Supernatural 5.01 Sympathy For The Devil

"Screw the angels and the demons and their crap Apocalypse."

Show is back! It's back with a traditional season-opener musical sequence – ACDC's Thunderstruck this time, fast-paced and furious to set the tone for the episode ahead.

The Road So Far

Dean went to hell and was then pulled out again.

The brothers Winchester fought an abundance of evil undead things, many demons among them.

Lilith was breaking the 66 Seals to release Lucifer from hell, so that Lucifer could bring the Apocalypse.

Sam could kill demons with his brain. Ruby's knife could also kill demons.

Dean caught his brother drinking demon blood to boost his psychic powers.

Castiel turned against his fellow angels in support of Dean's efforts to prevent the Apocalypse.

We learned that angels require human vessels in order to interact directly with mankind. Castiel's vessel Jimmy informed us that he had to give his consent to be used in that way.

Chuck Shurley was a highly unlikely prophet of the Lord, writing under the pen name Carver Edlund – and what he wrote was the lives of the brothers Winchester.

Zachariah was Castiel's superior – but proved to be working in support of his own ambition rather than following any divinely ordained agenda.

Dean was destined to be the one to stop Lucifer, but no one would tell him how.

Sam killed Lilith and so doing broke the final Seal, releasing Lucifer from hell.

Dean and Sam killed Ruby together, and Sam was filled with contrition for the mistakes he had made.

And then, without so much as a Now to mark the transition, the old and the new collide as we reach the moment on which last season ended: the Winchester brothers standing side by side, hands fisted in one another's jackets, staring into the light streaming from the symbol drawn in blood on the floor.

Dean snaps out of it first, although Sam isn't far behind, and the brothers dash for the door. Flight is the only sane option currently open to them, for all Ruby's claims regarding the reward awaiting Sam.

The door slams shut in their faces and absolutely refuses to budge.

From outside, we see shafts of blindingly brilliant light bursting through cracks in the door, highly ominous, suggesting that anyone caught on the other side is in serious trouble.

Trapped inside, Dean and Sam pound desperately on the door as a piercing whistle fills the air, slowly realise that it is futile, turn horrified eyes toward one another and then around toward that blindingly bright pillar of light still streaming out of the ground.


Incidentally, I love that the light is contained by the circle of blood – it never once strays beyond that boundary.

With the whistling getting shriller and shriller by the second, deafening, and the light still pretty blinding, all the brothers can do is fall to their knees clutching at their heads in pain, expecting to die at any second.

Brilliant white light fills the screen once more…

And then, all of a sudden, we are watching TV. A cartoon, to be precise: Yosemite Sam meeting the Devil.

Yeah, nice one, Show. We see what you did there.

Rather niftily, the faint sound of a shrill whistle can still be heard, although no longer as loud, and it dies away completely as the camera pulls away from the TV to reveal Dean and Sam, still cowering and clutching at their heads…but now sitting in adjacent aeroplane seats.

Say what? What a weird, abrupt transition…which, of course, was the point.

Realising that they have somehow been relocated from where they were and are no longer in imminent mortal danger, the shocked brothers drop their hands and gape at their unexpected surroundings in utter astonishment.


I am deeply amused to see that not a single soul on the plane appears to have noticed either their abrupt appearance out of nowhere or their strange behaviour! Nicely played on the part of whoever moved them.

Impressively, bearing in mind the phobia revealed in Phantom Traveler, Dean does not panic upon finding himself once more aboard an aeroplane. He is made of sterner stuff these days, having been to hell and all. "What the hell?" he mutters in shock.

"I don't know," gasps Sam, equally shocked.

Hey, maybe they are both wondering if perhaps they have had mutual psychotic breaks and just imagined this terrible last year or so? At this precise moment, it would be as good an explanation as any! Alas, they both know better than that, however.


Heh, the deeply startled and unnerved look on Dean's face is priceless as the pilot informs his passengers that they are just passing over Ilchester, then Ellicott City on their initial descent into Baltimore. "Ilchester? Weren't we just there?" he plaintively protests, confused as all heck.

We cut to a shot of the pilot looking inappropriately creepy as he invites his passengers to stretch their legs while they have the chance, and for a split second I wonder if maybe he is possessed or something, but no. A second later, he starts yelling in shock as the enormous column of brilliant white light that is Lucifer shoots up into the sky, directly ahead of the plane.


Hey, didn't that already happen? Have the brothers been moved back in time a few seconds, or has it just taken this long for the light stream to burst out of the old convent and into the sky? The sequence of events is a little unclear.

The shocked pilot immediately attempts to take evasive action, and the sudden turbulence thus created sends passengers and crew alike reeling. As terrified screams fill the air, emergency oxygen masks descend, and the brothers hastily grab and make use of them, since there's not really a lot they can to do stop the plane from crashing this time.

Right, so this really should seal Dean's hatred of flying forever, no?

Mask clamped over his nose and mouth, Dean anxiously gazes out of the window at the brilliant light streaming past.

Titles!

Another new title sequence for another new season – they are getting arty these days, aren't they? This one has a bloody backdrop and blood-red titles, all of which is more than suitably apocalyptic in tone.


It's all about blood. Well, last season certainly was! Chances are this one will be, too.

Road. Night

All of a sudden the brothers are in a random rental car driving down a random road in the middle of some random unspecified nowhere.

Huh. I think the abrupt and bizarre transitions of this early sequence probably worked a little better on paper than they do in actuality. It really isn't clear whether or not the brothers have been mysteriously relocated once more while or if they stayed on the plane while it made an emergency landing and then hired this car to get wherever they are going.

In the car, the brothers are silent, while the radio plays on a news channel. Topic of the moment: the immense pillar of light that just exploded out of Ilchester. "Governor O'Malley urged calm, saying it's very unlikely an abandoned convent would be a target for terrorists, either foreign or home-grown," reports the newsreader.

Dean mutters for Sam to change the station, and he does…but finds only more news, equally ominous and positively screaming of Lucifer-related doom. Every station they try is just as bad as the last: nuclear testing, war, hurricanes, earthquakes, swine flu.

Heh. It's a nifty twist that when you throw all those dire headlines together they do sound like signs of the Apocalypse, yet that actually is what the news headlines tend to look like just about every day these days.

Having had it up to here with the Apocalypse already, Dean turns the radio off and silence descends upon the brothers once more, Sam shaking his head in mute dismay while Dean is stony-faced.

Self-recrimination just about ready to overflow, Sam gathers his resolve and attempts to broach the subject of everything that just happened. "Dean, look –"

"Don't say anything," Dean tiredly interrupts, so not in the mood for this right now, and Sam turns worried eyes upon his brother's profile as he continues, "Its okay. We've just got to keep our heads down and hash this out, all right?"

Sam is surprised, but doesn't argue. "Yeah, okay."


It is striking that almost the first thing that happens this season is that Sam follows Dean's lead without a word of argument. This immediately highlights just how hard Sam has been hit by recent events. For much of last season, with Dean overwhelmed and hesitant in the wake of his return from hell, we saw Sam stepping up to take the leading role with great enthusiasm, his confidence and determination as unwavering as his conviction in his own righteousness, even to the point of dismissing his brother's input completely. Now, however, knowing just how badly he was led astray, he has completely lost confidence in himself and in his own judgement, even as Dean has regained his. And so the roles reverse once more and a new twist on an old dynamic begins to emerge: Dean well and truly back in the driver's seat, full of drive and determination, while Sam, riddled with guilt and self-loathing, hands over the reins completely.

I think most people predicted that the immediately obvious reaction of the brothers to the events of last season's finale would be to flip roles once more, and here, with their first real interaction of the new season, we see just that. Last season saw Dean repeatedly reaching out to Sam, only to be rebuffed; now it is Sam's turn to reach out and be knocked back, except that here the exchange follows the pattern of the brothers' more traditional dynamic.

Trying to talk things through is Sam's standard MO. Although all the more ruthless and hardline personality traits we saw emphasised in him last season were always part of who he was, his behaviour for large swathes of the season was atypical in that the balance of his personality was lost. Whether consciously or not, he increasingly suppressed the more rational, reasonable and sympathetic side of his personality in favour of honing and reinforcing his harsher traits in the hope that this would make him stronger, and this was at least part of what caused him to push his brother away and isolate himself emotionally. Now, having been abruptly made so horribly, painfully aware of the error of his ways, Sam is instantly reverting to something approaching his former self; his guilt over his actions and their consequences is crippling and the first thing he seeks to do is own up to that guilt, as a first step toward making some kind of amends.

Avoidance and denial, however, are as much Dean's standard MO as seeking to talk things through is Sam's – and I honestly think that in this instance it is as much about protecting Sam as it is protecting Dean himself, because he is furious with his brother, of course he is, and is deeply reluctant to face up to that emotion for fear of what it might mean for them both. Instead he opts for his age-old strategy of denial, seeking to avoid the subject of the recent past at all costs. If they focus on the task immediately at hand instead of saying anything out loud about what happened to bring it about, they can pretend that everything is normal and that there is no issue between them, whereas acknowledging what happened means facing up to how he feels about it, which is dangerous ground on which to be treading.

In a sense, I almost feel that Dean's refusal to allow Sam to apologise and his determination to focus solely on the job is his way of at least trying to forgive Sam, since he can see how genuinely remorseful his brother is and because Dean always forgives. By seeking to pretend that everything is normal between them he is trying to convince himself that it is, that he doesn't really feel as angry and as hurt as he knows, deep down, that he is, and that if he pretends for long enough he can make it true. Although he rebuffs Sam's attempt to apologise, there is nothing harsh about either the words or tone he uses – far from it, it is classic big brother Dean, offering both reassurance and diversion by way of attempting to re-establish some semblance of normalcy, at least at a superficial level.

"Right, well first things first," Dean briskly continues, sticking to the tangible, the matter at hand. It is both denial and avoidance of the more personal issues also at hand, but is also a question of prioritisation, immediate crisis outweighing emotional baggage. "How'd we end up on Soul Plane?"

"Angels? Maybe?" Sam shrugs. Oh, Sammy – his tone is so hesitant, almost apologetic, and anxious to please. If he isn't going to be allowed to say sorry directly, then he has to express it in other ways, which means attempting to make himself as useful as possible to the brother he now sees as having been right about everything while Sam himself was completely wrong. "I mean, you know – beaming us out of harm's way?"

Dean doesn't know – has to know that it is unlikely given how he left Zachariah – but he only really raised the subject to change the subject, and now dismisses it again in favour of a slightly more proactive plan of action. "Whatever. It's the least of our worries. We need to find Cas."

That sounds like a reasonable plan. Bobby aside, Castiel currently stands as the only ally the brothers have got, now that he has made his break from angelic high command in favour of supporting Dean's last ditch effort to prevent the Apocalypse. Trouble is, the last time we – and Dean – saw Castiel, he was mounting a defensive stand in which the odds were stacked against him…

Chuck Shurley's house

Chuck's house is trashed, with blood splattered all over the place.

The brothers carefully pick their way through the mess that was once Chuck's kitchen, troubled by the implications of battle royale having gone down here, then startle and spin around upon hearing a noise from the next room. They venture in that direction and start looking around the lounge…


And then a somewhat battered and dishevelled Chuck Shurley pops out of hiding and smacks Sam across the head with a sink plunger!

Hee. Okay, I do have slight issues with this scene, but that was funny. Plunger!

Sam indignantly protests, staggering back toward Dean, safety in numbers and all, and Chuck is startled to see who his unexpected visitors are, Sam especially. "Sam?" he gasps, and Sam snips an indignant assent, while Dean nonchalantly greets the prophet. Chuck can't take his eyes off Sam. "You're okay?"


"Well, my head hurts," Sam pointedly replies.

"I-I-I mean, my last vision," the astounded Chuck explains. "You were, like, full-on Vader! Your body temperature was 150, your heart rate was 200 – your eyes were black!"

Whoa. We saw what happened to Sam during his assault on Lilith – the black eyes and pounding heart, at least – but hearing the physical symptoms described like that is unnerving. It raises all kinds of questions about what has become of Sam – and what will become of Sam.

Sam himself is deeply disconcerted, while behind him Dean eyes his brother critically. "Your eyes were black?" he queries, trying hard not to sound alarmed but unable to keep a note of accusation from his voice.


Dean was warned, let us remember, that if Sam took that final step necessary to allow him to kill Lilith, it would change him forever – could very well turn him into the next thing Dean would feel compelled to hunt, Castiel warned. Now, Sam is currently more like his old self than he has been in a long time, which has to be at least a little bit reassuring for Dean – but hearing Chuck's description of the physical symptoms of Sam's change cannot help but be unnerving to the brother who tried so hard to prevent it from happening and was so afraid of what it might mean. Sam did it to himself, despite all warnings. Dean wouldn't be human if he weren't angry and resentful about it.

Sam turns penitent eyes toward his brother, barely able to look him in the face. "I didn't know," he mutters, contrite and forlorn. What else can he say? There is nothing now that he can do to change what happened.


It is worth bearing in mind that the issue of the altered voicemail message from Lucifer Rising has not yet been resolved – and maybe it never will be, but until and unless it is, the brothers are approaching one another based on what is actually a fairly fundamental misconception. Sam doesn't know that what he heard was a false message, that Dean in fact held out a last ditch olive branch to him and now believes that he chose to reject it. And Dean doesn't know that Sam not only never got his message but in fact heard a false version created (probably) by Zachariah, and as a result believes that Dean sees him as no better than a vampire and threatened to hunt him as such. It is probable that at least part of Sam's nervous eagerness to please in this episode is relief that Dean hasn't yet made good on that threat and anxiety over whether he might change his mind again.

Dean files the information away, but doesn't press the subject. He already decided that he can't deal with Sam and what he did just yet. It is too fresh, too raw. He turns his attention back to Chuck, asking where Castiel is.

Chuck looks devastated. "He's dead. Or gone. The archangel smote the crap out of him. I'm sorry."

Both brothers look alarmed.

"You're sure?" Dean asks. "I mean, maybe he just vanished into the light, or something."

Chuck is sure. "No. He, like, exploded. Like a water balloon of chunky soup."

