Previously: A ghostly priest who was convinced he was an angel doing God’s work convinced a bunch of gross poor people to murder creepers.
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Born Under a Bad Sign
Kirsti: Dean stands next to the Bromobile by an underpass and phones Ellen in a panic. Sam’s been missing for days, there’s no sign of him, and Dean’s freaking the fuck out because it’s like Papa Winchester all over again. Ellen hasn’t heard anything. Dean’s phone beeps and he looks at the screen to see an incoming call from Sam. He answers, then tells Sam to calm down because he’s on his way.
Crappy motel. Sam hangs up the phone and stares at his bloody knuckles. Dean Bromobiles his way to Sam. He reaches the motel and rushes to Sam’s room. He panics a little when he finds blood all over Sam’s shirt, but Sam assures him it’s not his.
He has no idea whose it is, though, because he can’t remember anything.
FLAME ON!
After the Not Credits, Dean comes back from asking around and informs Sam that he checked in two days ago as Richard Sambora. He judges Sam’s new found Bon Jovi love before going on to say that no one’s noticed anything, not even Sam wandering around covered in blood. Dean says they can deal with it, but Sam disagrees. What if this is what Papa Winchester warned Dean about? What if he hurt someone? Dean asks him about the last thing he remembers, and they resolve that it was over a week ago. Dean’s shocked. Then contrivance orders him to pull back the curtains and he finds a bloody fingerprint on the window frame.
Cut to outside. The boys wander around looking for clues. Sam spots a garage and says that it seems familiar. Dean tugs on the padlock and Sam finds a key to it in his pocket. Inside the garage, they find a beaten up Beetle. Sam finds more blood on the steering wheel, so they know he was driving it. Dean finds a blood-covered knife in the back seat and Sam looks increasingly worried. There’s a packet of cigarettes in the back seat too, so Dean’s convinced there was someone else there. Sam finds a receipt from a petrol station a few towns away (side note: how do they ALWAYS know what the surrounding towns are?? I barely know where half the suburbs in Melbourne are and I’ve lived here most of my life), and they set off.
At the petrol station, nothing feels familiar to Sam. They head inside to ask questions and the clerk tells Sam to GTFO. Apparently he turned up drunk the previous day, started swigging booze directly from the bottle, and then threw it at the clerk’s head. Dean’s all “…this guy? Really?” Sam tries to apologise but the clerk threatens to call the cops. Dean sends him to wait by the Bromobile. Once Sam’s gone, Dean asks the clerk which way Sam went the previous day. The clerk, after a spot of blackmail, says Sam went north.
The boys head north, Sam staring out the window. He spots a road that looks familiar, and tells Dean to turn down it. They follow the road to a big house with lots of security cameras. They go to knock on the door but find a broken window and a disabled security system. Inside, they discover the body of a middle aged man, throat slashed. They both look horrified, and Sam says that he’s responsible. Dean insists that they don’t know that, but Sam’s sure. He picks the lock on a cupboard across the room and finds a typical hunter’s stash of knives and firearms. Not only did he kill someone, but he killed a hunter.
Dean spots a security camera on the ceiling and decides they should see what happened for themselves. He cues up the tape and they watch Sam storm into the room, fight the man, and slit his throat. Sam stares at the screen in shock. Fade to black.
After the Not Commercial Break, Sam sits contemplating what he’s done while Dean rushes around on clean up duty because other hunters are bound to turn up at some point. Sam finds a letter from the guy’s daughter and gets extra feels. Dean smashes the computer so that no one can see the footage. Cut to a motel. Dean tells his brother to get some sleep before they get the hell out of town. Sam can’t sleep because MURDERER. Dean insists that it wasn’t him, no matter what the video showed.
Sam’s not so sure – he’s been having ragey feelings for weeks and they’ve been getting worse. He feels like he’s becoming who the Yellow-Eyed Demon wants him to be. He grabs a shotgun from his bag and hands it to Dean, saying that Dean promised. DUDE, NO. YOU CANNOT PUT THAT ON YOUR BROTHER WHO’S ALREADY FUCKED UP ABOUT BEING RESPONSIBLE FOR HIS FATHER’S DEATH.
After a fade-to-unconsciousness-black moment, Dean wakes to someone banging on the door. It’s the motel manager, asking him to leave the room so an embarrassed businessman and the hooker with him can use it. Dean asks if the manager’s seen Sam, and contrivance dictates that he saw him drive off in the Bromobile like six hours earlier. Dean asks to use the motel computer, and we cut to him doing so in the lobby while the manager counts a wad of bribery money. He rings the phone company and tells them that he’s desperate to find his diabetic son, Sam, and could they please turn on the GPS in his phone. They do so, and he’s in Duluth, Minnesota.
Cut to a bar in Duluth. Jo(!!!!) is closing up when Sam walks in. She doesn’t look particularly welcoming when she sees who her late-night customer is. He asks for a beer and she reluctantly hands one over before continuing her cleaning. She asks what he’s doing there, and he says he wants to make things right between them. He takes his jacket off as he says this, and she spots a Q shaped burn on his forearm.
Sam says that he understands how she feels about Papa Winchester and what he did to her father, but he’s not his dad. Jo asks about Dean, and he says that Dean’s far more like Papa Winchester. She gives him a look, and Sam’s all “Wow, you totally have a crush on Dean, huh??” When she looks uncomfortable, he goes off on this dickish ramble about how Dean only thinks of her as a little sister and he’s only telling her this because he cares about her.
