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This week, we're off to Cicero, Indiana, nominally because some poor schmuck fought a demonically possessed table saw and lost -- and my, but that losing was exquisite -- but really because Doomed El Deano spent a particularly exhausting weekend there a decade ago with a yoga instructor named Lisa (whom Dean's taken to referring to as "Gumby Girl," for what I hope are obvious reasons), and he's looking for a repeat performance. Imagine Dean's surprise, then, when he arrives at her tastefully appointed McMansion in an exclusive gated community and discovers she's got a son precisely the correct age to be his. Even more unnerving for Our Intrepid Hero is the fact that the kid's basically a miniature version of himself, right down to his fondness for AC/DC, saucy chicas, and extra-crispy amounts of gel in his hair. Alas, it's simply a gigantic red herring to make us feel even more sorry for Dean than we already supposedly do, as the child actually spawned from some bar-back Lisa did right after Dean skipped town. Poor Deazzzzzzzzzzz.
Which brings us -- sort of, not really -- to The Demons Of The Week: A horde of ankle-biting Changelings have invaded central Indiana and, having locked the real kids away in a basement, are now slowly sucking the life force out of the mothers in Lisa's development, to the point where one of them tries to pull a Susan Smith on her purported daughter. Unfortunately, the attempted drowning doesn't work, because Changelings are immune to everything except fire. Our Dear Boys save the day, of course, but not before the creepy little preadolescent freaks put everyone in the audience off children for life.
And finally, The Hate Blonde pops up to screw with Darling Sammy's shaggy and undead head by revealing she knows all about both The Demonic Miss America Pageant and What Happened To Burnt Mary. Oh, and she's a demon, too, but that's okay, because she's been tasked by entities unknown with protecting The Ginormotron, and she might be able to solve Li'l Stumpy's pesky Crossroads Demonette problem, as well. We'll be reserving judgment on that, though, until we get a better idea of how it's all going to play out. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
Rattle, Rattle THEN! Yes, I'm going with "Rattle, Rattle" for now until I come up with a more enthusiastic pair of words to describe the new opening sound for the THEN sequence, a sound which most closely resembles that of an old 16-millimeter projector scrabbling through a reel of film. Perhaps it is a demonic 16-millimeter projector, yes? In any event, whereas last season's THEN-sequence catchphrase was that whole "Saving people, hunting things!" bit from "Wendigo," this year's call to arms comes to us from Dean's all-but-final words in last week's premiere: "So whaddya say we kill some evil sons of bitches, and we raise a little hell?" Smash to a montage of Our Dear Boys doing just that, with Dean blasting rock salt through Farmer Roadkill's head and Sam swinging an iron poker through that shrewlike bit of preadolescent foulness from the first half of last season's finale before we're reintroduced to dear old danashulpsdanashulpsdanashulps and H.H. Holmes until the Impala smokes a ghost right before shoulder-destroying G.I. Jake slices poor Darling Sammy's spinal cord in two. And after we're reminded of the exact terms of Dean's trade with the sassy Crossroads Demonette, we run through last week's introduction of The Mysterious And Slender Blonde That All True Fangirls Everywhere Must Hate, and everything then pitches into a familiar blackness from which emerges the...
...Silence, Silence NOW! God, that's weak. Oh, show. Why'd you have to screw around with something that worked? Sigh. Anyway, as the unnaturally silent NOW! slips back into oblivion, an actress named Kathleen Munroe steps forward to take its place. I've seen nothing she's ever been in before, nor do I remember her character's name for this evening's festivities, mainly because I started referring to her as "Crazy Mom" in my head about ten minutes in, so we'll go with that for now. So, Crazy Mom, hugging herself against the nighttime autumn chill, descends from her lovely suburban manse's front porch and heaves a weary and put-upon sigh as a silver SUV swings into her driveway. The location card reveals we've found ourselves in Cicero, Indiana, as the SUV rolls to a stop, and barely has the engine cut off when a pink-clad brunette moppet hops from the back seat to scurry over and wrap her arms around Crazy Mom's waist in a tight and clingy embrace. "This isn't going to end well!" shrieks Raoul The Big Gay Supernatural Dragon from the thoroughly unnerved depths of his overstuffed armchair, for as he'll readily remind you, preadolescent girls are the most fulsome and noxious evil on the face of the planet. "It's true!" As Crazy Mom gently strokes the little freak's head, Divorced Dad lopes over with the Satanic moppet's backpack and responds to Crazy Mom's offer of thanks for pulling chauffeur duty with a slightly snappish, "It's not like I had a choice -- she pitched a fit!" "Evil!" shrieks Raoul, directing an perfectly honed accusatory claw at the television screen. "The child is evil!" I think we got that, my clamorous friend, so would you mind calming down for a moment so I can get to the good part? "Whatever! I can't watch!" It's gonna be a long night, I can tell.
