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Sam's in trouble. It must be Tuesday.
Gadreel has taken off with Sam's bod so that he can continue to prove his loyalty to Metatron. He kills off the angel that tortured him and his friend Abner while they were both locked up in Heaven's dungeon. He's thinking that's the end of it, but Metatron gives him some seemingly human guy that needs bumping off. It's only when Gadreel confronts him that he realizes this is Abner in his new vessel. They reminisce about the old days, but Abner is happy with his new life. He has a wife and kid that his vessel didn't much appreciate, and he's eager to move on. In fact, he's rather horrified to learn that Gadreel sought vengeance against their torturer. He encourages his old friend to move on, too, and Gadreel takes his advice... by killing him. Now he can move on to being second-in-command of Heaven.
Meanwhile, back at the Lair O' Letters, it seems that Kevin is well and truly dead. Dean even burns his body, so there's probably no coming back now. Castiel takes some time getting there, as he's angelic but still wingless, and had to pilfer some pimpmobile for the trip. He and Dean turn to Crowley for help. Thanks to his torture sessions with poor, adorable Samandriel, Crowley knows how to tinker with an angel's mind. If he can shut down Gadreel long enough, then Sam can do the rest of the work. All he asks in return is to accompany them on their little road trip.
They track Gadreel down to dead Abner's house, nab him, then truss him up in the abandoned warehouse of the week. Castiel doesn't recognize him because he's been in the pearly pokey since the dawn of time. It's only when Crowley fiddles around in Gadreel's noggin that he gives up his name. Castiel explodes with rage. Gadreel is the one who let Lucifer into the Garden, and set a whole string of awful crap into motion. Sam should pop up at this point and be like, "Hey, sometimes a dude accidentally lets Lucifer in or out of places!" But he doesn't, and the only way to reach him is to let Crowley possess his bod. All he wants this time is his freedom.
Dean reluctantly agrees, and Crowley smokes his way into Sam. This whole time, Sam's been unaware of what's going on. Gadreel has him tucked away in some mental Matrix where he thinks he's working on a case with his brother. That might have been a better episode, right there. Anyway, Crowley explains the whole deal to him. Gadreel, looking like Tahmoh Penikett because why not, says Sam will die if he ejects him. Sam decides to take his chances and projectile-vomits first Gadreel, then Crowley. Everybody is back where they belong. The end.
Except then Abaddon and some of her goons show up. Crowley holds them off while the Winchesters and Castiel escape – not so much out of the goodness of his heart, but because he's eager to make his case to the demons. Abaddon is a knight, but Crowley is a politician. He promises the demons all kinds of goodies if they side with him.
While the demons are wheeling and dealing, Sam and Dean pout over the Impala's hood. It's like the olden days again, but more exhausting. Sam is pissed that Dean tricked him into accepting an angel, but nobody beats up Dean better than Dean does. He's all, "I'm poison! Everybody around me gets hurt!" So he vows to go off all on his own to hunt for Gadreel, who has returned to his Penikett-shaped vessel. Whatever else happens, at least we can be thankful for that. Stay tuned for the full recap.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!For the previouslies, we get a "Road So Far" instead of a "THEN." Do they always do that after the winter hiatus? Anyway, the season began with Sam and his hair in a coma because those trials really packed a wallop. Dean couldn't leave well enough alone, so he asked the angels for help. Tahmoh Penikett showed up pretending to be a nice angel named Ezekiel, and offered to heal Sam from the inside. Now, as you'll recall, angels can't possess people without their consent, so Dean tricked Sam into letting Ezekiel get all up in him, demonstrating once again that this show doesn't even slightly understand the concept of consent. Castiel got tricked, too, when he trusted Metatron about fixing Heaven or whatever the hell it was. Metatron stole Castiel's grace, so he had to live life as a human for a couple of episodes. Then Metatron got bored in an empty Heaven and came down to ask for Ezekiel's help opening it back up for a few select angels. This was undoubtedly a lie, because the spell he worked in the first place is supposedly irreversible. Also, it turned out that Ezekiel was actually an angel named Gadreel, which means "he who loves to flare his nostrils." Metatron demanded proof of his loyalty, so Gadreel fricasseed Kevin Tran while Dean watched helplessly. Meanwhile, the angels were fighting amongst themselves, and the demons were fighting amongst themselves. Castiel stole some asshole angel's grace to get his mojo back, because that's an entirely possible thing, apparently.
