Episode Report Card Demian: A | 5 USERS: A YOU GRADE IT The Hardy Boys Are So Screwed
By Demian | Season 2 | Episode 12 | Aired on 01.24.2007
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.News of a series of robberies at banks and jewelry stores in Milwaukee, Wisconsin -- in which the perpetrators bizarrely commit suicide after committing the crimes -- sets the boys' collective Spidey-sense to tingling, so it's off to the land of the cheeseheads we go, where Sam and Dean, with the assistance of a doomed conspiracy theorist, quickly realize a particularly avaricious shape-shifter is responsible for the spree. Unfortunately, just as Our Intrepid Heroes go undercover at the only bank along the shape-shifter's sewer line that hasn't been hit, the doomed conspiracy theorist decides to take matters into his own tubby hands, locking the place down in a hostage situation that draws the unwelcome attention of both the local police and the FBI. The boys team briefly with the conspiracy theorist, but after a SWAT sniper takes out the fat guy, they're left to their own devices with a vault full of potential suspects inside the bank and a federal agent with a Winchester-shaped axe to grind outdoors. The guys finally manage to isolate the shifter, and after some awesome hand-to-hand combat during which we are treated to copious amounts of slimy gore, Dean kills her -- yes, her -- with a silver letter opener. And then? Why, only the MOST AWESOME ENDING, EVER! As the SWAT teams storm the bank, silent-but-deadly Action Sammy lurks in the shadows before pouncing to take two of them out, and the boys don the gentlemen's concealing uniforms to escape, right beneath the FBI's noses. And as Styx's "Renegade" arrives to fucking own the soundtrack, Our Dear Boys slump into Metallicar's front seat and realize they are oh, so very screwed. I can't wait to find out what happens next! Want more? The full recap starts right below!
Crackle, Crackle THEN! "Skin," mainly, especially the bit where NotDean's teeth worm their way out of his gums, just to gross us completely out all over again, with a little bit of "The Usual Suspects," including the scene wherein Linda Blair informs Action Sammy of El Deano's arrest for mur-- hey! What the hell? Just as Action Sammy's about to work himself into a pissily outraged fit over the charges against his brother, this "Breaking News" logo from Channel 8 slams onto the screen with a stereotypical "ding-ding-DING!" breaking-news-type music cue and appropriate teletype clatter in the background, despite the fact that no one's used a teletype machine in thirty-five years. Some on the boards -- who, one would hope, actually have a VHF Channel 8 affiliated with The CW in their viewing area -- actually believed the program was being interrupted, but I just thought someone at the network screwed up the edit and accidentally omitted the Crackle, Crackle NOW!
In any event, Asian Reporter Tricia Takanawa brings us up to speed on the hostage situation currently unfolding inside The City Bank Of Milwaukee at 685 West Hastings Street, an address which does not in fact exist in The City Of Beer, but does in fact happen to be the location of The Royal Bank in Vancouver. Go figure. "Though a short exchange of weapons fire occurred just minutes ago," Asian Reporter Tricia Takanawa tells us, "police and SWAT teams maintain position as we enter the third hour of this intense standoff." While she'd been babbling on, the news camera jumped all over the place to take in scores of squad cars, police, and nosy bystanders before landing on a pair of snipers training their rifles down at the bank below from a couple of windows high atop a nearby clock tower. There's more boilerplate breaking-news coverage until a commotion erupts at the bank's front door. The camera jerkily focuses in on three or four SWAT guys huddled next to an ambulance, covering the EMTs as the latter haul a gurney out of the back. There are another half-dozen or so SWATs arrayed around the door itself, ready to open fire on whomever's about to emerge. And as that person happens to be a bank security guard on the far end of middle age who pleads, "Don't shoot! Don't shoot!" with his hands in the air, the SWATs' commanding officer orders them to hold their fire via an open police radio within range of the reporter's microphone. In the blurry distance, we can see a flannel-clad figure pushing the guard down the steps, and we hear a man's voice shout, "Don't even think about it!" The news camera jerks around again before zooming in on the flannel-clad gent, and DUN! It's El Deano! Putting those luxuriously lashed doe eyes of his to perfect use, as it turns out, for the instant he realizes he's being filmed, he freezes like a deer in the headlights. The news camera wobbles a bit more as Dean gapes until he's gobbled up by the METAL TEETH CHOMP!