So, while Divorced Dad takes off in the background, Crazy Mom leads her Evil Child back towards the front porch, wondering why the demonspawn insisted on cutting short the latter's quality time with Divorced Dad while reminding the foul imp of the joint custody arrangement her parents reached as part of the settlement, and I'll not be making the obvious Britney remark, so you'll have to live with the disappointment. "I don't like Dad's Night!" the infernal little troll whines, and no, no Federline jokes, either. Deal. "I don't want Dad to have a night anymore!" The Evil Child insists. Confused and put-upon Crazy Mom's all, "Since when?" "Since she sold her soul to Beelzebub!" shrieks Raoul, and dude! Enough! Bury your eyes in your paws, or something! "I can't help it! Foul creatures! Foul, foul, wicked...things!" Unfortunately for all of us, The Evil Child does nothing to refute Raoul's assertion when she completely loses it right there on the porch and all but screeches, "I hate it there!" "He's mean!" The Evil Child LIES. "And there are monsters there!" she continues to deceive. I mean, I'm pretty sure. Then again, I wouldn't trust one of these overprivileged brats any further than I could toss their massive and hideously overdeveloped senses of entitlement, so I might not be the best judge, but whatever. Crazy Mom, clearly thrown by her evil child's unexpected vehemence, or something, simply allows the wicked beast to wrap her in another will-draining embrace while she herself frets.
Meanwhile, Divorced Dad's busily sanding a handmade rocking horse in the workshop he's got set up over in his own garage while some unseen dark demonic force freshly escaped from the flaming maw of Hell -- represented here by the shaky hand-held camera -- skitters around behind the parked silver SUV, spying on him, and Divorced Dad is now Doomed Dad, because you know he's not going to make it to the title card alive. Eventually, Doomed Dad decides it's time to hit the hay, and he's almost across the threshold into his house proper when the still-unseen force scampers across the garage to activate Doomed Dad's table saw, which whirrs into ominous life in the extreme foreground of the shot. Doomed Dad makes with the puzzled expressions for a bit before carefully picking his way across the garage floor and just as carefully switching the saw off. Once the vicious little blades of the thing have clanked to a stop, Doomed Dad heads back towards the house, but no sooner has he snapped off the overhead light when the demonic force flips the saw back on again. This time around, when Doomed Dad approaches to investigate, he foolishly lingers to examine the underside of the table rather than switching it all off immediately, which is enough for the unseen demonic force to fly into action, and Raoul, you might want to open your eyes for this. As Raoul cautiously peeks through his fingers at the scene now unfolding on the screen, the demonic force rears up and pounces, flipping Doomed dad around and knocking him off-balance backwards so his spine slams down -- hard -- on the still-buzzing table saw, and, oh, my God, this is especially gruesome because his body of course involuntarily attempts to arch up and away from the thing that just tore an eight-inch-long gash through his rib cage, but the teeth on the spinning blade snag at something vile and yank his torso back down so they can hack all the way through the front of his shirt with the blood spitting from the torn fabric and from his mouth and there's a river of it spurting up across his neck from below and..."GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORE!" While Raoul and I shriek and squirm about with delight while flapping our hands in the air like the little girls we despise so much -- he's been a horrible influence on me, can you tell? -- the saw snaps off, seemingly of its own accord, and the camera strays past Dead Dad's glazed eyes to land on that eternally unfinished rocking horse of his as it teeters back and forth in a mysterious breeze until...
