- Crowley offers to help the brothers hunt down Pestilence and reclaim his ring, while Dean gets a lesson in trust when Sam's history with the Four Horsemen's demon `Stable Boy' is revealed.
- Dean and Sam are heading east in their Impala tracking down a swine flu outbreak. Out of the blue, the cunning demon Crowley appears in their car and offers to help them to find the last two Horsemen to get their rings. Crowley explains to the reluctant brothers that he wants Lucifer trapped and he knows a demon that can tell the location of Pestilence. Dean heads with Crowley to the Niveus Pharmaceuticals, and they abduct the demon Brady, who had studied with Sam and was his friend. Crowley unsuccessfully interrogates Brady; however, when they hear a hell hound howling, the demon Brady changes his attitude and gives the location of the Pestilence.—Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
- The demon Crowley tells Sam and Dean he can help them find the remaining Horsemen rings so they can trap Lucifer. The brothers are doubtful until Crowley leads them to Brady, the Handler for Pestilence and Death. However, Brady refuses to give up their locations and sets Pestilence after the Winchesters.—CW Publicity
- THEN
Many a terrible nightmare has been visited upon the Winchesters. We see them tangle with the Croatoan virus. We watch as Sam's fiancé, Jess, burns on the ceiling, and Lucifer takes her form in an attempt to talk Sam into saying yes. We see Crowley as he gives them to Colt, reminding them that if the Devil succeeds in this Apocalypse, demons go down too. But the Colt doesn't work.
Lastly, we see Gabriel telling them about the rings of the Four Horsemen -- War, Famine, Pestilence and Death -- being the keys of Lucifer's cage. They already have War's and Famine's rings. Now they need to find the rings belonging to Pestilence and Death.
Oh...is that all?
NOW
Two scientists in a lab at Niveus Pharmaceutical headquarters chat about a rush to create a new swine flu vaccine, one calling the move pure profit-driven crap. Human trials are scheduled for the coming week, which is unusually fast. Behind them, a janitor is mopping up. The more doubtful of the two asks his partner if he's even seen the new vaccine.
"I have," the janitor offers, then turns to the men. "I'm running an experiment." He stabs one of the scientists in the neck with a syringe while the other looks on, helpless. "Relax," the janitor continues, "You're part of it too."
He cold-cocks the second scientist as the one that was jabbed stands up, displaying red-rimmed eyes. The janitor runs out of the lab and locks the men inside as the first scientist violently attacks the other, splattering his blood everywhere. The janitor's eyes go completely black. "Well," he says, "looks like it works."
In an emergency room, Sam and Dean are wearing masks and pretending to be agents from the Center for Disease Control. The waiting room is crowded with coughing, miserable flu patients. Sam asks the doctor on call if she's noticed any unusual cases, perhaps patients showing signs of aggression? The doctor is puzzled -- for the most part, all she's seen is a milder case of the swine flu. However, a day and a half ago she saw a single case. Now there are 70. The boys softly remark to each other that this time frame coincides with a bunch of statues crying, and the doctor is puzzled to overhear this.
They awkwardly brush it off, and the doctor leaves them with a tired request for more vaccine.
The boys are tearing down the road and conversing with Bobby on the speaker phone. It concerns Bobby that this is the fourth town Pestilence has hit, and they're still way behind them. He tells the boys that as far as he can tell, Pestilence is headed East. They frustratedly tell Bobby that since they're in the Western part of Nevada, East is all there is for them.
That's when the impeccably suited- up demon Crowley appears in their back seat. "Say, I've got an idea!"
Dean slams on the brakes and Sam tries to stab him, but he vanishes. He reappears outside of the driver's side window, inviting the boys for a cigarette and a chat. Not in the dead of night in the middle of nowhere, of course. Sam closes angrily on Crowley, accusing him of setting them up with the Colt. Crowley swears that he thought the Colt would work, but nothing's changed -- he wants the Devil dead.