He puts his hand over hers and says suggestively that he cares a lot. I make Jennifer Lawrence’s disgusted face. Jo tries to pull away but Sam won’t let go. She tells him to leave and he spins her around and pins her to the bar, face down. She grabs for a beer bottle but he smashes it. She screams and I break out our “that’s rape asshole” tag. Also MISOGYNY SHOTS because the last time we saw Jo, she was basically a self-rescuing badass princess and now she’s been brought back solely as a victim for Sam. UGH. Anyway, Sam knocks her out and strokes her hair creepily as we fade to black.
After the Not Commercial Break, Jo comes to as Sam ties her to a pole. He creepily asks what Ellen told her about her father’s death. Eventually she says that her dad was the bait while Papa Winchester hid. The monster showed up, Papa Winchester jumped too early, the monster killed her dad. Sam leans in and says that’s not the full story. Her dad was all clawed up, but he was still alive and begging to see Ellen and Jo. Papa Winchester had to put him out of his misery. Jo cries as Sam sing-songs:
She asks why he’s doing this, and he says she’s bait before shoving a gag in her mouth.
Dean bursts in, gun raised. Sam holds a knife to Jo’s throat, his expression changing from calm to panic. He begs Dean to stop him. Dean lowers his gun, and Sam’s all “The fuck? You’d rather let Jo die than kill your brother?” Dean responds by pulling out a flask and squirting Sam with holy water. Steam pours up and when Sam lifts his head, his eyes are black. He dives out a window and runs. Dean stops to free Jo before dashing after Sam.
In a warehouse, Dean and Demon!Sam stalk each other, shouting taunts. The demon’s been in Sam since he disappeared, and it didn’t kill Dean because this was a test to see if he’d kill his brother. Now that it knows he won’t hurt Sam, it’s going to go kill hunters who get lured in by Sam’s puppy dog eyes. It heads outside onto a dock and Dean follows. When he gets outside, Demon!Sam jumps out and shoots him in the shoulder. He falls into the water. Demon!Sam peers over the edge and Dean’s nowhere to be seen. Demon!Sam smiles. Fade to black.
After the Not Commercial Break, Jo’s searching the docks and phoning Dean over and over but it just keeps going to voicemail. Finally, she hears his ringtone and rushes down a boat ramp to find him half out of the water. That’s one hell of a mobile phone if it’s still ringing after being fully submerged in water! She shakes him back into consciousness and helps him to stand. Dean groans in pain and asks where Sam is. Jo has no idea.
In the bar, she digs the bullet out of his shoulder, telling him not to be a baby when he groans. He swigs some medicinal whiskey as she patches him up. She asks how he knew it was a demon, and it’s basically “IDK, something seemed weird.” She asks if demons ever tell the truth. If it’ll mess with your head, yes. He says that Demon!Sam’s going after hunters and the nearest one he knows of is in South Dakota. Jo wants to go with him, but Dean refuses. He doesn’t want her blood on his hands. She sighs and hands him a bottle of pain medication. He says he’ll call her later and leaves. “No, you won’t…” she says to the empty bar.
Dean speeds through the night and pulls out his phone. We cut to a house somewhere and hear a phone ringing. Sam’s hand comes into the frame and cuts the phone line. Dean swears. Sam walks up the front steps of the house and knocks on the door. Bobby answers, pleased to see him. He invites Sam inside. They make small talk as Bobby fetches beers. Bobby makes a toast to Papa Winchester and they drink. Sam chokes, falling to his knees as he gags. Bobby sips his beer calmly and says that he slipped a little holy water in the beer. “Don’t try to con a con-man,” he says coldly before knocking Demon!Sam out. BEST.
Later, Demon!Sam’s tied to a chair under the same Seal of Solomon they used on Meg at the end of season 1. Dean smacks him in the face to wake him up. They sass at each other and Dean throws a bucket of holy water. The demon says it’ll make Sam bite off his own tongue, and Dean has Bobby start an exorcism. Demon!Sam struggles, then laughs hysterically. Bobby stops in confusion.
Demon!Sam starts his own Latin recitation and the fire flares behind him. Bobby notices the Q-shaped burn on Sam’s arm, and yells to Dean that it’s a binding link to lock itself in Sam’s body. He has no idea how to break it.
Demon!Sam continues chanting, and the Seal of Solomon on the ceiling splits in two. He jerks his head, causing Dean and Bobby to fly across the room, then breaks free of the restraints. He walks over to Dean and starts beating the crap out of him while talking about how Hell is Literally The Worst Ever, and Dean’s responsible for the demon going back there. “Meg…” Dean sneers. Meg!Sam (God, that’s confusing…) digs a thumb into Dean’s bullet wound and sasses that she saw Papa Winchester in Hell. She plays into Dean’s lack of self-worth.
After the Not Commercial Break, the boys both hold icepacks to their wounds. Bobby walks in looking concerned, and asks if they know of a hunter named That Guy Sam Murdered. They both look shifty when Bobby says he’s been found dead and do they maybe know anything about it. Dean nope nope nopity nopes, and Bobby tells him to keep it that way. He hands them a couple of anti-possession charms and tells them to be careful as they head out.
In the Bromobile, Sam broods. Dean asks if he’s okay, and Sam says he was awake for some of it. He saw himself killing That Guy Sam Murdered, and attacking Jo but still Dean wouldn’t kill him. Dean replies that killing Sam is their last-possible-back-up-plan option, not step 1 and then he chuckles.
I never know how to feel about this episode. On one hand, it’s kind of a cool concept. But it’s more Sam-is-maybe-evil stuff without actually making any progress on that because it turns out to be Meg. And I pretty much despise the about-turn on Jo’s badassery. Sigh.
Next time on Supernatural: A bunch of weirdo urban legends happen for real and the boys are hella confused in S02 E15 – Tall Tales.
I'm a 30-something librarian and I still live with my parents because I'm super broke. Leader of Team Heartless Cow. I have an inexplicable love for 90s television, eat too much chocolate, and read more than is good for me.
