Dean (Jensen Ackles) enters a Chinese butcher's to find Doctor Robert (Robert Englund) who used to fix Dad. He had his medical licence back then. Dean wants to flatline so he can meet with the reaper, Tessa (Lindsey McKeon) and subsequently converse with Death (Julian Richings). He gives the doctor a letter for Ben incase something happens to him. Then calls for Tessa in Latin and needs Death, who comes anyway. He only loaned Dean the ring and he knows where Dean's stashed it. Death can break into Lucifer's cage, where both Sam's (Jared Padalecki) and Adam's souls are. Dean wants them both and he can only pick one. No contest as to who he was going to choose.
Sam's soul has been there for a year and is damaged. Death offers to put up a wall in Sam's mind so he won't recall anything. Tessa says it's not permanent. Only Death lasts forever. Dean agrees and the prize is his if Dean wins the bet. To put his ring on and be Death for a day, but there's a provision which Dean doesn't get to hear as he's revived before he can. He was gone 7 minutes. Sam heard Cas (Misha Collins) talking about his soul. Dean says it's not a cure but could last a lifetime. It's Sam's life and soul. Bobby (Jim Beaver) is curious to know what Dean's deal consists of and he replies, to be Death for a day.
Sam goes outside and Dean asks if he's looking for Death's ring. He's his brother and he won't let him get hurt or anything go wrong. Bobby is left to mind Sam. He should have locked Sam in the panic room, since he can't be trusted, no soul remember, ha and saved himself the trouble. Dean wears the ring and Tessa doesn't like this. It wasn't Dean's idea. Dean must kill everyone on the list. If he hesitates and removes the ring, then he'll lose and that's what will happen. Well you don't have to be a mindreader.
Sam summons Balthazar (Sebastian Roche) for angel advice since Cas can't help him. Sam asks if there's anything that will keep his soul out of his body forever and Balthazar obliges after asking why. He asks where Sam's soul is, why doesn't he know. Sam doesn't want it and Balthazar calls Lucifer, Luci, hey I do that. He has a spell where he has to scar his vessel: pollute it by committing patricide. Requiring the blood of his father, "But your father needn't be your blood." I.e Bobby.
Tessa warns Dean one question people will ask is 'why'. There's a robbery in the store and it's the robber who is shot and killed. But Dean lets him suffer in agony a little before ending his life. Dean: "That wasn't so hard." Cos he was bad and it won't be easy when he gets to the good or the innocent children. One man (Norman Misura) suffers a heart attack and asks why. Dean sarcastically answers the extra cheese and asks if it's from a local pizza place. Oh Dean with thoughts of food again. He tells him he's "dust in the wind." Like the Kansas song.
Dean must end a girl's life at the hospital and he refuses. Tess tells him he must take Hilary (Michelle Creber). "It's destiny." Dean: "Spent my whole life fighting that crap." Like there was no apocalypse. Dean is Death and she's not dying. Hilary recovers and the next Vic is the nurse, Jolene (Alison Araya) who wasn't meant to die but Dean changed everything. Besides she walked through Tess so she had to be next. Bobby and Sam in a game of cat and mouse, he gets Sam before Sam can get him. Bobby: "I may have been born at night but I wasn't born last night." Sam disappears and Bobby hides in the closet where he was meant to be all along and opens a trap door under Sam. He doesn't want Sam to say, "here's Johnny." Someone on this show is obsessed with that movie, The Shining and Jack Nicholson. And it ain't Dean, ha.
Sam needs to do this and what if it doesn't work? Dean cares about Sammy burning in hell. It's not about him and what's Sam without a soul. Sam escapes. Jo had a heart attack caused by the accident and the heart surgeon, Dr Owens (Bruce Dawson) isn't here. He would have been here for Hilary. Dean must take her so he doesn't set off another reaction. Jolene's husband, Scott arrives. Dean messed up, like we knew he would and he must take Hilary. Scott tries to end his life and drinks and drives. Dean tries to make him stop but he can't until Dean removes the ring and becomes visible, making the car swerve.
Sam gets Bobby and Sam loves using those metal pipes and pokers. Dean lost the bet or so he thinks. Sam would kill Bobby even though he's been like a father to him, which is exactly why, he has no soul. Dean returns in the nick and Sam finds himself back in the panic room again, which is what I said. Dean can't keep doing this everytime Sam tries to kill. Dean asks what he's meant to do like he did in the season 2 finale, All Hell Breaks Loose, when Sam was killed and he was contemplating how to bring him back.
