Warning: Spoiler Alert
One of the greatest aspects of The CW veteran series “Supernatural,” is the that fact that you can never rule out any character returning to the show. Just a few weeks ago, we enjoyed Sam Winchester connecting with his surrogate father Bobby Singer, in Heaven. The latest chapter “The Werther Project, ” brought the return of Dean’s friend Benny back to the show, still residing in purgatory. The vampire that fed his need for blood, by robbing blood banks, had a message for his old running partner. One that Dean strongly considered following, taking what Benny referred to as the pure and honorable path.
Our journey begins in St. Louis in 1973, as a mom, dad and teenage son and daughter, spend their first week in their new home. The father tells a friend on the phone, the house had gotten caught up in an ownership battle for years and he got a great deal. Sister Suzie tries to watch cartoons on TV, but her older brother gets to play his Todd Rundgren record, while Suzie’s sent to the basement by her mom to do the laundry.
When she gets down there, she notices part of the basement’s blocked off by a wall. The teen grabs a sledge-hammer, knocks down the wall and finds a large metal box sitting there, looking like a cross between an old console radio and a stove. She jerks the handle open, a stream of green smoke pours from the box, knocking her out with its impact.
When she comes to, she goes upstairs to find her father and brother, both killed themselves. As she walks into the kitchen, her mother stands over the kitchen sink, babbling everything’s fine. She then takes a carving knife and slits her throat.
Back in the present, we join Rowena and Sam discussing her translating the Book Of The Damned and finding a spell to remove the Mark Of Cain from Dean. She tells Sammy she’ll help him, in return for him killing Crowley, he agrees without hesitation. He asks if she can translate the book, she tells him she’ll need the codex of Nadia, a witch from the Grand Coven. Nadia’s death came at the hands of the Men Of Letters, she tells Sammy to look at the records in his home from the fifties.
Dean sends Sam a text-message, saying he’s checking out a vampire’s nest in Tulsa if Sam wants to join him. By the time the younger brother arrives, Dean’s beheaded six vampires and is ready to pop a cold one. Sam asks why didn’t Dean wait, his brother replies the battle took the edge off. He then says he wants to go home, drink some brews and watch TV.
When Dean falls asleep, Sam starts digging into the records. He finds an entry about the banishing Cuthbert Sinclair, in May of 1956. Sinclair’s the guy who held the First Blade and tried to imprison Dean last season, before Dean killed him with the First Blade. Sinclair was the groups Master Of Spells, before his expulsion, Sammy finds a reel-to-reel audio-tape recording of the meeting and puts on headphones and listens to it.
The group finally reached its tolerance limit with Sinclair, due to a lethal safe he created to protect the codex. The safe, known as the Werner Box, caused the death of two of the Men Of Letters. The member conducting the meeting tells Sinclair they’ll grant him leniency, if he reveals how to disarm the box. He laughs off the olive branch, saying that one of the members who died, had the right idea, to disarm it. He then tells him they’ll die if they attempt to shut it off. The man in charge of the meeting, orders the box get buried and guarded for eternity. Eternity arrived in 1958, when Abaddon slaughtered all the members.
It’s mentioned the box is in St. Louis and Sam looks up the address of the St. Louis chapter of the Men Of Letters and finds it’s the house that Suzie’s family killed themselves, back in 1973. He reads up on the family, then calls Rowena and says he’s got a lead.
Sam gets to the house now in serious need of repair. He tries picking the lock, then backs off as Suzie now in her fifties, pokes the barrel of her gun through the mail slot. Sam returns to his car, only to find Dean climbing into the passenger seat. Dean apologizes for taking out the vampire’s nest on his own, then says he got the address of the “suicide-house,” from the notepad Sam used.
He asks why Sam’s chosen the case, Sammy tells him about the Werther Box, saying it’s their responsibility as Men Of Letters to diffuse the deadly alarm. Dean agrees it’s in their wheel-house and rings Suzie’s doorbell. She comes out with her gun aimed thinking it’s Sam, she lowers it when she realizes it’s not him. Dean says he’s Dwight Twilley with the neighborhood watch, looking for the guy who tried to pick her lock. As she describes Sam, he jimmies the back door open and enters the house, then heads to the basement.
