In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close. You'll have to excuse me -- Jensen Ackles spent the entire episode wearing nothing more than a white t-shirt and a pair of light-blue drawstring scrub pants, so of course I had just a tiny bit of trouble following such tedious and unnecessary things like the dialogue and the plot. What I do remember is this: The episode picks up right where we left off at the end of last season, with the manly Winchester trio badly battered and bleeding in the brutalized Metallicar. They're soon enough airlifted to a nearby county hospital, where Sam and Shut Up Daddy rather quickly recover from their recent ordeal, the better to brood over poor comatose Dean, who, as you'll recall, was already suffering from massive demon-induced internal injuries even before that eighteen-wheeler twisted Metallicar into a crunchy pretzel. However, our intrepid Deano was never one to languish in bed when there's work to be done, and so his spectral self pops out of his near-dead body to wander the halls, where he soon enough meets up with Tessa, a Reaper initially disguised as a fellow near-dead patient. Tessa eventually manages to convince a predictably resistant Dean that it's time to move on to whatever plane of existence comes , just as Shut Up Daddy turns into Daddy Heroic through the trade he brokers with The Ceiling Demon: His life (and that damned dirty Colt, natch) for his son's. The episode ends with a certain Dr. Kripke pronouncing the time of death over John's rapidly cooling corpse as Sam and Dean gape in horror and disbelief from the doorway beyond. Sniff. You may rest assured that both Sam and John got in some very nice moments over the course of the hour, but the second season's opener really was All About Dean. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
Drunken Bee, I want to be you when I grow up.
Okay, let's get this out of the way up front: DAMN YOU, KRIPKE!
There. I feel so much better. For now. On to the longest "Previously on Supernatural" sequence in the history of man! (Feel free to skip the following if you're not new to the program.)
From the inky depths of the television screen, Bobby Singer's face emerges to warn Sam and Dean, "A storm's comin', and you boys? And your daddy? You are smack in the middle of it." The opening chord of Ted Nugent's "Stranglehold" hurls us back into the black for a moment before a huge, flaming "THEN" dances around a bit, fading away as Soon-To-Be-Burnt Mary races into The Imperiled Nursery Of Bleach-Blonde Doom to open her mouth with a full-throated scream. There's a quick cut to Daddy! John's impressive shout of horror as he spots his wife nailed to the nursery ceiling with a foot-wide gash through her torso right before the sheets of flame burst from her still-breathing body to ripple outwards and bounce back from the walls, immolating her. Daddy! John pushes The Tiny Sam Log into The Head That Ate Cleveland's arms before we cut again to the Winchesters' front lawn, where John sweeps both of his children up in his arms just as the nursery windows explode outwards above their heads. "Dad wants us to pick up where he left off," Dean whispers urgently in the voice-over as Dream Sam arrives at the cemetery to lay flowers on Jessica's grave and Real Sam plows the Impala through Constance Welch's spectral form out on Centennial Highway. "Saving people," the Dean VO continues as Dean himself breaks the surface of Lake Manitoc with both Lucas and tremendous amounts of slow-motion spluttering and gasps. "Hunting things," Dean VOs on, accompanied by a bit of Flashlightery Jazz Hands and Gun Porn, before Real Dean catches up with his voice-over to finish, "The family business!" ? A montage! Dean hoists a shotgun to blast a certain scarecrow three times in the chest, Sam wields a fireplace poker like a baseball bat and slams it through a certain homicidally inclined ghostly moppet, and Dean busts a flare in a certain frat-boy-chewing wendigo's ass, before we cross-fade to a lovingly lingering pan across the implements of mass destruction lining Metallicar's trunk. Unfortunately, there's nary a dream catcher in sight.
John's Voice Over picks up the narrative thread with, "Our whole lives, we've been searching for this demon." The demon in question is, of course, of the ceiling variety, as we see when we get another quick shot from the series premiere before John continues, blathering about that fucking Colt, The Gun Guaranteed To Kill Anything (like the vampire John dusts in the clip) Except When It Can't (like, uh, nothing in this sequence because they've conveniently chosen to ignore the whole "Except When It Can't" bit). John goes on about how they know where The Ceiling Demon will strike before he adds, "More and more demons are walking among us," and we see that confirmed through shots of Short-Lip Meg, a couple of the possessed from The Sunrise Apartments, and The Ceiling Demon's so-called son just whaling on poor Sammy before the former takes a magic bullet to the brain, courtesy of Dean. Cross-fades from Meg flipping out in her torture chair through Dean getting all up in the scarecrow's face before we finally start hitting the final moments of last season's finale. Possessed John reminds us all that he has "plans" not only for dear Sammy, but also for "all the children like" him. DUN! Manly tussling, demonic infliction of massive trauma to Dean's internal organs, and lots and lots of The Nuge before Sam finally snatches up that fucking Colt and blows a hole in his possessed father's leg. John screams for Sammy to finish him off (and with him, the demon possessing him) just as the demon shoots upwards from John's mouth in an ebony spray that coagulates in mid-air before vanishing downwards through the slatted floor of the cabin. Cut to Metallicar skidding through a turn on a rural highway, with Sam at the wheel and Shut Up Daddy snarling, "Why didn't you kill it?" from the passenger's seat. "We still got the [fucking] Colt," Sam pants, "we still got the one bullet left, and" WHAMMO! That eighteen-wheeler piloted by the possessed trucker t-bones Metallicar straight towards the camera lens and into the blackness beyond.
Okay, enough with the elaborate Previouslys set to the head-banging mullet rock, guys. I realize it was sort of necessary for tonight's season premiere, but seriously. This is the third episode in a row, for God's sake, and don't you all realize you totally blew your collective wad with "Carry On My Wayward Son" last season, anyway? Besides, dredging up those links was a BITCH.
