From MadCap's Couch - Supernatural: "In the Beginning"

"Look, it's either this or the DeLorean two lots over..."

So, last episode, we had a hell of a lore dump, learning the reason that Dean was rescued from Hell by Castiel: the 66 Seals are being broken and Lucifer is soon to be rising.Given that when a seal is broken it is lost, it seems that Heaven and the Winchesters are fighting an uphill battle, if not a losing one. This time, we'll be shifting gears to the side a bit... or in reverse, as it were.

Just remember, when this baby hits 88 miles per hour... you're gonna see some serious shit.

In the Beginning's "Then" pre-title sequence involves a lot of focus on Azazel, Mary's death, Sam learning about the demon blood, and the efforts to hunt down and kill Azazel with the Colt that ended gloriously, and - most curiously of all - we see that small part in Home where Mary's spirit apologizes to Sam, a plot thread that has been left dangling for three seasons.

"Now", Dean is dead asleep in a motel room while Sam quietly slips out. He meets Ruby, who asks him if he's ready and the two drive away. Back in the motel room, Dean is jarred awake by his nightmares of Hell and finds Castiel sitting on the bed waiting for him to wake up. Castiel tells Dean he has to stop it, but when asked about it, he touches Dean's forehead.

Dean awakens on a bench on a streetside in broad daylight, being told by a policeman that he cannot sleep there. Confused and disoriented, Dean tries to get a feel for his surroundings, pulling out his cell phone and finding no signal. Strangely, he also has John's journal on him. Heading into a diner, Dean sits down to one particular individual who tells him that he's in Lawrence, Kansas. The man later quips that Dean's cell phone could get better reception on the starship Enterprise, and after making a quip about Sonny and Cher breaking up, Dean notes the period dress of people around and spies the newspaper of exposition left behind by the folks from Sliders, displaying the date at April 30, 1973.

In a massive Back to the Future reference, someone comes in calling for Winchester and both Dean and the man look over. He is John, but obviously from before Dean was ever born. Needless to say, Dean is more than a little wigged out by the whole thing.

After the title card, Dean tails John for a time before running into Castiel. He explains that Dean has come back in time, the angels have the power to bend time. Castiel reiterates that Dean has to stop it, but does the Batman disappearing act before Dean gets an answer.

At a car lot, John is eyeing a Volkswagon and Dean convinces him to go after a familiar 1967 Chevy Impala. John properly introduces himself and Dean uses the alias of "Dean Van Halen". Dean attempts to subtly question John on anything supernatural going on while they're talking, but comes up with nothing. Even so, Dean still believes he's here to save John from... something.

John arrives at the house of the future Mary Winchester, now Mary Campbell. Dean tails the two to a diner and notes that Amy Gumenick is a babe... which is obvious to anyone with eyeballs, but is pretty bad to note when she's your mother. During their conversation, Mary steps away to tend to something and John pulls out a small box with an engagement ring in it, looking it over fondly.

Outside, Dean is suddenly attacked by Mary! During the struggle, he pins her to a wall and notes a charm bracelet that holds religious symbols from many denominations and he realizes the truth: his mother is a hunter!

John takes Mary back home and Dean arrives not long after. Mary warns him against coming in and we find out why after - her father, Samuel, is not fond of hunters. Her mother, Deana, invites Dean to dinner regardless. We learn a few things here: Samuel doesn't truth other hunters, isn't fond of John and doesn't think much of him, and that Samuel is working a job at the Whitshire farm, where a man and a combine harvester had an unfortunate accident. However, Samuel has no desire to team up with Dean.

The next day, Samuel (in a priest's frock) and Mary arrive at the farm to ask after the Whitshires, with Dean having also come and having dressed as a priest. It seemed that there was nothing wrong at all with Mr. Whitshire before this happened. Mary, meanwhile, had walked off to speak to Charlie - Mr. Whitshire's son - who said that his father drank and would beat his mother, and a strange man arrived and offered to make the beatings stop. Dean suspects a demon deal and questions Charlie further, learning that the man would come to call on him in ten years. When asked about his eyes, Dean expects to hear that the man's eyes were black or red... but Charlie says they were yellow. Dean looks to Mary with a worried expression.

Back at the Campbells', Dean lays it out for Samuel and Deana as much as he can without breaking the timeline. He plans to go get the Colt and use John's journal to track Azazel's movements. Dean has to bluff his way through future dates and places appearing in the journal, but it doesn't completely work as Samuel thinks he's crazy.

Before he leaves to go get the Colt, Dean walks in on Mary sorting through 45s. He encourages her to pursue John and asks her about him, Mary talks about how sweet and kind he is... everything a hunter isn't, a statement that very clearly breaks Dean's heart on multiple levels. Even more, she goes on to talk about how she wants to get out of hunting and how the worst thing she can think of is for her children to be raised into this life like she was.

Just twisting that knife a little more, Supernatural. Damn.

Dean gives her a warning about the night she is to die - November 2, 1983 - telling her to not get out of bed no matter what she hears or sees. His conviction behind it leaves Mary stunned, but she agrees.

"How do the new contacts look? Too much?"

Later, Dean is driving out to find Daniel Elkins when Castiel pops in once more. Dean asks why Castiel didn't bring Sam with him, the answer being that Dean had to do this alone. Dean also needn't worry, Sam isn't tearing apart the world in 2008 looking for him. Castiel tells Dean that, if he changes the future, then all the people that he, Sam, and John saved will die. It's something that Dean knows only too well, but he can't stand aside and let harm come to his parents.

