, but his transient life and the nature of his work simply do not afford him the opportunity to form real friendships of any kind. All he has is Sam…but lately their every conversation revolves around life, death and the end of the world – not to mention lies and deception.


When was the last time we saw the brothers just kicking back and enjoying one another's company, free from guilt or stress? When was the last time we saw them just being brothers?

Monroe is so goofily keen and eager to impress, he's kind of adorable. He seems like someone Dean could build a genuine friendship with, were it not for the FBI complication – a potentially useful contact, even. Watching the two of them male-bonding over classic rock is heart-warming, it is so nice to see Dean relaxed and at ease for once. But all of that only serves to make it that much worse when we find out that Monroe is not what he seems.

"You know, for a Fed you're not a total dick," Dean approves, so relaxed in Monroe's company that he is starting to slip up a little. Monroe cheerfully points out that they are both Feds, which is a little awkward, and Dean flounders slightly, belatedly realising his slip. "Yeah. I know. Just not a lot of Feds as cool as us, huh?"

"So what the hell with this case, man? How does a girl talk four different johns into murder?" Monroe puzzles, while Dean gazes thoughtfully around the club. He's not ogling the girls, though: he's scanning for any sign of trouble.

"It's a crazy world," Dean distractedly vagues, frowning slightly as he notices one of the strippers whispering into the ear of a customer, very alert to the fact that one of them has been inciting men to murder and could strike again at any moment. For all the bluster he gave Sam about naked girls, he never once loses sight of the fact that he is here working a case, that there is a monster lurking behind one of those pretty faces that he must remain vigilant towards.

It's just a shame that this focus blinds him to any other possibilities, including the fact that just because the siren has appeared as a stripper four times now doesn't mean it always will.

"Hey, can I level with you? I found something kind of weird," Monroe confides.

"You've brought your weird to the right spot," says Dean. "Lay it on me."

Monroe explains that he went to the crime scene and saw the local cops bagging up a piece of evidence, which he then lifted. He shows it to Dean, who is too intrigued by this latest clue to question its origin at all.

The evidence bag Monroe shows Dean is labelled 1 February, which provides us with a plausible date for the episode, given that I Know What You Did Last Summer and Heaven and Hell dated to November and Family Remains was set a month after that. Dean has turned 30 now, then – the birthday he never expected to see.

The evidence purloined by Monroe turns out to be a spray of flowers, which Dean immediately recognises, because although the show is never entirely certain how well read or educated Dean should be, the one thing they are always clear on is his excellent botanical knowledge.

Monroe claims to have gone back through the files on all the other victims and discovered that the same flower was left at every crime scene, like the calling card of a serial killer. This may or may not be true. Dean and Sam, of course, do not have access to the official police investigation, and so Dean does not question for a moment that this supposedly genuine FBI agent might have access to evidence he is unaware of. Monroe sighs that he has no idea what is going on. Dean, on the other hand, thinks carefully over what he knows for a moment, pieces of the puzzle falling into place, and thinks maybe he has an idea, as he has seen a flower like this before.

Hospital

In Dr Cara's office, the camera treats us to a nice long close-up of the vase of hyacinths on the windowsill before panning over to where Cara and a grim-looking Sam are studying security tape footage in hopes of finding out who stole the blood samples. There is no sign of anything amiss, however, which suggests that whoever took the blood must have tampered with the tapes.

Disappointed by this turn of events, which makes his job so much harder, Sam asks who has access to Cara's office. She shrugs that everybody does, as she doesn't lock it. Sam can't quite believe such a laissez-faire attitude, but Cara just shrugs again that she has never had this problem before, and wonders what is so important about the blood, anyway.

"I think someone drugged the men, made them commit murder," Sam explains, looking troubled. It's as close as he can get to the truth without actually telling the truth. Disbelieving, Cara wants to know what drug – because, of course, she has already run every test possible on those samples and found nothing but oxytocin out of the ordinary – but Sam says he doesn't know that yet, since he can't explain that it was the toxin of a siren.

Cara remains sceptical, saying that she interviewed all the men and they all had their reasons for what they did. Sam protests that they all loved their victims.


"I'm sure they did," Cara drawls. "Haven't you ever been in a relationship where you really loved somebody…and still kinda wanted to bash their head in?"

Sam snorts, no doubt thinking of both his brother and his father. We don't know enough about his relationship with Jessica to know how stormy that may or may not have been, but his familial relationships have certainly seen plenty of strain! "Sounds like you're speaking from experience," he remarks, rather than offer any commentary on his own situation.

Cara looks wistful for a moment, then turns to a cupboard and pulls out a couple of glasses and bottle of whisky. Realising that he has stepped on a sensitive nerve, Sam apologises for prying, but Cara brushes it off, pointing out that she was the one who brought it up. She pours them a drink each and Sam quirks an eyebrow, sensing impropriety in the offing, whereupon Cara offers him a mischievous nod and grin and says it is medicine. "I'm a doctor," she solemnly points out, all wide-eyed mock innocence, and that's all the encouragement he needs.

Cara then tells the story of her husband Carl, saying that she loved him, maybe still does, but Life got in the way. "It's like one day I looked up and I was living with a stranger," she wistfully reminisces. "You know what I mean, right?"

"I guess," Sam shrugs, not looking entirely certain. "Maybe. I don't know."

He brushes it off, the implication of what she is saying cutting a little too close to home, reminding him that people can change and grow apart, and that the massive sea changes in his and his brother's lives lately have divided them badly. They have both been changed by everything they have been through, and have struggled to find a way of fitting back together again.

"People change," Cara summarises. "God, I know I did. But it's nothing to feel guilty about. It happens."

Now she really is singing Sam's tune. And just as the evidence Monroe gave Dean has convinced him that she is the siren, so this scene is very much crafted to convince viewers that she is the siren. This dialogue is particularly damning: encouraging Sam not to worry about how much he has changed, even if his brother can't deal with it – selling him the notion of walking away from a damaged relationship rather than trying to repair it by working through problems together.

"So you two split up?" Sam asks, and Cara supposes that's one word for it, pouring herself another drink.

Sam's phone rings. It is Dean, of course, but rather than answer Sam turns it off, a gesture that speaks volumes.


The brothers are mid-job; the call could be important. It is important, whatever the rights or wrongs of the conclusion Dean has reached. Both brothers have come up with new information while working separately and they need to keep one another in the loop, need to regroup in order to strategise based on what they have learned.

But it is already clear where this conversation – this liaison – is heading, and Sam has decided that he wants it. He wants it more than he cares about finishing the job right now, and so he makes the decision that it is okay to take a hiatus in the middle of the case. It is incredibly reckless behaviour. For one thing, Sam knows perfectly well that the creature they are hunting can alter its appearance, could be anyone, and he also knows that it has been using sex to transmit its venom and thus ensnare its victims. The last thing he should be doing right now is indulging in casual flings of any kind with someone he just met today, while on the job. No matter how attractive Cara is and no matter how far removed she seems from the strip club girls the siren has always appeared as, by pursuing this Sam is leaving himself wide open.

It is also reckless because by rejecting Dean's call Sam is leaving his brother alone, with no one to watch his back. Sam made the decision to split up, and sent Dean to the strip club, where the siren is known to operate, with only Monroe for backup. Although Monroe claims to be an FBI agent and neither brother has questioned that, from a hunter's perspective he is still a civilian, and is more likely to be a hindrance than a help to Dean if anything should happen. And anything could have happened to either one of them at that club: they might have identified the siren and confronted it, be fighting for their lives; they might have spotted it too late to prevent it sending another victim after an unsuspecting loved one and need help preventing murder; one of them might have fallen victim to it himself; Dean might even have had his false identity exposed and need to be busted out of jail. Sam has no way of knowing.

Dean's purpose for calling was to try and warn his brother about Cara, who he believes to be the siren, based on the new evidence Monroe provided. He could just as easily have been calling for help. But Sam doesn't stop to think about any of that. Instead he turns his phone off, sending a very clear message that Dean is on his own with whatever it is he wanted.

Sam sets his phone aside very deliberately and glances up at Cara through long lashes, daring her to make the next move. Already smiling in delight, she refills his glass. "We've all got our own sad stories," she remarks. "So, screw it. Have fun, no regrets, and live life like there's no tomorrow."


