And then Show Barnes dies. Well, not before she instructs Our Intrepid Heroes to tell Bobby he can rot in Hell for ever introducing her to them in the first place, and not before she calls Dean out on lying about "going to a better place," and most especially not before she hauls her rapidly weakening self up to Sam's ear to hiss one final warning: "I know what you did to that demon, Sam -- I can feel what's inside of you. If you think you have good intentions, think again." And then Show Barnes dies. Damn you, Kripke! Damn you straight to The Waste Land!

And as Show Barnes's corpse cools on Sam's bed, helpless and hopeless Dean yells her name a couple of times before turning on Sam to demand, "What did she say to you?" Sam, darting his eyes around like the crazy person he's becoming, can't find his voice, and as Sam's silence screams in our ears, the two are at long last engulfed by the final blackness.

This week, a brief card appeared at the end of the episode dedicating the entire season to Kim Manners, who died on January 25th. Unfortunately, the card featured a horrifically Photoshopped image of Jared Padalecki accompanied by a font I haven't seen in common use since the early 1990s, and the whole thing looked like one of my niece's horrific scrapbooking experiments gone wrong, so maybe they'll do a better job with the whole tribute thing in that upcoming episode I hear is stuffed with Manners references.

Next week, Dean tortures Alastair over that hateful Brando impersonation of his. And the audience will cheer.

Demian knows that in time, you'll drop dead, and he'll come to your funeral in a red dress. Raoul would be shocked and appalled at Demian's unconscionable rudeness, we're sure, were he not passed out in his overstuffed armchair. "ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!" You may reach the former at demian_twop@yahoo.com. The latter is an imaginary gay dragon on the Internet.

Discuss this episode in the Supernatural forums!