Episode Report Card Demian: A | 1 USERS: A+ YOU GRADE IT The Hardy Boys Do Hollywood
By Demian | Season 2 | Episode 18 | Aired on 04.18.2007
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.I loved this episode, from Sam freaking out when they get near the Stars Hollow set, to the constant derogatory references to McG, to Dean quoting Die Hard -- it was delicious. Cheesy, sure, but DELICIOUS! There's even some comments about the Hollywood weather seeming more like Canada that just beg this episode to be called "Metawood Babylon."
On to the plot! Sam and Dean arrive on a horror movie set, which seems to be experiencing a haunting. It turns out that the first haunting was staged to goose some life (or death) into the actors, but then a successive series of grisly events don't seem to be so Hollywoodized. After studio suit and familiar wank Gary Cole dies a death that so many Office Space fans have surely dreamed of, Sam and Dean kick into gear. Well, Dean mostly stuffs his face with craft services and revels in being a PA, but he does still manage to uncover some audio stuff. When another studio suit is sucked into a fan, I really began to wonder if they were getting back at Demian for his comment about Vic Morrow's decapitation in his last recap. Which is impossible, right? Because these things are shot far in advance, right? Yet, when you consider that another studio suit closed down the ghost-ridden set -- post the Cuisinarting of the fellow studio suit -- in a way reminiscent of Landis shutting down the Twilight Zone: The Movie set after Morrow was decapitated and then gave a "the show must go on" speech, which harkened back to the insensitive eulogies that Landis and George Folsey Jr. gave at Morrow's funeral, well, it's just SCARILY coincidental.
ANYWAY, it turns out that a disgruntled writer has been calling upon murdering spirits to mete out revenge against the studio suits who ruined his perfectly good screenplay. After Sam corners him, the guy has a minor tantrum and throws down his demonic talisman, smashes it, and unwittingly frees his ghost slaves. Sam ominously tells him that they can no longer protect him, and we get to watch the disgruntled writer get flayed alive by his ghosts. It's a lesson to all writers out there: be any good, and risk dying a bloody and painful death at the hands of your personal demons.
At the end of the episode, Dean goes off to have creaky trailer sex with the star of the horror movie, and Sam probably spends most of his time avoiding Rory Gilmore. (Who wouldn't, right?) Want more? The full recap starts right below!
Attention! Once again, before we begin, Raoul The Big Gay Supernatural Dragon would like to take a moment of your time to make an announcement. "Thanks! [Ahem!] Keckler is the bomb! Hee! See what I did there?!" Yes. Yes, we see what you did there, because you did the exact same thing the last time she so graciously agreed to cover the recaplet, RAOUL. "Well! In all my life, I have never been spoken to so rudely! As if I'm expected to remember what I said an entire month ago! Why, I can barely remember that delicious bowl of plump springtime..." You're talking about what you had for breakfast this morning? "Of course!" Don't. "But they were simply...!" No. Do yourself a favor, and don't. "Fine!" And now, on with the recap:
Crackle, Crackle NOT! Again with the leaping right into the middle of the action! I'm beginning to think The Kripkeeper resents us. In any event, the camera fades up on a photogenically moonlit stone cabin as a lone owl hoots in the background. A presumably damp and chilly wind blows across the rickety wooden porch of the thing, pushing the empty two-seater swing back and forth on its creaky chains. Soon enough, as a set of low and ominous horns arrive on the soundtrack, a hyperventilating chippie emerges onto the porch with a flashlight and edges into the yard, angling the beam back and forth into the dark woods beyond. "Mitch?" she calls out in a rather masculine-sounding voice, because she is a brunette. "Ashley?" she continues, forlorn and freaking. "You out here? Come on, guys, where are you?" By the hitching and near-sobs in her voice, we can tell she's absolutely terrified. Normally, of course, we'd be able to tell she's absolutely terrified by what I'm certain are the subtle expressions and cunning facial tics now dancing across the actress's features, but the scene's so goddamned darkly lit, I can barely tell she's human at this point, so it's a good thing for those hitches and near-sobs, now isn't it? Mysterious rustling noises abound around her, only heightening her apparent unease until, just as a screeching set of upwailing strings shrills its way onto the soundtrack to join the low and ominous horns, a man's hand reaches into the frame and latches onto her shoulder. The brunette screams and spins around, only to discover it was actually one of her apparent acquaintances who'd so unadvisedly sneaked up behind her. "Brody!" she chides, but before she gets any further, Brody heaves, "Ashley and Todd! They're dead, Wendy! They're dead!" Brody's seen enough, and wants to haul ass on out of these freaky woods, pronto. Wendy, however, refuses to leave without her sister. Cowardly Brody pays her no mind and sprints off into the darkness on his own -- and we all know how well that's going to work out for him -- leaving Wendy behind to bellow uselessly after his rapidly vanishing form. "God, you son of a bitch!" Wendy eventually howls, pounding a fist of frustration against her forehead until...the camera leaps around to advance upon her menacingly through the underbrush at her back! Wendy whips her head back and forth at the sounds of random twigs snapping around her until the camera pounces. Wendy spins to face it at the last instant and unhinges her lower jaw to...scream?