RAAAWWWR! "Eeeeeeeeeeeee!" Raoul shrieks, as is his wont, though I don't entirely approve of this new title card. "Oh, don't be a gigantic pissypants buzzkill like our Darling Sam!" Raoul begins before cutting himself short and tittering, "Hee! 'Buzzkill!' Get it?!" Yes, yes, very amusing, I'm sure, but to get back to the point, I miss the animal jaws roaring out from the flames and such. This bony-claws-through-roiling-demonic-clouds thing just isn't doing it for me. "If you ask me!" Raoul begins, even though I recall doing nothing of the sort, "it's simply because this particular opening sequence -- delightfully gruesome though it was, I'm sure! -- lacked the METAL TEETH CHOMP! we've all grown so accustomed to prior to the title card!" D'oh! Oh, you're probably right, my scaly friend, but we should get on with the episode itself, shouldn't we? "Must we?!" he whimpers, shuddering and making pleading and damp doe eyes at me. "Those...things!" He's talking about the children, of course. "I don't know if I can take it!" I'll give you advance warning whenever one of them threatens to lurch into view -- how about that? "But my heart!" I'll take that as a yes.
Instantly and jarringly, Sam pops up from the blackness that follows the new title card to hiss something at Bobby via his cell. The camera jumps back as Dean raps on the window of the café in which Sam is currently ensconced, where Sam eyes some magical translation software on his laptop as it speedily translates the microfilmed image of an ancient bit of papyrus from Sanskrit into English. Riiiiight. Long story short, Sam's still trying to figure out a way to release his brother from the latter's obligations to the sassy Crossroads Demonette, and that's all we need to know about that subplot for now, because jaunty El Deano's just arrived with word of a possible job. Sam too-hastily cuts his call short -- LYING badly about the nature of said call, naturally -- so we can all finally get down to this week's business. Dean tosses the newspaper article detailing Dead Dad's untimely demise across the diner table, and to my delight, it mentions that Dead Dad's "body was found lying on his back in a pool of blood on top of his circular saw, the blade having cut through his spinal cord and several ribs into his thoracic cavity." Yeah, like any local paper would get that detailed, but still: Whee! The article also informs us the deceased was one "Richard Keel," who's left behind his ex-wife, "Diana," and their daughter, "Katie." Just so you know. In any event, Sam of course thinks This Is Not Their Kind Of A Thing, so horny El Deano's forced to admit an ulterior motive: Eight years ago, he spent a particularly "bendy" weekend in Cicero with a yoga instructor named "Lisa Braeden," and he'd very much appreciate a repeat of that performance before the hellhounds arrive to drag him away, thank you very much.
thing we know, Dean shoves Sam out of the Impala into the forecourt of the Cicero Pines Motel before tooling off to Lisa Braeden's still-under-construction development, a place called "Morning Hill." No, the name's not important at all, but I figured you'd like to know. In any event, he arrives at one of the finished homes, double-checks the address when he notes the apparently mystifying presence of helium-filled balloons affixed to the place's driveway lamppost, then decides to proceed with his booty call, anyway. Lisa herself fortuitously enough answers Dean's knock, and awkwardness abounds when Lisa realizes why -- through a series of unsubtle winky and leering comments, of course -- he's there. She politely attempts to deflect his attentions by noting he's arrived at a bad time, as she's hosting a party at the moment, but sleazy El Deano's all, "Party? Let's rock!" and rudely invites himself indoors.
And of course, as the balloons out front would have indicated to anyone whose brain was in its proper place (that would be two feet above the waistband of one's jeans rather than a few inches below it, in case you had to ask), it's actually a birthday party for Lisa's son, Ben, whom we meet just as he's unwrapping a CD with a particularly enthusiastic, "Yes! AC/DC rooooolz! Awesome!" For yes, gentle reader, Lisa's son is not only precisely the right age to have been a product of Dean's particularly bendy weekend with his mother, but he's also been endowed with particularly Dean-like traits, such as his immediately apparent predilection for extra-crispy amounts of gel in his hair, his just-revealed fondness for the greatest hits of mullet rock, and his soon-to-be-revealed admiration for bouncy chicas of the saucy sort, just to clobber the whole possible-paternity point home to those viewers who happen to be stupider than Dean, here. Yep, it takes Dim Dean several minutes to realize that the kid in front of him is likely his bastard son, but that's not really important right now, because Demented Diana and her demonic daughter have just arrived at the party, and Lisa must take Dean's leave to welcome their psychotic asses. Left alone, El Deano admires the NASCAR-themed birthday cake for an undue amount of time while two of Lisa's neighbors -- a brunette we never see again and a red-headed real estate agent -- stare at his ass. Well, actually, they're staring at his stumpy little bowlegs, because the too-long jacket he's sporting blocks their view of his ass, but we're supposed to be paying attention to the bits of racy gossip they're bantering between themselves, anyway, so whatever. Long story short, Lisa's confided her version of that particularly bendy weekend's delights to her neighbors, and to Dean's credit, she remembers it as fondly as he does. The gossipy bitches get all fluttery and overheated when Dean grants them a hello. Dean picks up on the passion rising in their loins, freaks, and bolts. Heh.
