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In the first half of this season's two-part finale, The Ceiling Demon abducts Darling Sammy from an out-of-the-way café -- after slitting the throats of the restaurant's other occupants, natch -- and magically transports his ginormous ass to a literal ghost town called Cold Oak, South Dakota. Yes, "literal." The place is apparently infested with so many spirits and demons and things that go bump in the night (right before they rip your head off your neck to slurp up the subsequent spurting gouts of blood) that all of the burg's residents abandoned it decades ago. Once Sam regains his senses, he quickly runs into a quartet of other super-special mommy-free and -having kids: Andy Gallagher (the mind-bender from "Simon Said"), Ava Wilson (the fellow psychic from "Hunted," who apparently has no memory of the last five months), an Army grunt with the strength of ten named Jake who vanished from Afghanistan, and a lovely San Diego lesbian named Lily who accidentally stopped her girlfriend's heart one day about a year ago with nothing more than a touch of her hand.
After the expected amounts of confusion, The Ceiling Demon himself appears to Sam in a dream to let him know what's really going on: It's a supernatural cage match between the five from which only one can emerge victorious. One little thing The Ceiling Demon neglects to mention, of course, is the fact that Ava's actually in on the whole thing, too, and has been offing quartets of other super-special mommy-free and -having kids ever since she arrived in Cold Oak back in January. She quickly dispatches Lily and Andy before getting her neck snapped by Jake, who is also in on the whole fight-to-the-death concept, and after a smackdown between the two remaining contenders in which Jake breaks one of Darling Sammy's remarkably broad shoulders before Sam thinks he's knocked his opponent insensate with an iron bar, crafty Jake shoves a Bowie knife into Sam's back. Just as Dean and Bobby arrive to rescue him, no less. How will it all end? Tune in week.
Oh, yeah, almost forgot: Someone blew up Harvelle's; Ash is now...ash, actually; Ellen's MIA; and Mary Winchester was well acquainted with The Yellow-Eyed Demon long before he nailed her to the ceiling with a foot-wide gash through her torso. God, I love this show. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
Raoul, I believe you have yet another announcement to make before we begin? "I certainly do! [Ahem!] EFH can download me to her hard drive anytime!" Raoul! That's...that's repulsive! "What on earth could you possib...oh! OH! My profuse apologies, most certainly! Thanks for everything, EFH!" I swear to GOD, Raoul. ANY-way, on with the recap!
"A storm's comin', and you boys? You are smack in the middle of it." Crackle, Crackle THE ROAD SO FAR! The runs up and down the scale that mark the opening of Boston's "Foreplay" that'd been dancing around underneath give way to the track's first hard guitar chord just as The Ceiling Demon blows up their mother in the series premiere. After a couple of quick blackouts a the appropriate moments, the second chord hits as Tiny Sam wails in his crib, and the third arrives just as the nursery goes nuclear above Shut Up Daddy's head. "You know the truth?" The Yellow-Eyed Ceiling Demon asks Shut Up Daddy in this season's first episode. "About Sammy and the other children?" A blink-and-you'll-miss-it quick-cut montage of those other super-special mommy-free and -having children whips by to land upon the kimono-jacketed Andy Gallagher cheerily accepting a cup of coffee in Guthrie, Oklahoma, during "Simon Said" right before Ava Wilson introduces herself to Sam in Lafayette, Indiana's Blue Rose Motel during "Hunted." "I didn't hurtanybody," Andy howls, leading Sam to smirk, "Yeah, not yet." And while Max The Psychotic Psychokinetic from "Nightmare" threatens his stepmother's eye with a kitchen knife, Sam gets him to admit in a voice-over that Max's powers first appeared seven months before that particular episode aired. "How'd you know that?" the snot-nosed and doomed Max bleats. "The same thing killed our mothers!" Sam urgently replies, in an answer that makes sense only in the context of this opening sequence. Another quick-cut montage reminds us all of the details leading up to Mary Winchester's untimely demise, particularly the bit where she thought she saw her husband looming over Sam's crib before realizing that the man she thought she saw couldn't possibly be Shut Up Daddy. "We were chosen!" Sam continues. "For what?" The Snottily Psychotic Psychokinetic snaps. "I don't know!" Sam breathes.
And then? "GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORE!" Raoul The Big Gay Supernatural Dragon writhes around on his overstuffed armchair with delight as Darling Sammy's struck by a particularly painful premonition that is actually an outstanding montage of various bits of Monster Chow getting impaled and gutted and splatted against windows during the course of the series. "It's faaaaaaaab-ulous!" Raoul breathlessly enthuses. Indeed, and I can see the uncle getting decapitated by the window in "Nightmare," Sam pressing a gun to Whackjob Gordon's head in "Hunted," El Deano nearly taking a hunting knife through his throat in "Roadkill," The Ginormotron erupting into a mighty spray of Sam bits, Metallicar screaming around a corner mere moments before getting t-boned by a semi, Dean blasting a rock-salt-sized hole through Jonah's spectral head, and, right after Ava insists she dreamt of Scott Carey getting gutted like a fish with an enormous serrated hunting knife, Scott Carey gets gutted like a fish with an enormous serrated hunting knife. "VIOLENCE!" Raoul shrieks, positively giddy with excitement. "WANTON ACTS OF UNREPENTANT VIOLENCE AND GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORE!"
