“Supernatural” (Season 6, episode 9: “Clap You Hands If You Believe,” CW)

“Supernatural” is a horror series that follows two brothers, Sam (Jared Padalecki) and Dean (Jensen Ackles) Winchester, as they wander the back roads of America in their '67 Chevy Impala, hunting creatures that most people believe only exist nightmares. Armed only with their father's journal on demon hunting, and some gi-normous shotguns, the two brothers take up his crusade to hunt down evil and shoot it.

Season 5 ended with Sam being sucked into Hell while fighting to put Lucifer back in his cage and, in the process, saving the world. Season 6 has brought Sam back from Hell, but without a soul. His state of soullessness has not only reversed the roles of the two brothers, with Dean now being the more sensitive and humane hunter of the pair; it has also created a rift between them. Without a soul, Sam is unable to empathize, lacks impulse control, and basically can’t be trusted as an ally. He is childlike, but in a creepy bad-seed kind of way. It has been a dark season thus far. “Clap Your Hands If You Believe” didn’t ignore this part of the season’s storyline, but it did inject a mega dose of humor into it.

This episode is postmodernism at its finest. The cultural references come so fast and thick, it’s actually hard to keep up, and you want to keep up. The opening credits montage is a grand salute to the “X-files,” ending with the words, “The truth is in here.” As Sam and Dean arrive in Eldon, Indiana to investigate a series of mysterious disappearances, they meet a local woman who tells them that it is the work of fairies. Soulless Sam goes off on her, saying, “Don’t dump your whack-a-doo all over us.” The kinder Dean pulls him away and says, “Hey, it’s not her fault she got the brown acid,” in a delightful insider reference to the documentary “Woodstock.” This show knows its audience.

Dean is abducted from a crop circle while investigating a UFO sighting. As he runs through a cornfield pursued by bright lights he shouts, “Close encounter! Close encounter!” to Sam on his cell phone. Sam escapes, and, as it turns out, crazy brown acid lady is on the money. The ETs are actually fairies. Their search for the escaped Dean gives the show to create their own twisted fairy mythos. They love fresh cream and can be trapped by spilling salt or sugar, because they are compelled to count each grain. A fairy attacks Dean, in a fight scene set to David Bowie's "Major Tom,” and ends with Dean getting the fairy, to explode in the microwave.

When Dean returns, he goes to their hotel to find Sam in bed with a hippie chick that he dubs “Patchouli.” He is, of course, livid. Sam questions Dean about how he should have reacted when his brother was abducted and whether sex with a hippie chick could have been included while he waited for a lead on Dean's whereabouts. Like someone who must learn to walk again after a bad accident, Sam seems to be trying to learn how to be human again. The question is, what is his real agenda? Can you trust the words and actions who has no soul to guide them? And, if having a soul carries such a burden of responsibility with it, is Sam really better off without his? The show seems to hinting that Sam may prefer to remain without his soul, and that without all the messy humanity and emotion getting in the way, he may be a better hunter. Only time will tell.