Not nearly enough Dean and Sam hugging Castiel! Lots of talk talk talk, and not enough hugging!

Ah well, wouldn’t want to give the Destiel and Samstiel shippers too much to work with, I guess. 😉

Everyone seems to be a little wary of Castiel’s return, including Jack, which I suppose is understandable, seeing that they burned his body and all. And the fact that Jack is probably the reason Castiel was expelled from The Empty, which makes his power remarkable and more than a little scary. But once everyone gets a hug, and some Me Time with Cas, things relax a bit , and they all head off to Dodge City for a hunt. A hunt that Jack pulled together, thinking it might be zombies.

The kid gets points for trying.

So, “Two salty hunters, one half-angel kid, [and] a dude that just came back from the dead… again”, head off to Dodge City. Dean lets his freak flag fly, and totally geeks out, planning their trip to focus on all the famous, and not so famous gunslinging cowboys, giving the crew a quick history lesson in the Buffalo Bill suite, and “booping” a bison head in his glee.

Watching Dean go through all the cowboys in the room, and his apparent glee over stirrup hooks is adorable, and so nice to see, after all of the abject misery of the first few episodes. (Is this the first time we see the boys walk in to a motel room with their suits? In dry cleaning plastic, no less?? :O )

Jack and Castiel play catch-up while Sam and Dean sleep (Jack barely sleeps, Cas, as we all know, doesn’t sleep). And when a notice of an officer down pings on Jack’s computer, the kid jumps up and runs to go tell Dean. Making what could be a scary moment – Dean pulling a gun and aiming it at Jack as he is rousted from his slumber – into a fun, Don’t Wake Up Dean moment.

He’s an angry sleeper. Like a bear. HEEEEE

He’s a lot like me, actually, sans the gun under the pillow. I’m not a good waker-upper either.

They head off in teams to track down the monster who seems to be robbing graves, or something, and both teams, Sam and Jack, and Dean and Cas, run into their fair share of stumbling blocks while looking. When they meet back at the motel, it is agreed that they are hunting a ghoul, leading to Dean complaining: “Can I just say that I am getting real sick and tired of fighting things that look like other things?”

Totally fair, Dean. I am sure that is annoying!!

Once again, Jack’s crack computer skillz leads them to their suspect, Dave Mather. One of the best gunslingers of all time, according to Dean, even though that was back in the 1800s, making it weird that he was spotted driving a pick-up through town earlier that day.

The team tracks Dave to the bank, and while he is making his getaway, Jack shoots his nephilim ray towards him, and ends up hitting the bank security guard dead on, while only clipping Dave. While Dean runs after Dave, Jack begs Castiel to save the guard, and here is where we see what may be one of the consequences of Castiel’s return. He places his fingers on the man’s forehead, just like he has done countless times to heal someone, and nothing.

Nada.

WHOOPS. Sam and Cas are clearly shaken by this bit of bad news, but Jack is beside himself for killing an innocent. Dean insists that Sam and Cas take Jack back to the bunker, both because the cops will be looking for him, and to make sure he doesn’t lose it.

And even though Sam and Castiel do their best to explain to Jack on the car ride back to the bunker that sometimes terrible things happen when you are trying to do good, Jack isn’t buying any of it. He is reeling, knowing that so much of the world expects him to be evil, and straining to be the good that his mother and Castiel believed he could be.

Dean, staying behind to finish the hunt, meets up with the Sargent outside the cemetery, lays down the law, so to speak, and they go off hunting Dave. Sarge thinks he’s just a murderer and a thief, but Dean knows he’s also a monster. So when Sarge gets yanked down a hole by the ghoul, Dean has to follow him down, even if it’s clearly the last thing he wants to do. But we get to giggle along as Dean makes his way down one of the ghoul tunnels, mumbling to himself, and entertaining us greatly.

Apparently, Dean Winchester’s pain, is my source of amusement. 😀

Anyhoo, Dean comes face to face with the ghoul, out tricks the gunslinger, and heads back to the bunker, letting Sam know that everything went as “Usual. Killed the bad guy, saved the girl.”

And while everyone tosses in their two cents about how Jack should try and deal with his actions, Jack takes a page out of the Sam Winchester playbook, and after zapping everyone with his nephilim ray, he disappears with the familiar sounds of wings flapping that we hear whenever an angel leaves. So, along with pencil levitating, and nephilim rays, Jack has figured out how to use his angel teleporting powers.

Jack on the loose seems like nothing but trouble for our little band of monster hunters, doesn’t it?

Random Thoughts!

• Dean’s bolo tie/cowboy boot/cowboy hat get up isn’t quite as bad as his Frontierland clothes way back in season six, and Jensen looks great in pretty much anything, but I appreciated the silliness of it all.
• Castiel’s off the cuff intro as Val Kilmer was classic clueless Cas.
• Even though Dean is in a stunningly good mood for most of the episode, he does take time to grumble and complain about several things that are normal parts of his job, making me wonder if even though he got ‘A Win’, as he had been praying for, there still isn’t a large nugget of discontent in his belly, and how will that present itself down the line?
• See how Sam and Dean reacted to Jack’s pencil floating demonstration? Both looked verrry uncomfortable. The knocking them down and flitting away at the end of the episode will most likely send those boys into crisis mode.

Next! Asmodeus, Heaven’s gate, and some more Jack shenanigans. I’m guess the boys aren’t gonna sit around too long without heading off to find Jack, right?