Warning: This episode and review mention deliberate animal cruelty. The character who did it is also murdered (not a warning for the latter, I just thought everyone should know).

“Hunted” opens in a psychiatrist’s office during a session. The patient, Scott Carey, tells the doctor about how his problems started a little over a year ago. It began with migraines before he eventually realized he could electrocute things by touch, including the neighbour’s pet. After that disgusting revelation, he accuses the doctor of not believing him, then offers his hand to shake on it. The doctor declines, instead asking why he wanted to kill the pet. Scott claims he didn’t, but that the “yellow-eyed man” wanted him to do it. The man comes into his dreams and tells him to do awful things. He says the man has plans for him, but won’t elaborate.

After the session, as “Go Ask Alice” by Jefferson Airplane plays, Scott walks to his car. It’s dark and the place is deserted. Suddenly he turns and a figure—we can’t see who—is standing there with a knife. They stab and kill Scott. Well, that’s someone who won’t be missed.

From there we go back to Sam and Dean where they left off at the end of Croatoan, just after Sam demands to know what John told Dean before he died. It’s pretty clear that Dean doesn’t want to tell him—he looks like he doesn’t even want to speak the words—but in the end, he has to.

Dean: “He said that I had to save you.”

Sam: “Save me from what?”

Dean: “He just said that I had to save you, that nothing else mattered. That if I couldn’t, I…”

Sam: “You what, Dean?”

Dean: “I have to kill you. He said that I might have to kill you, Sammy.”

Crappy parenting really is the gift that keeps on giving. John knew he was about to die, so does he write a letter to his sons, telling them what they need to know? Does he sit Dean down and outline what the demon’s plans are for Sam? No, he just puts a cryptic burden on Dean, traumatizing the poor guy even more. And now Sam is angry with Dean for not telling him, snapping that he had no right to keep this information from him.

Quick recap of what we know: Sam is one of Yellow Eyes’ “special” kids; the demon has plans for them, although no one knows what those plans are; and something’s going to happen that will force Dean to either save Sam or kill him. No wonder Dean just wants to take a vacation and forget about everything. I’ll bet Cabo is nice this time of year.

Sam’s not interested in laying low—or even taking time to come up with a plan. That night he sneaks out of the motel, steals a car, and heads straight to a dilapidated house. After looking through the window, he breaks in…and sets off a trip wire. A second later there’s an explosion and bits of Sam go flying everywhere (including onto the camera lens).

You’ve probably guessed that this is just a vision—but it’s not one of Sam’s. Instead a young woman suddenly wakes up, looking distressed.

Although Sam didn’t blow up, he did sneak out of the motel and steal a car; the next day he shows up at the roadhouse to talk to Ellen. They haven’t seen each other since Jo found out John was the one who got her dad killed. It turns out Ellen hasn’t seen Jo, either—she took off weeks ago and is barely in contact with her mother. I expected Ellen to be furious about it, and to somehow blame Sam and Dean, but she seems resigned. She even tells Sam she wants him to know she forgave John for what happened to her husband—but she doesn’t think John ever forgave himself.

While all that’s good to know, Sam is there to get Ash’s help in finding other psychics like himself (I’ll bet Ash would be thrilled if someone ever showed up just to spend time with him, without asking him to do something for them). The search comes back with four names: Sam, Max, Andrew, and Scott Carey—who was killed a month ago in Lafayette, Indiana. It looks like Sam’s going to Indiana.

Sam’s plan is to investigate Scott’s murder, but while he’s there he runs into the woman—Ava—who had the vision of him blowing up. Sam, as usual, is thrilled to find someone else like him, although Ava doesn’t believe him when he tells her about the others. I mean, she’s only been having visions for a year, including one that predicted Scott’s death and another that led her to Sam, but multiple psychics? Preposterous. She’s a normal person, with a fiancé she’s marrying in eight weeks and a mother who’s still alive! At least she’s curious enough about why these things are happening to agree to stick around and help Sam.

The help turns out to be distracting the psychiatrist while Sam breaks in to steal Scott’s file. Afterwards they listen to a tape of Scott talking to the doctor. We find out his ability to electrocute was at will, not accidental, making me glad all over again that the character was killed. He also claims that Yellow Eyes told him a war is coming and people like him are going to be soldiers. “Everything’s about to change.”

As he and Ava talk about what they just heard, Sam bends down the split second before a bullet with his name on it comes through the window. Put a pin in this because I think Sam’s miraculous avoidance of bullets will be relevant down the line (quite a bit down the line, actually). It turns out the shooter is Gordon, the mentally unbalanced hunter whom Sam and Dean left tied up in the middle of nowhere. All the callbacks in this episode show why Supernatural isn’t a series you can just jump into, at least not without missing a ton of context and back story.

Anyway, Gordon is about to shoot Sam again when Dean suddenly shows up and starts wailing on him. Unfortunately, Gordon manages to knock Dean out. By the time Sam and Ava get to the roof, it’s deserted—but they do find some evidence.

Sam: “These are .223 caliber. Subsonic rounds. The guy must’ve put a suppressor on the rifle.”

Ava: “Dude—who are you?”

Sam finally calls Dean, only to find out he’s already in Lafayette, thanks to Ellen telling him where Sam was, after Sam asked her not to. But with a gun to his head, Dean claims he only just got there, and that it’s a real “funky town.” He gives Sam an address and tells him to meet him there.

Apparently “funky town” is a code to let Sam know someone’s got a gun on Dean, so he tells Ava she should go back to her fiancé, where she’ll be safe (if you say so, Sam). She refuses, because Sam is about to walk into her vision. We all know he’s not going to leave Dean in trouble, so he convinces Ava to leave—but only after she makes him promise to call her and let her know he’s okay.