Actually, he qualifies that -- one thing's changed, the Devil knows Crowley wants him dead. Dean rolls his eyes at this, but Crowley screams, "They burned down my house! THEY ATE MY TAILOR!" He's been hunted by every demon on Hell and Earth. And yet, there he is, at the last place he should be, in the middle of the road, under a friggin' streetlight with Sam and Dean. For emphasis, he kills the light.
Crowley then reveals that he knows about the rings and the plan, much to Dean and Sam's shock. He offers to give them Pestilence if, in return, they follow him to safer ground.
In this case, a safer place is an abandoned house with single-pane glass windows and used contraception in the fire place. "How the mighty have fallen," Crowley sighs. He lights the hearth by pointing his finger and gets down to brass tacks: Although they are hidden from demons and angels, he's the only demon that can find them. He explained that when they came by for that night visit not too long ago, he left a tracking device in their car. It's a magic coin that also allows Crowley to hear everything. And oh, he says with a smile, the things he has heard.
Crowley goes on to say he doesn't know where Pestilence is, per se, but he does know where to find the demon who does. Crowley explains that each of the horsemen has a minder, kind of like a personal assistant who sets his schedule. When he does find that demon, Crowley will bring him back to his shack and "sell him."
Sam and Dean have doubts about this, but Crowley brushes them off. "I've been selling sin to saints for centuries. You think I can't sell one little demon?" he says with a sneer. For the sake of moving things along, the boys buy it. So, Dean asks, where do you find Pestilence's assistant?
Cut to the boardroom of Niveus Pharmaceuticals, where a polished executive is talking to a table filled with sharply dressed men and women. He's demanding distribution of the untested vaccine on an unprecedented scale and tells them to rush it to human trials, but the board members are balking -- they haven't gotten results from the lab yet, and they haven't even seen the vaccine. The executive is not placated by the claims of one of the men, who insists they're doing their best.
"Well, do the best of someone better!" he yells, and stalks out of the room.
Later, the executive calls the same man into his office, and tells him he has the perfect position for him...in communications. The man is surprised, but pleased. The executive picks up a sinister looking bowl and asks the man if he's ready to enter "the cutthroat world of upper management."
The moment the man says he is, the executive produces a razor-blade from behind his back and slits the man's throat, filling the bowl with blood. Another man, this one with coal black eyes, retrieves the body as the executive nonchalantly says, "Watch the shoes, please."
He says an incantation over the bowl, and a fly pops out of a bubble. He smoothly speaks to an invisible party we cannot hear, reporting that the trials went far better than expected, then after a pause, explains that distribution on this scale take a little more time. More flies come out of the bowl. The silent voice says something else, and the man assures him he's doing his best. He pauses, looks a bit deflated and answers. "Yes...I'll do the best of someone better." He looks a tad worried.
Back at Crowley's hideout, Sam and Dean aren't quite convinced that they should be listening to Crowley, and the archdemon underscores that when he strides up and announces that he's ready to go, but only Dean is invited. Sam, looking like he's ready to cut a B, glares at Crowley and refuses -- no way he's going to let a demon separate them. But Crowley points out that he wasn't extending the invitation to Sam, who always seems to be trying to kill him, but to Dean. He lets it hang in the air for a few uncomfortable seconds, then seems to withdraw it.
"Enjoy your last few sunsets," he says, and move to walk away. Much to Sam's dismay, Dean stops him and says he'll go. Crowley, who has his back to Dean, smiles a little to himself. Before he leaves, Dean turns to Sam and says, "What can I say, I believe the guy."
Sam sips some whiskey, calls Bobby and fills him in on the situation, and Bobby shrugs off Sam's concern, telling him that with almost every other option exhausted, maybe it's time to go crazy. Emboldened by this suggestion, Sam reminds Bobby of the time he was possessed, but able to wrest control back from the demon for long enough to stab himself with a knife that killed it.
Bobby asks why Sam wants to know, and Sam reveals an idea he's been toying with: If they get the cage open, how can they get Lucifer back in...unless Sam can take control of the Devil and step into it for them?