Unfortunately, he bolts directly into an annoying an unnecessary scenelet with his supposed bastard of a son in which the similarities between their personalities are even more obnoxiously underscored for the absolutely and brutally dimwitted in the audience who have yet to figure it all out, so let's hop back into...
...Lisa's kitchen, shall we? There we find the lady of the house comforting Demented Diana, because Lisa's under the impression Demented Diana's taking her ex-husband's untimely demise a little hard, you see. To Lisa's horror, Demented Diana's actually becoming increasingly unhinged over her own daughter. "I'm not sure," Demented Diana confesses, stammering a bit, "that Katie is...Katie." "What?" Lisa bites, deeply uneasy with the turn the conversion has taken. "I'm not sure that's my daughter," Demented Diana elaborates, more than a little desperate and on the verge of tears. "You can't talk like that," Lisa begins, thinking it's Diana's grief talking, here, but Demented Diana cuts her off with, "You don't understand!" Lisa won't drop it, though, and assures Demented Diana that she and the others in the neighborhood will be certain to provide Demented Diana with whatever help the latter needs to make it through her current crisis. The instant Demented Diana realizes Lisa thinks she's as batshit as she truly is, though, she freezes up and scurries to collect her demonic moppet to flee the party. Unfortunately, Lisa gets not a moment to mull all this over before Dean comes barging in to ask if her little bastard's his. Lisa scoffs at the very idea just as Demented Diana and her unnaturally disaffected daughter cross by to exit. "Something wrong with your friend?" Dean wonders, perhaps eager to change the subject. Lisa fills him in on Dead Dick's unfortunate "accident," then adds that "there's been a lot of bad luck in the neighborhood lately." DUN!
Back at The Cicero Pines, Darling Sammy's deep into some Crossroads Demonette-related research in the motel's diner when up pops...The Mysterious And Slender Blonde That All True Fangirls Everywhere Must Hate! "Hello, Sam!" she opens, right before Darling Sammy's mightily furrowed brow drops straight into the first METAL TEETH CHOMP! of the evening.
Diner. Long story short, The Hate Blonde -- who has yet to be given a proper name, I should note -- has been tracking Our Dear Ginormotron since Lincoln, and she's done her reading on him, too. Yep, she knows all about The Demonic Miss America Pageant and Sam's back-door victory in same -- she uses the word "Antichrist" to describe him because of said victory, by the way -- and what's more, she knows all about What Happened To Burnt Mary And All Of Burnt Mary's Friends, as well. Sam of course is all, "Uh, what was that about my dear, departed, demonically connected mother's friends?" leading The Hate Blonde to realize instantly that Sam's been a bit remiss in what should have been a primary focus of his research all along. She coyly unfolds his hand and, scribbling her cell number into his palm, instructs him to check out that particular bit of his family's history and get back to her when he's done. "By the way," she adds, right before vanishing through the diner's front door, "you do know there's a job in this town, right?"
If he didn't, he would have in a second anyway, for no sooner has she left than Dean calls him on his cell to confirm, "Dude, there is a job in this town." Seems Dead Dick's unfortunate accident was merely the latest in a string of fatal mishaps to have plagued Morning Hill's gated community over the last couple of weeks. Sam looks grim.
