(As I mentioned in my post announcing this rewatch project, there will be spoilers!)
Season 4, Episode 7: It's the Great Pumpkin, Sam Winchester
This is yet another episode that I don’t really remember.
The recap reminds us that Sam doesn’t love Halloween (and this recap music is weird), and shows us various monsters and Castiel’s introduction. We are reminded about the seals that Lilith is trying to break in order to free Lucifer.
We open with people decorating two days before Halloween. A dad is feeding his baby while his wife comes in with Halloween candy. She goes to give their baby a bath while the husband hangs back to snag a piece of Halloween candy. Uh oh.
He eats a piece but as he swallows something is wrong. He puts his finger in his mouth and it has blood on it. He pulls out a razor blade! Eewwwww I hate mouth stuff.
Then he falls to his knees and starts coughing out blood and collapses. His wife comes downstairs and finds him dead!
Sam and Dean are interviewing her the next day in FBI mode, learning that her husband somehow swallowed four razorblades. There were no razors in the rest of the candy.
Dean is looking around the house, and notices that the fridge had been moved recently. He reaches behind it and pulls out a hex bag. WITCHES!
Sam asks the woman if her husband had any enemies, but his wife is very upset at the question and its implications. She makes the good point that if someone wanted to kill her husband, couldn’t they find a better way than a razor in candy he might eat?
Back at the motel, Dean comes in snacking on Halloween candy. Sam tells Dean that for them, every day is Halloween.
Apparently the hex bag has gold thread – an herb extinct for two hundred years – and something Celtic, and the charred metacarpal bone of a newborn baby, which is at least a hundred years old. So this is old, powerful stuff.
Dean says that the victim was so vanilla that he made vanilla seem spicy, haha. He can’t find any reason why anyone would have wanted him dead.
Next we cut to a Halloween party where a bunch of young people are dressed in costumes. Hey it’s Ashley Benson from Pretty Little Liars!
Apparently there’s a mausoleum party tomorrow…spooky.
Ashley goes to bob for apples (bless waterproof makeup) and her friend seems a little jealous at the attention it gets her, so she goes to try…but she drowns! Ashley tries to pull her out but they can’t. Then the water starts to boil. Creepy!! She’s dead.
FBI agent Sam and Dean show up to investigate. Dean tries to take lead on interviewing Ashley but Sam stops him: “Two words: jail bait”.
Dean, as Agent Seeger, tries to find out if there’s a connection between the dead girl and the dead man from the day before but they didn’t seem to know each other. Meanwhile, Sam finds a hex bag at the party.
Back at the motel, Dean tells Sam that both victims are squeaky clean. There’s no reason for payback – but Sam says this witch might not be working a grudge, but working a spell: reading from an old book, he talks about three blood sacrifices over three days, with the final before midnight on the final day of the final harvest. On the Celtic calendar, the final day of the final harvest is October 31.
Sam thinks the witch is summoning the demon Samhain – the origin of Halloween. October 31 was his night – sweets left on doorsteps to appease him, etc.
Sam says this can only be performed every 600 years and takes some heavy duty witchraft. Once raised, Samhain can do some raising of his own – ghosts, zombies, etc.
Dean makes jokes but Sam says that’s how it starts. By night’s end, every awful thing they’ve ever seen will be all in one place. Dean says it’s going to be a slaughterhouse.
The next day – Halloween – we see Dean snacking on Halloween candy in the Impala. Sam calls him and says that there has to be some connection between their two victims.
Then he sees the blonde girl (Tracy) from the party go into the dead man’s house – she’s the babysitter. Dean tells Sam that she told him she’d never heard of the dead man.
They suspect Tracy of being a witch. Sam says he’s done some digging and found out she got suspended from school after getting into a violent altercation with a teacher.
Dean visits the school and as he looks at some creepy masks, he hears sounds from his time in Hell. We see that he hasn’t told Sam yet that he remembers his time downstairs.
Don, the art teacher, comes in and Sam and Dean (agents Geddy and Lee) say they have some questions about Tracy. Apparently Don was only “trying to rap with her” about her work, which was apparently pretty disturbing. Detailed images of gory killings, for example.
They learn Tracy lives as an emancipated teenager.
Back at the motel, we learn that they have not been able to track down Tracy, and her friends don’t know where she is. Sam comments that she could be making the third sacrifice anytime.
They are approached by a kid dressed up as an astronaut trick or treating but the boys are out of candy (Dean ate it all). The kid is not impressed.
They enter their motel room and Castiel is there! This is Sam’s first time meeting him!
There’s someone else too – “Him I don’t know,” Dean says.
Sam looks very excited to be meeting Cas. He is very funny, telling Cas it’s an honour. He holds out his hand to shake it and Cas seems like he doesn’t know what to do with it.
Cas says he has heard about Sam – “The boy with the demon blood”.
Cas wants to know if they’ve killed the witch to stop the raising of Samhain. He shows them a hex bag from inside the walls of their motel room. The boys admit they don’t know where the witch is.
