Supernatural Review - "Heaven and Hell"

Last week the Angels came to kill Anna (Julie McNiven) and Sam (Jared Padalecki) and Dean (Jensen Ackles) where facing a holy ass-whooping. This week's Supernatural, Heaven and Hell, picked up in the midst of the action with Uriel (Robert Wisdom) and Castiel (Misha Collins) making quick work of the Winchesters when out of nowhere the two Angels are propelled away. Turns out Anna spontaneously cast some sort of spell. Could she be as evil as the Angels say? Well not quite, with the help of a blind psychic Anna remembers who she really is: an Angel of the lord.

Anna essentially disobeyed and fell to Earth, ejecting her 'grace' on the way. Now all Anna has to do is find her grace and, as Dean says, take a holy bong hit on it and she will be fully empowered – immune to either side that is hunting her. For heaven, it would literally get her back in good 'graces,' for the demons it would deny them the opportunity to torture a susceptible Angel who could potentially spill the secrets of their enemies. When they are unable to find the grace where it touched down, though, the Angel's send a message through Anna. Dean will hand her over by midnight or be sent back to hell.

There is an interesting sidebar where Anna tells Dean that the Angels know what he did in Hell, and that he should forgive himself. Did I miss something? A new long tail mystery? Somebody help me out. Before we get too caught up in that, though, Dean proves that the Winchester pheromones are the best going when, yes, he winds up bagging the Angel in the back of the Impala. Only on Supernatural.

Ruby, meanwhile, meets up with Alistair at the crossroads to make an offer. She'll deliver the Angel if the Demons give up on her and the Winchesters. The demons, though, make a counter offer. Before we know it, Ruby is bound to a table getting the business end of the demon knife.

It turns out, though, that the Angels have apparently been watching Supernatural pretty closely because they finally get what they want, not by threatening Dean with hell though-by making him choose between Sam being killed or Anna.

The highlight of the episode comes when Alistair shows up with a few demon henchmen, finally some Angel vs Demon MMA action. Surprisingly, Al gets the upper hand on Castiel, but Anna saves the day by retrieving her grace from Uriel, who had it all along. Definitely an awesome end to a great episode, but I'm a little puzzled as to why Supernatural is going on Winter hiatus without a good cliffhanger.