SUPERNATURAL: The Third Man

Wow – I know that the first two episodes were necessary in order to address last year’s SUPERNATURAL finale and set up season 6, but last night’s episode would have made a great season premiere. Lots of action, mythology, humor and of course, partial nudity. It was easily the strongest episode of the three we’ve seen to date, and if I had any doubts about how the season was going to progress before last night, they’re gone now.

Things were promising from the cold open, which featured one of the grossest deaths ever when a cop’s entire body disintegrated into blood (it was very reminiscent of the vampire “true death” on True Blood, no? Sadly, nobody’s going to be carrying this guy around in a glass urn). This was quickly followed by the death of a second officer, with a case of boils so extreme that they blocked his airways, suffocating him. Hopefully nobody chose to eat dinner while watching the show (but you know better than that by now, don’t you?).

After a third cop dies by locusts in the brain, the biblical nature of the incidents drives the boys (well, Dean) to call on Cas. Sam says he’s wasting his time – he spent a lot of time trying to call the Trench Coated One when he got out of the cage, to no avail. To Sam’s surprise, Cas responds almost immediately to Dean (they have a more profound bond, you know). Yes, Cas is back people, and now he’s using air quotes!

Apparently in the aftermath of the Notpocalypse, things got a little crazy in Heaven, which is now facing civil war. Raphael and several others really, really wanted the world to end and are intent on seeing it happen. In addition, several heavenly weapons have gone missing; one being the Staff of Moses, which Cas suspects is being used to cause the crazy deaths (but luckily, he rules Moses out as a suspect).

We learn that the three cops had all worked together to frame an innocent kid after killing him, and that kid’s little brother acquired part of the Staff in order to exact revenge. Cas’ buddy (brother?) Balthazar sold it to him, for the nifty little price of his soul. Yes, angels are apparently now in the soul-buying business. I really liked Balthazar; surely we’ll be seeing more of him given that he’s armed to the hilt with stolen holy weaponry. I saw him as a sort of angelic counterpoint to the also-delightful Crowley.

Raphael and his secret service showed up to claim the weapons stolen by Balthazar, and were taken out pretty quickly. But this Heaven thing is far from over and I’m excited to see where they go with it. More pressing however is the situation with the Brothers Winchester.

Like last week, the bulk of the episode was feeling like old times; they were joking with each other, getting competitive with their cars, and having fun. But there is no ignoring the fact that Sam is different, even more than Dean realizes. All we needed to confirm this is the fact that he was with a prostitute at the start of the episode. Sam and his brother clearly don’t need to pay for sex; that is just a fact. But it really fits in with this new, emotion-free Sam to want sex without strings, and the only way to ensure that is to purchase it. Although, the girl was definitely taken with her newest client, almost forgetting her money and offering to see him on her day off.

Dean, who has been suspicious of Sam from day one, needs no further evidence that is brother is “off” than the fact that he was perfectly willing to let Cas torture a little kid to get information they needed. The old Sam would have been the one putting up the biggest protest to that scenario, and he was nowhere to be found. When Dean confronted him in one of their patented “end of the episode” serious discussions, Sam claimed that he was fine. While Dean may have been traumatized by what he went through in Hell, Sam just wasn’t dealing with those same emotions. Obviously this is not a satisfactory answer, but I’m still at a loss for exactly what IS happening.

Do you agree that this was the best episode of the season so far? Do you want to see more of Balthazar in the future? What the hell is going on with Sam? All theories are welcome, but no spoilers please!

Next week is a Bobby-centric episode, featuring the directorial debut of Jensen Ackles. Check out a preview below (spoiler warning: this clip includes scenes from the next three episodes, including the hilariously titled “Live Free or Twihard”):

As a special bonus treat, many of you have likely heard that they are making an animated version of the show for Japanese audiences. Yesterday an extended preview of the series was released, and while the dialogue is all in Japanese, it’s still pretty damn cool. Apparently, the cast of the show will be dubbing at least a few episodes for North American audiences, which is awesome. Take a look:

Follow @GiveMeMyRemote and @TONicole on Twitter for the latest TV news. Connect with other TV fans on GIVE ME MY REMOTE’s official Facebook page.And be the first to see our exclusive videos by subscribing to our You Tube channel at youtube.com/givememyremotetv.