Elsewhere, Demented Diana rouses herself from an impromptu nap on her couch to find...her demonic daughter, mildly appraising her from the arm of the sofa! "Eeeek!" shrieks Raoul, frightened out of his already scattered wits. "Devil child! DEVIL CHILD!" Aren't they all? "Well, of course! But I thought it only appropriate to punctuate this entirely unexpected development with an appropriate howl of abject terror!" I sense sarcasm. "You sense incorrectly, for I am far too frightened of that...that thing on the screen to...oh, I can't even muster an appropriate response! Fast-forward! Fast-forward now!" 'Fraid I can't do that, my easily affrighted friend, because this is the scene where things really start getting weird, beginning with The Demonic Daughter's insistence upon deploying bizarrely British locutions when addressing her mother. You know, like calling her "Mummy," and insisting, "Oh, ripping! Isn't it delightful when we play together, mother dear!" Okay, so I made the second bit up, but the "Mummy" thing is creeping me the hell out. In any event, after Demented Diana's made her woozy way towards the kitchenette, The Demonic Daughter races up behind her to cling to her supposed mother's waist in that will-sucking way of hers. Demented Diana slowly spins around to acknowledge the embrace, but stops short in horror when she spots their reflection in the mirror above the mantel, for The Demonic Daughter's exposed limbs appear to be mottled, rapidly decaying slabs of weeks-old corpseflesh! "FAST-FORWARD! FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, MAN, FAST-FORWARD!" As poor Raoul cowers ever deeper into his overstuffed armchair, Demented Diana pulls away from the apparently rotting creature in her arms, only to discover that The Demonic Daughter's right back to her purportedly sweet-faced self. "I'm hungry, Mummy!" perks the oddly disaffected bit of foulness, so Demented Diana staggers off to the fridge for some vittles, and brava to Kathleen Munroe, who's doing an excellent job with her character's slow descent into madness this evening.
Elsewhere in the neighborhood, Darling Sammy's spiffed up enough to impersonate an insurance claims representative in order to pump one of the development's grieving widows for a bit of information regarding her late husband's mysterious fall from their second-storey window. Of importance are the blood-red streaks he notes on a railing and a windowsill, as well as the fact that their dead-eyed daughter, Dakota, was the only other person home at the time of her father's defenestration. Oh, and that honking huge suck mark complete with demonic dental impressions on the back of the woman's neck! "EVIL! MAKE THE EVIL DEVIL CHILDREN GO AWAY!"
Back at Demented Diana's, the poor crazy woman's just finished frying up a grilled cheese for her undeserving bit of Satan spawn, and she places the tasty snack in front of the entirely disinterested fiend right before fleeing to the bathroom and locking the door behind her. She rubs uncomfortably at her neck as she crosses to the mirror, but before she manages to catch sight of her own huge honking suck mark in the reflection, The Demonic Daughter starts banging repeatedly upon the door, calling out, "Mummy? Let me in!" "What are you doing?" the preadolescent nightmare shouts just as Demented Diana snatches up a hand mirror and finally spots the mark. Demented Diana dissolves into tears of anguished terror as The Demonic Daughter begins throwing its body against the damn door, all the while screaming, "LetmeinletmeinLETMEIN!" Suddenly, the screams and the banging halt when the doorbell rings below. Demented Diana manages to pull herself together and arrives at the front door to discover The Demonic Daughter's already answered to find the realtor from earlier standing on the front porch with a basket of baked goods. After sending the brat into the kitchen with the basket, Demented Diana attempts to be pleasant with her unexpected visitor, but that all goes to hell the instant The Red-Headed Step-Realtor inquires as to the disposition of the house, given the fact that Dead Dick won't be coming through with the alimony to pay for it anymore. Furious, Demented Diana slams the door in the woman's face and twists on the lock before collapsing against it, wracked with psychic agony. And that all goes to hell the instant The Demonic Daughter reappears at Demented Diana's feet to demand, "Mummy! I'd like ice cream, please!" Demented Diana gapes. "KILL HER ALREADY! KILL THE SATANIC FOULNESS SENT STRAIGHT FROM THE BLEEDING PITS OF HELL!" Raoul! Volume! If you're going to be like this for the rest of the episode, then I'm going to have to insist you retire to your den, because my eardrums simply can't take it anymore. "Eardrums?!" Raoul shrieks, appalled. "Your eardrums?! What about my FRAIL HEART!?" Oh, don't go pulling that... "I HAVE A MURMUR!" You have a murmur? "I HAVE A MURMUR, AND THIS EPISODE IS ABOUT TO KILL ME DEAD!" Drama queen. "Absolutely!" Raoul replies easily enough, immediately cured of his supposed condition. "I just thought, wouldn't it be fun if we raised the stakes a little?! If The Demonic Daughter wins, I drop dead!" But...we already know the...she... "Silence! It's a fabulous idea, and you will play along with it!" Yeah, don't bet on it, doll.
