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Don’t let the title fool you – Death doesn’t take a sick day, as one recurring character learns.

The episode begins with two friends getting out of a bar and heading down an alley, where they meet someone begging for change – someone who quickly pulls a gun. The gun inadvertently goes off, and one man is shot in the heart at point-blank range. His friend desperately performs CPR but to no avail – yet the man lives anyway. What is going on?

Sam and Dean catch wind of the event through Bobby, but the Winchesters are still rattled from the siren-induced heart-to-heart they received from one another in the last episode. They interview the survivor of the alley attack and find no evidence of Faustian pacts or reaper summoning – but the latter gives Sam an idea: what if someone is preventing Reapers from doing their job?

They try to interview the only person who would know – the last person to die in town, a young boy named Cole. However, their attempt séance is interrupted by what appears to be the cemetery groundskeeper – but turns out to be Dean’s hellish torturer Alistair. As with before, Alistair tosses Dean around like a rag doll, but unlike before, Alistair has considerably more trouble with Sam, who is ready this time – exorcising the powerful demon on the spot.

Back at the hotel, Sam tells Dean that Alistair fled after his attack failed, but Dean knows his brother is lying to him. They do know Alistair’s object – kill two reapers and you can break a seal holding back Lucifer. Dean suggests a crazy way to stop Alistair – by seeking answers from the spirit realm. Recruiting blind psychic Pamela – who agrees this is an equally insane plan – Sam and Dean proceed to journey into the astral plane. Though Dean is initially more interested in messing with Sam in the ghost world, he realizes a boy has been watching them the whole time – a boy named Cole.

Trapped in the spirit world since the reaper disappeared, Cole is left throwing soccer balls at his grieving mother. Sam and Dean talk to Cole, who says he saw a black smoke snatch the Reaper shortly after he died, but is hesitant to share much information because he knows its curtains for him when the Reaper gets released. After leaving Cole, however, Dean is confronted by another familiar face – Tessa, the Reaper who almost took him in the end of Season 2.

Sam agrees to talk to Cole while Tessa talks to Dean, and behind his brother’s back, Sam lies to Cole, telling him he will make the Reaper go away if Cole tells him where he is. Cole says he saw the smoke at his funeral – at the funeral home. Dean, meanwhile, tells Tessa he really wished he went with her to spare him all the heartache of losing his father and his brother. But he also believes he’s been given a second chance at life and aims to make the most of it. Sam finally gets Cole downstairs to meet Tessa, but it’s too late – a billow of smoke floods the house, and soon, Tessa is gone.

Receiving last minute instruction from Cole about how to fade and fight in the spirit world, Sam and Dean prepare for their confrontation with Alistair. They soon find the funeral home covered in glowing neon glyph – invisible ink for demons. The two also find Tessa and the other Reaper lying unconscious in a circle. They easily ambush the first demon, but are soon trapped behind an iron chain and shot with rock-salt by Alistair, who proceeds to murder the first Reaper. But Sam and Dean concentrate their poltergeist mojo on a chandelier, using it to break the circle and release Tessa, who quickly flies the coup.

But all is not well in the world of the living, as Alistair has sent one of his demons looking for Sam and Dean’s mortal body. The demon finds Pamela instead and, after a brief struggle, stabs her in the stomach just before Sam awakes and exorcises him. Dean is still in the spirit world – and confronted by Alistair, but just as the demon moves on him, he is blasted by lightning from above. “What the hell?” the Winchester stammers.

“Guess again.” a confident Castiel replies. It turns out the angel recruited them by posing as Bobby on the phone – the invisible ink, we learn, are wards against angels. Dean begs Castiel to spare the people who have escaped death due to the circumstance, but Castiel says everything has a season. Dean replies they made an exception with him – but Castiel says Dean is different just before leaving.

Dean is next confronted by Tessa, who needs his help in collecting Cole. The child will not leave his mother’s side. Tessa explains that her mother will never stop grieving unless Cole moves on, and Dean says it’s okay to be scared – but they are all scared. No one knows what awaits on the other side. Cole reluctantly moves on, but afterwards, Tessa confides in Dean and cryptically warns his second chance might not be all its cracked up to be.

Waking up shortly after that, Dean finds Pamela isn’t getting any better. A mortally wounded Pamela begins to die as the Reaper starts reaping, but not before telling Sam she felt what he did to the demon, but if he thinks he has good intentions . . . think again. Pamela dies and Dean asks what her last words were, but Sam remains tight-lipped.

After a mediocre mid-season, this riveting episode brought Season 4 back on track. The humor was still well-preserved between Dean’s ghost world antics and the Winchester’s training session with Cole. I also admired the continuity the show consistently brings – ranging from remembering the Reaper Tessa to the Winchesters actually using the techniques of the ghosts they so often hunt. Finally, the portrayal of Alistair was handled extremely well – he has been played by three different actors so far, but each has been just as Marlon Brando “Apocalypse Now” creepy as the last.

This episode raises a lot of questions. What is the “something wicked” waiting at the end of the road for the Winchesters? What are the angels hiding? The sheer emotional intensity leads you gasping for more revelations. But there’s more, as I can’t help but remember Sam at the end of season 2, confronted by demon-powered Jake and Ava in Yellow Eye’s twisted proving ground. How far will Sam go before he winds up like them and that switch along with it? If Sam takes the gloves off, does his soul come with it? From the previews, it looks like we won’t have long to find out.

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