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This week, we're off to Providence, Rhode Island, where a few of the more marginal members of that city's society have lately embarked upon killing sprees, which the deadbeat dirtbags claim were ordered by an angel. This leads to many endless discussions on the topic of faith, during which we rather unsurprisingly learn that not only does Saint Sammy pray on a daily basis, he also believes in heavenly messengers sent by God to tell loser drunks and scabby whores to gut their neighbors like fish. Equally unsurprisingly, El Deano confirms that he doesn't go for any of that God crap, bitch, so when Saint Sammy himself insists that he's been touched by the angel as well, Dean quite reasonably questions his younger brother's sanity before demanding a séance to summon the presumably damaged and evil spirit of a recently murdered priest who Dean (correctly) assumes is responsible for the so-called divine interventions. Once the guy materializes, though, it becomes evident that he's not so much damaged and evil as simply misguided, and a quick administration of Last Rites sends the guy, um, elsewhere, never to bother the scabby whores of Providence again. And in the end, Darling Sammy's forced to admit that maybe there isn't someone Up There watching out for him after all. Aw. Poor puppy. Come to Demian and let him make it all better. First, though, you have to promise him you won't participate in an episode this boring again. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
Crackle, Crackle NOT! We leap right into the so-called action this week, as the camera fades in to pan over a few dirty dishes currently being deployed as butt-littered ashtrays while Mimi Bobeck's voice asks of Drew Carey, "How little?" This sets her long-ago live studio audience into fits of laughter as the location card phases in to reveal we've found ourselves in Providence, Rhode Island, for this week's festivities, and if the significance of that particular anvil doesn't hit you immediately, don't worry, because it will long before the end of the evening. The camera continues past a tangle of discarded clothing on the floor before angling up level with a side table filled with little clay statuettes depicting angels in various states of torment, as best I can tell. It could be ecstasy. I don't know. Given what's currently playing on the off-screen television, though, I'm going to opt for the former. As Drew and Mimi continue to have it out with each other, the camera at last shifts focus to zero in on a set of black-lacquered nails curled around a lit cigarette. And there we hang for a moment until the camera leaps far above the cigarette's owner to stare down at her rat's nest of a coif before slowly settling towards the floor, lingering on the woman's face so we might note her dull eyes focusing through rings of smeared mascara on the TV in front of her, and damn. Girl looks rough, what with her naturally sallow complexion breaking through the layers of makeup she's neglected to scrub from her skin for the last week or so. She's like a scabby Weimar-era whorine in Cabaret. "Liza?!" Raoul The Big Gay Supernatural Dragon shrieks. "My Liza?!" No, dude. From the Broadway revival. Calm.
In any event, finally tiring of the crap sitcom rerun, The Whorine wearily reaches for the remote and switches to the channel, which unfortunately for everyone involved features one of those greaseball televangelists who still manage to be on the air despite the decades of graft, hypocrisy, and scandal associated with the profession. Lest we think this little lady is so down and out that she'd give the greaseball's message more than a second of her time, though, she quickly rolls her jaded eyes at the guy and listlessly switches off the set. Of course, the instant she does so, all of the lights in her tawdry little hole of an apartment start buzzing and blinking on and off. DUN! Annoyed, and entirely unaware of the dire meaning behind all of the buzzing and blinking, she stubs out her cigarette in an actual ashtray and is about to push herself to her feet to investigate when the television switches back on, seemingly of its own accord, still loudly tuned to the televangelist's station. The Whorine gasps in surprise and clutches at her nonexistent pearls as the televangelist assures her in vaguely Southern tones, "You don't have to suffer -- you don't have to be lost! The Lord is talking to you right now! He's saying, 'You are my child and you have a purpose!" The Whorine frantically tries to shut off the goddamned TV with the remote again and again, but the slimy little Southern-fried greaseball refuses to go away, his voice increasing in volume until he nearly shouts, "You think God forgot about you? I tell you no! All you gotta do is listen! Can't you just hear those angels singin'?" By this point, the televangelist's camera has pulled in on an extreme close-up while ours has ducked down beneath The Whorine's TV so that we're getting an enormous and distorted version of his face. "You'd think televangelists could afford better dental care," Raoul snorts, eyeing the Southern-fried greaseball's jagged row of crooked lower teeth.
"Cute," Dean eye-rolls before insisting that there are some legends "you file under bullcrap," because you can't say "bullshit" on broadcast television. "And you got angels on the bullcrap list?" Sam incredulously enunciates. "Why?" And Dean then launches into a justification I'll not be transcribing word-for-word that basically boils down to this: He's never seen one, and he doesn't know anyone he considers to be trustworthy who's encountered one either, and since their line of work is what it is, if angels exist, the hunters' network would have been all over their gloriously lit asses decades ago, so long story short, whatever's afflicting Providence at the moment is either demonic or spectral in nature, and that is the end of that. And you know what? He's totally, completely correct about the ENTIRE situation, so WHY DO I HAVE TO PLOD THROUGH THE CRISIS-OF-FAITH CRAP THAT TAKES UP THE VAST MAJORITY OF THE REST OF THE HOUR? "You're getting paid for it?" SHUT UP RAOUL NO ONE ASKED FOR YOUR OPINION. "Well!" Raoul huffs. "If you're going to be that way about it!" "Though honestly," Raoul confesses regardless, "it really makes absolutely no sense for Darling Sammy so suddenly to take the side of the angels in this situation -- and against evidence that points towards a far more pedestrian solution to the supernatural matter at hand, namely salting and burning some wretch's bones! I can't remember the last time we were treated to a delightful scene celebrating the Winchesters' fondness for pyromania!" You know what? Neither can I. Oh, whatever. I can't figure out what the hell they were thinking when they wrote this episode, so let's keep this moving.
Dean drops the whole pointless argument to propose a little trip over to Gloria's hole of an apartment, but Sam's already been there and found no sulphur or EMF. However, there is the unresolved matter of the sign Gloria supposedly received at this Carl person's house, so Our Intrepid Heroes hop into the Impala for the quick drive over to Carl's former abode. Upon disembarking, Dean almost immediately spots a large plastic angel on Carl's former front porch, right to the door. "It's a sign from up above," Dean snarks, "always take down your Christmas decorations after New Year's, or you might get filleted by a hooker from God." Heh. Sam looks offended. "Shut up, Sam," grumbles Raoul. Raoul! So curt! "He deserves it," Raoul yawns, popping another Dexedrine into his impressive maw. Hee. After a few lengthy moments of pondering, Sam spots the padlocked outer doors to the house's cellar and, remembering what Gloria said about Carl being "guilty to his deepest foundations," proposes they pick the lock and see what they can find. And what they find in that dank, enclosed space after copious amounts of flashlight-fu is a section of the stone wall scarred with gouges left by some unfortunate soul's fingernails. DUN! In fact, Sam digs around in the crumbling mortar for a bit and pulls out an actual Lee Glamour Length Fancy Fingers Press-On. DUN! Again! Some more! The boys heave "here we go again" sighs at each other and grab a couple of suspiciously handy shovels to start digging into the cellar's earthen floor.