Oh, the imagery. Yikes.

Both brothers look very tired and very despondent. Castiel was just about the only ally they had. Then Sam notices something and gestures to Chuck, who realises that he has something in his hair. It is a tooth – a very bloody tooth.

"Is that a molar?" he quavers. "I have a molar in my hair! This has been a really stressful day."

Um. Yeah. The actors lend this scene the air of gravitas it calls for, with the demise of a major character, but it is written as a much more light-hearted scene, and although I normally appreciate dark humour it does take a very deft tough to pull it off in these circumstances, and I'm not sure the writer has achieved it here. Attempting to play the scene for humour leaves viewers uncertain if we are intended to take Castiel's demise seriously or not, and as a major character in the show he deserves better than that.

Still, as mentioned, the actors rise above the script, underplaying beautifully to lend a more appropriate air of gravitas to the moment.

Dean sighs heavily. "Cas, you stupid bastard," he mourns.

Sam is surprised. "Stupid? He was trying to help us."

"Yeah, exactly," says Dean, angry – not angry with Sam, though, at least not here, but angry with Castiel for getting himself killed because he had listened to Dean's argument and chosen to help, and with the universe for making that sacrifice necessary, even if it currently appears to have been for naught. Angry because he can't actually regret Castiel's help, even at such a high cost, because it got him out of the heavenly waiting room and to Sam, albeit too late.

"So what now?" Sam wants to know. He asks much the same question several times in this episode, constantly looking for someone else to take the lead, his drive and assurance of last season vanished without trace. He simply does not trust his own judgement any more. It is almost painful to see the change in him, and yet is completely in keeping with his circumstances and feels right and appropriate. The development over the last few episodes that brought him to this point has been flawless, and I hope that his slow recovery will be equally well handled.

Dean begins to say that he doesn't know, but Chuck isn't listening any more, cursing under his breath as he hears a recognisably angelic susurration, inaudible to the brothers but loud and clear to Chuck. "I can feel them," he quavers. "Oh crap."

"Thought we'd find you here," an overly cheerful and sadly familiar voice declares, and the brothers spin around to find Zachariah and a couple of be-suited random angelic minions lurking menacingly behind them, Zachariah regarding the mess of Chuck's kitchen appraisingly.

You know, the sheer number of angels walking around in meat suits these days is a little disconcerting – it kind of detracts from the acclaimed specialness of the hosts, that there should be so many of them, popping up all over the place without ceremony, simply nameless goons.

"Playtime's over, Dean," Zachariah affably menaces, disconcertingly jovial smile plastered all over his face. "Time to come with us."


Glowering his animosity, Dean manages not to take a defensive step backward, but he does kind of lean away from the angel as he furiously growls, "You just keep your distance, ass hat."

Been abducted by angels a couple of times too often already, has Dean.

Zachariah actually looks a little surprised. "You're upset," he notes, as if he hadn't expected this reaction.

"Yeah. A little," Dean aggressively agrees, positively blazing with righteous wrath. "You sons of bitches jump-started Judgement Day!"

"Maybe we let it happen," Zachariah breezily dismisses. "We didn't start anything. Right, Sammy?" He winks at Sam, who twitches uncomfortably, and then refocuses on Dean. "You had a chance to stop your brother, and you couldn't. So let's not quibble over who started what. Let's just say it was all our faults and move on."

The various strands of fault certainly are very intricately intertwined. This Apocalypse was a massively multi-causal event, with many, many individuals playing their part in bringing it about, and the blame they share is not equally divided, by any means. Dean broke the first Seal, and that it came about after decades of torture in hell does not mean that he holds himself any the less responsible, that much was made very clear in On The Head Of A Pin, and just because he has managed to pick himself up again does not mean he has forgotten. Sam pulled the final trigger, as it were, but his portion of blame is less focused on what he did and more on how it came about, as a result of a series of choices that he consciously made, however misinformed he may have been on various points along the way. Meanwhile, Dean chooses to apportion the lion's share of blame to Zachariah for numerous reasons – not wanting to blame Sam among them – but the largest factors have got to be a) knowing that Zachariah had the power to prevent it all had he chosen to do so, and b) knowing that this so-called warrior for good was actively pulling strings to ensure that the Apocalypse happened despite all attempts to prevent it.

"'Cause like it or not, it's Apocalypse now," Zachariah continues, cornily enough. "And we're back on the same team again."

Dean begs to differ. "Is that so?" he icily snips.

"You want to kill the Devil, we want you to kill the Devil," Zachariah smiles. "It's synergy."

"And I'm just supposed to trust you?" Dean scathingly protests. "Cram it with walnuts, ugly."


Heh. What kind of an expression is that supposed to be?!

"This isn't a game, son," Zachariah loftily patronises. "Lucifer is powerful in ways that defy description. We need to strike now, hard and fast, before he finds his vessel."

Hang on. Finds his vessel, as in one that is specifically designed just for him, as it were? Meaning that there is only this one possible vessel Lucifer can have? It isn't simply a question of finding someone with the right kind of blood who is willing to say yes, with a variety of options to choose from, scattered around the globe? This is a very new and potentially anomalous twist on the issue of angelic possession.

Also – how is anyone, least of all Dean, supposed to go about killing or otherwise confining what is essentially an immense streak of light that would burn his eyes out if he got too close? Surely action against an angel not wearing human form is a matter for other angels. Whatever prophecy might suggest about Dean's status as the first Seal, it has already been stated that only an angel can kill another angel – and Lucifer is no doubt massively outnumbered by the rest of the angelic host. So why don't they just gang up and fight him themselves, prophecy or no prophecy? What special powers does he have that they don't, that they should be so intimidated by him and require special intervention from a third party?

"His vessel?" Sam pipes up from behind Dean, where he has been lurking quietly throughout. "Lucifer needs a meat suit?"

This is just about the only contribution Sam makes to the conversation. He keeps to the background throughout, looking small and lost and allowing Dean to handle the entire confrontation. Dean is the one the angels are interested in, and Dean appears to have been right all along, while Sam no longer trusts his own judgement. It is painful to see Sam here, so silent and so reduced, compared with the Sam who raged at Castiel last season, burning with pride and righteous wrath.

"He is an angel," Zachariah points out. "Them's the rules."

Um. I know Zachariah is mostly just being glib here, but…since when are those the rules? Show has come to play the requirement for angels to take human hosts as a hard and fast rule. But when we first met him in Lazarus Rising Castiel didn't seem aware of it.

Of course, in Lazarus Rising Castiel was attempting to communicate with Dean specifically, and only when he was alone, assumed that he would be one of the special few able to withstand the true voice and form of an angel, and did state that the majority of the world's population would not be able to tolerate his voice or presence. But still the point remains that if the requirement for a human host is such a hard and fast rule as it has since been played, then Castiel would have taken a human host as a matter of course in order to interact with the human world at all; it would have been the first thing that he did as a soldier being deployed for the waging of a war on earth, as every other angel after him has done.

I am going to rationalise that Castiel's chosen (or perhaps pre-ordained) host, Jimmy, was not yet primed and ready for possession at the time that Castiel first attempted to talk to Dean, and since he assumed that Dean would be one of the special few able to hear his true voice he thought he could get away with opening the initial lines of communication without a vessel.

The timeline surrounding Jimmy's possession and Dean's rescue from hell still doesn't fit, however, but I discussed those discrepancies at length in my recap for The Rapture, so won't go into it all again.

"And when he touches down," Zachariah continues. "We're talking the Four Horsemen, red oceans, fiery sky – it's the Greatest Hits. You can stop him, Dean. But you need our help."

The reaction shots of Dean throughout this scene are great – he is deeply troubled by what he's hearing, but is absolutely, categorically not prepared to trust this angel and his dubious ambitions, not least because Zachariah never seems to tell the same story twice.

"You listen to me, you two-faced douche," Dean very firmly declares. "After what you did, I don't want jack-squat from you."

"You listen to me, boy!" Zachariah shouts back, getting riled now, striding over to get right up in Dean's face – but Dean holds his ground, not the least bit intimidated, in striking contrast to his first angelic encounters. "You think you can rebel against us?" Zachariah menaces. "As Lucifer did?" He stops short, noticing blood dripping from Dean's left hand, and frowns. "You're bleeding."

"Oh yeah." Dean smirks. "A little insurance policy in case you dicks showed up." He pulls out the sliding kitchen door to reveal that angel-be-gone sigil we have seen in the past, painted in blood. Even as Zachariah yells a frantic protest, Dean smacks his hand into the centre of it, and the angels are blown away by a flash of brilliant light.


Um. Hang on. When did Dean have time to paint that sigil? We have been with him throughout the scene, which opened with the brothers first venturing into Chuck's kitchen in search of him or Castiel. The way the scene has been structured, there is just no way that Dean could have had either the time or the opportunity to paint that sigil on the door. As scene structuring goes, it is strikingly clumsy and awkward.

Also, having used his bloody left hand to slide the door open, Dean then hits the wall with his clean, non-bloody right hand – yet surely it should have been the bloody left hand that he used, blood on blood to activate the spell.

Dean glares at the now empty kitchen with satisfaction. "Learned that from my friend Cas, you son of a bitch," he fiercely declares.

Well, actually, he first saw the angel-be-gone sigil when Anna used it on Castiel and Uriel. He had not, however, seen the detail of how it was drawn until he saw Castiel do it in Lucifer Rising – and it is pretty impressive that he remembered the precise detail with enough clarity to recreate it so effectively.

The statement of friendship and solidarity with a fallen comrade Dean makes here is both highly in character and very fitting for the circumstances. It is the first time Dean has specifically declared Castiel a friend, never having felt entirely certain of where he stood with the angel in the past, given Castiel's enigmatic ways, ill-defined loyalties and confessed manipulations. Even this statement now is less a firm statement of absolute friendship –certainly not the kind of friendship Dean has with Bobby, based on mutual love, trust, companionship and support – and more of an obituary. Castiel was an ally who may have wavered but who came through in the end and made the ultimate sacrifice in the process, and Dean is honouring him for it.

I still, however, really want Dean to find out that it was Castiel who let Sam out of the panic room in When The Levee Breaks. It was a betrayal of trust, after he had effectively forced Dean to give his consent to serve the angels based solely on the implicit promise of Sam's safety and preservation. Castiel may have felt guilty about it and he may have repented and made amends later, but I really believe that Dean needs to know that it happened if their alliance/friendship is to truly solidify. Basing such an alliance on a lie of omission is no way to enter into a war of this magnitude.

Regent Inn Hotel. Day

Sometime later, Sam picks his way past a random canoodling couple en route back to the brothers' latest cheap motel of the week – maybe even the grottiest yet – where Dean is sorting and packing weapons.

Hmm. I wonder where Sam has been and what he said he was doing. It is actually interesting to see that he has gone off on his own again so soon, and that Dean does not seem the slightest bit suspicious or concerned about it, given how very bad things got between them at the end of last season.

Sam tosses something to his brother. "Here. Hex bags. No way the angels will find us with those. Demons, either, for that matter."

Dean looks from the hex bag in his hand to his brother, startled. "Where'd you get it?"


"I made it," Sam replies, looking ever so slightly proud of himself, but also anxious – anxious to please and anxious to see how his offering is received. Surprised, Dean immediately asks how, and Sam flounders. "I…I learned it from Ruby," he admits, holding his brother's eyes but looking nervous, since he is still awaiting what he must surely expect to be the mother of all smack downs over the fallout of his relationship with the demon last season.

Ah, boys. They are both floundering so badly, pretending to be normal for all they are worth, but it is all an act and they both know it. Sam is painfully anxious to please, wants badly to help in whatever small way he can, because it is the only way he has of expressing his remorse – and in some ways seems almost pathetically grateful that he hasn't simply been cast off as he might have anticipated, given both their last face-to-face encounter prior to Lucifer's release and that voicemail message he still doesn't know was faked.

I really want the issue of that false voicemail message to be resolved at some point. I don't like that it is just hanging there between them.

However, when you stop and think about it, this scene is worth pondering in a little more detail. Whatever else he might have been doing – and his hands are otherwise empty, let us note – Sam's excursion included the manufacture of hex bags, and Dean didn't know that he was doing it. Again I ask: what errand did Dean think he was running, then, and has he fulfilled it as well as constructing the hex bags, or was it merely an excuse to get him out of the motel to acquire and assemble the ingredients without Dean knowing? We aren't told.

Although this is a minor moment in a small scene within the episode, and neither brother makes a big deal out of it, I can't help but feel that in some ways it encapsulates the breakdown of the brothers' relationship last season and feeds into the sentiment Dean expresses at the end of the episode. Sam has had an idea, and instead of discussing it with his brother, pooling suggestions and resources in order to plan their next move as a team, he has executed that idea on his own and in secret and now presents it to Dean as a fait accompli.

There are two sides to this issue. The hex bags, which will conceal the brothers' location from angels and demons alike, are a good, practical idea, a sound defensive measure that will be of great value to them. It demonstrates that in the practical sense at least Sam's judgement isn't as hopelessly flawed as he might perhaps feel in the immediate wake of Lucifer's release. He is eager to help, and this was an idea that he knew would be extremely useful, allowing him to demonstrate how sorry he is and how much he wants to make amends. Dean accepts the measure without argument, acknowledging its practical benefit, and thus validating the idea. That it was a trick Sam learned from Ruby, of all people, is the only real sticking point, on the surface, touching all kinds of raw nerves for them both.

Sam has to have known that it would, and he went ahead anyway because he knew it was a defensive measure that they needed to take and that it was an area where he possessed expertise Dean does not share, regardless of where that skill came from. It is a small gesture, but demonstrates that Sam hasn't quite lost all his confidence after all, which is good to see. He made a terrible mistake – a series of terrible mistakes – but it is important that he does not now allow that to destroy him. So far, he is managing to hold his head above water, so to speak.

On the other hand, however, one way or another Sam went behind his brother's back to produce the hex bags, and although this was clearly not a deliberate deception and is very in character for him, it does suggest that he still has not learned the lessons of last season where honest, open, upfront communication is concerned.

