rating: 3

Previously on Supernatural:Abaddon is a Knight of Hell who is set on becoming the next Queen of Hell, but Sam sets her on fire and she must smoke out of Alaina Huffman's body; Dean convinces Sam to stop the trials and save his own life rather than shut the gates of Hell; Sam is dying anyway; injured fallen angel Ezekiel possesses Sam to save both of their lives; Ezekiel promises to leave Sam's body once Sam is healed; Dean agrees to keep Ezekiel's presence a secret from Sam. Now! At a secluded rest stop, Dean lies on a picnic table and fills Sam in on everything non-Ezekiel that happened in the premiere. Sam is concerned about Castiel, but his brother reminds him that there is nothing that they can do for him unless he contacts them. "Cas is a big boy. If things go breaking bad, he knows our number," says Dean, "but I'm dying inside." Okay, maybe not that last part. But he was thinking it. Anyway, Dean changes the subject and tells Sam that he did not, in fact, kill Crowley. Instead, he locked the King of Hell in his trunk. Dean opens the back of the Impala to demonstrate, and Crowley looks as though he will pass out from the sheer indignity of his situation. They head for the bunker. In an abandoned house, a demon is dragging a body that he has inexplicably obtained somewhere. He does a blood ritual over the body, and who should arise but Abaddon! I know that it is her, because this blood ritual was apparently specifically designed to allow Alaina Huffman to reprise the role. Abaddon rises up, completely naked with her rebirth but still with styled hair, perfect makeup, and an impeccable manicure. That must have been some blood ritual. Dean enters the Men of Letters bunker, where he is immediately almost impaled by a crossbow bolt, fired by a very paranoid Kevin Tran. Kevin exposits that the entire bunker locked itself down and trapped him inside when the angels fell. Sam brings in a bound, gagged, and muffled Crowley. The Winchesters lock him in the demon torture dungeon which they have totally been waiting for an excuse to use again, and they sentence Crowley to...isolation. And darkness. Kevin is not pleased that Crowley is still not dead, pointing out that Crowley killed Mrs. Tran. Luckily, neither of the Winchesters is paying close enough attention to begin laughing hysterically at the reminder that only one member of the Tran family was brutally murdered by demons. Instead, Dean gets bossy and tells Sam to do some online research and Kevin to work on the tablet. He's lucky he's pretty. He calls to warn the other hunters about how to best deal with the fallen angels. "If you meet a really awkward angel who doesn't understand sarcasm," instructs Dean, "don't kill him. And tell him to call me." Not really. But hopefully he said something along those lines off-screen. Castiel is running out of creative ways to come back to life. Anyway...Elsewhere, Abaddon has tracked down a few other demons and is pitching her new plans for Hell, lying about Crowley's death and making some very broad promises that are clearly meant to sound more frightening than they do. Awesomely, a demon in an elderly woman's body calls Abaddon out on the flaws in her plan. The demon is sent back to Hell for her trouble, but at least we see that not all lesser demons are unintelligent as well as evil. The other demons are more on board with Abaddon as Queen of Hell, and she takes them to a Navy base to claim the bodies of three servicemen. The demons (other than Abaddon) possess these strapping young men and leave their previous vessels dead on a bus. On a country road, a young woman by the name of Tracy compensates for the eighty-seven layers of clothing worn by Sam and Dean by wearing as little clothing as possible without being arrested. She feigns car trouble until a man--in a windowless white van and who looks like the model for a PSA about not getting into cars with strangers--pulls over and offers her a ride. She accepts, and we see as he bares his teeth that he is a vampire. Fortunately, Tracy already knew this and kills him in the back of his creepy van. Less fortunately, the Navy demons capture her as soon as she is finished. Back at the Navy base, besuited Sam and Dean drive up in their decidedly non-FBI issue Impala, introducing themselves as Agents Banner and Stark as they try to coerce their way onto the bus, where the bodies have now been discovered. The (female) MP rightly claims jurisdiction, so the boys call their "supervisor," who happens to be a very confused Kevin Tran. Kevin recovers, however, and he hacks into her computer and basically shames Sergeant Miranda Bates into giving them access to the crime scene. Ah, Supernatural. Always so respectful toward women. On the bus, it becomes clear that these people have been dead for a very long time and that their bodies were serving as meatsuits for demons. Bates appears, having been properly chastened for her unladylike behavior by the menfolk, and shows them security footage featuring Abaddon. Under an overpass somewhere, Abaddon and the Navy demons torture hunter Irv for information about the Winchesters. He holds out well enough against the beatings but breaks when Abaddon begins to slowly hang him by the neck. Irv gives up Dean's phone number, and Abaddon summons the boys to come to the rescue as I muse that Sam and Dean really need to start circulating pictures of the bad guys so that other hunters won't do something foolish like invite them back to their hotel rooms (but more on that later). At the bunker, Kevin decides that he will research the Knights of Hell. Coincidentally, the Men of Letters liked to do all of their filing right outside of the torture dungeon, and Crawley calls out to Kevin, playing on his insecurities and telling him that he is expendable to the Winchesters. Kevin, not quite yet forgiving Crowley for the whole torture-and-mother-killing ordeal, attacks Crowley.