Meanwhile Gordon is insisting to Dean that trying to kill Sam isn’t revenge for what they did to him. He’s not a killer—he’s a hunter, and Sam is fair game, as are all the kids like him. Apparently a demon he was hunting let it slip that there’s a coming war.

Gordon: “It piqued my interest. And you can really get a demon to talk if you’ve got the right tools.”

Dean: “And what happened to the girl it was possessing?”

Gordon: “She didn’t make it.”

Dean: “You’re a son of a bitch.”

Gordon: [punches dean] “That’s my mother you’re talking about.”

First of all, good for Gordon for defending his mom. Secondly, put another pin in what Dean just said—his disgust about the possessed girl dying is also of future relevance.

The demon told Gordon that Yellow Eyes’ kids are going to be soldiers in this coming war, and named Sam as one of these kids. Gordon claims that since they’re all psychic or have other paranormal abilities, it makes them “not exactly pure human.” Dean tries to tell him off for listening to a demon, but Gordon is nothing if not dedicated to his work—he did his research and made sure it was true. He killed Scott and plans on killing all the kids, one after another (you’d think Yellow Eyes might step in and take him out before he kills more of them).

Since Gordon assumes that Dean somehow warned Sam, he sets up a trap for him, actually having the audacity to claim he’s sorry and really wishes he didn’t have to do it. Dean starts panicking as Gordon sets up a backup trip wire. He tries arguing that Sam isn’t a monster and never could be. Gordon just responds by bringing up baby Hitler, and how Dean would’ve taken him out, knowing what he would become. He insists becoming a monster is Sam’s destiny, and just to rub a little salt into the wound as he gags Dean, adds that John would’ve had “the stones” to do what was necessary.

Apologies for the digression, but baby Hitler seems to keep coming up as a moral dilemma—do you kill the baby or not? I’m surprised no one (that I’m aware of) has ever suggested taking the baby and giving him to someone else to raise, maybe someone far away from that part of Europe. Would it have changed the person Hitler became, or was it really his destiny? I don’t know, but I think in the ‘nature vs. nurture’ debate that nurture has at least as much to do with who a person is, as nature does. There’s also a matter of personal choice as one grows up and becomes more aware of the world. The same child, raised in completely different environments, might make different life choices. In this case, at least, it’s hard to imagine him making worse choices.

Anyway, Sam arrives at the address Dean gave him, just like in Ava’s vision. He looks through a window and sees Dean tied up and gagged. As Gordon predicted, he breaks in through the back door. A moment later, there’s an explosion. Then, a second, bigger one.

Dean is fighting back rage and tears as Gordon goes to check the other room. Suddenly there’s a gun to Gordon’s head and Sam tells him to drop his weapon. They end up fighting, and Sam ultimately gets the upper hand, pointing a rifle at Gordon.

Gordon: “Do it. Do it! Show your brother the killer you really are, Sammy.”

Instead, Sam knocks him out.

When he unties his brother, Dean is ready to kill Gordon himself, but Sam says to trust him, that it’s taken care of. Dean voices what we’re all thinking when they leave the house and Gordon suddenly reappears, horror movie villain-style, shooting at them.

Dean: “You call this taken care of?”

Sam tells him again to trust him, even as Gordon unloads a bottomless supply of bullets at them. Is Sam delusional? Not so much. A couple of seconds later two cop cars pull up with sirens blaring. They order Gordon to drop his weapons and get down on his knees, which he reluctantly does. He’s already on the hook for killing Scott Carey, but when the cops find a cache of weapons in his car, we know we won’t be seeing Gordon for a while.

Sam [whispering]: “Anonymous tip.”

Dean: “You’re a fine, upstanding citizen, Sam.”

This was probably quite the triumphant moment back in 2007, but it hits different in 2024. Maybe it’s just the optics (Sam is white, Gordon is black), or the fact that they’re all hunters, and Dean has also killed people. Gordon might be verging on fanatical, but if the “not exactly human” person had been anyone other than Sam, Dean might’ve been hunting them himself. Last episode he was killing people for being infected with a virus that made them violent. Is it silly to bring up questions of morality about a TV show where humans kill monsters? Yet other monster-fighting shows, like Buffy, draw a line, and even Supernatural itself has questioned some of its main characters’ actions. I guess it bothers me that Sam and Dean get away with everything, while a not-dissimilar character is going to prison, probably for the rest of his life.

But I digress (again). After the danger has passed, Dean tells Sam not to ditch him again, and then announces they’re going to Amsterdam. He’s kidding about that, but he really is tired of their thankless job. He adds that he doesn’t believe in destiny, either his own or Sam’s. Sam, on the other hand, has decided to face his situation—destiny or not—head on. And if Dean wants to protect him, he has to do the same.

The episode ends with the boys going in person to check on Ava, since she hasn’t been answering her phone. When they get to her place, she’s nowhere to be found. Unfortunately, they do find her dead fiancé, a lot of blood, her engagement ring, and sulphur on the windowsill. It’s a shock—I expected Ava to be fine after she left. She was a sweet character, and likeable. It seems that none of Yellow Eyes’ kids will be able to have normal lives. Maybe it’s not their destiny to end up dead or evil, but so far, it’s not looking good for Sam. Will he go “dark side,” as he put it, or will he just disappear, like Ava has? Is there any way to get out of this unscathed? If there is, I’m guessing the Winchesters will find it. But that’s a big if. ASB