It is a minor moment, little more than a plot device. The episode plot required the brothers to have hex bags concealing them from the angels, and since Ruby is dead they had to acquire them by some other means. Having Sam make them was as simple and expedient a means as any; it makes logical sense that he would have picked up a few tricks from Ruby after spending so much time with her, and he willingly confesses as much to Dean when asked. And, it is entirely possible, of course, that the notion of making hex bags did not occur to Sam until he had already left the motel to run his unknown errand – but I'm still not sure that taking Dean by surprise like this is the best way to re-establish trust, given that Sam's secret activities played such a major role in the brothers' estrangement and trust issues last season.

Bottom line: the hex bags were a good idea and Sam didn't need Dean's permission to act on that idea, but discussing it with him upfront might also have been a good idea, in the circumstances. It just strikes me as a sign of how far the brothers have to go before their relationship can be fixed. Sam has got into the habit of operating independently instead of working in tandem with his brother as an equal partner, and doesn't fully comprehend, even now, how great a role his dishonesty played in the breakdown of his relationship with Dean last season. I can't help but feel that making amends is going to have to include being more open and upfront – after all, the only way to make someone trust you is to prove that you can be trusted, however slow and painstaking that process might be. That means not going out to do one thing and coming back having done another, at least in the short term and immediate aftermath. Saying sorry, or at least trying to say sorry, only goes so far. It will take openness and honesty, and a lot of it, to even begin to repair the damage that has been done – and it is going to have to come from both sides or they will be doomed to failure before they even begin.

But it is very early days, and none of this has occurred to Sam yet, he is wholly focused on the more tangible consequences of his actions and on trying to offer practical demonstrations of his remorse.

Dean looks from the hex bag in his hand to his brother and back again, thinking about the implications of how much Sam has learnt from Ruby, for better or for worse, decides not to go there, and takes the conversation off at a tangent. "Speaking of," he quietly remarks. "How you doing? You jonesing for another hit of bitch blood, or what?"


There is gruff concern in his tone that is both brotherly and intensely practical. As Sam's big brother he is worried that Sam might go into withdrawal again, since it almost killed him last time, and as a soldier at the forefront of the Apocalypse, he needs to know if his partner is about to be incapacitated once more.

Sam fidgets. "It's weird," he says. "To tell you the truth, I'm fine. No shakes, no fever – it's like whoever pulled me out of that plane cleaned me right up."

Um. What? Although I completely understand that this episode's plot needs to achieve a lot, and that the story requires that Sam not be completely incapacitated once more, it still feels like one hell of a cop to out to avoid the issue of withdrawal so completely with this glib and too-convenient deus ex machina. Although it would undoubtedly have complicated the storyline to include Sam's demon blood withdrawal, it would have felt a lot more honest, and since the demon blood addiction was such a major ongoing arc last season, affecting almost every character, it deserved better than to be completely dismissed in this way. It stands as yet another example of Show setting up a powerful and dramatic storyline and then shying away from actually following through on the consequences simply because they are inconvenient.

"Supernatural methadone," offers Dean, awkward – but at least the brothers are talking openly about Sam's addiction, even if neither is comfortable with it. It happened and is a fact that neither can change, and only by acknowledging that can they ever hope to deal with it and move past it.

Methadone is a poor analogy, however. It doesn't remove an addiction and it doesn't negate withdrawal symptoms, although addicts who use methadone to themselves off heroin will find that it eases the withdrawal. Methadone is, in fact, highly addictive in its own right – it is a substitute, not a cure.

"Yeah, I guess." Oh, man, Sam's face. He just looks so anxious. He wants so badly to be allowed to express his deep remorse. "Dean –" he attempts.

"Sam." Dean firmly cuts him off before he can go there, and turns away to avoid eye contact, to maintain physical distance. "It's okay. You don't have to say anything."

Sam tries really hard to strike a normal, nonchalant tone. "Well, that's good. Because what can I…even say? I'm sorry? I screwed up? Doesn't really do it justice, you know?"


Sam's got both eyes fixed on Dean's back, so very anxious and nervous, needing absolution.

Dean can't give it to him, though. The hurt is too raw, the betrayal too great. It has been, what, two days at the most since Sam choked him in that hotel room and then walked out, choosing Ruby's seductive lies over Dean's impassioned plea. He keeps his back turned and his eyes on the hex bag in his hand, symbolic of his brother's betrayal as it is.

"Look," Sam tries again. "There's nothing I can do or say that will ever make this right –"

"Then why do you keep bringing it up?" Dean snaps, unable to take any more, denial strained right to the limit. Sam sighs wearily, and Dean takes a deep breath and continues more calmly, deliberately stepping back toward his brother again as a gesture of non-verbal reassurance, because he is trying, he really is. "Look, all I'm saying is why do we have to put this under a microscope? We made a mess, we clean it up – that's it."


They are both trying so hard – at cross-purposes, maybe, but trying hard: Sam trying to build bridges, and Dean not allowing him because he is trying to pretend that there is nothing wrong between them, while Dean is also trying hard to fulfil his age-old responsibility of taking care of Sam when he is hurting. We, he says. We made a mess. We clean it up. Although he cannot allow Sam to express his remorse, because he cannot begin to face up to how badly his brother has hurt him, he is at least trying to offer Sam some reassurance by way of this statement of solidarity, declaring their mutual responsibility for the mess they are in.

Sam offers a tiny nod of assent, unable to disagree with anything Dean says just at the moment, and Dean gets right back to business, holding onto the job at hand as a way to keep them both grounded. "All right. So say this was just any other hunt. What do we do first?"

"We'd, um, figure out what the thing is," Sam offers.

Dean nods, trying hard to muster up a little bravado. "All right. Well, we've just got to find…the Devil."

Pike Creek, Delaware. Night

A man we will later learn is called Nick – fittingly enough – walks down the street to his house. As he walks through the garden, the creaky gate behind him starts opening and closing all by itself, over and over, and a sudden wind blows up out of nowhere.

Nick is perturbed.

Inside

Later that night, Nick wakes from a restless sleep, and is shocked to see his hands covered with blood. Frantic, he paws back the sheets, which are also covered in blood.

Horrified, he jumps out of bed and turns on the light…and all the blood is gone.

"All right. Keep it together. Keep it together, man," Nick mutters to himself.

Psychological torture – nasty, but effective, since already it is clear that he suspects he may be losing his mind, which means he is vulnerable, ripe for the picking.

Nick gets back into bed and switches off the light, turns over – and finds a shadowy figure laying in bed with him, a woman, splattered with blood. It is his dead wife. As he flinches away, aghast, she speaks to him. "It's you, Nick," she says. "You're special. You're chosen."

Terrified of the apparition, Nick presses a hand over his eyes. When he pulls it away once more, the woman has vanished.

Creepy!

Room

Oh, man, my least favourite scene of the episode – one of them, anyway.

We find ourselves in the room of a serious Supernatural fanatic – a fan of Chuck's Supernatural novels, that is – with posters plastered all over the walls, and a Winchester street sign to complete the collection. The woman whose room this is, Becky, sits at her computer writing pornographic slash fanfiction about the characters of her favourite novels, Sam and Dean – and she is reading it aloud as she types.

Please, please, Show – stop with the fangirl meta already. It isn't funny and it isn't clever. Not all fans of the show are involved in slash fandom, and it is not really fair on those who don't like it to a) portray it in such detail (at least online we can scroll past) or to b) represent only that portion of fandom in meta-commentary. This is twice now that Supernatural fandom has been portrayed on-screen as internal meta, and both times this has suggested that fans of the novels – for which, read, the show – are uniformly obsessed with gay pornography as written by women about straight men, and are interested in the characters only as sex objects. Yes, this does represent a portion of fandom – often the loudest portion, unfortunately – but it does not represent the entirety of fandom. It is demeaning both to the fans and the show itself to only give on-screen validation to this portion of the fandom alone, and…it just isn't funny. As a fan who has always been heavily invested in the character development and storylines as portrayed on-screen, and is aware that my fellow fans are attached to the show for a wide variety of reasons, ranging from, yes, the attractiveness of the stars through the family-oriented drama to the epic mytharc, I feel somewhat perturbed and discouraged at the implication that this is what the writers of the show think of us, that they should lump us all under this one shallow stereotype. If they think all their fans are interested only in sex, why bother having storylines and character development at all? Sheesh.

Also, I don't really feel that translating the fandom of the TV show (or at least this portion of it) onto the concept of these novels is all that logical in terms of the show's internal universe. I mean…I don't know that much about online fandom for novels, but since Chuck's Supernatural series has been presented to us as having almost zero circulation, would it really have attracted this kind of hardcore slash fandom? Or any kind of hardcore fandom at all?

Anyway, Becky is practically salivating over her own mental images as she types, but is suddenly interrupted by an incoming skype call from Carver Edlund, of all people.


Confused, Becky takes the call, and Chuck appears on-screen. Amazed, Becky flips out, wibbling, "Ohmigod! You got my letters! And my marzipan!" Chuck hastily agrees that he did, it was yummy, and tries hard to stammer his way to the point, but Becky keeps yammering, helpfully identifying herself as 'SamLicker81,' the 'webmistress' of MoreThanBrothers.net

Chuck explains that he contacted her specifically because she is his number one fan. "You're the only one who'll believe me," he adds, stealing a quick glance heavenward as Becky asks if he is all right. "No," he admits. "I'm being watched. Okay, not now – at least I don't think so. But I don't have much time. I need your help." Becky is beyond thrilled – at least until she hears what that help is. "I need you to get a message to Sam and Dean," Chuck explains.

Becky is bitterly disappointed, protesting that she doesn't appreciate being mocked, since she understands the difference between reality and fantasy perfectly well, thanks all the same.

"Becky, it's all real," Chuck impatiently snaps.

And Becky believes him, just like that. "I knew it!"

Yeah. It just…isn't necessary. There is just no need for Chuck to involve a third party at all. If the angels are watching him then they will be aware of his contact with Becky and will simply follow her to the brothers, and if he isn't being watched at the moment then he has time to call the brothers himself. Including the fangirl is purely gratuitous, making fun of the fans who have kept the show on the air for so long. It makes me embarrassed for the show and embarrassed to be involved in fandom. Major fail.

Motel

Well, at least the two fangirl scenes sit alongside one another, and are quickly over.

Sitting morosely at the table, Sam appears to be leafing through John's journal, searching either for inspiration or comfort, while Dean lounges on the bed, watching the news, which is grim, reporting an earthquake, a hurricane and multiple tornados, all at the same time.


There is a knock at the door, and both brothers are instantly on full alert, Sam moving cautiously to answer it with gun at the ready, while Dean hangs back to cover him.

It is Becky, and she almost hyperventilates upon seeing Sam in the flesh, unnerving him considerably by reaching out to stroke his chest while commenting aloud on how 'firm' he is.


Yes, there are some crazy fans who do behave like this at conventions and the like, but they are the minority – or so I hope. I'm not sure that validating such inappropriate behaviour by highlighting it on screen is really the best way to set boundaries!

"Do I know you?" Sam asks, a lot more politely than I would, in the circumstances.

Becky has to admit that he doesn't, no – but she knows him. Dean, however, is not what she had pictured. She introduces herself, explaining that she has read all about them in Chuck's novels and almost owns up to her own flights of fancy, before recovering enough wits to cut herself off and get down to business. She has a message from 'Mr Edlund', she explains, and now she is finally beginning to make sense to the brothers. She explains that Chuck is being watched by angels, adding as an aside that this was a good way to up the mythology, since the demons were getting rather old.

Yes, I can see what they are doing there, but I still really don't like this kind of internal meta, tearing down the fourth wall from inside, not least because it is so clumsily handled here and is out of keeping with the tone of the story, to which it adds no value. There have been episodes in the past that were deliberately structured as a kind of self-commentary, and this kind of meta can just about work in those episodes if handled carefully. This is not one of those episodes, however, and thus the insertion of the fangirl doesn't work at all. Either they want us to take the show and its universe seriously or they don't, bearing in mind that genuinely caring about the characters and their lives depends largely on believing in the integrity of the fictional universe in which they live – or, rather, being able to suspend disbelief. Being largely made up as it goes along, the mytharc is already beginning to contradict itself in places, fraying around the edges – a mytharc-focused episode is no place to include clumsy and ill-conceived internal meta portraying fans as not particularly caring if the storylines make sense as long as the actors are attractive. The integrity of the show's internal universe needs to be reinforced, not diminished.

While Dean rolls his eyes, Sam attempts to rein Becky in, asking what the message is.

"He had a vision," Becky explains, quoting: "The Michael-sword is on earth. The angels lost it."

"The Michael-sword?" Dean frowns.

"Becky, does he know where it is?" Sam asks.

"In a castle," she replies. "On a hill made of 42 dogs."

Right. Nice and cryptic, then. The brothers are somewhat nonplussed, and Becky agrees that it doesn't make sense, but she memorised it exactly, for them.

While Dean watches with raised eyebrow, she steps closer to Sam to start stroking his chest once more, because obviously all fangirls have no sense of propriety or personal space whatsoever. Sam is deeply uncomfortable and asks her to stop touching him – but she says no, flat out.

Okay. This is what the writers of this show think of the fans that have supported them for the last four seasons. Good to know.

Motel. Later

Some unspecified time later, the Impala pulls up outside Dean and Sam's motel room, and Bobby gets out.


Yay! Bobby has brought the Impala back to Dean! Because, of course, it was left at Bobby's place when the angels abducted Dean in Lucifer Rising – which was just yesterday or thereabouts in the show's timeline, let us remember.

Interestingly, the rental/stolen car that the brothers had parked outside their room earlier has now vanished, just in time for the Impala to take its place.

However, although it does not become apparent for quite some time, we shall note up front that Bobby is, in fact, possessed by a demon, hard though that is to believe – I mean, it's Bobby! How such a pragmatic and paranoid demon expert could ever have come to be possessed we are not told; all that matters to the episode plot, which is not telling Bobby's story, is that somehow or other the demons have managed to sneak behind his guard, and that as a result he is now possessed.