Bobby is furious to think Sam would even toy with this idea. "Kid," he says sternly , "it's called possession for a reason. You of all people ought to know." Bobby shoots down the comparison, explaining that he had a hard enough time wrestling with a pissant demon inside of him. To have Sam thinking he can wrestle his body back from the Devil himself is as insane as it is dead wrong.
Sam insists he's strong enough to do it, but Bobby doesn't agree, reminding Sam that the devil will find every flaw and chink in his armor and use it against him.
"And let's face it," Bobby finishes, "you're not exactly Mr. Anger Management. How are you going to control the devil when you can't control yourself?"
Sam angrily sips his whiskey, and has no reply.
Outside of Niveus HQ, Dean and Crowley are watching. Crowley points out the human shields in the lobby, and says the demons are up top. Dean suggests they find a way in from the back. "You Winchesters make everything so complicated," Crowley sighs, before he disappears.
Dean looks around the car for a moment, then checks his binoculars to see Crowley in the lobby, slitting the throats of the security guards. Dean runs to the door, horrified, but Crowley nonchalantly tells him not to be squeamish. He shoves Dean into the elevator and drops the bomb that he won't be accompanying up to the upper levels to deal with Pestilence's minion. He advises Dean to do as he advised, and be convincing. With that, Dean is on his own...and more frightened than a kitten.
Pestilence's keeper hears Dean take out the demon guarding his door, and casually invites him in. Dean, visibly nervous, sits down and unsuccessfully tries to produce his signature swagger, telling the Big P's assistant that word got around that he wants War's and Famine's rings, and he's willing to negotiate.
The executive demon calmly considers Dean for a moment and smiles. "Who says I want them?"
Dean is silent for a moment, then swallows loudly. "Uh...what?"
"Who. Says. I want them," the demon repeats.
"Oh..."Dean is flustered. "You know...folks."
The executive demon smiles and stands up from behind his desk, adjusting his suit jacket. He tells Dean that even if he could return the rings, it wouldn't do any good, since War and Famine are just husks curled up in the fetal position. No, he tells Dean, what he wants is retribution. And he plans to pull it right out of the man in front of him.
The demon throws Dean through the doors of his office and into the hall without breaking a sweat as blood streams down Dean's forehead. Dean is crawling on the floor, trying to get away, as the executive demon adjusts his cufflinks and strides toward him.
"This...is so good." He kicks Dean in the ribs. "Therapeutic for sure. You know Dean, I owe you one buddy, because I feel SO!" (Kick to the ribs, again.) "Much!" (Kick.) "Better!" (Kick.)
Dean spits up blood and, from the look on his face, is probably kicking himself on the inside as he realizes how much of a douche Crowley is.
Dean manages to make it to the elevator as the executive taunts him from behind, wondering where he's going. He hits the lobby and, as the door opens, sees nobody. But the executive demon appears behind him smiling and pushes Dean out of the elevator, ready to continue the thing that rhymes with "meeting."
Before he can land another blow, Crowley appears, yanks a hood with a glyph painted on it over the executive demon's head, and greets him with a "Hello, Uncle!" before bashing him in the skull with a crowbar several times.
Dean yells at Crowley, saying that the executive demon didn't want the rings, he wanted him. Crowley ignores this and commends Dean on a job well done, saying the look of ignorance on his face while spewing misinformation must have really sold it. Crowley insists it went like clockwork.
"Not for me it didn't!" a bloodied Dean cries.
Crowley wags the crowbar at Dean in a tsk, tsk, tsk motion. "That's what you get for working with a demon," he gleefully tells him.
In the back seat of the Impala Crowley slices a glyph into the executive demon's torso to lock him in the meatsuit. "An important piece of our bargaining strategy," Crowley explains. He then tells Dean to take a different route, explaining that they can't take the demon back to Sam. When Dean asks why, Crowley pauses to choose his words, then replies, "They've got history, all right?"
