Twenty-two weeks in and we’ve hit the end of Season 2, superfans. Sam and Dean finally face the demon that kilt their ma, kilt their pa, and turned their childhoods into a cautionary tale.
Let’s drink to (finally) slaying our personal demons!
THE OFFICIAL FYA SUPERNATURAL DRINKING GAME:
Take a drink every time:
• Dean or Sam flashes a badge
• A demon possesses some hapless schmuck
• Sam tries to talk about feelings only to be spurned by Dean
• Dean crams his face full of junk food
• Anyone makes a deal with a demon
• Either brother picks a lock
• Someone employs a Titan of Classic Rock as an alias
• The Glorious and Faithful Impala is damaged in the line of duty
2x21: All Hell Breaks Loose: Part 1
Monster of the Week: Yellow-Eyed Demon Babies
Dean’s craving burgers and pie, and really, who isn’t? But he’s lucky enough to have a younger brother to do his bidding. He sends Sam into a diner and futzes with the Impala’s radio until he looks up and sees the joint is suddenly empty. Rushing in, he finds everyone inside brutally murdered. Sam has disappeared and there’s sulfur coating the door handle. Demons!
We cut to Sam waking in the middle of an abandoned town. He runs into Andy (the mind compeller) who doesn’t remember how he got there. They hear a scream and find Ava (the other psychic) locked inside a shed. She doesn’t realize she’s been missing the last five months. Another scream and they find a find a soldier, Jake, and another girl, Lily. They’re all yellow-eyed demon babies with powers to boot.
The new Scooby Gang. Jake is such a Fred. Sam? Velma, oddly enough.
Sam sees an old iron bell hanging in the town square and says that he knows where they are: Cold Oak, SD, the most haunted town in America. He tries to tell them all about Yellow Eyes and his plans for them to be soldiers in the demon apocalypse. Everyone backs away slowly, except for Jake, who does it quick and loud. He heads away from the crazy hunter only to be nearly slaughtered by a child-shaped demon.
Scariest kid yet!
Sam chases off the demon with an iron rod, earning the group’s respect. They hop to do his bidding, splitting up to look for salt and iron. Everyone except Lily, that is. She’s a gothy kind of go-your-own-way lady, and tries to walk out of town on her own. The town demons do not approve; she ends up hanging from a windmill.
Meanwhile, Dean has recruited Bobby to help him find Sam. He also calls the roadhouse where a frantic Ash tells him that he’s found something big, and he’s got to come by and see it in person. Annoyed at the mystery, Dean and Bobby make a beeline for Harville’s. When they get there?
RIP, skeezy bar.
The roadhouse has been destroyed! Dean finds Ash’s corpse among the wreckage. Just when they’re trying to decide what to do next, Dean grabs his head in pain. Andy the mind compeller is using his talents to psychically contact Dean, putting the image of the bell in his head. It works! Bobby and Dean hop in the Impala, headed to Cold Oak.
The yellow-eyed demon appears to Sam in a dream, telling him that he doesn’t need “soldiers,” he needs a soldier and this enforced get-together is a kind of last-man-left-standing type of deal. He insists Sam is his favorite and says he killed Jess to keep him sharp. He even shows him how he fed him his own blood when he was a baby to make him special. Interesting side-note? When Mama Winchester saw the demon, she said, “It’s you.” WHAT COULD IT MEAN?
Anyway, more demonic hijinks ensue! Jake reveals his power is super-strength! Ava breaks the salt line on purpose, siccing a demon on Andy! She reveals to Sam she’s been there the whole five months, killing other contenders and increasing her power to the point she can control demons! Jake snaps Ava’s neck! Jake reveals the demon visited his dream as well and he’s sorry but if its only going to be one of them left standing, he is totally going to kill Sam!
They fight and somehow glass-jaw Sammy wins against Hulked-out Jake. He knocks Jake down with an iron rod but he can’t bear to finish the job. Then he hears Dean calling for him and goes to meet him. But before he can, Jake gets up and knifes him in the back! Bobby chases him as Dean holds his dying brother.
Brotherly Angst Quotient: All About Sam
Sam’s lowest point is when the demon shows him the moment in time where he killed his mother. She was in the wrong place at the wrong time—it was Sam the demon was always interested in. He feels responsible for bringing that pain into his family’s life. He really struggles not to kill Jake, to convince him that they can work together. And he stays true to his values until the very end.
Then he dies and Dean makes this face.
It’s rough, you guys.
Yellow-Eyed Demon: Haunting dreams, villain monologuing about his grand schemes, generally being a dick.
How Drunk Are We?: Wibbly-wobbly. Take four drinks for Ava’s dealings with demons! Do not take a drink for the use of David Hasselhof as an alias because, well, obvs.
The Quotable Winchesters: “Hey, see if they've got any pie. Bring me some pie. I love me some pie." –Dean.
Moment Most Likely to Inspire Troubling Fan-Fic:
Yellow-Eyes calls Sam “Tiger.” Back off, man, that’s Dean’s special nickname for him!