In the present day, Dean has built a fairly elaborate pyre. While Bob Seger sings "The Famous Final Scene," Dean watches Kevin's body burn. The camera spends the requisite amount of time lingering over Dean's sad expression in the firelight before moving down to the bunker. Dean stares at the spot on the floor where Kevin fell. He picks up Kevin's phone, pushes a button to show a picture of the late prophet and his mother. "Everything must have an end," sings Bob, clearly not referring to the Winchester angst, which not even the heat death of the universe will be able to extinguish. Dean hurls the phone across the floor, then has one of those obligatory "sweep everything off the nearest table" fits of despair and anger. He even tosses one of the library's lovely vintage chairs, but finds no satisfaction in this or anything else.
The winged title card flaps us away to the backstage environs of some rock concert in the offing. An unseen crowd screams for their idol. "Corey! Corey! Corey!" Apparently it's some guy named Corey. You might expect Corey to be some kind of crazy sex-god with that kind of enthusiasm. You'd be wrong. The guy strolling down the hall towards us with studied boredom looks like Chaka from Land of the Lost in a black PVC jacket. Seriously, what in the hell with that hair? His manager walks him to his dressing room, blathering directions about his set that night. All his songs have the word "baby" in the title. It would have been a funnier joke on a show not known for its repetitiveness. As they push into the dressing room, they find something that looks like Sam Winchester. The manager calls for security, but Corey waves off her concern and shuts her out of the room.
"Hello, Gadreel," he says. "Hideous," says Gadreel by way of greeting. Wait. Let me play that again with the CC on. "Thaddeus," says Gadreel. "That's a new look, I must say." As opposed to a giant, winged pillar of energy? Yes, I imagine so. "Why be an angel when you can be a god?" brags Thaddeus. They stand around gabbing for a bit, revealing that Thaddeus tortured Gadreel back during his stint in Heaven's prison. "It was my job," Thaddeus says, excusing his atrocities. "What you did to Abner... was that your job?" asks Gadreel. "Oh, your boyfriend," Thaddeus recalls. "Nah, that was just fun!" Gadreel flares his borrowed nostrils. Thaddeus figures his former prisoner must be there looking for revenge, so he very sloooowly meanders over to where he normally keeps his angel blade, only to find it missing. Gadreel is like, "Looking for this?" He stabs Thaddeus with his own blade and watches stone-faced as he slumps to the floor, dead. Poor Thaddeus. He survived the dinosaurs and the Sleestaks, only to meet his end like this.
I bet this is going to have serious consequences for Sam. This "Corey" dude was obviously pretty famous, and Sam is kind of distinctive-looking. That manager lady will identify him to the police and there will be a nationwide manhunt, and... Ha ha ha! Just kidding. Nobody's ever going to mention this again.
Back at the bunker, Dean is packing himself an overnight bag for his thrilling adventure when Castiel appears behind him. Now, supposedly Castiel and the other angels are wingless and that's why they're using mundane modes of transportation, but Castiel's arrival was accompanied by the familiar fluffle of feathers. Perhaps he can only fly short distances, not unlike the domesticated turkey. Dean seams happy to see him, or as happy as possible, under the circumstances. "Look at you, all suited up and back in the game." Somewhere en route, Castiel has procured himself a new coat, much shorter than his old one, but neglected to replace his neck tie after his recent torture session. "I came as soon as you called," Castiel says. He starts to say more, but notices the aftermath of Dean's outburst. Particularly sad is the crust from Kevin's old peanut butter sandwich lying on the floor. "Dean, what happened? What's wrong?" Castiel asks. They exchange long, sad looks as the camera pans over...
...and picks up with them a short time later, after Dean has had a chance to tell his story. "Sammy was dying," he wraps up. "What was I supposed to do?" Let him die and then go get Benny out of Purgatory! Duh! Castiel looks terribly sad, but not especially judgmental about the whole thing. Then a thought occurs to him: "If the angel possessing Sam isn't Ezekiel, then who is it?" "Dead man walking," Dean answers. Castiel points out he would have to kill Sam in order to kill the angel possessing him. Sounds like a win-win situation! Dean seems resigned to the possibility, because the alternative is letting him waste away to nothing inside his own body. "God, I am so damn stupid," he grumbles. "You were stupid for the right reasons," Castiel assures him. Heh.