A huge, flaming "NOW" emerges from the darkness to linger on the screen for a moment before we cross-fade to the wreck's immediate aftermath. The camera, starting from about thirty yards away, scurries up to the mangled Metallicar at an angle so low it might as well be some rat-like woodland scavenger scampering up to feast on the Winchesters' rapidly cooling remains. Credence Clearwater Revival's "Bad Moon Rising" can still be heard, even though (and yes, I actually went back and checked) last year's finale ended with the song's last twangy, ch-cha-chang-ing chord. I'll let that slide, though, because the song's presence under what follows is delightfully creepy. The camera lingers on Metallicar for a moment before cutting over to the demonically possessed trucker's boot slowly and deliberately stepping down from the cab. We pan up his denim-clad form to linger on his eerily waxy face. He turns his beetle-black eyes to the road to make sure he's alone, then starts over towards Our Boys. John's slumped unconscious in the front seat. Ditto for the elaborately-bloodied Dean in the back. Sam, puffy from his earlier beatdown, swallows and blinks his eye just as Demon Trucker stalks up to the driver's-side door. Demon Trucker latches onto the handle and the rear-view mirror and yanks, ripping the entire thing away from the rest of the car, only to find Puffy And Barely Conscious Sam waiting for him with that fucking Colt at the ready. "Get back, or I'll kill you, I swear to God," Puffy Sam gurgles. "You won't," the Demon Trucker challenges in an even tone of voice. "You're saving that bullet for someone else." Puffy Sam gathers whatever strength he has left to cock that fucking Colt, point its business end directly at Demon Trucker's chest, and sneer, "Wanna bet?" Demon Trucker smirks at this tepid display of manly heroics for a bit before that waxy face of his cracks apart in agony as the demon within takes its leave via a gout of black spray that shoots out of the trucker's mouth. It congeals into a cloud that hovers above the scene for a moment, then sweeps away on the breeze. Accompanied by the usual chorus of hellhounds howling and chittering on the soundtrack, of course. The dispossessed trucker collapses to his knees as Sam chokes out a sigh of relief while de-cocking that fucking Colt. As Sam allows his head to drop back against the seat, the dispossessed trucker -- face more sweat-sheened and ruddy than waxy now that the demon's gone, and that's a nice touch -- gapes and shudders out a horrified-yet-doddering, "Oh, my God! Did I do this?" Meanwhile, Sam's been calling for his father, who remains unresponsive. Go figure. Increasingly panicked, Sam swivels his head on the backrest and weakly bleats, "Dean?" before drawing in as much air as his no-doubt punctured lungs can handle to bellow, "DEAN!"
Sam's scream echoes on the soundtrack as the screen flares almost completely white. The camera, you see, has abruptly cross-faded itself into an into-the-sun shot. In a rather well-done effect, a Medivac helicopter gradually emerges from the glare to blot out the sun itself as it eases towards the ground. Quick shots of the still-unconscious Dean and John with neckbraces (and gauze!) being strapped onto backboards before being loaded into the chopper. Dean's still wearing his lucky amulet, by the way. Yeah. Lots of help you got from that stupid little poorly-defined trinket, Deano. As a paramedic shouts, "Significant passenger space intrusion!" -- like, duh, EMT Obvious. Have you taken even one look at their fucking car? -- Sam calls out from his own backboard, "Tell me if they're okay!" Getting no appropriate response from the pretty blonde in charge of his own transport, he bellows once more, "ARE THEY EVEN ALIVE?!" Oh, look at Puffy Sammy, finally getting all manly with the yelling and such. He's so cute!
Smash to a slow-moving pan down an almost-empty hospital corridor as a few tense strings saw away on the soundtrack. In one of the nearby rooms, Dean's profile suddenly snaps into the frame as he presumably bolts upright in bed. He blinks his great big doe eyes a couple of times before pivoting his torso around to swing his legs off the side of the bed. The shot cuts immediately to an under-the-bed perspective to catch his bare feet as they hit the linoleum. And do those bare feet make a sound? No. DUN! The camera pans up slowly to caress Jensen Ackles's scrubs-clad ass as Dean makes his somewhat bow-legged way over to the room's door. Out in the deserted hallway, Dean glances around while calling out first for his brother, then for his father, and then, still receiving no response, for anyone at all. Meanwhile, the camera's been booted to the far end of the hallway, where it plays tricky some more with the angles, this time slowly panning upwards to allow a red-lit EXIT sign to take up a full fourth of the screen in the foreground while tiny little woebegone bow-legged Dean wanders around all by his scantily-clad and barefoot lonesome in the deep and blurry background of the shot. Do you see where they're going with all of this? Good.
More camera trickiness as it cuts down to the hospital's main entrance foyer to drift along a stairwell railing before swiveling up and tilting into a disorienting angle as it catches Dean picking his way down towards the landing from above. As we hear a nurse take a call at the still-unseen reception desk, the camera speeds up to pull an extreme low-angle of Dean hoofing it down the remaining steps, and goddamn, but Jensen Ackles is working the shit out of his white v-neck t-shirt and those light-blue drawstring scrub pants. Woof. Ahem. Yeah. So, uh. Wow. Back to the action, I guess. Such as it is. Dean, host to a couple of scabby-looking cheek bruises and one giant forehead gash on his pretty, pretty face, winces a bit as he continues down the stairs, calling out, "Excuse me?" The receptionist does not reply. Rude! Or is she? Dean ambles over to the desk and explains, "I think I was in a car accident with my dad and my brother -- I just need to find them." The nurse -- who's sporting a wickedly complicated Botticelli-inspired coif with hideous roots -- continues to ignore the incredibly hot gentleman standing right in front of her in nothing more than a tight white v-neck t-shirt and a pair of light-blue drawstring scrub pants, so, you know. She's either a lesbian who's both blind and deaf, or Dean's a ghost. Ooops! Was that a spoiler? About Dean, I mean. I don't think anyone reading this gives a rat's ass about the nurse's orientation, eyesight, or hearing.
Dean realizes something's amiss just as the single tense string that had been occupying the soundtrack bursts out into a fully orchestrated roar of percussive panic. He powers through the upstairs hall, utterly ignored by the various hospital staffers milling about, to arrive back at the room from which he initially emerged. He swings into the doorway, only to pull up in shock at what he sees waiting for him in the bed: His own comatose body, hooked up to any variety of monitors and ventilators and machines that go "PING!" D'oh! Spectral Dean edges over to Vegetable Dean's side, and the camera lingers on both pretty faces -- one lax, the other contorted with fear, and I'll let you guess which one is which -- before we METAL TEETH CHOMP! into the opening titles...
