Episode Report Card Demian: C | 1 USERS: A YOU GRADE IT The Hardy Boys Check In To The Overlook Hotel
By Demian | Season 2 | Episode 11 | Aired on 01.17.2007
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.Wow. After last week's comparatively complicated goings-on, this one was so straightforward, I barely know what to do with it. Because of an urgent tip from Ellen, Our Intrepid Heroes temporarily abandon their search for the still-missing Ava in Peoria and head off to Connecticut, where a series of bizarre and ghastly deaths have been plaguing a century-old hotel for the past month. After deciding that the butler did not, in fact, do it, Our Dear Boys eventually realize the owner's daughter's "imaginary friend" is:
A. The spirit of the owner's stroke-crippled mother's long-dead elder sister; B. The supernatural meanie responsible for the series of bizarre and ghastly deaths; and C. Now gunning for the owner's kid, because she doesn't want to be Casperina The Lonely Ghost anymore.
Creepy little girls! With creepy antique dolls! In a big, creepy hotel! And in a shocking twist, Our Intrepid Heroes do not, in fact, save the day. Sure, the hotel's owner and her child make it through the episode alive thanks to multiple assists from Action Sammy, but it's the stroke victim who ends up sacrificing herself to end the spectral moppet's short-lived reign of terror. The sisters, reunited in death, end the episode merrily skipping rope together in what I'm hoping is not a bit of foreshadowing for the boys themselves. Though, of course, the image of Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles skipping rope together is unnaturally amusing.
More naturally amusing were all of the many, many shout-outs to the fans -- like Drunk Sammy calling Dean "bossy and short," to mention just one of them here -- but those can wait for the recap proper. All in all, a most enjoyable evening. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
Before we begin, Raoul The Big Gay Supernatural Dragon correctly believes he'd be horribly remiss were he not first to offer his thanks to the kind folks at The Striped Wall. "Indeed!" Raoul shrieks enthusiastically. "Their screencaps are so clear, I can practically taste the gore!" And with that, on with the show:
Crackle, Crackle THEN! Read the recap, because nothing in the Crackle, Crackle THEN! took place earlier than last week, from The Aggravating Reveal Of The Big Fat Hairy Secret That So Totally Was Not Worth Our Time, to Sam meeting Ava, to Sam and Dean's conversation in the Impala towards the end of the episode, to Our Intrepid Heroes discovering Ava's fiancé swimming in a pool of his own blood, with Ava herself missing.
Crackle, Crackle NOW! An ancient, carved, oaken sign creakily swings into view through the blackness that follows to inform us of a vacancy at the "Pierpont Inn," which was established in 1930, if you care about that sort of thing. The camera inches down beneath the sign to reveal the Pierpont's nighttime façade, and the place is a splendid old Tudor-style pile of tremendous proportions. I'm jealous already. A white box van trundles past the front door as the inn's sign continues to squeak in the chilly breeze.
A few moments later, the inn's petite owner leads the rather rotund driver of the van through the dimly lit and beautifully paneled first-floor hallway towards the grand staircase. The mantle in the foreground of the shot and the stairwell wall in the back are positively packed with sepia-toned and elaborately framed portraits of what we'll presently learn are this woman's ancestors. "Most of the stuff is up here," the owner explains, leading the way to the second floor. "I still can't believe you're closing this house," the rotund driver notes, looking up to marvel at the architecture. "My parents got engaged here," he reveals. "My grandparents, too." "A lot of people did," the owner smiles before efficiently directing the guy towards the back of the second-floor hallway, where he'll find the boxes he came to retrieve. The camera circles up the remaining flight of stairs with him to land upon two identically dressed little girls perched next to each other on the floor in the balustrade's nooks, their Mary Jane-clad feet casually dangling from the second-floor gallery as they eye the fat man's progress towards the back of the manor. "Preadolescent girls frighten me to death!" shrieks Raoul, clutching one paw to his suddenly jittery heart while using the other to fan away at his unsettled face. "They're the most insidious evil on the face of the planet!" he insists. "We're barely a minute and a half into the tonight's presentation, and already I'm practically paralytic with terror!"