Castiel starts thinking about ways to get Sam to cast out the intruding angel. Dean says Sam has no idea he's even being possessed. How do they clue him in? "Do you remember Alfie?" Castiel asks. "Yeah, he was that adorable angel that you totally killed," Dean doesn't say. "Before he died, he told me the demons were able to dig into his mind and access his coding," Castiel says. Either he or the writers don't remember him killing Alfie, because there doesn't even seem to be a subtext of regret. Castiel thinks they could do something similar here in order to talk to Sam. "Where do we start?" wonders Dean.
They start with Crowley, who is still stashed away in the torture dungeon. Dean offers him up a syringe of hot, fresh human blood – his own – in exchange for telling them how to tinker with an angel's noggin. Crowley doesn't seem the least bit tempted. "What do you want?" Castiel asks. "To start, a massage," Crowley says. "I ain't rubbin' you," Dean says. Seriously? To save his brother's life he wouldn't give Crowley a little shoulder rub? He should be offering up the deluxe shiatsu, complete with Happy Ending. Luckily for him, Crowley seems just as turned off by the idea as he does. "Get Kevin," Crowley says. "His tiny fists can really work wonders –" Castiel cuts him off: "Kevin is dead." This gives Crowley pause. He says he's sorry to hear it, and seems relatively sincere. "I told him this was gonna happen...I told him to run," he says. "From what?" Dean asks. "From you," Crowley says. "How many times am I gonna say this? People in your general vicinity don't have much in the way of a lifespan." True, but most of them come back to life at least once! That's gotta count for something. Crowley says he can't just tell them what they need to know, but offers to perform his magic on the angel himself. "All I ask for in return is a little field trip," he says. Dean is quick to refuse, although not quite as quick as when he thought he was going to have to knead Crowley's naked body liked warm, oiled bread dough.
He starts to walk away, but knows he doesn't have much in the way of options. He reconsiders Crowley's deal. Castiel tries to talk him out of it. "Looks like we need a tiebreaker," Crowley says. "Squirrel, go get Moose." Dean just looks at him and lets his silent expression of soul-crushing guilt do all the talking. Now Crowley realizes why they were desperate enough to come to him. He can't help but gloat just a little: "The poor, giant baby is in trouble again, isn't he?" And just like that, the show has a new tagline. Dean agrees to give Crowley what he wants. "When do we leave?" Crowley asks. "As soon as I can scratch up a ride," Dean says. Dude, you have a garage full of ridiculously beautiful cars. For no reason at all, those cars are not an option. Actually, the reason is so that Castiel can volunteer the car he stole to get there, and which ran out of gas a few miles down the road.
Somewhere nearby, a woman is feeding her adorable little Jack Russell out on the sidewalk when the Three Stooges hike past. She seems oddly disturbed by the sight of them. Now, as Dean and the gang walk up to the car, it's facing away from the bunker. Did Castiel drive there backwards? Did he overshoot his destination by a few miles? Maybe he was going to go shopping for a new neck tie when he ran out of gas. Anyway, Crowley scoffs at Castiel's chosen vehicle, which is a shiny golden behemoth of an old Continental. "What are you, a pimp?" Crowley asks. While Dean refuels the pimp mobile, Crowley wonders why Castiel needed a car at all. Castiel declines to answer, instead saying, "When you betray us, I'll be the one to carve out your heart." Of course, threats just turn Crowley on. Dean rolls his eyes at their exchange. They then proceed to bicker like little kids on a road trip, which just seems a bit tone deaf for the episode. Didn't this show used to be better about blending comedic moments with the dramatic? It's lost that balance.
In some dim bar that looks like every other bar set the show has ever used, Metatron sits sipping a refreshing cocktail. The only thing that separates this from every other bar is that the bartender is Gadreel's former vessel. Sweet Lucifer in the cage, thank you! Surely this means that by the end of the episode we'll no longer be subjected to Padalecki's weird, stilted delivery as the angel. Oh, hey, speak of the wooden devil! Gadreel plunks himself down to Metatron and hands over the tablets he pilfered from the bunker. He casts an odd look at his former vessel. Is he confused? Wistful? Is his seat uncomfortable? "It's strange seeing an old vessel, isn't it?" muses Metatron. Hey, speaking of which: Why doesn't Gadreel just go back to that guy? Now that he's gotten everything he needs out of the bunker, what's the point of keeping Sam's bod? Is he afraid he won't get his deposit back if he breaks the lease? Also, shouldn't he know everything that Sam knows, and therefor that Metatron's spell is irreversible?
