By Paula R. Stiles

[Here be mondo spoilage]

Tagline: Sam and Dean get the Colt from “friendly” Crossroad Demon Crowley and go on a suicide mission to kill Lucifer. But it may not be their death warrants they’re signing.

Recap: This last episode of Supernatural before the hiatus (the show returns on January 21) begins with a recap with some fairly standard stuff earlier in the season: Possessed Bobby knocking Dean through a door and Dean being confronted by the new Meg in “Sympathy for the Devil”; the brothers encountering Ellen in “Good God, Y’all!”; Castiel talking on the phone about the Colt to Dean in “The End”; Becky telling Sam about Bela stealing the Colt in last week’s “The Real Ghost Busters” and giving it to a demon named Crowley (complete with shots of Bela from season three’s “Bad Day at Black Rock” and “Jus in Bello”, as well as a brief flash of Lilith from “Lucifer Rising”). Kind of standard with no music (and Bela’s appearances just emphasized to me how much I don’t miss her).

“Abandon All Hope” begins with an aerial (angel-eye view?) shot of an overpass and a man in his fifties in a very nice suit and coat getting out of the back of a nice car with a minibar under the overpass. He steps right in a puddle and curses. Clearly, this is a man of means who by no means deserves any of it.

He scampers over to a spot not far away, digs in some dirt and puts in a tin can. Yep. You guessed it. This is a crossroad of overpasses and this man is summoning a Crossroad Demon. Neat image.

He stands, waiting expectantly, and looks disappointed when he turns around and sees a man in his forties, also nattily dressed, who calls himself “Crowley” and addresses the businessman as “Pendleton”. Pendleton snarkily points out that the previous agent demonic that he spoke with was a woman. Crowley replies, with a heavy English accent (London? I suck at picking out the regions), that Pendleton is an important client, “a big fish”, and so, he decided to dispense with underlings (the beautiful girl) and show up himself.

Pendleton is not ecstatic. Aren’t these types of deals supposed to be sealed with a kiss? Crowley cheerfully agrees that this is so, and if Pendleton wants to let his homophobia keep him away from making a deal that will save him and his bank, that’s fine with Crowley. The man hastily agrees to it and the demon immediately full-out snogs him. Right through the credits for about 20 seconds. Woohoo! A guy-on-guy kiss on Supernatural, and both of them over forty, too!

[snicker] Sorry. Couldn’t resist. To think the things I see on the Network for Precocious Young Girls that I’ll never see on the Big Four. My, my.

Ah, but the CRD and his prey are not truly alone (aside from Pendleton’s chauffeur). Castiel is spying on them from behind a concrete pillar. Castiel you pervy little voyeur, you. Anyhoo, Castiel is on a cell phone. He’s reporting back to Dean that he’s found Crowley and that Crowley is making a deal. Dean calls him “Huggy Bear” (one of Starsky and Hutch’s informants) and hangs up. We then get a cool bit where Crowley disappears behind a pillar and doesn’t reappear. Castiel does the same thing. Cut to Castiel in front of a large house, calling Dean again and telling him he found the place, and it wasn’t far away, but it’s “covered with Enochian sigils” (nice FX of the sigils, like the ones from last season’s “Death Takes a Holiday”). Dean assures Castiel, “Don’t worry. We can take it from here.”

Cut to a night scene and a young girl in a Little Black Dress walking up to the gate outside the house and ringing the doorbell. It must be cold because she’s shivering. She asks the person who’s answered to help her since her car broke down. As she turns around, we see that she is Jo Harvelle.

Two guys in suits come out to “help” her. She thanks them and tells them she just needs to get to a phone. One of them, a tall, blonde, good-looking guy tells her in a lecherous voice that she doesn’t need to go anywhere. Alarmed, Jo says that she’ll just take care of it on her own and starts to turn away. At that moment, the demon grabs her shoulder. But instead of cringing or shrieking, she whips around and smacks him, slamming him to the ground. Cut to the other demon getting the Sparkly Spork o’ Doom through the back of his neck. Before the blonde can recover, he gets it, too. The killer? Sam Winchester.