Suzie explains she’s lived by herself since 1980, as her Aunt Pauline came to take care of her. However she made the unfortunate choice of going to the basement. Sam drops some chairs, which she seems not to hear. Then suddenly she turns around to Dean with the gun aimed at him. She says she knows the other guy’s downstairs and tells Dean to get him up there. Dean calls to Sammy, whose attempting a spell to safely open the box. The spell fails and the green smoke escapes, effecting all three of them.
Suzie suddenly sees the apparitions of her dead family, blaming her for their deaths. She’s locked in the study with the spirits and shoots herself in the chin. Dean starts seeing the wooden floor beneath him turn to a dirt trail, he’s in the woods in a very familiar spot purgatory.
Sam enters the room Suzie’s in to find her dead body, he’s soon joined by Suzie’s ghost blaming him for her death. She then tells Sam he’s the wildcard, he’s the reckless one. She tells him to pick up the gun and end this farce. A second later, the ghost’s gone as Rowena’s zapped her away. She says she tracked Sam by magic and that’s how she saved him as well. Sam tells her Dean can’t find her there, but Dean’s body’s in the house, but his brain’s in purgatory. They tie him up so he can’t harm himself as they head for the Werther Box.
Dean starts to get attacked by some demon, when suddenly the creature’s headless due to Benny. Dean looks at him and tells Benny he’s not real. He then starts walking to try to find a way out of there, while Benny follows him, trying to get Dean to talk to him. Dean finally stops and says it’s great to see Benny, but he’s just a hallucination. Benny says you’re right, but you know why you chose here? Because this is your happy place, you can kill with complete freedom here.
Rowena casts a spell to make the box’s inscription easier to read, she then reads the Latin while Sam translates, it says. It reads “To silence the box slake it’s thirst, with the blood of our own.” Sam says that mean’s someone’s blood from the Men Of Letter’s. Rowena asks him how can he be sure, that’s what it means. Sam says he can’t, then slices his forearm and lets the blood from the wound pour into a basin in front of the box.
Dean keeps walking in circles, finally he turns to Benny and asks him how to get out. Benny says there’s another path he could follow, one that Dean knows is pure and honorable. Dean says there’s nothing honorable about killing himself. The vampire responds he forgot about Winchester’s backup plan, to have Sam and Castiel put him down if he goes evil. He says that if Dean makes them do that, they’d never recover. It would ruin them, he says that Dean can’t leave that job to them. Dean brakes the chair arms, goes over to the mantle and grabs a wine bottle, as Benny hands Dean his axe in purgatory. Dean smashes the bottle holding the jagged remains.
The gears on the Werther Box start turning as Sam’s blood gathers in the basin. But then it stops and Rowena says it wants more blood, Sammy cuts higher up on his arm.
Back in purgatory, Dean says to Benny that he could do it if he had to, but Benny would never ask him to kill himself. The apparition says we’ve been over that. Dean then says the mark on his arm won’t let him do it either, it wants him to live. He gives Benny back the axe and says thanks but no thanks, then stabs Benny in the gut. Purgatory fades away and Dean’s back in the house.
Sam and Rowena are still in front of the box and she says it wants more blood. Dean comes in at that point and we realize that Rowena is Sam’s hallucination. Sam tells Dean it wants legacy blood, Dean ties off Sammy’s wound and slices his own arm. The box opens and they get the codex and Rowena disappears.
Back at the Men Of Letters building, Rowena’s aglow when she sees Sam has the codex. Her joy doesn’t last for long as Sam puts manacles on her. He says their deals still in play, he’ll kill Crowley after Rowena gets the mark off of Dean. If she wants to leave, she best work quickly.
The Story Continues Next Wednesday Night at 9:00 pm on The CW.