ANY-way, where the hell was I? Oh, yeah: Dean, apparently pulling a little neighborhood reconnaissance of his own, is about to climb into the Impala when he notices his presumptive bastard moping on a park bench. Long story short, some fat kid's swiped The Little Bastard's PS3, or whatever, so after a bit of unheard off-screen instruction from El Deano, The Little Bastard knees the fat kid in the nuts -- hard, and twice -- to get the thing back. Dean and The Little Bastard high-five each other over the Ben's triumph, but Lisa, suddenly appearing on the scene, is appalled, and after chewing out her son for kicking a fat kid in the nuts, she yanks Dean aside to seethe, "What are you even still doing here? We had one weekend together a million years ago. You don't know me, and you have no business with my son!" Point to Lisa. Well, points, actually, but whatever, because I don't care about this subplot. Okay, the bit, where The Little Bastard breaks free from his mother's hand as she's dragging him away so he can race back to give Dean a hug before looking up at him and saying, "Thanks," is kind of cute, but still: Don't care. !
"I love you most in the whole wide world, Mummy!" Eeeeek! Aw, shit. Now Raoul's got me doing it. We've cut back over to Batshit Acres, where Demented Diana's strapping The Demonic Daughter into the backseat of the family sedan, and no, I had no idea where they were going with this the first time I watched it, but oh, how I love where it ended up. Demented Diana, sniffling and snuffling and just barely holding it together, finishes lashing The Demonic Daughter into the back and slams the locked door behind her. She then scrambles behind the steering wheel and distractedly adjusts the rear-view mirror (no, there's no reason for its position to have been altered since last she drove the car, but just go with it), only to glance at the reflection and find...a gaping maw filled with tiny, soul-sucking teeth staring back at her! Um. Why are my eardrums not being blasted out of my skull at the moment? "You silly little man!" Raoul shrieks, entirely undisturbed by the image on the screen. "Rotting skull-faces with lamprey maws frighten no one!" I won't pretend to understand, so let's get back to Demented Diana, who's just now recovered enough from her shock to twist her key in the ignition. A short time later, the car pulls up to the edge of a remote and otherwise deserted boat ramp, and yeah: They're going there. Openly weeping now, Demented Diana takes a moment to gather up her keys and her purse, shifts the car into neutral, and, after sliding out of the front seat, reaches back in to release the parking brake, effectively pulling a Susan Smith on The Demonic Daughter still strapped into the back of the car. The Demonic Daughter of course knows exactly what's going on, but rather than make any attempt to free herself, she instead glowers icily at her supposed mother as the car rolls down the asphalt into the lake. She's still glaring at Demented Diana when the water washes over the back window, but after a couple of jets of compressed air shoot from the submerged sedan to the lake's surface, Demented Diana's convinced The Demonic Daughter's gone for good, and a horrible, horrible expression of relief passes across her otherwise anguished features as the water stills above her vanished car. And again, Kathleen Munroe's doing an excellent job with this part. It surprised me, actually, because going by the Spoilers thread, I expected the heart of this episode to be Super-Special Super Sammy, The Remarkably Proficient Hate Blonde, and Poor Dean Whose Character Has Been Destroyed Because The Writers Don't Understand Him. Instead, it was about this wretched woman being slowly driven into the kind of insanity that compels her to murder her daughter. Go figure.
Batshit Acres. After what must have been a very long walk indeed, Demented Diana staggers through her front door and, wracked with sobbing, makes her uncertain way through the darkened front hall until she notices -- to her immense shock and disbelief -- a dripping puddle of water creeping across the kitchenette's floor. She slowly lifts her gaze to find her sodden devil child sitting pretty as you please at the breakfast bar, from which perch she chirps, "Hello, Mummy! May I have that ice cream now?" The camera lingers on The Demonic Daughter's toothy grin for the longest of Raoul-terrifying moments before everything collapses into the METAL TEETH CHOMP! "EEEEEK!"
Back at the motel, College Boy's figured out a plague of Changelings has invaded Morning Hill, and as he describes their attributes and diet for Dim Dean, the camera cuts over to Batshit Acres so we might watch The Demonic Daughter partake of dead-to-the-world Diana's synovial fluid via that suck mark on the back of the woman's neck. Ew. Long story short, Changelings break into homes, snatch away the real children, and pose as those kids in order to suck the mothers of the households dry. Anyone who impedes them in this task gets his fool self slaughtered, so we now have an explanation for all of the dead dads, improbable though that explanation may be, because last time I checked, guys had synovial fluid, too, but whatever. Also, "fire's the only thing that wastes them," so El Deano's slapped together a jury-rigged flamethrower for himself out of various implements I'm sure I'd recognize if I gave a rat's ass. And what of the real children the Changelings have replaced? They're stored "underground" somewhere, so Our Intrepid Heroes had best get their tantalizing asses in gear if they're going to save everyone who went missing over the last couple of weeks. Unfortunately, Dean decides to make a detour over to Lisa's first in order to get her out of the development, pronto, because he still thinks Ben is his bastard, despite the fact that everyone else -- everyone else -- knows he's not. Good thing, then, that the little bastard's already been snatched, as we can tell by his doppelganger's extremely averse reaction to the gentleman he so willingly hugged not five hours ago, because that means that Dean now has to, you know, do his goddamned job.
