On Supernatural, the monsters are getting better (and closer)

Let's play catchup with last week's Supernatural, "You Can't Handle the Truth," where Dean was cursed to hear what happens when people stop lying . . . and there was a major revelation about Sam. Spoilers!

This was one of those episodes that reminded me why monster of the week stories can be pretty damn cool, as well as gross and scary - even while advancing the plot arc about how Sam and Dean are transforming into weird new versions of themselves. Though Dean is still feeling uncertain about Sam's new kill-now-kill-later personality, he goes along with Sam to investigate a rash of suicides in a small town. As Bobby tells Dean, "Sam is your case." So Dean is on investigative double-duty as we watch various townspeople commit suicides and murders when people start telling them their darkest true thoughts ("You're ugly." "I had sex with your daughter." Etc.)

At first, Dean thinks everybody has been tooting a horn stolen from heaven, so he calls up Cas. Though Cas hunts around, the most Dean can get out of him is "No it's not an angelic weapon" and "I'll ask around about the problems with Sam." Yes, Cas is busy with the war in heaven so he's being a dick again.

Turns out the town is under the pall of a summoning spell gone wrong. A woman who just wanted to know the truth about whether her boyfriend was cheating on her decided to call up a god named Veritas who likes people to OD on the truth and commit suicide so she and her cat buddies can eat them. Plus, Veritas is what Dean calls an "attention whore" - she wants to be worshiped - so she's taken the form of a morning talk show host who does a daily segment where she "tells the truth" about toilet paper and kittens and other important topics. Good to know that daytime TV is a career option for out-of-work gods.

Before the brothers dispatch Veritas with some knives soaked in dog blood, Dean manages to have some awkward conversations with everybody in his life. Lisa dumps him rather harshly, spilling her true feelings about how messed up Dean's relationship with Sam is; and Bobby admits that he loves getting pedicures. Feeling sad and squicked, Dean knows it's time to talk to is Sam.

When Dean confronts his brother and asks the burning question about why Sam let him get chomped by the vampire in the Twihard episode, you can tell that Sam has somehow figured out a way to lie even under the Veritas curse. He makes something up about how he froze, got scared, and hates himself because he would never want to hurt Dean. For some reason, Dean believes him, even though none of us do.

The truth finally comes out when the Winchesters get an impromptu therapy session from Veritas at the end of her killing blade. They've snuck into her mansion, full of dead bodies being nommed by cats, but of course she's overwhelmed them and tied them up. Before eating their tongues, she decides to interrogate them and force them to reveal their most intimate feelings about each other. Dean admits that he didn't trust Sam and thought he'd turned into a monster, until the truth spell moment. But then Veritas freaks out because Sam starts lying to her. "He's not even human!" she screams.

There's the inevitable knifing with dog blood moment, and then Dean is left wondering what the hell is up with Sam. And Sam finally does tell the truth: Since returning from Hell, he doesn't have any feelings anymore. He's become the perfect Hunter because he has no fear. And he let Dean get bitten just so he could get to the alpha vamp. "I just don't feel anything," Sam admits. Basically, he's so emotionally blank that he's destroyed Dean's only relationship and put Dean in mortal danger just to gank some vamps.

That's when Dean starts punching Sam. Over and over, until Sam's knocked out and his face is a mush of blood. Things, in other words, are not going well.

And we already know why, because the preview for next week blasted us with the news: SAM HAS NO SOUL. Color me intrigued.