And look at that! We nearly missed one example of the delightfully hideous gruesomeness that makes this show such a joy to watch. As Darling Sammy reminds the audience of Andy's ability to control the actions of others through the power of supernatural suggestion, we get to see the elderly Doctor Doc blow away the proprietor of the hardware store that also sells guns, despite the fact that it was Andy's Evil Twin Anson who was responsible for all of the murder and mayhem in that episode. After Andy does in fact talk El Dean out of the Impala, Tracy leaps from The Impossible Dam in yet another flashback to one of Sam's painful premonitions, and right after Sam realizes Ava's yet another one of the super-special mommy-free and -having children, Ava herself's all, "Screw you, buddy, 'cause I'm a secretary from Peoria, and I'm not part of anything!" Meanwhile, Whackjob Gordon's informing a tied-up Dean of The Ceiling Demon's plan to initiate a war with humanity using all of the super-special psychic kids, and the Winchester nursery's windows burst out into the night in terrific gouts of flame right before Hot Dead Scott and Obnoxious Dead Anson reveal that The Yellow-Eyed Man's been visiting them in their dreams, telling them to do awful things while teasing about the big plans he has for them. And no sooner has Sam guessed that The Ceiling Demon's master plan is actually to drive all of the super-special kiddies bonkers than Sam and El Deano discover Ava's fiancé slaughtered, Ava missing, and sulphur all over the windowsill of Ava's bedroom.
And then, just as all of the '70s instrumental madness of "Foreplay" finally starts its long winding down, the fabulous Ellen Harvelle appears to remind us all, "Something big and bad is coming, and it's coming fast, and their side holds all the cards." Sly Sam detonates the trip-wire grenade much to the gagged and unknowing Dean's agony, as Voice-Over Sam insists to his brother, "You can't run from this, and you can't protect me," and Dean -- frantic, and on the verge of tears because he is a gigantic pussy -- near-weeps, "Dammit, Sam, this whole thing is spinnin' out of control!" just as "Foreplay" crescendos, and the screen slams to black with the "Foreplay" crescendo echoing through the darkness, from which emerges...
...Crackle, Crackle NOW!, Motherfuckers!, as the main guitar line of "Long Time" screams onto the soundtrack, and that was fabulous and fantastic, and Boston's "Foreplay" for the Crackle, Crackle THEN! leading into the two-part season finale? AWESOME! Even though it just took me over an hour to recap ninety seconds of actual airtime. Whew. "Let's watch it again!" Raoul shrieks, still giddy, clapping his paws together in excitement. You know what? Let's!
Okay, we're back. "Wheeeeeee!" As the main guitar line of "Long Time" screams onto the soundtrack, the rain-streaked Impala grumbles up to the isolated all-night cement-block Sunnyside Diner. Once Dean parks in front of the tiny little place to a run-down pickup, he strips a twenty out of his billfold and flicks it at Sam. "Don't forget the extra onions this time," Dean orders. "Dude," Sam retorts, avec bitchface, "I'm the one who's gonna have to ride in the car with your extra onions." "Not tonight, you won't!" Dammit, Raoul! Spoiler! "Hee! Sorry!" I should note that the actual opening lyrics to "Long Time" hit underneath all that -- the ones involving the ironically deceased Brad Delp almost apologetically noting he should be going as time doesn't wait, and while he wishes there was something he could say, he's gotta be on his way. Make of that what you will. In any event, just as Sam disembarks, Dean pulls out his best Cartman imitation to shout, "Hey, see if they got any pie!" Sam pauses long enough to toss his brother another massive bitchface before slamming the door behind him. Dean, undeterred, continues, "Bring me some pah!" As Sam ignores him to trudge through the light rain into the diner, Dean croons to himself, "Looove me some pie." Heh. Alone in the car, he cranks the radio up and settles back in his seat to watch Sam approach the graveyard-shift waitress with their order. Unfortunately, just as the song's about to hit its audience-participation chorus, the radio signal squeals and descends into a haze of EVP. DUN! Dean foolishly taps against the radio's casing a couple of times before realizing exactly what's going on, and he whips his head around to glare out the Impala's back window for a moment before warily examining the stands of trees just barely visible from the parking lot on either side of the car. What he should have been watching all along, however, is the diner itself, for when he finally refocuses his attention on the place, everyone -- Sam, the waitress, the pick-up truck's owner seated in one of the booths, and the short-order cook -- has disappeared. Ooops.
Dean launches himself from the car and plows through the diner's front door to find...the pick-up's owner face-down in a puddle of his own blood! "GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORE!" shrieks Raoul, simply ecstatic that he's getting so much of the stuff so early in the episode after what feels like a month-long drought for it on this show. "Absolutely!" Raoul agrees. "Though I must admit, that barely touched plate of home fries and scrapple to the trucker's luridly bloody corpse looks almost as tempting! I think I'm feeling a little peckish!" By the way, the song playing inside the diner wants to be Tammy Wynette's "Stand By Your Man" so badly that we're just going to pretend that's what it actually is, especially because that song in this context is hysterical. Though now that I think about it, given the fact this series is meant to be an ongoing horror movie set in truck-stop America, I'm shocked we haven't heard Patsy Cline's "Walking After Midnight" by now. "Oh, Patsy!" Raoul sighs, smitten, before supposing, "I bet they're saving her for Season Three!" I do hope so, my scaly friend, because they're missing out on a terrific opportunity there. "Agreed!" In any event, Dean immediately pulls an automatic out of his waistband and calls out his brother's name. He scans the still-sizzling yet abandoned grill before edging over to examine the dead trucker a little more closely, then Tough-Guy Jazz-Hands his way over towards the diner's back door. Just as he clears the counter, though, he spots in the corner of his eye...the lifeless and bloody corpses of the graveyard-shift waitress and short-order cook, sprawled on the floor beneath the grill! The waitress's fatal wound is as obscured as the trucker's was by her corpse's position, but a quick close-up on the short-order cook's glazed expression reveals a deep gash through the gentleman's throat. "GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORE!" Careful, hon. You don't want to shriek yourself hoarse again, now do you? "Oh, let's not pretend tonight that we haven't already seen the episode, shall we?! We both know that nothing interesting happens after this for most of the evening, and that the entire hour's simply a set-up for week, so let me have my fun, you silly little man!" Okay, but don't come crying your crocodile-adjacent tears to me when you blow out your vocal chords just because you've forgotten all about the spectacular immolation of Harvelle's and all of the crispy critters said immolation left behind. "Eeeep! I'll be quiet now!" Thought so.
