Born Under a Bad Sign

Summary
Sam disappears, loses seven days, and wakes up covered with blood. The brothers investigate - and every clue leads them to believe that Sam's dark side may have finally emerged.

Recap
Opening teaser: The episode begins with Dean standing on the passenger side of the Impala parked under a bridge. He is on the phone with Ellen asking her if she’s heard from Sam. Dean’s been desperately trying to reach Sam on his phone and all he’s getting is his voicemail. He doesn’t know where Sam went or why. Sam clicks in on the other line in a panic. After calming him down, Dean floors the Impala and drives to a motel Sam’s been staying at in Twin Lakes. Dean arrives at the motel to find Sam covered in blood. Dean is at first terrified that Sam is hurt then demands to know what the hell happened, but Sam doesn’t remember anything.

Motel: Sam checked into the motel two days ago under the name Richard Sambora. The room has been quiet and no one has noticed anything unusual. The last thing Sam remembers is the two of them at the motel in west Texas over a week ago, going out to grab burgers. The next thing he knew he was here. Sam doesn’t know how he got here and he feels like he’s been asleep for months. The boys decide to retrace every step Sam made. Dean tells Sam that the manager saw him leave the room yesterday afternoon but didn’t return. Looking over at the window, Dean notices more dried blood on the window lock of someone who stayed over.

Outside the motel: Looking at the storage lots across the street, Sam recognizes door number two as being familiar. Reaching into his pocket, Sam pulls out a key to the lock on the door. Opening the door, the boys find a blue Volkswagen Beetle with blood on the steering wheel. In the back seat they find a knife covered in sticky blood, along with a pack of cigarettes on the floor, Sam reaches in his pocket and finds a receipt from a gas station a couple towns over.

Gas station (couple towns over): Sam and Dean walk inside and the cashier immediately recognizes Sam and demands for him to leave or he’s calling the cops. He said that Sam came in yesterday "drunk as a skunk", grabbed a forty from the fridge, started chugging, and also snagged two packs of cigarettes and was smoking like a chimney. Dean pays the guy for the booze and smokes and asks the man where Sam headed next. The guy tells Dean he went north up route 71.

Route 71: The boys head up north on the interstate when Sam suddenly orders Dean to make a right onto a side road, leading them to a dark unlit house, with security cameras. Walking up to the door, they see one of the windows smashed open and the powers to the alarm system has been cut off. Upon entering, the boys discover a dead body on the floor in one of the rooms, a bloody gash across his throat. Sam believes that he did this, but Dean says that if Sam did kill this guy that he must’ve had a reason, like self-defense or maybe he was just a bad son of a bitch. Picking open the lock on the closet, Sam and Dean find a wall of weapons, photographs of missing people and articles about Supernatural creatures, concluding that this man was a hunter.

The boys take a look at the security tape of the room during the previous night, which shows Sam clear as day entering the room like a maniac, throwing a few rounds of punches at the man. The video then shows him dragging the guy to the middle of the room, slicing his throat with the knife. Sam stares at the screen in shock, guilt and resignation. Dean says they must split because there will be other hunters after him and they’ve got to cover their tracks. After wiping off their prints Dean grabs the computer and smashes it on the floor.

Motel: Back at the motel Dean is trying to reassure Sam that it wasn’t him, that it might’ve been another shape shifter or something of the sort. Sam tells Dean that over the past couple of week he’s been having feelings of rage and hate that he can’t control. Day by day these feelings get worse and he feels that his evil side is finally taking over. Sam hands Dean his gun and pleads with him to end his life because he doesn’t want to hurt anyone else. Dean looks at the gun, then at Sam's fearful face. Sam is getting himself ready to die. Dean takes the gun and looks down at it. he tells Sam he's tried so hard to look out for him. Sam say's he knows that. For a moment it looks as though Dean will do it but he puts down the gun and says he's rather die than kill his brother and walks away from him. Sam's face grows cold, and he mutters no, Dean will live, but he'll live to regret it. He picks up the gun and turns on Dean, ramming the gun into the side of his head then storming out.