It makes a lot of sense that the demons would use Bobby to come after the brothers, though. After all, those hex bags are now concealing their location from both angels and demons. Coming at them through a close contact is, therefore, the logical solution to the problem, and Bobby is not only their closest friend but also, really speaking, their only friend.

Clearly the brothers were expecting Bobby, because when he knocks at the door it results in none of the gun-toting apprehension Becky incurred.

Dean lets Bobby in and he greets both brothers with a heartfelt hug, simple, gruff and manly, commenting that it is good to see them both in one piece.

"You weren't followed, were you?" Dean anxiously asks.

"You mean by angels, demons or Sam's new super-fan?" Bobby dryly asks, just for the sake of watching Sam squirm. Hee. Well, it might not be the real Bobby, but it sure sounds like him! The demon does a good impression. But although Sam takes the joke and exchanges a spot of light banter with Bobby, to show willing, in the background Dean doesn't look all that amused. He is clearly having a hard time playing at normal, despite it being his own coping strategy of choice.

And yet, it surely must have been Dean who told Bobby about fangirl Becky in the first place, given that neither brother is surprised to find that he knows about it. We aren't told, but presumably there must have been telephone contact to confirm which motel the brothers are staying at, since they may not have checked in when they first got in touch and invited Bobby to join them, and it would be very in character for Dean to take the opportunity to rag on Sam by telling Bobby the story of fangirl Becky.

Bobby gets down to business – the sword of Michael. Dean asks if he thinks they are talking about the actual sword of the actual archangel. "You'd better frigging hope so," Bobby snorts.

The demon really does have him exact.

Bobby then produces a bunch of texts and shows the brothers a few Renaissance and Baroque depictions of the Archangel Michael wielding his sword, declaring Michael to be "the toughest sumbitch they've got."


Very tellingly, while Bobby and Sam sit together at the table to conduct this research, Dean won't sit and join them. Instead he prowls around, circling them, agitated. He is trying to at least pretend to be okay with Sam, but isn't finding it as easy as he had hoped, and his body language speaks volumes that he won't allow himself to say out loud.

Coffee mug in hand, Dean peers over Sam's shoulder at the pictures. "You kidding me? Tough? Guy looks like Cate Blanchett."


"I wouldn't want to meet him in a dark alley, believe me," Bobby snarks. Heh. That statement is probably true of both the man and the demon currently riding him! "He commands the heavenly host – during the last big dust-up upstairs, he's the one that booted Lucifer's ass to the basement, and he did it with that sword. So if we can find it…"

"We can kick the devil's ass all over again," Sam murmurs, while Dean rolls his eyes, pacing nearby. "So where do we start?" Sam asks, still seeking guidance since his own judgement let him down so badly, anxious not to alienate his family any further.

"Divvy up and start reading," Bobby declares. "Try and make sense of Chuck's nonsense."

You know, it is kinda funny hearing Bobby talk about Chuck, who he has never met.

Later

Sam leaves the table on the dais and wanders down to collect another book from the stack on a nearby bed, but then just stands there staring pensively at the books.

It has been what – probably less than 24 hours since Sam drained the blood of a demon possessed woman at Ruby's behest and went on to kill Lilith, thus triggering Lucifer's release. Less than 48 hours since he choked his brother when he was already down and then walked out leaving him gasping on the floor. Less than 72 hours since he was locked in Bobby's panic room in the throes of demon blood withdrawal, seizing and hallucinating.

It has been a hell of a week for Sam. He hit rock bottom, turned his back on both family and principles in pursuit of what he now knows was a lie, and has had neither the time nor space to even begin to regroup and take stock. His guilt is crippling, and he has not been allowed to express his deep shame and remorse, nor had the luxury of falling apart completely. He has tried to follow Dean's lead and pretend that everything is all right, but the strain is showing.

Back up at the table, Bobby watches him. "Kid? You all right?" he asks.

Sam turns troubled eyes upon him. "No, actually," he admits, shooting anxious side eyes toward Dean, who has stopped whatever he was doing to look both concerned and wary.

Every time Sam has attempted to broach the subject of his guilt in this episode, Dean has shut him down. He has offered superficial reassurances at the same time, and he gruffly enquired after Sam's physical health in terms of his demon blood addiction, but not once has he asked how Sam is doing emotionally, after everything. He can't –can't bring himself to face up to his own churning emotions while they are still so fresh and raw, never mind Sam's. How can he deal with Sam's guilt when he is struggling to keep a lid on his own anger and disappointment? But Sam needs to be able to express his contrition for what he has done, and Bobby has now given him the opening to do so.

"Bobby, this is all my fault," he declares. "I'm sorry."

"Sam," Dean immediately, tiredly protests.

But Sam determinedly presses on, eyes now fixed on Bobby. Confession is a necessary first step toward atonement. He needs to say this out loud, to confront what he did, before he can hope to come to terms with it and make amends. "Lilith did not break the final Seal," he falteringly declares. "Lilith was the final Seal."

It is clear from this conversation, if it wasn't already, that there has been off-screen contact between the brothers and Bobby since the final Seal was broken. Of course, they had to let him know that they were both still alive and together, where they were so that he could return the Impala to them, and that the final Seal had been broken, releasing Lucifer. Clearly that was all that was said, however: simply that the final Seal had been broken, with no details offered regarding how it came about, Bobby simply left to draw his own conclusions – and again that suggests that it was Dean who made the call, rather than Sam.

It is also clear from Sam's confession here that, understandably, his contrition is entirely focused on the fact of his breaking the final Seal and thus triggering Lucifer's release, for which he is clearly prepared to assume full responsibility. What he has not yet grasped, however, in the immediacy of the crisis, is that the fact of him breaking that final Seal – merely the last of a full 66, after all – is a hell of a lot less important than how it came about, at least from the point of view of his family.

"Sam, stop it," Dean hisses as Bobby turns startled eyes toward him for confirmation of this story.

It is interesting to see how much Dean does not want Sam to tell Bobby about his hand in triggering the Apocalypse. Dean is tremendously torn in this episode, seeing two separate Sams whenever he looks at his brother – on the one hand he sees Sammy, the baby brother he has always sought to protect, sees him in pain and instinctively wishes to ease it for him somehow, but on the other hand he also sees the virtual stranger Sam became last season, the man who lied to him for months and who turned his back on both family and principles, choosing a demon instead. And that dichotomy is incredibly difficult to handle. If Sam tells Bobby the truth, speaks those words out loud, bringing everything out into the open, that means they both have to deal with it, including Bobby's reaction. But for as long as what happened is not spoken aloud Dean can continue to at least try to pretend that it wasn't real, that it wasn't that bad, that everything is normal – can continue to avoid dealing with his own reaction.

"I killed her," Sam presses on, ignoring his brother's warning. "And I set Lucifer free."

"You what?" Bobby gasps.

"You guys warned me," Sam falters, determined to make this a full confession, since he now has both Dean and Bobby in the same room to hear it. "About Ruby, the demon blood, but I didn't listen. I brought this on."

Sam needs this. With Dean having shut down his attempt at confession twice now, he needs this opportunity to verbalise at least a little of the overwhelming emotion he's got pent up inside. He is trying very hard to own his mistakes, as he sees them, and to take full responsibility for them, however hard. Confession is an essential first step in that process.

Dean's face is set like stone, listening to this, hearing Sam confess his failure out loud. He glances at Bobby out of the corner of his eyes to see his reaction.

Bobby is aghast. Ooh, and the placement and direction of this scene is nifty, with Bobby and Dean both standing up on the dais to one side of the room, with Sam a few steps down in the bedroom area, so that they are both raised up and therefore looking down on him. Sam gazes up at his old friend with desperate eyes, awaiting judgement. And judgement it is that Bobby proceeds to deliver.


"You're damn right you didn't listen," Bobby remonstrates. "You were reckless and selfish and arrogant."

"I'm sorry," Sam whispers.

Bobby steps down into the bedroom to get nose to nose with him – well, nose to chin, anyway. "Oh yeah? You're sorry you started Armageddon? This kind of thing don't get forgiven, boy. If by some miracle we pull this off? I want you to lose my number. Understand me?"

Whoa. Up until now, Possessed Bobby has sounded pretty much like the real Bobby, but this is the point at which unspoiled fans start to get suspicious. Bobby is a blunt man inclined toward plain speaking, but he is never cruel, and he loves both of these boys as the sons he never had. They are his family. Although he spoke extremely harshly to Dean in Lucifer Rising (unnecessarily so, in my opinion), although both his patience and his love for the brothers must surely have been strained right to their limits, and although anger over everything that has happened is understandable and perhaps inevitable, it is hard to believe that he would ever go so far as to irrevocably cast either one of them off as unforgivable.

This is not Bobby speaking, however – but the brothers don't know that, and what is crucially important about this scene is how each of them reacts to the tirade they believe is genuine and heartfelt on the part of their old friend. Neither one offers as much as a word of protest or argument. Sam does not try to defend himself, and Dean does not try to defend his brother, shows barely any reaction to the tirade whatsoever.

Sam believes, absolutely, that he deserves every word of censure Bobby might see fit to throw at him and then some, and is absolutely prepared to accept this rejection as his due, no matter how painful. And Dean…well, however hard Dean has sought to avoid confronting Sam over what he has done, as angry and disappointed as he is he cannot bring himself to argue against someone else punishing the brother he has felt unable to punish himself. Although unable to remonstrate with Sam himself, he wants his brother to hear this, to be told in plain language just how much damage he has caused and to know that he understands.


Sam is absolutely devastated, but takes this rejection as no less than he deserves, blinks back tears, and nods his agreement with the condemnation. "There's an old church nearby," he tearfully notes, unable to look either Bobby or Dean in the eye. "Maybe I'll go read some of the lore books there."


Lore books. Lore books. I'm sure it's a descriptive enough definition. It just…sounds a little, well, amusing to me. And vaguely weird.

Bobby agrees with this suggestion, and a downcast Sam gathers up a few volumes and heads for the door. Dean watches him go in absolute silence.

Outside

A doleful Sam trudges away, feeling like he hasn't got a friend in the world and wouldn't deserve them even if he did.


He hasn't got any books with him though, lore or otherwise. So much for researching elsewhere.

Inside. Later

Bobby and Dean continue to research together, Dean still utterly oblivious to the fact that his old friend is possessed.


"I never would have guessed that your daddy was right," Bobby sadly remarks.

"About what?" Dean asks, not taking his eyes off the page he is at least pretending to read.

"About your brother," Bobby replies, and Dean freezes for a second, then turns wary eyes upon the older man as he continues, "What John said – 'save Sam or kill him' – maybe…"

"Maybe what?" Dean sharply asks, frowning, not liking what he is hearing.

Bobby fidgets uncomfortably. "Maybe we shouldn't have tried so hard to save him."

"Bobby," Dean gruffly protests, looking away.


Dean was not prepared to speak up in Sam's defence when Bobby effectively banished him, and he now knows that there are far worse things than Sam dead – but he is not prepared to agree that Sam should be dead, that they might all be better off it he was. That is a very large step too far. It isn't easy, hearing such words from the lips of a trusted friend, someone who has also been affected by Sam's actions – an outside opinion of what Sam has done, external to Dean's personal hurt.

"He ended the world, Dean," Bobby argues – and you know, it is a strong argument, on the face of it, although Sam bears only a portion of the blame. "And you and I weren't strong enough to stop him proper. That's on us. I'm just saying: your dad was right."

Oh, there's a nice touch, twisting the knife by turning the blame back onto Dean, as well as telling him he should have followed his father's advice and killed Sam long before he got to this point.

Once upon a time, words of praise from John were what made Dean realise that his father was possessed. Words of poison from Bobby's lips should perhaps do the same, were Dean not so bitterly disappointed in the brother who betrayed him so badly or so willing to allow others their right to react badly to the consequences of Sam's poor choices. That doesn't mean he is prepared to agree, however, or to like what he is hearing – the demon is attempting to set brother against brother once more, but the attempt is unsuccessful.

Dean looks sullen, listening to Bobby's harsh words – but those words suddenly strike a chord and he realises something, being focused more on the task at hand than the painful immediate past, despite the demon's best efforts at turning the emotional knife. So instead of arguing the point (or not), he jumps up to search through his duffle until he finds a little zip-loc bag full of bits and pieces scavenged from John's storage unit in upstate New York. He pulls a business card out of the bag, and is adorably exultant.

Dean shows the card to Bobby, who reads it, as instructed. "Castle Storage, 42 Rover Hill."


Is that meant to be the address for the storage unit in Buffalo, as seen in Bad Day At Black Rock? Or a different unit that the brothers found out about thanks to this business card that they maybe found at the one in Buffalo? It isn't clear.

"Castle on a hill of 42 dogs," Dean interprets, cutely proud of his deductions.

"So you think your dad had the Michael sword all this time?" Bobby frowns.

At this point, hearing this, first time viewers groan at the thought of such a ludicrous coincidence, on top of all the other coincidences we have been asked to swallow of late.

Dean doesn't know, but he doesn't know what else Chuck could have meant.

Bobby nods thoughtfully, decides this is good enough for him – then hauls off and plants an almighty uppercut on Dean's chin, sending him flying across the room.

Whoa. That's one way for the demon to announce itself!

Dean crashes through the mini rail at the edge of the dais and bounces off the bed before hitting the floor.

Boy does get beat up an awful lot.

While Dean is still on the ground, dazed and winded, Possessed Bobby hauls him back to his feet, just so he can kick him across the room with a boot to the abdomen. That's got to hurt. Dean crashes through the wooden door of the closet, this time.

Possessed Bobby's eyes shine demon black as he menacingly advances once more, just to make sure we've all got the message loud and clear.


I still want to know how this happened? How on earth did Bobby of all people come to be possessed? He is the show's resident demon expert, and famously paranoid to boot. His recent emotional turmoil would leave him vulnerable, sure, but his physical precautions and defences should still have protected him? Did the demons manage to sneak past all his defensive measures somehow? Did they ambush him on the road? What? How? Alas, we are never told.

As Bobby hauls Dean back to his feet and out of the closet once more, another couple of demons wander into the room, one male and one female.

Door wasn't locked and there were no anti-demons defences in place, then.