Dean takes a moment to gulp, then steels his resolve and throws open the diner's back door to find...nothing more than a rain-flooded field! As he slowly swings the door shut, however, his fingers trail through a line of sulphur left on the barred window's casing. Panicked, he races back out into the parking lot, bellowing Sam's name repeatedly into the night. The camera, which had leapt far above the tiny little café when Dean threw open the front door, has been slowly tracking down towards Our Intrepid Hero during all of this, and settles in tightly on his face just as Dean unhinges his lower jaw to howl, "SAM!"
As Dean's screams echo across the soundtrack, the shot cross-fades from his frantic expression to Darling Sammy's unconscious one. Unconscious and upside-down, I should note. And with the camera pointing straight down Sam's nostrils, in the process making them look as unnaturally large as the rest of him. Poor Jared. The camera slowly draws back and up into a clockwise spin above Sam's out-of-it form as Sam suddenly starts awake to find all fifteen feet of himself sprawled across a platform of damp and muddy shingles that looks like some decrepit bit of neglected porch roofing that's collapsed onto the ground. Sam eventually scrambles to his feet -- and The Padalecki's got some goddamn long legs on him -- and whips his eyes around at the abandoned little western woodframe village surrounding him before he remembers to pull out his cell phone and search for a signal. There isn't one, of course, and Sam flails about helplessly as the camera cuts high into the air above it all, making Sam look impossibly small in the middle of all of those run-down buildings. The ghost town's creakily rattling, eerily spinning windmill takes up a full third of the frame in the foreground of the shot until everything collapses into the METAL TEETH CHOMP!
RAAAWWWR! "Eeeeeeeeeeeee!" You really love that title card, don't you? "I do indeed, and I hope they keep it in place season!" Eh, I've a feeling they're going to switch it out for something new. "No!" 'Fraid so, my scaly friend -- the first season had the EVP, the second season had the fire, I'm guessing the third season might be rock-salt-related. "Oh, they wouldn't dare!" Wouldn't dare what? "Wouldn't dare firing a shotgun directly into the camera, of course! Would they?!" Oh, Raoul! That sounds awesome! "Thanks! That delightful little Kripke person can send my check care of you, of course!" Hey! What the hell am I, a bank?
The camera fades up on the ghost town's one street, and as The Ginormotron paces around a porch, exploring the place, we can see old-timey signs attached to various other buildings that read things like "Saloon" and "Dry Goods" and "Cobbler." I find myself wondering, though, about that old church visible at the far end of the village and why they chose not to make it a part of tonight's plot, but whatever. I've got about thirty minute's worth of exposition to get through, and I'm not going to let Our Gruesomely Impaled Lady Of The Super-Specially Damned get in my way. So, Sam wanders and wanders and wanders some more, peering into dirty windows and such until somewhere else, a door creaks. Sam hoists up a handy plank of wood and tiptoes to the edge of the wooden sidewalk, ready to brain whatever happens to appear around the corner, and...it's Andy Gallagher! Hi, Andy! Andy, quite naturally, is most dismayed that he's suddenly found himself in "Frontierland," and distressingly enough for everyone involved, the last thing he remembers before he woke up was his "fourth bongload." So, Andy's stoned off his Oklahoman ass at the moment and therefore of no use to anyone, so let's jump ahead to the point where the sound of a woman's full-throated scream hits the boys' ears, shall we? Especially because when the shot cuts to take in Andy and Sam hustling side-by-side down the ghost town's only drag in search of the caterwauling's source, Jared Padalecki looks like even more of a gargantuanly overgrown freak than he actually is. Hee. Poor Andy. Poor little teeny-tiny Andy. I almost feel bad about mocking Jensen Ackles's relatively diminutive stature all season long now that I have concrete evidence of what Jared Padalecki looks like standing to someone of average height. Almost. In any event, the guys end up at a mysteriously padlocked shed, and after Sam breaks open the lock with a nearby rock, Ava Wilson comes barreling out straight into Darling Sammy's open arms and remarkably broad chest. Hi, Ava! Good to see you, too, even though I think I hate you right now for what you're doing to Our Intrepid Hero at the moment. Then again, perhaps I am jus jelass. Andy's looking a little jelass himself, actually, but we'll be getting to that in about two paragraphs.
In any event, Ava's shocked -- shocked -- to learn that five months have passed since last she saw Our Dear Boys in Lafayette, as she claims to have just now arrived in Frontierland herself, and promptly begins to freak out over the well-being of her fiancé, Brady, who must be absolutely frantic about her evident disappearance. Sam gets this hilarious "Um, actually..." look on his face, but before he's forced to admit that Brady's most likely a tasteful urn of gritty cremains right about now, Ava finally notices Andy's befuddled presence, and hasty introductions are made. "What's happening?" Ava finally demands of The Ginormotron. Sam hasn't a clue, obviously, through he does understand what all three of them have in common, of course. Before he can get them up to speed on the whole super-special mommy-free and -having thing, though, another voice calls out from elsewhere in the town, and the trio skitters off through the mud to yet another abandoned building, upon whose porch they find an African-American gentleman in Army fatigues and a lesbian who's way overdoing it on the eyeliner. Well, nobody knows she's a lesbian yet, because it's not like she's sporting a feathered, rat-tailed mullet over a sweatshirt for some bar-league women's rugby team, but she is way overdoing it on the eyeliner nevertheless. "Jake" and "Lily" introduce themselves, and it turns out they were abducted from Afghanistan and San Diego, respectively, though Lily The Lesbian seems more than a bit overdressed for the balmy breezes of Southern California. Normally, I'd give that a big, fat "whatever," but given the dodginess of the entire situation, it might be a clue, you know?