You know, that used to be very much Dean's philosophy, but he's been having a hard time finding the fun in life lately – which is just one of the things Sam wants a break from right now. Cara is perfect for that. We learned when we first met her that she is a party girl who likes to work hard and play harder, and the philosophy she expresses here cements that. All she is looking for is a one night stand, casual sex, because she likes what she sees and wants to taste it. She knows that Sam is only in town for this case and will then move on; she isn't going to expect anything from him afterward, won't make any demands upon him. So he is free to have this little fling with her, no strings attached.

This episode sees both brothers bonding with outsiders rather than each other, emphasising the fact that their relationship is too strained right now for comfortable companionship, over-burdened with the angst-laden emotional baggage of their past. Everything that has happened to them, both individually and together, has served only to drive them further and further apart.

As attracted as he is to her, Sam nonetheless seems quite happy to let Cara do all the seduction, while he just sits back and soaks it up. It is behaviour we've seen from him before. He tends not to reach out, preferring to let other people come to him, if they so choose, holding himself more and more aloof as the seasons progress. Here, he encourages Cara to tell him more about herself but does not reciprocate in the slightest; sensible, perhaps, given how much is impossible for him to talk about, but still it stands another sign of Sam's increasing detachment. He simply will not allow himself to form any emotional attachments, growing ever colder and harder, and it is sad to see.

Cara leans close to whisper in Sam's ear. "For instance," she seductively murmurs. "I have been thinking about you all night. Well, parts of you." Heh. Sammy is loving this, wondering which parts. "Like your lips," Cara whispers, straddling his lap. "They are very distracting. It's a problem. I can't stop thinking about…kissing them."


Enough talking. After another long, lust-filled moment practically radiating sexual tension, they finally start ripping one another's clothes off. Once again, Sam is all grabby and kinda rough, picking Cara up and shoving her against the window to sit on the ledge as they laugh and kiss and make love right there against those supposedly-damning hyacinths, everything about the scene designed to make us believe that this is the moment Sam is infected by the siren.


My, but Sam is racking up the sexual encounters this season. In fact, there has been more sex this season than ever before – three sex scenes in fourteen episodes compared with two sex scenes in the whole of the first three seasons.

It is also notable that since Jessica's death, all Sam's women have been brunette.

Motel. Night

Hey, there's that standard motel set again, the one that is also the upper level of Bobby's house.

Sam makes his way back to the brothers' room after his little quickie with Cara, and it has to be said: he doesn't exactly look like the world moved for him. This utter detachment, as well as continuing the mislead regarding the siren's identity, further emphasises how much Sam has changed. Once upon a time Sam would not have dreamt of getting involved with anyone so casually; intimacy was valuable to him, and his 'people close to me always die' paranoia meant that it was never shared lightly. Now, though, Sam has learned to separate sex from emotion, to enjoy a casual fling while it lasts while remaining emotionally detached, just another nail in the coffin of the sensitive and hopeful young man he once was.

Ominous music plays as Sam enters the room he and Dean are sharing. If, as Dean suspects Cara is the siren, that would mean that Sam is now infected – and the siren's victims always go after the person they are closest to.

The motel room is empty when Sam opens the door however. He huffs, apparently frustrated that Dean isn't back yet, and hauls out his phone to call his brother, hopefully remembering that Dean did try to call him earlier and realising that it might have actually been important.

"Sam! Where the hell have you been?" Dean accuses the moment he picks up the call. He is in the Impala, driving through the rain, and looks very worried.

He has also changed out of the suit he was wearing at the bar when he was with Monroe, which suggests that he has been back the motel to see if Sam was there and got changed before going out to look for his little brother.

Sam dismisses that he was with Cara, and Dean's eyebrows shoot up. "Oh, its Cara now," he accuses. "And you're not picking up your phone!" Sam just shrugs that they were trying to find the blood samples, since someone stole them. "Yeah, I'll bet," Dean snorts, and Sam wonders what that's supposed to mean, so Dean informs him that Nick found flower petals at the crime scene. Hyacinths.

Rather than comment on his brother being on first name terms with an FBI agent – or asking why it is okay for Dean to be on first name terms with said FBI agent while Sam being on first name terms with a doctor is cause for accusatory snark – Sam focuses on the information his brother is giving him, wondering why Dean considers it so significant.

"Hyacinths?" Dean repeats. "Mediterranean, from the island where the whole freaking siren myth started in the first place?" Sam's still not getting it, and Dean grows frustrated. "Sam, Cara had hyacinth flowers!"

Sam laughs. "You think Cara's the siren?"

Dean explains that he has done some checking up on her and found out she has only been in town for two months and has a dead ex-husband, who dropped like a stone with no warning from an apparent heart attack. Now, Cara implied to Sam that she was divorced rather than widowed, but Sam merely shrugs that maybe it was a heart attack, and Dean can't believe he isn't taking this seriously. Sam firmly says that he just doesn't think it is Cara. Dean wants to know what makes him so sure, and Sam evades that it is just a hunch.

"A hunch?" Dean disbelieves. "I'm giving you cold, hard facts here, and you're giving me a hunch?" Sam doesn't know what else to say, and in the pause that follows Dean realises what's going on. "Did you sleep with her?"


In the privacy of the motel room, Sam's eyes dart anxiously from side to side as he tries to decide how to answer that question, finally opting for a defensive lie. "No."

Dean's jaw drops, because there are some things Sam still can't lie about convincingly, even now, after he's had so much practice. "Holy crap, you did," he realises. "Middle of Basic Instinct and you bang Sharon Stone?"

That's an excellent point. I made it myself a little earlier, of course. Under normal circumstances, Dean would applaud his little brother getting some, but not in the middle of a case like this. It was reckless and dangerous.

Sam rolls his eyes with frustration as his brother furiously rails that he could be under the siren's spell right now. "Dude, I'm not under her spell," he firmly insists.

"Unbelievable, man. I just don't get it," Dean furiously huffs, not believing a word, and Sam, fast losing his own temper, demands to know what he means. Dean flails. "First it's Madison, and then Ruby and now Cara. Like, what is with you and banging monsters?"

Damn, that is a very revealing statement, and doesn't even derive from the influence of the siren. This one is 100% Dean, allowing his fears and frustrations to get the better of him. The accusation isn't entirely justified, either. His suspicions about Cara prove to be unfounded, and Madison is a very emotive subject to touch upon. Although Dean sympathised with her he always saw her as someone who used to be a person but was turned into something else, but Sam, in contrast, always related to her as a victim, a woman who had something wrong with her and needed help.

But this outburst isn't really about Cara or Madison, or even about Sam sleeping with 'monsters'. It is about Ruby, and tells us clearly just how badly squicked Dean was by the notion of Sam sleeping with a demon, for all that he suppressed that reaction when Sam first told him about it in the interest of trying to reconnect with his brother.

Dean's accusation here stems directly from his growing paranoia. He is fast coming to the end of his tether with Sam, despairing over whether or not he can even trust his brother's judgement, never mind his word, but he doesn't want to take the risk of openly exposing Sam's secret activities with the demon yet, immense can of worms as that would be. Indirectly communicating his fears by calling Sam on his lie about Cara and including Ruby with Sam's other questionable relationships feels safer, allows him to test the waters. This is the closest he can come right now to openly admitting his suspicions, and Sam's angry reaction to the conversation suggests that the hidden message strikes home.

"Look, Dean, I'm telling you: it's not Cara, I feel fine," Sam snips, sticking firmly to the matter at hand rather than responding to the accusation in his brother's statement.

"I'll bet you do," Dean fumes.

"You don't trust me," Sam realises.

"No!" Dean shouts. "Because this could be the siren talking!"

"Look," says Sam, frustrated, and with just the faintest edge of panic in face and voice as he realises too late the damage caused by refusing to take that call earlier, and not just where this case is concerned. He needs to keep Dean and his covert activities completely segregated, but if Dean doesn't trust him, if Dean finds out, then it all starts to unravel. They have determinedly kept this conversation about the case at hand…but the subtext of wider issues is coming through loud and clear. "Just tell me where you are," he urges. "I'll come meet you and we'll figure things out."

There is a long, tense pause as Dean weighs up his options before he replies. "No," he decides, and Sam can't believe he's serious. "I wish I weren't," Dean sighs, knowing that if the siren really has enthralled Sam he can't risk going near him right now. "I've got to handle this, Sam. By myself."

I have to do this by myself. How many times now have we heard one or other of the brothers saying that? The growing divide between them, caused by Dean's death and Sam's acceptance of it and survival alone, has been the theme of the season.