Dean comes up with a bag and tells Jo she did a good job. Then he and Sam head into the house.

Crowley is inside, enjoying a drink and home movies of Hitler greeting crowds (seriously) to The Main Ingredient’s’ “Everybody Plays the Fool”. When the lights go out…he smiles. Oh, this can’t be good.

He strolls out into a hallway to see Sam and Dean waiting with saltguns. He is unimpressed, and even less so when he discovers the devil’s trap they had hidden under the rug. He asks them if they know how much that rug cost, then calls them “morons”, right before summoning two demons who appear behind the brothers and grab them, pinning their arms.

Crowley pulls a gun out of his coat. It’s the Colt, the gun that first appeared in season one and can allegedly kill anything. Crowley muses over it then points it at Dean, then shifts a fraction and shoots the demon behind Dean, as well as the demon behind Sam. He tells the brothers that they need to talk – “in private”.

In the office, Crowley lays it out for them: he doesn’t trust Lucifer. He figures that demons are just Lucifer’s “cannon fodder” and that, should Lucifer actually manage to kill all humans, he would start on demons next. Crowley proposes that he give the boys the C0lt and they go kill the Devil while he flees to parts unknown. He hands it over to Sam – who immediately pulls the trigger on him. Naturally, it doesn’t work (I’m sure Crowley hasn’t forgotten what Sam did to the two previous CRDs he summoned). Crowley tosses Dean the bullets and then vanishes.

Speaking of CRDs, it looks as though the writers just neatly sewed up a rather large plot hole from season three. The CRD Sam shot in “Bedtime Stories” referred to her boss as “he”, but Tammi in “Malleus Maleficarum” was more vague about gender and Bela talked about the demon holding her deal being Lilith, who had since been revealed to be female. It looks as though we’re supposed to believe that Crowley was Lilith’s head CRD or was beaten by her and became her underling, along with his stable of CRDs, thus making Lilith technically in charge of demon contracts like Bela’s and Dean’s. Hmm. No wonder he dresses like a pimp.

Cut to the party on the “last night on earth” at Bobby’s (I cannot believe they got Santana’s “Oye Como Va”. Yes! Love that song and it’s all through this scene). Everybody’s getting drunk (dumb thing to do before you go into battle, but it’s totally in character for hunters). Ellen and Jo engage in a drinking contest with Castiel, who wins, hands down. Sam and Dean, in another part of the room, are having a strategy session. Dean has been looking at Carthage, Missouri, the place where Crowley said Lucifer would be, and is finding “Revelation omens” everywhere, as well as six missing persons reports “since Sunday”. He thinks Lucifer really is there. He wants to go in alone because, if Sam gets captured, Lucifer will probably turn him and Dean is under some weird delusion that he’s still expendable. Sam tells Dean flat out that that’s dumb. They both know what happens if they separate. Dean reluctantly agrees.

Dean then suddenly gets the urge to go hit on Jo, who is getting a beer out of the fridge. She seems up for it, at first (oh, gag me), but then turns him down (thank God!) with the statement that if she’s going to die tomorrow, she’d like to do so with her “self respect”. Truer words were never spoken, sister. Dean grumbles that “self respect” is overrated, but doesn’t pursue it.

Bobby chivvies everyone to get in front of a camera and do a “family photo”. There are jokes all round until Castiel points out that since they’re going up against Lucifer, “This is our last night on earth.” The photo shows everyone a bit grim, especially Bobby, as a result.

The next day, in the rain, Dean and Sam in the Impala and Ellen, Jo and Castiel in their SUV motor into the town where Crowley said Lucifer would be on “Thursday”: Carthage, Missouri. Assuming that everyone was drinking late into the night and had to start out early, we can assume they’re all tired, hungover and/or still drunk. Except for Castiel, of course, who doesn’t need “door handles” to leave a car.

The town is utterly deserted, and Dean can’t get an cell phone reception (never a good sign). There are missing persons signs all over the telephone poles: “Roberta Hagen” and “Leslie DeHann, Age 31″. A huge sign at one end of the street declares: “Anti-God Is Anti-American” right next to a smaller sign that says, “Adult Videos”. Gotta love those good old American values of Mom, Apple Pie and Porn.

