In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.
Let's jump right into it, shall we? Somewhere today in the United States, Dean Winchester gasped himself awake in a cheaply knocked-together coffin (and good thing Darling Sammy slung Dean's mauled and mangled corpse into the ground with a Zippo, no? So thoughtful!) and clawed his way out of the earth to find himself standing in the midst of a copse of trees that had been flattened in visually arresting fashion by a force or forces unknown -- though, presumably, said force was whatever it was that yanked him out of Hell in the first place. So, with little better to do, Dashing And Dusty El Deano bow-leggedly stompy-clomped over to an otherwise deserted gas station to freshen his zombified ass up with some Poland Spring and porn -- as one does -- only to find himself in the middle of an apparent demonic assault when a high-pitched squealing noise shattered every single piece of glass in the joint and sent the slivers shooting straight towards his head. What was it?
To answer that question, Dean first tracks down Bobby, then Sam (neither of whom, of course, is entirely convinced Dean is who he claims to be at first) and together, they agree to tap into Bobby's personal Psychic Friends Network in an attempt to figure out what the hell is going on. Bobby's seer -- a biker chick named Pam who sports both a Ramones tee and a tramp stamp -- is more than game to get a séance going, and more's the pity for her, for the mere sight of whatever she ends up summoning sears the eyeballs right out of her skull. Ooops.
With this avenue of inquiry so blocked, Sam decides to tap into his own personal Psychic Friends Network, which ends up being comprised of Ruby and absolutely nobody else. Ruby's abandoned Katie Cassidy's body for that of Genevieve Cortese, and that's pretty much all I have to say about that at this moment, because Ruby's as useless in this episode as she ever was last season.
So it falls to Dean and Bobby to jury-rig a summoning ritual of their own, and Dean's savior? Is an angel. No, seriously -- the guy who pulled Dean out of Hell is an actual angel named Castiel, and you know what? He's dreamy! Sigh. (He's also, apparently, An Angel Of Thursday, so, you know: Oh, show. Oh, clever, clever show.) And long story short, God Himself ordered Dashing El Deano's delivery from Perdition. But why, I hear you ask, would The Big Guy Himself want to get involved in Dean's pathetic and stumpy little existence? Beats the crap out of me. I guess we'll have to wait until week to find out.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Ah, a new season, and we all know what that means, don't we, gang? "New title cards?!" shrieks Raoul The Big Gay Supernatural Dragon, giddily clapping his paws together in anticipatory glee. Indeed it does, my scaly friend. "Eeeeeeeeeeeee!" Raoul shrieks again. I think the charming dear's still holding out hope his exploding-cadaver idea from last season's finale will finally become a reality. Rather than smashing his delightful little dreams to pieces immediately, however, let's see what the brand-new, blood-tinted ROAD SO FAR! brings us, shall we?
As the opening guitar riffs of AC/DC's deathless ode to proper automotive maintenance and -- spoiler! -- sightless women telling no lies escort THE ROAD SO FAR! towards the blackness at the back of the screen, the camera cuts to take in the mass immolation that ended last season's premiere before jumping past a very welcome bit of Tough Guy Jazz Hands from the same episode before reminding us all of the following (and yes, take notes, because all of these will be on the test later this season): Ruby The Sparkly Haired Demon, Lilith, the terms of Dean's second-season-finale deal with a sassy Crossroads Demonette, the generalized awesomeness of Our Intrepid Heroes' 1967 Chevy Impala, the wages of sin, The Stupid Fucking Colt That Can Kill Anything Except When It Usually Can't, The Knife That Can Kill Anything And Actually Does, Dashing El Deano's manly hair care techniques, the personal hygiene rituals of drippy dead pirates, the very existence of horrific small children, and any manner of other such dark demonic forces sent from the flaming maw of Hell as covered by last season's episodes, including the vast horde of possessed Coloradans from "Jus In Bello," the Ed Gein wannabe from "Ghostfacers," the crocotta from "Long Distance Call," and..."GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORE!" For yes, gentle readers, The Kripkeeper and his minions were thoughtful enough to include Raoul's pick for The Most Stupendously Fantabulous Televisual Moment Of The Scintillating Season Just Passed in this opening montage, and the mere sight of Determined Darling Sammy popping Psychotic Gordon's damn fool vampiric head right off his damn fool vampiric body with nothing more than a length of razor wire is still enough to fling your faithful recapper's faithful lizardly companion into tizzily ecstatic paroxysms of glee over there on his overstuffed armchair. "EEEEEEEEEEEEE!"
And after Our Dear Boys kick a little more demonic ass, we finally enter the bit of the montage that dredges up those horrible final moments of last season's finale, in which tricky Lilith deposed Ruby from Katie Cassidy's body to taunt and sneer at Our Intrepid Heroes for a moment before she released all the hounds of Hell upon Dashing El Deano's tantalizing ass, which all the hounds of Hell proceeded to shred into thousands of slimy and sticky strips. "GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORE!" hoots Raoul, now thumping his mighty tail against the floorboards, so great is his joy at having this modern classic of American television back on our screens after so long a summer hiatus. "It's true!" Raoul breathlessly agrees. In any event (and as you'll no doubt recall, I'm sure), Lilith then turned her Super-Special Death-Ray Hand upon our hapless Ginormotron, who -- much to the neverending surprise of Lilith, himself, and the entire viewing audience in general -- ended up entirely immune to said Hand's effects, and therefore immune, logically, to anything else she and her underlings could think to sling at his remarkably broad and healthy frame in the future. Lilith fled (leaving behind a thoroughly dead Katie Cassidy in the process, natch) and Sad Sam And His Tragic Hair dripped tears and snot all over Dashing Dead Deano's rapidly cooling corpse while Dean himself shot straight down into Perdition to spend his entire summer vacation dangling from meat hooks poked through his wrists and his side and his feet while clad in little more than a pair of tattered bellbottoms, and if that weren't depressing enough, I must now tell you all to shut the fuck up for the...