...which have changed this year, and which are now totally awesome. A jaguar-like animal howls just as a burst of flame shoots from the center of the screen, quickly collapsing back into the familiar sheet of fiery ripples from the series premiere. The ripples condense to form the show's title -- the middle A replaced briefly by one of the good-for-you pentagrams -- before the title shudders all over the place, eventually skipping into the black. The Big Gay Supernatural Dragon says: "Now even the titles are flaming? Faaaaabulous!"
Fade up on Spectral Dean frowning at his Vegetable self as Puffy Sam wheels into the room from the corridor beyond. Jared Padalecki's wearing the same clothes he's had on since "Salvation," which is nice continuity, but damn. They've got to stank by now. Also, I suppose it goes without saying that Jared Padalecki needs to CUT HIS GODDAMNED HAIR ALREADY. Ahem. Puffy Sam, the right side of his face a garish mass of purply bruises and tiny crimson cuts, just gapes in dismay at his broccoli-brained brother in the bed while Spectral Dean enthusiastically beams, "Sammy! You look good, considering. Heh!" Sam The Amazingly Puffy Mind-Reader can't hear him, however, and simply steps towards the bed, his mouth twitching with unspoken misery. Spectral Dean, frustrated by his brother's non-responsiveness, pads around to the far side of the room to fluster, "Man, tell me you can hear me." Puffy Sam sort of twitches his head in Dean's direction for a second, but then redirects his attention to the enormous Dean-shaped clump of spinach lolling around underneath the covers, so apparently the answer is no. Incidentally, they pull a lot of effects tricks during the course of this episode wherein both Spectral and Jolly Green Dean appear in the same, continuous shot, and this is one of them, with Spectral Dean disappearing from the left side of the frame as the camera pans down to his body in the bed. They're all pretty seamless, so bravo. I get the feeling they're going to be a pain in the ass to recap, though. In any event, Spectral Dean tries once more to communicate with, "How's Dad? Is he okay?" Puffy Sam just sighs. "C'mon!" Spectral Dean protests. "You're the psychic! Give me some ghost-whispering, or something!" Alas, there is no ghost whispering to be had. Nor much of anything else, to be honest with you. Don't worry, though -- you can use this time to stare at Jensen Ackles's shoulders, as I'm doing now. Or maybe his chest, if that's more your thing. Or even his neck, maybe. Or perhaps that little depression where his shoulders and his chest meet his neck. Yum. Now I know why Kripke & Ko. keep these guys in layers all the time. It's too damn distracting otherwise. Yowza.
Now, where was I? Oh, yeah: Doctor Hibbert enters the room at this point to inform Puffy Sam that John's recovered consciousness, and that Sam can go see him if he'd like. "What about my brother?" Sam immediately asks, so you know where his true allegiance lies. As if you didn't before. Doc Hibbert gives Sam the depressing run-down on Dean's current condition: Jolly Green Dean's suffered blood loss, contusions to his liver and kidneys, and, certainly most disheartening, "head trauma with early signs of cerebral edema." "We won't know his full condition until he wakes up," Doc Hibbert advises, before carefully amending that statement with, "If he wakes up." "'If'?" Sam repeats, a hint of outrage in his voice as Spectral Dean unleashes his fuller version of said outrage by scowling, "Screw you, Doc -- I'm gonna wake up!" The Doc, of course ignoring Spectral Dean's outburst, replies, "I have to be honest, most people with his degree of injury wouldn't have survived this long. He's fighting very hard, but you need to have realistic expectations." Puffy Sam gulps -- hard -- as Spectral Dean amps up the outrage to seethe, "Come on, Sam -- go find some hoodoo priest to lay some mojo on me! I'll be fine!" Spectral Dean blurs out in the background of the shot as the camera pulls the focus in on Sam's face. Poor little guy looks like he's about to cry. But, you know. Bitch still needs to CUT HIS GODDAMNED HAIR ALREADY.
Over in John's room, the gentleman in question slides an insurance card out of his wallet to pass to Puffy Sam. "'Elroy McGillicuddy'?" Sam reads from the card with a slight smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. "And his two loving sons," John adds, with far more affection than we've grown to expect from the evil, tedious bastard. Sam, not sure where the tone of his father's last statement is coming from, gamely yet grudgingly offers him a half-chuckle before Shut Up Daddy asks, "What else did the doctor say about Dean?" "Nothin'," Sam grimaces before adding, "Look, if the doctors won't do anything, then we'll have to." "I don't know," he continues, with much shaking of badly coiffed head, "I'll find some...hoodoo priest to lay some mojo on him." Ding-ding-ding-ding-ding! Correct answer, Psychic Boy! Hooray! Shut Up Daddy, however, simply agrees to "look" for somebody, which isn't enough of a commitment as far as Sam's concerned, and so the whole thing blows up into yet another argument between the two, with Puffy Sam refusing to "just sit around with [his] thumb up [his] ass" while Dean lays at death's door, and Shut Up Daddy snorting...something I totally don't care about before the whole tiresome little spat simmers down long enough for Shut Up Daddy to inquire after the fucking Colt's current disposition. Puffy Sam rolls his eyes into the back of his skull before huffing up a lungful of air to peeve, "Your son is dying, and you're worried about the [fucking] Colt?" Shut Up Daddy harshly reminds his younger son that they've got a demon on their collective tail, and the fucking Colt is their only protection against it. "It's in the trunk," Sam allows after tossing his father a tired glare. Shut Up Daddy's all, "In the trunk of the wreck that used to be your brother's car? We are both demonically screwed and arrested!" Or something like that. Sam assures Shut Up Daddy that he's already contacted Bobby to drive down to their current location (for those of you playing along at home, they're somewhere inexplicably near "I-83," which only runs through Maryland and South-Central Pennsylvania, like, whatever, show) for a tow. Shut Up Daddy orders Sam to meet up with Bobby to retrieve the fucking Colt, with instructions to return to the hospital with it immediately. Also, as almost too casual an afterthought, Shut Up Daddy passes Sam a grocery list of hunting-related provisions he'd like Bobby to procure. "'Acacia'?" Sam squints, peering at what his father's written down. "'Oil of abramelin'? What's this stuff for?" "Protection," John calmly replies. No, that's not suspicious at all! Right before Sam exits, he spins around to wonder if his father knew what The Ceiling Demon meant when the latter claimed to have "plans" for Sam and "the children like [him]." "No," Shut Up Daddy shakes his head. "I don't." LIAR! Sam The Amazingly Puffy Mind-Reading Psychic Boy fails to pick up on the lying lies his lying liar of a father is telling him and exits the room. Perhaps Sam's mind-reading abilities are being blocked by ALL OF THAT HAIR THAT HE NEEDS TO CUT ALREADY, FOR CHRIST'S SAKE. You know. Maybe.