The topic of conversation turns to Gadreel's latest assignments. "Killing Thaddeus was easy," he says. "He had it coming." He admits killing Kevin wasn't quite as easy, but at least he won't have any more prophets on his list. Metatron says he "flipped a switch upstairs" and now there won't be any more of them. That sounds... stupidly easy. "What about Dean Winchester?" Metatron asks. "You never gave me his name!" protests Gadreel. Metatron rolls his eyes like he can't believe this dumbass. "It's not like you haven't done worse before," he reminds Gadreel. Gadreel flaps Sam's nostrils with such force that he very nearly takes flight. Metatron apologizes for bringing it up, then hands over a cocktail napkin with "Alexander Sarver" written on it. Gadreel protests having to kill more people, but Metatron shuts him down. He reminds Gadreel that he's going to be his second-in-command. "You have to prove you're ready," he says. It's like one of those reality shows where contestants have to do increasingly stupid and/or awful things to get the job.
Meanwhile, back in Kansas, that adorable little Jack Russell is dead and her blood has replaced the kibble in her bowl. Man, as if this show wasn't already on my shit list for its history with dogs. Little Muffins' erstwhile mistress still has blood on her hands as she raises the bowl and begins to chant in Latin. The blood bubbles in response. "Abaddon, I found him," says the dog-killing demon. "Crowley's on the move." Also, how did the dog not realize her mistress was possessed? My Jack Russell growls at me if I put on a hat he's never seen before.
After driving all through the night, the Three Stooges find themselves in the sterile white lobby of some place called Waldroff Financial. "Your source is in here?" scoffs Dean. "And she can track anything you need," Crowley says. "Even our little lost Samantha." And yet, somehow, the demons have always had such a hard time finding anybody they're looking for. He explains the place is secretly an NSA listening post. He has one of his minions working on the inside. A security guard comes to take Crowley back to meet his source, but refuses to let the others tag along. "I'll be listening to every word you say," Castiel warns. "Promise?" Crowley tosses back. Castiel pouts. In other news, becoming an angel again has vastly improved his hairstyle. He no longer looks like he's waiting to have his class picture taken.
The guard takes Crowley to an office presided over by a woman who looks kind of like a young Mary McDonnell. "Cecily, how are you?" he asks. "Better than you," she says, pointing out his odd choice in traveling companions. Cecily spends some time marveling over just how much hotter Castiel is now that he's an angel again, which, you know, right on, sister. This is the first Crowley has heard of Castiel spending time as a human being, so he asks for all the deets.
Back in the lobby, Castiel can't hear anything because Cecily's office is warded. It's too bad, because she's saying some very flattering things, like...
"So Captain Sexy out there totally cuts another angel's throat, yoinks out his grace, and now he's got his mojo back! Minus the broken wings." That explains the pimp mobile. "And you know this... how?" Crowley asks. "I tuned one of our satellites to pick up Angel Radio," she says. This will miraculously never have happened the time the writers need to keep the demons in the dark about the angels' bidness. They eventually getting around to talking about Hell, which is in quite a state of disarray. Some of the demons are on Abaddon's side, she says, but most of them are just waiting to see who wins. "They're still afraid of me," Crowley guesses. "Probably because they don't know you're in cuffs," she says. He holds out his hands to show her said cuffs, which had heretofore remained hidden under a folded coat. "Do they come off?" he asks. "Not without the key," she tells him. They look like regular handcuffs with a few symbols etched into them. With a sigh, he asks her to find the Impala. For a demon, she turns out to be a terrible liar, and has to admit she's actually playing both sides.
To Dean and Castiel's surprise, Crowley returns to the lobby with the information they need. "Your phallus on wheels just ran a red light in Somerset, Pennsylvania," he says, handing over a printout. Luckily, this isn't one of those times when Dean needs words defined for him.
Somerset. Gadreel creeps up behind some guy tending to his garden. "Alexander Sarver?" he asks. "Yeah," the guy says. It's only when he turns around that Gadreel recognizes him. He had been reaching for his angel blade, but leaves it hidden. It's his old friend Abner. Abner recognizes him, too, and they stand there for several moments, smiling in wonder and relief. Well, Abner smiles. Gadreel sort of freezes. A little girl runs up to Abner, crying, "Daddy, Daddy!" He picks her up, laughing. "This is daddy's best friend," he introduces them. He asks Gadreel to come back a few hours later, because he and his family are just on their way to a movie. Gadreel's face spasms as it attempts to settle into a smile.
