Episode Details

Supernatural Season 4, Episode 15, Death Takes a Holiday recap 🪦 Nobody in town can die, the Reapers have gone missing, and Sam and Dean have to become ghosts to figure out why on Denim-wrapped Nightmares, a Supernatural rewatch podcast. Plus: Tessa is BACK.

The episode opens with a man taking a bullet outside a bar... and walking it off. No blood, no death, just a smoking hole. The boys roll in and quickly learn no one in town has died in over a week, including a kid named Cole (Alexander Gould), who's stuck as a ghost in his own house. To find the missing Reapers, Sam and Dean need to astral project, so they call in an old friend, psychic Pamela Barnes (Traci Dinwiddie), who is NOT thrilled to be there. Then they meet a familiar Reaper: Tessa (Lindsey McKeon), from In My Time of Dying.

Episode Highlights:

• A bullet wound that just... smokes
• Dean: "The Reaper's on strike. He's out hitting the back nine."
• Sam's terrible lying (practice, Sammy), and Dean FINALLY calling him out on it
• LA's mysterious solar plexus feeling (we looked it up)
• Christopher Heyerdahl (Hell on Wheels, Peacemaker) taking over as Alastair and giving the boys a taste of their own rock salt
• Pamela's back, irritated and awkward, and we love her
• Cole describing his Reaper (we were SURE it'd be prune face from Faith)
• Sam's gorgeous profile while lying to a child (jail may look good on him)
• Ghost lessons: flashing in and out, punching people, being a poltergeist
• Tessa's warning to Dean about lying to himself

In the lore segment, we dig into astral projection, the spiritual practice featured in Doctor Strange, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, and Netflix's Behind Her Eyes: how the idea dates back thousands of years, how theosophy (the 19th-century idea that we have seven bodies) revived it, and why somewhere between 8 and 20 percent of people say they've had an out-of-body experience.

"I'm infected with demon blood. You've been to hell. Look, I know you want to think of yourself as Joe the Plumber, Dean, but you're not. Neither am I. The sooner you accept that, the better off you're gonna be." – Sam Winchester

Your turn, hunters: Would YOU astral project if you could? And did you recognize Tessa right away? Tell us in the Spotify comments, leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts (it's how new hunters find us), or send us fan mail. Bonus points for fandom fun facts we missed.

Sources:

• https://supernatural.fandom.com/wiki/Death_Takes_A_Holiday
• https://www.healthline.com/health/solar-plexus-pain
• Christopher Heyerdahl: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0382216/
• https://www.livescience.com/27978-astral-projection.html

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Denim-wrapped Nightmares is a Supernatural rewatch podcast hosted by Berly and LA, breaking down every episode of the Winchester saga with lore deep-dives plus cast and crew interviews. Special thanks to David Fesliyan and Fesliyan Studios.

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