After Sam vanishes into the hall, the camera pans around John's head to reveal Spectral Dean lurking in the background, leaning against the wall with his arms folded in front of his chest, and...now I'm completely distracted by the sight of Jensen Ackles's arms. Uncle! I give! It's over! You can put them back into coats over hoodies over sweaters over button-downs over t-shirts over t-shirts again! I swear I won't complain! I'm on a deadline, after all, and I can't afford to spend three hours ogling the cast's arms. Anyway, what was the point of all this? Oh, yeah: Spectral Dean's apparently shot far ahead of his earth-bound younger brother as far as the psychic-powers thing goes, as he stares down his father with a sneering, "Well, you sure know something." DUN!
Wrecking lot. Sam ambles up into the frame to Bobby to groan, "Oh, man. Dean is gonna be pissed." We cut to their point of view of the Impala, and...I just...it's all so...sniff. Had I the automotive expertise of Bobby, here, I'd be able to tell you that the frame's a pretzel, the engine's ruined, the axle's shattered, and they'd be lucky to sell what's left of it for scrap. Unfortunately, I lack Bobby's automotive expertise, and so all I can say is this: Metallicar's fucked. While Bobby's giving Sam the bullet on everything wrong with the post-crash car, something perhaps even sadder occurs when Sam finds what remains of The Goth-Girl Laptop, which isn't much. And it took him years to find the right decals! Poor Sammy. Today just isn't going his way, now is it? Sigh. Maybe he'd feel better if he CUT HIS GODDAMNED HAIR ALREADY. In any event, Sam reacts to Bobby's scrap-heap suggestion by rather firmly asserting, "No. Dean'd kill me if we did that. When he gets better, he's gonna want to fix this." "There's nothing to fix," Bobby scoffs. "Listen to me," Sam insists, more than a little overwhelmed by recent events and clearly speaking of Dean as much as he is of Metallicar, "if there's even one working part, that's enough. We're not just gonna give up on...." As Sam's fragile resolve seems to trail off with his voice, Bobby stares at him intently before allowing a gruff, but kind, "Okay. You got it." Sam shakes himself out of his momentary dejection to pass along Shut Up Daddy's grocery list of hunting-related provisions. Bobby takes one look at the thing and buhs disbelievingly, "What'd John want with this?" "What?" Sam demands. Bobby quickly realizes John's yet again keeping Information Of Importance from his offspring and attempts to bluff his way out of it, but Sam persists, "What's going on?" Before we get Bobby's answer, we shuttle back to...
...the county hospital, where Shut Up Daddy sits at Jolly Green Dean's bedside, gazing bleakly at his comatose elder son. Spectral Dean emerges from the shadows in the background, and SHOULDERS! God, this has got to stop. Okay, I'll recap without actually looking at the screen. Spectral Dean finally unleashes all the pent-up resentment and anger he's been storing up with regard to his father and his father's seemingly misplaced priorities throughout his life, and it's a well-delivered little speech, but you'll have to forgive me if I'm thinking it's coming a few years too late, and you'll also have to forgive me for dismissing it in its entirety because Shut Up Daddy cannot hear Spectral Dean and Spectral Dean knows this, so what's the point? Thankfully, Spectral Dean hears something wicked this way coming, and so heads out into the hallway to investigate. He's nearly blown back into the room, by either a swiftly moving clot of spectral rags, the deafening array of horns that arrives on the soundtrack at this point to herald the spectral rags' entrance, or both. Your choice. Spectral Dean snaps his head around to glance at his neglectful waste of a father before whipping his eyes back down the hallway with a snarky, "I take it you didn't see that." Spectral Dean darts out of the frame to follow the rags, leaving Shut Up Daddy alone with his Jolly Green comatose self.
Spectral Dean charges through the nighttime hospital, sidling around oblivious medical staff and ducking down one hallway after another until the clot of rags zips out of a room behind his back. Sensing the thing, Spectral Dean spins around in time to catch it vanishing into yet another room. Spectral Dean gives chase, only to find a nurse choking herself into spasms on the tiled floor. Spectral Dean -- still, oh, not getting the fact that no one can hear him -- flings himself back out into the hallway to scream for help. Help which will not be arriving anytime soon, because DEAN IS A GHOST, AND NO ONE CAN HEAR GHOSTS, GODDAMNIT. The nurse manages to hack up a couple of pleas of her own as Spectral Dean races to her side. "I [wheeze, wheeze, and gasp] can't [shudder, gasp, and choke] BREATHE [gasp, wheeze, shudder, choke, wheeze, wheeze, shudder, choke, shudder, choke, wheeze, shudder, choke, and die]!" The camera shoots up into Dean's in-the-headlights expression as the METAL TEETH CHOMP! swallows us whole into the commercial break.
