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A strange and urgent call to Sucky John's still-active cell phone leads our battle-weary Intrepid Heroes to Windom, Minnesota, this week, where they discover a previously unknown bit of their worthless excuse of a so-called father's past in the form of one Adam Milligan, an eighteen-year-old pre-med student at the University of Wisconsin who just so happens to be their half-brother. Yep, Sucky John was also Slutty John back in the day, and while in town on a job in January 1990, he managed to knock up the ER nurse who tended to the many wounds he received from the mysterious beastie he'd been battling -- "mysterious" because Sucky John eventually ripped all Windom-related entries from his demonic day planner, the better to continue fucking with Sam and Dean from beyond the grave. Or something like that.
Needless to say, Dashing El Deano's immediately suspicious of this Adam kid, and surreptitiously sets up a couple of tests during their initial meet-and-greet at Cousin Oliver's Diner. Unfortunately, Adam downs a glass of holy water and handles actual silverware without so much as batting an eyelid, so Dean's forced to concede the little bastard's neither demonically enhanced nor a shapeshifter, and Sam and Dean settle in to deal with the reason for Adam's urgent call: His mother's gone missing, and the local cops don't seem to be too interested in doing anything about it. Of course, Our Dear Boys immediately find bits and pieces of Mother Milligan's intestines in the vents of Adam's childhood home, so things aren't looking too good for Sucky John's erstwhile slampiece. Adam, with Darling Sammy's full-throated approval, immediately plots revenge, but Dean just as vociferously shouts that idea down, as he's seen what a seasons-spanning vengeance kick has done to one of his brothers, and he'll be damned -- again -- if he lets the same thing happen to the other.
Turns out Dean needn't have worried, naturally, because the Adam Milligan they've been dealing with all episode is actually the vengeful, shapeshifting, ghoulish offspring of the ghoul beastie Sucky John slaughtered back in 1990, and the real Adam Milligan -- who, not so incidentally, actually was their half-brother -- has been a-moldering in the grave since before the first call to Sucky John's cell. Darling Sammy and his remarkably healthy forearms find themselves briefly imperiled when the ghoul and his equally vengeful sister (more on her in the recap, I'm sure) manage to separate him from his brother, but Dean rides to the rescue at the very last instant with a sawed-off shotgun and, like, a claw hammer, or whatever, and quickly makes hamburger out of the nasty ghouls' heads which, as I'm sure you all know, is the only real way to kill ghouls dead.
And the episode ends as so many this season have done: Depressingly, with the audience collectively reaching for the laudanum, as Sam and Dean salt and burn their dead half-brother's remains, because their lives are so epically miserable, and why should any of the rest of us bother to carry on? Sigh. Damn you, Kripke!
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Rattle, Rattle BLOOD-RED THEN! And as this evening's THEN! consists of scenes dominated by a character I can't stand from a season I did not recap (and therefore do not remember well at all), I'll be keeping this brief: A long, long time ago, Darling Sammy decided to attend Stanford as a pre-law major on a full scholarship, which is the sort of joyous development in a child's life that all parents wish for most fervently indeed. Unfortunately for Darling Sammy, however, he got saddled with Sucky John as his worthless bastard of a so-called father, and so this bit of news led to nothing more than five years of screamy, hair-pulling bitchfights between the two until Sucky John finally -- finally -- had the goddamned good grace to drop fucking dead at the beginning of Season Two. And because John was such a lousy, rotten, horrific nightmare of a parent, Darling Sammy's gone from assiduously studying the law in California to fucking a corpse in a ramshackle shed in the middle of nowhere to sucking demonic blood from that corpse he's been fucking in seedy motel rooms, so even My Sweet Baboo's all, "Dude, not cool." And Dashing El Deano would, I'm certain, howl something terribly relevant to this evening's plot at this juncture, but I'm afraid I must tell him to shut the hell up for the...
...Slashy, Slashy NOW! The NOW! vanishes into utter blackness before the camera pulls away from a darkened wall to ease down the dimly lit nighttime hallway of a fairly well-appointed century-old house somewhere remote, I'm sure, until it reaches a small table near the window, upon which rest a couple of framed photographs featuring currently unidentifiable people in flannel before...Michelle Pfeiffer's somewhat less-attractive and decidedly less-talented younger sister screams into the frame! DUN! Yep, poor little Dedee Pfeiffer hurls herself against the wall, toppling the framed photographs in her desperate and futile attempt to flee the sad memories of her failed entertainment career before taking off down the hall, where she eventually flies into an empty bedroom to shut and bolt the door behind her. The rampaging revenant corpses of such atrocities as Cybill, For Your Love, and her relationship with George Clooney continue to scratch at and bang against the bolted door for several lengthy and panicked seconds, however, until they collectively decide to beat a strategic retreat, allowing us to get a good look at poor little Dedee for the first time this evening. Beneath her long winter coat, she's sporting a full set of surgical scrubs, so either she's still pining for dear Dr. Ross, or she's portraying some sort of hospital employee this evening. We'll be going with the latter, because maintaining the former's conceit throughout the remainder of the recap will prove, I'm sure, far too taxing for your faithful yet weary recapper. So, in any event, Dedee pants and heaves and gasps in fear and whatnot for a little while before pulling her shit together and barricading the apparently flimsy bedroom door with a chifferobe, after which she collapses onto the bed, exhausted from all of the unexpected exertion. Unfortunately for Dedee, the camera's decided to crawl beneath that bed for what I'm certain is a beastie point-of-view of her feet, so I'm thinking things aren't looking so good for Michelle Pfeiffer's less-talented sister, here. "Indeed they are not!" shrieks Raoul The Big Gay Supernatural Dragon, who's remained silent regarding this teaser's events for an unusually long time. "I was waiting for something exciting to happen!" Raoul shrieks again. "And I do believe we've reached that point now! Eeeeeeeeeeeee!" I do believe you're correct, my scaly friend, for as The Littlest Untalented Pfeiffer hyperventilates in fear on top of the bed, the camera creeps closer and closer and closer to her besneakered feet until..."VIOLENCE!" Yep, a pair of indeterminately gendered but evidently human-esque hands shoots forward to latch onto her ankles, and before she knows it, The Littlest Untalented Pfeiffer's slammed bodily forward onto the hardwood floor, where she screams and wails and claws at the varnish and overturns a nightstand until the human-esque beastie finally ends all of this foolishness by dragging her out of our line of sight. Meanwhile, the overturned nightstand's managed to disgorge a most intriguing artifact in the form of...a framed photograph of Sucky John! I'd give that a DUN!, I'm sure, but it'd just get drowned out by the...