Dean breaks into Daniel Elkins' house to steal the Colt (temporarily), and notably doesn't warn him about the fact that he's going to be murdered to death by vampires. Elkins does let him go, however, and he leaves after promising to leave the Colt at the Campbells so he can pick it up later.

At the Campbell's dinner table, Samuel and Mary laugh about Dean's seemingly insane plan to kill a demon and Samuel mentions the next person on Dean's list - Lydie Walsh. She's a friend of Mary's, and she insists that they need to go help her right now. As Samuel bemoans his daughter's attitude switching between wanting to hunt and not wanting to hunt, Mary heads out to the car.

Lydie is met by her father's doctor, who tells her that her father's cancer has metastasized. He has a cure, though, and all she has to do is agree to give him something in ten years. Nothing she'll miss as his eyes flash that pale yellow. Samuel busts in with a shotgun and fails to kill him. As Azazel swoops in to kill him, Mary jumps him and Azazel is impressed by her fighting prowess. When Dean busts in with the Colt, Azazel leaves his meatsuit.

In the aftermath, Mary is still distraught and Samuel... actually eats some humble pie and apologizes for his earlier rudeness to Dean. Getting back to the Campbell house, Dean finally has to reveal to Samuel... the truth. All of it. He is his grandson from the future, John and Mary are his parents, and Azazel killed Mary in 1983.

Mary comes to John, asking him to take her away from all of this. They get into the Impala and go.

 Samuel, for some reason he can't explain, believes Dean and agrees to help him. Samuel shows some more interest than usual in the Colt, and we find out that he's not Samuel at all... Azazel has possessed him, flinging Dean into a nearby wall. Azazel tries to work out the details he doesn't know, learning that Dean is not one of his psychic kids and revealing that he knows that Dean has friends in high places - literally. Azazel has been making deals to make psychic kids, breeding the perfect beasts, and he reiterates that Mary is his favorite as he once told Sam.

Why would he make deals, though? What is it all for? Azazel is going to bleed into the mouths of the children, making them his psychic kids. His endgame, though, is a lot bigger than that... and Azazel isn't telling Dean, what with the angels on his shoulder. Dean promises Azazel that he is the one that kills him. Azazel stabs Samuel with his own knife, causing a previously hiding Deana to scream out in protest. With Dean still trapped, Azazel stalks over to her and snaps her neck. By the time Dean gets free and gets the Colt, Deana is dead and Azazel is gone.

At a bridge that I swear has been in like half a dozen episodes by now, John and Mary discuss the future and John pops the question. "Samuel" comes to take Mary away and John protests... Azazel snapping his neck. He tells Mary that he's killed Samuel and Deana as well, leaving Mary all alone. Azazel lays things on the line, telling Mary that he'll bring John brought back (by not Samuel or Deana) for her agreeing to give him something he needs in ten years. No soul, no catch, no nothing... provided Azazel isn't interrupted.

But a safe, monster-free life? What Mary has always wanted... is it worth the risk?

Dean arrives just in time to see Azazel and Mary kiss, sealing the deal. Azazel escapes and Mary looks back to Dean as she cradles the suddenly alive John. Castiel returns and touches Dean's shoulder. When Mary looks back, Dean is gone.

Dean awakens back at the motel with Castiel standing over his bed and looking off pensively. Dean laments how he couldn't stop any of it, Castiel consoling him by insisting that he could not have stopped it. Destiny, it seems, cannot be changed - all roads lead to the same destination. Now, however, Dean knows everything that the angels know... and Dean looks over to find Sam's motel bed empty. Castiel gives Dean an address, warning him that Sam is going down a dark road, telling him to make sure he stops him... or they will.

And we end on the rare "To be continued...", which is odd for an episode that is not a two-parter.

Normal family dinner at the Campbell house...

So, lot of ground to cover in the round up, so let's get into it.

First off, something I touched on waaaaay back in The Kids Are Alright, is that basically everyone who knew Mary Winchester had been killed off willy-nilly because somebody was trying to cover up something. In this episode, Azazel does go after people she knows, but is really only making deals with them. We also get the implication that Azazel was making deals at least as far back as 1969 given that he learns that Dean was born in 1979 and then asks if he's one of his psychic kids.

Lucifer Rising will prove this to be untrue, but never mind.

As I said in that review, however, that particular plot thread was never brought up again much after this and the next episode Metamorphosis. Why exactly would Azazel target and kill off people connected to Mary, particularly people who had nothing to do with the episode? Never explained, unless making sure she had a monster-free life meant that everyone around her was someone who would have harmed her and her family... which is a pretty frightening thought in and of itself. Again, this might be a problem with how Season 3 got shortened by the 2007-2008 Writer's Strike, but I really doubt it.

Mitch Pileggi plays both Samuel and Azazel well, doing the grumpy dad and the terrifying menace very well. In the latter case, he doesn't do quite as well as Fredric Lehne does, but those are some seriously big shoes to fill.

All told, In the Beginning is not a bad episode and it unfortunately shows Dean that hunting is in his blood whether he likes it or not. Next time, things are going to just be getting worse. What has Sam been up to? How deep does the rabbit hole go? Will Dean be able to save him before the angels have to intercede? Next time, we're back to the brothers being at odds as Season 4 goes into... Metamorphosis.

Be there!