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Right before its regular hiatus, Supernatural is one of the best shows on television.

Picking off where last week left off, Castiel and Uriel demand Anna must die. Uriel himself even says Anna isn’t as innocent as she appears. The Winchesters start to fight them, but they are little match for the angels – who suddenly disappear in a burst of light. The Winchesters and Ruby find Anna drawing a mysterious symbol in blood on a mirror – one which sent the angels far, far away.

The Winchesters and company retreat to the ultimate safe haven – Bobby’s panic room (Bobby himself is working a case in the Dominican Republic). Sam pulls records trying to find what exactly she is guilty of. Save for some strange visions during his childhood and nightmares about her father, Anna comes up clean – not even she knows what the angels are talking about. Finally, Sam and Dean bring in a specialist – the psychic Pamela, who was blinded trying to peer onto Castiel’s face. Using hypnosis, Pamela erupts a light show in Anna, who suddenly knows the truth with eerie calmness. She herself was an angel.

As Anna explains, she was an angel along with Castiel and Uriel until she disobeyed and lost her grace. Falling to the Earth instead of Hell, she’s lived among humans up until now. Fearing what will happen in a second angelic encounter, Pamela parts with the Winchesters, while Ruby is noticeably more skittish around Anna from now on. The Winchesters now embark on a quest to retrieve Anna’s grace and return her angelic status. Sam finds something – a meteor trail in Ohio, and a shooting star sighting in Kentucky which created a blossoming tree from a barren field.

But though Anna, Ruby and the Winchesters succeed in finding where Anna’s grace fell, the angelic catalyst is long gone. Anna and Dean find common ground between absent father figures and life of blindly following orders, soon making love – in the backseat of the Impala no less. Meanwhile, Ruby summons Alistair in an attempt to make a bargain safe passage for her and the Winchesters in exchange for Anna. Unfortunately, Alistair captures Ruby instead. In a dream, Uriel confronts Dean Winchesters, who refuses to give up Anna – even at the threat of going back to Hell. Uriel, it is revealed, holds Anna’s grace. But Uriel seeks instead of apply pressure to the right place.

Alistair tortures Ruby with her own knife. She refuses to tell the Winchester’s location because he will just kill her afterwards – but she’s more than willing lead Alistair there herself. But the Winchesters already have their hands full when Castiel and Uriel arrive. When Sam asks how the two angels knew where they were, Castiel gives Dean a mournful looks. Anna explains Dean was forced to sell her out – because Uriel threatened to kill Sam. Forgiving Dean, Anna begs Castiel for a quick death. Castiel tries to say he’s sorry, but Anna rebukes him. Just before they can carry out the death sentence, Alistair and his demons arrive with a tortured Ruby in tow.

The two sides begin fighting. Uriel exorcises several demons with just a touch of his hand, while Alistair nearly exorcises Castiel with a spell of his own – until Dean steps in to save him. Alistair laments that Deal had “such potential.” Anna snatches her grace from Uriel during the fight and reabsorbs it. The light fills her body, resulting in an explosion of light which apparently kills Alistair and leaves no trace of Anna. Uriel is enraged, but Castiel stops him from striking Dean, and the two angels disappear. It turns out Sam planned to the set the two sides against one another “Yojimbo” style all along.

On the road, Dean reveals to Sam what Alistair meant by “such potential.” Time is different in Hell, and Dean spent forty years – not four months – in the Pit. For thirty years, Dean resisted Alistair’s offer to step off the rack and exchange other souls for his place, but eventually, Dean broke down and became a torturer instead of a victim. Dean tearfully admits he no longer wants to feel what’s inside of him anymore.

Between Anna and Ruby, we finally get two characters who feel more rooted in the mythology of the show than ever before. Anna in particular is the kind of character Supernatural fans can – and should – be rooting for, but Ruby actress Genevieve Cortese makes some large strides in acting during the episode, though she remains largely untested.

I know I’m a little bias. I’ve been a Supernatural fan since the first episode aired. But somewhere over the course of three seasons, the show has gone from under-the-radar to cult classic to achieving a plateau of success rarely obtained by other genre shows.

At this point, Supernatural hasn’t just surpassed Heroes – its well on the way to rivaling Battlestar Galactica.

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