...Flutter, Flutter RAAAWWWR!, just arriving, so screw it. "Eeeeeeeeeeeee!" shrieks Raoul as is his wont, even though even he must be wearying of this season's title card by this point in the year. "I am not!" Raoul assures me, and really, Raoul? The fluttering and the screaming and the black-and-white and all that? Not getting tiresome in the least? "No! 'Eeeeeeeeeeeee!' say I! 'Eeeeeeeeeeeee!'" Fine. But I give it another week -- tops -- before you start in with your overly elaborate yawning and such. "EEEEEEEEEEEEE!" Oh, now you're just fucking with me. "Hee!"
ANY-way, after the title card's disappeared from the screen, the camera fades up on one of those ridiculously scenic Metallicar In Nature still life compositions this show does so well -- this with the Impala parked beneath a lowering sky on the shore of a preternaturally calm lake with mountains in the distance -- before cutting around to a relative close-up of Darling Sammy brushing his teeth, opening wide at one point to hit the back molars, and I could watch Jared Padalecki brush his teeth for the entire damn hour. Sigh. He's even got a little toiletries bag to him on Metallicar's hood, with a bottle of Scope protruding from the top. Hygienic nerd. Awwwwww. In any event, Dean rather gracelessly wakes up in the Impala's front seat and somehow manages to unleash his ungainly early-morning self onto the lakeside lawn while his younger brother wonders how he slept. "Howdjathink?" Dean mumbles before grumbling for breakfast. Sam reminds him they're two hours from anywhere at the moment, so Dean dives for a days-old tuna salad sandwich in the Impala's rear. Fortunately for his digestive tract, the car's glove compartment starts ringing at this point, and Dean's forced to abandon the stomach-turning congealed fish paste in favor of figuring out which of their 47,000 cell phones is vying for his attention. Turns out it's the one formerly owned by their worthless bastard of a so-called father -- last seen, I believe, in "Bad Day At Black Rock" -- so Dean wastes not an instant answering, only to find the hesitant, barely post-adolescent tones of one "Adam Milligan" bleating back at him, pleading to speak with Daddy Shut Up. Dean's forced to share the delightful news that Sucky John's been most thankfully dead these last two years, then finally thinks to ask, "Who is this?" The answer? "I...I'm his son." DUN! Like, literally this time -- the camera shoots all the way up into Dean's right nostril at that simple declaration, and The Simmering Strings Of Barely Plausible Plot Developments take this opportunity to strike an ominous chord on the soundtrack, so it's goodbye, ridiculously scenic lake setting, and hello...
...Cousin Oliver's Diner! Heh. Yeah, the diner's actually named for the ultimate tow-headed moppet of television series doom, and we join Our Intrepid Heroes as they wheel the Impala into the tiny eatery's parking lot. By the way, the official name of the place appears to be Cousin Oliver's Hilltop Café, "The Home Of Famous Pies," so I'm guessing Dean'll be able to find at least one thing on the menu that he'll enjoy. In any event, as Dean switches off the car's ignition and heads immediately to the bottomless trunk to retrieve a few key implements of demonic destruction, Sam's given the thankless task of dumping an episode's worth of exposition into the audience's collective lap in order to bring us all up to speed on this Adam Milligan person. Reading from the extensive dossier he managed to compile on the guy over the last two hours while he was riding shotgun, Sam notes Adam was born on September 29, 1990, to "Kate Milligan," with no father listed on the birth certificate, and that he was an Eagle Scout who graduated from the local high school in Windom, Minnesota, with honors before matriculating at the University of Wisconsin as a biology major with a concentration in pre-med. "This is a trap," Dean insists, thereby dismissing all of Sam's no doubt hard-won research before slamming shut Metallicar's trunk and heading into Cousin Oliver's with nary so much as a backwards glance. Darling Sammy and his unusually well-kempt coif flail around in frustration for a moment at the Impala's side before they sigh and bitchface and trudge after their hotheaded brother. "That's remarkably talented hair the dear boy has growing on the top of his head!" I'm so glad you noticed that too, Raoul. "Hee!"
Inside Cousin Oliver's, a poster on the wall to the door advertises the "31st Annual Fonzarelli Water Skiing Championship" at Cottonwood Lake, and oh, show. Oh, clever, clever show. There are, supposedly, additional references to infamous television shark-jumping moments scattered throughout the episode, but I'm not sure if I'll be uncovering each of them for all of you lovely people, so if I miss something, do feel free to share it with the rest of the class on the boards. In the meantime, back to the scene: Dean deliberately chooses a booth that'll place his own back against the wall for the impending throw-down with Adam Milligan and begins rigging a series of tests for the kid -- including spiking a glass with holy water and replacing the diner's stainless steel with actual silverware, just in case Adam's demonically enhanced or a shapeshifter, respectively -- and ensuring his trusty pearl-handled automatic's loaded with the appropriate type of ammunition for the encounter, and is it just me, or is this moron risking severe damage to the diner and its human inhabitants along with exposure to the local constabulary and, through them, the F. B. Frigging I. by insisting on forcing such a confrontation with what could be one of Lilith's many, many minions in so public a space? "It's not just you!" Raoul shrieks rather agreeably. "I do believe the dear lad's plan is...is...oh, what's the word I'm searching for?!" Idiotic? "Oh, you are a dear little man! It was right on the tip of my tongue!" Good to know we're on the same page, Raoul. "Anytime, I'm sure!"
