Supernatural begins its season finale by revisiting last season's finale, music and all. And poor Sam is still dead. And not looking so good, stretched out on a bed while Dean looks on. Bobby comes in with a tub of chicken. Dean isn't hungry. He seems thirsty, though. At least for the whisky. Bobby suggests they bury Sam. Probably a good idea--he's going to start smelling funny any minute now. (How annoyed am I that the demon stole this joke later? Very. Demons suck.) But Dean's in a mood. Bobby's mention that they needs to go save the world puts Dean into a rage. He's hot when he's pissed. And props to Padalecki for not breathing.
Out in the woods, Jake is hanging out next to a campfire. Dude, we don't like you. You stabbed Sam. That's not good. The YED shows up to chat with him. He calls Jake the American Idol. Does that make the YED Simon or Paula? I can't picture either of them saying "the chewy taste of their own intestines." Okay, yeah, Simon would totally say that.
As Sam lies still dead, Dean chats with him about their childhood, and his responsibility to take care of Sam, and how he's failed to do that because he's a screw-up. Dean is way too hard on himself. Finally he tears off in the car. Looks like he's preparing to make a bargain with the Crossroad Demon. Dean, you moron, why would you do that? (Yes, I yelled at my TV.) After much bargaining, the demon finally offers to bring Sam back, but will only give Dean one year. (There's your Season Three quest!) Dean takes the deal.
Sam wakes up. Dean returns, and there is a heartfelt hug. Fangirls squee everywhere. Sam asks what happened. Dean explains. Sort of. But not really. Sam is all gung-ho to go after Jake and the demon, but Dean discourages him, wanting him to rest up from being dead. He tells Sam about the Roadhouse. Sam refuses to rest, so they head to Bobby's in the Impala. Bobby's a bit surprised to see Sam. His tracking of supernatural developments is giving him results very different from last week--stuff is going down like crazy, everywhere except southern Wyoming.
While Sam looks over the data, Bobby takes Dean out to the junkyard and reams him out for making the deal with the demon. Ellen shows up out of nowhere. Bobby gives her a shotglass of holy water to check her (a very smart move). Ellen escaped the Roadhouse because she had to go out for pretzels. Ash told her to check the safe when he called her, before the Roadhouse was torched. In the safe was a map of Wyoming. Bobby works out a connection to the map and Samuel Colt, who built a series of churches and a rail line that formed a devil's trap. Which is why there aren't any demons in that area. They're trying to get inside the devil's trap, which has a cowboy cemetery in the middle. Dean postulates that maybe the trap was put together to keep something inside.
So we're off to Wyoming. Jake is already headed that way, directed by the demon. Jake is supposed to open a crypt in the cemetery, using the Colt as the key. Jake is supposed to fetch a demon army from the crypt, and if he does he can be all powerful and stuff. The Last Temptation of Jake, let's call this scene. And he fails. Probably because he was worn down by the demon's constant yammering. Dude, that yellow-eyed guy can talk.
Dean and Sam are already in the cemetery waiting for Jake. Sam holds a gun on him. Jake tells Sam he killed him. Sam's a bit perplexed by this news, seeing as how he's alive. Jake has new powers of manipulation, like Andy's, and hey, he didn't even have to eat Andy's brains to get them. He opens the crypt and Sam empties his gun into him. I was thinking Sam was evil here, but it looks like maybe he isn't, but in a way that's even worse. Or not. I'm not sure. Sam just emptied the gun into him, and that was so very not Sam, but then again, Jake killed him and opened the gates of hell, so maybe it was a good call to be really pretty sure the guy was dead. Still... not a Sam-like thing to do, and this worries me.
The devil's gate in the crypt opens and a ton of demons emerge. The iron railroad lines of the devil's trap have been breached, so the demons can get out. YED shows up and flings Dean around. The demons look like the black smoke monster on Lost. Maybe there's a devil's gate on the island, too? I mean, the YED was on the plane, after all.
The demon is happy Sam's back in action, and mocks Dean about his deal. He suggests that Sam may not be all Sam. (See? I was thinking that, too. So yet another demon steals my lines. Demons suck.) We get to hear the, "What's dead should stay dead," line again. The demon prepares to kill Dean, but none other than John Winchester arrives to rescue his son. This gives Dean time to get the Colt back, and he shoots the YED. For good. Mary and Jess have been avenged.
The devil's gate closes. John is briefly reunited with his sons, then disappears again. Let's hope not back to hell. It was nice to see him, but I would have liked to have seen more, and it would have been nice, too, if he'd actually spoken.
In the coda, Sam continues to be not stupid and asks Dean what happened to him. Dean tells him the truth. Sam says he'll do whatever it takes to get Dean out of his bargain. It's his turn now to take care of Dean. And there are zillions of (okay, a couple hundred) demons loose now, swarming all over the place. So the Winchesters have something to do for another year, since they got renewed. In another nod to the pilot episode, Dean and Sam prepare to head out to face the hordes.
There are a lot of callbacks to last season in this episode, particularly to the pilot. It looks to me like Kripke hedged his bets here, because this episode would have played very well as a series finale, if it had come down to it. Thankfully it didn't--the official announcement was made today at the CW upfronts that Supernatural will, indeed, be returning next season. And the episode also played very well as a pilot redux--an introduction to a new direction for the Brothers Winchester to follow next year, and hopefully for more years after that. Some questions were left unanswered--we still don't know why Mary recognized the demon last week--and Dean has gotten himself into a nice mess that they'll have to sort out now. So the stage is set, and while I thought this episode was just a shade melodramatic in places, overall it was nicely done. And Jensen Ackles nailed his intensely emotional scenes once again. He's been submitted by the network to be considered for an Emmy for his performance in this episode. I think he deserves it.
Kansas--Carry On Wayward Son
Boston--Don't Look Back