Death waits for no one, ha, yet he waits for Dean with a hot dog. Dean doesn't have an appetite now. Dean: "What's with you and cheap food?" Death: "I could ask you the same thing." He failed but with hindsight, Dean would kill Hilary now. He's surprised and glad. Wrecking the natural order isn't fun when Death has to clear up. Dean goes "around throwing away his life thinking he'll get it back." Don't think Dean's learned his lesson though. Dean knew he wouldn't last and Sam gets his soul back anyway. Sam and Dean keep coming back (like the show which is great!) Death wants Dean to keep digging further about the souls and about Purgatory. Sam got his comeuppance for being a naughty, soulless dude by getting his soul back anyway. That was kind of funny. He can protest all he likes but big bro will always get his way in the end and he should know that by now.
Dean was not going to let Sam live without his soul, that didn't come out right, live soulless. He's not selling his own soul this time, not in that way, so he comes up with this plan; undergoing death, to meet with Death; since he's decided this can be the only way to retrieve Sam's soul - How'd he come to that conclusion since only last episode he told Gramps Campbell he shouldn't interfere in things like that? Wasn't he doing the same thing - doing anything to help Sam, even if it meant having to be Death for a day? Easier said than done.
The dice was loaded against Dean even before the deal was made; As 5 seasons on, we all know Dean by now (and not in the Biblical sense as Crowley would say) that he'd do anything to not see people suffer, although they may be complete strangers to him. Yet Sam is his Achilles heel (last episode) and vice versa as he said in 6.10 and he won't ever stop helping Sam. Sam doesn't turn to Cas now but to Balthazar and what made Sam call him since he threatened to kill him not so long ago. Well he's the less scrupulous angel (though this day you could have have doubts about Cas and the whole lot of them too.) Besides Sam wouldn't be feeling any remorse over killing Bobby to get his own way. He's resigned to the fact of not being a veggie so it's easier to kill Bobby and "scar his vessel." He didn't think about what Dean would do to Sam if his plan had worked. That's a question, what would Dean have done? Ungrateful Sam, there Dean was killing himself - again - to get Sam's soul back and make him whole again.
References to earlier seasons with Sam and Dean always ending up sacrificing themselves and somehow would always come back or be brought back. Dean referring to destiny once more and fighting it all his life. Lots of exposition on fate and destiny in season 2 when Sam was fighting his destiny in the hopes of not going darkside.
Question of the day: Why would Death want Dean to continue on his quest to find purgatory? Other than having more souls for him, but they're dead already even if in limbo. So he can't have any advantage or benefit with purgatory. Unless Death was hinting everything was about souls for the remainder of the season.
This episode served to show the inconsistencies between the two : Dean having to take lives as Death, part of being Death and Sam was willing to take Bobby's life to in an attempt to remain soulless. What if Sam had gone through with it and Dean as Death had to deal with Bobby? It's only a dark thought but...
Should Dean have learned his lesson from season 4's Death Takes A Holiday where Alastair stopped people from dying in a small town? There Dean let the boy who was a ghost go off with Tessa, calling it a miracle and he said the same thing to Pamela, cos he knew that if they stayed around they would live with the thought of watching a loved one enduring pain and loss. Here he didn't think in that way when he put his foot down to save Hilary. In 2.1 In My Time of Dying, Dean tells Tessa you always have a choice before he realized she was a reaper. Tessa wanted him to accept his fate or else he'd become a malevolent spirit himself. Something not discussed here and Dean didn't remember all this when he wanted Hilary to live.
Dean already flatlined in 2.1. Here the doctor says an angel must be watching out for Dean. How true did that statement become in season 4?
When Sam summons Balthazar he uses Dean's phrase of "desperate times." Thus he must call on him. Bobby telling Sam not to say, "Here's Johnny" cos it's Dean's line, kind of. Dean knocking Sam out and finding himself back in the panic room. Dean making a deal - again - to get Sam's soul back - again. This episode, similar to Charmed 7.5 Styx Feet Under where Paige had to cast a spell to save some people and as a consequence no one dies anymore. The angel of Death wants this fixed and Piper is enlisted to help with this, to help him kill those who were meant to have died. Phoebe attempts to sacrifice herself (Sam and Dean) and Paige is the one who ends up dying, with Piper having to deal with her in death.
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