...Silence, Silence NOW! The brand-new blood-tinted NOW! slinks forward through the silence until it disappears into the black, only to be replaced by six short, bursting, extreme (and extremely bloody) close-ups of Dashing El Deano's terrified eyes as those eyes' owner darts them from left to right and back again while the high-pitched howling of the damned and their tormentors -- or is it? -- erupts around his head. A seventh, lingering close-up fills the screen for an awful few seconds before Dean...
...gasps his actual, corporeal self awake in the depths of someplace very dark. Uh-oh. Good thing College Boy was smart enough to stow Dean's thoroughly flayed and rapidly decaying ass away with a Zippo in the pocket, isn't it? "I'll say!" Raoul agrees. "Though I must admit," he adds, tossing a skeptical side-eye at the television screen, "why that dear little boy failed to immolate his equally charming brother's corpse upon a thoroughly festive and warming pyre is beyond me!" Because they're both in the opening credits, and The Kripkeeper needed a reasonably intact Dean Corpse to resurrect in this season premiere? "Oh, pish!" Raoul exclaims, two perfect circles of mortally offended smoke popping from his outraged nostrils. "I'll thank you not to insult my intelligence!" I think you do a pretty good job of that your... "SILENCE! Even that hairy little Bobby creature remarks upon the delightfully grotesque condition of Dean's corpse later in the episode, so I really don't know wh...!" And I really must stop you there, my scaly friend, because not only are you threatening to spoil later events with this entirely justified outburst of yours, but I'm also on a deadline, here. "Oh, I do apologize, I'm sure!" Raoul exclaims, an appropriately mortified paw clutching at his nonexistent pearls. "Please carry on! Right away!" Thanks. I believe I shall.
Now, where the hell was I? Oh, yeah: Dean gasps his actual, corporeal self awake, and it's a very good thing indeed that Sam thought to stow his brother's thoroughly flayed ass away with a Zippo in the pocket so that, on the off chance Dean did manage to resurrect himself, Dashing El Deano would then have just enough light to illuminate the mad, mindless panic he'd hurl himself into once he realized he'd been buried alive. Way to go, Sam. But of course, Dashing El Deano doesn't go for any of that touchy-feely self-help panicking crap, bitch, and after rasping out a few feeble Heeeeeeeelp!s through his freshly resuscitated and decidedly parched pipes, Our Intrepid Hero sets to freeing himself, first by punching through an upper panel of his exceedingly shoddy coffin, then by punching through the very dirt that covers his exceedingly shoddy coffin to emerge, roaring, into the almost blinding sunlight that's currently flooding his gravesite. And if I think too hard about this -- if I remind myself, for example, that even if Sam did inter Dean under no more than six inches of dirt, there'd still be no way in hell all of that desiccated vegetation would have overrun the spot in a mere four months -- I'd accomplish little more than ruining the moment for myself, so whatever. Dean hauls his unexpectedly creaky body out of the earth and flops over onto his back upon the thick carpet of dried-out grass that covers what should have been his final resting place for a moment before he hauls himself to his feet to squint around through the brilliant light. What is it that he eventually focuses upon? A hundred or so recently living trees that up until a few moments ago had been sheltering his grave from view. And now? Each and every one of them has been violently ripped from and flung to the ground in a sunburst pattern around that grave, as if a tremendous force had simply exploded into the air above them. The camera quickly spirals up to give us all a birds-eye view of the generalized destruction with Dean a tiny speck at the center -- his shadow, like that of his cross-shaped grave marker, stretching out behind him -- before it jumps back down in time to catch Dean going, "Buh?" And then?
The RAAAWWWR! lashes out to snatch everything into the title card! "Eeeeeeeeeeeee!" shrieks Raoul -- once again with delight, for The Kripkeeper's gone all Hitchcockian on our collective ass this season, what with the blurry black crows flapping away against a white background until the blood-red-on-black title card slams into place as ominous growlings grumble underneath. And, really, Raoul? You're not upset The Kripkeeper apparently scoffed at your idea for the exploding cadaver? "Not in the least!" Raoul replies. But why? "Oh, don't play coy with me, you silly little man! You and I both know we've already placed our blesséd eyes upon he whom those black wings represent!" Ah. Gotcha. Shall I move this along, then? "Absolutely!" Excellent.