In any event, Sam quickly establishes the fact that all five people present are twenty-three-years-old, and then supposes they all also share "special abilities" that initially emerged "a little over a year ago." The two newest arrivals cagily eye Darling Sammy at this, then seem even more incredulous when Ava and Andy admit they have premonitions and mind control, respectively. Andy notes the alarm in his new companions' expressions and hastens to assure them, "Don't worry -- I don't think it works on you guys." "Oh, but get this!" he adds excitedly, hopping up onto the porch to Jake. "I've been practicing -- training my brain, like meditation, right? -- so now, it's not just thoughts I can beam out, but images, too. Like, anything I want, just BAM! People, they see it!" Sam by this point has become supremely bored. Hee. "There's one guy I know?" Andy obliviously continues. "Total dick -- I use it on him? Gay porn. All hours of the day!" "You should see the look on his face," Andy snickers, completely stoked. Pause. The others stare at him, all, "So...you're watching gay porn all the time?" Hee. "Looks like Andy just outed himself!" Raoul titters. I told you he was jelass of Ava, didn't I? "As well he should have been!"
After dear little gay stoner Andy sheepishly hops back down to stand to his ginormous hero, Lily The Lesbian gets loud, because she's feeling cheated, you see. Andy can get people to give him their wallets, and Ava and Sam can predict the future, but all Lily The Lesbian can do is stop people's hearts just by touching them. Bummer. And by that I mean it kind of sucks that she's the second-rate Rogue knockoff of the bunch. And like the X-Person she's so shamelessly ripping off, she's become a virtual recluse ever since her power manifested itself. Nevertheless, all she wants out of the current situation is a one-way ticket back to San Diego, which leads to a bit of sniping between herself and Jake until Sam deploys The Super-Special Puppy-Dog Eyes Of Gentle Reasoning And Calm Determination, which make them all shut up until dear little gay stoner Andy wonders aloud who brought them to this ruin of a town in the first place, and Sam is forced to deploy The Super-Special Puppy-Dog Eyes Of I Am About To Blast Your Understanding Of The World Into Tiny Little Pieces, After Which All Four Of You Will Find It Exceedingly Difficult To Maintain Your Already-Tenuous Grips On Sanity. Or something like that. For you see, Sam understands that Our Yellow-Eyed Acquaintance must somehow be involved, and introduces the others to the concept of dark demonic forces sent from the flaming maw of Hell to ruin all of our lives. Andy, Ava, and Jake gape, but Lily The Lesbian merely scoffs and turns her back on him. They're certainly setting her up to be the villain of the piece, aren't they? And not just because of her hideous misuse of eyeliner, either. "I've noticed that as well!" Raoul agrees. "But we're barely ten minutes in, so you know there's a shocking twist waiting for us right around the corner!" "Shocking"? "Oh, okay! But you can't blame me for trying!" You're right. Now, let's see what Dean's been up to, shall we? "Let's!"
Turns out he sped up to Bobby's place in South Dakota for a little assistance. Unfortunately, Bobby has little assistance to offer, for the entire country's been silent as far as demonic signs and omens are concerned for the last month -- even "low-level stuff like exorcisms" has been nonexistent over the last four weeks. Dean's about to howl in outrage at the news when his cell phone chirps. He answers to find an urgently whispery Ash on the other end of the line, calling from Harvelle's, where he's found nothing on Sam. However, he has found something so "huge," that it would behoove Dean and Bobby to haul their collective ass to Nebraska, pronto. Seems whatever it is happens to be of such tremendous importance that Ash is unwilling even to hint at its true nature over an unsecured phone line. Dean's ready to protest, but Ash slams down the receiver on his end, cutting short the chat. Back in the pouring Dakota rain, Dean glances in disbelief at his cell for a moment before shrugging, "I guess we're going to the Roadhouse." The two hop into the Impala and grumble off.
Back in the ghost town, Sam's still trying to convince his new friends of the existence of everything everyone in the audience already knows about, so let's skip ahead to the bit where Jake -- who's last name is Talley, by the way -- decides he'd be far better off without all of these crazy people around, and so angrily storms off down the town's only drag alone. The Lesbian glowers at Sam. DUN!
Just as Jake marches past the town's schoolhouse, a 1920s-era moppet appears in one of the school's windows to stare at him. Then, almost before he's had a chance to register her presence, the moppet appears to vanish into the darkened depths of the abandoned building. Jake stupidly forces his way into the place and sweeps his eyes around the dust-encrusted furniture he finds therein as disembodied laughter emanates from somewhere further within. As the camera pulls a slow pan around his head, the rapid-fire squeaking of chalk on a board hits his ears, and when he turns back around to what had been the blank board he saw when he initially entered the schoolhouse, he finds it's been covered with "I will not kill" repeated over and over again in a childish hand. Incidentally, the demon moppet tops off her lower-case Is with little circles. "EVIL!" howls Raoul, a fluttery paw against his jittery heart. "I told you preadolescent girls are the most insidious form of Satanic treachery on the face of the planet!" We should have listened to you, my scaly friend, but do calm yourself, for the moppet's suddenly appeared behind G.I. Jake, here, and she's curled her fingers into an approximation of claws that just as quickly grow into actual ones, accompanied by appropriate sound effects! "Oh, this is too much for me!" Raoul shrieks, burying his eyes in his paws. "I can't watch! Tell me when it's over!" The moppet, now sporting appropriately ghastly and shrewlike facial features to match those hideous claws of hers, shudder-zips up to G.I. Jake to make with the bloodletting, but Super-Smart Action Sammy's arrived just in time to snatch up an iron poker from the ash can to the schoolhouse's woodstove, and, oh, this is awesome. I loved it when he swung that fireplace poker like a baseball bat through the preadolescent straight-razor killer in "Provenance," and I'm loving that same damn thing here: Sam just whips the iron bar through the little beastie's body, and the Hell-sent moppet instantly dissolves into a spray of bitterly black demonic bits -- this one with a line of fire where the poker's ripped through its human form -- and the spray sweeps up to the ceiling in a miniature whirlwind before darting out through the schoolhouse's front door and into the sky above the heads of the others, who have arrived just in time to witness the display. "Just so you know," Sam prissily pants, "that was a demon," as the METAL TEETH CHOMP drags G.I. Jake's shocked expression into the first commercial break.
