This episode is the last stand-alone of the series (*weeps*), and we get a flashback to the first hunt Sam and Dean ever did together. It’s jarring having a flashback this late in the series, but it is a nice little bow on how their hunting relationship started. We have so many different versions of young Sam and Dean at this point, and most of them are only okay compared to the OG Young Sam and Dean. No offense to these two kiddos, they were fine! ANYWAY
THEN!
Chuck is deleting worlds, and Jack is supposed to kill him. Billie is setting up Jack to die in the process, and even though Jack asked him not to, Castiel tells Dean all about it (I’m assuming).
NOW!
A man named Travis checks into Rooster’s Sunrise Motel, requests room 214, and nervously enters the room. Travis gets a text from Caitlin, begging him to leave. Travis sits on the bed, grasping a ring on a chain around his neck, chanting “It was never real.” A creepy kid pops out of the closet, and a terrified Travis tells the kid he was never real. But that kid is real, and he kills Travis by slitting his throat with a whiskey bottle.
Will this be the last super funky motel room of the series? Maybe.
Sam and Dean are driving to Travis’ funeral, and Dean is grumpy they are driving all that way for someone they knew for a second a million years ago. We find out that Dean hasn’t told Sam about Jack’s secret, and we all know that never ends well, Dean!
As Sam and Dean sit outside the motel, we cut to January 1993 Sam and Dean exiting the Impala, and Daddy Winchester drives away, leaving his boys alone for the zillionth time, probably.
Baby Dean makes fun of Little Sammy wanting to go to college. Baby Dean is all, this is our life, good luck being normal.
These two have been playing the same song for a long-ass time.
Baby Dean is caught ripping off an old vending machine by Young Caitlin, and her baby brother Travis, who is the kid who killed Travis earlier, but not creepy just yet. Young Caitlin and kiddo Travis are at the motel because their mom runs the cleaning crew.
Sam and Dean meet Caitlin at a diner, where she tells them they missed the funeral. She lied about it, and was worried they wouldn’t show otherwise. Travis had a bad life after the incident (that we haven’t seen yet). He finally went to therapy, and that is what lead to him going back to room 214, to “face his fears.”
Caitlin is worried that the monster from back then is what killed Travis, as we cut to kiddo Travis trying to steal vending machine candy. As he fiddles with the machine, a scary woman grabs him from inside the machine! The kids pull him away from the machine, and kiddo Travis is rightly freaked the eff out!
Dean tries to nicely tell Caitlin he doesn’t believe her, they killed that thing years ago, but she’s insistent that it is back.
Baby Dean starts asking smart questions about weird things happening in town. Young Caitlin brings the crew to the missing kid fence, while Baby Dean thinks.
Dean tells Caitlin it can’t be the monster, as it only preys on kids. He knows its hard to believe that Travis took his own life, but that has to be the explanation.
The kids grab a bunch of newspapers and get to research in a motel supply room. They figure out that the old abandoned cannery is the place to start, and when little Sammy and young Caitlin want to go with, Dean tells them he has a gun, and a knife, and this isn’t the Goonies.
But young Caitlin follows baby Dean anyway, and after a good razzing about Dean’s ability to pick a lock, they go inside, taking the stairs into the creepy depths of the cannery.
Little Sammy and kiddo Travis play Boggle alone in the motel room.
Young Caitlin teases baby Dean about being sweaty and scared. Dean finds a nest that freaks him out. We only see baby Dean’s reaction, but he is horrified. He shields young Caitlin from the horror he sees, and they scamper out of there.
Meanwhile, little Sammy and kiddo Travis’ Boggle game is sending kill messages to the boys. Not creepy at all! The lights in the room go out, and the witch jumps out of the closet! Before she gets the boys, baby Dean and young Caitlin burst in! Dean swings with his knife, and cuts off the witches fingers. Her ring hits the floor, and she dissolves into billowing dust.
Dean walks out into the motel hallway, and encounters a creepy version of his baby self. The apparition taunts him, moving closer as Dean falls to his knees, and with a clever bit of camera trickery, the creepy young’un seems to loom over our Dean.
Dean finds himself holding his knife, as the creepy one tries to get Dean to off himself. Dean is so close to burying his knife into his belly, but Sam interrupts in the nick of time, asking Dean what he’s doing, causing the vision to disappear from Dean’s mind.
Caitlin was right, the monster is back.
Time for plans! Dean apologizes to Caitlin over beers. The weight Dean feels about this is immense. Sam is gonna hit the lore, and Dean confesses what he saw back in the cannery. The nest had the missing kids, something he had never seen before, and he apologizes once again for lying about it.
I went to google some Dean feeling guilty gifs, and there are A LOT of them.
Here’s the thing, Jensen Ackles is good enough of an actor that every time he struggles with his guilt, it feels real and new, and I’m not mad that they touched on this emotion one more time.