A little later, Disheveled El Deano bow-leggedly wanders down a country lane, still wiping streaks of dirt from his pretty, pretty face with his hands until he happens upon an apparently deserted filling station. He raps at the front door's window, calling out, "Hello?" in that still-raspy outside voice of his before his inside voice says, "Fuck it!" and tells him to smash through one of the panes to break into the place. Once inside, he treats himself to some much-needed bottled water before checking the masthead on the latest copy of The Pontiac Daily Gazette, which helpfully lets him know he's arrived at Thursday, September 18, 2008. "September?" he squints, not quite believing his own eyes, though if you ask me, he should be way more interested in the fact that it's Thursday, if you understand what I'm saying. "Demian! Spoiler!" Oh, ooops! My bad! "Hee!" In any event, Dean heads over to the station's absolutely filthy sink to clean up a little bit, and after he's wiped some more of the grime from his pretty, pretty face, he pauses to examine himself in the mirror. Flashing back for a moment on the hellhounds' attack, he warily lifts his black t-shirt to find...absolutely nothing at all! No lingering gouges, no freshly healed scars, zip. However, there's apparently a lingering throbbing afflicting his left shoulder, so he hikes up the short sleeve to discover...someone's right handprint, seared into the very flesh of his upper arm! DUN! Pretty big hand, too, by the looks of things. If you know what I mean. Mrow. "I don't get it!" Oh, knock it off, Raoul. "No, really! I don't!" Oh, Jesus Christ. "Yes?" Dean answers, except for the part where he totally doesn't, choosing instead to fill a plastic carrier bag with all sorts of power bars and baked goods and bottled liquids and porn. You know, the usual stuff you need when you get back to earth after four months in Hell. The porn, incidentally, is the print edition of BustyAsianBeauties.com, and what's strange about that is not the fact that BustyAsianBeauties.com has expanded from the Internet to print when most of its sister (and brother) publications are pulling the reverse, but rather that the proprietor of this particular establishment apparently chooses to display Busty Asian Beauties on the same rack as Seventeen, CosmoGIRL!, and O.
In any event, Dean's stop is the register, which the vile and disgusting little thief cracks open to start stuffing cash into his pockets until...the television set on the counter suddenly flickers to life of its own accord! Blasting out snow! Dean, momentarily freaked, slowly and deliberately shuts the thing off. You can imagine his annoyance, then, when the television set snottily flicks itself back on, and you can imagine his increasing panic when the radio at the other end of the counter decides to join in on the fun. Dean scrambles through the store's shelves until he finds some handy containers of salt, and he sets himself to laying down lines of the stuff in all of the appropriate places until something about the radio's squelching gives him pause. In fact, though, it's a high-pitched whine just beneath the squelch that soon renders any sensible distribution of salt impossible, for that piercing whine rapidly amplifies in volume to overwhelm Dean's senses, and he crashes to the floor of the place with his hands balled into desperate fists over his ears just as the whine shatters every single sheet of glass in the whole goddamned store to send the resulting slivers shooting through the air directly at Dean's freshly washed face. Dun-dun-DUN! The instant the last pane shatters, however, the whine cuts itself off, allowing Dean -- who's more or less no worse for the wear, save for that lingering ringing in his ears -- to push himself to his feet so he can tiptoe across the shards to peek suspiciously out the now-busted window frame.
thing we know, he's over at the station's old-fashioned outdoor payphone, slamming the booth's door behind him to plug quarters into the slot. The first number he dials has been disconnected, but the second connects, and it's Bobby, who of course instantly hangs up the second Dean announces his name. Dean, as always with the persistence, calls back, and this time Bobby vows to kill him if he dials the number one more time. So Dean, in typical Dean fashion, scoops up his remaining change and hotwires the battered 1950s-vintage Cadillac he spots over at the side of the garage for a little road-trip up to the lush coastal rainforest of central South Dakota, or wherever the hell Bobby's finding himself nowadays. Also? That was a fantastically entertaining -- at times even suspenseful -- seven minutes of airtime that just went by, especially considering the fact that only three words were spoken during the length of it, and those three by the only character who appeared on screen. Bravo to everyone involved.
And I'm not just saying that because I made it through the first fourth of the episode in less than 1700 words, either. Promise.
The Lush Coastal Rainforest Of Central South Dakota, Or Wherever The Hell Bobby's Finding Himself Nowadays. And it's shortly thereafter, apparently, because Dean is now Jesus Christ and can therefore slip battered old 1950s-vintage Cadillacs through wormholes in time and space in order to travel eight hundred miles in three minutes. Dean knocks at Bobby's door, and when that door opens, the camera pulls a slow and loving pan up to his pretty, pretty face, where it lingers for a moment until Dean -- a little breathless, here, what with all of the effort it took him to blast open those wormholes and such -- smiles, "Surprise!" Bobby lunges at him with a knife. Hee! Bobby then biffs Dean in the schnozz, sending Our Intrepid Hero reeling through the first floor until Dashing El Deano manages to latch onto a swivel chair, which he wheels between himself and Bobby -- again: Hee! -- until he can prove his identity, which he accomplishes by addressing Bobby as "Robert Steven Singer" while reminding this "closest thing [Dean's] had to a father" of the latter's uxoricidal entrée into the wonderful world of hunting. Bobby lunges at him with the knife again. HA! "I'm not a shapeshifter!" Dean insists. "Then you're a revenant!" Bobby roars, and Bobby, darling. Have you not been paying attention? He's Jesus Christ. Of course he's a revenant! Sigh. I hate it when they write Bobby dumb. In any event, to further prove his identity, Dean snatches the knife -- it's been forged from silver, don't you know -- from Bobby's hand and proceeds to slice open a thin and bloody gash upon what had heretofore been his entirely healthy bicep. Dammit! Bobby, thus convinced, envelops Our Dean And Saviour in a crushing embrace, and their reunion is very touching, indeed. Well, I'm pretty sure, because chick-flick crap like this always makes my eyes glaze over with boredom, but going by the rather indelicate sniffling sounds emanating from the depths of Raoul's overstuffed armchair, I'm guessing we're witnessing A Moment Of Great Depth And Feeling, here. "[HONK!] It's true!" Oh, Raoul. You big softy. "You leave me alone, missy, and get back to your little story!" As you wish.
"How'd you bust out?" Bobby breathes once they've broken apart. "I don't know," Dean shrugs, turning to place the silver knife on the kitchen table before continuing, "I just woke up in a pine box..." Dean literally splutters to a stop at this point because Bobby's quite awesomely splashed an entire flask's worth of holy water all over Dean's head. Hee. Dean, loudly dripping, executes an actual spit take before turning back to Bobby to grumble, "I'm not a demon, either, you know." He does now, Stumpy. Hee!