Dean hangs up and Sam, alone in the motel room with no idea where his brother is, seethes with impotent frustration, flinging his phone across the room in a fit of pique. He has no one to blame for this but himself and he knows it. It was his idea to split up in the first place. If he had answered the phone when Dean called, this would not have happened; they could have continued to work the case together and carried on pretending that nothing is wrong. And if Dean doesn't trust Sam – about more than whether or not Cara is the siren – he has good reason and Sam knows that, too, since he is the one who has been lying and sneaking around, risking discovery and condemnation every time. On top of all that, Dean's comment about sleeping with monsters has struck a very raw nerve, given how sensitive Sam has always been about what his psychic powers and demon blood might mean. Dean has questioned his judgement a few times now this season; it's a sore point.


Sam stares at his reflection in the mirror, angry and pensive. Maybe wondering again how to tell if his choices are right or wrong, frustrated by the slur on his judgement and hurt that Dean doesn't trust him, but painfully aware that he has brought it upon himself.


Impala. Road. Night

"Sam's in trouble, Bobby," Dean sighs at Bobby's voicemail. "I think the siren's worked her mojo on him. Give me a call as soon as you get this."

Hanging up, another thought occurs to him. He believes that Sam has been infected and has therefore become part of the case rather than part of the solution, but there is someone else who is also working the job, albeit from a different angle. By myself is defined as without Sam, but it doesn't have to mean completely alone. Dean has never been comfortable with alone. So he calls Monroe, and I pause to wonder why he exchanged numbers with a supposed FBI agent; however much he liked Monroe, it is still a huge risk to provide traceable information like that to anyone from law enforcement! It is a sign of how strongly Dean bonded with the man, however, how much he enjoyed the professional rapport they developed, unfettered as it was by personal issues.

So, Dean asks for help, which Monroe immediately agrees to give, providing a stark contrast with Sam's refusal to even take Dean's call earlier and his evasions when the brothers did speak. The brothers are positively drowning in their issues at the moment; working with an outsider provides refreshing simplicity.

Monroe asks what Dean wants him to do. "Canvassing," Dean explains. "We've got to find somebody."

Lang's Cocktail Lounge. Parking lot. Night

Monroe sits in his car on stakeout outside a bar and watches as Dr Cara Roberts hops out of a taxi and heads into said bar. We have known since her very first scene, of course, that she is a party girl who likes to spend her nights drinking and her days nursing the inevitable hangover.

Dean arrives and slides into the passenger seat and Monroe reports that Cara has just gone in. "Nice work," Dean approves. Monroe asks if they should follow her in, but Dean says no, as he doesn't want to tip her off.

Here's the cleft stick. Dean evidently doesn't want to risk going near Sam in case he has been infected, since he knows that the siren's venom turns people against the person they are closest to. But on the other hand he also knows that the venom-laced blood of someone who has been infected is then fatal to the siren – so maybe he should have gone back to the motel after all, to secure Sam (thus preventing him hunting Dean down and blindsiding him with the element of surprise, which he might be expected to attempt if he were infected) and take a blood sample before trying to track down the siren.

Anyway. Dean says that he wants to wait and see who Cara comes out with, which doesn't really fit with his assumption that she has already infected Sam and should therefore be waiting to reap the rewards of her work there before moving on to a new target. Maybe he is assuming that Sam is infected but not necessarily homicidal, as he doesn't have a woman in his life. Another dangerous assumption, that the siren always turns men against the woman they are closest to, as opposed to the person they are closest to. Female murder victims has been the pattern so far, but four cases isn't the most representative of samples to be drawing conclusions from, and doesn't have to mean that the rules are as narrow as it might seem. There has already been one deviation from what appeared to be a solid pattern, with the matricide instead of uroxicide. But Dean is blinded by his preconceptions, and so, like Sam earlier, has left himself wide open.

"So, you think…what? She's drugging these guys?" Monroe tries to understand.

Dean agrees that that is pretty much it. As Sam found with Cara earlier, that's as close as they can get to explaining their real theory to a civilian. Monroe doesn't seem convinced, and Dean can only roll his eyes. "I know how it sounds."

"You sure about that?" Monroe snorts. "Because it sounds like crazy on toast. All these different strippers, they're magically the same girl, but then they're not strippers at all, its Doctor Quinn."

"It's kind of hard to explain," Dean massively understates. "But I have my reasons, and they're good ones, so you're just going to have to trust me on them."

Monroe thinks about it for a moment, and then lets out a shaky breath. "Yeah," he says, the offer of support simple but sincere. "Okay. I guess."

Dean is taken aback and a little touched. "Thank you," he says, sincere in his gratitude for such support. "That's actually nice to hear."

It takes so little. The relationship between the brothers has become so strained that they are each turning to outsiders for relief, and this case proves clearly how vulnerable they both are as a result.

Pulling out a flask of whisky, Dean takes a quick nip and then passes it to Monroe, and…ooh. When he sees the flask Monroe's eyebrows quirk a little in delighted reaction – it's the moment he's been waiting for, an opportunity to bring his prey down and the pay off for all his patient build-up work. He quickly schools his features into a pleased smile by the time Dean turns to him and chuckles as he takes the proffered drink for a quick swig.

"So, let's say she is drugging her vics," Monroe conversationally remarks as Dean takes the flask back and drinks again. His eyes drop to the flask and his voice deepens, becomes less eager novice and more self-satisfied victor as he asks, "How's she pulling that off?"

"She could be injecting them," Dean suggests. "Or passing the toxin through physical contact."

Monroe's eyes remain fixed on the flask as he drawls, "Or it could be the saliva."

Dean nods by way of amiable acceptance of the suggestion, just for a second before he realises his mistake. He freezes, his own eyes fixed on the flask in his hand, realises that the siren is right here in the car with him and already has him and it is too late to do a damn thing about it. And damn, but I did not see that one coming!


"You really should have wiped the lip of that thing before you drank from it, Dean," Monroe gently chastises, smiling his delight at having a new victim – a hunter, even – under his spell.

Dean keeps staring at the flask in horrified disbelief, beginning to panic as his mind whirls through the ramifications of what just happened, the siren's MO, what is certain to happen next, but there is no escaping the toxin he just inadvertently ingested – and it works fast.

And when we look back at Monroe's scenes it becomes clear just how cleverly he played Dean, right from the beginning. He didn't even attempt to come at him in the guise of a beautiful woman, not least because Dean was well and truly on his guard against any such advance. Sex and romance have provided the siren with a convenient hook in the past, but they are just that: a hook, a means to an end, but not the end itself.

What this is about for the siren is the game, the thrill of the chase, the sick pleasure of finding just the right key to unlock each individual heart, and then using it to wreak death and destruction by turning that individual against the one person they love best in the world, be that spouse, parent – or sibling.

Adam Benson loved his wife, but their marriage wasn't perfect, so the siren gave him the perfect woman to hold his wife up against, used that to reel him in…and then turned him against her. Lenny Bristol loved his mother, but resented her illness for tying him down, so the siren gave him a woman who would appreciate his filial devotion and love him for it…and then used it to turn him against his mother. The perfect romance was what both those men desired, and the siren gave it to them, using the escapism of casual sex as a hook because it provided a useful shortcut – it picked them both up at a strip bar, after all.

Dean is different. He is not looking for any kind of romance, perfect or otherwise, because there is no place in his life for any such thing, certainly not right now, under these circumstances. His hopes and needs are a lot humbler. Dean doesn't waste his time pining for what he believes he can never have; all his effort and energy goes into preserving what little he already has, and it is that that the siren has tapped into.

The person Dean is closest to is his brother, all he has left of the family he once had, but their relationship is fractured and splintering and that terrifies him, so the siren played on those fears and insecurities by showing him an alternative. It gave him companionship, simple, uncomplicated companionship: someone he could talk to about the things that interest him, someone willing to share a drink and a joke with him, with no emotional baggage getting in the way; Sam all too often turns his nose up at the things Dean enjoys and avoids spending time with him socially. The siren offered Dean unhesitating, unconditional support when he asked for it; his brother chose not to even answer the phone when he called. And the siren showed him trust and belief when he offered an improbable theory; Sam has betrayed his trust time and again, by lying to his face and sneaking around behind his back.