Cas tells them that raising Samhain is one of the 66 seals – so this is about Lucifer. Cas tells them breaking this seal must be prevented at all costs.
Dean wants to know where the witch is so they can gank her and move on, but Cas says the angels aren’t omniscient. They don’t know where the witch is. Sam says they know who she is so they can work together, but the other man in the room interrupts.
Cas introduces him as Uriel, a specialist. He’s an angel and he seems intense. Dean wants to know what kind of specialist he is. Cas tells Sam and Dean they need to leave town immediately, because he and Uriel are about to destroy it.
Their plan is to smite the entire town to make sure they kill the witch, so that the seal doesn’t break. Uriel says this isn’t the first time he’s purified a city.
Cas says he understands that this is regrettable but too many seals have been broken already and they have to do this.
“Lucifer cannot rise,” Cas says. He asks Dean if that’s something he’s willing to risk.
Uriel says they’re wasting time, as Cas and Dean make a lot of meaningful eye contact.
Sam is very upset, saying they’re angels, and aren’t they supposed to show mercy?
“Says who,” Uriel asks. Cas says they have no choice, but Dean disputes this. He asks Cas if he’s never question an order. Cas tells Dean that the plan is just, and even if he can’t understand, to have faith.
Cas asks Dean didn’t he obey when his father gave an order? Dean doesn’t answer but says plans have changed.
He tells Uriel that if he is going to smite the whole town, he’ll have to do it with Sam and Dean in it because they aren’t leaving.
Dean says that they pulled him out of hell for a reason, so if he wants to waste him, go ahead and see how God takes it.
He asks Uriel if he’s really going to wipe out a whole town for one witch: “Seems to me like you’re compensating for something.”
Dean tells Cas they’ll find the witch and stop the summoning. Cas tells Dean to work quickly.
SO MUCH EYE CONTACT.
Sam and Dean go outside to find that someone has egged their car! Oh no!
In the car, Sam holds the hex bag Cas found, saying he thought the angels would be different. He thought they would be righteous.
“They are righteous. That’s kind of the problem,” Dean says. “There’s nothing more dangerous than some ahole who thinks he’s on a holy mission”.
Sam is struggling, that this is what he’s been praying to. Dean tells him that just because there are a couple of bad apples, it doesn’t mean the whole barrel is rotten. He tells Sam not to give up on this stuff: “Babe Ruth is a dick but baseball’s still a beautiful game.”
I am sad that he is putting Cas in the rotten apple category.
Sam says it would take a lot of heat to char a bone like the one in the hex bag. He has an idea of where to look for the witch.
They go back to the school, looking at the kiln in the school art room. Sam says the hex bag showed up not after they talked to Tracy, but after they talked to the teacher.
They break open the locked drawer on the teacher’s desk and find some witchy stuff.
We see Cas and Uriel in a park while kids walk around trick or treating. Uriel calls humans savages and Cas says he’s close to blasphemy. He says there’s a reason they were sent to save Dean. There’s potential and he may succeed here, and it’s out of their hands.
Uriel says it doesn’t have to be. He says they should drag Dean out of here and blow this insignificant town off the map. But Cas tells Uriel he knows their true orders. Is he prepared to disobey?
Later that night we see kids going door to door trick or treating and in one of the houses, in the basement, Tracy the babysitter is tied up while Don the teacher – the witch! – is chanting. He is preparing for the final blood sacrifice.
Woo weird camera work.
Before he can kill Tracy, Sam and Dean show up and shoot Don! They cut Tracy down and she says he was going to kill her. Tracy turns out to be Don’s brother! She uses some witchy magic on Sam and Dean and tells them Don was going to make Tracy the final sacrifice, but now that honour goes to him. She says the spellwork is a two-man job.
She’s had to deal with her brother for 600 years. She collects some of his blood, telling Sam and Dean that they took out Don with a gun after all that time.
She takes the blood and finishes the ritual. Sam puts his hand in Don’s blood and puts it on his face and Dean’s, telling Dean to follow his lead.
The ground cracks and something rises. Demon smoke! It enters Don and he rises as the demon Samhain. Uh oh!
He approaches Tracy and, after a kiss (gross that’s supposed to be her brother), he tells her she’s aged. Haha. He says her beauty is beyond time, then snaps her neck and calls her a whore. (I’m really over that word. It gets thrown around too much in the early seasons here)
Samhain sees Sam and Dean, covered in blood, lying on the floor and walks past them. Sam and Dean look at each other. Sam tells Dean people used to wear masks to hide from Samhain so he gave it a shot!
Samhain is walking down the street, vision a little blurry.
Sam and Dean are wondering where to find him, and head to the cemetery. Sam says it might take more than the usual weapons to bring down this demon. Dean tells him not to use his powers, and the angels said so.
Sam doesn’t put much stock in what the angels have to say, but Dean asks him to please not use his powers. After all, didn’t Sam say himself that it was dangerous?
