Lower Decks

Supernatural
“Death Takes a Holiday”
Originally Broadcast Thursday, March 12th, 2009

Supernatural is back and how! It’s been more than a month since the last new episode (“Sex and Violence” on February 2nd) and I for one was worried that the show would return with a standalone storyline. Thankfully, “Death Takes a Holiday” was instead what appears to be a pivotal installment in the big ole “angels vs. demons” arc that has been playing out during this season. It saw the return of an old character, the death of another, and the capture of a third. And I loved every minute of it.

The monster of the week in “Death Takes a Holiday” was an interesting one. After getting a call from Bobby the Brothers Winchester investigate a small town where nobody has died in roughly two weeks. That wouldn’t have been at all surprising if not for the fact that people who should have died — a gunshot victim, a man taken off life support — were instead healthy and happy and alive. After investigating for a bit, Sam and Dean decide that the town’s reaper, or at least the reaper charged with reaping the town’s dead, was missing.

They decide to try to contact the last person in town to die, a boy named Cole by becoming ghosts. They call in Pamela Barnes (the psychic who was introduced and blinded in the season premiere, “Lazarus Rising“). She agrees to help and the brothers soon find Cole. He tells them that he saw a reaper but the reaper was taken by some black smoke. Suddenly, Tessa the Reaper (from Season Two’s “As I Lay Dying”) appears. After a kiss, Dean remembers her. She’s come to check things out in town but the brothers are worried she’ll be captured just like the other reaper.

Sam promises Cole he can stay in his house with his mom forever and Cole teaches the brothers how to interact with the real world by concentrating and getting angry. Tessa disappears and the brothers head out to the funeral home where Cole saw the reaper. They are soon captured by Alastair (they two encountered him earlier and Sam was able to pull him out of his body) who needed two reapers to open one of the seals. He begins his ritual, kills the first reaper and is about to kill Tessa when Sam and Dean knock a chandelier to the ground, freeing Tessa, who in turn frees them.

Sam returns to the waking world and discovers that Pamela has been stabbed. But because nobody in the town dies, she seems fine. Dean goes looking for his brother but instead finds Alastair, who is suddenly hit with a bolt of lightning. It turns out Castiel set everything in motion by pretending to be Bobby can telling the brothers about the town. The angels couldn’t get into the funeral home where Castiel was attempting to unlock another seal, so they sent in Sam and Dean. The seal wasn’t opened and the angels have Alastair.

With Tessa released, the townspeople who cheated death will now have to face the reaper. Tessa asks Dean to help her with Cole and he does. Pamela dies as well, but not before putting Dean’s astral project back into his body. The brothers have won the day but it isn’t much of a victory. Dean is becoming increasingly cynical about Castiel, thanks in part to Tessa, while Sam seems to have completely embraced the dark aspects of his power, which frightened Pamela. And neither of them are confiding in one another.

I never grew attached to Pamela, so I wasn’t all that upset that she died. She seemed to be a character called upon to facilitate a plot point. In this case, she helped the brothers become ghosts. Killing her simply makes their lives that much harder, that’s all. That Sam would blatantly lie to Cole about being able to stay with his mother was disturbing, to say the least. And Dean being unable to unwilling to confront Sam about using his dark powers seems to indicate that Dean has come to terms with his brother’s “descent” into darkness.

Perhaps both Sam and Dean realize that defeating Lilith and stopping Lucifer from being released will force them to do whatever it takes no matter the cost. Dean appears resigned to the idea that he’s being used by Castiel. Tessa suggested that he’s been lying to himself about getting a second chance for helping Castiel and the angels. Maybe, but I don’t really see it. I think Dean, especially after everything he did in Hell, doesn’t have any hope left in him. He doesn’t want a second chance and certainly doesn’t expect one.

Sam, meanwhile, is more powerful than ever and doesn’t seem bothered at all by what that portends. He’s potentially risking everything — his life, his soul — to gain the upper hand on the demons. Do the ends justify the means? They haven’t always, not in the past, but they seem to now. How much darker will Sam get before the season comes to an end? And what, if anything, will Dean do about it?

It looks like we’ll get the last seven episodes of Season Four straight through with only one or two repeats. With only seven left, I hope we don’t have to sit through more standalone episodes. Coming back from a hiatus with a strong episode like “Death Takes a Holiday” was a good idea. If the series can maintain this pace or even step things up through the rest of the season, I’ll be a happy camper.