Dean tells Ellen he and Sam will go check out the police station and they drive off. As Ellen, Jo and Castiel get out of the car, Castiel points out, “We’re not alone.” From Castiel’s point of view, the “empty” street is filled with Reapers, all standing and staring in one direction. Castiel tries to talk to them, and finally sees one up in a second story window that turns away from him. When he flies up to investigate, however, Lucifer appears in the room down the hall and traps him.

Castiel finds himself in a cellar, inside a ring of holy fire. Lucifer doesn’t recognise him or remember his name at first, which would indicate that Lucifer probably didn’t resurrect him in “Sympathy for the Devil” (my money’s still on Michael). Lucifer tries to bargain with him, but Castiel is adamant. He won’t give Sam to Lucifer, even if it means his death. It’s nice to see Castiel defend Sam like this. Maybe he’s starting to care about both brothers. Lucifer tells Castiel that he rebelled just like Lucifer and was cast out, just like Lucifer. If Heaven does manage to kill Lucifer, Castiel will be their next “Public Enemy #1″.

When Sam and Dean return, Dean asks where Castiel is. Ellen says he took off after saying he saw Reapers and they haven’t seen him since. Dean is unhappy about this, but they start walking down the street, armed, anyway. Suddenly, Meg appears behind them. Dean points the Colt at her, but Meg declares that she didn’t come alone. Something invisible steps, growling into a puddle on either side of her. Dean blanches and declares, “Hell hounds!”

Meg tells them it would be easier to come along quietly. Dean snarks back, “Since when do we ever do things the easy way?” Then he shoots a hell hound. Everyone starts running. Dean, who is taking up the rear, is grabbed and knocked down by a hell hound. Jo turns around, sees that he is in trouble, and screams his name. Even though he yells at her to run, Jo races back and shoots at the hell hound repeatedly. But another slams into her and rips into her side. She falls down, shrieking and spurting blood. Dean shoots at it and then picks her up. They all run into a building, a hardware store. As Ellen tends to Jo, the boys salt the doors. Right before commercial, we get a good look at Jo’s wound – it’s bad. Actually, unless she gets to an ER very, very soon, it’s fatal.

Back from commercial, Bobby is trying to call Dean on the phone, but can’t get through to him. Then he hears Dean calling him via shortwave radio. Bobby answers and asks if everyone is allright. Freaked out and pretty hysterical, Dean admits that it’s bad and that Jo is seriously hurt. Bobby talks him down and they have a chat. Ellen comes over and says that Castiel was seeing Reapers, at least a dozen. Bobby talks this over with Dean beforre concluding that it’s because Lucifer is trying to summon the Angel of Death on an old Civil War battlefield in Carthage called “The Battle of Hell Hole” on “William Jasper’s Farm”.

Meg appears in the cellar and tells Lucifer that she has the Winchester brothers pinned down. Should she go after them? Lucifer tells her no, to have patience and wait. He treats Meg like a daughter, though, as with all of his interactions, there’s an underlying falseness to it. Meg doesn’t appear to notice. She’s switched all of her previous loyalty to Azazel to Lucifer as her “father”.

Sam and Dean try to come up with some way of getting Jo out of there, back to the car and to a hospital somewhere. At this point, Jo finally becomes a real woman. She stops the conversation by pointing out that she can’t move her legs and that she can’t be moved. In other words, she’s dying and she knows it. She asks them to rig a bomb of iron nails, propane and salt. She wants to let in the hell hounds and blow herself up with them while the others flee. The boys, and Ellen, agree but very reluctantly. The boys make up the bomb while Ellen takes care of Jo and Dean gives Jo the detonator. He kisses her gently on the forehead then, after a hesitation, on the mouth.

It’s at that moment that Ellen admits she’s not going with the boys. She’s going to stay with her daughter. Her rationale is that Jo can’t get up, so somebody has to open the door, but her real reason is obvious. Just as Dean couldn’t bury Sam or leave his side after Sam died in season two’s “All Hell Breaks Loose”, Ellen cannot leave Jo to die alone.