Seduction. The word is most commonly associated with enticement leading to sexual intercourse, but it can also refer to any act of persuasion, enticing someone astray from right behaviour, and, rather more simply, something that attracts or charms. The friendship Monroe offered Dean, such a simple thing, was tremendously attractive when contrasted with the strained relationship he has with his brother of late. That was the hook, and because it was the last thing he was expecting, Dean didn't even realise what was happening until it was too late. The siren completely blindsided him.

And it does make a change to have Dean infected and turn against Sam – it's always been the other way around before now.

"I should be your little brother," Monroe murmurs, weaving his spell to reel his new victim in now that the toxin has been ingested to give him full control. "Sam? You can't trust him. Not like you can trust me." He studies his ghoulish reflection in the rear-view mirror for a moment before looking back at Dean. "In fact," he continues in his slow, seductive drawl. "I really feel that you should get him out of the way, so that we can be brothers…forever."

Dean stares into the siren's eyes, transfixed. "Yeah," he murmurs, lost in the spell. "Yeah, you're right."

Motel. Night

Sam returns to the brothers' motel room, now dressed in plain clothes rather than his suit. We are not told where he has been: maybe down to the bar, maybe looking for Dean, maybe trying to work the case on his own – heck, he could have been meeting Ruby, for all we know. All we know is that he has been out and now returns to find Nick Monroe sitting on the bed furthest from the door, the bed that is almost always Sam's, holding a hyacinth flower and looking supremely satisfied with himself.

Puzzled, Sam just about has time to greet Monroe and wonder what he is doing here before Dean slams the door shut and grabs his little brother around the neck from behind, pressing a knife to his throat.


"Dean?" Sam cries out in alarm, but immediately realises what is going on. Rather than attempt to fight his brother, he turns his attention to Monroe, knowing that he is the one in control here. "I've got to tell you, you're one butt-ugly stripper," he angrily snarks.

"Maybe," Monroe smirks. "But I've got exactly what I wanted – I got Dean."

Sam does struggle a little now, but is unable to break his brother's hold on him, not without damaging at least one and maybe both of them. He tries persuasion instead. "Dean, come on, man, this isn't you. You can fight this." But the appeal to his brother's true nature quickly tails off into frustrated demand. "Let me go!"

Dean can't fight it, though, completely in thrall to the siren and his toxin. He maintains his iron grip on Sam, face a blank mask, and Monroe delights in being able to prove to Sam just how complete his control is. "Why don't you cut him," he tells Dean. "Just a little on his neck right there." Dean does as he is told without flinching and Monroe turns to address Sam once more. "Dean's all mine," he says.

"You poisoned him," Sam seethes, blood trickling from the cut on his neck.


"Oh, I gave him what he needed," Monroe insists. "And it wasn't some bitch in a g-string. It was you. A little brother that looked up to him, that he could trust. And now he loves me."

This is the ultimate key to how the siren operates: it seduces each individual by giving them what they want or need most, highlighting perceived deficiencies in what they already have. The grass is always greener on the other side. Dr Cara mentioned that all the victims had issues with whomever they killed, despite loving them, which tells us that the siren preys upon people having problems in their personal life, because they are easy targets. After all, even the most loving of relationships will always have ups and downs. The strip club as a base of operations afforded the siren easy targets, but assuming that it would always follow the same strict pattern was where the brothers slipped up. Despite superficial appearances – and the episode title – this was never about sex. What matters to the siren is devotion, which comes in many, many forms; it uses whatever hook will work to gain access to that devotion, in order to subvert it. So, for frustrated husbands it appeared as the perfect woman to hold up to the perceived shortcomings of their wives, while for a frustrated mummy's boy it was a woman prepared to love rather than mock him. And for Dean it offered fraternal companionship based on trust and mutual respect, free from the emotional distance and dishonesty he and Sam have been struggling with of late.

But the fact that the siren used this ploy to get at Dean does not mean that Dean wants his brother to be a clone of himself, or to mindlessly agree with him at all times. Dean has always loved Sam exactly as he is…or at least how Dean has always perceived him to be. What he craves is reciprocation, the security of knowing for certain that the opposite is also true and that was what the siren gave him: not a clone, but someone who enjoyed spending time with him for who he is, trusted and supported him wholeheartedly. Dean has struggled with low self-esteem and an abandonment complex for as long as we have known him. No matter how much he knows his brother loves him, those feelings of inadequacy and inferiority have never gone away and can only have been reinforced by the growing complexity of their relationship this season, as Dean has struggled to reconcile the Sam he has come back to with the Sam he left behind. The brothers might be living and working side by side just as closely as before, but emotionally and ideologically they have never been further apart, and the siren exploited Dean's desperate need for trust and companionship with consummate ease.

Compared with the strain of living with the brothers' immense emotional baggage, Sam's lies coming as the icing on the cake, the ease and simplicity of the friendship Monroe offered was immensely appealing. Dean's genuine delight at finding a companion who shared his interests and showed him professional respect, unfettered by any knowledge of his past, was truly touching, and knowing that it was all just a game to the creature is heartbreaking.

"He'd do anything for me," the siren exults. "And I've got to tell you, Sam, that kind of devotion, watching someone kill for you – it's the best feeling in the world."

He certainly does seem to be drawing an almost orgasmic pleasure from it – and did last time we saw the siren in operation, as well. It is worth pointing out that Sam actually does know something about the kind of devotion the siren is referring to – Dean has killed to protect him more than once. Perhaps that makes this particular prize all the sweeter for the siren, over and above the thrill of capturing a pair of hunters, the ecstasy of being able to capture and subvert such intense and deeply screwed up devotion truly rapturous.

"Is that why you're slutting all over town?" Sam snarls, glaring at the siren with deep loathing.

"I get bored," Monroe drawls. "Like we all do. And I want to fall in love again. And again. And again."

He leans in close, savouring the situation, and Sam seethes. "Tell you what," he grits out. "I have fought some nasty sons of bitches, but you are one needy, pathetic loser."

Monroe's expression hardens. "You won't feel that way in a minute," he decides, and Sam becomes alarmed, but there is nothing he can do to escape as the siren grabs his face and unhinges its lower jaw, hisses…and spits venom right into Sam's mouth. Gross!

This is an interesting twist to the tale, as it reveals that the elaborate role-playing seduction of each individual is not actually necessary, strictly speaking. All the siren really has to do is identify a tasty target and force them to ingest the venom in order to gain control over them. But it clearly gets a big kick out of the games it plays, using its mind-reading and shape-shifting abilities to exploit whatever weaknesses it detects and thus drawing its prey close long before the venom gives it control over them, purely by showing them something better than what they already have. It loves to feel loved (and if it can achieve that or at least get halfway there even before using the venom then so much the better) and it loves to feel powerful and in control. The murder it inevitably inspires is the highpoint of the game, the ultimate thrill before it moves on, but every aspect of the build-up is a source of immense pleasure, as well. The thrill of the chase.

Here and now, spitting into Sam's mouth without any foreplay, as it were, this is all about instant gratification. The siren has already enjoyed playing those games with Dean, and now here is Sam, whose issues run every bit as deep as his brother's, and they are hunters, surely the tastiest prey of all. So it impulsively goes for the double dose by playing them against each other. It uses no seduction at all for Sam, no honeyed words necessary to reinforce the toxin – the venom alone is apparently all it takes to bend an individual to the siren's will, utterly suggestible, make them want it to want them, regardless of how it looks or what it says, and be willing to kill whoever is standing in the way.

Sam is revolted and tries spitting the venom out, scrubbing frantically at his mouth with a sleeve, but it is too late. Monroe pulls Dean's unresisting hand away from his grip on his brother so that Sam is free – free, but within seconds every bit as completely under the siren's spell as Dean is, just waiting to be given the nudge toward violence.

"So," the siren announces, backing away to the other side of the room to watch and savour his handiwork. "I know you two have a lot you want to get off your chests. So why don't you discuss it…and whoever survives can be with me forever."

Forever. The siren has made the same offer to every victim, and the venom makes them want it: the simplicity and perfection of whatever relationship it offers, forever, escape from the complications of their existing relationships. But we know, of course, that the offer is a lie. The perfection the siren offers is a lie, based on whatever personal information it extracts from the head of each victim, and the offer of forever is a lie, as it always moves on and leaves them to face the music. Dean and Sam even know that, having worked the case, but still they are powerless to resist the compulsion it has implanted in them.

The brothers turn to face one another for the first time since they were infected.

Dean goes first. "Well, I don't know when it happened," he says in a low, sad voice. "Maybe when I was in hell. Maybe when I was staring right at you. But the Sam I knew, he's gone."