Dean wakes up on the floor the next day to a pounding on the door. It’s the manager telling him that it’s past check out. Dean asks the manager if he’s seen Sam, and he says that Sam left this morning before dawn in the Impala. Dean asks the manager if he can use his computer. The manager only agrees after Dean hands him a wad of hundred dollar bills out of his wallet. After activating the GPS tracker on Sam’s phone, Dean finds out that Sam went to Duluth, Minnesota.

Duluth, Minnesota (local bar): Sam enters the bar and much to our surprise we see Jo, who is very surprised to see Sam. He’s about the last person she expected to see. When inquiring what he’s doing there, Sam replies that he wants to square things off, telling her that her dad’s death was not his or Dean’s fault. She is keen to talk about Dean, but Sam informs her that while Dean does like her, it's not at all in a romantic way. Holding her hand, Sam says he can be more to her. Jo is getting freaked out, Sam is behaving nothing like the man she knows and she asks him to leave. Sam starts walking out the door, but turns around and physically overcomes her. He slams her head against the bar and knocks her unconscious.

Jo awakens to find herself tied to a weight-bearing post. Jo starts to realize that she is not dealing with the real Sam, and tells him so. Sam/demon tells her she shouldn't be so sure. He makes use of the time by asking her what Ellen had told her about her father, Bill. With a knife held to her face, Jo says that their dads were in California at the Devil’s Gate Reservoir, setting a trap for a hell spawn. John was hiding and Bill was bait. The thing showed up and John jumped out too soon, exposing Bill. The thing turned around and killed Bill. Sam brushes her story off and laughingly tells her that, actually, John killed Bill to put him out of his misery, after the creature left him horribly maimed. In a sing-song voice he declares: "My daddy shot your daddy in the head." Jo is horrified and asks Sam why he is doing this to her. He replies "Like daddy, like daughter-- you're bait," and then puts a gag on her.

Dean barges into the room pointing his gun at Sam. Sam sounds and behaves like himself when he sees his brother and says he can’t control his actions, he begs Dean to kill him or he will kill Jo, but once again Dean is unable to pull the trigger on his brother and turns his back on him, asking him to stop and come with him. Sam is enraged, moves towards him and shouts, "Are you that scared of being alone that you'd rather let Jo die?" Dean turns around and throws holy water at Sam's face which burns and smokes showing Sam is possessed by a black-eyed demon. With smoke pouring out of his face, the demon runs and jumps out of the window. Dean quickly unties Jo and then runs to follow Sam into the storage docks next door. Jo, still unsure of Sam's state, calls after Dean : "he was possessed?!" Belaying her question, he jumps out in pursuit.

Although they are not facing each other, they are still talking in the warehouse. Dean asks the demon why it didn’t kill him, when it had a hundred chances to do so. The demon says this was a test to see if it could get him to waste Sam. The demon continues on saying that he is going to kill him and every other hunter it can find. The demon leads Dean into a trap on a dock outside the back door. The demon shoots Dean in his left shoulder causing him to fall off the dock and into the water. The demon stands on the edge of the dock with an evil smile on his face, as he looks into the water.

Jo is walking down the dock looking for Dean. She calls his cell but gets no answer. She tries calling him one more time and hears his phone ringing in the water. She finds Dean lying on the edge of the dock still alive and helps him back to the bar to patch up his wound. Jo asks him how he knew Sam was possessed. Dean says all he knew what that it wasn’t Sam. She then asks him if demons ever tell the truth. Dean responds, “Sometimes, especially if they know it will mess with your head.” After she finishes patching up Dean, he tells her that the demon’s going after hunters and the closest one he knows is in South Dakota. Without question, Jo says she’s going with him. Dean tells her that he can’t put it any plainer except to say, "you try and follow me, I’ll tie you right back to that post and leave you here. This is my fight. I’m not getting your blood on my hands; that's just how it's gonna be.” As he walks out the door she hands him some pills to help with his pain. Dean says thanks, and he’ll call her later. After the door shuts behind him she mutters, “No, you won’t.”

Bobby’s House: Sam arrives on Bobby's doorstep and the first thing he does is cut the phone line so Dean can’t reach him. He knocks on the door and Bobby seems very happy to see Sam and invites him in for a beer. After one sip of the beer, Sam falls to the ground coughing up smoke. Bobby put holy water in the beer. He delivers a knock-out punch to the demon while it's on its knees.