Suddenly, it's a few hours later. I wonder what movie they saw? Gadreel and Abner sit in a cozy little study, in chairs that are too small for either of them. There's a lot of sitting around and talking. Even in an episode about hunting down an angel with a stolen body, this show can't get away from its love of a good sit. Do the directors just hate blocking scenes? "You have changed," Gadreel notes. "Yeah, well, I was a crappy angel," Abner says. "I deserted my post, spent 700 years in Heaven's lockup!" He realizes he's getting kind of fired up over things all over again, and calms himself back down. "It doesn't matter," he says. "We're a long way from Thaddeus now." Gadreel perks up and says, "I killed him! I got our revenge!" He clearly expects Abner to take some pleasure in this, and is surprised when he does not. Abner would rather move on with his new life and forget about the past. His vessel was, in his words, an abusive ass, although it's still kind of gross to be impersonating him with his wife and kid. Abner inadvertently seals his fate with this advice: "The key to happiness is getting the one thing you want most, and never letting it go."
Dean and Castiel arrive some time later to find the front door unlocked. Abner lies dead in the entryway, his throat slit from ear to ear. There's rather a lot more blood than when angels have been killed in the past. Dean follows the sound of running water to the kitchen, where Gadreel is washing blood from Sam's hands. Where are the wife and kids during all of this? Gadreel senses Dean's presence. "You should not have come here," he says. "You killed my friend," Dean reminds him in his growliest voice. "You took my brother, and you think I'm gonna let that stand?" He charges at him with an angel blade in one hand. Gadreel waves him into a bookshelf. This was all just a distraction designed to allow Castiel to sneak up behind Gadreel, whom he then punches in the face hard enough to knock him out cold. The camera decides to just linger on Castiel for a long time as he overlooks his handiwork, because why not?
Back at the NSA listening post, Cecily has called in Abaddon to fill her in on Crowley's recent visit. "You helped Crowley?" Abaddon asks. "I'm kinda playing both sides until someone – until you win," Cecily says. Damn, minions are dumb. Then, instead of smoking out of her body when she realizes Abaddon is going to kill her, she just sits there like a scared little rabbit and lets herself get killed.
Now, what the hell kind of place have the Three Stooges procured? It looks like some kind of old factory or abandoned plant of the dilapidated sort the show seems to favor. But it has like a torture chair set up in the middle of it, into which Gadreel has been bound, and a rusty medical cabinet and instrument tray. Crowley waits in a chair just opposite, although his looks like the regular sittin' kind. Mmm.... sittin'. Castiel looks over this thing that looks like Sam. Sam's body is mostly healed, he says, but he doesn't recognize the angel inhabiting it. "What's your name?" he asks. "Why would I tell you anything?" Gadreel snits. "I don't give a damn who you are," Dean growls. He orders the intruder out, but Gadreel threatens to kill Sam. Again, why doesn't he just flit off to another vessel? Shouldn't the Stooges be asking that? "You want this to end? Go ahead, put a blade through your brother's heart," Gadreel taunts. Dean, who's been looking pretty tough up to this point, gives himself away with a flinch. Of course he's not going to kill Sam. "If it makes you feel better, I have Sam locked away in a dream," Gadreel says. "As far as he knows, the two of you are working a case... Something with ghouls and cheerleaders." He seems pretty pleased with himself. I'm just relieved it wasn't something with sexy dogs.
"Why are you doing this?" Dean asks. He's not asking why Sam?, but why are you killing people? "I am doing what I have to do," Gadreel says. "Well, so am I," Dean says. He gives the signal to Crowley, who picks up something that looks like an awl and jabs it into Gadreel's stolen forehead.
Time passes. More jabbing happens. Gadreel screams and gasps and pants like he's about to give birth to a sumo wrestler. Castiel and Dean take turns pacing, until Dean can't take it anymore and heads for the far end of... whatever the hell this place is. Castiel follows him. "I can't watch that anymore," Dean says. The screams still reach them. "How are you doing?" Dean asks. "You want to talk about me now?" Castiel asks, baffled. "I wanna talk about anything that isn't demons sticking needles in my brother's brain," Dean says. He apologizes to Castiel for kicking him out of the bunker, and for keeping the truth from him. Castiel is very understanding about the whole thing, reminding Dean that he, too, made his share of mistakes. "So you're saying we're a couple of dumbasses," Dean says. "I prefer the word 'trusting," Castiel says. "Less dumb, less ass." Oh, all right: heh.