The boys are horrified, but there’s not much they can do. They have to finish the job. Ellen tells Dean, “Kick it in the ass. Don’t miss.”

As the boys scramble upstairs and out the firescape to the next building, Ellen clears away the salt from the doors and opens them up. She sits down with Jo. Jo dies in her arms as the hell hounds stalk in and gather round. As one hell hound snarls in her ear, Ellen snarls back, “You can go back to Hell, you ugly bitch!” and sets off the detonator. The explosion is pretty massive and apparently takes out the hell hounds, or at least puts them out of commission long enough for the boys to escape.

Cut to night and Sam and Dean are sneaking up on Lucifer at the battlefield. Dozens of possessed demons are standing around the graves while he digs. Sam comes out and challenges Lucifer, who is digging a hole and getting ready to summon one of the Four Horsemen – Death, in fact. Lucifer seems amused by Sam…at least until Dean sneaks up right behind him and brutally puts a bullet in his face. Lucifer goes down like a sack of meat.

The demons just stand there, frozen. Sam and Dean looked shocked and happy, the beginnings of their expressions from after they killed Azazel at the end of “All Hell Breaks Loose”. But then the worst happens – Lucifer wakes up. He’s hurt, but not even close to killed. Dean gets thrown into a tree for his trouble and knocked cold.

Lucifer assures Sam that Sam is in no danger from him. He would never hurt Sam. As he edges over to the tree to make sure Dean is still alive (Dean is, but unconscious), Sam swears that he will rip Lucifer’s heart out and kill him. Lucifer tells him that anger is good, to keep it and stoke it since Lucifer will need it when he’s riding Sam. He then tells Sam that Sam can’t move (which Sam can’t) and starts his ritual. After saying some words, he gets the demons in the possessed townsmen (the women and children have already been killed and apparently buried, as a sacrifice) swear their lives, blood and soul and then kills them all in bursts of red light. “What?” he shrugs at Sam. “They’re just demons.” So, Crowley is right, after all (though that’s not really a shocker).

Meanwhile, Castiel is still trapped down in the cellar and Meg is mocking him. But Castiel has figured out that he can turn the screws of a big pipe overhead. He does this while taunting Meg that Lucifer doesn’t care about her and will just toss her away when he’s done. Meg, somewhat to her credit, remains loyal to Lucifer, but the conversation gives Castiel enough time to loosen the pipe and use it to knock her into the circle of fire. Unfortunately, when he tries to kill her, the white light trick doesn’t work. As she taunts him, he goes with Plan B: he tosses her onto the line of fire and uses her shrieking host body as a bridge over the flames.

Lucifer is summoning Death as Castiel appears next to Sam and a groggy Dean. He rescues them in a burst of white light. Lucifer turns around, sees the empty space…and smiles. Then he turns back and greets Death.

Back at Bobby’s house, Sam, Dean and Bobby are in front of Bobby’s fireplace while the television talks about the huge death toll from the massive tornadoes around Carthage. Bobby takes the photo from the night before they left and tosses it on the fire. Dean stares intently at it as it burns. The last face that burns is Jo’s.

Review: “Abandon All Hope” started out a tad “business as usual”, though briskly played, with the introduction of a new demon named “Crowley” (stolen wholesale from the book Good Omens, as every fan and his/her mother have pointed out since the casting call was released) and Dean making a drunken pass at Jo. [rolls eyes]

Fortunately, we quickly moved on to more serious and original business – namely, Jo’s not-so-slow dying and her last stand with her mother. I’ve heard a lot of complaints about how this was “sexist” because the episode killed off two popular female characters.

Say, what?

First of all, Ellen was a lot more popular than Jo, who was generally disliked by the fandom. Now, don’t get me wrong. I’ve suspected for quite a while that Alona Tal could have really brought it as Jo if only the writers had bothered to give her some decent material. And bring it she did in this episode – when she finally got the damned material. But the character was always written, right up to this week, as a whiny little girl hunter wannabe. The beginning of the episode didn’t especially bode well, either, what with Dean drunkenly coming on to her and her acting as bait at Crowley’s big old mansion. Hmm.

