Pamela! Tessa! Reapers! Alistair! God, I love this episode.
We’re introduced to a town where people miraculously recover from fatal wounds and diseases, while Sam and Dean continue sniping away at each other. Dean is thoroughly sick and tired of all the crap thrown his way lately and you know, I kind of understand it. After all, this is the same guy who’s been brought up like a soldier by the father who then gave his life for him, thus totally screwing with the poor man’s head, and then given up his own life for his brother and gone to hell. He also understands it won’t end. Sam has his innocence filter on again, believing that once they get rid of Lilith all the bad stuff will go away and he can have a normal life again. Which is absolutely ridiculous, because let’s face it, this is life. You have the good and the bad to balance each other out. And after they took out ol’ yellow eyes (oh how we miss you) the bad stuff didn’t go away, it simply increased. Even stopping Lucifer form rising won’t keep the darkness at bay, and I think Dean knows this, which is why he’s sick of it.; He knows the only escape from this life is death, and come one, the poor guy’s been on death’s door at least twice and has actually died (although that wasn’t so pleasant either), so I totally see where he’s coming from. Meanwhile, Sam in his unbridled optimism truly believes he cans top the upcoming apocalypse and life can be hunky-dory again. Oh, ye of so little knowledge. I thought you’re meant to be the smart one, Sammy?
At any rate, the pleasantries of the last episode with the seductive siren are still eating away at Dean, who also realises Sam believes he doesn’t need him anymore, which is really nice Sam, considering your brother went to hell for you and wow…they’re really trying to make Sammy unlikeable, aren’t they? (Or at least painting Dean as a total martyr). Anyhoo, they make the drive up to the town and discover that no one has in a few days, not since a 12 year old was killed. And why? They boys surmise the town’s reaper is a no-show. So, they drag out the awesome Pamela who helps them leave their physical bodies behind and became part of the spiritual realm so they can communicate with the dead boy who’s been creating a bit of havoc at his mum’s place.
And here we start with some cute jokes as they plunge their fists into each other (depending on what level of slash you read determines how much squeeing occurred on your behalf) and they go find the little dead boy, who tells them about the reaper coming to visit and then being taken away…by a demon. Well, our boys figure that out. And then the wind picks up…and it’s Tessa! OH! The most kick-ass reaper ever makes a return visit to take over reaping duties in this town. Dean knows she looks familiar, and so she taps him on the head and his memory from nearly dying comes back, which just had me squeeing all over, because I absolutely adore In My Time of Dying and if she wasn’t a dead reaper, they’d be an awesome couple.
Anyway, she’s all pragmatic about carrying on with her duties and reaping the poor boy, but our boys convince her to leave him until they’ve rescued with the other reaper. At which point the wind blows up and Tessa is kidnapped.
So, now Dean and Sam need to learn how to move physical objects as our dead boy teaches them (it’s very cute) and they wander off to find where the reapers are being kept…in a house surrounded by charms to keep out angels. Huh. I didn’t think about that.
In the meantime, demons are trying to into the room where the boys spirit-less bodies lie with a blind woman…oh this isn’t going to end well. Pamela starts calling Sam back, but is stabbed in the process. Of course…there aren’t any reapers around, so she’s safe…for the time being. So they get in and try getting rid of one of the demons which they do but then end up caught and the original reaper is murdered and blood spilled…because of course this is all another seal, the blood of 2 reapers will break another seal. Alistair is also hanging around like a bad smell…man really wants his whipping boy back downstairs. (Mmmm…Dean as a whipping boy….sorry where was I again?) and just as he’s about to get Tessa….the boys have been concentrating very hard on pulling the chandelier off the ceiling and it smashes onto the ground, breaking the circle, allowing Tessa to escape and then release the boys (Who’ve been held back by an iron chain. Cute.)
Sam has vanished in the meantime, having been called back by Pamela and he fights off the demon with his super duper evil powers and tries to save Pamela…Dean is still stuck on the spiritual plane. He has a run-in with Alistair and it’s not looking good…and then zap! Alistair’s hit by lightning and vanishes, extra crispy. Heh.
Dean also has a chat with Tessa, who reveals she knows more than Dean does about this whole escapade and I don’t want her to leave my screen. I love her. She tells Dean not to trust the angels, because inevitably, he doesn’t know what their endgame is. And neither do we. After it’s all over and he saves the world, does he go back to hell? How does this all work? They go back to the house and Tessa reaps the little boy, allowing his mother to finally have peace.
And then Dean gets pulled back, just in time for Pamela to die. Oh. Oh no. Really? Oh show! Why do you keep killing off the awesome female characters and keep around the nasty ones? How you make me want to cry…until next episode, that is…
