The Winchesters have tracked Kevin down and everything is okay. Just kidding.
In fact, Crowley did find Kevin and has him sealed in a boat in a bubble of surveillance with demons disguised as the Winchesters keeping tabs on him inside, and reporting back. But if you think that’s enough to fool our advanced-placement prophet, you haven’t been watching this show closely enough.
The actual Winchesters receive a video in an email from Kevin. You know, the “if you’re watching this I’m dead” video. And it’s heartbreaking. Because Kevin is angry, but he’s also sorry he failed. The reality is, Kevin knows he’s being watched, and that’s why he didn’t reset the email as he does every week, so it only gets sent if something happens to him. But thinking their prophet is gone, the brothers are left with what Kevin could send them in an email, and their own research.
Sammy is in even worse shape than before. Dean tries to play nurse, but Sam’s having none of it. He’s determined to figure out what the third trial is, and his big break comes when he recognizes a glyph from Kevin’s notes from a humanities course he took at Stanford. That’s a hell of a memory, Sammy. The glyph appeared in the art of a small Native American tribe in Colorado, and guess what it meant? “Messenger of God.” Dean’s not fully convinced of this lead, but they head to Colorado nevertheless.
Meanwhile, Cas is hiding out at Biggerson’s. As in every Biggerson’s in the country. Every restaurant is so alike, he is able to go from one to another to another and the angels who are tracking him can’t get a hold on him. So Naomi must stop him, and does so by slaughtering everyone in one of the Biggerson’s. The waitress who had served Cas is lying in the middle of the massacre with her eyes burned out, saying, “You have to stop, you have to stop.”
In Colorado, the brothers check into the Two Rivers Hotel and Casino. Sam is hearing things and becoming more and more delirious. He recounts a mule ride he took with Dean and their dad at the Grand Canyon, which Dean has no memory of. Dean leaves Sam to rest, but Sam, feeling a pull towards someone staying in the hotel, finds himself at a room where boxes of books have been delivered. Before he can tell Dean, he passes out. When he wakes up, Dean has him in an ice bath to bring down his fever. But Sam is sure of his connection to Metatron and they go back to the room to find him.
Metatron is there and greets them with a gun. He doesn’t recognize the Winchesters because he’s all but cut himself off from what’s been going on between heaven and hell. He does recognize that Sam has undertaken the trials, because he is resonating with him, being the nearest link to the Word of God. Sam and Dean aren’t impressed. They call Metatron on his cowardice, particularly Kevin’s fate.
Back at Biggerson’s, Cas could use a rescue, but he probably wasn’t expecting it to come in the form of Crowley, wielding a gun with bullets made from a melted-down angel blade. (But seriously, how clever is that? Four for you, Crowley). Naomi runs, leaving Crowley to take Cas and Ion, another angel wounded by Crowley’s gun. Unfortunately, Crowley figures out what Naomi couldn’t: Cas has been carrying the tablet inside himself. Literally. As if the torture up until this point hadn’t been enough, Crowley digs the tablet out of Cas’s body and leaves him under Ion’s watch. But Cas gets away by digging an angel blade bullet out of himself and putting it through Ion’s eye.
Crowley knows he’s been made and confronts Kevin, who gets pulled out of Crowley’s grasp by Metatron just in time. Not only is Kevin alive, but he also makes it out with the other half of the tablet, meaning Sam can go on to the third trial. The brothers are also reunited with Cas, who appears in the middle of the road as they’re driving away.
Next week, Crowley is on the warpath, and no one the Winchesters have saved is actually safe.
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