A moment later, the two pass into Bobby's den, with the master of the house still struggling with what Dean's just told him. "Your chest was ribbons!" Bobby protests. "Your insides were slop AND you've been buried for four months!" Raoul, stop it. "What?!" Dude, I can hear you salivating. "Oh, my most sincere apologies, I'm sure!" Oy. So, while Raoul dabs a hasty napkin against his impressive maw, Bobby wonders, "Even if you could slip out of Hell and back into your meatsuit..." "...I should look like a Thriller video reject," Dean finishes for him, and that line's...not terribly funny at all, so we'll pretend I did not in fact just highlight it by transcribing it into this recap and keep this thing going, shall we? "Let's!" You missed a spot. "Ooops!" Long story short, Dean remembers nothing of his sojourn Down Below, so they focus their attention on tonight's bit of business: Darling Sammy, and The Ginormotron's current whereabouts. The first number Dean dialed, you see, was his brother's, and Bobby's forced to admit that despite his best efforts, he lost contact with Sam "months ago," though Bobby's pretty sure Sam's still alive. You must understand that the fifteen-foot-tall freak of nature snapped after Dean died, insisting they bury rather than burn the corpse because, according to Bobby, Dean "would need a body when [Sam] got [him] back home somehow." College Boy then got all broody and sullen -- like, there's something new -- and just took off one day, and Bobby hasn't heard from him since. "Oh, Me!" Jesus Christ pretty much grumbles to Himself in disgust once he realizes what Sam's done. Dean's convinced Darling Sammy worked some fancy black mojo to pull Dean out of Hell, you see, and he's got the nuked-out gravesite, the shattered fill-up, and the brand on his shoulder to prove it. He's completely wrong about it all, of course, but it's enough for Bobby, and the thing we know...
...the two are on the phone back in the kitchen, trying to activate a GPS trace on Sam's cell. The name on the account, by the way, is "Wedge Antilles," which apparently signifies something, though I'll be fucked if I can tell you what, and at this point in the evening, I can't be bothered to care. Trace activated, Dean swings into action at Bobby's laptop, calling up Arc Mobile's website while noting the plethora of empty whiskey bottles littering the desk. "What's the deal with the liquor store?" Dean asks, waggling one of the bottles around in the air. "Were your parents out of town, or something?" "Like I said," Bobby sighs, "the last few months ain't been all that easy." "Atta girl!" shrieks Raoul, predictably enough, though I can't say I disagree with his sentiment. "Thanks!" No problem, friend of friends. So, anyway, while Dean tried and failed to guilt-trip the audience into a life spent on the wagon, or something, Arc Mobile managed to belch out a MapQuest triangulation of Sam's current coordinates, and uh-oh: He's in Pontiac, Illinois. As in, right where Dean popped out of the ground, so it looks like Dean's right about that fancy black mojo, except for the part where he's completely wrong about it all, so let's skip ahead to...
...The Hotel Astoria in scenic downtown Pontiac. You can tell it rents by the hour because the room numbers are tacked to little red hearts. Heh. Something tells me the actual Pontiac Chamber Of Commerce will not be pleased when they learn of this. In any event, Dean and Bobby reach Room 207 and pound on the door, only to have some tiny little brunette woman answer, looking for her pizza order, and Dean's about to bail when...tragedy strikes! For yes, gentle reader, Sam pops into the frame for the first time this season, and his hair is quite simply tragic beyond description. It's all greasy and matted and limp and the curly bits at the back are not so much clinging delicately to his ears as they are stuck there, glued to the lobes by the grime and unspeakable foulness Sam's allowed to nest on top of his head for these last, long four months, and I...I...I can't bear to look at it anymore, for it fills me with anger and sorrow. Oh, Sam. Though, you know, he's still getting laid despite the personal hygiene issues, if the presence of that little brunette's anything to go by. "Ahem!" Yes, my scaly friend? There's something you'd like to say? "There is! I do believe you're forgetting the fearsome example set both by the large blonde woman in the very first episode and by that devastating little werewolf back in Season Two!" Ack. How could I be so stupid? Of course Sam is not sleeping with this tiny little brunette woman, because this tiny little brunette woman is still alive! Oh, Sam!
In any event, Dean attempts a jocular reunion, but Sam -- just like Bobby -- responds with an attack, and yet more manly tussling ensues, and I can't even enjoy it despite the presence of The Padalecki in little more than a form-fitting grey t-shirt because, as I believe I've mentioned, Sam's Hair is EVIL PERSONIFIED, but the upshot of the whole tragically messy situation is this: Sam didn't summon Dean back from Hell, and after the two wrap themselves in a clinging and lingering embrace, The Littlest Brunette quite sincerely wonders if they're gay, so now we really know she's not sleeping with Sam.
