Chuck (Rob Benedict) may have been weakened by that gunshot wound but he found a new way to mess with Sam (Jared Padalecki) and Dean (Jensen Ackles) on Supernatural. Thursday’s episode, “Proverbs 17:3,” saw the return of the delectably villainous Lilith — who rocked a stronger disguise than the contestants on The Masked Singer — in a fun episode that took an unexpected turn halfway through the hour.
The episode, which was directed by Richard Speight Jr., found the boys reaching into the archives for their old Wildlife Service ID badges (along with a pair of dorky caps with fish emblems) to investigate the latest in a series of alleged mountain lion attacks. It seemed like a regular case: The boys posed as authority figures, interviewed the surviving witness, found the attackers — who turned out to be werewolves — and even survived a brutal fight that ended with the culprit killing his brother before turning the gun on himself. As Sam pointed out, this was all too easy. Something wasn’t right.
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But then Ashley, their surviving witness, was accidentally impaled by a pair of mounted antlers, and that’s when things took a sharp left turn. It turns out, she wasn’t just a random innocent who watched her friends get murdered. She was Lilith, who was resurrected from the Big Empty by Chuck and charged with a very important mission: retrieve the Equalizer. No big deal, right? It’s just the only weapon that can harm Chuck.
Dean was unwilling to lend a helping hand until Lilith knocked Sam out cold. If we’ve learned anything from the past, it’s that Dean will do whatever it takes to save his brother, consequences be damned. Hoping to spare his brother’s life, Dean struck a deal with the blond-haired demon.
Jared Padalecki, Supernatural
While Sam took a forced nap, Dean and Lilith hopped in the Impala in search of the god gun, which Dean claimed was at their motel. But it was all a ruse and Dean again refused to hand over their only leverage. Angry, Lilith prepared to do a very bad thing to Dean when Sam burst through the door and shot her right between the eyes. It didn’t kill her, though, because that would have been too easy and the Winchesters were all out of fast passes for this episode.
The truth is, Sam and Dean were only able to kill Lilith the first time because she let them in order to free Lucifer. This time, the boys found themselves one finger wave away from being put down for good. But she needed to get the Equalizer first, which meant more talking and some much-needed insight into Chuck’s plan. Lilith revealed that Chuck only wants one ending to their story: one brother killing the other. Something tells me both Winchesters won’t make it out of this final chapter alive.
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After piecing together a few clues, Lilith realized the only logical place Sam and Dean would keep the powerful weapon was the Impala. Unfortunately, she was right. Lilith found the Equalizer and promptly melted it before disappearing, leaving behind an utterly defeated Sam and Dean.
Back at the bunker, Sam tried to reach Cas (Misha Collins) again (the top of the hour revealed a slew of unanswered text messages to the despondent angel) but to no avail. Cas has been MIA since his blow up with Dean, and judging by his ghosting Sam, he won’t be ready to talk to either Winchester for a while.
In the meantime, the boys needed to figure out what to after losing the Equalizer. Right on cue, Sam began connecting the dots between his wound, the gun, and the visions — the latest of which flipped the script and featured an evil Dean stabbing Sam in the neck. Maybe these weren’t visions of the future so much as they were Chuck’s different endings. After all, he only wants one ending for the brothers, and these visions line up with that.
This episode all but confirmed that Sam and Chuck are, indeed, connected. So it’s entirely plausible that these visions are the result of Sam getting into Chuck’s head. He’s been seeing Chuck’s proposed finales, and that might give the Winchesters an upper hand in the fight against God. However, Dean didn’t see it that way. They’re going up against the creator of all things and the only weapon able to harm him is gone. To put it kindly, they’re screwed.
Supernatural airs Thursdays at 8/7c on The CW.
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Jensen Ackles, Supernatural