In "Fresh Blood," Supernatural revisits an old adversary of Sam (Jared Padalecki) and Dean's (Jensen Ackles) in a bloody episode with some satisfying emotional payoffs. We open with a confrontation between the hunter Gordon Walker (Sterling K. Brown), who's convinced Sam is the anti-Christ and wants to kill him, and Bela (Lauren Cohan), the mercenary without-a-heart-of-gold. Staring down the barrel of Gordon's gun without a blink, Bela sells out the Winchesters' whereabouts.

We join Sam and Dean tracking a vampire named Lucy, played by Mercedes McNab of Buffy and Angel fame in a memorable, too-brief appearance. Lucy thinks she's been roofied. She's become a killer, but she's distraught and confused. It adds yet another layer to the vampire lore on Supernatural, where good and evil has grown progressively less simple. Sam and Dean seem to be in agreement that they have to kill Lucy -- but Sam signals that he'd prefer Dean do the deed.

When Gordon and his friend Kubrick (Michael Massee) show up, Dean draws their fire. To capture Lucy, Dean cut his arm and used his own blood, which is part badass hunter behavior, but also fits with Dean's new pattern of recklessness.

I liked Bela's reaction to Dean's angry phone call, in which Dean threatens to kill her (start the betting pool now whether he'd actually go through with it or not; she is human). She backpedals, offering them warnings and advice. That's not repentance, only self-preservation. Bela continues to break the mold of female character types on Supernatural, with intriguing results.

A moody vampire named Dixon (Matthew Humphries), who's been collecting blondes (it's suggested because they remind him of his lost "family") and turning them, captures Gordon. In a twist of heavy-handed but effective irony, Dixon vamps him, and Gordon becomes what he hunts. Which has been Sam's fear for a while -- becoming something not human.

Back in season 2's "Bloodlust," which introduced Gordon, Sam was appalled at the level of Dean's violence. Here, even before they know Gordon's been vamped, Sam says they'll have to kill him. "I thought you would've been like, we can't, he's human, it's wrong," Dean jokes. In "Sin City," Sam's trigger-happy ways worried Dean enough that he confessed his fears to Bobby about Sam's nature. It was shocking for Sam to see the change in Dean's behavior last season, just as he's been unhappy with the change in Dean more recently. It's also shocking for Dean to see his peaceful little brother turn ruthless, although he seems more comfortable with it for the moment. They deal with the changes in each other in different ways.

The boys find Dixon mourning the blondes, who the vamped-out Gordon beheaded with his bare hands. The echoes between Dixon, who says he's got nothing left to lose, and Dean, are blatantly telegraphed, but it works. The scene ends before we find out Dixon's fate, but I'm assuming Sam and Dean kill him.

Later Sam unloads some pent-up frustration about Dean's recklessness and false bravado. The scene is great. It would've been even better without the overpowering, very sensitive music. All the emotion we needed was there on the screen in the performances and the words. Maybe Supernatural should trust how good it really is.

It's a shame that Gordon had to die, but his arc played out satisfyingly. Sterling K. Brown's is a phenomenal actor, and Gordon is a great villain.

The episode's quiet final note isn't a confrontation, a confession, or an argument. It's only Dean teaching Sam how to fix the Impala's engine, and it's one of the most beautifully rendered scenes the show has ever done. Sam lets Dean downplay the gesture. "It's my job to show my little brother the ropes," Dean says. But they both know what's really happening there.  Dean thinks he won't be around much longer.

A tense episode, tighter and more powerful than anything we've seen so far this season. Kim Manners goes to town with some imaginative direction, and Sera Gamble's script intertwines the horror organically with the emotional story.

Supernatural 3x07, "Fresh Blood"
Writer: Sera Gamble
Director: Kim Manners
Guest Stars: Mercedes McNab, Sterling K. Brown, Michael Massee, Matthew Humphries