Countdown to Season 6 - Review of Supernatural Season 4

Supernatural Season 4: In Which There Is Gripping Tight and Raising From Perdition

Season 4 starts with flashes of Dean in hell, and then, suddenly, he wakes up in his own grave. After digging himself out, Dean finds himself in the middle of a clearing that was made...hastily... by something knocking everything down around his grave.



He makes his way to a gas station, breaks in and 'borrows' some essentials. As he's there, scrounging, a *presence* begins to make itself known. The radio goes funky and staticy, there's a physical shaking of the building, and earsplitting noise, all the glass in the building shatters, and then it all just as suddenly stops.



Dean makes his way to Bobby, convinces him that he's really Dean and not something pretending to be Dean, and they go hunting for Sam, who has gone off on his own since Dean died. They locate him holed up in a hotel with a random woman, and then convince *him* that Dean is Dean. The reunion is touching.

Now, they need to figure out how Dean got out of hell. The first assumption is that Sam made a deal, which he denies. He says he tried, but no one would make the deal. The demons who would even talk to him claimed that they had Dean right where they wanted him. The second is that 'something' *rode* Dean out of hell, supported by the new handprint shaped burn scar Dean is sporting.



They go to a psychic who tries to summon whoever it was that brought Dean out, gets the name 'Castiel' and the warning not to look at him for her trouble, ignores the warning, and gets her eyes burned out of her head.

We find out, though Dean and Bobby don't learn this until later, that the random hotel woman is actually Ruby in her new, 'recycled' body (recycled in the sense that she grabbed a comatose body - someone whose spirit had already left and whose body was being kept alive by machines, to make Sam feel better about having sex with her - as opposed to having sex with Ruby and her unwilling host). We also learn that Sam has been 'exercising' his exorcist powers, and can (most of the time) yank demons out of hosts leaving the hosts alive. How did he get so strong? Practice, hard work, and drinking Ruby's demon blood. Yuck.

New Ruby. Same demon, new host.

Meanwhile, Dean and Bobby set up every ward they can, and summon Castiel - the plan is to stab him a lot.

Castiel. Proving he's an angel.

Castiel shows up, and is a 'Holy Tax Accountant'. Um...they do make with the stabby and the shooty, but it has no effect, and Castiel puts Bobby to sleep so he can have a heart to heart with Dean. Turns out Castiel is not a demon, but an Angel of the Lord, who was commanded to bring Dean out of hell, because 'they have work for him'. Also, the sound and fury earlier was Castiel trying to talk to Dean, but Dean couldn't hear him because he's not one of the few that can and not, you know, have their heads pop. Which is why Castiel had to go out and put on the Jimmy suit.

We do eventually also meet Jimmy, who is Castiel's semi-willing host. Jimmy is an adorable puppy, and you just want to pet his head.

Jimmy. Who is adorable.

We meet Alistair, hell's top torture guy - who, apparently, took a liking to Dean when he was 'down under'. See, the plot is thusly:

Alistair. Whom Super-Sam, also known as the Sam-tichrist, killed with his *mind* a little later on.

Lilith wants to free Lucifer. In order to do this, there are 66 seals that must be broken. Not that there are *just* 66 seals on Lucifer's cage, but that only 66, any 66, need to be broken for it to weaken enough for him to get out. And even that's not strictly true, the first seal and the last seal are very specific.

Lilith's new host. She upgraded so she could see over a steering wheel.

The first seal is that a 'righteous man must shed blood in hell'. In hell, time passes differently. Four months on earth, forty years in hell. And Dean was tortured (by Alistair) for the first thirty years. After the first thirty, Dean took the 'offer' and got off the rack and started doing the torturing. Which is apparently when they sent Castiel to bust him out. Because the prophecy (which is in the unedited Book of Revelations, which the general populace doesn't have) says that the guy who starts it is the guy who has to end it. So they need Dean to end the apocalypse. How? No one's very clear on the details, to be honest.

So, Lilith runs around breaking seals, the angels and Sam and Dean run around trying to stop her, and mostly failing. Which, you see, is because (as we learn in the later portion of the season), *some* angels, like Zachariah:

Zachariah, to whom Dean's basic reaction was, 'Angel or not, I *will* stab you in the face.' Dean may have authority shaped issues. And that was before we knew about him helping to kick start the apocalypse.

*want* Lucifer set loose. The apocalypse *has* to happen, and at the moment, the angels like the odds in their favor. So they're pushing the timeline up and letting Lilith win the battles for the seals, sacrificing lower level angels to make it look good.

Oh! We also meet The Prophet Chuck:



Who used to think he was hallucinating a lot and wrote books which were popular with teenage girls, but these books will become the Winchester Gospels. :) And, as Castiel says, if you think he's bad, you should have seen Luke.

So...yadda, yadda, seals breaking, angelic jerkwadery, Sam sucking blood like an addict (and, at the end, killing a woman to drink her demon blood), and Castiel has to bust Dean out of this 'angelic waiting room' in order to try and prevent the last seal being broken, and then Castiel takes a 'last stand' against an archangel which is coming to kick his head in for this. (Castiel survives, because he's a series regular in season 5...)

Dean rushes off to stop Sam, who is at this church which got built over Lucifer's cage (probably as a reaction to the EVIL that was radiating from him). Ruby has convinced Sam that killing Lilith will stop all this.

*HOWEVER* Ruby is a demon, and therefore a lying liar who *lies* and has been working with Azazel who was working with Lilith ALL ALONG and killing Lilith is the last seal. Which is why we get the phrase: Sam Winchester. College Educated. Still Stupid.

Sam kills Lilith, despite Dean yelling to warn him (Dean was stuck behind a door Ruby slammed in his face), and lo and behold, Lucifer starts to rise. But Dean gets to gank Ruby for good with her own demon killing knife...

...and then all hell breaks loose.



And as a bonus:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Up93TNDMqUs

because youtube has disabled embedding on this, I must give you the link. It's Jensen Ackles (Dean) lipsynching and airguitaring to Eye of the Tiger. Funny and cute!