The narrative follows the series' protagonists Sam (Jared Padalecki) and Dean Winchester (Jensen Ackles)—brothers who travel the continental United States hunting supernatural creatures—as they attempt to save the latter's soul from damnation.

Lilith, meanwhile, is entertaining herself by possessing a young girl (Sierra McCormick) and terrorizing her family, a homage to the Twilight Zone episode "It's a Good Life".

Marking the final appearance of Katie Cassidy as the demon Ruby, the episode was originally intended to feature the return of Samantha Ferris as recurring character Ellen Harvelle.

He gathers them together in the second-season finale "All Hell Breaks Loose" and coerces the young adults into a fight to the death to determine a leader for his demonic army.

The Winchesters, Bobby, and fellow hunter Ellen Harvelle kill Jake and Azazel, but are too late to prevent the release of hundreds of demons from Hell.

His brother, Sam (Padalecki), tells him that Bobby has devised a way to locate Lilith, but unconvinced that it will succeed, Dean suggests he live up the rest of his time.

Sam secretly summons her and asks for her knife, and Ruby tells him that his dormant psychic abilities could easily kill Lilith, whose guard is down as she is on "shore leave".

Sam considers the alternative, but Dean shows up and tricks Ruby into a devil's trap—mystical symbols capable of rendering a demon powerless—and the brothers take her knife and leave.

Sam finds the possessed girl in her bedroom, and although initially hesitant he prepares to strike until he is stopped by Dean, who reveals that Lilith has left her.

[11] Following the mythological Lilith's role of "destroyer of children",[12] the demon takes on a child host portrayed by Sierra McCormick.

Anything less than that would have been a cop-out, because we'd been saying there was no way to break that contract.The writers initially intended that Sam would save Dean from Hell, possibly even before "No Rest for the Wicked", by giving in to his demonic powers and becoming "this fully operational dark force" who would then want to go after Lilith.

"[18] The episode's final moments linger on Dean "meat-hooked in the center of what looks like a thousand mile spiderweb of rusty chains", a scene Kripke described as "M. C. Escher meets Hellraiser".

[19] Discussions between Kripke, Manners, and Hayden led to the decision to present "one epic glimpse" of Hell,[19] though they avoided aspects such as fire and brimstone to focus on more affordable visuals.

Though the scene matched with the many versions of "chains and people being ripped apart", art director John Marcynuk felt they should have made it "a little more mysterious and dark".

"[19] In series writer Sera Gamble's opinion, Dean's location is more of the "waiting room"—the place "they stick you before they hand you the sign-in sheet"—a far cry from what he will experience "once he gets into the first chamber of Hell".

[24] The neighborhood scenes were shot in a cul-de-sac of million-dollar homes, and production housed the residents in hotels for two nights to allow for filming.

[13] The terrorizing scenes thus featured child sounds such as the high register of a toy piano, which used a "low approach underneath it" to make it "absolutely sinister".

[31] BuddyTV's Don Williams deemed the finale "absolutely fantastic",[32] and ranked it tenth on his list of the top Supernatural episodes of the first three seasons.

[33] Although he "respected the show for having the guts to follow through with [Dean's] deal"[32]—the ending was a "complete jaw-dropper"[33]—he pointed out the previous times the Winchesters have died and were subsequently resurrected.

[32] Likewise, TV Guide's Tina Charles described the episode as "creepy and suspenseful and funny and sad and just plain awesome", and felt it came close to outdoing the first-season finale "Devil's Trap".

Although it "got off to a shaky start with some weirdly paced scenes", it ended up a "finale that wrapped us in sticky threads of old fears, mind-bending new business and one awesome Bon Jovi song".

While the deal's payoff was "fantastic"—he was surprised by Dean's death, and looked forward to its implications for the fourth season—Love was slightly disappointed with Lilith.

[37] Diana Steenbergen of IGN felt the scenes of Lilith's shore leave briefly "[dragged] the episode down" because the viewers "understood the situation quickly enough".

Steenbergen enjoyed the "first-rate brotherly scenes", and was happy that the series followed through with its promise of sending Dean to Hell, commenting that the related hellhound attack was "one of the scariest things the show has done yet".