While all of that's been going on, Darling Sammy's been trying and failing to convince Dean that Adam Milligan's most likely exactly who he claims to be, and is finally reduced to tossing some apparently damning evidence from Daddy Shut Up's demonic dayplanner into Dean's face to get his point across. "There's an entry," he explains, "from January of 1990 saying he's 'heading to Minnesota to check out a case.'" "That's roughly, oh, about," he continues, amusingly and obnoxiously processing the easy math in that freakish Cro-Magnon skull of his, "nine months before the kid was born!" Dean, still willfully blind to the likely conclusion despite Sam's mad logical-reasoning skillz, chalks it up to coincidence, so Sam's forced to point out that their worthless bastard of a so-called father proceeded to rip out the two pages, as if he were perhaps, oh, I don't know, hiding something about the trip like, say, a bastard love child. This just makes Dean think of Dad Sex, especially when Sam presses the decidedly sore issue by suggesting that Sucky John "slipped one past the goalie," and Disgusted El Deano's about to doooood a "DUDE!" that'll curl Darling Sammy's remarkably talented coif when a mope of a hoodied teenager lopes into the diner to stand helplessly at the door, looking a little lost. This is, of course, Adam Milligan, and I guess fashion sense is genetic, for in addition to that aforementioned hoodie the kid's sporting, he's also clad in what I could swear is an exact replica of Sam's favored Season-One ghost-hunting jacket, and I haven't even started on the hair, which is, while obviously not as talented as Sam's in much the same way poor little Dedee from the teaser's not as talented as her older sister, nevertheless a longer version of Dean's with a smattering of Sam's sideburns thrown in for good measure, and where the hell was I? Oh, yes: The Winchester Brothers Meet-And-Greet, currently in progress. Sam's affable enough, Dean's pretty open with the hostility and loathing, and Adam remains stricken and lost throughout, no doubt due to the crushing sense of loss he feels over...whatever it was he called Sucky John about in the first place, I'm guessing.
In any event, Adam joins Our Intrepid Heroes at the table and opens by wondering how Sam and Dean knew Daddy Shut Up. "We worked together," Sam answers somewhat honestly, and so Adam quite reasonably wonders how Sucky John finally, gloriously bit it. "On the job," Sam allows, still withholding vast amounts of pertinent information without actually LYING about it all. Looking a little confused over that particular cause of death, Adam asks, "He's a mechanic, right?" "A car fell on him," Dean snaps, and hee! "Pity we were not witness to that!" Raoul shriekingly opines, and you know how much I enjoy your recapping companionship, friend of friends, but that's not what happened to him. "I know! Again: Pity!" Oh, Raoul. Such a card you are. "Hee!" Anyway, the waitress, "Denise," interrupts the festivities at this point to greet Adam by name and ask if he'd like his usual. Adam does, so Denise disappears just as suddenly as she'd arrived, having thus efficiently established Adam's bona fides as a well-known resident of the town. Once she's gone, the questions continue, with Sam wondering when Adam last saw his father and why he suddenly decided to give Sucky John a ring after two years. "He's the only family I've got," Adam explains, quite easily downing half the glass of holy water without so much as batting an eye, so there's that possibility shot all to hell. "My mom's missing," he continues, speaking directly to Sam. Darling Sammy attempts to shimmy into his Captain Empathy outfit, realizes that task is now impossible given how freaking yooooge he's gotten over the last couple of seasons, and instead opts to unleash The Super-Special Puppy-Dog Eyes Of It Sucks To Be You, Kid, But Why Don't You Tell Me About It Anyway?
Unfortunately, Dean's surreptitiously aimed his trusty pearl-handled automatic at the teenager beneath the table and now sneers, "If you're [Sucky] John's kid, how come we never heard about you?" so The Super-Special Puppy-Dog Eyes don't really have a chance to work their magic on Adam, but the latter gamely explains his unusual relationship with their worthless bastard of a so-called father anyway. Long story short, Mother Milligan's a nurse who treated Sucky John in the ER way back in January of 1990, and apparently, she got one eyeful of what Jeffrey Dean Morgan looked like nineteen years ago, decided she needed to hit that both immediately and with extreme prejudice, and the rest, as they say, is an 18-year-old pre-med student at the University of Wisconsin. Though they were never "a nuclear family" by any stretch of the imagination, as Adam reveals, he did eventually nag his mother about his never-seen worthless bastard of a so-called father long enough that Mother Milligan finally relented and gave Sucky John a call in 2002. Upon learning of Adam's existence, Sucky John "dropped everything" to motor on up to Windom immediately, and the two developed a pretty friendly relationship over the four years, with Daddy Shut Up teaching the kid poker and pool and the proper care and maintenance of that boss 1967 Chevy Impala Adam should have noticed on his way into the diner. "Ooops!" shrieks Raoul. "Is that one of those plot holes I've been hearing so much about?!" It is indeed, my impressively fanged companion, and there are many, many others in this episode -- far more, indeed, than there are shark-jumping references -- and I'm pretty sure I'm skimming over handfuls of them in this very scene just to get through the damn thing already, so again: If I miss something, you lovely people should feel free to share it with the rest of the class on the boards.