Crowley calls them back over. "Pinhead's out cold, but watch this!" He pinches together two of the jabby things. Without opening his eyes, Gadreel mumbles something that sounds like... "Xena, Yoko, Yeehaw, Gadreel." Crowley pinches again to shut him up. Castiel suddenly understands why he didn't recognize him: "He's been in prison since the dawn of time." Almost 14 billion years, eh? No wonder he's a nutcase! Seriously, though, who knows what the show considers the dawn of time? "Gadreel was the sentry who allowed Lucifer into the Garden," Castiel explains for the kids at home. "All of it's his fault! The corruption of Man! Demons! Hell! God left because of him! The archangels, the Apocalypse..." He's considerably less understanding of Gadreel's mistakes than he was of Dean's, or of Sam's when it was his turn to accidentally give Lucifer safe passage. He starts shaking the unconscious Gadreel like a recalcitrant Etch a Sketch. "You ruined the universe, you damn sonofabitch!" Dean pulls him away and makes him focus on the task at hand. Also, quit being such a drama queen, Cass! He only ruined Earth. Saturn is probably fine.
Crowley goes back to fiddling with Gadreel's knobs, without the intended result. The angel wakes up again with a gasp. "It won't work," he says. "You'll never find your brother." At least they found his ability to use contractions. It was getting damned annoying hearing him talk like Data all the time. He brags that he can take many more years of this torture, but Dean's had enough. "Cass, you gotta possess him," he says. "Tell Sam what's going on, help him kick that lying sonofabitch out!" Castiel reminds him of that whole "angels need permission" thing, which seems silly since they got around that rule once before. Just trick Sam again! You already know he's up for it!
"Ahem," Crowley ahems. He raises his hand in a volunteering spirit. "Not happening," Dean says. "Don't be daft," Crowley says. "Demons can take what they want. I can burrow into that rat's nest of hair, I can wake Sam up." He wants his freedom in return. Dean thinks it over, looking like he wants to vomit the whole time, before asking Castiel to burn off Sam's tattoo. Castiel protests, but there's no changing Dean's mind. He turns to Crowley. "If you try anything –" Crowley reminds him he keeps his bargains. "Besides, I don't wanna be inside your brother any longer than I have to," he says. "I'm not one for sloppy seconds."
He returns to his chair and Dean removes his shackles. True to his word, he doesn't just snap his fingers and vanish. "When you find Sam, say 'Poughkeepsie'," Dean tells him. "It's our go-word. It means drop everything and run." Crowley spews out a swirling cloud of red smoke that snakes its way into Sam's mouth. Seems like having an angel and a demon inside at the same time would be like some kind of catastrophic matter-antimatter thing. Kaboom! But all that happens is that Sam's body goes limp.
Dean paces between Crowley and Sam. "A demon and an angel walk into my brother," he grumps. "Sounds like a bad joke." I think the word you're looking for is "episode," but whatever.
Inside Sam's mind, everything looks even grittier and more de-saturated than usual. He pores over books in the mental version of the bunker, trying to figure out why the ghouls are going after dead cheerleaders. He suddenly realizes that Crowley is standing beside him, and vaults up out of his chair, shouting for an unseen Dean. "Poughkeepsie," Crowley says. Sam calms down just a tad. "How do you know that word?" he asks. Well, it's a fairly well-known city. Crowley explains everything to Sam, who remains understandably doubtful. Crowley picks up a gun and shoots him, leaving no mark. "See? Not real," he says. He tells Sam to remember everything he's seen while under possession, everything the angel saw while he was in charge. Sam flashes back to the hospital, to Gadreel's conversations with Dean. He suddenly remembers killing Kevin Tran. "You need to take control," Crowley says. "Blow it up, and cast that punk-ass holy roller out!"
