Frankly, there’s a lot of really bad decision-making going on right now.
First of all, you could chill a six-pack on the shoulder Dean’s got turned to Cas. I’m inclined to be understanding of Dean, if only because he’s clearly hurt because he thinks Cas didn’t trust him. But the look on Cas’s face and the way he nearly throttled the cashier at the store because they were out of pie (pie he needed to make amends with Dean)… well, hopefully Dean takes Sam’s advice and lays off.
Bro-drama aside, Sam and Dean are in deep research for the final trial. A Men of Letters file marked “Weird!!!” leads them deeper into the archives where they find a dungeon, complete with engraved shackles and a huge devil’s trap. Film reels show footage (taken by the woman Abaddon possessed) of a ritual performed by Father Thompson in 1957 that didn’t look like any exorcism the boys had ever seen. Cas recognizes one of the words in the spell to mean “cleanse.” Sam finds that, while Father Thompson is dead, the assisting Father Simon is still alive in St. Louis, so he and Dean pay him a visit.
Father Simon recounts Father Thompson’s beliefs that he could, essentially, cure a demon using his own purified blood. There were several attempts before Father Thompson was killed, torn to shreds by a demon. But he appeared to have been getting closer, and this gives Sam and Dean hope for the third trial. All they need is a demon, and they just happen to have the disembodied parts of one at hand.
Cas was left behind to do the shopping, and that’s when he runs into Metatron, who pulls him away to propose that he undertake a set of trials himself, but to close heaven and stop the fighting on both sides. The first ritual would be to kill a waitress who was the child of an angel and a human. Though Metatron insists she is an abomination, Cas is hesitant.
Meanwhile, in the land of horrible ideas, Sam and Dean have dug up Abaddon’s parts and stitched her back together, minus her hands. But before they can try the demon cleanse, they get a call from Crowley, who tells them ominously that they should be reading the papers. They have plenty of time to follow up on that because, big surprise, they turned their backs long enough for Abaddon to get her hands out of their boxes, dig the bullet out of her head, and escape.
So with the big bad demon on the loose, Sam and Dean look into Crowley’s call and find that Tommy Collins, who the brothers saved from a wendigo way back in season one, is dead. Crowley sends them an address, which leads them to find the oven-roasted corpse of Jenny Klein, who the brothers had saved from Maggie Stark’s hex last season. Crowley is killing one person the brothers have saved everyday until they give up the tablet. Next on the list? Sarah Blake.
That’s right. Sam’s Sarah, the art curator from season one. Sam and Dean find her on a job for her father and are set to protect her. But when the time comes, it isn’t demons Crowley sends. Because Crowley knows that the brothers will try to trap the demon to use for the final trial. Sarah begins to choke and the brothers search the room frantically for a hex bag. But it’s too late. In a fit of rage, Dean throws the room’s phone that Crowley had called them on against the wall. It shatters, revealing the hex bag inside.
Cas fairs better than the Winchesters on his mission. At first, the half-angel waitress Jane, who can see Cas and Metatron’s halos, asks to be left alone. When it’s clear that that won’t happen, Jane fights them off and gets Metatron pinned, but that’s when Cas is able to make his move.
Sarah’s death is a devastating blow to Sam’s confidence, but Dean’s faith in his brother holds. And in the season finale this week, we’ll find out if Sam and Cas can close their respective doors.
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