A short time later, Sam -- who's pulled on that cute pink paisley button-down of his -- escorts The Littlest Brunette out the door, and after this Cathy or Chrissssty person encourages Sam to keep in touch, Our Intrepid Heroes rapidly descend into yet another bout of rampant internecine douchebaggery, during which we learn that despite Sam's best efforts, no demon on Hell or earth would bargain with him to raise Dean from Perdition. And then they kiss and make up. Well, pretty much. Over a round of beers, Sam, Dean, and Bobby puzzle their collective way through the question that remains: Who freed Dean yesterday morning? Sam notes that the only reason he himself ended up in Pontiac was because a passel of demonic sorts he'd been tracking through Tennessee suddenly fled to Illinois, suspiciously (in retrospect, of course) timing their arrival to coincide with Dean's resurrection. After a lengthy amount of babbling, though, the three still have no answers, so Bobby decides it's time to tap into his own personal Psychic Friends Network, and he heads outside to give a nearby seer of his a ring. Once Bobby's gone, Sam retrieves Dean's amulet from around his remarkably broad and healthy neck and passes it back to his grateful brother, the latter of whom then repairs to the bathroom to, I don't know, freshen himself up prior to that arduous two-minute trip though The Jesus Wormhole to visit Dionne Warwick. Unfortunately for Dean, his tackily decorated surroundings immediately hurl him into a quick series of short, bursting flashbacks to Hell, and he's thoroughly unnerved for a moment before we cut to...
...The Astoria's parking lot. Bobby hops into his -- what is it, a Chevelle? -- and peels off, thereby allowing us time to linger over Dean's loving reunion with the Impala, and this is how you handle A Moment Of Great Depth And Feeling, show. "[Sniff!] [HONK!] [HNNNNNRRRGH!] It's true!" Dean's face lights up the instant he glimpses Metallicar's hood, and as Sam slings him the keys, Dean croons, "Miss me?" Alas, Dean's joy is short-lived, for when he eases himself gently into the front seat, he immediately spots...The Thing. The Thing that cruel and brutish Sammy so loathsomely and heartlessly added to the dash. The iPod Dock. "[Shudder!]" Raoul cringes, a dark cloud passing across his lizardly soul, for he, too, understands the enormity of the transgression. "You were supposed to take care of her!" Dean exclaims. "Not douche her up!" You know, now that they've finally firmed up this whole Christ/Anti-Christ stuff they've got going between Dean and Sam, I wouldn't be surprised if this iPod dock is actually what starts that whole Apocalypse thing we've been hearing so much about over the last 2000 years. And the second sign of The Apocalypse? The tuneless doucheball Emofag whining that pours from Sam's iPod through the car's speakers the instant Dean turns the key in the ignition. Hee! Dean, by now entirely disgusted, rips the infernal contraption out of the dashboard of his car and dismissively flips it into the back seat before taking off after Bobby.
Out on the road, Dean inquires as to how Sam escaped Lilith's wrath at the end of last season's finale, and it's not important, because we already know, and because what is important is that Dean inquires as to Ruby's current whereabouts. Why is this important? Because The Anti-Christ LIES to The Stumpy Little Bow-Legged Lamb Of God. Yep, Sam LIES that Ruby's still alive, and then The Foul Fiend And Great Dissembler continues to LIE that he hasn't made use of his freaky ESP powers since Our Dean And Saviour's untimely demise last May. Jesus hmmms at all of this and keeps driving. For now. "He's going to smite Sam right there in the car!" Raoul excitedly shrieks. Alas, my scaly friend, I'm afraid that doesn't happen. "Rats!" Yet. "Hooray!"
The morning -- and why they didn't take The Jesus Wormhole to get there last night is beyond me -- Bobby introduces Our Mortal Enemies to "Pamela Barnes, the best damn psychic in the state." That sound you heard rising from the Boston area at this moment on Thursday evening was our lovely and talented moderator shrieking her lovely and talented head off over the shout-out. Thanks, Mr. Kripkeeper, sir! Show Barnes, by the way, is a sassy little brunette with severe eyebrows, a Ramones beater, and a tramp stamp that reads "Jesse Forever," so it's quite fortunate that we really don't have to spend that much time with her. Thanks again, Mr. Kripkeeper, sir!
So, Show Barnes, forewarned as she was of the purpose of Bobby's visit, has already consulted with her usual familiars (or whatever the hell you're supposed to call those dead people who talk to psychics) and as they've got nothing, Show Barnes proposes a séance. Not to summon the creature responsible for Dean's escape, mind you, but rather "to get a sneak peek at it." "Like a crystal ball without the crystal," she sasses at Bobby, for she is, as I believe I mentioned three sentences ago, Sassy. She is also, apparently, an entirely normal and healthy woman of the heterosexual persuasion, for as she gathers candles for her little sneak peek, she proposes a three-way with Dean and Sam. Sassily! Unfortunately for Show Barnes -- most unfortunately, as it turns out -- business must come before pleasure, and the thing we know, the boys plus Bobby and Show Barnes have arranged themselves around a table upon which rest six candles in pentagram formation (the sixth is in the middle), thereby matching the pattern of that cunning cloth Show Barnes placed them upon. She instructs the gentlemen to hold hands and then, after placing one of her own on top of the hand-shaped brand on Dean's shoulder, intones, "I invoke, conjure, and command you: Appear unto me, Show Barnes!" Or something like that. And she intones it over and over and over again, too, until her television set gets completely sick of the tedium and flicks itself on of its own accord, just to spite her with snow. Dean, knowing where this is going, freaks, but Show Barnes intones on, even after an unseen presence named "Castiel" warns her -- in quiet, whispering tones unheard by the audience, I should probably note -- to turn back. Show Barnes sassily refuses to heed Castiel's request, and continues to repeat her demands, adding as she goes on, "Show me your face!" So, Castiel complies, and that's very bad news for Show Barnes, indeed, for when he does, the flames on the candles shoot two feet into the air while her very own eyes incandesce with a brilliant, searing heat right there in her skull! "GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORE!" Show Barnes screams and screams and screams at the sight of Castiel's true visage just like TWoP Barnes screams and screams and screams every time she goes into the Jensen Ackles thread, and shortly after Show Barnes starts gushing blood from the holes where her eyes should be, she collapses to the floor in a faint. Sam hustles off immediately to call for an ambulance while Dean and Bobby drop to their knees to cradle Show Barnes in their arms. "I can't see!" she wails, just like TWoP Barnes does after she rummages around the Fan Fiction thread. "I can't see!" "Oh, God!" Show Barnes sobs. "Ohgodohgodohgodohgod!" I'd note the similarity between the fictional Barnes at this moment and the real Barnes whenever she catches sight of the Spoiler thread, but I do believe Raoul has something to say. "I do not!" Really? "Really! I just want to see what happens ! This evening's entertainment thus far has made me most enthused for the remainder of the episode!" That's a switch. I think. Well, okay, then: So, Show Barnes weeps and wails and gnashes her teeth straight into the METAL TEETH CHOMP!, and a very big round of applause to Traci Dinwiddie for her mad sobbing skillz, because she has done just an outstanding job, here.