Now, where the hell was I again? Oh, yeah: Tripping over plot holes. Anyway, Sucky John also bought Adam his first beer when the kid was fifteen, and I can't believe he was fifteen as recently as 2006, and now I'm getting hideously depressed, so we're going to ignore the fact that Adam is a goddamned infant and skip to the bit wherein he daintily spreads his serviette across his lap before reaching for the silverware which...leads to his spontaneous and gruesome combustion right there in the middle of the diner! "GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORE!" Kidding! I'm totally kidding, Raoul. Nothing like that happens at all. "Oh, poop!" Well, not yet, anyway. "Hooray!" Of course, now that Adam's passed the second of Dean's tests, Dean's completely out of both ideas and patience, and so shouts in the kids' face, "You're LYING!" and need I underline Dean's hypocrisy at the moment, or did the Caps Lock do that job for me? "I believe it was the latter!" Excellent, my scaly friend. Excellent. Adam's all, "Am not!" and Dean's all, "Are too!" and Adam's all, "Am not!" and Dean's all, "Are TOO!" and Adam's all, "Am NOT!" and Dean's all, "ARE TOO TIMES INFINITY!" before Sam whaps them both upside the head with Sucky John's demonic dayplanner and eventually, one of Our Intrepid Heroes blurts out the truth. "I've got brothers?" Adam gulps. "You've got nothing, BITCH," Dean oh-so-wittily retorts, "and I am OUTTA HERE!" With that, he pulls The Dean Winchester Patented Bow-Legged Clompy Stomp Of Great Vengeance And Furious Anger out towards the parking lot. "I can prove it!" Adam shouts at Dean's stumpily retreating form, and the thing we know, we're back at...
...Adam's childhood home, where Dean's examining an appallingly Photoshopped image of Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Jake Abel posed in front of, like, the multitudinous hordes from the anguished depths of Hell, or something. "He took you to a baseball game?" Dean gasps. "When I turned fourteen," Adam confirms with a smile, so I guess I'm not too far off with that anguished-Hell thing as long as Sucky John dragged poor Adam to a Brewers game that year, though as I noted in the episode thread, the Brewers were in Arizona on September 29, 2004, and the Twins were in the Bronx, so who knows what the fuck is going on with this goddamned story. Well, you know, aside from the fact that it of course further illustrates how miserably deprived Our Intrepid Heroes' childhoods truly were, a taste of which we receive when Dean goes near apoplectic with rage over the very idea that his worthless bastard of a so-called father would take this kid to an actual baseball game on the kid's actual birthday when Sucky John couldn't even bother with a proper goddamned Christmas for Sam and Dean, for Christ's bleeding sake, and is that fair? I ASK YOU, IS THAT FAIR? "Demian! Volume!" Oh, I apologize, friend of friends. I was merely aping Dean's attitude at the moment, and I think I went a little overboard. "'Overboard,' indeed!" Like you're one to talk. "Oh, don't be peevish, you silly little man, and do hurry this charming little story of yours along, if you don't mind! If I remember correctly, the scene is simply divine!" As you wish, Raoul. "Whee!"
So, after Dean gets all twitchy about the idyllic childhood Sucky John apparently saw fit to provide his bastard offspring while denying the same to his legitimate children, and after Adam rather touchingly and tearfully provides further detail regarding his mother's disappearance -- she got home from work last Tuesday only to "drop off the face of the earth," and the cops won't do anything about it -- the boys plus their new brother retreat to Mother Milligan's bedroom to investigate. Of course, the initial phase of the investigation involves the camera focusing on several more absolutely tragic Photoshopping abominations, the better to underscore Dean's sense of betrayal, or whatever, so let's skip ahead to the part where Dean discovers the bits of flooring positively ruined by Mother Milligan's manicure as she was dragged under the bed, shall we? "Let's!" Crap. "What?!" I forgot about the exposition. "Rats!" Yep, as Dean scans the bedroom for tragic Photoshopping abominations and clues, Sam arrives from a call to the police, and the news isn't good: Back in January 1990, Windom experienced a rash of seventeen grave robberies, and while the bodies then were quickly recovered -- thanks in part, apparently, to Sucky John, who appears in the shadowy background of a newspaper photograph of the period -- the corpse snatchings have resumed in recent weeks, with at least three missing from the local cemetery. Also, Mother Milligan's not the only living person to have gone missing over the last couple of days, as a local bartender named Joe Barton vanished mere hours before she did. The boys quickly determine that whatever Sucky John was hunting nineteen years ago is back, and what's more, it's -- as Sam so vividly puts it -- "stepped up its game to fresh meat." Our Intrepid Heroes return to The Boudoir Of Tragic Photoshopping Abominations And Marginally Talented Pfeiffer Sisters to see if Mother Milligan had any dealings with Joe The Bartender. She had not, according to Adam, and it's then that Dean discovers the bits of flooring positively ruined by Mother Milligan's manicure. "Hooray!" Hooray, indeed, my scaly friend, for this was getting tedious.
Dean orders Adam to help him with the mattress -- no, not like that! The kid's an infant, you sickos! -- and once they've shoved it aside, they find a heating vent's grate embedded in the floor. DUN! "Eeeeeeeeeeeee!" Dean glances at Sam, Sam sighs, and the two launch themselves into a rousing game of Rock-Paper-Scissors, because they are still eight years old. Also because Dean is still a moron, because Rock-Paper-Scissors is still the absolute last way one would want to settle a dispute with a psychic, and also because Dean is still a freaking moron, because not only do you not settle a dispute with a psychic by playing Rock-Paper-Scissors, you especially don't settle a dispute with a psychic by playing Rock-Paper-Scissors when the psychic's your younger brother who knows that you always throw Scissors, which Dean proceeds to do right now, and Sam of course throws Rock, so Dean's the one who has to squeeze himself into the ductwork, and oh, Dean! This little bit was exceedingly cute, of course, and a very nice callback to "Heart," but with him still throwing Scissors even after all these years, I can't decide if it's a sign of Dean's seemingly endless supply of optimism, or if it's a sign Dean's a mouthbreathing simp who shouldn't be able to tie his damn shoes properly. And frankly, at this point in the series, after everything Dean's been through, if it's the former, then it's also the latter, so this appears to be a no-win situation for Dashing El Deano all around, here. "Demian!" What? "Get on with the scene!" My apologies, Raoul. The character continuity distracted me. Now, where was I?