Schoolhouse. Aftermath. Sam takes a moment to identify the specific type of demon that attacked G.I. Jake, but that's not important, because the group soon stumbles across the town's bell, upon which is embossed a gnarled old tree. Super-Smart Sam recognizes the symbol instantly and realizes they're actually in "Cold Oak, South Dakota," "a town so haunted, every single resident fled." There is no such place in South Dakota, and as that's all the research I'm performing this evening, you're on your own with the Googling and such. In any event, Lily The Lesbian's had more than enough, thank you very much, and demands they "get the hell out of Dodge," immediately. Sam cautions that they'd have to traverse miles of woods to escape the place, and the others agree that they should stay put and keep an eye on each other, but Lily The Lesbian is D-U-N done! "I have nothing in common with any of you!" she yells, accusatory fingers flying everywhere. "You don't know anything! I accidentally touched my girlfriend!" And I'm sure I'd have an appropriately obnoxious retort for that were I not so busy rolling my eyes. Still, two gay characters in one episode? Very nice. Then again, what the hell took them so long?
In any event, everyone shuts up at this to offer silent sympathy with their eyes until Sam gifts her with some actual verbal condolences of his own. "Whatever!" the teary-eyed lesbian, um, whatevers. "I feel like I'm in a nightmare, and it just keeps getting worse and worse." "That's still no excuse to abuse your eyeliner, my dear!" Raoul interjects, fearless of lesbian wrath thanks to those perfectly honed claws of his. Darling Sammy, ignoring both Raoul and Lily The Lesbian's woefully inferior makeup skills, confesses, "I've lost people, too. I have a brother out there that could be dead for all I know," and that raises a damn good question: Why would The Ceiling Demon slaughter everyone at the Sunnyside Diner before abducting Sam, but leave Dean alone? Just to torture him? How...petty. "Perhaps," Raoul suggests, "even Our Yellow-Eyed Acquaintance understands how tragic it would be to deprive the world of such beauty!?" I don't think that's it, Raoul, but thanks anyway. "No problem!" Anyway, Sam convinces Lily The Lesbian to remain with the group, and soon enough is leading that group towards what appears to be the town's hotel in search of iron, silver, salt, or any other kind of weapon they can find. There's enough babbling about Sam's strange selection of armaments and the general lack of food that no one notices when Lily The Lesbian lingers on the front porch for a little too long. Ooops.
thing we know, Lily The Lesbian's trudging though the woods on the hill above town. She pauses long enough to toss one last glance at the buildings below before continuing on her way, and if she's off to consult with The Ceiling Demon, we won't find out about it until after we've...
...rejoined Dean and Bobby, who are just now turning into Harvelle's parking lot, and I'm going to ignore the screwed-up apparent timeline, here, because I quite seriously don't care anymore. Just keep telling yourself that any point in the Lower Forty-Eight is at most one hundred miles from the roadhouse, and you'll be fine, too. Besides, why bother figuring out the timeline when you can revel in the destruction of Harvelle's? Yes, gentle readers and rabid fangirls alike, someone or something has firebombed the place, and the only thing still standing is a bit of the flat they constructed for the exteriors front wall. No, really, it's the flat they constructed for the exteriors, because when the camera flips around it to track Metallicar's approach through the ruins, they don't even bother to mask the lengths of lumber propping the goddamned thing up from behind. ANY-way, Dean and Bobby exchange A Look Fraught With Significance before disembarking to examine the charred remains of the bar, and... "GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORE!" Indeed, for oh, yes, they do not shy away at all from displaying bits of the remains of the unfortunate and now-crispy patrons who happened to be trapped in the inferno. I can see Parker's boot along with a bit of his leg, and I can see Justin's hand with visible bone poking through what's left of its flesh, and I can see part of Ash's arm with his wristwatch still attached, and as I now feel like a Satanic version of Miss Marcia from Romper Room, I'll be stopping the inventory of remains to note that they can't seem to find Ellen -- thank God, because otherwise I'd have to ensure The Kripkeeper would never again sire children -- and that Dean is most displeased to find Ash apparently dead. !
Back in the fern-filled coastal rain forest of central South Dakota, Lily The Lesbian pushes her way through the pines until a moppet's disembodied laughter emanates from somewhere further within the surrounding trees. DUN!
Meanwhile, Sam finds a discarded steamer trunk, and riffles through its contents until he finds a Bowie knife almost as ginormous as he is. And in something I totally brushed past the first time through this episode, he rises from the trunk to find Ava clutching at her temples and groaning a bit. When he asks if she's okay, she nods her head around, explaining the slight spell away as dizziness brought on by lack of food. And because I accepted that answer even though I initially thought she might have been receiving an uncontrolled premonition, or something, I completely forgot all about it until just now. Stupid me. Stupid, stupid me. In any event, the two commiserate about their current situation for a bit until dear little gay stoner Andy calls out to announce he's found something. They join G.I. Jake below as Andy comes bounding out of the kitchen with two massive bags of rock salt hoisted above his head. Aw. He's so giggly and excited and adorable and doomed. "Demian, you naughty thing! Spoiler!" Oh. Ooops! Sam's about to gather the group into a single, salt-encircled room for the duration, of course, when he suddenly notices The Lesbian's absence. Ava and Sam call out her name, and I mention it only because Katharine Isabelle's all girly with the shouting and such, and then Jared Padalecki busts out this bellowing, manly howl, and it just...I mean...he's all...and the...woof! Moving along, then: The two are answered only by a moppet's disembodied laughter emanating from somewhere outdoors, so all four of our super-special mommy-free and -having kids scurry outside onto the porch to find...a dead lesbian! Raoul? "Please! She's just hanging from the town's windmill, for heaven's sake! You think I'm going to waste a 'GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORE!' on that?!" Quite right, my scaly friend, and it's well you shouldn't, for despite Ava's abjectly terrified reaction to it all, Lily The Lesbian really is just dangling there from a noose, and where's the fun in that? "Especially after Gary Cole was so delightfully flailing and jerking about not three weeks ago!" The point is yours, Raoul, so let's keep this going, shall we?
