From MadCap's Couch - "Supernatural: Croatoan"

That is the name of the episode.

Did you say "Resident Evil by way of Supernatural"?

What's that?

You didn't?

Oops...

To be fair, Croatoan doesn't have any zombies...sort of, but we'll get into it.

After the recap that details one part In My Time of Dying and one part Simon Said as we get reminded that John knew about Yellow Eyes' plans for the psychic kids and knew for a while, and that other psychic kids like Sam exist.

After that, the episode opens with Dean shooting a man who seemingly begs for his life and claims "It's not in me! It's not in me!". However, this turns out to be a dream as Sam awakens with a start. He and Dean hit the road to go to Rivergrove, Oregon based on a picture Sam saw in the vision. Dean's justification is that all of Sam's visions has something to do with the Yellow-Eyed Demon. Of course, naturally, you want to do everything you can to make the vision happen...like going there.

They arrive and start looking around the town of Rivergrove. Everything seems pretty on par. Sam sees one of the people from his vision and questions them, trying to find out who the man Dean shot in Sam's vision. Dean manages to reach the man via some Marines talk and he points them in the right direction. As they leave, Sam spots a single word carved into a wooden street lamp - "Croatoan". We get a hilarious joke of Dean's knowledge of U.S. History being School House Rock! and Sam explains the story of the missing Roanoke colonists to him and its relation to what they've seen and what might be happening here in the town.

They try to reach out to Bobby or Ellen for help and find that their cell phones have no signal. The pay phones, too, are out. Dean points out that this would be his first step in massacring a town.

With this settled, the boys come to the home of Duane Tanner, where something seems to be up right away. Duane's brother - Jake - answers the door and gives some answers about where Duane is and those are immediately contradicted by Duane's father...which puts both the brothers on high alert. They sneak around the house and witness Mrs. Tanner has been tied up. Mr. Tanner cuts his son's arm, dropping some blood on the mother. Sam and Dean bust in and Mr. Tanner attacks while Jake leaps out of the window and flees for his life.

Oooh, this gives me a neat idea for a What If...?

Afterward, Sam and Dean bring Mrs. Tanner into town as well as the unconscious Mr. Tanner. Mrs. Tanner gets questioned by the doctor, who has no idea why this is all happening. One minute, they were her husband and her son...and then they had the devil in them. Sam and Dean go over what has happened, running theories. Eventually, Dean works out a plan to head to the nearest town for help. He finds a car left on and parked in the road, looking as though some kind of animal had attacked it from the outside. 

Finding a bloodied knife, Dean begins to realize the killer was no animal.

In the lab, the doctor looks over a blood sample from Mr. Tanner and finds he was fighting off a viral infection. There appears to be some kind of residue in the blood...one that the doctor would swear was sulfur if she didn't know any better...

Dean makes his way down the road to find a barricade with several people at the ready with guns, including Jake from earlier. A townsperson comes up and tries to coax Dean out of the car. Dean puts the Impala in reverse and manages to make a break for it in spite of being shot at.

Back at the ranch, Mrs. Tanner is asked to give a blood sample...and reacts violently, attacking the doctor. It seems that she, too, had been infected by this virus after some of her son's blood got mixed into hers.

Back in town, Dean gets put at gunpoint by the Marine Sarge, who demands to know if he's "one of them". They eventually have a tense stand off, but Dean's practicality wins out...even as the two keep their pistols trained on each other for a nice, relaxing drive. Dean gets the back to the clinic and catches Sam up to speed on the blockade outside of town and Dean gets a lesson in demonic germ warfare - namely Sam's theory that this much be connected to the Yellow-Eyed Demon because of Sam's vision.

Sarge, Slayer of Mr. Rogers!

John apparently held a theory about the Roanoke colony, that Croatoan was the name of a demon that ransacked the settlement and they - being 1500s people - were wiped out by it.

Sarge brings attention to the fact that they have the still alive Mrs. Tanner in the utility room and there's a tense few moments of them debating the morality of killing someone who is infected. When the doctor says she can't figure out what the virus is, much less how to cure it, they have an answer. Dean puts her out of her misery before she can harm someone else.

