If you read the headline for this article then I’m sure you can guess my reaction to Supernatural episode 4.16, On the Head of a Pin.  But just in case I wasn’t clear enough: holy crap!

The episode starts with Castiel discovering the body of one of his fellow angels in arms.  Someone is killing them.  Since the angels think that Alistair knows who it might be, they decide to take a page from the demons and torture the truth out of them.
But since angels aren’t that good at torture, they decide to call on Dean.  

I can’t say that I was any happier with the idea than Dean was.  In my last review, I said that I was afraid at how much darker the show could go.  Here, it definitely went darker.  Dean told Castiel that if he went into the room to torture Alistair that Castiel wouldn’t like what came out.   This is something I was afraid of.

But Kripke and Co. didn’t disappoint.  Yes, the show went dark, but in the process it revealed shocking things. 

During the torture scene, Alistair told Dean that John Winchester survived 100 years of torture before escaping.  Also: Lillith wanted Dean in hell because if she could break him, it would break the first of the 66 seals.  Now the reason they wouldn’t let Sam trade his life for Dean’s makes sense!

While Dean is doing all of this, Sam calls on Ruby to make his powers stronger because he, not Dean is the one who can get a confession out of Alistair.  For the first time, we actually see what it is that the two of them have been doing to make Sam’s powers stronger: He’s been juicing up, vampire style, on Ruby’s demon blood.

Kripke has peppered this season with hints that the kind of power Sam wields can be addictive.  Now we’re seeing it for the first time. Sam is well and truly an addict.  Which makes statements that he’s given us before make more sense: “I’m doing this for me.”  “I’m not doing that anymore.” 

During Dean’s confrontation, something allows Alistair to escape.  Sam shows up just in time to mojo a confession out of the demon before killing it.  This is another new twist on things.  Initially, Sam favored his powers over the knife because he could send the demon to hell without killing the host.  Now his powers are such that he can replicate the knife.  He’s hit the point of corruption that he no longer needs the excuse of saving the human host to use the powers.  Now he’ll used them for the sake of using them.  In his road to hell, Sam has thrown his good intentions by the wayside.

Additionally, Castiel seemed to be wavering between obedience and rebellion.  At the beginning of the episode, he told Dean that he’d been demoted for having human feelings.  Later, while Dean was torturing Alistair, Anna showed up to plead Dean’s case (or possibly fight for Castiel’s growing conscience).   And while Castiel initially rejected Anna, he seemed more receptive after finding out that it wasn’t the demons that were killing the angels.

The scenes between Castiel and Anna are just wonderful.  Misha Collins does an amazing job of conveying both childlike-wonder and innocence, even in the midst of a crisis of faith.  This plays such a nice contrast with Anna, who has lived as a human and had worldly experiences to color her reactions.

I also very much enjoyed the interaction between Castiel and Uriel  after Uriel’s true allegiance comes to light.  Castiel seems genuinely puzzled that Uriel would follow Lucifer, while Robert Wisdom’s Uriel recalls Lucifer with  the fanatical reverence of a true believer.

In the end, the story is Castiel’s story.  Because the thrust of the story is the choice that he must make.  On one hand, he can follow his heart and follow Anna’s path.  On the other, he can follow his subverted orders, and follow Uriel.  Both come with the same message: All you have to do is be unafraid.  Yet each of them carries a very different meaning.

The final scene was physically painful.  Dean, with his battered self-image is given one more giant burden to carry.  He’s got a destiny on his shoulders: The same man who started things is the one who will end them.  In other words, he’s the one who will stop the apocalypse.   His reaction: I can’t do it.  It’s too big.

Here’s hoping he’s wrong.