Hospital. Aftermath. Spectral Dean, who's apparently spent the entire commercial break screaming at his bed-bound father, now begins yelling at Puffy Sam, who's just returning from the junkyard. Oh, Spectral Dean. Why you gotta be so stoopid? "Sammy! Tell me you can freaking hear me -- there's something in the hospital! You gotta bring me back and we gotta hunt this thing!" Sammy, alas, is too preoccupied with his father's just-discovered betrayal to be of much psychic use to Spectral Dean at the moment, and merely storms over to the window to pout. "You're quiet," Shut Up Daddy begins. Bad move, Shut Up Daddy, for you've thus given Sam the perfect opening to become very, very loud indeed, just for the sake of contrariness and such. Sam spins around to glare at his father, then stomps over to the bed to slam down the knapsack of "hunting"-related provisions and rage, "That stuff from Bobby? You don't use it to ward off a demon; you use it to summon one!" And I am certain that Stanford-educated Sammy inserted that semi-colon himself while preparing this little speech in his head whilst on the way back from the junkyard. "You're planning on bringing the demon here, aren't you?" Screamin' Sam continues. "Having some stupid, macho showdown!" "Macho"? A "macho" showdown? Are "macho" showdowns between man and demon even possible? Especially when the man is Shut Up Daddy? I'm not sure how to react to any of that, especially given the fact that the word that sparked it all came from College Boy, there. I do think, though, that if anyone asked me, "¿Quién es más macho: El Demonio Techo o Cállate Papì?" I'd have to go with the former. Anyway, where the hell was I before I started cobbling together bad Spanish on Babel Fish? Oh, yeah: The latest fight. Puffy Sam and Shut Up Daddy light into each other as Spectral Dean grows increasingly agitated with what he considers to be yet another pointless argument. I'm with ya, Spectral Dean. Sam at one point claims that his father is sacrificing Dean's life in favor of pursuing "the same, selfish obsession" that's consumed him since Sam was but a mere tot. Shut Up Daddy roars at this accusation, howling, "It's your obsession, too! This demon? Killed! Your! Mother! Killed your girlfriend! You begged me to be part of this hunt! If you killed that damn thing when you had the chance, none of this would have happened!" "I would have killed you too!" Sam protests mightily, and I find myself a tad worried that Jared Padalecki might irreparably strain his vocal cords, so zealous is he in putting all of this across correctly. In any event, Shut Up Daddy snaps back, "And your brother would be awake right now!" Dean hollers for both of them to cram it sideways, and when they ignore him again (like, duuuuuh, O Spectral One), he bellows once more while swinging in frustration at the water glass on Shut Up Daddy's bedside tray. And wouldn't you know it? The glass shatters on the floor, just as it would were this 1990's smash comedy-drama-fantasy-romance-thriller Ghost. And right before I pop an aneurysm about that during the silence that follows, Spectral Dean Keanus, "Dude. I full-on Swayze'd that mother!" And before I completely strip my internal gears by throwing an abrupt reverse to snicker at what I was just about to trash, Spectral Dean clutches at his spectral stomach and drops to his spectral knees on the floor, where he begins to short out like so many specters before him on this show.
As a preternaturally calm nurse begins broadcasting "Code 500 ER" across the hospital's intercom system, and as considerably less calm medical personnel begin darting past Shut Up Daddy's room, Sam and John realize something's wrong. You think? Sam lopes into the hall to find out what gives, only to find out that what's giving is his brother's heart, apparently. Yes, Jolly Green Dean is flatlining, and as Doc Hibbert applies the paddles and whatnot, Sam The Amazingly Puffy Mind-Reading Psychic Emo Boy collapses against the doorframe and weeps like a tiny little girl. Spectral Dean arrives behind him just in time to spot that clot of rags -- now with hair! -- from earlier in the evening hovering lengthwise above his Jolly Green form. "You get away from me!" Spectral Dean shouts, charging past Sam, and in another of their neat little Now You See Him, Now You Don't tracking shots, when the camera pans in one continuous take past Sam to peer at the action around Jolly Green Dean's bed from Sam's perspective, Spectral Dean has completely vanished from the room. So, what's he up to, then? Why, snatching hold of the rag clot's apparent arm, of course. The Rag Clot, none too pleased at this latest development, hurls Spectral Dean backwards in slow motion against the wall and turns briefly to hiss at him before shooting out of the room. The instant the thing leaves, Jolly Green Dean regains a pulse. Despite the good news, both Doc Hibbert and Emo Sammy seem very sad, indeed. By the way, with all the fancy camerawork, I almost neglected to mention that Sam appeared to have heard Spectral Dean's earlier shouty imprecations against The Rag Clot. As Sam stares, utterly wasted, at Jolly Green Dean's monitors, Spectral Dean ambles up and vows, "Don't worry -- I'm not going anywhere. I'm getting that thing before it gets me." And then, still slow on the uptake, Spectral Dean reveals, "It's some kind of spirit, but I could grab it. And if I can grab it, I can kill it." It pains me greatly to say this, but: Shut up, Dean. You're a fucking ghost. Of course you can grab another fucking ghost. And this episode was going so well.
Puffy Sam looks around as if he's suddenly stumbled across a cunning plan as the camera tracks back down the hall away from him before it cuts to find Spectral Dean on a Rag Clot hunt. Just as I'm about to get distracted by his fine self in those scrubs again, a woman's voice calls out, "Can't you see me? Why won't you look at me?" "Now what?" Dean grumbles to himself before heading towards the voice's location, which happens to be downstairs in the reception area, where he finds an attractive brunette, similarly clad in t-shirt and scrub pants, screaming at the oblivious medical staff and patients around her. "Can you see me?" Dean asks. Affirmative. Dean hops up to exchange introductions with "Tessa" on the stairs. Tessa wonders if she's dead. Dean's all, "...maybe?"
Cut to the two at the door of Tessa's room. "I don't understand," she gapes as they stare at her comatose self on the bed. "I just came in for an appendectomy." "I hate to bear bad news," Dean winces, "but I think there were some complications." Tessa starts babbling about how it's all just "a very weird, unbelievably vivid dream" until Dean shuts her up with an explanation of "out-of-body experiences." Long story short, they're both now spirits of people close to death. Like we didn't know that already. Oy. Dean gives Tessa a little pep talk before we cut back over to...
...Shut Up Daddy's bed. "What do you mean you felt something?" John grumbles in Sam's general direction. He means he felt something, you tool. Weren't you listening to him? Oh, right. Look who I'm asking that question. Sam, now convinced Spectral Dean's roaming the hospital's halls, bails to "pick something up," but not before Shut Up Daddy solemnly promises him that there will be no hunting of The Ceiling Demon until they're both certain Dean's all right. Sam sort of looks like he's heard similar lines of bullshit before, but exits without a word.