Oh, yes: Dean pries off the grate and swings his flashlight around the duct's interior for a bit before dropping both the light and his trusty pearl-handled automatic into the tiny passage before wriggling into the tight space himself, and it's a good thing Sam emerged from that rousing bout of Rock-Paper-Scissors victorious, because there's no way -- no way -- that fifteen-foot-tall freak of nature with his remarkably broad shoulders would ever have fit into this heating duct, ever. NO WAY. "Demian!" I'm getting to it! "Well! Really! There's no call to get snippy with me, sir!" Sorry! Sorry. Too many distractions. And apparently, Dashing El Deano's negatively impacted by them as well, for he squeezed himself into the ductwork while entirely missing that massive streak of blood just beneath the grate! "GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORE!" Raoul shrieks with delight, finally writhing about upon his overstuffed armchair with unmitigated glee now that we've once again got the good stuff back on the screen, and just you wait, friend of friends. "Really!?" Yep, it only gets better, for when Dean reaches the first junction, he first fakes us out by swinging his flashlight to the left and finding nothing, but when he swings that bitty ray of light to the right? "GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORE!" "Oh, it's just delightful!" Raoul gasps, an expertly honed paw pressed against his heaving chest as he thrills at the beauty of it all. "Oh, the hair! And the bits of teeth and bone! And the...the...the GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORE!" I'm so happy you're happy, Raoul. "GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORE!" And with that, Dean's hilarious "Oh, crap!" expression gets gobbled up by a most appreciative METAL TEETH CHOMP!
This week's motel room. Aftermath. While Dean cleans a sawed-off shotgun, the camera hops over to the room's TV, upon which rests one of the motel's stand-up advertising cards. This is important because this week's motel is the "Kym Manor," and the stand-up advertising card encourages guests to "Join us for Happy Hour in the Sonny Buono Lounge." This exhortation is accompanied by an absolutely ludicrous photograph of the late, great Kim Manners looking rather Bono-esque, if I do say so myself, and from what little I know of the guy and his sense of humor, it seems pretty perfect. "[Sniff!]" Oh, poor Raoul. "Well, I am sorry, I'm sure, but between this weekend's absolutely devastating news and this charming little tribute to that oddly named little man, I...I'm feeling a bit...fragile! [Wail!]" There, there. Why don't you go fix yourself a nice, soothing flagon of something tasty and console yourself with these clips while I hurry along to the good bit? "Oh! [Sob!] You are kind! I believe I shall! [Honk!]"
Now. Where was I? Oh, yes: There's a knock at this week's motel room's door, and when Sam answers, Adam barges into the room, more or less demanding, "Who the hell are you, really?" His childhood home's now a crime scene, you understand, and his darling mother's likely monster chow, so he's just a tad upset with Our Intrepid Heroes, especially because the latter instructed Adam to phone the police, then suspiciously bolted long before the cops arrived. After a very long pause, and ignoring a growled warning from Dashing El Deano, Darling Sammy finally admits, "We're hunters," and after a refreshing cross-fade to later in the day, we finally return to this week's motel room to take in Adam's shocked reaction to Our Intrepid Heroes' lengthy and thankfully off-screen tale of woe. "So, basically," Adam gapes, perched on one of the twins across from Darling Sammy, who apparently assumed responsibility for filling the newest Winchester in on all of the sordid details, "you're saying every monster movie -- every nightmare I've ever had -- that's all real?" "Godzilla's just a movie!" Dean sardonically bright-sides from the far end of the room. Heh. Adam absorbs all of that, then quietly announces that if they intend to go after the thing that killed his mother, he'll be tagging along, thank you very much, because there is nothing sweeter than revenge. Or something like that. Dean's immediate response? "NO!" When Sam attempts to protest, Dean shouts him down with, "Why do you think [our worthless bastard of a so-called father] never told us about this kid? Why do you think he ripped out the pages?" "Because..." Sam begins. "Because he was protecting him!" Dean yells. Long story short, Sucky John clearly didn't want Adam to share in their horrifically deprived and violent lives, and as far as Dean is concerned, that's that. And with that, Dean pulls this evening's second Dean Winchester Patented Bow-Legged Clompy Stomp Of Great Vengeance And Furious Anger right on out of the room to get the hell away from his annoying and apparently suicidal little brothers.
Thus left so alone, Darling Sammy -- understanding "what it's like to want sweet, sweet revenge" -- wastes not an instant before instructing Young Adam on the finer points of weapons handling. No, not like that! GOD, what is with you goddamned people and the Wincest? KNOCK IT OFF.
Elsewhere, the eldest LYING LIAR WHO LIES -- here once again posing as a Fed, this one named "Agent Nugent" -- enters Windom's latest desecrated crypt with your standard-issue creepy and inappropriate funeral director, and quickly learns thanks to the embalming fluid still spilled across the floor that the three missing corpses had been torn apart. Got that? Good. !
Over in some tavern, Agent Nugent parks his tantalizing derriere on a stool and chats up the barmaid, who just so happens to be Joe Barton's likely widow "Lisa." It's a nicely played, atmospheric little scene, what with the Burl Ives on the jukebox and all, but the gist of it all is this: Joe Barton was a Cottonwood County sheriff's deputy back in January 1990, and received a special commendation for solving the corpse-snatching case. Of course, his likely widow confides, he had some help in the form of an anonymous "specialist" whose name just so happens to rhyme with "Yucky Juan," which is all you need to hear at the moment, so we'll be heading back to...
