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Dean gets a shotgun blast from the past.

The episode begins with Sam sneaking out with Ruby while Dean sleeps. But as soon as Dean wakes up, he is confronted by Castiel, who cryptically instructs him to “stop it” before whizzing him back to 1973 Lawrence, Kansas. Of course, Dean goes to a dinner and sits right next to his father – the young John Winchester – before fully recognizing his situation. Castiel reappears while Dean is further shadowing his future father, restating Dean must “stop it” before again disappearing.

Dean follows John to a car lot where he convinces him to buy a certain Chevy Impala over a van, and where he thoroughly creeps John out while inquiring about death omens and possible demonic activities. Dean’s surveillance of John is interrupted eventually by John’s date, Mary – Dean’s future mother – who reveals she is a hunter after a prolonged fistfight with Dean outside the diner. After some explanations (sans the time travel), Dean and Mary go back to her house, where she introduces Dean to her hunter parents – Samuel and Deanna Campbell. Although Samuel is initially hostile towards another hunter, Deanna offers Dean a seat at the dinner table.

There, Dean learns Samuel is looking into the death of a farmer whose fields are surprisingly fertile. Samuel suspects demonic foul play, but briskly refuses any help to Dean. It doesn’t matter, since Dean beats him to punch and investigates the family – posing as a priest, like Samuel. While Samuel talks to the mother, Dean and Mary talk to the son, who met with a mysterious stranger who offered to get rid of his abusive father in exchange for an ambiguous trade in ten years time. And this mysterious stranger had yellow eyes.

Dean is now dead-set on killing the Yellow Eyed Demon and ending the evil that plagues his family at the source. He tells the Campbells this demon killed his mother, and he plans on revenge – by using the very Colt Samuel believes to be a legend. He uses his dad’s diary to find the demon’s next target – information he shares with Samuel. Dean also tells Mary not to get out of bed on November 1982 – the date of her death. In the car, Castiel tells Dean that if he’s successful, not only will the Winchesters never become hunters, but all the people the Winchesters have saved will also perish. Dean cares about these people, but cannot simply pass up the opportunity to save his family.

Dean steals the Colt from John’s eventual mentor, Daniel Elkins, despite Elkin’s obvious misgivings. Meanwhile, Samuel and Mary find Yellow Eyes possessing a doctor and trying to wheel and deal with the wife of a cancer-stricken neighbor. Though Yellow Eyes has little trouble subduing the two hunters, he quickly takes a liking to Mary’s spunk. Dean bursts in the room with the Colt and Yellow Eyes seemingly vacates the premises. Apparently earning Samuel’s respect, Dean speaks with Samuel alone and tells him about his time traveling origins – but realizes too late Yellow Eyes is now in Samuel, who blasts him against a wall.

Yellow Eyes is aware of the presence of angels on the playing field. It is now revealed he’s not bargaining for souls, but instead, permission to enter a household. And despite what Casey said in “Sin City”, Yellow Eyes’ plans extend far beyond breeding leaders for his demon army. Yellow Eyes stabs himself – killing his host Samuel – and snaps Deanna’s neck when she tries to interfere. He then runs off with the released Dean in hot pursuit. Mary, not surprisingly, is with John, whose proposal is interrupted by the Yellow Eyes. John is killed like Deanna, his neck snapped by the powerful demon. The demon offers to bring back John – and only John – in exchange for “permission” from Mary in ten years time, a pact to which Mary tearfully agrees. Dean arrives too late as John is resurrected and Yellow Eyes seals his pact with Mary with a kiss.

Returned to the present day motel by Castiel, Dean realizes he has failed completely to change the future, but angel reveals destiny can never be truly altered. He only transported Dean back to the past in order to show him what had transpired, so he would be on the same page. Sam is walking down a dark road, and Castiel instructs Dean to stop him – or the angels will.

The second episode to end with a To Be Continued, “In the Beginning” is a well-executed and well-realized piece. Mitch Pileggi of X-Files fame is perfect as the gritty Samuel, and Matt Cohen does pretty well as a fresher John Winchester than we might have expected. All the Supernatural leads are in fighting form, with Misha Collins’ Castiel back to the more cryptic and otherworldly being of the season premiere rather than the supernatural handler of the last episode.

The episode also perfectly realizes that the Yellow Eyes Demon is more terrifying when seen through the visage of someone we know rather than someone we do not. This is why the end of Season One was so effective, when the profane and sadistic Yellow Eyes lashed out at the Winchesters through the meat-suit of none other than the middle aged John Winchester, played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan. Pileggi plays the role similarly, as Yellow Eyes cruelly toys with Mary while nonchalantly parading the death of those she loved in front of her. This makes for a much more frightening confrontation than the car salesman-like demon of Season Two.

With that said, the episode is missing one crucial element: suspense. The sense of finality drives a stake into this episode’s heart. Sam is barely given a line, and even John Winchester virtually disappears from the episode halfway through the episode. The deaths of Samuel and Deanna occur too quickly, and neither Winchester, nor Campbell nor audience members are given time to fully grieve for this result.

Overall, “In the Beginning” is a major episode which will have the heads of many Supernatural fans spinning. Everything – from Mary’s hunter origins to John’s resurrection – can have huge repercussions across the show’s universe. While this is one more sign Supernatural is moving in the right direction, this doesn’t change the fact that this episode re-watchability factor is significantly lower than the last two episodes.

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