It’s best to view the first two episodes of Supernatural season 10 as a full, two-hour premiere. While last week’s premiere left a lot of unanswered questions, this week things get back on track. We learn a little bit more about Cole (but not the whole story), Metatron returns and Sam and Dean reunite.
But the reunion is far from happy since Dean is now a truly evil demon, so bad that even Crowley cowers before him. You know things are bad when Dean doesn’t even care about the Impala.
Who Is Cole?
In a flashback to June 21, 2003, we see that a 13-year-old Cole woke up to discover his father stabbed to death, and Dean was the killer. That date is so specific that is has to be important, and given the fact that Cole is still around at the end of the episode and we don’t know why Dean killed his dad, I suspect this mystery is just getting started.
In the timeline, this is two years before the show began, during the time when Sam was at college and not talking to his family.
Dean the Killer
Demon Dean isn’t too concerned with his brother being kidnapped. Instead, he’s beating up bouncers at strip clubs. Crowley knows that the Mark of Cain needs to be fed and that Dean must kill. He proposes an arrangement where Dean agrees to kill people to complete the deals Crowley makes. Basically, Dean is a hired assassin.
His first job in North Dakota is clearly an homage to Fargo, right down to a man named Lester who hires someone to kill his cheating wife. Dean agrees, but he meets up with Lester and kills him instead because he’s a douche with a pervy moustache.
When Dean tells Crowley about killing the client, Crowley is understandably upset. But Demon Dean is a total bad-ass who has figured out that he’s about a million times stronger than Crowley, so he knocks the King of Hell around, embarrassing him in front of his underlings. Crowley tries to save face by “breaking up” with Dean and pawning him off on Sam. Dean may be a fantastic killer, but he’s bad for business.
Sam the Hunter
Cole tortures Sam for information about Dean, but he refuses to believe Sam’s claims that monsters, actual vampire monsters, are real. When Cole gets a call from his family, Sam escapes.
Sam picks up Dean’s trail, but Cole is now tracking Sam. It’s the oldest trick in the book, letting a prisoner escape so he can lead you where you need to go. And that’s just what Sam does, finding Dean with an assist from Crowley.
The Reunion
Sam walks into a bar where Dean is seated at a piano. It’s finally the reunion we’ve all wanted, but it doesn’t go as planned. Sam wants to cure Dean and bring him back home, but Dean doesn’t. Instead, Dean threatens to kill his brother if he doesn’t leave him alone. It seems Dean has chosen whether he’s a demon or a human, and he chose demon.
Before Sam can attack, Cole interrupts with a smoke bomb. He lures the boys outside, knocks out Sam and confronts Dean. Dean has no idea who this punk is or who his dad was. It’s a weird scene that is simultaneously funny, intense and sad. Cole is so out of his league and he doesn’t even know it. It’s a bit like the first time Buffy fought Glory in season 5 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, with Dean as the red-headed hell-god.
Cole tries everything he can, even kung fu, but when he slices Dean’s cheek and sees it heal itself, he learns that Dean is a demon (and more importantly, that demons are real). Dean doesn’t kill him, but that’s when Sam sprinkles his brother with holy water and slaps some demon handcuffs on him.
In the end, Sam takes Dean and, in exchange for his location, gives Crowley the First Blade. And Cole, left alive and bloody, immediately goes looking for books about demons. So I guess this is going to be a bigger storyline and now Cole is going to become a Hunter.
In the Impala (which Dean no longer cares about), Dean is scarier than ever, threatening to do some very, very bad things to his brother.
Castiel, Full of No Grace
Sam calls Cas and tells him about Dean being a demon. Cas and Hannah agree to help, but get into a car accident on the way because Cas is still dying from a lack of Grace.
Hannah goes to Heaven to ask Metatron for help curing Cas. Metatron offers to help in exchange for his freedom. Hannah agrees, but Cas shows up and declines. So Cas is still dying from Gracelessness and Metatron vows to escape one day and kill everyone.
I’m interested to see where this Cole storyline goes. They set him up a lot in these first two episodes, so there had better be a nice, big payoff somewhere down the line.
(Image courtesy of the CW)
Senior Writer, BuddyTV
John watches nearly every show on TV, but he specializes in sci-fi/fantasy like The Vampire Diaries, Supernatural and True Blood. However, he can also be found writing about everything from Survivor and Glee to One Tree Hill and Smallville.