Long story short, G.I. Jake finally fully agrees with Sam's plan to stick together, as Lily The Lesbian was obviously killed while trying to escape, or something, so while Jake goes to cut The Lesbian down, the others should retreat into the hotel for safety. Ava immediately complies -- a hand to her mouth like she's about to vomit -- but Sam lingers on the front porch for some reason, so Dear Little Doomed Gay Stoner Andy lingers with him, because Dear Little Doomed Gay Stoner Andy is in love! Or maybe it's because Sam wishes he had a phone to call Dean, and Andy suddenly realizes he can use his very own super-special gay porn satellite service to send Dean their coordinates. Sam finds this an excellent idea, and, after a bit of business involving a gas receipt Dean signed under the alias "D. Hasselhoff," Andy focuses on the slip of paper for a moment, and we head back to...
...the ruins of Harvelle's, where Dean's suddenly struck with a migraine, and thanks to a shuddery insert, we can tell Andy's just sent Dean a vision of the town's bell. Bobby quite reasonably wonders if Dean's a psychic like his brother -- and again, I mention it only because it might become important later -- and barely has Dean spat out his angry denial when he's assaulted by another headache, and thanks again to a shuddery insert, we can see that Andy's amended his message with an image of Sam's face. By the way, that second vision brought Dean to his knees. "Dirty!" Well, yes, I'm certain his knees are dirty after he collapsed onto them in the mud, but I suspect that's not what you meant, Raoul. Anyway, after Dean recovers, the two adventurers bang their heads together for a lengthy period of time and realize Sam's in Cold Oak, South Dakota. Then, Dean storms back in to the ruins of the bar to clompy-stomp on Ash's remains, because he was just in South Dakota and would still be there were it not for The Stupid Mullet's stupid, worthless phone call, and now they've got another two-hour, 100-mile drive ahead of them before they can find Sam. Or maybe I imagined that part.
Back in Frontierland Hell, Sam and G.I. Jake bang on an old piece of farm equipment, trying to break off a few lengths of iron bar for defensive purposes, until Jake just whatevers and yanks a big chunk off with his bare hands. His super-special ability, you see, is super-strength, and we listen to his sad tale of woe for a while, and it's nothing we haven't heard before with the headaches and the bizarre ability suddenly manifesting itself under stressful circumstances, so let's skip ahead to the bit where they exchange gloom-and-doom stories relevant to their current situation. On second thought, let's not and say we did, and instead skip ahead to Sam and Ava laying down a circle of rock salt back at the decrepit hotel, shall we? Ah. That's better. The circle encompasses an entire room, from the doorframe to the windowsills, so the four have a little space to move around, in case you were wondering. And after they've completed this task, Sam and Ava indulge in a little heart-to-heart during which Sam finally at long last admits that Ava's Brady is capital-D Dead. Ava's touchingly stricken by the news, but because she collapses once again into Darling Sammy's open arms against his remarkably broad chest, she can go to hell. Well, because of that, and because she's secretly evil, of course, but we'll be getting to that later. "I think I'd still hate her even if she weren't secretly evil!" You and me both, Raoul. You and me both.
Some time later, Sam slouches in a chair by the windows while G.I. Jake stands guard at the door with his iron bar. No, not like that. Get your filthy minds out of the gutter for once in your lives. In any event, Dear Little Doomed Gay Stoner Andy's crashed out at the table, and Ava sits tensely in a chair of her own, lost in thought. Sam struggles to remain awake, but eventually allows his head to droop for a moment, and when he lifts his eyes to the door once more, he finds himself...staring into the yellow cataracts covering The Ceiling Demon's eyes! DUN! Sam scrambles backwards in his chair and screams out a warning to G.I. Jake, but the soldier remains oblivious as The Ceiling Demon calls out a cheerful, "Howdy, Sam!" Like daughter, like father. By the way, they answered my wish and convinced Frederic Lane to recreate his role for the season finale. Excellent. Anyway, Sam shakes his shaggy head around before blurting, "I'm dreaming!" The Ceiling Demon simply smirks a bit at this and, advancing past the still-clueless G.I. Jake into the room despite the line of salt, growls, "Whaddya say you and I take a little walk?" The camera spends about fifteen indecisive seconds racing in on each of their faces before settling for Frederic Lane's right before everything vanishes into the METAL TEETH CHOMP!
