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This week, Our Intrepid Heroes motor on over to yet another Nowheresville after a pair of friskypants twentysomethings takes that whole "You're Just So Adorable, I Could Eat You Right Up!" garbage to its delightfully grotesque extreme, and it looks like we're in for yet another run-of-the-mill Monster Of The Week episode until Eagle-Eyed Sammy spots a matching set of Enochian symbols seared into the lunatic lovebirds' freshly autopsied hearts. Dashing El Deano rings My Sweet Baboo for a consult, and Castiel flutters on in to confirm that the cannibals had indeed been touched by an angel shortly before they started devouring each other -- specifically a "cherub third class" who's otherwise known to us mere mortals as a "cupid."
Now, before you think of Charmed and barf, understand this: The cupid has absolutely nothing to do with the daytime nightmare now ripping through the town, which quickly expands from various tawdry pairs of death-trip lovers offing each other to include a former fattie forcing Twinkies down his throat with a toilet brush, a short order cook plunging his bare hands into a diner's deep fryer because the fries are taking too long, the avuncular county coroner inhaling about fifteen gallons of whiskey in one sitting, and our very own Castiel shoveling what seems to be at least five pounds' worth of raw hamburger meat into his gullet. You see, the third Horseman has risen, and it's Famine, only this version of Famine doesn't make you starve to death. No, this Famine instead infects you with the irresistible urge to gorge on what you most crave until you've ended up destroying yourself -- and then, after you're dead, this Famine will eat your soul. Charming, isn't it?
Unfortunately for Famine, however, that wicked mojo of his just sends Darling Sammy lunging for demons' necks again, and once Sam's Hell-sent powers have been restored thanks to copious amounts of fresh fiendish blood, Our Intrepid Junkie turns his Mighty Hand Of Discontent on The Horseman himself, and Famine goes boom. Or something like that. The ending was pretty vague, but still: This has to have been one of the most gruesome hours of television I've ever watched in my life, and Raoul loved every goddamned minute of it. "EEEEEEEEEEEEE!"
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Want more? The full recap starts right below!Rattle, Rattle THEN! As I'm sure you'll all remember, Lucifer's escape from Hell triggered the ascent of The Four Horsemen Of The Apocalypse, the first of whom rather satisfyingly lost his ring finger when Our Intrepid Heroes tag-teamed him from behind, while the second of whom hasn't been mentioned since he rose right before Thanksgiving to lay waste to various unimportant Midwestern states. Also, just in case you've forgotten, Darling Sammy got his dumb ginormous self addicted to crack, and Dashing El Deano ranted that The Dean and Sam Story is neither fun nor entertaining and is, in fact, "a river of crap that would send most people howling to the nuthouse." Cut to the nuthouse, where Demented El Deano dejectedly admitted to himself that he doesn't know how he gets up in the morning anymore, because Despondent El Deano is D-U-N done! Also done? The THEN!
Rattle, Rattle NOW! The camera slowly hauls itself over a brownstone's stoop to take in the romantically lit late evening stroll that's currently being enjoyed by two shy-faced young'uns reaching the end of their very first date. This isn't going to end well. "EEEEEEEEEEEEE!" shrieks Raoul The Big Gay Supernatural Dragon in a frenzy of anticipatory delight, for he, too, knows full well that absolutely nothing good can come of this set-up. "I'm certain it's going to be positively gruesome!" Raoul shrieks again, already clapping his exquisitely manicured paws together with a glee that is endearingly heartless, and as I've a feeling you couldn't possibly be more correct, friend of friends, would you mind terribly if I got on with it already? "Please do!" Excellent. So, Alice over here had a really good time, and Russell over there really wants to see her again, and -- because they're both easily influenced losers -- they both agree that being alone on Valentine's Day sucks, and then they move in for a sweet little tentative goodnight kiss that rapidly intensifies into a full-blown face-sucking adventure right there in the middle of the sidewalk until mousy Alice abruptly jerks herself away from him, stammering, "I'm sorry! I-I-I just, uh, I don't want you to think I'm the type of person who just..." "No, I should apologize!" the gallant if somewhat nerdy Russell attempts to assure her, but it doesn't matter, for barely have the words flown from his mouth when a suddenly overheated Alice leaps back up to shove her tongue down his throat again, and the thing we know...