Dean holds out Ruby’s knife and Sam reluctantly takes it.
We see a party – remember that mausoleum party the kids were talking about earlier? They hide as they think a cop is coming – but it’s Don. The kids are confused when Don closes the doors and locks the kids in. He walks away and one of the kids calls out to Don, saying they’re locked in. Then behind the walls of the mausoleum, the caskets (is that the right word?) start to rattle. Remember what Sam said about zombies?
The kids are looking confused and scared and then a zombie breaks out and drags one of the kids into its casket!
Sam and Dean show up and Sam tells Dean to help the kids. Dean doesn’t want to let Sam go after Samhain alone but Dean shoots the lock off the door, letting the kids escape. He has to fend off a mini zombie horde. “Bring it on, stinky.”
We see Sam approach Samhain, who tries to blast Sam with some demon magic like Lillith did at the end of season three. And like that episode, it has no effect on Sam. He and Samhain start to fight.
After Dean fights off the zombies, he’s attacked by a ghost!
“Zombie ghost orgy, huh. That’s it, I’m torching everybody.”
Sam is getting beat up by Samhain and he tries to use his powers. He has some effect on Samhain but the demon seems too strong.
Dean comes around the corner and sees what’s going on, and Sam manages to expel the demon from Don. But Sam’s nose starts to bleed and it looks like it pains him to do this.
Dean does not look at all happy as the demon is exorcised. He just stares at Sam, who looks up at Dean.
THEIR FACES! SO MUCH EMOTION!
The day after Halloween, we see Sam packing up in the motel room to leave.
Suddenly Uriel is there. He tells Sam, “Tomorrow, November 2nd, it’s an anniversary for you right?” He reminds Sam that it marks the day Azazel killed his mother, as well as his girlfriend Jessica.
Uriel is mad that Sam used his abilities when he was told not to. But Sam says otherwise that demon would have killed him, his brother, everyone. Uriel says that Sam has been warned twice now.
Sam says Dean was right, angels are dicks. Uriel gets in his face a little. “The only reason you’re still alive, Sam Winchester, is because you’ve been useful. But the moment that ceases to be true, the second you become more trouble than you’re worth, one word – one – and I will turn you to dust.”
OOOHHHH Uriel is so menacing. I like it. The angles are not playing around.
“As for your brother, tell him that maybe he should climb off that high horse of his. Ask Dean what he remembers from Hell.”
WOAH. After that, Uriel is gone.
We know Dean told Sam that he doesn’t remember anything from hell.
Then we see Dean sitting in a park. Castiel is there. Dean asks if he’s there for the “I told you so”. Cas says no, he’s not here to judge Dean.
He says that their orders were not to stop the summoning of Samhain, they were to do whatever Dean told them to do.
Dean leans forward. “Your orders were to follow my orders?”
Cas tells him it was a test, to see how Dean would perform under battlefield conditions. Dean says it was a witch, that’s all. He asks if he failed the test.
“But you know what? If you were to wave that magic time-travelling wand of yours and we had to do it all over, I’d make the same call.” Dean would not have a whole town of people killed. “I don’t know what’s going to happen when these seals are broken; hell, I don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow, but what I do know is that this, here, these kids, the swings, trees, all of it, is still here because of my brother and me.” THAT’S RIGHT!
Cas tells Dean that he misunderstands him. He isn’t like Dean thinks. He tells Dean that he was praying that Dean would choose to save the town. “These people,” Cas says, “they’re all my father’s creations. They’re works of art. And yet, even though you stopped Samhain, the seal’s broken and we are one step closer to hell on earth for all creation, and that’s not an expression, Dean. That’s literal. You of all people should appreciate what that means.” More meaningful eye contact.
“Can I tell you something, if you promise not to tell another soul?” Cas asks. “I’m not a hammer, as you say. I have questions. I have doubts. I don’t know what is right and what is wrong anymore, whether you passed or failed here. But in the coming months, you will have more decisions to make. I don’t envy the weight that’s on your shoulders Dean. I truly don’t.”
Then Cas is gone.
Lore:
-demons
-angels
-zombies
-witches
-ghosts
We got a bit of everything!
Overall Thoughts:
I didn’t remember this episode but it was really good! I loved the scene at the mausoleum at the end, and the angel stuff with Uriel and Cas was great.
I really liked that we see already that Cas is questioning and may not be the obedient soldier that he is supposed to be (doesn’t that sound very Winchester of him??). And I love that I can already see the bond between Dean and Castiel. I feel like Dean still isn’t sure what to make of the angels and doesn’t totally trust Cas right now, but knowing that Cas has doubts might change the way Dean sees him.
And let’s not forget, they didn’t prevent this seal from being broken – Samhain still rose. And Sam is apparently powerful enough to expel such a strong, old demon! That is interesting. And now Sam knows, thanks to Uriel, that Dean does remember his time in hell…I think the boys will have some things to discuss!