Meanwhile, over on the spectral plane, Dean congratulates Tessa on her relatively sunny disposition in light of what she's so recently learned. Tessa reveals herself to be a fatalist as far as such matters go, and notes that because she has zero control over the situation, she's just going to chill out and wait for whatever to happen. Dean pretty much takes this as a personal insult, tells her she's full of crap, and insists that no matter the circumstances, one always has a choice, even if that choice is to remain an unresponsive vegetable hooked up to feeding tubes and a respirator for the fifty years. Quite the charmer, our Dean. I don't know why he's never been able to make a long-term relationship last. Before Dean can elaborate further, however, he hears "Doctor Kripke" being called to Room 237 for a Code Blue. Over Tessa's protests, Dean jogs down the hallway to find Doc Kripke (who is not, as I erroneously stated in the recaplet, Doctor Hibbert) struggling to revive a preadolescent girl. As the medical team works the kid over, The Rag Clot materializes to hover lengthwise over the child's bed and stretches a hand towards the kid's face. Dean charges, but The Rag Clot vanishes as quickly as it had appeared. Meanwhile, the moppet on the bed is flatlining for good. One of the nurses calls it as another opines, "At least she's not suffering anymore." Spectral Dean looks deeply conflicted as the METAL TEETH CHOMP! picks him up by the scruff of his neck to fling him into the commercial break.
Back in Dean's room, Puffy Sam eases himself through the door with something in a brown paper bag and, addressing his yam of a brother in the bed, says, "Don't make fun of me for this, but there is one way we can talk." With that, he pulls a "Mystical Talking Board" from the bag, because the bastards at Parker Brothers charge way too fucking much to license "Ouija" for a TV show. "Oh, you gotta be kidding me," Spectral Dean grunts. Sam lankily ambles across the room, plants himself cross-legged on a spot of open floor, and unpacks the board and planchette from their box. And here begins the clever camerawork in this scene, as the camera pulls these slow spins around Sam to take in the room from his perspective -- in which of course the only Dean present is in vegetable form -- only to shift in mid-continuous-spin to Spectral Dean's perspective -- in which of course he is both vegetative and spectrally yappy. It's a nice effect, especially when Dean's hands suddenly appear on the planchette across from Sam's to answer a question the younger Winchester has just asked. It must have been a bitch to choreograph, and yet I'm still giggling to myself at the idea of some off-screen P.A. -- with appropriately wild gesticulations -- soundlessly mouthing "NOW!" at Jensen Ackles so the latter knows when to hop into and out of the scene. Anyway, Sam calls out for his brother, and Spectral Dean snorts something to himself about slumber parties before hunkering down on the floor across the board from Sam. The soles of his feet are absolutely black with God alone knows what kind of filth, which...no. No. Ghosts do not pick up massive amounts of foot-blackening smut while roaming the halls of a county hospital. Bad Supernatural! Bad! ANY-way, after Spectral Dean confirms his presence by shifting the planchette to "YES," he spells out the word "hunt." At Sam's further prompting, Dean confirms he's hunting something in the hospital, and the thing he's hunting is an R...E...A...P... "Reaper!" Sammy breathes. "Is it after you?" YES. With that, Spectral Dean breaks the connection. Both boys realize Dean's screwed, as The Reaper is operating under its usual M.O., which is to escort the souls of the recently dead on to wherever the hell it is those souls are supposed to go. They're being typically hazy with the cosmology, here. Anyway, after a round of downcast looks from Our Intrepid Heroes, Sam leaps to his feet to babble something about Shut Up Daddy knowing what to do. He speeds out of the room to find...
...John's room empty. What's more, if that discarded hospital robe is anything to go by, their father has changed into his street clothes. Unless of course -- nah, I'm not gonna go there. No way.
Down in the boiler room, John sneaks through the doors with his knapsack of demon-summoning provisions. He makes his way to the farthest corner of the basement and begins to scrawl a symbol on the floor with white chalk. I'm not going to mention that the symbol is the Sigil of Azazel, because I really don't want the mythheads on the forum boards to start squealing about the Nephilim.
Ooops.
Back in the vegetable garden, Sam's returned with John's demon-filled dayplanner of magikal spells and the occult and perches on the bed to riffle through the pages until he lands on the entry for Reapers. Christ, I should just start calling the fucking thing The Book Of Shadows, shouldn't I? There's a tender moment wherein Spectral Dean thanks Sam for not giving up on him before Spectral Dean gets an eyeful of The Reapers' backstory. "Son of a bitch," he growls to himself as he slips out of the frame.
Spectral Dean bow-leggedly stomps through the halls, trying to make appropriate amounts of manfully outraged clompy noises and failing miserably, because he is a ghost, and ghosts do not make manfully outraged clompy noises when they stomp down hospital halls, and how many times do I have to lecture you on all the many noises ghosts cannot make because they are ghosts, DEAN? This is why they've slung The Ackles into a t-shirt and scrub pants for the evening -- so we wouldn't notice shit like that. Anyway, Spectral Dean finds Tessa cooling her heels in Room 4747. She's now far-more-appropriately attired in black, for yes, gentle reader, Tessa is The Reaper who earlier attempted to abscond with Our Intrepid Hero's soul. Dean, you see, learned from The Book Of Winchester's Reaper entry that Reapers can assume human form, if necessary, and so realized that Tessa's been playing him for a fool, what with all her sweet talk of letting fate take its course and whatnot. Needless to say, Dean is pissed. Our dear, darling Deano is one little bow-legged ball of rage, isn't he? Tessa explains that because Dean wigged out when he saw her true form, she had to assume this current, false one to engage him in conversation. "Okay, fine, we're talkin'," Dean snots. "What the hell do you wanna talk about?" A hint of a soft and sympathetic smile crosses Tessa's face as she rises to reply, "How death is nothing to fear." She reaches out and gently brushes his cheek with her fingertips, eliciting a shiver and a gasp from the object of her attention as she continues, "It's your time to go, Dean, and you're living on borrowed time already." Dean just stares her down.