But then she got wounded (coming back to save Dean, who had been tripped by the hell hounds; loved that gender reversal) and resolved to go out on top rather than drag everyone else down and possibly destroy their only chance to save the world. Go Jo.

And of course Ellen would stay with her daughter. What mother wouldn’t? She could no more leave Jo than Dean could bury Sam or leave his side after Sam died in his arms in “All Hell Breaks Loose”. Women do not normally get these storylines, where two women who love each other more than anything go out together in a blaze of glory. No, they normally get stuck with getting laid, and then waving to the guy as he rides off to battle, possibly pregnant with the next generation. But they don’t get to go out as heroes in an action-adventure show unless it’s something where the protagonist is female in the first place (and even then, there are all sorts of contortions against those female characters who aren’t leads).

So, what’s not to love? Yeah, Supernatural just killed off two of its longest-recurring female characters (though Meg may have survived), and I’ll miss them. But it killed off two childhood mentors of the boys, Pastor Jim and Caleb, practically off screen right when we met them in “Salvation”. So, the show’s done it to male characters, too. Supernatural has a high body count. It’s that kind of show.

I would rather Ellen and Jo go out in a proper blaze of glory so that I can miss them hard, than that they be left behind, polishing some new Roadhouse bar tables, never to appear or be thought of again because they were never that important in the first place. Make them important and kill ‘em off well, I say.

Such complaints (so far) also ignore Meg’s evolution, both over the seasons and in the course of “Abandon All Hope”. Meg has always been a few McNuggets shy of a Happy Meal (and yet, in a weird way, no more so than Dean), but she didn’t really lose her compass until she abandoned her loyalty to Azazel (apparently feeling betrayed by him after being exorcised back to Hell in “Devil’s Trap”). Now, she’s found it again and she’s loonier than ever. Her loyalty has turned into fanaticism. She is absolutely convinced that Lucifer will lead her into Heaven (which, as Castiel points out, will never happen).

And yet, you have to admire that loyalty. She is unswerving in it, no flaky little girl, but all the more dangerous an adversary because of those “good” qualities of love and loyalty that are so lauded in other characters (Ellen and Jo, especially) in “Abandon All Hope”. Meg shows how they can be turned bad when you lack all compassion for anyone but those to whom you’ve sworn your allegiance.

I was not too wild about some of the stuff surrounding Crowley. His introduction was great (nice satire about the bank bailouts being a devil’s deal), and I liked the reminder (in the guards out by the gate) that Lust is one of the Seven Deadly Sins. I like Mark Sheppard. He’s lots of fun. Crowley does seem to like to screw a bit with people’s heads (which Sheppard merrily throws himself into in true “I come from a country where winding people up is a national pastime” fashion). And it did finally sew up a major plot hole from season three about why the CRD in “Bedtime Stories” said “he” when Lilith ended up holding Dean’s contract at the end of season three. And that is a nice touch – I mean, Crowley may have been the one who held Dean’s contract initially. I wondered if Dean remembered that.

But Crowley feels a bit too…I dunno…old school. The snark at the brothers’ expense was more annoying than cute because it was too one-sided. I don’t get why Dean, especially, has to take a stupid pill right before talking to certain demons. Or why Sam and Dean had to keep glancing at the rug so obviously. I mean, come on. I’m not dumb, either.

I did love the deliberate gender reversals, though, in both the writing and the acting. For example, it’s usually the girl who gives the guy a last kiss before he heroically commits suicide (for example, Buffy telling Spike, “I love you” at the end of Buffy the Vampire Slayer right before he goes down with the Hellmouth and Spike snorting, “No, you don’t.”). But in “Abandon All Hope”, it’s Dean who gives Jo a final kiss, even though it’s pretty clear he sees her as a sister and not the epic love she’d hoped for.