Dean slams on the brake and tells Crowley that if they want to go anywhere, they need to start talking. "What history?" he booms.
Upstairs at Crowley's hideout, Sam is getting squirrelly when he suddenly hears the other two return. He comes downstairs to find Crowley, standing alone. He asks the demon where his brother is, and Crowley is silent for a beat before telling Sam that, for the record, he's against what's about to happen.
"Negotiating a high level defection, it's very delicate business," Crowley explains, and Sam's eyes narrow. He moves toward the door, but Crowley steps in his way. He continues that he begged Dean not to come back, saying that the negotiation should take place miles from Sam. "He replied with a colorful rejoinder about my...cornshoot," Crowley coos. He then releases Sam, telling him to go ahead and "ruin our last, best hope. It's only the end of the world."
Sam joins Dean in a room, where the executive demon is tied to a chair in the center of a devil's trap, bag still on his head. Dean drops his prep and approaches Sam, telling him he needs to stay on mission.
"I don't understand, what's all this about?" Sam says.
"I'm doing this because I trust you," Dean says, and from underneath the bag, the executive calls to Sam.
Dean takes off the bag, and Sam sees who it is -- his college buddy Brady. Brady informs Sam that Brady hasn't been Brady for a long time. Not since, oh...sophomore year. Yes, he tells Sam, he's had a devil on his shoulder for a very long time. He realizes that Brady introduced Sam to Jess for a reason.
"Ding ding, I think he's got it!" the demon taunts, laughing.
Dean pushes a raging Sam out of the room as Crowley looks on. "Well, sounds like you've got him nice and fluffed," he deadpans. "Thanks so much."
Dean tries to talk Sam down, but he can't believe that Dean is trusting Crowley.
Crowley sits down to negotiate with Brady, but Brady is a tough nut to crack. Crowley can't get him to sympathize with the demons' situation, that once "the Morningstar" gets the mop, demons will be the first thing he cleans. From Brady's point of view, he's dead regardless of whether he tells Crowley anything, while Satan will surely keep Crowley alive to torment him for all eternity. Brady announces he'd rather die on the winning side.
Crowley curtly excuses himself and returns to Dean. He tells him that since Brady won't budge, next is the nuclear option: He's going to stick his neck out in "exactly the kind of desperate swashbuckler I've been trying to avoid. Now I go kick open a hive of demons."
He turns to leave, then tells Dean, "This whole bloody ring business had better work." Crowley disappears.
Dean goes to wash up in the bathroom, which is when Sam reappears and jams the door with a chair, locking Dean inside. He grabs Ruby's knife and heads in to chat with Brady, or rather, the demon inside him. "Oh, here we go," demon Brady says with a smile.
Brady takes Sam on a trip back down memory lane and recounts the moments that they spent together, explaining precisely when it was that he took his best friend. But, Brady explains through his laughter, he and the Yellow-Eyed Demon noticed that they were losing Sam, so to get him back on the path they introduced him to pure, sweet Jessica...and when the time was right, Brady burned Jessica on the ceiling.
A fully enraged Sam grabs the laughing Brady, who urges him to go ahead and kill him. Sam slices into Brady's throat, but just enough to make a cut, not kill him. Brady eggs Sam on to finish the job, but Sam storms out of the room to stop himself.
He lets Dean out of the bathroom just in time for Crowley to return looking slightly the worse for wear. Crowley strolls into the room and announces to Brady that he has good news: He's going to live forever.
"What did you do?" Brady asks, looking peeved.
Crowley explains that he just went visited a demon's nest and slaughtered the lot of them. Oh, but he must be losing his touch because he left one alive -- oops!
Unfortunately for Brady, "I might have given said toad the impression that you left your post last night because you and I are -- wait for it -- lovers in league against Satan!" Crowley merrily crows. "Hello darling. So now that death is off the table, you get to be on the eternal torment list with little old me."