Back from the break, Our Intrepid Heroes park their tantalizing behinds in Johnny Mac's Diner for a little post-eye-immolation pie and strategery, only to have their chummy little confab quite rudely interrupted when those demons Sam'd been tracking in Tennessee pop up to toss them some shade...in the forms of the fry cook, a patron, and the waitress who just brought them their order! DUN! The waitress's eyes flip beetle black for a lengthy moment as the possessed patron shuffles over to lock the door. Once this is done, the waitress -- and let's just call her "Flo," because that's what Dean does, and also: Hee! -- allows her eyes to clear and starts in with the taunting. "Dean! To Hell and back!" she faux-marvels before sneering, "So you just get to stroll out of the pit? What makes you so special?" "I like to think it's because of my perky nipples," Dean grins. Flo, along with many in the audience, remains singularly unamused at this, so Dean growls, "I don't know -- it wasn't my doing, I don't know who pulled me out." "Lying's a sin," Flo retorts and oh, Flo, honey. If you only knew how little these two mendacious bastards cared about that. Oy. "The tsuris?!" Raoul shrieks, trying to be helpful. The tsuris indeed, my scaly friend. The tsuris indeed. "I'm not lying," Dean claims, and for once in his life, he's actually not, which is something Flo picks up on almost immediately. Visibly thrown for a loop, she darts her eyes from one brother to the other before regaining her demonic composure and threatening to drag Dean back to Hell herself. Probably by those perky nipples of his, too. Sam starts in his chair as if to make with some of his all-powerful Anti-Christ mojo, but Dean shoots out a calming hand before calling Flo on her bluff. And a bluff it appears to be, for when Dean challenges her to bring it -- believing Flo's too terrified of the entity responsible for his salvation to do so -- Flo's hesitation almost seems to indicate that she's not so much afraid to harm him as she is incapable of harming him for whatever reason, and she knows it. She's clearly frightened of something, that's for damn sure, but whether it's Sam, Dean, Castiel, or all three, it's impossible to know. Mainly because she keeps her lips tightly zipped about the whole thing, even after Dean slaps her -- hard -- twice across the face, but whatever. Having called her bluff, Dean pissily drops some cash down on the table for the pie before he and Sam waltz right on out of the joint.
Out on the sidewalk, Sam proposes they rid the world of Flo and her companions immediately, but Dean's determined to summon Castiel first, despite what the mere sight of his face did to Show Barnes, so it's back to...
...The Astoria, where the room's ceiling mirrors reveal Dean to have zonked out upon the vermin-infested sofa, and when you think about it, it's about damn time he finally collapsed. They've been on the road for, what, three days straight now? In any event, Sam makes sure his brother's asleep, and then The Ginormotron tippy-toes out of there to sneak back to...
...steal the Impala and motor off into the damp night? Dude. Sam's stealing the car after douching it up with an iPod that plays nothing but tuneless Emofag? It's The Third Sign Of The Apocalypse. It has to be.
Meanwhile, back on the vermin-infested sofa, Dean slumbers peacefully until the room's television set grows tired of being ignored and switches itself on of its own accord, just out of spite. The bedside clock radio gets in on the act, and soon enough, Dean's rubbing the sleep and the lice from his eyes to wonder what gives. He barely has time to realize what's going on and leap from the sofa to retrieve a sawed-off shotgun when the televisual snow and the murmuring cacophony of voices from the radio coalesce into that high-pitched whine from before, and as the mirrors above him crack under the sonic assault, Dean crumples to his knees with his hands clapped over his ears. And then? The windows blow in, the mirrors crash to the ground, and Dean just barely escapes grievous bodily injury from all of the glass flying around in the air as Bobby barges into the room to scream Dean's name all the way into the METAL TEETH CHOMP!
Back from the break, Dean and Bobby process through recent events in the Chevelle just as Sam rings Dean's cell from the Impala. The Foul Fiend And Great Dissembler then LIES to The Stumpy Little Bow-Legged Lamb Of God regarding his current whereabouts and motivations, but that's okay, because Jesus flings a few similar LIES of his own back at The Anti-Christ. Once they've hung up on each other, Deceitful Sammy and His Gross Hair glower at Johnny Mac's. DUN!
Over in the Chevelle, Blessed Bobby castigates Our Dean And Saviour for the latter's LYING ways, but Sneaky Jesus explains he just didn't want Sam to worry about what he and Bobby are about to do. Which, you know: Summon Castiel. This summoning bullshit's news to Bobby, but as Dean's currently in possession of The Knife That Can Kill Anything And Actually Does, Bobby begins to feel better about the entire plan. Or not.
