“Guess whos back, back again? Dean is back, tell a friend.” This episode was all about bringing back some old favorites. Not only do we have Dean officially back behind the wheel of his own body, but we also have a guest appearance of everyone’s favorite Sherriff plus a surprise guest from another world! That being said, not everything is rainbows and butterflies in ‘Bro town’; this episode is aptly named “The Scar” as it is all about Dean’s scars, both physical and mental.

The episode opens with Dean catching up on everything he missed while out of commission. Things have changed vastly over the past few weeks and Dean is not really on board with any of it. Not only is Dean experiencing a “Nightmare-Inducing Anxiety” from Sam’s new look (it’s just Jared’s natural beard, BTW), but now there’s a whole command center being run out of the bunker and the younger Winchester is being called “Chief” (Jealous much, Dean?). He is greeted by Castiel and Jack (aww, the Family is back together again. So cute!) and the non-appearace of Mary, Bobby, and Nick are conveniently dialogued away. Dean then heads to his room, insisting to everyone that he is “fine”; but as he goes to get cleaned up he discovers a mysterious scar on his arm that he has no recollection of getting (Dun Dun Duuuuun!)

Castiel uses his powers to get inside Dean’s mind and unlock some of his memories of his time with Michael. He sees a memory of himself being stabbed by the same person who killed Kaia last season (Who we happen to know is Kaia’s double from the “Bad Place”; but, of course, our heroes don’t know that!). Armed with the knowledge that there might be a weapon that can stop Michael, Dean is up and rearing to go find it. Knowing that the mystery stabber originated from another world, the gang reaches out to Jody Mills to find out if there has been anything unusual going on ‘rift-wise’. When they tell her about Dean’s scar, she immediately links it to a case she had been working on where three headless human bodies had turned up with that same wound on them.

Dean, Sam, and Castiel prepare to head out to Souix Falls and Dean orders Jack to stay behind as he is not ready for field work yet. Understandably upset (as he was the one who brought Kaia into this), Jack storms off. Just then, Jules (a member of team apocalypse world) enters the Bunker carrying a young girl who was the only survivor from a recent Witch hunt.The girl was a prisoner of the Witch and just after the witch was shot with a witch-killing bullet, the young girl started to age rapidly. Believing it to be some kind of hex, Cas agrees to stay behind to try and help.

In Souix Falls, the boys meet up with Jody and Dean immediately falls back on the old Winchester standby of ‘repress your feelings and never talk about what happened’ (like that has ever worked out well). Jody suggests they turn in for the night and start looking in the morning for their murderer near where the bodies were found. Dean is having none of that and elects to start looking immediately.

Meanwhile, at the bunker, Jack is planning to run away as he feels useless and unappreciated. He leaves a letter for Castiel, Sam, and Dean; but before he can leave, he sees Castiel hard at work trying to heal Lora (the survivor girl from earlier) but to no avail.

In the forest, Dean wants to split up to cover more ground but that is vetoed by Sam and Jody who are growing more and more concerned with how rash Dean is being. Our intrepid trio soon find three heads on pikes, which are believed to belong to the Jody’s three headless stabbing victims (“Three Heads, Three Headless Bodies, the math works”). It turns out the heads belong to vampires that have been upgraded by Michael so they are not affected by Deadman’s blood or any of the other usual tricks (which is why Jody thought they were human). They are then attacked by the cloaked figure, who soon gets unmasked, revealing her identity to them (OMG, Kaia!) before running away.

Back at the bunker, Jack has a heart to heart with Lora. He asks if she has a family, she tells him “yes” but her mom probably hates her for running away. At first, things were good for her; the witch found her and treated her well, and the witch said that she and the other girls she had collected ‘kept her young’. But then the witch turned mean and started locking up the girls; eventually killing them one by one by draining their youth. Castiel and Jules attempt a reversal spell (provided by Rowena) on her, but it does not work and she dies.

Back in Souix Falls, Dean is starting to spiral; he insists they go after Kaia’s double even though they don’t know the whole story (she might be a victim in all this). Jody is afraid to loop Claire into this, even though she promised, because seeing Kaia’s double might set her back. Sam suggests Dean might not be ready for this case but Jody replies that he probably needs it. Kaia’s double breaks into a house for water but is knocked out and tied to a chair by Dean. They interrogate her and discover that Michael has been sending creatures after her ever since she attacked him (Michael) and refused to give him her weapon (which Michael wanted for his own means). It is also revealed that Kaia’s double is also a Dreamwalker and has shared every vision the original Kaia had. Dean gets rough with her trying to get her to give up the weapon’s location, but she won’t reveal where it is. Kaia tells Dean that all his anger comes from fear and that he is just like Michael, using threats and anything he else needs to to get what he wants.

Meanwhile, Jack is with the Lora’s body, blaming himself for her death. He laments that he could have saved her if he had his powers, but then he looks at her necklace and starts putting some pieces together. He goes to see the witches’ body and discovers she is wearing an identical necklace. It turns out the necklace was draining Lora’s lifeforce to try and heal the witch but it couldn’t because of the bullet. Jack smashes the necklace and the girl’s life force is returned to her (Yay! She Lives).

Back at the cabin, Dark Kaia is still tied up when they are attacked by Michael’s Vampires. They are quickly overwhelmed so Dean shoots at Kaia’s chair, freeing her. She promptly runs away leaving Dean to believe she left them behind; however, a few moments later she returns with her staff and kills all the vampires, saving the group’s life. Sam tries one last time to convince her it is safer if she gives the weapon to them as Michael will never stop hunting her so long as she has it. Alt Kaia tells them she is ‘used to it’ and flees, taking the weapon with her. The boys then say goodbye to Jodie who is dreading telling her girls, especially Claire, about what happened.

Castiel enters Jacks room and tells him how proud he is of what he did today with Lora. Castiel admits he hasn’t been there enough for Jack but tonight he showed that, even though he is still working on his training, he has the mind of a hunter. In true fatherly fashion, Castiel offers to take Jack on a hunting trip, just the two of them. Jack is thrilled to hear this but then starts having a coughing fit. He waves off Castiel’s concern saying that because he is human now, he must be getting his first cold.

As Sam and Dean are driving back in the Impala, Dean FINALLY start talking to Sam about what he’s been going though. Dean knows he hasn’t been himself, but he is extremely impatient to beat Michael for good as his time spent as a meat suit was like “being underwater and fighting to breathe” (though, wouldn’t Sam already know this having been controlled by Lucifer?). Dean blames himself completely for Michael’s actions and feels that everything that is happening is on him because he said ‘yes’. In true Supernatural fashion, this episode ends with Jack coughing up blood. We don’t know for sure what is going on, but it is most definitely not a cold (You see writers, this is why we can’t have nice things! Why do you do this to us? Please, not Jack!).

So to conclude my recap, this episode was good. I’m glad that Dean finally talked and so we only had to deal with an emotionally repressed Dean for one episode (Let’s just say he does not make the best decisions when he tries to go it alone). I was slightly disappointed with the Kaia storyline, since we have been waiting for over a year for the reveal and now the character is gone again. I was hoping to have her stick around, but something tells me she (and her staff) will be back). As always, Alex was amazing as Jack this week and we got such a cute moment with him and Castiel (Jack calling Cas his dad gave me all the feels). But, I will be absolutely devastated if the writers kill him off!! On to next week with a potential return to the ‘Monster of the Week’ format. 🙂