Thus, we have an Assault on Precinct 13 situation where everyone is holed up at the clinic with tensions on the rise. When Sarge suggests using some explosives to get out, Sam grabs some chemicals and resolves to make some. Duane Tanner suddenly arrives, apparently having gotten back to town in the afternoon and having been running for his life ever since. When they find a cut on his leg, Dean has Sarge tie him to a chair just to be safe.

Sam pulls Dean aside to talk, trying to convince Dean to not kill Duane outright. Despite Sam's impassioned speech and trying to appeal to Dean's humanity, Dean locks him in the room and goes to fulfill the vision Sam saw...but at the last second, he doesn't pull the trigger, his conscience clearly eating at him more than he was letting on.

Afterward, Sam and Dean get to work on making explosives. Duane is clean after four hours, he is not infected. As the doctor goes to untie him, Sam asks Dean why he didn't kill Duane...and he dodges the question. As Sam heads into the dispensary to get more alcohol, the nurse jumps him and cuts him, seemingly infecting him with her blood. Dean and Sarge bust in, shooting her in the back...but the damage is done. Sam's blood has been contaminated...

"I have been...and always shall be...your friend!"

The others want Dean to shoot Sam, but he refuses. Sam attempts to take the noble route and offers to kill himself, but Dean refuses that as well. He gives Sarge the keys to the Impala and tells them to use the explosives to get out of there. However, Dean has elected to remain there with Sam.

We get a great little scene between Sam and Dean where Sam keeps trying to get Dean to leave and Dean refuses. Dean tells Sam that he's tired of the job, this life, the weight on his shoulders. It's all too much. Part of it is what happened with John, but another part...well, Dean doesn't get to reveal that before, suddenly, the doctor returns and tells the boys that they need to come and see something.

The town is abandoned, every person there has vanished without a trace. We get a long shot of that streetlamp from earlier with "Croatoan" carved into it.

Back in the clinic, the doctor reveals that Sam is apparently not infected even after five hours. She checks his blood and the blood of the Tanners and finds...nothing. No trace of the virus, no sulfur, nothing. Sarge and Duane are heading to Sidewinder to get help and the doctor remaining behind to talk to the authorities once they arrive. Dean laments how none of this seems to make sense and that there seem to be so many questions unanswered. With nothing left to do, the boys drive off  down the road.

Meanwhile, Duane and Sarge are on the road when Duane asks Sarge to pull over. When he does, Duane pulls a knife out and slits Sarge's throat, angling his neck so the blood falls into a demonic pewter cup...

Stirring the blood, Duane speaks to someone - revealing that the Virus was indeed being tested and that Sam was immune "as expected". Duane's eyes go demonic black as he looks at the body of Sarge, revealing that he was a demon all the while...

Elsewhere, Sam and Dean are by a lake and sharing a brew. Sam questions Dean about the things he said when he thought they were both going to die. Confident that Sam isn't going to let up, Dean attempts to deflect - saying that the two should take a break from demon hunting for a while. When Sam presses further, Dean insists that he promised John that he wouldn't talk about it.

However, he relents...and tells Sam, right before John died, he told Dean something about Sam.

What is it?

Well, we'll have to wait until the next episode because that's literally where this one ends!

I mean, really, dude! Really!

Croatoan is a good episode. Likely a bottle one given the lack of multiple sets and a minimum of actors. This actually works mostly in the episode's favor. The lack of emphasis on the special effects (or lack thereof) and the minimal nature of the sets allows the episode to feel a lot more intimate and indeed even suspenseful as the group are holed up in the clinic. The ending is admittedly a bit of an anti-climax and that loses it a few points. Even if the test of the virus was to see is Sam was immune, it seems to weird to just have the big threat of the episode just magic'd offscreen with no real payoff for an almost literally Night of the Living Dead scenario.

Next time, we continue our track with the psychic kids subplot. A bit revelation is made and a woman attempts to save Sam from a grizzly and untimely death! In spite of all of that, next time, the Winchesters will be Hunted!

Be there!