Sam is kind about the nest revelation, reminding Dean they used to keep all kinds of secrets from each other. Dean keeps his latest secret close, only wincing guiltily a little, and then heads off to get everyone some food at the diner.
How nice is it that Dean tries to get Sam some fancy rabbit food? The waitress informs him that they have iceberg lettuce and ranch, “Good for you.” Dean smiles as the waitress heads off with his order.
Billie takes this moment to visit Dean, and chastise him for working a case instead of chasing after Chuck. She has seen the destruction of the last world, and tells Dean that Chuck will be back soon. Like, tomorrow or the next day soon. It’s time to get to work.
Billie tells us how she convinced Jack to go ahead with her plan. She told him it was the only way Dean would forgive him for killing Mary.
Back at the motel, Caitlin asks Sam is he ever wanted to be normal. Sam is all, Oh Well! We saved a lot of people, and it sucks that we couldn’t save Travis. Poor, resigned Sammy.
Billie wants to be sure Dean can get Sam on board with the plan. Dean assures her he will get there. Billie is serious about all of this, and tells Dean he needs to get his house in order, because she isn’t a part of this last bit, and she needs her warriors to get it done.
Sam figures out the witch is a Baba Yaga, a ring the source of her power. The ring was found by Caitlin’s mom back in the day, and Travis wore it around his neck as a lucky charm for years. Sam throws out another theory, and when he turns to Caitlin, she is gone.
Caitlin digs around the trunk of her car, looking for the ring, when creepy dead Travis shows, creeping up on her, asking her if she’s looking for the ring he’s holding out to her.
Dean arrives back at the motel room, takeout in hand, and he finds a frantic Sam who can’t find Caitlin. Sam fills in Dean about the Baba Yaga, and with the theory that nest is somewhere in the motel, they split up to try and find it.
Sam hears a noise as he saunters through the lobby, sees smoke coming from under a closed door, and figures this must be it! He smashes his enormous body through the paper thin door, and finds the front desk clerk smoking a bong in the back room. HEE!
Dean wanders the halls, reliving his nightmare, I’m sure, and as he nears room 214, the door pops open. Dean cocks his gun, and enters, the door slamming shut behind him.
Suddenly, Dean is back in the cannery, heading straight for the place he found that nest all those years ago. He enters, his gun drawn, and sees little Sammy, dead in the nest!
Dean tries to hightail it, but is stopped by creepy dead Travis. They fight!
Sam hears a noise coming from room 214, and enters, seeing Caitlin passed out on the bed, and Dean being strangled by the Baba Yaga. Dean is deep in the hallucination as he struggles under the witches clutches. Sam sinks a knife into her back, and she lets go of Dean and tosses Sam across the room. This gives Dean a chance to snatch the ring from her finger, and crush it with the butt of his gun. Baba Yaga screams and dissipates, dead for good this time.
Dean walks Caitlin to the lobby, where she tells him he’s changed for the better. The Dean she met back then would have never admitted to being scared. She’s glad to see it. Dean feels the stab of guilt for not telling Sam his secret.
Baby Dean and young Caitlin hug in the lobby. Baby Dean gives her a number to call if anything else like this ever happens. She tells him she hope it never does.
Little Sammy asks if baby Dean found the missing kids, and baby Dean tells him no, trying to protect his little brother from the horrors of their world. The Impala pulls up, and baby Dean tells little Sammy that they make a good team. Little Sammy agrees. They get in the car, and we fade in on Sam and Dean driving home.
Dean stops Sam from calling Castiel, and takes a deep breath. He tells Sam that Billie paid him a visit. Chuck is on his way. He tells Sam everything about Jack having to die, and that Cass told him days ago.
Sam is FURIOUS. He can’t believe that Dean held this from him. The boys fight over following Billie’s plan, or finding another way. When Dean tries to explain himself, Sam yells at him to stop. He is so mad, he doesn’t want to hear another word from Dean. “Just drive,” Sam says, “just drive.”
Listen! I get that Sam is mad, I do. The second I realized that Dean was keeping this secret, I knew Sammy would be super mad about it. Sam is too hurt to see that Dean is terrified that its all coming down on them. The realization that he was a pawn in Chuck’s plan all these years is devastating, and I can see why Dean would be All. In. on a plan by a cosmic entity, because Dean doesn’t even trust his own motivations anymore.
What I also know, is that Sam is the person to go to if you need an alternate plan that won’t end up killing your adopted son, and I think part of the reason Sam is so mad, is that he feels like Dean still doesn’t trust him after all this time. Anyone who has family knows that decades can pass, and a hurt from long ago can be activated by someone who knows how to push that button. It’s old wounds and old habits rearing their ugly heads, and I am pretty confident that these two will work it out before it’s too late, but as far as beefs between the boys, this one rings very true to to me. This is how you do good familial drama, people!
Someone put this scene with the scene from the pilot, and Awwww, sweet brotherly love and stuff!
NEXT! Sam and Dean meet Adam. Not their long lost brother, but First Man Adam! Four episodes left!!!