"That so?" Sam angrily snips.

"It's not the demon blood," Dean continues. "Or the psychic crap. It's the little stuff. The lies. The secrets."

This is truth coming out – and the truth is that Sam's breach of trust bothers Dean a hell of a lot more than the demon blood and psychic abilities ever did. Or rather, it bothers him in a very different way than the demon blood and psychic abilities do, a way he finds altogether more disturbing. Throughout all the ups and downs of the first three seasons, when they were still only beginning to find out about Sam's powers and were both so afraid of everything they didn't know, Dean never felt like he had lost his brother. It was always just Sam, the Sammy Dean had helped raise and looked after all his life, with something worrying happening to him, unbidden. The problem was external. Now, though, having been through so much and been forced to stand on his own, Sam is choosing to walk that dark road of his own accord, is sneaking around and lying, has become harder and more ruthless. The problem has become internal, and Dean is really struggling with it; all through this season he has never really faced up to the extent of the change in his brother.

"What secrets?" Sam is still trying to deny it even now. He doesn't know that Dean knows about Ruby.

"The phone calls to Ruby for one," Dean tosses back, able under the siren's influence to hit his brother with the truth, where in his right mind he held back, reluctant to force a confrontation.

"So I need your say-so to make a phone call?" Sam snips, instantly snapping onto the defensive rather than concede the point, having been found out.

"That's the point," Dean sighs, although what I think what he means is that's not the point. This isn't about whether or not Sam needs permission to speak to Ruby, it's about Sam choosing to lead a secret life with a demon, about trust, mistrust and communication or the absence thereof – working at cross-purposes instead of together. Dean flails desperately. "You're hiding things from me! What else aren't you telling me?"

Hiding things implies that Sam knows Dean wouldn't approve, which implies that he is doing something wrong. That's just one of the things that have got Dean so worried.

It is rather John-like behaviour, actually, in certain respects, all this secrecy and withholding of information on a strict need-to-know basis, approached from the default standpoint that Dean doesn't need to know anything, making big decisions alone instead of discussing and negotiating options. Dean always accepted that from his father without protest, because John was commanding officer to Dean's foot soldier first and father second, because he trusted John's judgement and because he was always too insecure to speak out. He has always had a very different relationship with Sam, however. As the older sibling, and having borne parental levels of responsibility for Sam throughout their childhood, Dean has always defaulted to the leadership role in their partnership since they started hunting together, while greatly valuing the equality they have built up over the years.

This season, having been so shaken by his experience in hell and with Sam so confident and independent, Dean has increasingly taken a back seat while his brother stepped up into more of a leadership role. But Sam's shift further into something that from Dean's perspective must be highly reminiscent of John's commandant mindset, operating independently and without consultation and expecting Dean either not to notice or to simply put up and shut up…well, it takes the role reversal way too far, undermining Dean's innate sense of seniority and responsibility immensely. As much as Dean wants his brother to do well and grow into his full potential, he still needs desperately to be needed, and having his role as big brother usurped and set aside is damaging to his self-image.

The corner of Sam's lip curls, nastily. "None of your business," he snips.

Dean despairs. "See what I mean? We used to be in this together. We used to have each other's backs."


We used to be in this together. It's the little stuff: the lies, the secrets. Dean's focus is on what Sam has done, behaviour that has hurt him, that reveals the depth of the rift between them, and his tone throughout is sad and worried. No new information is revealed here. We already knew that Dean is desperately worried about what Sam is doing and where it might lead, and we already knew how much he hates feeling estranged from the people he loves. His discomfort with the extent of the change in Sam has been implied many times this season. Dean has always placed Sam on a pedestal, and no doubt while he was in hell he clung to that idealistic image of the little brother he left behind, an ideal that owed more to the Sam Dean helped raise from childhood, and what he wanted for him, than the adult his brother had become even before Dean's death.

Like a parent, when Dean looks at Sam he still sees the baby of the Pilot, the sweet little boy we met in Something Wicked, the wistful but generous-hearted child of A Very Supernatural Christmas and After School Special, and the idealistic and somehow still innocent young man of season one. He was a parent to Sam, in many ways, primary caregiver during their father's frequent and extended absences. For all that he has long since accepted Sam as a fully competent and assured hunter and equal partner, a part of him will always think of Sam as his little brother, who must be shielded wherever possible simply by virtue of having lived fewer years. Dean's whole life has been built around taking care of Sam, by order of their father, by necessity and his own inclination, that responsibility so deeply ingrained that it has long since become an integral part of who he is. He wanted better for Sam than he ever believed possible for himself, and gave up everything he had trying in vain to achieve it, in spite of everything.

But Sam's innocence and naivety are long gone now, whittled away over three seasons of downward spiral, with Dean's death and its aftermath stripping away the very last vestiges. With his entire family killed and no one left to protect him, Sam was forced to stand on his own two feet and make hard decisions about the war he'd been left to fight alone. With grief and despair fuelling an always vengeful temper, his months alone saw him become cold, hard and ruthless, prepared to do whatever it took to win, regardless of the cost, because he had nothing left to lose and was answerable to no one.

When Dean first came back from hell in Lazarus Rising he confidently declared that there was nothing he didn't know about Sam. The months that have passed since then, however, have made it painfully clear to him just how false that assumption was. Once upon a time he knew his brother inside out, but now he is confronted with a Sam who has changed in ways Dean struggles to comprehend, and mourns the loss of the innocent, idealistic little brother he used to have.

With the siren's venom forcing brutal emotional honesty, Dean expresses his sense of loss and his pain over Sam's betrayal of his trust. But nothing that he says is designed to hurt his brother – if that was his intention, there is plenty of immensely damaging ammunition he could have used. Heck, he was far more cutting than this earlier, long before ingesting the siren's venom, with his dig about sleeping with monsters, or back in Metamorphosis in the throes of panic and betrayal when he first found out what Sam was up to. So why not go for the jugular now? Why not bring out the big guns and use Sam's own fears against him by taunting him with, for example, his demon blood and what it might be turning him into?

I think because the siren's spell taps into each victim's current state of mind, rather than generating any kind of uniform false rage that manifests in exactly the same way for everyone. After all, what would be the point of that? It has already told us that it bores quickly and gets a kick out of the uniqueness of each experience. So instead it brings to the fore whatever is troubling each individual most and uses it as a weapon, intensifying what they feel to an overwhelming degree.

Adam Benson was feeling frustrated, and that emotion that dominated his final, post-siren conversation with his wife. Lenny Bristol was worried about his ailing mother and felt trapped by his role as carer, so that was what the siren used to incite him to murder. We have seen Dean feeling worried, hurt and betrayed in this episode, and it is that state of mind that the siren's spell works upon, removing all the inhibitions that would normally prevent him expressing what he feels.

So what about Sam? What emotion was dominating his mindset last time we saw him? It was anger: bitter, frustrated anger. Sam has been carrying around a hell of a lot of pent-up fury for a very long time now, and he has always been more ruthless than his brother. With the siren's influence removing all his inhibitions, he lets rip, and, unlike Dean, does not hesitate to go for the jugular.


"Okay, fine," Sam furiously snips. "You want to know why I didn't tell you about Ruby and how we're hunting down Lilith? Because you're too weak to go after her, Dean. You're holding me back. I'm a better hunter than you are – stronger, smarter. I can take out demons you're too scared to go near."

You're weak and cowardly, holding me back. I'm stronger, smarter and all-round better than you are. Damn, that's a sucker punch. Dean called Sam on what he has done, stressing how it makes him feel, but Sam is attacking who he perceives Dean to be. His anger makes him cruel, using Dean's deepest, darkest insecurities against him, and it really hurts to hear it.

It isn't the first time Sam has lashed out verbally like this; we have long known that he can be vicious when riled. The gist of what he says here is a rehash of the accusations he flung at Dean way back in Asylum – and on other, non-supernaturally inspired occasions, as well – only worse, because everything about their situation is so much worse now. And now, just as back then, those wounding words are drawn from a place of truth within him, the siren responsible only for drawing them out.

Intellectual snobbery has always been a facet of Sam's character, deriving at least in part from the typical younger child's desire to escape the long shadow of his older sibling. Dean wouldn't deny his brother's intelligence, either, has always admired and been proud of him for it, although that pride has long warred with uneasy feelings of inferiority, such as manifested so clearly in the fantasy land of What Is And What Should Never Be and are reinforced every time Sam looks down his nose at him. It is also true that Sam is physically taller and heavier than his brother. None of that makes him a better hunter than Dean, though. They simply have very different strengths and weaknesses that have always complemented one another well.