...BAM! Russell's tossed Alice up against the refrigerator in her apartment's kitchen because nerdboy's secretly dirty like that, and there's some heavy panting going on as he dives down to nuzzle her neck while she fumbles with the buttons of her prim pink blouse, and soon enough, she's down to little more than her pristine white brassiere. "I respect the crap out of you right now!" Russell gasps as he detaches his mouth from her neck long enough to discard his V-necked sweater vest. "Shut up!" Alice playfully grins while relieving him of his snap-buttoned plaid and then there's some generalized grinding and groping and such until sweet-seeming Alice bites down a little too hard on Russell's neck, drawing blood. "EEEEEEEEEEEEE!" Alice immediately stops what she'd been doing and, wide-eyed with surprise and dismay, draws away from him for a moment with apologies and blood now dripping from her lips. "It's okay!" Russell huskily assures her. "It's good!" the freaky little nerdboy adds with a lusty glint in his eye that's quickly met by a pair of equally lusty glints in Alice's own, and she lunges forward to tear another bit of skin from his throat as he sinks his teeth into her bicep and she wails, "I want you, Russell -- all of you inside me!" and he shouts, "Yes!" and then she rips a stringy piece of flesh from his neck with her teeth and impishly chews on it right before he strips off a piece of her arm and she rams her fingernails into his chest and yanks and he slams one bloodied hand against the refrigerator door on his way down to gnaw open a hole in her stomach and they're slurping and squishing and slopping all over each other in wave after wave of increasingly insane and bloody passion until...
...SPLAT! "GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORE!" And while Raoul wriggles himself into a rapturous blur of unprecedented and ear-piercingly loud grue-induced euphoria over there on his overstuffed armchair thanks to that delightfully appalling and immensely gratifying opening sequence, I'll quietly skip ahead to the bit where...
...Darling Sammy, once again masquerading as a dapper federal agent, gingerly fingers the blood-encrusted valentine Russell and Alice left on her refrigerator door while he too-casually asks of Alice's freaked-out roommate, "So, you were the one who found the bodies?" "There was blood everywhere," the freaked-out roommate offers by way of response as she packs now-dead Alice's tchotchkes into boxes in the living room before pausing to add, "And... other stuff." "EEEEEEEEEEEEE!" Darling Sammy winces sympathetically as Freaked-Out Roomie continues, "I think Alice was already dead." "But Russell wasn't?" Sam prompts. Freaked-Out Roomie silently squirms around for an uncomfortable moment until she finally admits, "I think he was -- mostly -- except he was still sort of... chewing." "EEEEEEEEEEEEE!" And now that Raoul's gone paralytic with bliss over this latest compelling development -- paralytic, I should note, save for a few involuntary spasms of pure, unadulterated joy -- I can safely ignore him for the several minutes to deal with this week's necessary exposition. Long story short, and as you've probably guessed by now, Alice and Russell pretty much ate each other to death right there on the hastily scrubbed and therefore still-stained kitchen linoleum, but the really weird thing -- according to Freaked-Out Roomie, here, at least -- is that up until the evening of her untimely demise, Dead Alice had never once exhibited any sort of psychotic behavior at all. In fact, Alice was such a teetotalling, purity ring-sporting, Bible-thumping, goody-goody nice girl that her last evening with Dead Russell was her first date in months. "She was so excited," Freaked-Out Roomie mournfully reminisces. "Apparently," Darling Sammy Carusos, "they were both pretty excited." YEEAAAAHH!