...this week's motel room, where the weapons handling continues apace, and you can all just stop it with the goddamned tittering already. "Hee!" Are we feeling better, Raoul? "Much! Thanks!" Excellent, and excellent timing, my scaly friend, for we've arrived at the good bit. "Hooray!" Yep, as Sam and Adam fondle their weapons while chit-chatting about Sucky John's most glorious demise at the hands of The Ceiling Demon, all of the lights in the room splutter and zot and short out, right before an ominous knocking sound emerges from the heating ducts just over their heads. DUN! "How exciting!" shrieks Raoul. "I wonder what could possibly happen !?" Sarcasm is beneath you, Raoul. "Hee! [Slurp!]" In any event, Sam makes with the Tough Guy Jazz Hands to investigate the room's bath, but of course finds nothing there because the thing is in the heating duct, you moron! Run! Get out of the room! Get away from the goddamned building! Now! The stupid little people inside the television set eventually heed my sound advice, and Sam and Adam race for Adam's pickup, where they're about to embark when...something snatches at Darling Sammy's remarkably healthy ankles from beneath! "DEATH!" roars Raoul. "DEATH TO HIM WHO WOULD HARM THE ANKLES! Hee!" Needless to say, The Ginormotron topples like a very tall tree when he loses his balance and falls and falls and falls all the way down, down, down to the asphalt, and just as the beastie beneath the truck's about to drag the darling boy from our line of sight, Adam hustles around to drag the darling boy into yet another plot hole. Seriously, given what we learn later in the episode, why the hell wouldn't Adam have let Sam vanish into the sewers during this scene? "Perhaps!" Raoul helpfully suggests. "The charming little lad realized the dear boy's remarkably healthy shoulders were a bit too broad for the sewer opening!? Hmmmm?!" Oh, excellent idea, friend of friends. "Hooray!" We'll go with that, thanks. "Never a problem!" So, Secretly Evil Adam (ooops! Spoiler!) realizes Darling Sammy's remarkably healthy shoulders are far too broad to fit through the sewer opening, and starts dragging Our Intrepid Hero in the opposite direction just as Dashing El Deano arrives in the Impala. Dean immediately hops out of the car, scoops up Sam's temporarily discarded sawed-off shotgun, and blasts a couple of rounds in the general direction of the beastie beneath the truck. "VIOLENCE!" The beastie, apparently wounded, hastily withdraws, and Our Intrepid Heroes plus their Secretly Evil Half-Brother gasp and pant and flop straight back into a terribly grateful METAL TEETH CHOMP!
Back from the break, someone backs up Secretly Evil Adam's truck, and Dean approaches the open manhole with sawed-off shotgun at the ready, but it turns out the weapon's entirely unnecessary, for the beastie beneath the truck is long gone. Dean hunches over to shove his bare fingers into the goo the beastie left behind, quickly determines he "winged it" -- ya think? -- and joins his younger secretly evil brothers over at the Impala to process through recent events and strategize. Interestingly enough -- and I totally missed this when this episode first aired -- during the conversation that follows, Our Intrepid Heroes fade into visually fuzzy incoherence in the background of the shot while the camera remains focused on Adam's strangely stoic face, and that should have been my first indication that Something's Not Quite Right With Adam, but I guess I wasn't paying attention, because the twist, when it was finally revealed, took me completely by surprise. Silly me. "Oh, don't be so hard on yourself!" Raoul shrieks. "Have a flagon! They're awfully forgiving, I must say!" Thanks for the offer, friend of friends, but I've got another eighteen minutes of show time to cover, and this recap's not getting any shorter. "Your loss!" Yes, I'm aware of that fact. Shall I continue? "By all means!" Good.
Back at La Casa Del Photoshopping Trágico Y La Hermana Pfeiffer Sin Talento, Our Intrepid Heroes plus their secretly evil half-brother slip beneath the police tape to enter the kitchen. As Sam settles in at the table to tend to his wounded ankles, Dean orders Adam upstairs to collect his things, for the boys -- realizing the beastie's targeting everyone involved in the 1990 case along with their offspring -- intend to skip town with Adam, pronto, drop the kid off at Bobby's Emporium deep within the lush coastal rainforests of central South Dakota, then return to Windom to finish off the beastie themselves. Well, Dean intends all of those things, at least. Sam's still of the opinion they should include Adam in all aspects of their current gallivanting adventure, specifically by deploying Adam as bait. Oh, sneaky, secretly evil Sam. How you've grown over the years. "In many more ways than one, if you gather my meaning!" Raoul! You filthy dragon. "Hee!" In any event, Sam and Dean's reasonably quiet conversation quickly deteriorates into yet another screamy, hair-pulling bitchfight between the two of them until Secretly Evil Adam slinks in unnoticed from the stairwell to announce, "I'll do it." And then?
TRAINING MONTAGE! Well, it's just a training scene, actually, but I'm of the opinion that what this episode really needed was a full-blown training montage, specifically one set to "You're The Best," which is probably the exact reason why I should never, ever write for TV. In any event, Darling Sammy teaches Secretly Evil Adam how to fire an automatic while The Manful Ducky Lips brood manfully alone, off to one manful side of the action before we head back to...
