Supernatural S4E7: It's the Great Pumpkin, Sam Winchester

“That guy’s so vanilla he makes vanilla seem spicy.”

As we open, a man eats Halloween candy and then retrieves a razor from the roof of his mouth. It’s been a while since Supernatural managed to gross me the fuck out, so it’s about time this happened. Blood shoots everywhere. He dies. The bros find a hex bag in his kitchen. The next day, a high-school girl at a pre-Halloween party goes bobbing for apples and boils to death. The bros find a hex bag in the couch. As Dean puts it, “Witches are so freaking skeevy.”

The brothers pick up the trail of a witch who is attempting to raise Samhain, the demon for whom Halloween was created. This is bad, because Samhain has the power to raise all manner of things that go bump in the night. They figure out that the witch is Tracy, a tiny blonde cheerleader, and are mid-plan when Castiel shows up with the angel Uriel to stop them. Sam falls all over himself in his delight to meet the angels, but is sorely disappointed once they begin to speak.

Raising Samhain is one of the 66 seals, and they cannot allow it to be broken. They are going to destroy the entire town, including hundreds of innocent people, in order to stop it. It’s the old “the good of the one vs. the good of the many” argument. A horrified Sam protests that angels are supposed to help people, not hurt them. Castiel replies, “Have faith in the plan. It comes from heaven, which makes it just.” Dean refuses to leave town, knowing that after Castiel went to all the trouble of saving him from hell, there’s no way he’ll let him die now. Castiel agrees to let the boys try. Later, when Uriel suggests they just drag ol’ Dean out of town, Castiel mysteriously references their “real orders.”

The bros discover that a high-school art teacher is involved and shoot him up after finding Tracy tied up in his basement while he holds a knife to her throat. Unfortunately, Tracy and the teacher are in it together and she manages to raise Samhain, who inhabits the teacher’s body and then breaks Tracy’s neck. While this is going on, Sam smears blood all over his face and Dean’s, thus creating “masks” that hide them from Samhain.

Samhain trots off to the cemetery and brings the dead to life. Dean makes Sammy promise not to use his abilities in this fight. At the cemetery, Dean battles a zombie horde while Sam goes after Samhain, who is shocked to find that Sam is impervious to his demonic skills. Sam tries to use Ruby’s knife, he really does, but Samhain knocks it away and he is forced to use his powers. Samhain is so powerful that he manages to struggle through Sam’s psychic onslaught, moving closer and closer to Sammy while Dean watches in horror. The fight takes so much out of poor Sammy that his head pounds and his nose bleeds, but eventually he conquers Samhain.

The next day, Uriel reprimands Sam. He was specifically told not to use his powers, and if he steps out of line again Uriel will not hesitate to kill him. The trouble-making angel’s parting words are, “Ask Dean what he remembers from hell.” Across town, Castiel tells Dean that the angels’ real orders were to let Dean do whatever he wanted in order to test his leadership capabilities. He admits that he sometimes has doubts about god’s wishes, and has no idea whether Dean has passed the test, or failed.