Cut to this week's motel room, which is apparently part of an establishment named "Diamond Jack's," if that little stand-up flyer advertising this week's VALENTINES SPECIAL of FREE CHAMPAGNE to Dashing El Deano's propped-up feet is anything to go by. Darling Sammy, rather uncharacteristically clutching a massive paper bag stuffed with fast food, lets himself in to give Dashing El Deano the bad news: Dead Alice's apartment contained no EMF and no signs of sulphur, so possession of either the ghostly or demonic variety is most likely out as far as explanations go for that delightfully appalling and immensely gratifying pre-credits sequence. Dean, for his part, has spent the morning making nice with the local constabulary, and has this to say about the no doubt wonderful experience: "Duuuuude! The coroner's? You didn't see these bodies -- I mean, these two started eating and they just...kept going. I mean, their stomachs were full -- like, Thanksgiving dinner full." Raoul, still in the throes of his rhapsodic swoon, lifts his impressively fanged maw long enough to shriek, "EEEEEEEEEEEEE!" at this unexpectedly vivid bit of added detail before lapsing back into near-catatonic jubilation, leaving me pretty much alone once more with Our Intrepid Heroes as Darling Sammy sighs to himself for a bit over how fruitless their investigation has been thus far until he settles in for a solitary evening of satisfying research while at the same time granting Dashing El Deano permission to "unleash The Kraken." Hee. Dean's all, "Whaaaaaaa?" so Sam's forced to elaborate by reminding his brother that it's Valentine's Day -- also known to Dirty El Deano as "Unattached Drifter Christmas" -- which is Dean's penis's favorite holiday for what I hope are obvious reasons. Rather uncharacteristically, Dean's Penis passes on the opportunity to stalk its prey through cocktail lounge after cocktail lounge filled with lonely women. Darling Sammy, visibly perplexed, affixes Dean with The Super-Special Puppy-Dog Eyes Of Heartfelt Fraternal Concern to note rather appropriately, "When a dog doesn't eat? That's when you know something's really wrong." "Remarkably patronizing concern," Dean shoots back and, after insisting he's completely fine, the improbable celibate settles in for some satisfying research of his own.
Elsewhere, a pair of instantly hateable MBA morons named "Jimbo" and "Brad" have themselves settled in for a celibate evening of unsatisfying proofreading over in their anonymous cubicle farm. Broheim Brad, the proofreading project's manager, looks up from his tedious task to find Jackass Jimbo engrossed in the neverending stream of text messages now swamping his Blackberry. "She's got you on a leash," Broheim Brad snorts. "She just wants to know where I am," Jackass Jimbo claims. "She just wants to know that you're whipped," Broheim Brad snaps back, making appropriately chauvinist wrist-flicking gestures before he lights into Jackass Jimbo for half-assing their current assignment, all because Jackass Jimbo's "gone mental over some chick he met, like, a week ago." On cue, that chick Jackass Jimbo's gone mental over staggers into the far background of the shot, mewling a wavery and pathetic-sounding, "Jim? Where were you?" through the rivers of snot and teary mascara currently running down her face. She's sporting a red satin cocktail atrocity that looks like it'd been balled up in the bottom of her closet for the last several years, cunningly accessorized with a white plastic tote bag from Rite Aid and a deplorable pair of black patent pumps, and oh, honey. Just... no. "You can't choose work over meeeeeeeeeeeee!" just-appearing "Janice" whines as Jackass Jimbo -- his instantly unhinged, obsessed expression matching her own -- hastens to console her over the loud protests of Broheim Brad. "Whoa!" Broheim Brad Keanus. "Due respect, but honestly, bro: WHUP-sha!" This last is, of course, accompanied by an appropriately chauvinist flick of Broheim Brad's wrist, so Jangly Janice -- without even looking at him, mind you -- hauls this massive hand cannon out of her Rite Aid purse and shoots him in the face. "VIOLENCE!" howls Raoul, who had only just barely recovered from his earlier cannibal-induced swoon. "WANTON ACTS OF UNREPENTANT VARLET-ANNIHILATING VIOLENCE AND GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORE!" And as Broheim Brad's now rapidly cooling corpse tumbles backwards towards the carpeting with only the camera to notice its fall, Jangly Janice grasps at Jackass Jimbo to whimper, "What are we gonna do, Jimmy?" "I dunno, baby," Jackass Jimbo whispers, all lost and intense and such. "It seems like whatever we do, something in life is always gonna keep us apart -- work, family... sleep!" "Now prison, maybe," Jangly Janice hopelessly moans. Hee. Things are looking pretty bleak, indeed, for our obscenely annoying honey-bunnies until Jackass Jimbo suddenly realizes, "I think I have an idea how we can stay together, forever!" And we all know where this is going, so let's just skip ahead to the bit where Janice presses the business end of her hand cannon against the base of her jaw, cocks the hammer, and... "VIOLENCE!" bays Raoul as Jangly Janice blasts her brains out all across the cubicle farm's drop ceiling. "GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORE!" howls Raoul as Jackass Jimbo follows her lead. "EEEEEEEEEEEEE!" shrieks your faithful recapper's faithful recapping companion one more time before collapsing back against the cushions of his overstuffed armchair near insensate, so overwhelmed is his dear little puny lizard-like brain with this episode's complete and total awesomeness thus far, and with that, we hop ahead to...
