I know a lot of people were extremely annoyed with Sam in this episode and his failure to search for/rescue Dean. However, if you binge watch the second half of Season 7 and then watch this episode immediately after, his actions make perfect sense. First, we had Ghost Bobby losing his dead-guy marbles due to his failure to move on; his final words to the Winchesters were "When it's your time to go, GO!" In other words, he was telling the boys that they need to stop trying to bring their departed loved ones back and let the natural order do its thing (which is basically what Death himself had also told Dean in Season 6). Which leads to the second thing: for all Sam knew, Dean WAS indeed dead. Remember, as Crowley told Sam in the last minutes of the Season 7 finale: "You are well and truly on your own." Sam didn't have Cas to check if Dean was in Heaven, he didn't have Bobby to turn to for lore, and Crowley certainly wasn't going to help. So what could anyone legitimately expect Sam to do, other than move on with his life in whatever way he could?
Best scenes of this episode:
- Dean's montage in the beginning to "Man in the Wilderness" (it's a perfect theme song for him), leading to the reveal that he's now buddies with a vampire.
- Dean's interactions with food. When he refuses Sam's offer of dinner and then doesn't choose something from the motel vending machine, Sam knows something is seriously wrong with his brother...so he orders him a burger as a peace offering.
- the hotel "bro-ment" where they try to reconnect and catch each other up on what they each did for the past year.