Boiler Room, and I'll be damned straight to Hell before I transcribe another stupid spell, so here's what going on visually as Shut Up Daddy chants Craptin: John kneels above the sigil, upon which he's placed six lighted candles in the appropriate corners, and slices open the palm of his hand to drizzle blood into a bowl of what I'm guessing is a lip-smacking mix of acacia and oil of abramelin. He drops a lit match into the bowl, which erupts into a great, big sparkly spray of festively flaming fireworks. The Big Gay Supernatural Dragon approves. John shakily rises to his feet and darts his eyes nervously around the room. Just when we think his masterful conjurations have all been for naught, Frederic Lane from several dismal episodes of Lost pops into the frame dressed as the hospital's night janitor to piss all over John's demon-summoning parade. Or does he? "I can explain!" John bleats. The janitor's all, "Yeah, explain it to security, jackhole," before he orders, "Follow me!" By way of response, John whips the fucking Colt out of the back of his jeans and aims it at the janitor's head. "How stupid do you think I am?" Do you really want an answer to that question, Shut Up Daddy? The janitor grins a little before giving up on his charade and slipping into his Thriller eyes. And then? The Ceiling Demon most awesomely smirks, "You really want an honest answer to that?" Hey! That's what I just said! Well, almost. But you can tell for whom I'll be rooting for over the rest of the evening, right? Right.
In any event, two temporarily possessed hospital employees emerge from the darkness beyond The Ceiling Demon to take up positions on either side of Shut Up Daddy, the better to ensure that any subsequent physical altercations will be decidedly one-sided. "John, I'm surprised," CD mockingly admits once his minions are in place. "I took you for a lot of things, but suicidally reckless wasn't one of them." The way Frederic Lane enunciates "suicidally reckless" makes me grin like the demon-loving fool I am. "I could always shoot you," John parries. "You could always miss!" The CD gleefully taunts, pulling a Fosse-inspired back-lunge, complete with toothy grin and jazz hands. Hee. "Did you really think you could trap me?" The CD condescends. "Oh, I don't want to trap you," John assures him, and to prove his point, he lowers that fucking Colt to his side, un-cocking it as he goes. After a beat, he eyebrows, "I wanna make a deal." Horns like the upward wailing of a tornado klaxon howl on the soundtrack before The Ceiling Demon's broadly grinning mug gets swallowed by the METAL TEETH CHOMP!
Yea Though I Walk Through The Valley Of The Shadow Of The Jolly Green Dean. Sam delivers a touching monologue on the subject of fraternal affection, both deep and true, to the vegetable. Unfortunately, Spectral Dean isn't there to hear it. Not that it ultimately matters, of course, because Dean doesn't remember any of this when he eventually wakes u...uh. Ooops. Spoiler!
Meanwhile, up in Room 4747, Spectral Dean has reached, in Tessa's words, "Stage Three: Bargaining," and I have to admit, this scene made me mist up a wee little bit, mainly because of the way The Ackles nailed the delivery of his lines. He argues that she has to make an exception for him, as his family's in danger. "We're kinda in the middle of this, uh..." And here, Dean chokes back what's almost a sob as he struggles to finish the sentence. "...war." There's a little lilt upwards at the end of that word, as if he's either suddenly doubting that there really is a war being fought, or suddenly realizing and finally becoming overwhelmed by the circumstances of his life. Maybe both. Then again, maybe neither. Whatever. It still made me sniffle. "They need me," he insists. "The fight's over," she gently replies. "No, it isn't!" he counters. "It is for you." "You're not the first soldier I've plucked from the field," she patiently explains, "and they all feel the same: They can't leave -- 'Victory hangs in the balance!' -- but they're wrong. The battle goes on without them." "My brother," Dean splutters, just on the verge of totally losing it, "he could die without me." "Maybe he will," she offers, "maybe he won't. Nothing you can do about it." The "now" is implied. She starts to blather about Dean's being "a warrior's death," but Dean shuts her up with one of his one-liners: "I think I'll pass on the seventy-two virgins, thanks -- I'm not that into prude chicks, anyway." "That's funny," Tessa admits. "You're very cute," she continues, so we know even Reapers are Deangirls. Joy. Dean, almost accepting her argument, snaps out of it when he thinks once more of his family's current peril. "I'm not going with you," he shakes his head, "I don't care what you do." And here, Tessa lays a little supernatural science upon his fine ass. She can't force him to accompany her to whatever plane of existence follows this one, but should he remain on earth in his current spectral form, he'll eventually become so insanely lonely, embittered, and afraid that he'll turn into one of the vengeful, vindictive spirits he's been hunting all of his life. Well, that shut him up. Spectral Dean spectrally gulps.
Down in the boiler room, Shut Up Daddy and The Ceiling Demon negotiate. For two entire minutes. Frederic Lane is, quite frankly, rocking this role like a hurricane, in the process making The Ceiling Demon one of the most entertaining and engaging characters ever to appear on this show, but I have got to cut to the chase here, partly because this damn recap's already at least fifteen pages long, but mainly because I need to finish this before my butt develops, like, gangrene, or something. (I was going to type "before my butt develops, like, petrifold regression," but, yeah. I'm not that much of a geek, for Christ's sake.) Long story short, The Ceiling Demon agrees to restore Dean to vigorous health in return for that fucking Colt and...something else that remains unrevealed as the scene draws to a close, but it's something The Ceiling Demon perhaps desires more than that fucking Colt itself. By the way, The Ceiling Demon still holds Dean responsible for the deaths of his so-called offspring, and Shut Up Daddy has known all along what's so special about Sammy and "the other children." Just tuck those two little pieces of information away for later in the season, because nothing more will come of them anytime soon.
Room 4747, where we have reached Dean's moment of truth: Will he shrug off his dread of something after death and accept whatever dreams may come, or will he remain on earth and eventually turn into a racist truck? Decisions, decisions. Dean slowly turns his head (his eyes brimming with tears, no less) to answer her, but before he can open his mouth, the fluorescents start buzzing on and off. Dean, instantly suspicious, rises to his filthy feet and demands, "What are you doing that for?" "I'm not doing it!" Tessa insists, looking more than a little freaked out herself. Suddenly, The Ceiling Demon in Woogyman form pours out of the air vent and, despite Tessa's frantic screams that he "can't do this," plunges headlong into her gaping mouth. She's pinched her eyes shut in pain during the possession, and now snaps them open to reveal her very own pair of marbled yellow Thriller contacts. "Today's your lucky day, kid," The Ceiling Tessa purrs, and with that, she slaps a palm on Spectral Dean's forehead as the strings go berserk on the soundtrack. Spectral Dean twists his neck around in shock and...
