Supernatural season 10, episode 19, “The Werther Project,” featured a number of surprising twists. We look at our favorites from the episode.

In Supernatural season 10, episode 19, “The Werther Project,” Sam went in search of a codex that Rowena needed to translate the Book of the Damned. It turns out the Men of Letters had obtained the book and locked it up behind a pretty serious spell that caused those exposed to commit suicide. Dean joined Sam and ended up affected by the spell. He was subjected to a hallucination of Purgatory and Benny. Dean, however, made his way back to reality in time to save Sam from bleeding out in an effort to open the box containing the codex. The episode closed with Dean reiterating to Sam that they are stronger together than apart.

The episode was filled with twists and turns. Somehow, after ten seasons Supernatural is still finding ways to surprise us. In honor of that, we look at our top five unexpected moments.

The cold open

The cold open of any Supernatural episode usually features a gruesome death of some sort, but the cold open to “The Werther Project” was unexpectedly dark. It was a bit longer than usual and featured a teenage girl accidentally unearthing a box protected by a spell — one that pushed her father, brother, and mother to commit suicide.

While fans of Supernatural are no strangers to horrific deaths, this was a surprisingly brutal, both physically and emotionally, way to open an episode — so much so that Jared Padalecki felt the need to warn viewers ahead of time:

Magnus returns… sort of

Cutherbert Sinclair, aka Magnus, first appeared in Supernatural season 9, episode 16, “Blade Runners.” A member of the Men of Letters, he was the Master of Spells. However, he eventually left the Men of Letters because his work was deemed too extreme and eccentric. He was killed by Dean in “Blade Runners,” but death is never the end of the story on Supernatural.

He returned in flashback in this episode as the creator of the Werther Box, which protected the codex from the Grand Coven. Magnus’ “return” was a pleasant surprise, as it gives the history of the Men of Letters a sense of continuity.

Dean kills ‘Benny’

We knew our favorite Cajun vampirate would be back for this episode from promotional materials, but the context of that was unclear until we found Dean trapped in the Purgatory of his imagining. Benny is one of our favorite new characters from the last couple of seasons, so we were excited to see him again in any context.

The biggest surprise, though, came from Dean. Dean, who has seemingly accepted his impending destruction (after all, the Mark won’t let him die) at the hands of the Mark, found a reason to fight the encouragement to kill himself and come back to reality — to Sam. And to do so, he had to kill Benny; he might not have been real, but he still wore the face of someone Dean cared about. That he would do so is pretty significant for Dean’s arc as the season moves toward its climax.

Rowena was a hallucination

We admit it, we didn’t see this fake-out coming — but in hindsight, it makes perfect sense. Rowena appeared, after offering to come along on Sam’s quest and being rejected, in time to save Sam from Suzie’s ghost pushing him to kill himself. That seemed like it would have taken care of the spell’s effect on Sam, but no! Her actions never seemed out of character for a villain in a tenuous alliance with the hero, and that’s perhaps what was so perfect about the spell’s deception.

Well played, Supernatural. Well played.

Sam shackles Rowena

The Winchesters are no strangers to making deals with unsavory characters as a means to saving each other. Sam teaming up with Rowena, then, isn’t particularly surprising. What we particularly enjoyed was Sam’s foresight is the sense of development. He’s been burned by bad alliances before, so he came prepared this time. After giving Rowena the codex, he shackled her with iron to presumably limit her ability to do magic.

This was clearly a twist to Rowena as well. She was so startled that the best stuttering insult she could come up with was “Giant.” Not her best. If Sam is going to make a deal with the devil, so to speak, it’s nice to see he’s doing it with open eyes.

Supernatural airs Wednesdays at 9:00pm ET on The CW.

What were your favorite moments in ‘Supernatural’ season 10, episode 19, ‘The Werther Project’?