On its own this is a good episode. It has nice bro melodrama and Ackles does well enough to keep the episode feeling like a thriller. But it is an episode built around ad hoc flashbacks to give the current episode more emotional weight or investment. I really hate how the show repeatedly uses this device of contriving events in the past that only are brought up as a way of telling the current episodes. Sometimes they end up double down on idiotic aspects of the show. OF COURSE Sam's first kiss is with a monster. This is the worst use of the device but it is one of the most trite examples.
Review of The Girl Next Door
