I am sorry I didn’t get to this recap sooner, as it’s the first Season Six episode of Supernatural that isn’t Bobby- or Castiel-heavy that I loved. “Clap Your Hands if You Believe” actually starts out un-promisingly inasmuch as the X-Files rip will no doubt pale in comparison to the glory of “Changing Channels” and we already know that it’s not aliens, it’s faeries. On the other hand, how could Dean bellowing at Sam to “get those faeries” from the back of a black and white ever be a bad thing?

Let’s skip over most of the first twenty minutes, given what we know. Notable: Misha Collins’ credits only appearance and Soulless Sammy getting kind of hilariously angry at a lady who insists it isn’t aliens but faeries who have taken the fine citizens of Elwood, Indiana. Dean drags him off, and Soulless Sammy’s like, “What?” Dean: “Do you have to ask? Oh, you do have to ask.” Delusional Dean explains that the Sam of yore would have gifted the crazy lady with his Super Special Puppy Dog eyes. That hasn’t been true for years, and Dean admitted as much in “Jump the Shark,” but I can see how having Zombie Sam riding shotgun might have Dean wanting to return to a simpler, gentler, “too precious for this world” time. Soulless Sammy wonders if Dean wants him to fake having a soul. “Yes. Yes! Fake it. Fake it ‘til you make it.” And just like that, I love Dean again. Soulless Sammy points out that he was faking it before, and it was “exhausting” (how can you be exhausted yet not need sleep?).

Posing as journalists, Soulless Sammy and Dean question the Watchmaker, whose son was the first to get abducted. He’s suspicious enough that Soulless Sammy needs to be dragged off before he pulls out his daddy’s tools. Dean assigns Soulless Sammy to tail the Watchmaker while he investigates the crop circle where the abduction took place.