Sam/demon awakes to a slap from Dean,  tied to a chair under the devil’s trap on the ceiling. It ridicules Dean while he and Bobby prepare to exorcise the demon from Sam’s body. Bobby begins the incantation, and the demon initially appears to be affected. Dean begins berating the demon about the " bitch-boy master plan you demons are cookin' up, " declaring that they will never get Sam, because he is going to destroy them all first.

Suddenly, the demon lets out a maniacal laugh, and declares: "I don't give a rat's ass about the master plan!" The demon begins incanting, the fireplace flares, and it no longer seems affected by the exorcism. Bobby discovers a symbol on Sam’s right arm and recognizes it as a binding link. It’s a lock the demon used to trap itself inside Sam’s body. The demon continues to incantate  until the ceiling cracks into the devil’s trap, releasing it.

The demon then launches Bobby and Dean into opposite ends of the room. The demon approaches a dazed Dean and begins punching him repeatedly while measuredly describing that, even for demons, hell is a prison made of bones, flesh, blood, and fear, and that Dean is the one that sent it back there. Dean then realizes that the demon inside Sam is  Meg. The demon says i ts only thought while climbing back out of hell was the prospect of torturing Dean "nice and slow, " even more than he tortures himself. It continues to verbally abuse him, declaring him the useless member of the family, while crushing his injured shoulder with one hand. As the demon winds up to throw another brutal punch at Dean, Bobby comes up behind it with a red-hot metal rod and burns a gap in the binding link on Sam’s arm. The demon then immediately leaves Sam’s body and the black demon smoke goes on its way back to hell through the flames of the fireplace.

As Sam and Dean are sitting in the room recovering from the battle, Bobby informs them that hunter Steve Wandell was found murdered in his own house. Bobby, obviously knowing, asks the two if they might happen to know anything about it. Sam is contrite and appears to start to reveal the truth, but Dean immediately tells Bobby that they've never heard of the guy. Bobby replies "Good. Keep it that way." He tells them th at a few of Steve's buddies are looking for someone or something to string up over it, and that they won't slow down or listen to reason. Dean rises and says they'd better hit the road. As they’re walking out, Bobby hands them both charms that fend off possession, so that the demon can’t get inside them again.

Impala: As the boys are driving down the road, Sam tells Dean that he was awake for some of it. He saw Steve die and he’s shocked that Dean wouldn’t kill him even when he almost killed Jo. Dean tells Sam that John told him that he might have to kill him only if he couldn’t save him. Dean says if it’s the last thing he does, he’s going to save him.

Characters

 * Dean Winchester
 * Sam Winchester
 * Jo Harvelle
 * Bobby Singer
 * Meg

Featured Supernatural Being

 * Demon (Meg)

Featured Music

 * "Crystal Ship" by The Doors
 * "Ashes To Ashes" by Tarblock Ramblers
 * "Back On The Road Again" by REO Speedwagon

Continuity

 * Bobby was last seen in In My Time Of Dying.
 * Jo was last seen in No Exit.
 * The demon that possessed Meg Masters was interrogated by Dean but actually exorcised by Sam in Devil's Trap.
 * The demon known as Meg last appeared in season 2 in the Devil's Trap,before her appearance in Season 5.

Quotes
Sam: (possessed by demon) "Hell is like, well, it's hell."

Sam: (to Jo, possessed by demon) "My daddy shot your daddy in the head."

(Sam wants Dean to shoot him so he won't kill anyone else.)

Dean: "You know, I've fought so hard to keep you safe."

Sam: "I know."

Dean: "I can't. I'd rather die."

(Dean chuckles)

Sam: "What?"

Dean: "Nothing."

Sam: "Dean. What?"

Dean: "Dude you... You like full on had a girl inside you for like a whole week."

(Dean chuckles)

Dean: "It's pretty naughty."

International Titles

 * Finnish: Onnen hylkimä (Abandoned by Luck)


 * French: Possédé (Possessed)


 * German: Unter einem schlechten Stern (Under a Bad Star)
 * Polish: Urodzony pod ciemną gwiazdą (Born Under a Dark Star)