And that he does, first confirming his suspicions by finding those reddish smears Sam mentioned just below The Little Bastard's bedroom window, then by -- yes -- sticking his fingers into the crap to figure out that it's actually red dirt. Having spotted a pile of red dirt near the top of the hour as he entered Morning Hill, he pumps his stumpy little bowlegs back to the Impala, hops into the driver's seat to Sam, and tears off towards the last remaining house to be completed in the development. Once there, Our Intrepid Heroes split up, and while Sam pulls lengthy amounts of flashlight-fu on the upper floors, Dean quickly descends into the basement, where he finds all of the children -- including his supposed bastard -- properly locked into tiny little cages as all children should be. "Absolutely!" Unfortunately, Dean disagrees with our perfectly respectable ideas regarding proper parenting, and assures The Little Bastard that he'll have all of them sprung in no time.
Meanwhile, upstairs, The Red-Headed Step-Realtor confronts Darling Sammy. Sam's eyes dart across a nearby sheet of glass that just happens to catch The Realtor's reflection and...she's a soul-sucking Changeling just like the little ones! Only, you know, bigger. With a crappier wig. Sam hems and haws and winces and gulps his remarkably broad-shouldered way into an immensely grateful METAL TEETH CHOMP! I think the METAL TEETH CHOMP! is a Samgirl.
Back from the break, Darling Sammy's still hemming and hawing and wincing and gulping while The Demonic Red-Headed Step-Realtor threatens to call the cops.
Down in the basement, The Great Ankle-Biter Breakout Of 2007 continues apace. Dean is most disturbed, however, to find the real Red-Headed Step-Realtor occupying one of the cages. That doesn't fit the plan!
Upstairs, crafty Sammy craftily retrieves a jury-rigged flamethrower of his own from his backpack and blasts it in The Demonic Red-Headed Step-Realtor's direction, but she's already disappeared! DUN!
Down in the basement, The Great Ankle-Biter Breakout Of 2007 continues apace.
Over at Lisa's tastefully appointed Manse That Yoga Instruction Built, meanwhile, The Demonic Little Bastard's hungry. Uh oh. Lisa rises to bake him a great big pizza pie but startles herself into silence when she spots his reflection's rotting skull-face with lamprey maw in the mirrored coffee table. DUN!
Down in the basement, The Great Ankle-Biter Breakout Of 2007 continues apace. Until The Demonic Red-Headed Step-Realtor arrives to break up all the fun, that is. Demented Diana's actual daughter screams.
The Manse That Yoga Instruction Built. The Demonic Little Bastard, with a little assist from a trio of his dead-eyed friends out on the front lawn, traps Lisa inside the house.
Meanwhile, over at Batshit Acres, Demented Diana's locked herself in the bathroom again and slowly goes even more insane when The Demonic Daughter arrives to pound and kick and scream some more from the hallway outside.
Down in the basement, The Great Ankle-Biter Breakout Of 2007 continues apace. Mainly because The Ginormotron stormed downstairs just ahead of The Demonic Red-Headed Step-Realtor and now hoists all of the ankle-biters out through a shattered window fifteen feet above the basement floor while The Demonic Red-Headed Step-Realtor knocks the crap out of Li'l Stumpy. Oh, sorry. My bad. The Demonic Red-Headed Step-Realtor is actually knocking the crap out of both Our Intrepid Heroes, and it's the remarkably resourceful Little Bastard who's leading the ankle-biters to safety. Whatever. The hand-to-hand's pretty awesome, though. I do so appreciate it when women hand them their tantalizing asses on a platter. "I've noticed that about you!" shrieks Raoul. "I think you have a problem!" Oh, can it, Mr. Big Scary Dragon Who Wets His Pants Whenever A Little Girl Hits The Screen. "Hey!"