Sam looks up and sees Gadreel's first vessel standing behind Crowley. Why would he look like that? Wouldn't he look like Sam? Or wouldn't he just kill Sam as he threatened to do, instead of bothering with a showdown? "Who are you?" Sam asks. "His name is Gadreel – the original chump," Crowley says. "Was a chump," Gadreel corrects him, "and now I'm going to be the one who leads my kind back to Heaven." Crowley punches him, but it has less impact than a gnat slapping someone with its wings. Gadreel backhands him and sends him flying across the room. Sam should probably be like, "Dude, get out of my body!" But instead he hurls himself at the intruder, who flips him over the nearest table. Fisticuffs ensue. "Cast him out!" Crowley cheers from the sidelines. Eventually, Sam manages to pin Gadreel under his gigantic boot. "Get! The hell! Out!"
In the real world, Gadreel explodes out of Sam's mouth...
...and lands back in his original vessel, back in that bar, with said vessel's permission. Metatron, watching the whole transaction, smirks. "Let me guess. Winchester trouble?"
Now it's Crowley's turn to leave Sam's body and get back into his own. Is it his own body, or a meat suit? Anyway, everybody is where they're supposed to be. Finally. Dean and Castiel rush over to Sam and pluck out all the jabby things. All seems well until a car pulls up outside. Castiel takes a look through a window. "It's Abaddon!" Dean's face goes, "Oh shit." Crowley volunteers to hold her off while the other escapes, which just makes Dean's face even more confused. Crowley even helpfully hands Dean his knapsack of supplies. "This don't make it square," Dean warns. "I see you again –" "I'm dead," Crowley finishes for him. "Yes, I know. I love you, too." Dean glares at him, but gets the hell out of there.
Crowley then perches in the torture chair for the sole purpose of being able to turn around in dramatic fashion when Abaddon and her minions walk into the room. "Hello, darling," he purrs. "Bring me his head," she says to her minions. They look at each other, then at their boss, but make no move towards Crowley. "See, that's the thing about demons," Crowley says. "They're only obedient to a point." Crowley gives a moving political speech about the pain of the average demon. For him it's a campaign, while Abaddon just wants to fight. "See, demons have a choice," he goes on. "Take orders from the world's angriest ginger – and that's saying something – or join my team, where everyone gets a say, a virgin, and all the entrails they can eat!" Well, it's not quite "a chicken in every pot" as far as slogans go, but the demons seem enticed. Crowley snaps his fingers and disappears for parts unknown, while Abaddon fumes in silence.
For their final scene, the Winchesters and Castiel pick a dramatic-looking bridge over a dark and fog-draped body of water. Castiel passes his hand over Sam's brow, wiping away his freshest wounds. "Feel better?" he asks. "A little," Sam says, bobbing and weaving like he's drunk. Then, because the setting wasn't quite moody enough, it begins to rain. "All right, let me hear it," Dean says. "What do you want me to say – I'm pissed?" Sam asks. Now, this is where you might have expected Sam's recent epiphany about Dean's history of taking care of him might come into play. You might expect him to say, "Yeah, I'm pissed, and you did a stupid, terrible thing, and it's going to take me a while to forgive you, but I understand you were trying to save my life, because you're a weird, codependent, over-invested freak with generally good intentions." But this is Supernatural, and it's never going to let the Winchesters out of their infinite loop. So instead Sam focuses on the wrong thing, about Dean taking away his right to die when he was ready, when Sam could have still gone off with Capital-D Death, but chose to let his brother help him. It was only the method of that help he didn't get to choose, and that was wrong and stupid, but he did choose to live.
Sam frets over Kevin's death. "That's not on you," Dean says. "Kevin's blood is on my hands, and that ain't ever getting clean. I'll burn for that, I will, but I'll find Gadreel, and I will end that sonofabitch. But I'll do it alone." Dean goes on about how he's poison and hurts everybody and people die because of him and blah blah blah self-esteem issues. "I can't -- I won't -- drag anybody through the muck with me, not anymore," he says. Sam frowns. His hair flaps in the wind. "Go," he says. "I'm not gonna stop you." Castiel, who's been watching them from some distance down the bridge, looks at them like, "I sure do love those miserable, idiotic Winchesters, but man, are they ever miserable and idiotic." Dean starts down the bridge toward the Impala. "Don't go thinking that's a problem, because it's not," Sam calls after him. "What's that supposed to mean?" Dean asks. Sam declines to explain, so Dean drives off into the night while sad, sad music plays, and the rain continues to fall and distant thunder rumbles. It is utterly exhausting, but at least it's over, for now.
Tippi Blevins promises you a virgin in every recap. Contact her at b_tippi@yahoo.com, or find her her on Twitter: @TippiB.