Sam has always been fiercely independent, highly ambitious and ruthlessly single-minded, and has also always resented being held back from achieving his full potential; this was in part what led to his acrimonious departure for Stanford, way back before the show began. He has accused Dean of standing in the way of goals he wanted to attain in the past – that was what his decision to strike out alone in Scarecrow and Hunted stemmed from, for example. Having set his sights upon a particular target, Sam is always unwavering in his determination to achieve it and utterly convinced that he is right in that conviction, is rarely prepared to consider the validity of alternate options or points of view.

Sam's psychic abilities give him a distinct advantage over Dean where demon hunting is concerned and there is no denying it. We have seen several examples now of demonic death rays simply bouncing off Sam and leaving him unscathed, where Dean would have been killed instantly. Lacking the immunity that Sam's demon blood grants him, Dean must always approach demonic encounters with great caution – just as Sam always used to in the past. This has nothing to do with hunting ability, however, and it is grossly unfair to describe necessary precaution as cowardice or weakness.

Sam wants to find and kill Lilith, thus avenging his brother's death and averting the Apocalypse. He wants it with every fibre of his being, more passionately than he has ever wanted anything – even his vengeful hunt for the Yellow-Eyed Demon after Jessica's death never felt so intense and all-consuming. He has made the decision that achieving this goal is worth any and every sacrifice: worth trusting Ruby, worth lying to Dean, worth risking heavenly censure, worth exposing himself to whatever vague, never-specified dangers utilising his psychic abilities might lead to.

Dean is holding him back from that quest, undeniably. He has argued strenuously against taking such a risk, preferring instead to focus on small-scale hunts, as if the demon-angel war and impending Apocalypse weren't happening at all…but Sam has been enabling him in that, we must remember. It was Sam who found them this job, and it was Sam who found the case at their old school in the last episode, as well. In that regard, Sam is holding himself back as much as Dean is. However much Sam wants to go after Lilith, it seems he also wants very much to keep his brother away from her, unable to forget how vulnerable Dean is to demonic powers and not prepared to risk losing him like that again. That protective urge is just another example of the extent to which their roles have reversed. Knowing that Lilith is more than likely to use Dean against him if she got the chance is just another reason for Sam to keep his brother as far away from her as possible.

From Sam's perspective, then, his frustration is entirely understandable. His desire to hunt Lilith sits at odds with his desire to keep his brother away from her, those two primary objectives pulling him in different directions. Ruby has offered him support in his quest, but Dean refuses to have anything to do with her. Sam's psychic abilities give him an advantage that he wants to capitalise upon, but Dean won't hear of his using them. All in all, both deliberately and unwittingly, Dean is placing roadblocks between Sam and his goal at every juncture. Holding him back.

Uncertainty over what Sam's powers actually mean adds still more layers of complexity to the mix. They derive from the demon blood fed to him in his infancy by Azazel, that much is known, and Azazel certainly did not intend them for anything good but rather banked upon the absolute corruption of his final chosen one. There have been numerous examples in the past of Sam's fellow special children succumbing to evil having developed their powers …but it didn't work out that way in every case. Sam's greatest fear was always that he would be turned into something other by external agency, but Dean always stressed his ability to choose, to control his own destiny and he would argue that that is exactly what he is trying to do. The angels have instructed him not to use his powers, but have never offered any clear-cut explanation of just why, while damaging his faith in their credibility more and more with every encounter.

The implication is that those psychic abilities of Sam's can lead only to evil purely because they are demonic in origin, and the more he uses them the more he exposes himself to the worst kind of corruption…but then again the show has time and again gone out of its way to illustrate that supernatural doesn't always have to mean evil. All the evidence of Sam's experimentation with his powers has so far proved to his satisfaction that he can both control them and use them for good – his abilities afford him protection, and with them he is able to save lives by exorcising demons without injury to the host. He likes using his powers, enjoys the satisfaction that comes from destroying demons and saving lives. He clearly doesn't feel corrupted in any way by his use of those abilities, and so his justifications in favour of continuing to do so, building himself up to take on Lilith, in Sam's mind at least currently outweigh all the arguments against – but the flip side of that, of course, is that he is incapable of examining his situation with any objectivity. Supernatural doesn't always mean evil…but then again the history of the show is also littered with examples of once-innocent people who lost their humanity and were turned into monsters without even realising it.

This particular debate could run around in circles indefinitely, on currently available evidence.

With his heart set on his objective, Sam has weighed up all these pros and cons and decided that the possible outcome is worth every risk…except that of telling Dean what he is doing. Dean would no doubt argue in favour of openness and honesty, considering butting heads and fighting about possible courses of action preferable to his brother's deception, but Sam has so far proved deeply reluctant to put either of them through the trauma of open confrontation, aware of just how devastating it would very likely work out for them both. He must feel caught between a rock and a hard place, knowing only too well that agreement on this subject is impossible. Irresistible force and immovable object – there is no middle ground for compromise. Sam does not want to give up what he is doing, that much is clear, but he already knows that Dean will not approve of his continuing use of his abilities. The prospect of his brother's heartfelt condemnation of his actions must trigger all kinds of deeply personal doubts and fears, because it comes so very close to disapproving of Sam himself, especially now that he is embracing those powers as a part of who he is. He fears his brother's rejection, and also greatly resents the implication that his judgement is suspect, not to mention being denied the agency to make his own decisions. Independence and control over his own life have always been so important to Sam.

At the end of the day, Sam cannot rid himself of his psychic abilities and is no longer prepared to repress or deny them, not when he has never been given a truly convincing reason why the vague and never specified risks involved in their use should outweigh the good he believes he can achieve by bending them to his own will. So instead, having had his lies found out, he seeks to validate his abilities by presenting them as a part of who he is, all tied up in the same package as his intellect and physical build, rather than the dangerous and terrifying outside influence they have always been presented as.

Dean looks hurt, as well he should, because…damn. Back in Metamorphosis when he first found out that Sam was working with Ruby, his immediate reaction – alongside panic and anger – was to feel betrayed and rejected, feeling not only that his brother no longer needed him but also that he would prefer to work with a demon. Now Sam is essentially confirming just that, hitting him hard in his deeply ingrained abandonment and inferiority complexes. He quickly rallies, however, sliding his customary mask into place. "That's crap," he fiercely denies.

"You're too busy sitting around feeling sorry for yourself," Sam taunts. "Whining about all the souls you tortured in hell. Boohoo."


Oh, damn, that's low – lower than low. Breathtakingly cruel and potentially unforgivable.

Telling Sam what happened to him in hell was the greatest measure of trust Dean has ever placed in his brother, owning up both to the depths of depravity he plumbed there and the depths of despair he feels about it, revealing things that shamed and revolted him and that he feared would make his brother vilify or even reject him. Sam asked him for that confidence, repeatedly, when Dean wanted nothing more than to deny the existence of those memories even to himself. He begged Dean to open up to him, promising brotherly support in return. And now here he is using Dean's confession against him, mocking him for being weak, for not just manning up and getting over it already. Pouring scorn on his anguish and belittling his sacrifice. It is an enormous betrayal of the trust Dean placed in his brother when he finally found the courage to talk about what happened to him.

We know that Dean always felt he had to be perfect for his father, as both son and soldier, not to mention as surrogate parent for Sam, never allowing any weakness to show. Sam has worked hard for years to persuade his brother that it is okay to be vulnerable in front of him and admit when he is struggling, and Dean's recent openness about his unbearably harrowing experience in hell has felt like a big step forward. It felt like real growth, that he was reconnecting with Sam and taking seriously his brother's determined offer of support. He's only talked about hell twice, which hardly constitutes whining, and when you think about it, it's really a miracle he's even functional at all.

But now Sam has used Dean's honesty against him and turned vulnerability into ammunition with which to tear him to shreds, and one seemingly inevitable consequence will be an end to Dean's recent openness. No matter how badly he needs the catharsis of expressing his trauma, he will surely seal up his emotional defences more tightly than ever now, moving away from openness and back toward stoicism. He will want to prove Sam wrong and regain his approval and will no doubt also prefer to choke on his memories rather than give his brother any more ammunition to use against him. He already felt he couldn't trust Sam's word, and now he learns that he can no longer trust his brother with his pain, either. Always fearful of rejection, he will feel that he has to prove his worth or risk being left behind, just like he always felt he had to prove himself to John, and damn that hurts because it just confirms to Dean that the love of his family is conditional and he is never quite good enough.

