Good God, Y'all

It was a Monday
A day like any other day
I left a small town
For the Apple of decay

It was my destiny
It's what we needed to do
They were telling me
I'm telling you

We started out the episode with these words from Foreigner's "Long, Long Way From Home." Seems fitting since the boys are a long way from "home" in just about every sense imaginable. I am glad we're starting out the season with the classic rock so many have come to identify with the show.

After the recap, we see Sam watching Bobby, who is still in the hospital, sitting in a wheelchair staring out the window. Dean arrives and injects one bit of the sparse humor of the episode. "It's been like three days now. We gotta cheer him up. Maybe I'll give him a back rub." But Sam doesn't take part in the humor and tells Dean that maybe they have to accept that Bobby isn't going to bounce back so easily this time.

Dean shows Sam the contents of the large envelope in his hand -- an X-ray that shows the strange symbols carved into Dean's ribs, the gift from Castiel that hides them from all angels, including Lucifer. As proof that even Cas can't just know where they are anymore, he has to call them on Sam's cell phone. When Cas shows up, Bobby demands that he heal him, but Cas doesn't have that power anymore.

Cas tells the boys that their plan to kill Lucifer is foolish, that they can't do it. But he knows someone who can -- God. "I'm gonna find God. He isn't in Heaven. He has to be somewhere." Dean injects the funniest line of the episode here. "Try New Mexico. I hear he's on a tortilla." The look on his face as he says it tells me that Jensen loved this line. Almost as funny was Castiel's serious response: "No, he's not on any flatbread." LOL!

After Dean's usual "God doesn't care about us" speech, Cas gets in his face and says that he's killed two angels that week, his brothers, for Dean, but Dean and Sam failed in stopping the apocalypse. "I lost everything for nothing," Cas says. He says that he needs an amulet to help him find God. It is supposed to burn hot in God's presence. Amulet, you say? Yes, DEAN'S AMULET! "Like God EMF?" Sam asks. Cas says yes. So, off Cas goes with Dean's amulet to find God, and Dean's response is, "Great, now I feel naked." This is pretty much where the humor ends in this episode except for one line toward the end.

We launch into what feels like a hunt of the week, but of course it has bigger ramifications and surprises this season. Rufus, the older hunter we've met before, calls Bobby and says he's in River Pass, Colorado, and the place is covered in demons. Boys and Impala head for Colorado, where they drive up to a destroyed bridge which is, of course, on the only road in and out of town. Funny how there are so many small towns with only one road connecting them to the rest of the world. Right as Dean says, "And the hits just keep coming," the song "Spirit in the Sky" by Norman Greenbaum starts playing. As they walk into town to find a bunch of abandoned and wrecked cars lining the main street, including a cherry red Mustang Dean appreciates, the song goes from being background to playing on the radio of a still running car. And who should show up then but Ellen. First she gets the boys off the street, then she hugs Dean, then she smacks him and tells him he should have called. Am I forgetting something, or didn't the boys think Ellen was either dead or had no idea where she was after the roadhouse fire? She takes them to a basement of a church where the survivors have retreated.

When Sam and Dean say they'll go get more guns and supplies, Dean tries to get Sam to stay behind. It's obvious Dean doesn't trust Sam out there with demons, and Sam knows it. While Dean goes for the guns, Sam goes to get rock salt. Two demons come in, he kills them, then has to fight his desire for the demon blood. Of course, Dean walks in and sees that written all over Sam's face. Later, Sam is upset that he had to kill teenagers and wishes he could save people like he used to. Dean calls him on that because that ability was only because of the demon blood, and Sam denies that he wants it anymore. As was speculated after last week's recap, Sam isn't as free from the lure of the demon blood as it first appeared. Sam and Dean argue again about who will accompany Ellen outside when she goes to look for Jo, but Sam ends up going with her. She knows something is up between the brothers and asks about it. Sam chalks it up to the stresses of the job.

And here's where the weirdness begins. They encounter Jo (who has black eyes), but Jo says, "Give me my mom back, you black-eyed bitch." Huh? I had to rewind and listen to this three times, and I was still confused. It gets even weirder when Rufus captures Sam and tries using holy water and rock salt against him. Rufus and Jo are puzzled about why it isn't working. They think Sam has black eyes, and he thinks they do. Something is not right in River Pass.

Back at the ranch...uh, basement of the church, Dean and Ellen try to figure out what's going on by trying to figure out what omens Rufus was in town to investigate. They find out from the minister that the river had run polluted all of a sudden the previous Wednesday. One of the other survivors says that on the same night, he saw a bright shooting star. Dean grabs a Bible and starts looking up something. When he reads, it's from Revelations: "And there fell a great star from Heaven, burning like a torch, and it fell upon the river, and the name of the star was Wormwood. And many men died." Dean asks the minister what these specific omens are a prelude to. The answer? The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. When Dean asks which of the horsemen rides the red horse (the cherry red Mustang), the minister responds, "War." Thus, the tie-in to the name of the episode, "Good God, Y'all," a lyric from Edwin Starr's anti-war song, "War."

Dean says he things War is in town and messing with all of their minds, that there are no demons. War is just making them all think they see demons so they'll all kill each other. Turns out War is inhabiting one of the survivors, a guy named Roger is really buried in a ditch somewhere. Next up on his hit list -- Ellen and Dean. He twists a ring on his finger and the other survivors think Ellen and Dean are demons. And they start shooting. Ellen and Dean make a run for it. They find Rufus and Jo and eventually get them to see past the hallucination. Sam, who had been tied up and taunted by War about his desire for demon blood, has figured things out too. He and Dean find War and cut off the finger with the ring. Everyone stops hallucinating, but War and his red Mustang just disappear.

In one of our roadside chat scenes, we see Dean and Sam sitting at a picnic area with a mountain of pines in the background. Idyllic setting in the midst of dark times. Dean is looking at the ring and injects one tiny bit of humor. "So, pit stop at Mt. Doom?" But then Sam gets serious. He says he knows that Dean doesn't trust him, that he doesn't trust himself. And then Sammy broke my heart.

"There's something in me that scares the hell out of me, Dean. I'm in no shape to be hunting. I need to step back 'cause I'm dangerous. Maybe it's best if we just go our separate ways." And then Dean breaks my heart by saying he agrees. He says he spends more time worrying about Sam than doing the job right. Sam turns to leave, making me wonder about Kripke and company's assertion that the brothers will be growing closer this season and wondering how long they'll be apart. In a final gut-wrenching moment, Dean shows that he still loves Sam by offering to let him take the Impala. But Sam declines and rides away with a guy with a camper.

Where are my tissues? :(