The aftermath finds Sam out on the town's only drag, lurching along behind The Ceiling Demon with his hands clenched in fists of rage, and while Frederic Lane kicks the expected amounts of ass during the sniping and bitchy verbal smackdown that follows between the two, this entire evening, as Raoul noted earlier, is pretty much all expository set-up for week's episode, so let's cut to the chase: Sam and the other super-special mommy-free and -having kids present are actually in a competition against one another, from which only one will emerge alive. You should probably know that The Ceiling Demon rather amusingly introduces this bit of information by grandly orating, "Welcome to The Miss America Pageant!" which is entirely in keeping with those fey Fosse jazz-hands of his from the season premiere, and so I am inordinately amused by the line. I have to admit, though, that the real Miss America Pageant could solve all of its current ratings woes by turning the antiquated damn thing into an actual fight-to-the-death cage match between the contestants. I know Raoul would watch. "I'd watch it anyway! Pageant hair makes me giggle!" In any event, where the hell was I? Oh, yeah. See, The Ceiling Demon doesn't need an army of special-kid soldiers for the impending war; he simply needs one from this generation to act as his general over the real army he's about to amass, and how better to determine which kid should receive the honor than to see who remains standing after he sets them to killing each other? What's that? You have no idea what that "this generation" bit means? Neither do I, aside from the fact that when Sam picks up on it as well, The Ceiling Demon tosses off an aside about the fact of generations other than Sam's, and while we already received confirmation of a future generation last season with the family Our Intrepid Heroes saved during "Salvation," this is the first, I think, that we've officially heard of generations past, but I've already spent about five minutes longer explaining the whole damn thing than the show did in mentioning it, so moving on! The Ceiling Demon claims he drew Sam away from the others in the hotel to deliver a pep talk. Why? Let's let him answer that himself. "Sam," The Ceiling Demon croons, "Sammy! You're my favorite!" I don't know if I should snicker at Frederic Lane's overly ardent delivery of that line, or if I should tell the bitch to back the hell off My Intrepid Hero lest I cut his man-stealing ass.
Anyway, we'll ignore the fact that The Ceiling Demon could very well be LYING about all of that for the moment, because we're now getting his reasons for nailing Jessica to the ceiling with a foot-wide gash through her torso: "She just had to die. You were all set to marry that little blonde thing -- become a tax lawyer with two kids, a beer gut, and a McMansion in the suburbs -- and I needed you sharp, on the road, honing your skills, your gifts!." "Little"? Jessica? She's an Amazon, for Christ's sake. Did The Ceiling Demon not notice the way she was looming over Li'l Stumpy in the last episode? Maybe he should remove those colored contacts of his once in a while. I think they're adversely affecting his eyesight. No matter, though, for Sam's moved on to inquire regarding The Ceiling Demon's motives for offing his mother, and here's where this whole sequence really gets interesting. "That was bad luck," The Demon replies, referring to Mary Winchester's immolation. "She walked in on us," The Demon continues, being rather uncomfortably NAMBLA about the whole thing. "Wrong place, wrong time!" Sam's mighty bitchface reveals he believes not a word of this. Good thing he caught The Ceiling Demon in a "charitable" mood, then, for with a snap of his fingers, The Demon whisks them both into a "high-definition instant replay" of the fatal night in question, and I am telling you this right now: I refuse to get all conspiracy-theory about the differing details between the way this first played out in the pilot and now, because, seriously, people, they just did not hang on to those frigging baby blankets they used in the crib two years ago, and the tousle-haired infant from 2005 is now waaaaaaay too far into toddlerdom to be passing itself off as a nine-month-old, and we know they couldn't get Jeffrey Dean Morgan back to reenact his role as the mysterious shadow lurking above Sam's crib, so DROP IT. In any event, once you push past the unimportant natterings of the present-day Sam and Demon, the most important parts of what follows are these: The Ceiling Demon actually sliced open his wrist with his fingernail to feed Tiny Sam a few drops of his blood, and when Mary initially ran into the room from the stairwell after realizing Shut Up Daddy was actually asleep in front of the TV, she caught sight of The Demon's yellow eyes and whispered, "It's you!" That scream that awoke Shut Up Daddy? Actually happened after The Demon had already pushed her up the wall onto the ceiling. So now you know. Well, now you know, if The Demon isn't LYING about everything, of course. As Sam grows increasingly agitated watching his mother die all over again, The Ceiling Demon croons, "I don't think you really want to see this," and with a wave of his hand, he propels Sam back into...
...the decrepit ghost-town hotel, where he awakes with a start to find G.I. Jake delivering the very bad news that Ava's been devoured by the METAL TEETH CHOMP! Or, you know. Missing. Your choice.
Aftermath. Sam and G.I. Jake stumble down the hotel's front steps and split up to search the town for their missing compatriot. Meanwhile, lurking in the background, is Ava herself. DUN!
Back in the threshold to the safe room, Dear Little Doomed Gay Stoner Andy's edged past the protective line of salt on the floor to poke his head out into the hallway, but he quickly hops back inside once he hears suspicious creaking elsewhere in the hotel. And when that suspicious creaking reappears right behind his back, he spins around to find Ava at one of the windows. "Where'd you go?" he wonders as she ominously draws a finger through the salt on the sill, breaking the line. "Didn't you hear us yelling?" he continues, entirely unaware of what she's doing. "Yeah, I heard you," she replies, somewhat bored, and with more than a hint of distaste for Poor Little Doomed Gay Stoner Andy coloring her tone. And with that, she clutches at her temples and groans a little bit, in the process summoning tonight's swirling cloud of bitterly black demonic goo into the room through the break she made in the salt on the windowsill. So, earlier? When she was clutching at her temples while Sam was rummaging around in that trunk? She was actually summoning the demonic moppet to off The Lesbian. Clever show. Clever, clever show. In any event, Poor Little Doomed Gay Stoner Andy barely has time to react before the ghastly and shrewlike demonic moppet coagulates upon the floorboards and, with her actual claws already bared, pounces upon him, knocking him flat on his back on the floor right before she rips open his poor little doomed gay stoner chest. Choking spasms of blood fill his mouth, and he tries to scream just as the demonic moppet hits an artery that sends a lurid gout of red SPLATTING against one of the windows, and...Raoul? Um, Raoul? Oh, I'm sorry -- I'm certain Raoul would offer his customary shriek of glee at all of that were he not currently curled up in the fetal position on his overstuffed armchair with his eyes buried in his paws. "EVIL!" whimpers Raoul. "Pure, Satanic EVIL!"