It isn't the worst thing Sam could have said. When he made his faltering confession, Dean's greatest fear must have been that his brother would be revolted by what he had done, and Sam could have confirmed that fear here by accusing him of being no better than the monsters they hunt. He didn't, and that suggests that it hasn't even crossed his mind to think less of his brother for what he did in hell. Sam can see clearly, in a way Dean can't, that the actions he was forced into were merely an extension of the torture he was subjected to – it all falls under the same heading of something that was done to him and was not his fault. What Sam has said is bad enough, though.

The siren has forced both brothers to give voice to sentiments they would not in their right minds have dreamt of expressing like this, with no constructive element or balance, only the most negative thoughts and feelings drawn out of them. But they each own those feelings, which is what gives them such power. Dean absolutely meant every word he said about Sam's deceit and how much he has changed, and we have already explored the truth behind Sam's initial accusations, which stemmed very much from his feelings of frustration. His lashing out further and attacking Dean's post-hell trauma comes as a result of the tumult of painful emotion he feels for what his brother has been through, a maelstrom of pain, resentment and overwhelming guilt for something that wasn't even his fault.

Sam loves his brother more than anything and is appalled at the thought of what Dean went through in hell, but he also resents Dean for making the deal in the first place. How could he not? It was a sacrifice born of love and desperation and it saved Sam's life, but at a price he would never have willingly paid. He didn't ask for Dean's sacrifice and never would have, was prevented from attempting to save his brother from his fate, and has been forced to live with the devastating consequences ever since. When he tried to talk Dean into opening up about his experience he was trying desperately to help – somehow, anyhow – but it backfired on them both because he was completely unprepared for the scale of the horror his brother had endured for his sake and was overwhelmed with the shattering realisation that there is absolutely nothing he can do. There is nothing he can do to change what happened and there is nothing he can do to repair the damage that has been done. He is completely powerless to assuage his brother's pain, and the guilt of it all is overwhelming. As cruel as it is, belittling Dean's suffering and thus downplaying the severity of his experience makes it marginally easier to cope with that guilt – allows him to kid himself that it wasn't that bad, really.

Once upon a time Sam thought of Dean as invulnerable, but now he has seen only too clearly how breakable his brother really is, and part of him, the part that was child to Dean's parent, resents him for that, too, the way we always resent our childhood heroes when they turn out to be human and fallible after all. On top of all that, Sam had accepted Dean's death and adjusted to his new status as a man who had lost everything, but his brother's return has turned him back into a man who still has something left to lose. It makes Sam vulnerable again, and that scares him.

All in all, it is one hell of a mess of emotions to have churning away inside.

Sam feels that he failed his brother in the worst possible way, and has no means of repaying that impossible debt. Unable to fix the damage that has been done to Dean, he is almost desperate with the need to protect his brother from further pain, just as Dean has always sought to protect him, and the only way he can think of doing that is by taking the one advantage he believes he has, his powers, and using them to hunt down the thing that caused all this pain and is set to cause more: Lilith. But that decision and the way Sam has gone about it has only succeeded in hurting Dean even more.

Both brothers seem to be completely trapped in this vicious circle of pain, nothing but broken and jagged edges that slash one another open all the more as they try to help each other. It is devastating to watch their downward spiral and wonder just how long it will take them to hit bottom and whether or not the damage can ever be repaired.

Feeling sorry for yourself. Whining. Boohoo. It's the final straw. Hearing Sam mocking his pain, the greatest trauma he has ever suffered and the price paid for Sam's own life, Dean snaps. He hurls the knife at his brother, although it is easily dodged, and charges at him. Game on.


We have never seen the brothers fight like this. In Skin Sam fought a shapeshifter wearing Dean's face, but it wasn't Dean. In Born Under A Bad Sign they had a very one-sided tussle in which a demon wearing Sam's body beat an already injured Dean to a bloody pulp, but that wasn't Sam. This is the brothers themselves going at it completely, no holds barred, with no supernatural advantage on either side.

The JJs must have had an absolute blast filming this.

Sam has a very definite height and weight advantage, and he takes an early points lead in the fight, pounding his brother with blow after blow. Dean is only able to return a fraction of those blows, which seems to prove Sam's point about being stronger – physically stronger, at least. A particularly heavy uppercut to the chin sends Dean flying into the air, through a screen and over onto the floor behind.

"You're not standing in my way any more," Sam growls, stomping over to haul his brother to his feet once more just so he can hit him again. He continues raining blows down, but Dean manages to shove him aside and dodge out of reach. Dean then turns and rushes at his brother, shoulder charging him into the door, which bursts clean off its hinges.


Sam goes down hard on his back and is too stunned and winded to get back up. He might be the bigger and heavier of the two, easily able to overpower his brother, but it is Dean who wins the fight. Physical size and strength is an advantage, but it isn't everything.

So, Sam is down, conscious but too bruised and winded to move or defend himself any more. Then Dean sees an emergency axe mounted on the wall nearby and breaks the glass to access it. Ominous music plays as Dean turns back to his brother, axe in hand, rage and pain written all over his face.

"Do it," Monroe urges. "Do it for me, Dean."

They both look down at Sam, whose eyes widen in defiant alarm

"Tell me again how weak I am, Sam," Dean grates out. "Huh? How I hold you back." And, oh damn, his voice is shaking with anger and hurt, telling us quite clearly how hard that jibe struck home.


Downed and defenceless, Sam brings an arm up in a vain attempt to protect himself as Dean swings the axe…


A strong hand catches the axe at the top of its arc, just in the nick of time. Bobby to the rescue!

How the hell did Bobby manage to get there with such impeccable timing? I'm going to guess he had already set out long before Dean left that message on his voicemail asking for help. We won't ask any tricky questions such as how he knew where to go. Bobby is awesome. Just go with it.

Without hesitating for so much as a second, Bobby plunges a bronze blade into the back of Dean's right shoulder. Talk about tough love! Dean yells in pain and Monroe about jumps out of his skin with shock and starts running for his life, suddenly realising how much danger he is in.

The tip of Bobby's bronze blade is now coated in the blood of a victim, laced with the siren's venom and fatally toxic to it. Sam's eyes widen again as he realises what is going to happen, and, while he made no attempt to beg for his own life, he now cries out in horror at what is about to happen to the siren, emphasising just how much under its spell he still is. "No! No!"

Bobby turns and hurls his blade, hitting Monroe right in the middle of the back. What a throw, huh. Excellent aim!


The wounded siren staggers over to a mirror and stares at its ghoulish reflection for a moment, and then falls down dead.

All over…bar the aftermath.

While Bobby makes sure of the kill, Sam sits on the floor and stares, the weight of what just happened starting to hit him as the siren's venom wears off now it is dead. Behind him, Dean clutches at his shoulder, eyes wide and horrified.

Sam finally manages to bring himself to look up at his brother, who stares back, both equally shocked. Utterly shattered, both of them. It was real and they can't take any of it back. All those words and thoughts and feelings and accusations are out there in the open now, as painful and wounding as they are.


Sam eventually has to look away, unable to hold his brother's eyes in the wake of what was said.

Random Scenic Location In The Middle Of Nowhere

Having apparently driven to the middle of nowhere to say goodbye, for whatever reason – presumably because the dead body in the motel made it a little risky to hang around there any longer than it took to pack – Bobby pulls three drinks out of a cooler in his car and wanders over to where Dean and Sam are waiting by the Impala.

"Soda?" Dean frowns, surprised.

"You boys are driving, ain't you?" Bobby shrugs.


They were driving in Yellow Fever, too, but had a beer each before setting off – Bobby declined, however. I don't believe we've seen him touch a drop of alcohol since Dean's return, although to be fair, we've not seen that much of Bobby this season to really judge. That's he's offering soda here instead of beer I suspect says more about Bobby than the boys, for all the casual and mostly unfounded comments I've seen floating around in both episode reviews and fan-fiction about Dean and alcoholism.