He reminds Brady that the one thing they have in common, besides their torrid love, is a craven sense of self preservation. Once again, he asks Brady where Pestilence is. Brady opens his mouth to reply when a howl suddenly pierces the night air.
Dean recognizes the baying -- it's hell hounds. "Uh oh," Crowley says, then casually checks his pockets to find that the demons he slaughtered planted a tracking coin on him. Brady begs for them to let him go, and Dean agrees they should leave.
"Sorry boys...no one knows more about the hounds than I," Crowley says. "You're far past the point of car." He flips the coin to Dean and disappears. Sam chastises Dean for trusting Crowley, and Dean runs for a box of salt in the kitchen. But he's too late -- the hound is through the window, and though he's not visible to us, he's breaking tables and floorboards in front of Dean.
Dean reaches for his shotgun and fires salt rounds at the invisible beast, but it doesn't stop them. He retreats to Sam and Brady, who is pleading with them to let him out. Dean loads another round, although from the pooch's perspective, we can see it won't work.
"HEY!" a voice calls from behind the dog -- and it's Crowley. "STAY!" he yells. Dean can't believe he returned, and Crowley shrugs -- he's invested, he says. He explains that he can't control the hound in the room with them...but he brought his own. He pats the air beside him, and we hear the slap of his hand on flesh. "Mine's bigger."
He sets his pet on the smaller hounds, and there's a whimpering and blood splatters as Crowley's dog takes control. The boys release Brady from the devil's trap and all four of them beat it to the car. "I'll bet a thousand that mine wins," Crowley says with a laugh, and as they drive off, a nasty howl emits from the house.
At the dead end of an alley, Brady hands Crowley a slip of paper, and he passes it to the boys. Brady accuses Crowley of screwing him for all eternity, and Crowley casually replies, "Won't last that long." He tells Sam and Dean that he suspects they'll be in touch, and walks away as Dean produces a salt border behind Sam.
Brady grins. "What is this?"
"All those angels, all those demons, all those sons of bitches...they just don't get it, do they Sammy?" Dean says.
"No they don't Dean," Sam says.
"See Brady," Dean says, "we're the ones you should be afraid of."
Sam pulls out the knife, and Brady laughs at the idea this will make Sam feel better. He taunts Sam, asking if it's ever occurred to him that perhaps the reason he was so easy to turn is because he and the demons have the same darkness in their veins. Brady rushes Sam, who beats him back, slicing into him twice as Brady winces. Brady turns to him, hurting, and spews one last bit of venom: "Maybe the only difference between you and a demon is your Hell is right here."
Sam slams the knife into Brady's gut, staring into his face as the demon burns inside Brady's skin, then sizzles and dies.
"Interesting theory," Sam says calmly, then wipes the blade and walks away as Dean looks on, worried.
Cut to Bobby, talking to Rufus on the phone and once again coming up empty on Death's location. As he hangs up, a man appears behind Bobby and before he can introduce himself, Bobby wagers a guess as to who it is.
"Crowley," Bobby growls.
"In the flesh! Of a moderately successful literary agent out of New York," Crowley says. Bobby shoots him with his pistol, then pulls out his shotgun.
"Get the hell out of my property before I blast you so full of rock salt that you crap margaritas," Bobby growls.
When Crowley recovers, he tells Bobby he has a deal for him -- he can get him Death's coordinates. All he needs is to cast a little spell, but there's a technicality: In order to cast the spell, Bobby needs to give him something. His soul.
Bobby thinks for a moment, then says, "Okay. Here's my counter." He shoots Crowley again, making him crumple over by his cabinets.
But when Bobby wheels around, Crowley is behind him, and explains that he's on their team and as much invested in getting the Devil back into his cage as the boys are. He then restates the deal to Bobby, adding that he only needs his soul for a loan so he can do the spell.
"Promise," Crowley coos. "Temporary loan. I'll give it...right back."
Bobby stares at Crowley, and seems to consider the demon's proposal...end credits.
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