...this never-named town's state-of-the-art morgue, where the LYING LIARS WHO LIE, still masquerading as FBI agents, bow-leggedly lope and gloom their ways, respectively, through the buzzy, busy hallways until... Darling Sammy's Spidey Sense sets to tingling! DUN! The action grinds down into slow motion as the boys pass a shorn-headed undertaker-type heading in the opposite direction, and our attention is drawn to the suspicious-looking briefcase the gent's toting until the apparent undertaker vanishes around the hall's far corner. "You okay?" Dashing El Deano wonders, having of course noticed the sudden shift down into slow-mo. "I'm fine," Darling Sammy LIES, all the while sniffing at the air like he's just caught a whiff of some delicious crack, but we haven't any time to deal with that at the moment, for Our Intrepid Heroes have now reached the morgue proper, where the burly and genial Doctor Corman has just finished closing up Dead Jackass Jimbo and his similarly deceased paramour. The good doctor tosses Dean the keys to the joint and skedaddles, but not before reminding the boys to "refrigerate after opening," and with that, we leap into an investigatory montage during which mischievous El Deano slides an eviscerated human heart over to Darling Sammy with a faux-plaintive, "Be my Valentine?" Heh. Buzzkill Sam wrinkles his nose in disgust and is about to return to his intent study of someone's disemboweled intestine when his eagle eyes spot something unusual marking the heart's surface. It is, quite naturally, the Enochian letter Na -- whose English equivalent is supposedly H, as in "Heart" -- and wouldn't you know it? The heart formerly belonging to the other of our obscenely annoying honey-bunnies features the same exact brand! Raoul rouses himself long enough to shriek, "What are the odds?!" before lapsing back into his awesome-induced coma, and the boys quickly realize they'll be needing an angelic consult on this one, so Dean flips open his cell to ring My Sweet Baboo. And in a bit of extremely amusing business, barely has Dean shared their current coordinates with Castiel when the angel himself magically materializes not three inches from the end of Dean's nose, staring intently at Our Intrepid Hero while intoning into his still-active phone, "I'm there now." "Yeah, I get that," Dean deadpans, his voice echoing as its electronic version emerges from Castiel's receiver. My Sweet Baboo, at a momentary loss over how to proceed at this juncture, hesitantly states, "I'm gonna... hang up now." "Right," Dean acknowledges, still into his own cell. Heh.
And the thing we know, Castiel's flipping one of the eviscerated human hearts around in his bare hand, only gradually noticing how messy that can get while pumping out a supertanker's worth of exposition onto Our Dear Boys' tantalizing derrieres. Long story short, the matching brands are "mark[s] of union," which from time to time are inscribed upon the hearts of humans who "were intended to mate" by members of "a lower order of angel" -- "cherub, third class," to be precise -- who are otherwise known to you and me as "Cupids," and they better be going somewhere non-sucky with all of this, or I'll have to hurl insults at Kripke's mom again. "'Cherub'?" Dean repeats, having the gall to get all incredulous about this development despite everything that's happened to him over the last two seasons. "You mean the little flying fat kid in diapers?" he continues, still not letting it go. Castiel, typically puzzled by the reference, takes a moment to note that cherubs are not known for their incontinence before rather impatiently clarifying that the evidence suggests "a cupid has gone rogue." "We have to stop him," Castiel growls, "before he kills again!" DUN!
