"Like a Virgin"

Here it is—back at last! Most of the “Then” is from this season, so…what does that mean for the episode? Looking for monsters, looking for a soul. My husband comments that he doesn’t remember any of this, which makes me wonder if he feels the same about this season as I do.

NOW, we have a couple flying a tiny plane in a storm, and something flew by the window! The terrified girl sees it and the guy blows her off, then is snatched through the plane’s windshield while the girl screams and tries to fly her way out of trouble.

Cut to Sam in the panic room. Cass has examined an unconscious Sam, and says his soul feels like it had been skinned alive. He tells Dean that if he wanted to kill his brother, he should have killed him outright. Bobby and Dean share a drink and Dean asks for a job. Bobby’s explaining about the plane wreck, where the man’s body was found 17 miles away, toasted, and the girl is missing. Before he can go deeper, Sam appears in the doorway and hugs Dean (yay!!!) and Bobby. He doesn’t remember anything after the field in Kansas. Sam says he’s starving, and Dean tells him everything. Bobby has reservations, and I can just feel Sam starting to scratch at the wall Death put up in his soul. Bobby says when Sam realizes they’re shining him, it won’t be cute. Not sure what that means, since it’s been MONTHS since the last episode.

Bobby and Dean are going to the plane wreckage when Sam comes out and says he wants to go with. Bobby bows out, hardly able to look at Sam since Sam nearly killed Bobby a few weeks out.

Sam makes calls and finds out about missing girls besides the girl from the plane. Once he relays that, he asks why Dean didn’t even try to go live a life. Dean’s exactly the same as when he left. Dean grimaces at that and reveals he was with Lisa and Ben a year but it didn’t work out.

Once at the sister of the plane girl’s house, we get puppy dog Sam again and they get into Penny’s room. Dean flashes a proud smile.

Back in the motel room, we get the best scene of the season, with a tone similar to season 1. LOVED the conversation, the snark. Dean has lifted Penny’s diary and has a theory about the connected girls—they’re all virgins. Sam’s horrified because one girl is 22, and wonders why anyone wants virgins.

Cut to some girls in uniforms walking. One is separated, and leaves swirl around her as she falls and screams. In her hospital room, she tells Sam and Dean that her attacker looked like a giant bat. She shows them the scratches. She passed out and it was gone. Her gold promise ring was gone, too. Dean asks if she should be wearing that ring, and it turns out she’s not a virgin after all.

Back in the room, Sam googles “fire, claws, flying, stealing virgins and gold” and it all takes him to World of Warcraft fansites. Dragons—not possible. Dean isn’t as shocked and wants a second opinion from Bobby, who tells them dragons aren’t real. Dean asks him to make a few calls and he asks, “To who? Hogwarts?” before he asks how “Memento” is doing. I love all the references but they flew too fast.

Sam is looking through John’s journal and remembers something about hunting a skinwalker. Dean denies it because he doesn’t want Sam scratching, and Bobby calls with a lead.

The next scene is a group of girls being held captive in a cage by a guy who uses his hand to weld it shut. Ooh, dragon dude. Kinda wish he was hot like those shifters in romance novels.

Dean goes to the professor Bobby refers him to, a lovely blonde who wants Bobby kicked in the jewels for something that is “his story to tell.” She doesn’t flinch when Dean talks about dragons. Instead, she tells him he needs a blade formed with dragon’s blood. There are only 5 or 6 worldwide, but she has one in the basement. Except is bound to stone, and just like Excalibur needs a brave knight to free it.

The music as Dean steps up to the sword is hilarious, but Dean fails as the professor tries not to laugh. My husband said Sam may be able to do it because he’s pure of heart.

Meanwhile, Sam calls Bobby wanting help looking for the dragon’s lair. No caves around, so maybe there’s something else that’s “cold, dark and wet.” Sam comes up with sewers. Sam asks Bobby what’s wrong, but Bobby has a hard time, so he tells Sam it’s nothing to do with him, and hangs up on him. Sam prays for Castiel, who appears. Oh, man, I get the feeling he’s going to spill some beans. Oops, there he goes, telling Sam he was walking around with no soul, and he starts asking questions. Oh, damn.

Back at the professor’s, Dean straps explosives to the rock over the professor’s objections. And the blade is broken! Oops. Sam asks what to do with it, give it a booster? Dean admits he didn’t want to have to get so close. They map out their plan, and Sam huffs out a sigh. You can tell he wants to talk to Dean about what Cass told him, but now’s not the time.

They shine their flashlights around in a sewer, again harking back to earlier seasons. They see an altar with lit candles and are examining it when they hear someone calling for help. They find the trapped girls but when Sam pulls on the grate, he’s thrown backward. The dragon man shows up and laughs at Dean’s sword until it burns him. He asks where Dean got it and Dean says, “Comci Con.”

The sword falls through the grate. Sam distracts the dragon while Dean tries to get it, but the dragon is joined by another. Sam kills the newcomer, but the older dragon disappears in a blast of air.

Is it me or are there a crap-ton of commercials?

Dean is sitting in the garage, reveling in the gold they found in the lair when Sam walks in, apologizing. Dean is making excuses for Sam’s behavior, but Sam wants to make amends. He wants to know what he did, no matter how dangerous it is. Bobby interrupts, telling them they need to see something—the book they found in the lair, written on human skin, that describes a place from the back of your worst nightmares, Monsterland. Or, you know, Purgatory. The book talks about opening a door to bring something through, something called, “Mother of All.”

Meanwhile, on a road somewhere, the older dragon dude meets up with someone else who has more kidnapped girls. They take one through the forest out on a rock cropping and fling her down into a fiery pit. She returns, beautiful and possessed, and ready to get started.

May I just say, “WOOT” and why did it take us so long to get here???

How did you like it?