...La Casa De La Trágica Hermana Pfeiffer Y El Photoshopping Sin Talento, where Sam's just finishing up regaling Secretly Evil Adam with tales of immolations past, or whatever, but when Sam shifts the topic of conversation over towards The Hunter's Lonely Life -- complete with instructions on how Secretly Evil Adam should ditch both his schoolwork and his girlfriend -- The Manful Ducky Lips Of Manfully Broody Solitude And Discontent have finally had enough of Sam's bullshit, and they draw the elder of the two secretly evil Winchesters to one side for a chat, and wow. Darling Sammy's just gone completely insane this season, hasn't he? Dean's all, "We're leaving this kid alone to have a normal life, do you understand me?" and Crazy Sammy's all, "NEVER! Muah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-HA!" Well, pretty much, what with the way he goes on and on about how normal life is the illusion and the nightmare they've inhabited for the last four years is the reality, and how Adam's doomed to be nothing more than Monster Chow simply by virtue of Sucky John's sucky genes, and how we'll all be swallowed up by a howling meaninglessness and a violent despair, or whatever, and his eyes get a flinty little gleam to them and his waspish eyebrows arch upwards in most wicked a manner, and I'm starting to feel a little faint. Woof. "You and be both! The darling young gentleman's positively dreamy when he's insane!" I couldn't agree with you more, my impressively fanged companion, but alas, Dashing El Deano's of a decidedly different opinion, and he pulls an unprecedented third Dean Winchester Patented Bow-Legged Clompy Stomp Of Great Vengeance And Furious Anger out of La Casa De Tragedy Y No-Talent Blondes to hunt down the damned beastie himself, goddamnit!
Graveyard. Dean breaks into the desecrated crypt from a few scenes ago, digs around one of the ruined vaults, and realizes its back wall hides the entrance to...a secret underground earthen tunnel! DUN! Of course, like the super-smart person he actually is, Dean immediately plunges headfirst into the secret underground earthen tunnel alone, because every super-smart person knows secret underground earthen tunnels never collapse, and he eventually emerges into a cobwebbed chamber on the other end. The grey sandstone floor's littered with dead tree roots, various long bones, a handful of badly bewigged skulls, and..."GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORE!" Yep, Dean's foot trods upon something squishy, and he trains his flashlight's tiny beam down to discover..."GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORE!" Raoul, please! I'm trying to describe the..."GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORE!" Oh, Jesus. Whatever. It's part of Joe The Bartender's leg, or something, positively identified by the former living person's Buddy Holly glasses, but that's not important right now, because forest noises are emanating from the secret underground earthen tunnel above Dean's head at the moment, so Dean, like the super-smart person he actually is, empties an entire clip into the secret underground earthen tunnel, because every super-smart person knows secret underground earthen tunnels that never collapse can easily withstand a barrage of gunsh...oh. Ooops.
Moron.
Meanwhile, back at La Casa Del Crap, Crazy Sammy's batshit Adam-As-Bait plan continues apace, with the two secretly evil Winchesters laying down lines of salt and boarding up all extraneous points of entry to the room in which they've barricaded themselves until only one unsecured heating vent remains. And then they wait. And wait. And wait and wait and wait and wait until... "Adam!" cries Michelle Pfeiffer's less-talented younger sister from below. The littlest evil Winchester races down the stairs to find Mother Milligan -- or is she? -- standing by the kitchen table, and immediately races over for an embrace. Crazy Sammy, meanwhile, approaches far more cautiously through the downstairs hall, sawed-off shotgun aimed squarely at "Mother" "Milligan's" "head" while screaming, "SHE'S NOT YOUR MOTHER!"
Underground Chamber Of Super-Smart Morons. Dean slams his full body against an unyielding door for a very lengthy period of time until, like the super-smart person he actually is, he decides to look for a different exit in one of the coffins. Hey, don't ask me. I just recap this shit. Of course, when he lifts the lid, he finds little more than..."GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORE!" Enjoying ourselves, are we? "Oh, we are! Most sincerely!" I'm so happy one of us is having fun. In any event, aside from the...
"...!"
The hell? I said, "Aside from the..."
"...!"
Raoul! "Yes?!" I'm giving you your cue, you dizzy little lizard. "Ooops!" Rrrrgh.
So, ANY-way, aside from the... "GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORE!" ...there's little else inside the coffin. Well, except for the rapidly decaying corpse of Mother Milligan, of course! DUN!
La Casa Del Crap. The already-tense situation rapidly escalates into one of mad panic on all sides as "Mother" "Milligan" pleads with her "son" to believe her and Crazy Sammy hisses, "Get away from her!" from the other end of the room and Secretly Evil Adam waffles and vacillates between the two until Adam snatches the sawed-off shotgun from Crazy Sammy's hands and starts flailing around with the thing until Crazy Sammy bays, "SHOOT IT IT'S NOT HUMAN!" And then? Why, only the most awesome moment of the entire episode when first it aired: The frightened, frantic expression on Adam's face melts into a smirk of conspiratorial glee, and he lightly admits, "I know," right before bashing Sam's face with the butt of the gun!" "VIOLENCE!" shrieks Raoul, in such a tizzy at this point that he's forgotten for whom he's meant to be rooting. "WANTON ACTS OF UNREPENTANT VIOLENCE AND EEEEEEEEEEEEE!" And as Raoul collapses into a temporary faint upon his overstuffed armchair, Openly Evil Adam smiles sideways at his "mother." Dun-dun-DUN!
Meanwhile, back in The Underground Chamber Of Super-Smart Morons, Dean hoists another coffin lid to find...Real Adam's rapidly decaying corpse! By the way, it looks like the poor kid is missing most of the lower half of his body, a development Raoul would no doubt find positively enthralling had he not passed out from all of the generalized excitement and awesomeness sixteen seconds ago. In any event, Distressed El Deano stifles a gag and whips his horrified head around directly into the penultimate METAL TEETH CHOMP!
Sidebar: Seriously, I had no idea that particular twist was coming when this episode first aired last Thursday evening, and the way it played out was just ridiculously awesome, mainly because of Jake Abel's unexpectedly adept performance throughout the evening, so bravo to him. Unfortunately, because I now know of the twist's existence, recapping the earlier Adam scenes has been both a chore and a bore, because as I noted several paragraphs ago, it makes no sense for Adam and his "She's My Mother AND My Sister!" beastie-thing to string Our Intrepid Heroes along the way they did for the better part of the hour. Why not just kill Sam the instant Dean leaves them alone with each other, and then go after Dean later? Why wait? It reminds me of the first time I realized the idiot demons on Charmed should just take out The Glamorous Nitwits from afar, with high-powered sniper rifles. And it's always a bad thing when Supernatural reminds me of CANCELLED!
