Unforgiven

Sam (Jared Padalecki) starts to have flashbacks to a case he worked on with Samuel (guest star Mitch Pileggi) before he reconnected with Dean (Jensen Ackles). Sam receives a mysterious text with coordinates to a small town, so the brothers decide to investigate. Dean is surprised when the townspeople start telling him some of the things Sam did while he lived there.

Synopsis
One year ago, in Bristol, Rhode Island, Sam and Samuel worked a case, and left the town one night only to be pulled over by a cop. He asks the two a few questions, before noticing Sam's arm is bloody. He insists that they come with him, or he'll arrest them. Sam, however, doesn't listen and actually finds some amusement out of him threatening to arrest two "federal agents". When the cop becomes more aggressive, Sam beats him to a bloody pulp, while Samuel just stands aside and watches. The two leave the cop on the road unconscious.

In the present, Dean walks in a motel room to see Sam trying to catch up on the year he was "gone". He then gets a mysterious text from an unknown number, giving coordinates to a small town. Sam tracks the number to Bristol, Rhode Island. He also finds out that three women disappeared there in the last week, vanishing out of thin air. Sam suggests they check out what's going on over there, and Dean reluctantly agrees.

Upon arriving in Bristol, Sam already begins to have flashbacks of his time there a year ago. He recognizes the sign of Bristol when they're driving in, and he meets up with someone who happens to know him in a bar. When Sam starts to have suspicions of the place, Dean confirms them with a photograph he finds with Sam in the background. Dean plans on leaving the town as soon as possible, but Sam insists on staying to figure out what happened, and what's going on now. He takes responsibility for the missing people in the town, and wants to finish what he started.

Dean agrees to continue, following up with affiliates of the missing women for any clues to what might be going on. He finds out from one that she had some "loud and athletic" interactions with Sam a year ago. Meanwhile, Sam arrives at the police station only to be abruptly arrested by the same cop he knocked out a year ago.

Sam tries to convince the cop that he doesn't remember anything, but the cop doesn't believe him and locks him up in jail. Sometime later, another sheriff named Brenna Dobbs walks in, apparently knowing his true identity as Sam, and questions him on what happened to her husband, Roy. Sam doesn't remember her at first, but has another flashback of Samuel and himself talking with the two about hunting. He tells her he doesn't know what happened, but he will find answers because that's his job. After some convincing, she lets him out his cell.

Dean returns home to Sam, now a fugitive, and tells him that he actually got arround being soulless, and that he knew one of the missing girls. Suddenly, on a police scanner, the two hear of another disappearance. Dean orders Sam to stay put while he checks out the scene. As Dean walks out the door, Sam makes his way to Sheriff Brenna's house.

Dean calls Sam, and leaves a voicemail message that he's found a connection to all the missing women: they all had sex with Sam when he was there, and that this was a trap for him. Meanwhile, Sam asks Brenna for the files on the missing men from a year ago. He has a few flashbacks, including one of him and Samuel talking with Roy and Debra about family and being on the road. Samuel expresses a sentimental sense of joy and blessing when reminiscing about Mary, but Sam looks at his relationship with Samuel as nothing more than a business relationship, and that "family slows you down". Another flashback confirms that the cause of the disappearances of the men were from a creature called an Arachne. He borrows the evidence to put the pieces all together, and runs into Dean, who suggests once again to leave this for another hunter. Sam is still persistent on finishing what he's started.

As the pieces come together, Sam gets a full flashback that fills in the blanks on what happened: the abductions the Arachne made were all of men fitting a certain profile, and used Roy as live bait to track down the Arachne. Upon finding the Arachne's lair, Sam and Samuel face off with the creature, and Sam decapitates it. Samuel suggests calling an ambulance for Roy and the others, but Sam suggests it can't be helped. He believes that all the men are poisoned, that they're dead men walking, and he suggests to put them out of their misery by killing them. He shoots all of the innocent men, and tells Samuel to get the gasoline to burn the house down.

Upon this realization, Sam calls Brenna to check if she's okay. She asks for him to stop by, and Sam senses that she's in trouble. The brothers arrive and upon entering the shed, they find Brenna. She asks Sam if it was true that he killed Roy. Before he can answer, Dean is attacked and Sam is pinned to the wall by Roy, now an Arachne.

Sam and Dean, now wrapped in cobwebs, ask for him to let Brenna go. Roy, suddenly angry, tells Sam he got a lot of his assumptions wrong. He explained the Arachne wasn't there to feed, but rather to breed. She bit him and all the others to turn them into Arachne. By the time Sam shot him, he was already turned. He was resistant to both bullets and fire. After the fire, all the Arachne ran. Ever since then, Roy kept himself hidden for months, waiting for Sam to return to exact revenge on him. He tells Sam that all of the missing women are now Arachne as well. However, he questions whether to kill Sam or turn him. In this moment of hesitation, Dean breaks out his cobweb to attack as Brenna cuts the cobwebs off of Sam. Sam then strikes and decapitates Roy. He tries to apologize to Brenna, but she shuts the door on him.

Sam and Dean pack up to leave, with Dean wondering if Sam's okay. Sam, now feeling guilty, agrees that they shouldn't have come back to Bristol. As Sam wonders about what else he could've done, he collapses on the floor. Dean rushes to Sam, who gets a flashback of himself burning in Lucifer's Cage.

Major Characters

 * Sam Winchester
 * Dean Winchester

Minor Characters

 * Samuel Campbell
 * Sheriff Brenna Dobbs
 * Roy Dobbs

Trivia

 * The ending scene with Sam's flashback of being in Lucifer's Cage is reminiscent of the ending scene in No Rest For The Wicked, when Dean is seen in Hell.