The female demon mocks, "I always knew you were a big, dumb, slow, dim pain in the ass, Dean. But I never dreamt you were so VIP." Seeing the demon-killing knife nearby, she picks it up and toys with it. "I mean, you're going to ice the Devil? You?" She laughs, runs the edge of the blade across his cheek as he is held in place by Possessed Bobby, straining against the demon's iron grip. "I'd have known that, I'd have ripped your pretty, pretty face off ages ago."


"Ruby?" Dean guesses, despite the fact that he killed Ruby with that very knife not 24 hours ago – he is still a little dazed in the wake of Possessed Bobby's assault, after all.

"Try again," the demon teases. "Go back further."

Dean recognises her now, furrows his brow in alarm. "Meg."

You know, it really isn't fair that they still use that name for this demon. It serves to identify her, sure, but the name belonged to an innocent victim whose body she used for a while, rather than to the demon itself.

The new actress, Rachel Miner, does a good job in the role – it is easy to picture Nicki Aycox delivering the same lines, or even Jared Padalecki, for that matter. The dialogue is well written for the character, while the actress brings to it all the right inflexions and intonations. Nicely played. The strong characterisation of this demon, recognisable as she is no matter what body she wears, is just one of the things that make her a much more effective antagonist than Lilith ever was.

Meg smiles faux-coyly. "Hi. These are the days of miracles and wonder, Dean. Our Father is among us – you know, we're all dreaming again for the first time since we were human? It's heaven on earth. Or hell. We really owe your brother a fruit-basket."

It sounds like someone is well and truly back on board with the master plan, having strayed briefly from that path in the pursuit of personal revenge back in season two – well, of course, the master plan now pretty much coincides with that personal revenge now, allowing her to kill two birds with one stone.

"My God, you like the sound of your own voice," Dean grunts.

"But you, on the other hand," Meg continues, exactly as if he hadn't spoken – thereby pretty much proving his point. "You're the only bump in the road. So every demon, every single one, is just dying for a piece of you."

Dean smiles grimly, recognising the probable truth in that statement. "Get in line."

"Oh, I'm in the front of the line, baby," Meg croons. "That's right."

Holding his head in place, she leans in for a quick snog – which is very in character, as we've seen this demon making full use of her sexuality as a means of intimidation in the past – and Dean grimaces his disgust, unable to pull away.

Once the demon releases him, Dean runs his tongue around his mouth, while determinedly maintaining his snark. "What was that? Peanut butter?"

"You know, your surrogate daddy is still awake," Meg cruelly taunts. "Screaming in there. And I want him to know how it feels, slicing the life out of you."

Interesting. Can every demon hear the internal screaming of every other demon's host? They can all read minds, I suppose. But how does that work when there is another demon in residence? Do they sense the mind of the human host but not that of the demon, somehow, since they clearly aren't able to read one another's thoughts? I wonder if they can also hear the thoughts of angelic hosts.

It is interesting that Meg, who hates Dean so very intensely, should grant the kill to one of her minions instead of doing it herself – but it is very in character for her to want to cause as much pain as possible, and by playing it this way she gets to maximise the suffering for both Dean and Bobby, who she no doubt also bears a grudge against.

As Meg hands the knife over to Possessed Bobby, Dean's alarm levels shoot up. There are three demons here and he is completely defenceless against any one of them, mere mortal as he is. Eyes demon-black, Possessed Bobby presses the knife against his throat and Dean struggles to hold him off, backing right up against the wall.


While Dean strains to keep the knife from slicing his throat open, gasping almost incoherent pleas, Meg orders the kill now already, and Possessed Bobby raises the knife for the final blow. Dean cringes, raising his one free hand in a surely futile last ditch attempt at fending off that killing blow…


…and the demon black retreats from Bobby's eyes as he struggles and struggles against the demon inside, and then, instead of gutting Dean as ordered, because Bobby is badass like that, he finally manages to regain control over his own body just sufficiently to ram the knife into his own belly instead!


The demon expires in a crackle of red fire, and Bobby collapses to the floor.

Fangirls everywhere scream in horror.

Dean spares his old friend and surrogate father only the briefest of glances as he falls. There are two other demons in the room and this split-second element of surprise is the only chance he has against either them. He charges, lashing out with the heaviest punches he can manage, succeeding in knocking Meg down – but the other demon ducks the blow and comes up swinging, grabs him by the throat, slams him against the wall, then drops him and starts kicking.

Sam chooses this precise moment to wander back into the room. Maybe he finally realised that he didn't actually take any books with him and got bored with nothing to read. The first thing he sees when he walks into the room is Bobby lying on the floor with a knife sticking out of his belly, and he yells his horrified denial.


Meg promptly smacks him across the forehead with the telephone, which dings rather amusingly upon impact. Sam goes flying.

Demon Minion continues to kick the crap out of Dean.

"Heya, Sammy," Meg drawls. "Miss me? 'Cause I sure missed you."


Unlike his brother, Sam recognises her immediately. He knows this demon intimately, having been possessed by her once upon a time. Snarling, he aims a punch at her, but – since Sam always did suck at hand-to-hand – she ducks and catches him across the midriff on the uppercut.

The fight is on, two demons versus two Winchesters. It doesn't seem to occur to either demon to make use of their telekinetic powers to offer them an easy advantage in the struggle, for whatever reason. Maybe they just really enjoy the messiness of hand-to-hand combat, who knows? It seems slightly out of character for Meg, however, as she has never been reluctant to resort to her powers in combat in the past.

Demon Minion continues to kick Dean while he is down, over and over. Meg kicks Sam in the groin and then downs him with a swift uppercut to the chin. The fight is not going well for our boys.

"Not so easy without those super-special demon powers, huh, Sammy," Meg taunts after a few hefty punches to the face, gripping him by the throat.

You know, it would be really good to get some clarity on Sam's powers, preferably sooner rather than later. If his powers are an integral part of him, as a result of the demon blood he ingested as an infant, then they should not have simply vanished again even if the strain of killing Lilith did burn out the fresh dose he had just ingested. The quantities of demon blood he consumed last season demonstrably boosted his power, at the same time as keeping it unstable, but that power was already within him, albeit dormant, having been repressed for so long – it was a bit like adding fuel to a fire that was already simmering, or perhaps like a bodybuilder using steroids to pump himself up instead of enhancing his muscle tone more naturally. So why is he unable to access that power now? We saw that killing Lilith appeared to have burned him out, and he appears to have since had his system cleansed of the remnant of his most recent hit of blood. But it does not seem logical that his abilities would disappear completely as a result of no longer drinking the demon blood, even if he is unable to sustain the heights he attained last season without that boost.

So have his abilities become completely dormant again somehow? Will they begin to manifest once more once he has stabilised in the wake of his intense addiction? Is he completely burned out, does he just need time and space to recharge, has his mental block slid back into place – what? A little clear and consistent clarification on this point would be extremely useful!

Maybe it just doesn't even occur to him to even try to use his powers on Meg, having failed with Ruby just yesterday.

When Demon Minion finally stops kicking Dean for just a moment or two to gloat, or whatever, Dean retains enough presence of mind despite everything to kick the demon's legs out from under him – and then pulls the demon-killing knife out of Bobby's body and stabs Demon Minion through the heart.

Man, that's hardcore. He has to know that if Bobby isn't dead already then removing the knife from the wound could cause him to bleed out. But a soldier in the middle of a life-or-death struggle has to make hard, practical decisions in the heat of the moment, and this was one of them. That knife is the only weapon they have against demons and thus the only way to save his own and Sam's life, and it may already be too late for Bobby.

Shocked, seeing her advantage receding, it still doesn't seem to occur to Meg that she could use her telekinetic powers to fling the brothers around and thus regain both the knife and the advantage that way. Instead, outnumbered now – although that has never bothered her before – and seeing Dean advancing upon her with the bloody knife in his hand, she retreats, leaving her host body behind.

Okay. Meg has just abandoned her new host body and there is no reason at all why she should go back for it again instead of simply finding another one at her leisure. So if she shows up in the same body again, hard questions will have to be asked!

Pine Creek, Delaware. Nick's house

In a darkened room, a sombre Nick packs away baby clothes and toys into a large cardboard box, a sad, poignant gesture that speaks volumes as to this man's history. He had a family, and he lost them.


Nick is unnerved when a sudden breeze blows up through the open window and the baby's rocker nearby begins to swing back and forth all by itself, while the musical notes of a lullaby can be heard in the background. Creepy.

Looking tired and devastated, Nick crosses the room and puts out a hand to still the rocker. The music also stops. But then the sound of a baby gurgling and crying can be heard from the box of clothes and toys he just packed. Alarmed, Nick rifles through the contents of the box until he unearths a baby monitor, from which the sound is coming.

Nick is both deeply confused and deeply appalled. Baby monitor in hand, he makes his way to the nursery and stares at the crib. The baby can still be heard crying, but the sound is coming from the monitor, not from the crib. Then, as he flips on the light, the monitor in his hand falls silent.

Nick turns away once more – only for the crying to start up again. He turns back to the nursery…only to see blood pouring from the crib.

Nick is absolutely distraught, approaches the crib, sees what is inside – then falls to his knees, sobbing his grief.


The camera pulls back to reveal that the crib is empty.

Hospital

Dean and Sam rush Bobby into the emergency room and hand him over to a team of medics, who whisk him away.


Viewers are immensely relieved to see that Bobby's self-inflicted wound was non-fatal, or at least not immediately fatal. Although it was sufficient to kill the demon, he has at least given himself a fighting chance.

"We can't just leave him," Sam protests when a nurse prevents him from following Bobby off to the treatment room.

"Just don't move," she snaps, with the weary air of a woman who has seen the aftermath of such violence too many times. "We've got questions."

"Sammy, we've got to go," Dean urges as soon as the nurse has gone.

"No. No way, Dean," Sam protests. He turned his back on his family too many times last season, told himself that switching his emotions off made him stronger, but he has well and truly learned that lesson and is not prepared to make the same mistake again. He is more like his old self in this episode than he was for most of last season, in fact.

But now Dean is the one having to make the hard choices and prioritise according to the big picture. They have already done everything they can for Bobby by getting him to hospital and his fate is now out of their hands, and as much as they both must want to stay until they are sure he is out of danger, they are playing for greater stakes and cannot afford such luxuries. "The demons know where the sword is," he hisses. "We've got to get to it before they do, if we're not too late already. Come on."


Well, the demon that was possessing Bobby knew where the sword was, but is now dead – the assumption, I suppose, is that it must have telepathically communicated the information to the other demons before Dean killed it. Either that or Meg was listening in, or maybe lifted the information from Dean's head. The point is that the information is out there now, and with Lucifer also out there somewhere there is just no time to waste.

Dean charges off again, but Sam hesitates for a moment, torn, before following – and that's the Sam we knew of old, listening to his heart as well as his head. It is nice to see him again.

Road

The Impala roars its way through the night. How far it has to travel is anyone's guess, but chances are it will make the journey in record time. It usually does!

Rover Hill

Outside the storage lock up, the brothers gear up ready for whatever they might face inside.

Castle Storage

Well, so Dean not only has the address of the storage unit, he also has the key. I guess they really have been exploring John's secret hideouts, and must now be wondering just what they overlooked that could qualify as Michael's sword.

Inside, the first thing they find is a couple of dead demons sprawled inside a devil's trap.

Of course, it is too much to hope that one of them is Meg – from the brothers' point of view, that is. I enjoy Meg as an antagonist. She always was more effective than Lilith, for example. However, I have no doubt that the futures of both brothers would be easier if she were one of the dead demons currently lying before them!

Guns at the ready, the brothers cautiously advance into the room. Man, it almost hurts to see how effectively they work together as partners, even now, in spite of everything, casing the room in silent, efficient cooperation, no effort to it whatsoever.

"I see you told the demons where the sword is," a cheerfully reproachful voice chastises.

The brothers spin around to see Zachariah and his nameless, character-less flunkies standing nearby.


"Oh, thank God. The angels are here," snarks Dean, deeply un-amused.

Zachariah moves forward, stepping over one of the demonic corpses. "And to think, they could have grabbed it any time they wanted," he nonchalantly remarks, extending a hand to close the door tight, sealing the exit.

It does not escape the brothers' attention that their escape route has been cut off, and neither looks happy about it. Angelic confrontations are no less dangerous than demonic ones; they have learned that the hard way.

"Right in front of them," Zachariah breezily continues.

Sam obligingly picks up the cue and asks, "What do you mean?"


"We may have planted that particular piece of prophecy inside Chuck's skull," Zachariah blithely admits, yet another falsehood he has confessed to – and he is surprised that Dean doesn't trust him! "But it happened to be true. We did lose the Michael-sword – we truly couldn't find it. Until now. You just hand-delivered it to us."

Hang on. If it is possible for angels to plant false prophecies into Chuck's head, how can he, we or the brothers now know for sure that anything he foresees is authentic and not just another manipulation?

Dean is confused. "We don't have anything," he points out, understandably baffled, since he and Sam both are assuming that this sword is a physical object, an actual sword, as portrayed in artistic renditions of the Archangel.

Zachariah rolls his eyes. "It's you, chucklehead," he says, very slowly, as if speaking to a half-wit.

Silence. Both brothers stare at him in blank incomprehension – and who can blame them?

Zachariah's eyes are aglow with triumph. "You're the Michael-sword," he tells Dean.

Okay, so it is a little unclear on first viewing, but it seems that Sam's hex bags have worked perfectly, hiding the brothers from angels and demons alike. That was why Meg had to use Bobby to locate them. Since Zachariah wants to keep Dean at his disposal so very badly, whether willing to cooperate or not, it displeased him greatly when Dean suddenly vanished off the radar – like he just said, they truly couldn't find him. So instead of actively going out searching, which would be a bit like looking for a needle in a haystack, they made Dean come back to them – they planted a false prophecy in Chuck's head, spinning a half-truth and making it cryptic enough to seem genuine, and then simply had to sit and wait for Dean to arrive, hand-delivering himself to them in all ignorance of the fact.

That all makes sense, but the concept of Dean being Michael's sword? Not so much.

Dean looks well and truly gobsmacked by this unexpected information – and, again, who can blame him?

