 Brett Love of TV Squad, on the other hand, "[stopped] short of calling [it] an excellent finale". 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. McCormick "impressed" him as Lilith, but he did not find her as "menacing and scary" as Fredric Lehne's Azazel. The villain's storyline of terrorizing a family would have made a "great regular episode", but was not epic enough for a finale. 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". She otherwise liked the episode, and gave it a score of 8.9 out of 10. 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". Like Charles, she applauded the acting, noting that "we feel [Dean's] fear as the deadline approaches". She went on to write that Padalecki's "best moments are in the barely contained rage at his inability to save his brother, and in his grief at losing Dean", while "Lilith and her little girl mannerisms in Ruby's body were far more chilling, and interesting, than Ruby's tough chick persona ever has been".