Notable Cameos:
Aldis Hodge of Leverage plays Jake
2x22: All Hell Breaks Loose: Part 1
Monster of the Week: Yellow-eyed demon
Dean sits by Sam’s corpse. He won’t eat, and he won’t leave, and he won’t even hear of Sam being buried. Bobby tries to snap him out of it, saying the world will literally end if they don’t get moving. “Let it end!” yells Dean, shoving Bobby. I hiss and raise my hackles, but before I can renounce my favorite Winchester, he immediately apologizes. After Bobby gives him some space, Dean talks to Sam’s corpse, saying that protecting him was his only job, and he screwed it up and he’s sorry. He takes off in the Impala, look of focused rage on his face and he buries a box in a crossroads, summoning a demon.
She appears, takes one look at Dean’s desperation, and coolly bargains. In return for Sam’s life, she gets Dean’s soul in one year’s time. If he tries to welch, Sam will immediately die. Dean kisses her with no hesitation, sealing the deal.
Sam wakes up. He doesn’t realize he died, and Dean’s in no hurry to enlighten him. When the first thing on his mind is vengeance, Dean convinces him to have some pizza instead. But after Dean fills him in on what happened to the roadhouse, Sam insists they get a move on.
Meanwhile Jake dreams of the Yellow-Eyed Demon. He threatens the demon, saying he’s not going to play his little soldier game. All he plans on doing is hunting him down. The demon quickly derails that train, saying he’ll horribly murder Jake’s family if he moves against him.
When Sam and Dean show up at Bobby’s, he is surprised to see a giant corpse walking, but plays it cool. He tells the brother there has been a tidal wave of demonic signs everywhere but southern Wyoming, like demons are surrounding it.
Soon after, Ellen shows up. She’s alive, hurray! She’s also brought the secret that Ash never managed to reveal: Samuel Colt protected a gate to Hell in southern Wyoming by building five churches connected by iron railway lines in the shape of a devil’s trap. Demons can’t cross the lines. That’s why Yellow Eyes needs Jake, Sam realizes. He needs someone who can get through to the gate.
Sure enough, that’s what Yellow Eyes is trying to get Jake to do. He hands him the mystical Colt revolver, saying it’s the key. Instead of taking his revenge and using the weapon to shoot the demon, Jake decides a new world order where he will be royalty sounds like a pretty sweet deal.
The hunters ambush Jake, but he uses his upgraded demon powers to compel Ellen put a gun to her own head. While the rest save her, Jake uses the Colt to unlock the gate to Hell. But he never gets his kingdom. Sam shoots him down before he can take another step. Bobby screams, “It’s hell,” as the gate begins to open. Dean grabs the Colt just before the doors blow open and a mushroom cloud of demonic energy rushes out!
While Ellen and Bobby try to reclose the door, the Winchesters deal with Yellow Eyes. True to form, he says many horrible, cutting things that would make a seventh grade mean girl clap in appreciation. But before he can kill Dean? Papa strides out of Hell. He distracts Yellow Eyes just long enough for Dean to put a mystical bullet in his brain pan. The Winchesters have a final, silent moment.
Then Papa disappears in a blaze of light.
Sam, bewildered, says their whole lives have been prepping for this event and now he doesn’t know what to say. Dean does, leaning down next to Yellow Eyes’ corpse. “That was for our mom, you son of a bitch.”
After being initially evasive, Dean tells Sam about the deal with the demon. Sam says there’s nothing in the world he wouldn’t do for his brother, and he’ll find him a way out of it. Bobby points out with all the demons that just got let loose, existence is about to get a lot rougher. Dean smiles and says they have work to do.
Brotherly Angst Quotient: DEFCON 1
“What is it with you Winchesters? You, your dad…you’re just itching to throw yourself down the pit,” Bobby asks. When Dean replies that this way his life can mean something, Bobby just looks at him sadly and says, “What and it didn’t before? Have you got that low an opinion of yourself?”
And the answer of course, is yes.
Dean spends a lot of time repeating how he was responsible for protecting Sam and he failed. But I think the more telling moment is when he keeps desperately asking Sam’s corpse what he’s supposed to do now. Dean is defined by his place in the Winchester family. Without another living Winchester, he’s got no purpose, and literally no worth.
Even though it goes against all the feelings of anger he had toward Papa for doing the very same thing, Dean’s deal with the demon isn’t surprising. Still, it hurts to watch him desperately bargain with the demon, all semblance of his cool, gritty persona blown to bits.
Sam’s not doing much better. At one point the yellow-eyed demon taunts Dean, asking if he’s sure that what was brought back was 100% Sam, and, the way he doesn’t even hesitate before he kills Jake? We’ll have to see.
Yellow-Eyed Demon:
DEAD. Boom.
How Drunk Are We?: Tipsy! Take two drinks for Dean’s deal with the demon and the zest with which he houses pizza afterwards.
The Quotable Winchesters: “I guess that's what I do, I let down the people I love. I let dad down. And now, I guess I'm supposed to let you down, too. How can I? How am I supposed to live with that? What am I supposed to do, Sammy?” –Dean, to Sam’s corpse.
Moment Most Likely to Inspire Troubling Fan-Fic:
What happen to John after he goes glowy? Only fan fic can answer!
Notable Cameos:
Ona Grauer of Archer plays the crossroads demon
Next week: The Seven Deadly Sins