"What? You thought you could actually kill Lucifer?" Zachariah laughs, as condescending as ever. "You simpering wad of insecurity and self-loathing. No, you're just a human, Dean. And not much of one."

Man, Zachariah's true colours really do shine through more and more each time we see him, his superciliousness and sense of superiority, his absolute lack of respect, how much he despises humanity, the pleasure he gets from verbally abusing opponents as he attempts to browbeat them into submission. Dean is not as affected by the criticism as he would once have been, however, has hardened himself to such abuse and grown stronger, and has slightly more self-belief now than he did once.

And in a sense Zachariah is right. Dean is just a human – but the angel consistently underestimates what that means, and keeps underestimating Dean, not to mention overlooking Sam. That arrogance will be his downfall in the end, I am sure of it.

"What do you mean, I'm the sword?" Dean growls, infuriated by all this cryptic double-talk, and understandably so since it is impossible to trust a word Zachariah says at the best of times – he inevitably later reveals that he was either hiding something or outright lying. Plus, the concept of Dean being Michael's sword really does come right out of left field and makes little or no sense at all.

Sam, meanwhile, is hanging back, looking shocked and alarmed in turns as he reacts to the ongoing confrontation, but playing no active part in the conversation himself. He is simply leaving it all to Dean, since Dean is the brother currently brimming with confidence and with truth and righteousness on his side, Dean is the brother the angels are interested in, and Sam has yet to pick himself back up in the wake of his catastrophic failure.

"You're Michael's weapon," Zachariah briskly explains. "Or, rather, his receptacle."

Dean puts two and two together. "I'm a vessel?" he disbelieves.


What? That…makes no sense. It was established way back in Lazarus Rising that Dean is not one of the special few able to withstand the true visage of an angel, and it makes no sense at all that there would be two different types of special people, one group capable of being angelic vessels and another able to communicate with angels in their true form. It is just too convoluted and implausible a notion to be given credence. If Dean was unable to tolerate Castiel's true voice, he should not be able to serve as the vessel of any angel, and if he is special enough to be an angelic vessel, he should have been able to communicate with Castiel without the angel taking a host. I doubt, however, that this inherent contradiction in the text will ever be resolved.

"You're the vessel," Zachariah declares. "Michael's vessel."

Again – what? The mythology surrounding angels and angelic possession really is becoming strained now. It keeps changing, the rules tightening and narrowing all the while, and although I generally appreciate the peeling back of layers and the adding of flesh onto bones, where the angels are concerned this new information rarely if ever translates smoothly back onto previously established fact. As a result, with coincidence and contradiction abounding, credibility and credulity is being strained just a little too far for my comfort – hindsight should add depth and meaning to the re-watching experience of past episodes, not require ever increasing feats of rationalisation or ever greater suspension of disbelief.

I really hope for clarification further down the track, because as things stand this new development does not sit easily with me at all. If it was just about Michael, that would be one thing – if somehow the fact of Dean being the first Seal was what made him very specifically matched to Michael as his vessel, because of mystical destiny rather than genetics, I could just about buy that. However, angelic vesseldom has now been presented to us as a matter of genetics, while the Lucifer storyline within this episode also states that all angels have one particular person they are matched to as a vessel, implying that this is a very particular rule. And this makes no sense to me in terms of the history and established canon of the show.

Let us take Castiel and his host as an example. When we first met Castiel he told us that his host was a devout man who had prayed for this, had offered his service, and we pictured the angel having to find such a suitably devout man before he could approach Dean, his first efforts at communication having failed. I could buy that. Then we were told that this devout man also had to have a very specific genetic quirk to qualify him as a vessel. It's a stretch, but again I could just about buy that, although the presence of such a suitably devout man with this very specific special blood in the exact town where Dean just happened to have been buried was what you might call an unlikely coincidence.

At the same time, however, it was also implied that Castiel had in fact been grooming that very specific and special devout man since long before he could ever have known that he would need a vessel – not so much because the ongoing storyline required that detail but for the purposes of expanding Jimmy's one-off story. The logic begins to fall apart here, Jimmy's story being full of inconsistencies, and the timing of the whole thing is extremely implausible. That Jimmy just happened to have his final crisis of faith at the exact moment that Castiel needed to take him as a host? My credulity is being stretched to its limits. And now on top of all that we are told that each angel has only one specific human (or bloodline) 'matched' to them as a possible host. But that the one specific man capable of being Castiel's host just happened to live in the same town where Dean was buried and resurrected? It's a stretch too far. I can't buy it. And these new developments also mean that, despite Castiel making such a big deal out of it, Jimmy's being devout actually had nothing to do with his status as an angelic vessel whatsoever, except inasmuch as being devout made it that much easier to persuade him to say yes.

What about Zachariah's host, Mr Adler? When we first met Zachariah it seemed entirely plausible that he had simply slipped into the most convenient body available – that of a manager at the company chosen for Dean and Sam's little break away from reality. Now, though, hindsight tells us that we are either expected to swallow that Zachariah's one true host just happened to work at a suitably haunted corporation, or that he must have inserted yet another character into that scenario, having acquired his vessel elsewhere. The implausibilities are mounting up.

So now we have this storyline twist regarding Dean, which again does not sit well with previously established fact. First we were told that only certain, special people can withstand the true voice and form of an angel, and Dean isn't one of them. This made perfect sense – one of Dean's strongest attributes has always been that he isn't special in any way; he is just an ordinary human being caught up in extraordinary events because he chooses to fight rather than hide, with nothing but his convictions to support him. Then we were told that Dean is the only person who can defeat Lucifer specifically because he broke the first Seal in hell; it is a matter of prophecy, a mystical connection. Again, I can buy that.

But now we are told that the way Dean is expected to defeat Lucifer is by becoming a vessel for the Archangel Michael. However, since it has been established that the ability of a human to be the vessel of an angel is linked to their blood, a genetic quirk, this logically means that Dean's destiny to defeat Lucifer has nothing to do with him being the first Seal after all, but is a destiny he was born with. Yet the prophecy reads specifically that the man who breaks the first Seal will also be the man to defeat Lucifer. So does that mean that only the man capable of being Michael's host could possibly break that first Seal, and therefore that it has nothing to do with his righteousness, despite this being the stated criteria, that Dean and Sam both just happened to come from the specific bloodline matched with Michael as his potential vessels? Or are we are supposed to believe that by breaking the first Seal Dean became the special individual capable of hosting Michael, a mystical issue unrelated to his blood, despite this being the stated criteria for all other angelic vessels – in which case, as mentioned earlier, having become special in this way, he should still have also been able to communicate with Castiel without him requiring a vessel.

Bottom line: Dean is either special because he broke the first Seal or because of something in his blood – they can't have it both ways. The level of coincidence is too high, a contradiction of established fact and also a massive stretch of credulity, asking us to believe in pre-destination on a massive scale – something Show has always been at pains to avoid in the past, coming down instead in favour of free will and random chance. I just cannot buy it.

By adding rule after illogical rule to their universe, for the sake of facilitating the story of the moment rather than building on what has already been established, and thus narrowing the scope of angelic possession all the while, the writers are setting this mythology up as a decidedly unstable house of cards. I am having a really hard time buying all these new layers, which don't feel like adding flesh to the bones of what we have already learned, but rather an attempt to replace those bones with something new that simply doesn't fit, leaving the credulity bubble in serious danger of bursting. Bottom line: the writers need to pick a rule and stick to it, instead of changing the rules slightly almost every time they come up.

Okay, rant over – I am now going to reserve further judgement until the twist in the tail of this development, which will presumably be revealed at a later date.


Dean struggles to understand. "How? Why me?"

"Because you're chosen," Zachariah reminds him, trying hard to enthuse the deeply reluctant prospective vessel toward his intended destiny, with the air of a cheerleader trying to instil a bit of motivation in a losing team. "It's a great honour, Dean."

Predictably less than thrilled with this revelation, Dean begs to differ. "Oh yeah. Yeah. Life as an angel condom. That's real fun. I think I'll pass, thanks."

Zachariah simply does not understand him. "Joking," he mutters in disbelief. "Always joking. Well, no more jokes." He holds up a hand in the guise of a gun, levels it at Dean, and then swings around to point at Sam – specifically, at Sam's legs. "Bang," he says, and Sam collapses with a yell of agony and the sickening crack of snapping bones.


"You son of a bitch!" Dean protests, outraged.

"Keep mouthing off, I'll break more than his legs," Zachariah threatens.

Dean stares from his downed brother to the angel in rising alarm.

"I am completely and utterly through screwing around," Zachariah grimly menaces. Oh, yeah, he's an excellent antagonist, and the more so now that he is no longer even pretending to play nice. "The war has begun; we don't have our general. That's bad. Now, Michael is going to take his vessel and lead the final charge against the Adversary. You understand me?"

"How many humans die in the crossfire, huh?" Dean furiously demands, incensed at the prospect of such planetary slaughter purely because angels and demons alike have apparently got nothing better to do with their eternities than throw an Apocalypse by way of pissing contest. "A million? Five? Ten?"

"Probably more. If Lucifer goes unchecked, you know how many die?" Zachariah shrugs. "All of them. He'll roast the planet alive."

The trouble with this statement is that Zachariah has already proved that his word cannot be trusted – for that matter, his claim that Dean is destined to become Michael's vessel must also be considered suspect, given that he has never yet been known to tell the full and unvarnished truth. Zachariah's principle MO is to spin half-truths and lies of omission in support of his own ambitions, and this means that everything he says must be taken with a large pinch of salt.

At the very least, it is plain that all angelic plans are based largely on assumptions: they know Lucifer of old and are predicting his actions in the present based on that long-ago past, and they have their prophecies to guide them – or, rather, they have their own interpretations of various prophecies to guide them, interpretations that may or may not be valid – and have formed their strategy accordingly. Having not actually communicated with Lucifer in millennia they can't actually know how he will act upon his release, not for sure. They are guessing and presuming, whether accurately or not remains to be seen. And their willingness to bend prophecies to their own ends rather than allowing them to play out naturally has already been demonstrated.

We don't have our general, Zachariah said. That's an interesting way of phrasing it. Why is Michael unable to take part in the battle without a host? Can he not take Lucifer on without a human vessel? They are both in pure angel form at the moment, after all, and therefore should be evenly matched. Why does Lucifer need a human vessel to do whatever it is he wants to do now he is free? Why would he lower himself to take a human vessel in the first place, since his hatred of humanity is widely reported to be one of the main reasons he Fell in the first place? After all, he is hardly likely to care all that much about human casualties resulting from him cavorting around the planet in the buff, as it were. Why is Michael considered the only angel able to fight him, since the ability of any angel to kill any other angel, should they so wish, has already been demonstrated? What special powers does Lucifer have that other angels lack, that they should all be so afraid of him? Why the hell don't they all just gang up on him and have done with it? Are angels incapable of skirmishing in their pure form? Surely fighting would actually be easier for them without the constraints of a human body – it has certainly always looked that way in the past! As powerful as he has been declared to be, Michael should be more than capable of playing his part in the Apocalypse without a host; he just won't be able to interact directly with humans – which, let's face it, he shouldn't really need to do.

I would really like some clarification on a few of these points.

Dean stares at the angel, thinking fast. "There's a reason you're telling me this," he realises. "Instead of just nabbing me. You need my consent. Michael needs my say-so to ride around in my skin."

"Unfortunately, yes," Zachariah is forced to admit.

I do love about the angel mythology that the host has to give his or her consent before being possessed. It makes for a very clear distinction from demons, and an interesting comparison. When a demon chooses someone, it simply takes them, against their will. Angels have to ask permission, which in theory should make possession less of a violation, but in reality simply means that the angels have to work harder to secure their hosts, means they have to find a way of convincing their chosen one to say yes. Again we remember Castiel's initial statement regarding his host, back in Lazarus Rising: He's a devout man. He actually prayed for this, he said, making it sound as if his need and Jimmy's desire to serve came together in happy serendipity. The Rapture, however, showed us the rather grimmer truth behind that statement, showed us how hard Castiel had to work to gain the man's consent, devout though he was. He wore Jimmy down gradually, alienating him from his family and daily life along the way, and then drew the desired consent from him only when the man was finally at his wit's end.

Angelic definition of freely given consent is, in fact, pretty broad, given the lengths they will go to in order to secure it. In fact, it seems fairly clear that once they have chosen their vessel, especially bearing in mind that we now know that there isn't really any element of choice involved, having very specific humans matched to them somehow, they are not the slightest bit prepared to take no for an answer. They may need to ask permission to take on a human vessel, but they expect that permission to be given at their whim and are quite willing to force it.

There are a lot of angels wandering the earth in human vessels now, and these people cannot all have been both special and devout, as Jimmy was, so there has to have been a lot of hard talking and arm twisting going on to persuade all these individuals to say yes to angelic possession.

"There's got to be another way," Dean insists.


"There is no other way," Zachariah firmly declares. "There must be a battle. Michael must defeat the Serpent. It is written."

He really is hanging his hat on that apparent prophecy, isn't he? Is that because he believes in it so strongly, having chosen to place his faith in the promised outcome of this Apocalypse in the absence of God, or is this merely how he has chosen to interpret one particular prophecy out of many possibilities, because this is the one that suits his ambitions the most?

Throughout this conversation, the camera keeps cutting back and fore to Sam, still writhing around in pain on the ground, watching this furious debate closely and reacting to it with fear and deep concern, but staying right the hell out of it. He just is not a part of this at all, and is not about to make himself part of it. But if Zachariah wins this argument, Sam loses his brother, that's the long and the short of it, while for as long as Dean maintains his opposition, Sam's own life remains in peril.

Dean takes another quick glance down to see how Sam is doing, but maintains his fierce resolve. "Yeah, maybe," he acknowledges. "But on the other hand…eat me. The answer's no."

Zachariah considers this. "Okay," he says. "How about this: your friend Bobby, we know he's gravely injured. Say yes and we'll heal him; say no, he'll never walk again."