Meanwhile, Deluxe Action Anti-Christ With Super-Special Glow-In-The-Dark Lock-Picking Hands shimmies all fifteen feet of himself into Johnny Mac's, and..."GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORE!" Well, I was actually going to go with "carnage," but by all means feel free to shriek and writhe about upon your overstuffed armchair with unparalleled delight, my scaly friend, for there certainly is plenty of gore to be found in this scene. "Thanks! I will!" As the darling, ginormous Anti-Christ sidles through the darkened diner, he spots the fry cook lying face-down in a puddle of his own bodily fluids, and when Sam flips the guy over, he finds gruesomely seared and bloody sockets where the guy's eyes should be. "EEEEEEEEEEEEE!" He's no doubt about to stumble across the equally grisly remains of the patron when...Flo screams, "Kiss my grits, motherfucker!" and lands a flying ninja kick to his head! Well, she actually just beats him to the ground with a few well-placed socks to the phiz because, Anti-Christ or no, Darling Sammy still suh-huuuuucks at the hand-to-hand. He does, however, finally manage to get himself into something resembling a boxer's crouch, and when Flo steps into the dim light streaming in from the streetlamp outdoors, he can see that her eyes are gone, too. "GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORE!" "You saw it?" Sam demands. "What was it?" "It--it's," Flo gasps before sobbing, "It's The End!" "We're dead!" she weeps, incredibly strangely for a demon because demons, you know, don't fucking cry! "EEEEEEEEEEEEE!" "We're all dead!" she babbles, but when Sam insistently repeats his second question, Flo pulls it together enough to sneer, "Go to Hell." Darling Demonic Sammy gets an adorably fiendish glint in his eye and replies, "Funny -- I was going to say the same thing to you." With that, he stretches out his right hand, thinks real hard for a moment, and soon enough, Flo's host starts involuntarily belching Flo's cloud of bitterly black demonic goo right out of her body. The heaving and the shaking and the retching go on for a very long time as Flo Bits dribble through the host body's fingers to seep into a growing pool on the floor, and the pace increases until the final Flo Bits tumble out in a cascade down the front of the host. Naturally, once the Flo Bits are gone, the host collapses onto the linoleum, dead. The Flo Goo, now hostless and itself completely doomed, bubbles around in a circle for a bit before the outer edges catch flame and the entire sloppy mess disappears for good. Kick ass.
Darling Demonic Sammy checks the waitress's neck for a pulse and seems genuinely disappointed when he doesn't find one, but that's not important right now because emerging from the back of the diner at this very moment is...that Chrissssty chick? Buh? Oh, doy -- it's actually Ruby, in a brand-new host body! DUzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Long story short, Ruby insists -- nay, asserts, avers, avows, and affirms -- that nothing in Hell could resurrect Dean back to full and fully functional human form. Nothing! Got that? Good, 'cause we gotta jump over to...
...The Most Excellent Sequence Of A Most Excellent Season Premiere. While Sam was so busy being devious and demonic, Bobby and Dean spent the evening spray-painting "traps and talismans from every faith on the globe" around the interior of what I hope is an abandoned barn on the outskirts of town. I mean, if some poor sucker's still using the damn place, that guy is going to be pissed when he sees what they've done to it in the morning. Bobby voices a few more reservations regarding the summoning ritual they're about to perform, but Dean's not having it, and he sends Bobby over to a low table, where Bobby pinches some magical dust into a bowl. The bowl quite agreeably begins to smoke, so Bobby starts in with the heavy-duty Latination and...
...CRAP! I totally forgot we had to head back over to Johnny Mac's. Whatever. Let's get this out of the way quickly, shall we? "We shall!" I knew you'd say that. "Hee!" Sam and Ruby blather about...shit that's totally not important right now. !
Back at the barn, the Latination finished long ago, and Bobby and Dean are now just sitting around on the tables, picking the grime out from beneath their fingernails with knives, or something, because nothing happened. Yet. As the two mope at each other over their apparent failure, each individual piece of the barn's corrugated roof starts banging up and down against the rafters, and soon after that, every single damn lightbulb in the place explodes. "Wheeeeeeee!" Bobby and Dean scoop up various implements of demonic destruction and, as the light fixtures continue to sizzle and pop, the barred barn door groans inwards and eventually snaps itself open. A trench-coated gentleman -- calmly turning his head from left to right, taking in the scene as if entirely unperturbed by the damage his entrance is so obviously causing -- easily steps across the thick line of salt Dean and Bobby laid down at the doorway, and just as serenely continues through and across the traps and talismans from every faith on the globe until he stands before them in the center of the room. Bobby and Dean open fire with a couple of sawed-off shotguns, but The Gentleman never blinks, and the rounds of rock salt, while ripping holes through his clothes, seem to bounce back harmlessly from his body. Dean, now panicking, snatches up The Knife That Can Kill Anything and demands, "Who are you?" Entirely matter-of-fact about the whole thing, The Gentleman announces, "I'm the one who gripped you tight and raised you from Perdition," as if he doesn't realize at all how strange those words sound to, you know, actual people. "Thanks for that," Dean seethes, and with that, he plunges The Knife That Can Kill Anything into The Gentleman's chest. "EEEEEEEP!" shrieks Raoul, for he's grown quite fond of The Gentleman since said Gentleman first made his appearance and would, I believe, like to see a great deal more of The Gentleman in the future. "You are correct!" So, I take it this is a most unwelcome development for you? "It is!" Well, not to worry, because The Knife That Can Kill Anything And Actually Does is now The Knife That Can Kill Anything Except When It Usually Can't, because The Gentleman doesn't even bat an eye. "Oh, thank heavens for that!" Nope, he just grips The Knife by its handle and yanks it right back out of his body before dropping it to the floor. Bobby, now far more panicked than Dean could ever hope to be, lunges at The Gentleman's head from behind with a length of iron, but The Gentleman, preternaturally anticipating Bobby's actions, grabs the iron bar without ever taking his eyes from Dean's. This guy is a fucking badass. And he's hot, to boot. Have I mentioned how hot this guy is yet? "You haven't!" Don't worry. I will. "[Titter!]"