...pops back into that big old eggplant he left lying all by its lonesome in his hospital room at the top of the hour, apparently, for The Winchester Formerly Known As Jolly Green Dean now gasps himself back into consciousness, and that's got to be murder on his throat, what with that ventilator tube shoved halfway down into his chest. The Winchester Formerly Known As Jolly Green Dean starts gagging on the tube, and Sam bellows for help just as the METAL TEETH CHOMP! masticates them both into the final commercial break.
Back from the break, Doc Hibbert can't explain it: Dean's edema has vanished, the contusions have healed, and his vitals are good. "You got some kinda angel watchin' over you," he concludes. Oh, the irony. ¡Es muy deliciosa! Doc Hibbert exits so Sam can confirm for the audience's benefit that Dean remembers nothing of his time on the spectral plane. Dean does, however, have "a pit in [his] stomach," so he's pretty sure there's something not quite right with his unexpected return to health. Shut Up Daddy raps at the door to beam at his now-recovered elder son. Sam, of course, immediately demands to know where John's been all night. Unsatisfied with the answer he receives -- and over Dean's weary objections -- the biggest littlest Winchester starts in with the sniping, and welcome, my friends, to the portion of the evening I'll be calling "The Redemption Of St. John Of Lawrence, The Jackhole Formerly Known As Shut Up Daddy." John gently steps forward into the room and, with genuine affection and more than a hint of regret in his face, asks Sam if they could just stop fighting, for good. "Half the time," he confesses with an honestly fond smile on his face, "I don't know what we're fighting about -- just butting heads." "Look, Sammy," John continues as Dean, almost as incredulous as Sam at this point, darts his eyes from his brother to his father, "I've made some mistakes, but I've always done the best I could." John glances at Dean before meeting Sam's wary gaze again. "I just don't want to fight anymore, okay?" Sam reacts to this heartfelt speech by asking his father if he's on drugs. Well, pretty much. John affably shrugs that he must be tired, or something, and politely asks if Sam would mind fetching the old man a cup of caffeine. Sam wiggles his eyebrows around, all, "Whatever, freak," but obligingly exits towards the cafeteria.
Left alone with Dean, John turns and delivers, well, one of the most horribly clichéd I'm So Proud Of You, Son speeches in the history of televised entertainment. Here's the direct transcript, if you must read it. Trust me, it pained me to no end to type it out, but sweet Jesus, how Jeffrey Dean Morgan sold it:
When you were a kid, I'd come home from a hunt, and after what I'd seen I'd be wrecked...and you? You'd come up to me and put your hand on my shoulder and you'd look me in the eye and you'd say, "It's okay, Dad." [Pause to stifle what threatens to be a sudden onslaught of manly tears.] Dean, I'm sorry. You shouldn't have had to say that to me. I should've been saying that to you. You know, I put too much on your shoulders -- I made you grow up too fast. You took care of Sammy, you took care of me...you did that, and you didn't complain. Not once. I just want you to know... [Pause to stifle what threatens to be yet another onslaught of manly tears, in the process allowing one single, perfect, salty drop to trickle from the corner of each eye.] ...that I am so proud of you.
Dean, ever the sensitive one, is all, "You're freaking me out, dude. What gives?" "I want you to watch out for Sammy, okay?" John asks, with a comforting paternal hand placed on Dean's shoulder. "You know I will," Dean twitches, this wanton display of naked affection giving him a rash. "You're scaring me." "Don't be scared, Dean," John soothes. And then, in an act that set off a frenzy of speculation on the forum boards that is likely to last all season, John leans in close to Dean's ear for a lengthy bout of whispering. Of course, we hear not a word, but from the ominous tones groaning on the soundtrack and from Dean's shocked expression when John finally pulls away, I've a feeling it must be horrific. You know, something like, "You know what, Dean? Sam's hair is still too short. You cannot let him get it cut for at least the nine months." And look at that -- the very idea of it all is making Dean cry. John's lower lip is itself a-trembling with sorrow and grief, but he says not a word more, choosing instead to vanish into the hallway.
In a nearby room, John enters to acknowledge the unseen Ceiling Demon, in the process appearing to acknowledge the audience itself, as if we are complicit in tonight's deal with the devil. We are to blame! We are to blame! Woe! Wailing! Gnashing of teeth! Also: Mr. DeMille? John Winchester is ready for his motherfucking close-up. John places that fucking Colt on the bedside tray table, and then stares The Ceiling Demon down to nod, "Okay, it's just us, the cameras, and all those wonderful people out there in the dark. Bring it!"
Out in the hall, Sam's assy mop of too-long hair wanders through with a cup of coffee until it happens to glance over into one of the rooms to find its father dead on the floor. The Sympathetic Strings Of Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Demon's Sucked You Into Hell And Now I'm Feeling So Sad hit the soundtrack as the camera shifts to a low angle while everything on the screen grinds down into slow motion. Sam lets the coffee cup drop to the floor, where it lands perfectly upright, and there's got to be something supernaturally significant about that. As the cup's contents slop over the sides to splatter across the tiling, Sam takes two giant steps to reach his father's side while soundlessly bellowing, "HELP!"
Cut to Doc Hibbert and his team of nurses working to revive John Winchester, as his sons gape in the doorway. The medical types are unsuccessful. "That's it, everybody," Doc Hibbert announces off-screen. The camera, you see, has chosen to linger on the boys' reactions during this last bit, all in a futile attempt to make me cry. Futile, do you hear me? Futile! "I'll call it," Doc continues, as the screen fills with Dean's stunned face. The scene cuts abruptly to black, and above the heart monitor's droning flatline beep, Doc Hibbert announces, "Time of death: 10:41 AM."
Sniff. DAMN YOU, KRIPKE!
week: Clowns. I'm freaking out already.