Now, this bit is pretty vague. Is Zachariah saying that Bobby is going to be paralysed as a result of his self-inflicted injury and is offering to heal him if Dean agrees, or is he threatening a remote upgrade of Bobby's pre-existing injuries to paralysis? It really isn't clear. What is clear, however, is that Zachariah really does not understand the concept of freely given consent.

Sam gazes despairing up at Dean, who glares at the angel with hatred and despair in his eyes, hating himself, too, for the choice he has already made – but nonetheless determined not to sacrifice a single human life to this utterly pointless war that heaven and hell are so determined to hold, no matter what the consequences to him and his. "No."

"Then how about we heal you," Zachariah proposes. "From…stage four stomach cancer."

He says it idly, making up the threats as he goes along, just playing games to see what will work and how low he has to stoop, never once doubting that he will succeed in breaking this mere human in the end. He has no respect for Dean whatsoever, has never even attempted to understand him, and thus underestimates him enormously. He never once stops to consider that it took Alistair 30 years of torture to break Dean in hell, and he was a specialist. Zachariah is an amateur in comparison, even if he does have Dean's nearest and dearest to hold hostage – and this is where we see just how much Dean has grown and matured as a person. He has sacrificed too much for the people he loves already, knows how easy it has been for opponents to use this against him in the past, that it can be as much a weakness as a strength, and is not prepared to make that mistake again, not with the stakes this high.

Dean collapses in pain, coughing up blood. However, this is the most toothless threat of the lot. The angels need him alive, so they are hardly going to let him die. Zachariah just wants him in enough pain to forget that fact. "No," he grimly snarls through a mouthful of blood.

"Then let's get really creative," Zachariah shrugs. "Uh…let's see how Sam does without his lungs."

Dean whirls around in panic just in time to see Sam collapse; gasping for breath he is unable to draw.

"Are we having fun yet?" Zachariah nonchalantly menaces. He reaches down to grab hold of Dean's chin, forcing the human to look him in the eyes – oh, and Dean glowers furiously as he does so. "You're going to say yes, Dean," Zachariah insists.


"Just kill us," Dean grunts. It really is amazing to see his strength in this episode, and this scene in particular. Having somehow found the inner strength to pick himself back up in the wake of his devastating experiences in hell and their aftermath, his growth both as an individual and as a leader of men has been exponential in recent episodes.

Dean absolutely cannot and will not allow Zachariah to bully him into submission on this, no matter how much pressure the angel applies. The stakes are too great. The angels have been lying to him and manipulating him from the earliest days of his acquaintance with him, undermining whatever trust he might have been willing to place in them right from the start – even Castiel, for all that Dean has come to think of him as a putative ally and friend. Dean swore obedience to the angels once, at the zenith of his despair, and was betrayed by them almost immediately, while Zachariah has already admitted that his interest in this Apocalypse is entirely self-serving rather than divinely ordained, and that he does not care in the slightest about human casualties, which must be Dean's first concern.

For all Zachariah's claims that human casualties would be minimised if Dean gave his consent to become Michael's vessel, it would be foolish in the extreme for Dean to place any credence in this statement, given the angel's track record, while Michael himself remains an entirely unknown quantity, possibly every bit as callous and self-serving as Zachariah. How many times now have Dean and Sam been told that their opponent's proposal is the only way out of a given predicament, only to prove otherwise by relying instead on their own ingenuity and resolve? Just because an individual makes a certain claim does not necessarily make it so. What is certain is that even if Dean agreed to become Michael's vessel, human beings would still die in their millions, and as Michael's vessel Dean would in fact become an agent of that destruction. For a man who has dedicated his life to saving others, the prospect is utterly abhorrent.

Moreover, by giving his consent to become Michael's vessel, Dean would be surrendering his free will and individual agency in their entirety – and there would be no going back. He would not have the option of pulling out of the deal if he decided he didn't like what Michael was doing. The Archangel would be free do to whatever he wanted, using Dean's body to do it, and Dean would have no further input whatsoever, would effectively be removed from the fight completely, unable to affect the outcome in any way, and, having given his consent, would still hold himself responsible for anything Michael did. It is a truly repugnant notion for Dean, who has always believed so strongly in the ability of each individual to choose their own fate, for better or for worse. The worst torment inflicted on him in hell was the stripping away of that ability to choose, as 30 years of agony wore him down until was incapable of resisting any longer, and thus he was made into the thing he had feared most: a monster preying on others. Having emerged from that devastating experience with mind and morals intact, he absolutely will not allow it to happen again, no matter how great the pressure laid on him. If he is going to fight in this war, he must fight as himself, in his own relative strength or weakness, and choosing his own path at each juncture.

This is true maturity: the ability to make this kind of decision and stick to it in the face of all pressure that might be brought to bear, refusing to allow even Sam to be his weakness any more.

"Kill you?" Zachariah steps back. "Oh no, I'm just getting started."

Before he can try anything else, however, a brilliant flash of light sears the air, and he spins around just in time to gape in horror as one of his random flunkies collapses, dead, with a hole through his throat.

Only an angel can kill another angel, we remember, and it is immediately revealed that it was Castiel who killed this one, apparently not so dead after all – and having found the inner strength and fortitude to slaughter a fellow angel, to boot. He really has picked his side and is sticking with it wholeheartedly now that he has joined the ranks of the resurrected, exclusive little club as it is.


The weapon he used looks a lot like that special angel-smiting scimitar used previously by Uriel, and by Anna to kill Uriel. Are all angels able to conjure them up at will, mystically, or do they have to acquire them from elsewhere somehow?

The other random flunky angel lunges at Castiel, who dodges and ducks and fights, while Dean writhes in pain from that end-stage stomach cancer Zachariah just gave him and Sam slowly suffocates nearby…and Zachariah just stands there, open-mouthed with disbelief. He is a bureaucrat, not a soldier, and it shows.

Wow. Castiel actually wins a fight – the first fight we have seen him win when not wearing the body of a little girl, in fact! He defeats and kills the second random flunky angel, and then turns to Zachariah.


Zachariah is still gaping. "How are you…?" he ventures.

"Alive?" Castiel finishes for him. "It's a good question. How did these two end up on that aeroplane? Another good question. 'Cause the angels didn't do it. I think we both know the answer, don't we?"

Zachariah is aghast. "No," he mumbles in disbelief. "That's not possible."

"It scares you," Castiel declares. "Well, it should."


The question of who raised Castiel is left intriguingly open-ended. He clearly believes that it was God who raised him, and Zachariah is left in fear and trembling at the suggestion. The full truth remains to be seen, however.

"Now put these boys back together," Castiel demands. "And go. I won't ask twice."

Wow, look at the difference in the Castiel we see here, freshly resurrected and burning with righteousness, compared with the subdued and cowed figure we saw in Lucifer Rising, torn between orders and conscience. Having made his choice and broken with the chain of command he now believes to be utterly corrupt, he is full of implacable resolve, as unyielding and uncompromising as when we first met him.

Zachariah wavers a moment longer – and then leaves, as ordered, with a rustle of unseen wings.

Castiel relaxes slightly, the first hint that he was not perhaps as confident in his actions and claims as appearances might suggest – he has gone right out on a limb here, made this bold stance supported by nothing but his own conscience and principles, and for a being with millennia of obedience behind him it is a deeply uncomfortable position to be in.

Dean and Sam pick themselves up off the floor, their angel-induced incapacitations completely reversed, as if they never were, and gape in amazement at the angel.


Castiel steps toward them. "You two need to be more careful," he says by way of hello.

"Yeah, starting to get that," Dean gasps, the blood still on his lips the only remaining trace of Zachariah's torture. "Your frat brothers are bigger dicks than I thought."

You know, Show really needs to find a new insult, instead of just using 'dick' all the time. I'm bored of the word, and, crude though it is, it has long since lost its power thanks to such overuse. These characters really need to expand their vocabularies!

"I don't mean the angels," Castiel cautions. "Lucifer is circling his vessel. And once he takes it, those hex bags won't be enough to protect you."

Lucifer is circling his vessel, he says, and this is a statement he can make with some authority, based on his own experience, because we have seen that Castiel did much the same thing to Jimmy in order to extract consent from him.

Then, without so much as a word of request, explanation or apology, Castiel plants a hand on each brother's chests and they both gasp in sudden pain.

"What the hell was that?" Dean protests.

"An Enochian sigil," Castiel calmly explains. "It'll hide you from every angel in creation. Including Lucifer."

Hmm. So if this sigil hides the brothers from every angel in creation, surely that must include Castiel himself. That could make future communication between them interesting.

"What? You just branded us with it?" protests Dean, who has been branded by Castiel once already, still clutching at his chest.

"No," the angel calmly explains. "I carved it into your ribs."

Heh. It speaks volumes for Castiel that this kind of behaviour remains fairly typical of him: a practical gesture, sure, but also a violation. That he could and should have asked permission first would not occur to him at all, and that kind of arrogance and thoughtlessness still sets him apart from the humans he has set his stall out with, makes it impossible even for a close ally like Dean to feel comfortable with him. He remains immensely unpredictable.

The looks on both brothers' faces are a picture: torn between indignation and wonder.

"Hey, Cas," ventures Sam. "Were you really dead?"

"Yes," says Castiel.

There's a short pause while the brothers wait to see if he is going to elaborate. Realising that he isn't, Dean asks the pertinent question: then how is he back? Castiel then looks Dean directly in the eye for just about the first time in this scene…and then vanishes with a flutter of unseen wings, without answering the question.

Way to maintain standards of cryptic!

The brothers are left alone in a room full of corpses. I really hope they think to dust for prints and to remove anything they might possibly need again before they leave, because I suspect it'll be a while before it's safe to come back here again.

Pine Creek, Delaware. Nick's house. Night

Nick is in bed, trying to sleep, when a ghostly voice starts whispering to him. "Baby. Nick."

He startles awake and sits up – to see a dark-haired woman wearing a white nightie standing at the foot of the bed. Yet another woman in white, and just to fit the colour coding she is both dead and evil. It is a manifestation of Nick's dead wife, conjured up by Lucifer to torment and tempt him.

"You're dreaming, Nick," she says. "But that doesn't mean this isn't real."

"Sarah," Nick murmurs, helpfully giving the apparition a name.

The false Sarah steps out of the shadows, smiling gently. "I'm not your wife," she freely admits. "I'm an angel. My name is Lucifer."

Nick stares incredulously at her for a moment. "Sure. Naturally," he snarks. "Could you do me a favour there, Satan, and remind me to quit drinking before I go to bed?"


So, Nick has been drinking. He is grief-stricken over the loss of his wife and child. He already suspects he may be losing his mind. He is enormously vulnerable to Lucifer's manipulations.

"I'm here because you're special, Nick," smiles False Sarah. "There's very, very few people like you."

You know, I might believe that were true if more and more random angels didn't keep popping up in meat suits all the time, none of them having apparently had any trouble whatsoever acquiring those vessels – except, of course, for Michael, who is evidently the only angel having trouble getting his chosen vessel to give consent. Not that he has actually tried asking directly.

I do, however, really appreciate the slant Show has taken on Lucifer, making him so soft-spoken and deceptively gentle, the better to reel people in.

Nick continues to regard the apparition with deep scepticism as she continues. "You're a vessel. A very powerful vessel."

Nick bites. "Meaning what, exactly?"

False Sarah steps toward him. "I need to take control of your mind and your body," she baldly states, and Nick's face falls even further than it already was. "To be honest, it'll probably be unpleasant for you," she continues. "But it is necessary."

Nick has heard enough. "Okay. If it's all the same to you, I think I'd like to wake up now."

"I told you: this is real," False Sarah says. "Don't be afraid. This is your choice." She sits on the bed beside him. "You need to invite me in."


"Even if this is real, which it is not," Nick begins, staring at her. "But assuming it was – why the hell would I do something like that?"

Good question.

"People misunderstand me," says Lucifer-Sarah. "You call me 'Satan' and 'Devil', but do you know my crime? I loved God too much. And for that he betrayed me. Punished me. Just as he's punished you. After all, how could God stand idly by while that man broke into your home and butchered your family in their beds? There are only two rational answers, Nick. Either he's sadistic, or he simply doesn't care."

Lucifer's origin story as told on this show has been pretty consistent so far, albeit told according to the bias of each individual storyteller. Once he was the most beautiful of all God's angels, but God demanded that he bow down before man, and when he refused, God banished him, said demon Casey in Sin City. In When The Levee Breaks, Ruby then elaborated on this story: Demon Sunday School story. God prefers humans to angels. Lucifer gets jealous, and then he gets creative. He twists and tempts a human soul into the very first demon, as a 'screw you' to God. It's what got him locked up in the first place.

Now we have Lucifer's own twist on the story with this claim that he was punished for loving God too much, avoiding all mention of his own fateful pride and resentment of humanity.

"You're angry," Lucifer-Sarah realises. "You have every right to be angry. I am angry too. That's why I want to find Him – hold Him accountable for His actions. Just because He created us doesn't mean He can toy with us like playthings."

Nick stares hopelessly at the wall, tears running down his face. "If I help you, can you bring back my family?"

"I'm sorry," Lucifer-Sarah whispers. "I can't. But I can give you the next best thing. God did this to you, Nick. And I can give you justice. Peace."

"How do I know you're telling the truth?" Nick wants to know.

"Because contrary to popular belief," says Lucifer. "I don't lie. I don't need to. What I need is you. Nick, I need you to say yes."

It is far too early to judge the validity of this statement, but is well worth pointing out that just because a being claims to never lie doesn't mean they are telling the truth – and also worth bearing in mind that appearing to a vulnerable man in the guise of his dead wife is in itself a form of deception, however frank the fallen angel has been about his truth identity. And even if Lucifer does avoid outright falsehoods, he is manifestly as capable of half-truths and lies of omission as any other being we have met, angels among them.

Nick weighs it up, thinking about his family, about the empty crib and empty rocker, the toys, the blood. He believes he has nothing to live for with his family gone and he also believes he has lost his mind. Surrendering his will is as attractive a prospect to him as it is repugnant to Dean. "Then yes," he whispers.

Moments later, the windows of his house light up with a flash of brilliant white light as Lucifer takes his vessel.


