Oh, Sera Gamble, you led me astray. The Supernatural exec producer told me ‘You’ll laugh and maybe shed a single perfect tear” when I watch “Abandon All Hope.” One tear? C’mon, my waterworks were in full gush!

OK, there was a chuckle when the fabulous Mark Sheppard (Battlestar Galactica’s colorful lawyer Romo Lampkin) shows up as flamboyant demon Crowley who seals an unholy deal with an aging male banker by planting a smacker on his lips, relaxes by watching Nazi rally films and savors his wine. But the mood quickly darkens.

Crowley, as we learned last week, has the demon-killing Colt and surprisingly willingly gives it up to Sam (Jared Padalecki) and Dean (Jensen Ackles) with instruction to “empty” its bullets “into Lucifer’s face.” Lucifer, he argues, doesn’t just hate humans (“filthy bags of pus”) but uses demons simply as “cannon fodder.” He will exterminate both species.

The boys take the Colt back to Bobby’s (Jim Beaver)—where fellow hunters Jo (Alona Tal) and Ellen (Samantha Ferris) are trading whiskey shots with angel ally Castiel (Misha Collins). They pinpoint Lucifer’s evil aura in Carthage, Missouri. As the hunters spend what Castiel calls their “last night on earth,” before they go hunt the devil, the wheel-chair bound Bobby who has to stay, snaps a group portrait.

Under a tattered banner that says “Anti-God is Anti-American,” the four hunters enter what seems like a deserted town. It’s not. It’s full of Reapers, creatures that arrive when carnage is on the way. Only Castiel can see them and because they are legion, he knows lots of death will soon be arriving.

Castiel is the first one in trouble. Lucifer imprisons his fellow rebel angel in a ring of holy fire and tries to seduce him over to his side against the angels who cast them both out. But things turn really hellish, when demon Meg (Rachel Minor) appears—after all, her dear old Dad (Lucifer) is in town—and she releases the Hellhounds. They may be invisible but they can tear human guts out and that’s what they do to poor Jo. Sam, Dean and her mom Ellen carry her into a hardware store and surround themselves with salt. Dean calls Bobby, who tells him that Lucifer is planning to unleash “Death, the Pale Rider himself” at a farm that was the site of the Civil War battle of Hellhole.

But death is already near by. Mortally wounded, Jo persuades the rest to build a bomb that will destroy the hounds. She will set it off after the others escape. And if I wasn’t already crying, this would do it: Dean tells Jo, “I’ll see you on the other side. Probably sooner than later,” and kisses her. But Ellen won’t leave her child and holds her as she dies and then pushes the button. Then boom! Ellen and Jo, we’ll miss you.

Sam and Dean get to the farm where Lucifer is performing a ritual to bring forth Death. When Sam shoots him with the coveted Colt, he doesn’t die. The Colt cannot kill the Devil. He then tells Sam that he expects to take over his body within six months in Detroit. And as he talks, he tries to seduce Sam as he lists why they’re so similar. “I had an older brother who I loved… who turned on me and called me freak… because I was different.”

Castiel eventually escapes, just in time to see Lucifer standing over a pit. “Oh, hello Death,” the Evil One says, looking down.

We’re left with news reports of “staggering death tolls” from tornadoes and storms as Bobby throws the photo of the hunters in the fire. And the images of our heroes burn.

Did the last show before hiatus live up to your expectations? Will you miss Ellen and Jo? Who would you like to play God, when he/she finally appears?

And make sure to check out our interview with Sera Gamble, who previews some winter episodes, here.