Let us be clear on this point. Dean's alcohol consumption has been up a little in the last few episodes, but not by much. He has always enjoyed a drink, and has demonstrated a very high tolerance for alcohol in the past – in Bloodlust, for example, he drank heavily with Gordon, but retained full possession of his faculties, plunging straight back to work with a clear head when the case exploded on them that same night. This season we have seen Dean drinking to excess on two occasions, in Yellow Fever and Wishful Thinking, but both were extreme circumstances. In Yellow Fever, which was the only time we have ever seen him get drunk, he was afflicted with a debilitating illness causing extreme fear. His drinking in Wishful Thinking, meanwhile, was not in fact as excessive as many people seem to make out; he drank, but did not get drunk, and that drinking was very clearly a knee-jerk reaction to the intense pressure Sam was placing him under, forcing him to face up to memories he had been trying hard to repress. On only one occasion have we seen him reaching for the bottle on waking from a nightmare, again in Wishful Thinking, when he was on the cusp of a psychological crisis, partly as a result of Sam's incessant nagging, layers of denial in the process of breaking down. And he did have a nip of whisky by way of Dutch courage to settle his nerves moments before plunging into battle in Heaven and Hell – a battle involving both angels and demons, neither on his side on that occasion, and a battle that none of them seriously expected to get out of alive. All of these examples are circumstantial, rather than forming a pattern. Other than that what we've seen of his drinking has been social and occasional only, little different than his drinking habits in previous seasons.

None of that suggests anything approaching alcoholism, which is a chemical dependency. I have known alcoholics and drug addicts. An alcoholic loses all control over their drinking habits, with alcohol becoming the centre of their world, every thought and decision revolving around their next drink. Drinking is a compulsion, taking priority over all other activities. An alcoholic will continue to drink regardless of social or interpersonal difficulties it causes, hiding their habit, developing elaborate justifications and lying, while withdrawal symptoms such as anxiety and tremor develop after a short period without a drink, and are reduced by taking more alcohol. None of those symptoms can be seen in Dean. We have seen him using alcohol as an emotional crutch on a few occasions this season, which is an unhealthy trend that can, in time, develop into addiction if it continues and escalates. But he is not an alcoholic, far from it – just as Sam getting drunk in Playthings and Dream A Little Dream Of Me and then binge drinking in the wake of Dean's death does not make him an alcoholic. I find it disturbing to see the word used and accepted so casually within fandom, with little or no understanding demonstrated of what it actually means or whether or not it is true.

As I said, that Bobby is offering the brothers soda from his cooler rather than beer says more about Bobby than it does the boys. Bobby turned down the offer of a beer last time we saw him, and now appears to be carrying soft drinks around rather than keeping any alcohol available. We were told that he drowned his sorrows pretty heavily while Dean was in hell, and saw his house littered with empty bottles in Lazarus Rising. Again, there is not anywhere near enough evidence to start using words like alcoholic. However, the implication is that once Dean had returned from hell and contact with Sam had also been restored, Bobby looked back at the habit of heavy drinking he had developed, didn't like what he saw, and made a conscious decision to abstain, setting his despair behind him. It suggests potential alcohol abuse problem now being addressed, rather than alcoholism. That he is subtly encouraging the boys to do likewise, knowing what a rough time they have been going through, is just another facet of his paternal concern for them both.

Rather than argue, Dean and Sam take a soda each and drink. They are standing alongside the Impala, side-by-side but not too close, and are avoiding looking at one another. Bobby stands and watches them closely, worried.


"Thanks, Bobby," says Sam at length, with that embarrassed little hunch that is pure Sammy and seen so rarely these days. "You know, if you hadn't shown up when you did…"

"You've done the same for me," Bobby reminds them. "More than once. Of course, you could have picked up a phone. Only took one call to figure out that 'Agent Nick Monroe' wasn't real."

That is pretty much the point I made earlier, that the brothers were so wrong-footed by Monroe's unexpected appearance and the need to convince him they were genuine that it never once occurred to them to check his identity, in turn. Bobby must have checked up on him immediately after taking his call and set out to join the brothers here straight away, which is why he wasn't home to take Dean's call later.

Why he didn't just phone and warn them is another question entirely. Maybe he was wary of tipping the siren off. Or, heck, maybe he was just worried about the boys and wanted to see them. It doesn't really matter. They needed him and he came.

Battered and bruised, the brothers look chagrined and shuffle awkwardly, still not looking anywhere near one another. Bobby keeps his eyes fixed on them, filled with fond concern. "You boys going to be okay?" he asks.

"Yeah, fine." "Yeah, good," they both immediately insist, fidgeting and glancing toward one another for the first time in this scene but not at the same time, still not meeting one another's eyes.

Looking unconvinced, Bobby takes that as his farewell and heads back to his car. Before leaving, though, he turns back to the boys. "You know, those sirens are nasty things," he tells them. "That it got to you, that's no reason to feel bad."


That's good advice. The Winchesters have always had a bad habit of carrying the weight of the world on their shoulders and beating themselves up over every mistake or perceived failure. But no one is perfect, and no one can always win. The siren got the better of them on this occasion but they survived it, and that's all that matters. More than that, their lives in general have been getting the better of them for quite some time now, with painful consequences, but they are both still standing, and sometimes that's as much of a win as anyone can ask for.

Dean does not react, just stares off into space like stone. Sam shuffles and waves his soda by way of acknowledgement of the advice, and Bobby, having done as much as he can for them, makes his exit, leaving the brothers alone to face up to what just happened to them.

"You going to say goodbye to Cara?" Dean asks at length, staring randomly in the opposite direction from Sam. It's about as close as he can get to an apology.

"Nah," Sam shrugs. "Not interested," and Dean is surprised, wonders why not. Sam shrugs again, looking tired and fed up. "What's the point?"


What's the point indeed? Cara was never going to be anything more than a one night stand for Sam, just as Sam was never going to be more than a one night stand for her. That was the whole point of the fling for them both. It was casual, no strings attached, just a moment of seize-the-day self-indulgence, because they could. Sam can't afford to get emotionally involved with anyone right now. He has long believed that he is cursed, that anyone who gets close to him will inevitably suffer and die. He is in the middle of a war between angels and demons, fighting to prevent the Apocalypse. The way his life is structured right now he is never going to hang around any town for longer than a couple of days or maybe weeks at the most. Dates, romance and serious relationships are impossible. What would be the point of even trying?

But that has never been who Sam is, or was, and stands as just another example of how much he has changed.

"Well, look at you: love 'em and leave 'em," Dean half-heartedly snarks, trying not to let it show how disturbed he is to hear this attitude from Sam. He meant what he said back there in that motel room. As unrealistic as it is, he doesn't want his brother to change. He wants back the idealistic, geeky little brother he used to have. But Sam is never going to be that person again.


Sam fidgets again, still awkward and uncomfortable. "Dean," he attempts at length. "Look, you know I didn't mean the things I said back there, right? That it was just the siren's spell talking?"

Dean sucks in a deep breath and shakes his head in mute denial, hurries to say, "Of course, me too," as soon as his brother has finished speaking, and they oh so fleetingly manage to meet one another's eyes, just for a second, Dean blinking away again immediately.

"Okay. So…we're good?" Sam worriedly asks, anxious eyes on his brother still, and this scene, right here, is the most little brother Sam has been all episode, needing his big brother's reassurance that what happened has not caused permanent damage. What Dean said was hurtful but what Sam said was potentially unforgivable. They desperately need to address the issues raised and try to find a way to resolve them…but are both too afraid of the pain and loss that might involve to even consider attempting it right now.

Dean's eyes are hooded and haunted, downcast and staring at nothing. "Yeah, we're good," he insists, determined to brush it all off as if it were nothing.


It is so, so much like the aftermath of Asylum. Once again, the supernaturally motivated attempted murder is not mentioned because that was not what hurt most and they both know it. Once again Sam tries to retract what was said and to deny that what happened had any meaning, because it was forced against both of their wills and the potential consequences of facing up to the harsh truths that were spoken are terrifying. And once again Dean opts for avoidance of the whole issue, preferring to brush it off and try to forget it ever happened, because it's all too much, too big, too potentially devastating to even attempt to deal with. They are both of them just a mess of raw, open wounds and sharp, jagged edges, and this is why they are so incapable of healing one another right now. Denial and avoidance is easier, no doubt feels safer. But they can't go on like this much longer. They really are skittering fast toward breaking point.


The brothers nod at one another, both twitching a bit because they know damn well how far they truly are from being even remotely good with each other and what they said and where they are heading.

Damn but this episode is depressing. Powerful and intense and beautifully executed, but depressing…it's going to be one hell of a rollercoaster ride from here to the season finale, that's for sure!


February 2009

Back to top

Home