‘Supernatural’ Recap — Episode 8.09, “Citizen Fang.”

Warning: Midseason finale ahead. If you are not all that fond of emotional trauma, it’s advised you do not proceed. If you don’t like cliffhangers, you might want to wait until next year to watch this one.

Anyways, yeah, this one’s a doozy, with the return of Martin (the crazy hunter from Sam, Interrupted), some Benny backstory, Dean facing moral dilemmas, and the whole Sam-and-Amelia thing progressing a decent bit past the whole “soap opera” thing.

The episode opens with a Cajun café in (surprise) Louisiana, where everyone has accents and Benny is, for some reason, working a shift at, taking over for the night for a girl

named Elizabeth. Also…Martin is there. And vampire + hunter is a historically bad combination.

True to the episode setup, something spooky happens—Benny sneaks out into the dark forest/swamp, trailed by Martin, and the next thing we know, the hunter finds a dead body that’s been drained by a vampire. Not looking good for ol’ Benny-boy.

Of course, Sam gets a call about a kill, but not-so-of-course, he admits to Dean that he had Martin trailing Benny. But, keeping to his word, Dean agrees to take the case, since no matter who it is, a beastie who’s killing people has got to go.

They meet up with Martin, who is definitely still a bit off his rocker, which Dean is none too happy about. And Martin is none too happy about Dean defending Benny. But, despite the less-than-sane hunter’s ramblings, Sam gives Dean a couple of hours to find the vampire and get the other side of the story.

Then Sam and Martin continue talking, which is weird until Sam goes into one of those obviously-cued flashbacks. In this one, Sam talks to Amelia about Don, and says that he really wants to stay with her. Amelia agrees, but decides to take some time to clear her head. Drama drama drama.

Back to Dean, who visits the café in search of pie. Failing the pie, he asks about Benny instead, who has apparently gone ‘fishing’. Dean leaves him a threatening voice mail, then finds Benny later…burying a body. The vampire asserts that he hasn’t killed anyone, and Dean decides to listen to his story, though not without a machete in hand just in case.

Apparently there’s a rogue vampire that’s going after Benny, trying to get him to join his nest. Of course, Dean agrees to help track him down, but not without a little talk, wherein we learn that Elizabeth is apparently Benny’s great-granddaughter, and thinking of her is the only way that Benny keeps a hold on the whole blood-sucking thing. How sweet.

Then things get not so sweet when Dean attempts to convince Martin and Sam to go after Desmond instead, and Sam is rightfully skeptical—and then Martin knocks Dean out so they’re free to go after Benny. Sam is pretty pissed off about that, but takes the chance anyways, and the two hunters head out. Except Sam stops in the middle of the street to have a flashback, which doesn’t really seem safe, but whatever.

Sam is a at a bar, and Don shows up—so everyone’s kind of expecting a showdown, but all that happens is Don says he’ll respect Amelia’s decision, buys Sam and drink, and leaves.

So basically he’s a way cool guy.

Back to something not so way cool, Dean finally wakes up and immediately calls Benny, warning him that Sam is on the way (and Martin, but he doesn’t really matter). So, they decide to go after Desmond, since there’s not much else they can do.

Later that night, Martin and Sam are on the hunt…when Sam suddenly gets a message from Amelia crying for help, and he immediately skedaddles, leaving Martin all by his lonesome. Darn.

Meanwhile, Dean and Benny are on the hunt, and the Winchester runs into Desmond, who probably would have polished him off if Benny didn’t show up and save the day. But, since he did, they gank the bad guy and talk about feelings, boiling down to the conclusion that Benny is going to have to ditch the town and start a new life somewhere else.

Back to Sam who’s truckin’ it to Texas, and immediately slips into a flashback wherein he ups and tells Amelia that he’s leaving…obviously not respecting her decision, since she hasn’t even made it yet. Shame on you, Sam.

Benny, of course, has to see Elizabeth one more time before leaving, but leaves indeed—until he gets a threatening phone call from Martin, despite the hunter being explicitly told by Dean to lay off. And this phone call is coming from Elizabeth’s phone.

The vampire turns around quick and heads back, to find his great-granddaughter tied up in the middle of the restaurant and Martin holding a knife to her throat. There’s the

obligatory banter with Benny asking Martin to let her go, but the hunter ends up making a small cut in her throat to prove a point—the vampire almost losing control of himself at the sight of blood, and having to admit to Elizabeth that he’s not exactly human.

Martin says that he’ll let Elizabeth go if he gets Benny’s head on a stake.

So, Benny lays his head down on the counter and Martin takes a swing.

On that happy note, we go back to Sam, who gets to Amelia’s house and…finds her perfectly fine, watching TV with Don. Oops.

Then, elsewhere, Dean gets a call from a teary Elizabeth, telling him to come quick. He does, and enters a wrecked, bloody café to find not Benny, but Martin, lying dead on the floor. Well then.

Meanwhile, Sam is chilling at a bar, and figures something out. He calls the number that Amelia’s text came from, and who should answer the phone but Dean, who had just needed Sam away from the case for a while.

Sam is obviously pissed, and hangs up in the middle of Dean’s explanation of how the case went—namely, why Benny wasted Martin. But then, he turns around, and who should he run into but Amelia.

The End.

Yeah, that’s it. Have fun waiting until January.

Tune in in like 50 years for the next episode of Supernatural on Wednesday, January 16th, on the CW at 9/8c.