Finally taking his eyes from Dean's, The Gentleman turns to face Bobby, and as whispery voices overlap Latin (or a reasonable facsimile thereof) on top of each other, The Gentleman gently stretches out his right hand, and Bobby collapses onto the concrete, unconscious. The Gentleman -- who looks, now that I can focus on his face, rumpled and a little bit careworn and weary, though maybe I'm projecting a little, because that face is gorgeous -- refocuses his attention on Dean and says, "We have to talk." Dean gulps. "Alone," The Gentleman explains. Dean gulps again, and his Adam's apple bobbles up and down until it's swallowed up by the final METAL TEETH CHOMP!
Dean checks Bobby's carotid for a pulse and glares up accusatorially at the intruder while The Gentleman in question stands off to the side, casually but intently riffling through the research Bobby'd brought along. "Your friend is alive," The Gentleman assures Dean, as if he could sense the question Dean was about to hurl at him, even though The Gentleman never once raised his eyes from the book he'd been reading. "Who are you?" Dean demands once more. "Castiel," comes the expected response, so Dean sneers, "I figured that much -- I mean what are you?" This question obviously puzzles Castiel, and he looks up from Bobby's book to stare at Dean for a moment before answering, "I'm an angel of the Lord," as if that were a perfectly reasonable explanation.
And I suppose I should interrupt the action at this point to note that Castiel's being played by Misha Collins -- whom many will remember from his time on 24 as one of the first-season's Evil Serbs, and whom many others will remember as Paul Bernardo from the movie Karla -- and he's an awfully good choice to play an angel whose true visage sears the eyes out of your skull because he's almost painfully good-looking (if a bit asymmetrical, which in a weird way only adds to the overall effect). They've also decked him out in a dark suit with a white shirt, along with a tie that perfectly matches the dark blue of his eyes, and they've got all of that beneath a yellowish trench, so a lot of people looked at the costume and said, "Oh, John Constantine." "But not the sucky Keanu John Constantine," they were quick to add, knowing we would think far less of them had they failed to do so. "The good one, who smokes." So, if that visual works for you, great, because although Castiel never lights up, Misha Collins is, as I believe I noted above, smokin'. The trench coat to me, though, recalls Wings Of Desire more than anything else, so there's that, too, especially because the rumpled Peter Falk of that film ends up having origins as divine as Castiel's, here, even though Peter Falk was never, ever as good-looking as Misha Collins. So, long story short, I guess what I'm saying is that it's all working for me -- the clothes, the face, the rumpled demeanor -- but what's really working for me is the hair. Why? Because his coif's been gelled and teased and worked over until it looks like he's got a mass of ruffled feathers on his head, and that is awesome. Someone needs to buy this show's hair burners a beer.
"Why would an angel rescue me from Hell?" Dean continues, still not dropping it even though this episode still has forty full goddamned seconds to go and it's taken me an hour and a half to cover goddamned minute of it that just now ended. "Good things do happen, Dean," Castiel assures him, stepping closer. "Not in my experience," Dean seethes, holding his ground. "What's the matter?" Castiel wonders, genuinely curious, knitting the unfamiliar brow and tilting the unfamiliar head again. "You don't think you deserve to be saved!" It's a sudden understanding for the angel man, not a question, and oh, Castiel, honey. If you only knew how little this self-loathing bastard cared about himself. Oy. "The tsuris again?!" Indeed. It's always the tsuris with these guys, but buck up, for we are twenty-three seconds from the end of the episode! "Rats!" You mean...you mean you don't want it to end? "Never! I have found myself re-enamored of this delightful little Thursday evening divertissement, and I want it to last forever!" It's a damn good thing you're not real, then, for Christ's sake. "You called?" Dean asks. Shut up, Dean.
Now, where the hell was I? Okay: So, Castiel has just realized something about Dean that the audience has known since at least the middle of the first goddamned season, and when Low Self Esteem Dean again hurls yet another snotty question into Castiel's remarkable and oddly beautiful face -- this time, "Why'd you do it?" -- Castiel, with his newfound understanding of Dean's fragile psyche, or whatever, carefully -- as in "full of care" -- enunciates, "Because God commanded it." Dean flinches -- almost as if he's been slapped hard across the face a couple of times -- before Castiel concludes: "Because We have work for you."
And that, my friends, is what a motherfucking DUN! looks like! I cannot wait until week! "A-him!" Yes, Raoul? "You'll forgive me if I'm incorrect with my assumptions, I'm sure, but when you say you cannot wait until week's no doubt enthralling installment, surely you mean you cannot wait until week's no doubt enthralling installment, except for the part where you can, because you managed to get a copy of the screener, and you've watched week's enthralling installment at least two times already?" Shut up, Raoul. "Well! I never!" And you never will if you don't shut it! "Hmph!"
Demian wonders why he hasn't seen you in church lately. Raoul knows perfectly well it's because Demian's damned shadow hasn't itself darkened the door of a church in over fifteen years, and of all the gall! Really! You may reach the former at demian_twop@yahoo.com. The latter is an imaginary gay dragon on the Internet.
Need more supernatural things? Peruse The 10 Stupidest Ghost Movies of All Time, why don't you?