St Martin's Hospital

The camera pans along a random corridor until it reaches a private room, from which Bobby's irate voice can be heard yelling furiously at his doctor. "Unlikely to walk again? You snot-nosed son of a bitch! Wait till I get out of this bed! I'll use my damn leg to kick your frigging ass! Yeah, you'd better run!"

Okay, so it seems that Bobby is indeed as crippled as Zachariah said he would be, albeit in extreme denial about his condition at present, but it remains entirely unclear whether this paralysis is a direct result of his self-inflicted injury, the knife having nicked something vital, or if it was caused by Zachariah's remote interference.


The doctor makes a run for it, leaving Bobby alone with Dean and Sam, who are lurking at his bedside. Bobby turns to them. "Can you believe that yay-hoo?" he grumbles.

"Screw him, you'll be fine," Dean immediately agrees, king of denial as he always tends to be, while Sam twitches unhappily at his side and looks rather more pessimistic. Bobby gazes unhappily at them both, trying hard to maintain his levels of optimism, but not finding it easy.

"So let me ask the millions dollar question," says Sam. "What do we do now?"

Once again we see Sam looking for guidance, as he has done throughout this episode – both reluctant to trust in his own judgement and also trying to prove that he is well and truly part of the team again, as opposed to determinedly striking out alone as he tended toward last season.

"Well," Bobby tiredly proposes. "We save as many as we can for as long as we can, I guess. It's bad. Whoever wins, heaven or hell – we're boned."

"What if we win?" Dean interjects, and Bobby stares at him, dumbfounded while Sam blinks in surprise. "I'm serious," he insists. "Screw the angels and the demons and their crap Apocalypse. They want to fight a war? They can find their own planet. This one's ours, and I say they get the hell off it. We take them all on. We kill the Devil – hell, we even kill Michael, if we have to – but we do it our own damn selves."


Oh, Sam's face, listening to this little speech. He looks incredulous and he looks sceptical, but he also looks heartened, happy even – almost like a little kid, buying into his brother's bravado completely because it is what he wants to hear. This is the Dean that Sam has wanted to see ever since he went to hell in the first place, the Dean who always sounded strong and confident even if he didn't feel it, the gung-ho Dean that the Sam of old was accustomed to relying on so heavily and has missed so very much, who gave the impression of being able to clean up any and every mess with bluster and derring-do alone, if need be.

Bobby stares at Dean in disbelief. "And how are we supposed to do all this, genius?"

"I got no idea," Dean readily admits. "But what I do have is a GED and a given-'em-hell attitude. I'll figure it out."

GED, according to Wikipedia, stands for General Educational Development, and is a test of five core subjects to certify that the taker has high-school level academic skills. Only individuals who have not earned a high school diploma may take the GED tests.

Now, fans have long speculated over whether or not Dean would have bothered to finish high school – he wasn't all that far from it in the After School Special flashbacks, but also appeared to have been held back a year. So his statement here that he has a GED rather than a high school diploma is somewhat intriguing with regard to his back story.

Bobby looks over at Sam, who can only shrug, both of them deeply sceptical, but also amused – and decidedly cheered by the pep talk, in spite of themselves.

"You're nine kinds of crazy, boy," Bobby tells Dean, but he's smiling as he says it.

Dean concedes the point with absolute equanimity. "It's been said." He leans in to clap Bobby affectionately on the shoulder. "Listen, you stay on the mend. We'll see you in a bit."

As the brothers head for the door, Bobby calls Sam back. "I was awake," he gravely states, holding eye contact, solemn and compassionate. "I know what I said back there. I just want you to know that that was the demon talking."


It means a lot to Sam to hear this. He manages a tiny nod, while Dean stands behind him listening, looking sombre.

"I ain't cut you out, boy," Bobby firmly insists, still holding Sam's eyes. "Not ever."

Oh, Bobby. In the midst of his own personal crisis, facing a horribly uncertain future, he can still make this beautiful gesture, reaching out to Sam with love and compassion to offer the absolution he so desperately needs but does not believe he deserves. When Demon Bobby banished Sam, he did not argue at all, completely accepted that harsh punishment as his due – and that makes this gift, this assurance that he will always be loved, all the more precious.

Behind Sam, Dean fidgets, eyes downcast but listening intently. Dean hasn't cut Sam out either, can't and won't – but he also cannot forgive his brother the way Bobby just has. Not yet. Although Bobby was hurt by Sam's actions, it was on nowhere near the same kind of intensely personal level as Dean's hurt – he did not have to live through month after month of that steady drip-feed of deceit that Dean faced on a daily basis for much of last season, a slow, insidious and massively damaging degradation of trust. Bobby is considered family, and yet is an outsider, and that means he is perfectly positioned to be here for Sam right now in a way that Dean cannot – and it is as important for Dean as it is for Sam to see Bobby's forgiveness here, to see this reconciliation between the two people he loves most in the world, and be reminded that maybe there is hope for his own relationship with Sam after all, however hard it might be to see it at the moment.


Sam is deeply, deeply touched, and through tears whispers a heartfelt, "Thanks, Bobby."

"You're welcome," Bobby gently says, still holding that eye contact to be sure that Sam knows how sincere he is. "I deserve a damn medal for this," he adds, to lighten the moment. "But you're welcome."

He smiles – and Sam smiles back, the first genuine smile we've seen from Sam this episode, and maybe for quite some time before then. Sam's recovery has to start somewhere, and Bobby has given him that place to begin – although Dean's failure to reject him outright will have helped, as well.


The brothers depart, leaving Bobby alone with his non-functional legs. It will be really, really interesting to see what the future holds for Bobby now that his life has been so irrevocably changed, how he reacts to his incapacitation and what kind of role he manages to carve out for himself in spite of it.

Outside

"You know, I was thinking, Dean," says Sam as the brothers wander back to the Impala. "Maybe we could go after the Colt."

"Why? What difference would that make?" Dean frowns.

"Well, we could use it on Lucifer," Sam proposes.

Now that's an interesting thought – it has been quite some time since the Colt was even mentioned. It was last heard of way back in Time Is On My Side, when Bela mentioned that she had tried to trade it with Lilith in exchange for her life. Where it is now is anyone's guess, and whether it would even work on an angel, when nothing else has, is likewise a mystery. If the brothers could find it, it could maybe be worth a try, perhaps, and it would surely not have been mentioned if it weren't going to come up again in the future, but it does seem like something of a fool's errand to even try to go after it.

Sam continues, "I mean, you just said back there –"

"I just said a bunch of crap for Bobby's benefit," Dean flatly states. "I mean – I'll fight. I'll fight to the last man. But let's at least be honest – we don't stand a snowball's chance and you know that. I mean, hell, you of all people know that."

And just like that, the gung-ho but ultimately empty bravado of Bobby's hospital room is gone, replaced by cold, hard realism. Sam might have thrilled ever so slightly upon seeing what appeared to be a return of the old Dean, but the fact is that the Dean of earlier seasons, the Dean Sam wanted back so very much, was destroyed by his experience in hell. This is who he is now: less ebullient and less gung-ho but more open and more honest, more mature and more realistic, older, sadder and wiser. However much Sam may mourn for what his brother has lost, he needs to accept him for who he now is – and vice versa.

Having said his piece, Dean heads for the car again, but Sam calls him back. "Dean. Is there something you want to say to me?"

Sam looks weary. He must surely have that voicemail nagging away at the back of his mind; the one he still does not know was faked. Dean's attitude toward him throughout this episode has not matched the hatred expressed in that message, but his avoidance is nonetheless clearly masking a great deal of bitter anger and resentment, and Sam is afraid of it, but also wants to hear it, wants to know the worst – expects to hear the worst, because he feels that he deserves it.

And now that the immediate crisis is over, Dean relents, gives up his denial and admits how he feels, because this new Dean is remarkably open and honest, which is an extremely healthy development I hope he can hold on to, a clear sign of his emotional growth. He sighs sadly and then just says it, allows his emotional turmoil and distress voice. "I tried, Sammy. I really tried. But I just can't keep pretending that everything's all right. Because it's not. And it's never going to be. You chose a demon over your own brother. And look what happened."


This is a hugely important conversation. It has been apparent throughout this episode that the focus of Sam's guilt and remorse has, understandably perhaps, been centred on the outcome of his actions: the cold, hard, tangible fact of the final Seal breaking and Lucifer's release. What he has failed to understand, however, is that the fact of him breaking that final Seal, misinformed as he was, is a hell of a lot less important than how it came about – has failed to understand the degree to which he has hurt his brother, on a very personal and gut-wrenching, soul-deep level.

It wasn't breaking the Seal that did that – Dean broke a Seal himself, after all. It was the lies, month after month of bare-faced deceit, lying even about the fact that he was lying, even when Dean called him on it outright. It was the ever-increasing callousness and disrespect with which he treated his brother when he was at the most vulnerable he has ever been, dismissing him as too damaged to be worth listening to and belittling his pain rather than respond to it with the compassion he had promised. It was the arrogance with which he refused to listen to the opinion of anyone other than himself or to heed any warnings or advice along the way, even from an objective third party like Bobby. It was the brutality with which he assaulted his brother because he didn't like what he had to say, even going so far as to choke Dean when he was already down and defenceless. And it was the absolute rejection both of Dean as a brother and of everything that he stands for that was implicit in Sam's decision to trust instead in the seductive lies of a demon, in his decision to walk out on Dean and follow Ruby, in his narrow-minded pursuit of the goal Ruby had set for him even when Dean had swallowed his pride to call first and apologise (because Dean also doesn't know that the voicemail was altered) – even when Dean was standing outside the chapel screaming at him to stop. Sam turned his back on his own conscience and consciously chose to do something he knew to be monstrous, chose a demon over his brother, and there is no way he did not know up front what that would mean to Dean, to whom family loyalty means everything.

No, Sam has not yet grasped the magnitude of his betrayal, and facing up to it – if he can bring himself to do so – is going to be incredibly difficult for him, but if the rift between the brothers is to be realistically resolved then it does need to be addressed in some way.

It seems evident that Sam's story this season is going to revolve around a redemption arc: he made a terrible mistake, and now he must learn to live with the consequences. I really hope that his development will include finally achieving true maturity, which should include a greater understanding of the balance between being a strong and independent individual and functioning as a member of a team, with all the give and take that involves. Equally, Dean's arc for the season needs to include coming to terms with his disappointment in Sam and learning to trust his brother once more, both his word and his judgement. Meanwhile, both brothers need to learn to accept the changes in one another and to appreciate each other for who they have become rather than who they once were or wanted one another to be, until they finally, hopefully, reach the stage where they are able to approach each other on a truly equal footing, as partners who may no longer be dependent on one another but instead choose to be together for far healthier reasons.

And what is really important to note about this scene is that Dean is not placing any blame on Sam here. This is not about accusation and it is not about judgement. He is simply expressing how he feels, which is what Sam wanted him to do. Dean needs to say it, because only by acknowledging how he feels can he possibly hope to heal, and Sam needs him to say it, because only by understanding the full extent of what he has done can Sam fully own his mistake and begin to make amends. It might hurt, but it is healthy for both brothers to get what happened between them out in the open.

"I would give anything, anything to take it all back," Sam despondently but oh-so sincerely pleads.


"I know you would," Dean assures him, holding eye contact, like Bobby before him.

Dean knows that this is hurting Sam. It hurts Dean, too. But he has to be honest. He can't change how he feels any more than he can change anything that has happened. Dean has also made mistakes, but in the main this damage was caused by Sam and they both have to live with it; it isn't going to go away just by wishing for it.

"And I know how sorry you are, I do. But, man," Dean fights back tears as he continues, so choked up he can barely even speak. "You were the one that I depended on the most. And you let me down in ways that I can't even…"

He can't even say it, the pain is so raw. It all only just happened: it is still less than a week since The Rapture, four intense episodes worth of spectacular downward spiral compressed into those scant few days, and the non-stop crisis of this past week has come at the end of a truly horrendous year – which in turn followed on from the most horrific experience for Dean that anyone alive has ever experienced, decades of unremitting agony in hell.

"I'm just…I'm having a hard time forgiving and forgetting, here. You know?" he brokenly concludes.

Sam can only nod, too utterly scoured clean to even react. It hurts like hell, but this is the consequence of Sam's decision to push his brother away, to lie, and to choose Ruby. He did it to himself – did it to them both, in fact. The damage that has been done does not go away just because Sam is sorry for it now, and neither should it. It is going to take a long time for either of them to recover from this, but the more measured that process the healthier the end result will be.

"What can I do?" Sam murmurs, plaintive and heartfelt and determined to own his mistakes, to take responsibility and at least attempt to make things right again. He just does not know where to even begin.

Dean can only smile wryly. "Honestly? Nothing," he sadly replies. It is hard for them both, but this needs to be said: they have to face up to it, or they can never get past it. "I just don't…I don't think we can ever be what we were. You know? I just don't think I can trust you."

Having said his piece, Dean climbs into the Impala, but Sam just stands there, stricken and miserable as the full weight of what he has done comes crashing down upon him.


Man, it is so painful! And yet, as much as it hurts to see how deep the rift between the brothers has become, this is a surprisingly positive scene, not least because it is so very honest. I don't think we can ever be what we were, Dean says – but let's face it, they shouldn't go back to what they were. What they were was intensely unhealthy and stupendously broken. Dean is not ready yet to forgive and forget, and that is completely understandable – he has every right not to trust Sam, to be resentful and angry with his brother at the moment, and moreover he needs to face these emotions and let them out if he is ever going to get past them and move on.

However, all hope is not lost. This is how Dean feels right now, in the immediate aftermath of Sam's betrayal, the hurt still fresh and raw – it is the first time we have ever seen Dean unable to forgive his brother, peacemaker of the family as he has always been, and that in itself stands as clear evidence for just how badly hurt he has been. Nothing can ever undo the damage that has been done…but Dean won't always feel this way. Time is a great healer, and time is precisely what the brothers have not yet had.

I continue to hope and believe, however, that the brothers can in time move past these devastating experiences to build a new and healthier, more mature relationship some day. Both the love and the will are still there, and as long as the lines of communication remain open, given time, they at least stand a chance of achieving it, and I look forward to that day.



September 2009


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