I also really liked Ackles’ decision to play Dean shaky and teary and scared (more what you would expect from a woman dealing with his situation in fiction) in the hardware store, with Bobby having to calm him down. It reinforces Dean’s feelings without making them unambiguous or pallid. Just because Dean didn’t love Jo “that way” doesn’t mean he didn’t love her. And I liked his open fear of the hell hounds, which reminds us that he’s not been back from Hell all that long.

I also really liked some of the stuff Padalecki did. He got saddled with some crappy “As You Know, Bob” exposition in this one, but he fielded Sam’s emotional changes (which were heavy in this ep) well. The look on Sam’s face when Lucifer is telling him the story of his fight with Michael (which sounds an awful lot like the confrontation in the motel room at the end of “When the Levee Breaks” between Sam and Dean) is qualitatively different from even “Good God, Y’all!”. I think Sam is finally growing up. There’s a really lovely, short bit, where Sam sits with Jo for a while, silently holding her hand, that shows how much he’s grown. He’s moved beyond both the rather shallow and self-conscious emo young man and the self-absorbed, sociopathic demon-blood addict to someone who can care about people and do things for them without demanding the centre stage. There’s hope for him, yet, no matter what crap Lucifer is trying to fill his head with.

Samantha Ferris and Alona Tal, of course, knocked it right out of the ballpark, but Ackles and Padalecki were not far behind. Jim Beaver shone in his few scenes, demonstrating Bobby’s frustration and helplessness at being left behind while the others went off on a suicide mission. Meanwhile, Misha Collins subtly played up Castiel’s otherwordliness, yet putting in a few early touches of the Castiel that we see in “The End”. There’s even a creepy reference from Lucifer to Sam saying yes to him in Detroit, just as predicted in “The End”.

And call me a Classics nerd, but it tickled me that they set Lucifer’s big raising of Death in “Carthage”, not so much for the Civil War ref as the ancient one. After conquering Carthage for the last time, Rome burned the city to the ground and salted the land so no one could raise another city there. Interesting that this episode also confirmed that the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are angels (as in “Revelation”). Very scary angels. I guess that makes Reapers…minor angels? And where is Tessa in all of this?

Speaking of good acting, Lucifer is meaner, nastier and more selfish than ever (the bit about his not caring about demons was no surprise. Demons are ex-humans, after all), and I feel decreasing sympathy for him as the season progresses (not that I started with much). But Mark Pellegrino is wickedly funny (in a very creepy way), while also mining Lucifer’s pathos for all its worth. His Lucifer is all the more terrifying for being three-dimensional, and yet still a complete bastard. That’s a pretty neat trick.

But I gotta ask one more time: WHERE’S MICHAEL? I mean, his vessel is getting smacked around (though my suspicion that Dean is practically indestructible at this point continues to grow. I really think Lucifer intended to kill him by throwing him into that tree). I guess there’s no reason to get that excited if Dean can’t be killed, and Dean is certainly pretty cavalier about dying (again) at this point, but still…come on. They need to show him soon. We’ve heard everybody else’s side of the story. I want to hear Michael’s now. I bet it’s a whole lot different than the others.

Fun lines:

Crowley [to Pendleton]: You, piggy banker, you…are a big fish. And I wanted to do you the honour of sealing this deal personally.

Pendleton: But she [the other CRD] said the deal would be sealed with a kiss.

Crowley: Exactly. Your choice. You can cling to six decades of deep-seated homophobia. Or you can just give it up and get a complete bailout of your bank’s ridiculous incompetence.

Castiel: The demon Crowley is making the deal. Even as we speak, it’s…going…down.

Dean: “Going down”? Okay, “Huggy Bear”. Just don’t lose him.

Crowley [to Sam and Dean about the rug]: Do you have any idea how much this rug cost?

Castiel [to Ellen and Jo after downing five shots of God knows what]: I think I’m starting to feel something.

Dean: Sam Winchester having trust issues with a demon. Well, better late than never.

Sam: Well, thank you for your continued support.

Dean: You’re welcome.

Jo [to Dean]: Sweetheart, if this is our last night on earth, then I am going to spend it with a little something I call “self respect”.

Dean: If you’re into that kind of thing.

