Episode Details

Supernatural Season 9, Episode 8, Rock and a Hard Place recap 💍 Sam and Dean join a church abstinence group as born-again virgins (for investigative purposes, obviously) on Denim-wrapped Nightmares, a Supernatural rewatch podcast.

A string of disappearances in Hartford, South Dakota, all point to one church and its chastity group, and Jody Mills (Kim Rhodes) calls in the boys. Sam and Dean sign up for the APU (Abstinence Purifies Us) to investigate, and yes, the episode title is exactly as suggestive as it sounds. Meanwhile, Sam’s mysterious health situation gets harder to ignore, and Dean keeps almost telling him the truth.

Episode Highlights:

• A waitress, a tiny taser, and a giant shadow with blue fire (Berly’s guess: dragons again?)
• Sam falls asleep in his cereal bowl
• Jody Mills is back, and after her blind date with Crowley, she found Jesus
• Sam and Dean sign the pledge and officially become born-again virgins
• Jensen Ackles’s face during the entire chastity conversation
• Sam’s group introduction: “Every woman I’ve been with... it didn’t end well”
• Dean’s one-night-stand monologue: crossed legs, crumpled paper, and “a little too sticky”
• Tammy has the tea, making it two episodes in a row that Sam gets the gossip
• Dean is sure he knows the group leader from somewhere (the answer involves Casa Erotica and tacos)
• “I’m a virgin!” Sam volunteers for the virgin blood, and Jody has to break it to him

LA adored Dean’s monologue, and so did her mom, who was locked in from the moment the APU came up. Berly says the gods on this show are hit or miss, but this one is fun. The villain’s voice switch and monologue are great, and Berly wanted more of her. The hosts loved Dean and Susie’s chemistry, and Honor spinning her chastity ring on the table. Then the gore: those fingernails. Berly almost had to mute the TV. A monster also asks Sam “What’s wrong with you?” for the second time this season. And Berly suggests that next rewatch, they count Sam knockouts instead of blood splooges.

In the lore segment, LA covers Vesta, the Roman goddess of hearth and home, from her eternal flame in the Roman Forum to the Vestal Virgins sworn to chastity on penalty of death. The real Vesta was the least dramatic deity in the pantheon. Supernatural made her a crashed-out, liver-eating prude, and honestly, that's fair.

“I’d tell you boys to stay out of trouble, but what’s the point?” – Jody Mills

Your turn, hunters: Should born-again virgin blood count? And should the next rewatch count Sam knockouts instead of blood splooges? 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/Rock_and_a_Hard_Place
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vesta_(mythology)
• https://www.britannica.com/topic/Vesta-Roman-goddess
• https://mythopedia.com/topics/vesta/
• https://allthingsvesta.com/vesta-today

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Listen on: Apple Podcasts