Supernatural: Nightmare

The Supernatural megaplot is really starting to kick in at this stage of Season One, but in a totally unexpected and almost left-field sort of way.

Sam wakes from a nightmare about a man being killed in his own garage by a unseen force. Arriving at the house the brothers discover Sam's vision has come true, but sneaking in to the wake disguised as priests ("A new low," as Sam puts it), they can't find any evidence of paranormal activity, and everyone is convinced that the man killed himself for unknown reasons.

Sam has a second vision, about the "suicide" victim's brother getting his head chopped off in a window-related accident. The Winchester brothers try to prevent the vision from coming true, but arrive too late. Again there are no indications of a paranormal presence.

Their investigations lead them back to the first man's son Max (Brendan Fletcher), and they realise he is not telling them something about the family's first home across town.

The clues from there - and another vision - lead the Winchesters to discover what it is really going on, but then the big revelations come as Sam tries to figure out why he is now having visions about people he doesn't know.

Everything ties in to the Winchester's backstory in a very shocking, and genuinely intriguing, way... and Sam manifests a new power!

Nightmare isn't the most spooky or frightening of Supernatural episodes, although there are some wince-worthy moments (particularly the knife-eyeball interface), but it moves the season arc along when I was expecting - from the first third of the story - another X-Files style investigation story.