In any event, finally and at long last, Our Intrepid Heroes eventually get the better of The Demonic Red-Headed Step-Realtor as we all know they must, and Sam toasts her badly wigged behind with that cunning little jury-rigged flamethrower of his. Because she's the Mother Changeling, or something, her immolation sparks the great burning of all her offspring as well, and in quick succession, The Demonic Daughter and The Demonic Little Bastard erupt into rapidly dissipating pillars of fire, the former on the far side of the locked bathroom door, and the latter right in front of his supposed mother's horrified eyes. Lisa's great gaping jaw of brilliant white teeth vanishes into the great gaping maw of the METAL TEETH CHOMP!
Some time later -- it might be this season's first burst of InstaDawn!, but they've got some weird kind of half-assed blue filtering going on with the camera during this bit, so they might have shot it during the day intending it to look like the middle of the night, which it doesn't, really, and why do I care? -- Our Dear Boys deliver The Little Bastard safe and sound into the arms of his vociferously appreciative mother. "What the hell just happened?" she demands, after offering profuse amounts of gratitude. "I could tell you," El Deano shrugs, "but I don't think you want to know." Sam borrows a clue and skedaddles to give them a little alone time, and a few seconds later, Lisa's been brought thoroughly up to speed while The Little Bastard farts around obliviously in the far room with a Discman and his brand-new AC/DC CD. There follows a touchingly enacted scene in which Lisa confirms The Little Bastard's biological father is not, in fact, El Deano, and in which both Lisa and El Deano himself are surprised to learn that Dean's a little disappointed with the news, and it can all be summed up with the following lines:
Dean: I may be gone one day, and what am I leaving behind besides a [fantastically sleek and smooth-running mint-condition black 1967 Chevy Impala]?
Lisa: I don't know -- [my little bastard] may not be your [little bastard], but he wouldn't be alive if it wasn't for you.
And that's...one to grow on. !
Back at The Cicero Pines, Super-Smart Sammy's finally pursuing The Hate Blonde's suggested line of research and, during a lengthy montage that highlights his mad investigatory and LYING skillz, he discovers that everyone who had any association with his mother, no matter how seemingly tenuous, is now gone, with the last death we hear about hitting as late as 2006. One cross-fade later, Our Dear Boy's confronting The Hate Blonde with this newfound information, and he is pissed. The Hate Blonde, not rising to meet his anger with any of her own, in fact rather condescendingly deflects it by smirkily confirming that yes, The Late Great Ceiling Demon systematically took out over the last quarter-century every human being with the slightest connection to Burnt Mary. Sam's finally had enough of her smirky crap and roaringly demands to know who she is. In response, The Hate Blonde allows her eyes to flip beetle black for the briefest of moments. DUN! "It's Meg!" Raoul shrieks, entirely recovered from his earlier fits of extreme child-related discomfort. "It has to be Meg!" Uh. Why? "Because I said so, you peevish little fool! That's why!" I'm going to pretend I did not just hear that, houseguest, and get through the final damn minute of this episode. "Oh, I do apologize, most sincerely! That hateful little girl's undying presence in this episode has torn my nerves and good manners to shreds!" Okay, I'll let it slide. This time.
In any event, Sam immediately dives for his trusty flask of holy water, but The Hate Blonde gets him to calm himself by...I totally don't know, and I've just rewatched this scene five times in a row. I think she wants to figure out what The Late Lamented Ceiling Demon was up to with Darling Sammy and all of the other super-special mommy-free and -having children just as much as Sam still does, and she's thus more than willing to protect and assist Sam in his various endeavors if Sam reciprocates from time to time. I'm pretty sure. Oh, whatever -- it's one of this season's throughlines, obviously, so I'm assuming we'll have it all spelled out for us in excruciating detail at some point in the future. In the meantime, though, The Hate Blonde sweetens the proposed deal by hinting that she might just be able to do something about El Deano's Crossroads Demonette problem, as well, and that's what finally shuts Darling Sammy up, all the way into this evening's final immensely grateful METAL TEETH CHOMP!
week, Our Dear Boys tangle with a lucky rabbit's foot. "A demonic lucky rabbit's foot!" Raoul giggles, delightedly clapping his paws together in anticipation. I do believe you're correct in that, my scaly friend. Also, we finally get to meet this season's other feminine addition. Let's hope her character gets a goddamned name before I die of old age, SHOW. "Have fun, my pretties!"