Bobby: Everybody in here! It’s time for a lineup. Usual suspects in the corner.

Ellen: Oh, come on, Bobby. Nobody wants to get their picture taken.

Bobby: Shut up. You’re drinking my beer.

Jo [to Castiel inside the car]: You ever heard of a door handle?

Castiel [outside the car]: Of course I have.

Castiel: [Reapers] only gather like this in times of great catastrophe: the Chicago Fire, San Francisco Earthquake, Pompeii.

Lucifer: Castiel, isn’t it? Castiel, I’m told you came here in an automobile. How was it?

Castiel: Slow…What is wrong with your vessel?

Lucifer: Yes. Nick is wearing a bit thin. He can’t contain me forever, so…

Dean: Well, this is great. We’ve only been in town for 20 minutes and already, we’ve lost the angel up our sleeve.

Dean: Hasn’t death been dropping all over the place? I mean, hell, I’ve died several times, myself.

Bobby: Not this guy. This is the Angel of Death. Big Daddy Reaper. They keep this guy chained in a box 600 feet under. Last time they dragged this guy up, Noah was building a boat.

Jo: Stop. Guys, can we be realistic about this? I can’t move my legs. My body can’t be moved. My guts are being held in by an ace bandage. We got to get our priorities straight, here.

Ellen: Joanna Beth, you stop talking like that.

Jo: Mom, I can’t fight. I can’t walk. But I can do something.

Jo [to Ellen]: Mom, this might literally be your last chance to treat me like an adult. You might want to take it.

Dean [to Jo]: This is it. See you on the other side, sooner or later. Probably sooner.

Jo: Make it later.

Ellen [to Jo]: Somebody’s gotta let ‘em in. And like you said, you’re not moving. You got me, Jo. And you’re right: it is important. But I will not leave you alone.

Ellen [as Jo dies]: I will always love you, baby. It’s okay. You’re my good girl. [to the hell hound as it breathes on her] You can go straight back to Hell, you ugly bitch. [blows the bomb]

Sam [to Dean]: Last words?

Dean: I think I’m good.

Sam: Yeah, me, too.

Lucifer: You know, Sam, you really don’t need that gun here. You know I’d never hurt you. Not really.

Dean: Oh, yeah? Well, I’d hurt you. So, suck it! [shoots Lucifer]

Lucifer: Owwww. [to Dean about the Colt] Where did you get that? [knocks Dean into a tree and turns back to Sam] Now. Where were we? Don’t feel too bad, Sam. There’s only five things in creation that that gun can’t kill. I just happen to be one of them.

Sam [about saying yes to Lucifer]: That’ll never happen!

Lucifer: I think it’ll happen soon, within six months. I think it’ll happen…in Detroit.

Sam: You listen to me, you son of a bitch. I’m gonna kill you. I’m gonna rip your heart out!

Lucifer: You keep fanning that fire in your belly. That pent-up rage? I’m gonna need it.

Lucifer: I was a son. A brother, like you. A younger brother. And I had an older brother who I loved. Idolized, in fact. And one day, I went to him and I begged him to stand with me. And Michael turned on me, called me a “freak”, a “monster”, and then he beat me down, all because I was different, because I had a mind of my own. Tell me something, Sam. Any of this sound familiar?

Lucifer [to Sam after killing all of his demons to summon Death]: What? They’re just demons.

Castiel [to Meg]: You seem pleased.

Meg: We’re gonna win. Can you feel it? You cloud-hopping pansies lost the whole damned universe. Lucifer’s gonna take over Heaven. We’re going to Heaven, Clarence.

Lucifer: Oh, helloooo, Death.

Next Week: Croatoan: Our first retro review for the hiatus next Thursday, in honour of Thanksgiving, is season two episode “Croatoan”. After Sam has a dream that Dean kills an unarmed man in cold blood, they head to a town that appears to have been cut off from the rest of the world, and is about to disappear.

In the New Year [January 21]: Sam, Interrupted: Sam and Dean get themselves checked into a psych hospital to investigate some creepy doings, and then can’t get out when something starts to drive them crazy for real.

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