The brothers of Supernatural took on an unusual case, but this time they weren’t hunting monsters — they were hunting a serial abductor.
After last week’s episode of the back-door pilot, fans were delighted to see Donna again. This week’s episode opened with Wendy Hanscum (Sarah Dugdale), Donna’s niece, getting abducted. Donna called the brothers, who met with her and worked the case.
Because this was an abduction, the FBI was involved, which made the brothers’ jobs a little trickier. When the boys arrived, Donna (Briana Buckmaster) gave them the lowdown: Wendy stopped for gas at a truck stop, but, when she drove away, she realized someone had punctured her tire, and then she was taken.
Her car was found, and there were signs of a struggle. Sam (Jared Padalecki) stayed behind with Donna, while Dean (Jensen Ackles) investigated the case with Donna's boyfriend, Doug Stover (Brendan Taylor), and FBI Agent Terence Clegg (Christopher William Martin). Clegg said he had been hunting a serial abductor and killer nicknamed the Butterfly for 12 years.
Dean went back to the motel and used a CB radio to pose as a trucker to ask the local truckers about Wendy’s disappearance. Dean met a trucker, Felix the Cat, who remembered Wendy and wished she would have stopped to help her.
Meanwhile, Sam and Donna met with the FBI, who had a lead on a suspect. A local pastor was brought in, but, after Donna questioned him, they agreed that he was not the killer.
The trio went back to the gas station where Wendy was last seen and talked to the cashier, Marlon (Steven Yaffee), who showed them a website Wendy was featured on. The website was on the deep web and auctioned off human organs to monsters online.
Dean, Sam, Donna and Doug got a tip from Agent Clegg about where Wendy was and brought Marlon. Doug stayed and watched Marlon while Dean and Donna followed the tip, but when they stormed the room, Wendy wasn’t there.
In the holding room, Marlon turned out to be a vampire and bit Doug, effectively turning him into a vampire. Dean and Donna showed up just in time and whipped up a cure for Doug using the blood of the vampire that turned him. In the meantime, Clegg showed up announced and met Sam to raid another room, but in a twist, Clegg knocked out Sam and turned out to be The Butterfly.
Sam was strapped to a table, and Clegg confessed to his killings in which he would auction off body parts of “people no one would miss” and sell them to monsters. He believed he was doing a service, as the monsters weren’t directly killing in cold blood. He told Sam that there are so many monsters that “most monsters could be your next-door neighbor.” Sam’s heart went for $500,000, but, right before Clegg was about to shoot Sam, Dean put a bullet through Clegg’s chest.
After rescuing Wendy, Doug was cured, but when Donna tells him about hunting monsters, he broke up with her. He isn’t interested in hunting monsters, so he leaves.
The episode had vibes reminiscent of the season 1 episode “Benders,” in which humans were hunting and killing other humans for pure entertainment. Ackles told Entertainment Weekly that "Benders" was the scariest episode for him.
"The reason that always stuck with me as being pretty scary because it wasn’t a monster," Ackles said. "It was real people, it was humans doing very bad things. That, for me personally, could be much more real than a Chupacabra.”
Sam, throughout the episode, was depressed and not sleeping. Dean noticed and gave Sam a sort of pep talk, which was a bit of a role reversal from the first half of the season. This will hopefully be expanded on with Jack’s disappearance, Mary’s absence and Cas gone.
Supernatural airs Thursdays at 8 p.m. on The CW.