Whatever. Long story short, it was fantastic the first time it happened, but in retrospect, the reveal just blows the entire plot that came before it to bits. Oh, well. Better luck week!
Now, where were we? Oh, yes: Back in The Underground Chamber Of Super-Smart Morons, Dean freaks the fuck out over his latest gruesome discovery until he inadvertently shines his flashlight up at the ceiling, where he spots a stained-glass angel window that clearly leads topside, and do you get it? With the angel and the Dean and the being buried and the fighting your own way out and all? Because we can stop this recap right here and wait until you do. Oh, you do get it? So, we can continue? Good.
La Casa De Crap. Crazy Sammy awakens to find his remarkably broad and healthy form firmly strapped down to the dining room table thanks to several lengths of rope, and as we've now entered tonight's The Hell-Sent Beasties Explain It All To You segment, I'll be skipping through this scene to get to the violence and the gore and such. "VIOLENCE?!" Raoul shrieks, perking up considerably from his earlier swoon. "GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORE!? Where?!" Soon, friend of friends. Soon. "Hooray!" So, long story short, "Adam" and "Mother Milligan" are actually a brother-and-sister pair of Minnesota ghouls who've been plotting their sweet, sweet revenge ever since Sucky John and that bartender whose name I can't remember slaughtered their father back in January of 1990. To that end, they remained below, feeding on the corpses of the freshly dead until they gained enough strength to emerge from the cemetery, at which point they kidnapped and ate first the bartender, then the nurse, and finally the littlest Winchester. For yes, gentle reader, Real Dead Adam actually was Sucky John's illegitimate son -- after all, how else would Ghoul Adam have been able to access all those fond and entirely accurate memories of baseball games and Metallicar rides and underage drinking if he hadn't absorbed the kid's brain by, like, literally eating it, or whatever? "This is boring!" I know, you shriekily petulant lizard, so I'm going to fast-forward to the point where Michelle Pfeiffer's less-talented younger sister...slices open Crazy Sammy's heretofore remarkably healthy forearm! "DEATH!" roars Raoul, having once again regained his proper senses. "DEATH TO THE TALENT-FREE BLONDE WHO WOULD HARM THE FOREARM! Hee! I do so enjoy doing that!" I'm glad, my scaly friend, and with a little luck, you'll get to do it again, but I'm afraid we must first return to...
...The Underground Chamber Of Super-Smart Morons, where Dean snaps off a handle from one of the coffins, with which he first smashes through the stained glass above his head before wedging the thing into the window's stone frame and hauling himself up and out like a gymnast hoisting himself onto the high bar. Woof. Is it time for the Summer Olympics again? "It is not!" Dammit.
La Casa De Crap. Ghoul Adam sticks a couple of fingers into the hole he drilled into Crazy Sammy's side, and as this episode's suddenly taken a turn for the Warholesque bizarre, we'll be skipping ahead to the point where Dashing El Deano races in from the cemetery to save the day. "Oh, that would be delightful!" Excellent. So, Dashing El Deano races in from the cemetery to save the day, which he attempts to accomplish first by blasting a couple of rounds into Ghoul Adam's chest. Fortunately, Crazy Sammy still has enough presence of mind to shout out the beasties' make and model, so Dean knows to aim a little higher time, and there goes Ghoul Mother Milligan's head, splattering clear across the wall. "GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORE!" Alas, before Dean gets a chance to do the same to the fiend impersonating his dead little brother, Ghoul Adam snatches at Dean's shoulders and flips Our Intrepid Hero end over bow-legged end through a set of French doors into the parlor, where the two proceed to tussle and whatnot until Dean finally gets the upper hand and starts beating Ghoul Adam's brains in with a candlestick! "VIOLENCE! WANTON ACTS OF UNREPENTANT VIOLENCE AND GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO" Well, not so much with the g... "OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO" Wait, you're not listening to m... "OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORE!" Oh, whatever.
And then, long story short, Dean binds up Crazy Sammy's many, many wounds because "that's what family's for," and I vomit and I puke and I hurl and then I vomit again straight into the final METAL TEETH CHOMP!, which is probably never going to speak to me again. I hate it when the episodes just fall apart during the final act.
Denouement. In the end, Sam and Dean salt and burn the actual corpse of their actual little brother because their lives haven't been quite miserable enough yet, and there's ruminations from Dean regarding how Crazy Sammy and Sucky John "are practically the same person," but I think that's just the grief talking, because unless I'm mistaken, Crazy Sammy -- corpse-sucking fool though he is -- has yet to destroy his children's lives through absolutely horrific parenting. So, you know. There's that. Never reproduce, Sam! But do have lots of fun trying. Ooops! Forgot: You can't have lots of fun trying, because you kill every single living woman you have sex with. Sigh. Is this over? "It is!" Oh, thank Christ. I don't think I've ever been so depressed in my entire life. "Flagon?!" Absolutely. Care to do the honors again? "I'd be thrilled!" Excellent.
"Gather close, my pretties, so I might tell you of week's exciting installment, and it promises to be most tense-making indeed! You see, that darling little angel man Demian's always going on about is in danger! I know! Don't you just want to see how it all ends right now?! I know you do! But alas, you'll have to wait! So until week, kisses! Tense-making kisses to all of my pretties!"
Demian thinks you should know that your parents have always loved your youngest sibling more than they've ever loved you. Raoul, however, is appalled at such a barefaced and insulting lie, and wishes to hasten to assure you that your dear mother and father loved all of you wonderful children equally. You may reach the former at demian_twop@yahoo.com. The latter is an imaginary gay dragon on the Internet.
What paranormal creature should the boys take on ? Our vlogger has an idea.