Episode Report Card Tippi Blevins: C- | 142 USERS: B YOU GRADE IT The Unrelated Hardy Boys Suck
By Tippi Blevins | Season 9 | Episode 13 | Aired on 02.04.2014
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.A competitive eater dies after losing 300 pounds in a matter of seconds. A bride-to-be meets her end after losing about 100. Sam and Dean head to Minnesota to investigate, after first reaffirming their "not brothers anymore" deal from last week. So these totally unrelated assholes find out that the victims both bear strange suction marks. Their hunt brings them to the Canyon Valley health spa, where Sam is hired on as a yoga instructor and Dean as kitchen help.
The spa is run by a woman named Maritza, and her husband... Mr. Maritza. Neither his name nor his part in the episode is especially memorable. At first, everything seems to be legit, or as legit as any of these "quick fix" places can be. But then while Maritza is performing cupping therapy on a client, she extrudes from her mouth a wriggly suction tube and helps herself to some sweet, sweet fat. This leaves a suction mark identical to those left by the cups. The client is asleep the whole time, and wakes up to discover that she's suddenly 10 pounds lighter.
While dishing up some diet pudding, Dean can't help but sample some of the goods himself. Like, he thinks people might be dying there, but he's going to eat the food? Smart. Well, he promptly passes out, because somebody roofied the pudding. Meanwhile, Maritza and her husband discover that the new employees – on whom they did no background check whatsoever – are hunters. Sam finds Dean and sobers him up again just in time to find Maritza hurriedly disposing of her cache of human lard. She confesses that she's a Peruvian fat-sucker, but insists that she's not a murderer. She and her human husband started the spa so that she could feed a little bit without hurting anybody. The real culprit is her brother, who can't stop gorging on fat.
The brother goes on a killing spree at the spa, taking down his own brother-in-law, among others. He goes after Sam, too, but just to get rid of him and not to feed, because Sam has, like, zero percent body fat. Luckily, Dean slices off the fat-sucker's wriggly tube just in time, which instantly kills him. Dean wants to kill Maritza, too, just because she's a monster, even though every indication is that she's fairly good, and just last week he let other good monsters live. It's just the show's contrived way of showing how very different the brothers are. Er, sorry – how very different these totally unrelated assholes are.
In the end, Dean and Sam return to the Lair O' Letters, where Dean says he doesn't regret saving Sam. He'd do it again, even. His mistake is thinking that Sam would do the same for him, but the man formerly known as baby bro quickly disabuses him of that notion. Stay tuned for the full recap, which will probably contain rather a lot of cursing.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!THEN! Sam and Dean went through the millionth iteration of their Great Big Mopey Problems. Sam said their relationship was broken, and that they don't see things the same way anymore. "I can't trust you," he said. Dean replied, "All right, well, have a nice life! I'll continue on my separate path!" Just kidding. He just meekly accepted that everything was his fault and agreed to hunt with Sam again, even if it meant they couldn't be brothers anymore.
NOW! Here we are in Stillwater, Minnesota, as an audience counts down the last seconds of the Great Lakes Regional Hot Dog Eating Championship. The finalists are a rather large fellow with a patchy beard, and a skinny guy with stringy hair. The emcee is wearing a mustard-colored suit that has hotdogs printed all over it, and a tie the exact color of ketchup straight from the squeeze bottle. I feel like more thought was put into this guy's costume than was put into the continuity of the Winchesters' genuine problems. The big guy stuffs hot dogs into his cheeks, which draws the referee's ire. "No chipmunking allowed! Swallow or you're disqualified!" The big guy nods furiously and continues jamming his craw with tubes of miscellaneous animal rectums and hooves. Finally, the buzzer sounds and the ref checks each contender's platter. The big guy has one fewer left on his. "Looks like we got a wiener," says the ref, holding the big guy's hand up in the air. "He cheated!" protests his skinny competitor. "I saw you slip a hot dog in your pocket!" The big guy scoffs and says, "I hate to break it to ya pal, but that's no hot dog!" The audience erupts in cheers and laughter and hoots. The skinny guy slinks away in defeat as the big guy is handed his winnings.
Later that night, after the parking lot has emptied of potential witnesses, the big guy squeezes into his car and studies his trophy admiringly. He laughs and laughs, then pulls the hot dog from his pants pocket. It is remarkably un-squashed, considering its hiding place. He laughs at the hot dog, too, and then bites into it with a sigh of satisfaction. For some reason, loud stripper music can be heard coming from the competition venue, even though everybody seems to have left. Anyway, while the champ is eating his cold, elicit hot dog, he hears a clunk outside his car. He rubs at the condensation his window, sees nothing, and laughs some more.
He laughs and laughs right up until a hooded figure pops up in back seat. Champ suddenly jerks and flails with such force that bits of hot dog and masticated bun fly from his mouth. Whatever is attacking him sounds like a shop vac trying to suck up clam chowder from a kiddie pool. Champ's round face grows gaunt and wrinkled, and his belly deflates until his clothes are even looser than Dean's. As the mystery attacker exits the car, the camera focuses on the bumper sticker. Bacon makes everything better. Now, I wrote in a previous recap that when the gender of a character is obscured, then it's almost always a woman. However, when the obvious suspect is a woman, then the mystery character almost always turns out to be a man. Frankly, I was hoping it would be some kind of vengeful porcine god. "That's what you get for eating my brethren! Oink!"