From MadCap's Couch - Supernatural: "Metamorphosis"

"Okay, so the safety word is Wildfire."

The recap is largely concerning the previous episode and Sam pursuing the use of his psychic abilities (despite telling Dean that he hadn't been), capped off by Castiel's warning to Dean to stop him.

In the present, Sam and Ruby are interrogating a demon. Said demon does not give up the information Sam wants about where Lilith is, but does give some foreshadowing for a later episode. Sam mentally exorcises him... and Dean witnesses this.

Sam has apparently gotten over the headaches and, surprisingly, the host for the demon survived! Dean is not amused, coming in and confronting Sam. Learning that she's Ruby, he's even further not amused and attempts to kill her. Between Sam and Ruby herself, however, Dean can't quite manage it. Sam convinces Ruby to take the demon victim off to the ER and Dean walks out, ignoring Sam's attempts to engage him in conversation.

Later, Dean returns to the motel room and begins packing, still ignoring Sam. When he does finally get Dean to engage him... Dean punches him. Twice. Dean interrogates Sam on what he can do, Sam insisting that he can only exorcise demons and that most people he does it to survive the process. Dean insists that it's a slippery slope and he doesn't trust these new abilities of Sam's or Ruby at all. He delivers the gut punch line of: "If I didn't know you, I'd want to hunt you."

Ouch.

"...so...Chipotle after this? I dig some Chipotle."

Sam makes an appeal - Dean was gone, he was there, and he had to keep on fighting. Dean rightly counters with the fact that if it were so fantastic, Sam wouldn't have hidden it from him. He also drops the bombshell about Castiel warning him, which unsettles Sam highly.

Sam's cell rings, getting a call from someone named Travis and he takes down some details about a hunt in Carthage, Missouri.

We then cut to Carthage, where a man named Jack sits very intensely eating basically everything in sight, much to the surprise and worry of his wife. Later that night, he begins having some sort of seizure in the bathroom as his spine distorts briefly, but he seemingly recovers...

In the Impala, Dean has apparently told Sam everything he saw back in 1973 so Sam can get the proxy emotional gut punches... and let slip to Dean that he knows about the demon blood Azazel put into him, something which Sam learned much earlier and that drives the wedge between the brothers even further as Dean apparently did not tell Sam anything about the demon blood.

Back at Jack's house, Jack digs through the fridge and is watched from a distance by Sam and Dean via some binoculars. Travis apparently thinks there's something 'weird' about the guy that the two need to watch out for. The weird comes as Jack unwraps and begins devouring leftovers of rotisserie chicken... and then raw beef.

"Behold, my disapproving smolder..."

The boys head off to meet Travis, revealed as an older hunter who knew their father and thus them in years past. Arm in a cast, he explains what's going on: Jack Montgomery is a rugaru, a creature that appears human at first, but changes soon enough. At first, they'll eat anything, but eventually the hunger is so intense that all they crave is human flesh. Demonstrated as Jack's wife cuts her finger and he has to leave in a full on panic.

So how did Travis know about Jack? He put down Jack's father back in 1978, unaware that his wife was pregnant at the time. Jack got put up for adoption and he was lost in the system, until now.

At a bar, Jack is going through drink after drink and all the peanuts he can eat (and then some). Seeing a woman getting harassed by a barfly, Jack intercedes. When said barfly tries to pick a fight, Jack breaks his hand and runs in a panic.

Back at the ranch, Dean and Travis are working on flamethrowers - fire being the only thing that can kill a rugaru - and Sam approaches to suggest that, perhaps, they could keep Jack from turning into a full rugaru. If they never eat human flesh, they never transform, and there are some stories concerning just that thing. Travis dismisses it as fairy tales and that there's really only one way this will go. Sam insists that they not kill him out of hand and at least attempt to talk to him about the situation.

Jack attempts to reconcile with his wife, who is less than happy with him abandoning her after she cut herself. He sweet talks his way back into it and it all seems rather well... until Jack gets a little too animalistic for his own good. Jack is pushed off, freaking out even more about his condition as he leaves.

In the Impala, Sam and Dean discuss the opposing points of view about Jack's condition. Dean wants to make sure Sam's current events aren't coloring his judgment. Fed up, Sam tells Dean to stop the car. Getting out, the brothers go on arguing as they do. Sam insisting that he's trying to make this curse on him into something good. Dean relents, saying that they should go talk to Jack.

When they do, Jack seems receptive to it... at first. When the conversation gets around to him learning about his father and how the gene was passed on to him, Jack shuts the boys out completely.

Later, Jack is at a bus stop when he sees a woman who looks very much like his wife but is not his wife and feels the hunger gnawing at him again. Sam and Dean, tailing him, head into the apartment complex after him. It seems that Jack is going to give into his urges but, as his victim turns the light off, he sees his reflection in the glass window and denies himself.

Sam and Dean get a much-needed comedy moment where they bust into the victim's apartment and then awkwardly leave.

After the latest kerfuffle, it was decided that Travis would not head up further trustbuilding exercises.

Jack returns home to find his wife - now named as Michelle - having been gagged and tied to a chair. He gets the chloroform treatment as well, and wakes up restrained himself. Travis is the guilty party, still insistent that Jack is going to turn. Michelle demands to be let in on what's going on, Jack insisting that she's not a part of it. Travis gets her to reveal that she's pregnant...

Travis prepares the gas, giving his condolences, and Jack uses his newly unlocked biology to break free of the restraints and beat the snot out of Travis, re-breaking his arm with the cast. Hearing Travis's beating heart, and being so overcome with rage, Jack succumbs... and digs in for his first meal. Jack breaks Michelle free, but she books it like a librarian and drives away, leaving Jack alone with a dead body and his face covered in the man's blood.

Sam and Dean arrive onscene, thinking they're going to run into Travis again. They are technically correct, the best kind of correct. Finding the puddle of blood, they find what remains of Travis - which is to say very, very little. Sam breaks down, admitting that Dean was right about Jack. Jack responds by knocking both the brothers unconscious, which is what happens when you don't properly sweep the room.

Sam wakes up in the closet, Jack apparently having Dean alive but holding him hostage. When the issue about Michelle comes up, Jack avoids answering it. The metaphorical connection between Sam and Jack is further driven home as Sam attempts to appeal to Jack's humanity.

SAM: It doesn't matter who you are, it only matters what you do.

Of course, Sam is hedging his bets by using a coat hanger to pick the lock. When he does get out, he torches Jack.

Later, in the Impala, Dean insists that Sam did the right thing. He attempts to apologize, but Sam shuts it down. When Dean tries to reach out to him, Sam insists that he's done with his powers, likening it to playing with fire.

"Have I got something in my teeth? ....oh, right!"

And that's Metamorphosis. Not at bad one, though a bit more of a blunt force parallel between Sam's arc story for the Season and Jack's in what would otherwise be a standard Monster of the Week episode. It's also almost apocalyptic in tone, so dreary and dismal with no real way for Jack to maintain his life. In the end, the hunger always wins.

There really isn't too much I can say for good or ill about this episode. It's a servicable jaunt with a neat makeup effect for the monster - Jack's rugaru form basically being him with paler skin and visible veins throbbing in his head. It's a not super overstated effect and it works very well.

It seems, by the end of the episode, that we're left with Sam fully off the demon psychic ability wagon, so jaded by these events. Will he remain on that track?

Next time, it's time for something a little more light-hearted. Next time, it's time for a Monster Movie.