Ava savors her triumph for a moment before hitching her body around into the appropriate posture of despair to let loose with a full-throated howl of abject terror. Sam races back into the so-called safe room to find Dead Andy on the floor and falsely weeping Ava apparently falling apart by the windows. Secretly Evil Ava LIES that she just found Dead Andy lying there after she came back from a water run to the town's well, and she keeps it up for a while until Super-Smart Sammy notices the break in the line on the windowsill, recalls the fact that Ava's the only person present with a five-month gap in her memory, and realizes that Ava was struck with a mysterious headache right around the time the demonic moppet strung The Lesbian from the windmill. Openly Evil Ava wipes the fake tears from her eyes and gloats a little bit over her skillful deception before taking a very lengthy moment to reveal every last detail of her dastardly master plan instead of offing Darling Sammy right away, because she has reached the point of this evening's festivities in which the script compels her to do so. Sigh.
Seems Ava's actually been in Cold Oak since she vanished from Peoria, and in that time has become The Demonic Miss America Pageant's "undefeated heavyweight champ," having dispatched entirely on her own several groups of three or four super-special mommy-free and -having children at a time over the last five months. And how has she managed to do it all? By carefully developing her powers, of course! Oh, and eventually shrugging off whatever moral qualms she had about slaughtering other people, naturally, because this is a kill or be killed situation, here, neither of her making nor of her choosing, and she just wanted to survive. So there. By the way, can Sam believe that Ava started out having mere dreams, for Christ's sake? Now she can control demons! Isn't that awesome? And look! She's finally -- finally -- summoning one now to rip holes throughout Darling Sammy's impressive fifteen-foot-tall frame, and CRK! Ooops. Seems Evil Ava wasted too many minutes jabbering on about herself instead of, you know, slaughtering people like she's supposed to, and thereby allowed G.I. Jake enough time to sneak up behind her and snap her neck like a twig with his Demon-endowed super-strength. Sorry, Ava! It was nice knowing you! Well, until you inexplicably turned into a complete dipshit there at the end.
Meanwhile, Dean and Bobby have finally arrived back in South Dakota from their Ash-inspired and entirely unnecessary 100-mile side-trip down to Nebraska. They arm themselves with weapons from the Impala's bottomless trunk and, because the road into Cold Oak's been rather effectively barricaded, set out on foot to reach the town.
Back in Frontierland Hell...oh, I just can't recap this. Really, I can't, because after G.I. Jake reveals he had the same sort of dreamtime visitation from The Ceiling Demon that Sam had, and after G.I. Jake insists Sam must be the to die, Our Intrepid Hero makes a series of strategic mistakes so egregious, I can't bear to watch the gigantic moron go through them all again. It's all meant to prove that Sam's not lost touch with his humanity, or something, but seriously: D-U-M. And on top of it all, it's making me question something I was determined to ignore in his last scene with Ava, specifically the fact that when she clutched at her temples to summon the demon, Sam stood there like a jackass with that iron poker of his, fully prepared to swing it through the demon once the demon materialized, but entirely unprepared to bash the stupid goddamned thing against Ava's head, thereby rendering her unconscious and thus a threat to NO ONE. Oh, SAM. ANY-way, Sam tries to prove he's no danger to G.I. Jake, going so far as to disarm himself of that ginormous Bowie knife, but it's all for naught, as G.I. Jake's long ago bought into The Ceiling Demon's "Last Man Standing" schtick, and simply smacks The Ginormotron up with some of that super-strength of his, back-handing Darling Sammy through the air, through a fence, and onto his back in a distant field, where he remains, semi-conscious, until G.I. Jake steps forward into the METAL TEETH CHOMP!, and another commercial break? With only three minutes of actual show remaining? Go to hell, Supernatural.
There follows a fight scene surprisingly lengthy given the fact that Darling Sammy suh-huuuuuucks as hard as he does with the hand-to-hand. At some point, G.I. Jake apparently shatters one of Darling Sammy's remarkably broad shoulders, a sin for which G.I. Jake shall never be forgiven. "KILL HIM!" shrieks Raoul. "KILL THE ONE WHO WOULD HARM THE SHOULDERS!" So nice to see Raoul's recovered from his earlier scare with the moppet, isn't it? In any event, and long story short, Sam finally manages to subdue the grunt by bashing the latter unconscious with one of those handy iron bars they'd wrested from the farm equipment earlier, and Sam makes yet another strategic error when he fails to finish the bastard off. No, Sam instead chooses life, like he's in Wham! all of a sudden, and just as he slings the iron bar aside, he hears Dean calling out his name from the far end of the ghost town's only drag. Sam turns his back on G.I. Jake's apparently out-of-it form to stagger happily in Dean and Bobby's direction, which of course gives the actually conscious G.I. Jake the perfect opportunity to snatch up Sam's discarded Bowie knife and plunge the thing into Sam's back. And twist it around a couple of times before yanking it out, just to add insult to injury. Oh, Sam. Why do you have to be as dumb as your brother? As Sam sinks to his knees in the mud, Bobby takes off after the fleeing G.I. Jake -- instead of shooting him with the shotgun Bobby holds in his hands right this very instant, because Bobby's now as stupid as Dean and Sam -- while Dean races to catch the rapidly dying Sam in his arms before Sam face-plants into the ghost town's only drag.
And then Sam dies. In Dean's arms. And while Jensen Ackles admittedly does a hell of a job with the frantically self-delusional desperation they've given Dean during the scene, I've grown so tired of this episode by this point that all I'm noticing is the way Jared Padalecki's head is bobbling around like a bladder on a stick. In the end, then, the camera cranes up above Dean cradling Sam's rapidly cooling and unnaturally enormous corpse in his arms to the point where both of the boys look impossibly small against the field of unbroken mud that surrounds them, and that's where I'm going to pretend the episode ends, because we really didn't need that final close-up on the single, perfect tear dropping from El Deano's left eye to race down his cheek and disappear off his chin. No, we didn't. Shut up.
week? All I know is that it's Part Two of this two-hour season finale. I told you I was avoiding spoilers like the plague. Though I'm willing to bet someone resurrects Darling Sammy at some point during the hour. Call it a hunch.