Or not, as we eventually learn long after the action has shifted over to a valentine-bedecked singles' bar elsewhere in this never-named burg, so I'll do my best to get through what follows -- entertaining as these scenes might be -- as quickly as possible, okay? "...!" I said, "Okay?" "...!" Oh, the poor little lamb. He's still passed out from all of the awesome thus far, so we'll just let him recover while I deal with the wacky hijinks at hand. To begin with, Our Dear Boys plus My Sweet Baboo have ensconced themselves in a remote booth at the far end of this tawdry pickup joint, the better to keep an eye on all of the action, as singles' bars are -- as far as Cupids are concerned, at any rate -- "nexuses of human reproduction." Before we meet this evening's Cupid, however, I would be remiss were I not to note that Dean's ordered himself a delicious-looking bacon double cheeseburger, which he rather uncharacteristically pushes aside, untouched, mere seconds after the waitress has delivered it to their table. For his part, Castiel rather uncharacteristically stares hungrily at the thing before reaching across the table to chow down on it, but just as he's about to take a bite, he senses The Cupid's presence, so the three retreat into the bar's back storeroom, leaving yet another delicious-looking bacon double cheeseburger most woefully uneaten.
Back in the back, Castiel Latinates for a bit with arm outstretched, and then Our Intrepid Trio waits. And waits. And waits. And waits and waits and waits and waits and waits and waits and waits until a rather large, especially jovial, and entirely naked Cupid magically materializes right behind Dashing El Deano to hoist Our Dear And Decidedly Disgusted Boy straight up into a bone-crushing bearhug that just as quickly vanishes into this evening's first METAL TEETH CHOMP! Wah-wah-waaaaaaaaaaaaah!
Bar Back. Immediate Aftermath. Dean's feet dangle helplessly in the air for a while until The Cupid finally makes note of Castiel's magnificently brooding presence, and he immediately drops Dean to the floor to wrap My Sweetly Disgruntled Baboo up in a bone-crushing bearhug of his very own. The Cupid lunges to attack Darling Sammy as Dean panics, "Is this a fight? Areweinafight?" "This is their...handshake," Castiel delicately corrects as the overexuberant Cupid latches onto Darling Sammy despite the latter's best evasive maneuvering. "I don't like it!" Dean shouts. "No one likes it," Castiel quietly admits. Heh. Meanwhile, The Cupid's over in the corner with Sam, all, "Just what I always wanted -- my very own Ginormotron! I will name him George, and I will hug him and pet him and squeeze him and pat him and pet him and rub him and caress him and I will stroke his freakish Cro-Magnon forehead and rub his pretty flyaway hair and... wait a minute! Why'd you make me materialize?" Castiel accuses The Cupid of murdering those he was meant to help, with said accusation immediately reducing the excessively emotive Cupid into a blubbering, shuddering mass of tears, and long story short, this whole Cupid thing's nothing more than a red herring. Well, little more than a red herring, for after the whole misunderstanding's been cleared up thanks to one of Castiel's Vulcan mind-melds, The Cupid exposits that "Heaven" mostly keeps its hands out of human affairs, but does intervene when "certain bloodlines" must be kept going and "certain destinies" need to be ensured. Like, oh, I don't know...Burnt Mary and Sucky John's, f'rinstance! The boys, of course, are shocked and appalled to learn this, especially when The Cupid reveals that Burnt Mary and Sucky John despised each other before their hearts got felt up by an angel, and Dean reacts as one does in such situations by slugging The Cupid in the face. Or, you know, attempting to, because Dimwit El Deano still hasn't learned that punching an angel in the face results in little more than a spiderweb of hairline fractures spreading out across one's own knuckles, but that doesn't matter right now because The Cupid's finally taken offense at all of this screaming and violence, and has quite sensibly disappeared, presumably never to be seen again. !
Morgue, and you'll have to excuse me while I take a moment to poke Raoul with a stick, because I'm pretty sure he wouldn't want to miss what happens . "Hey! What on earEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" For yes, gentle reader, Doctor Corman has summoned Darling Sammy to examine this never-named hamlet's latest mysterious fatality, which happens to be that of a former fattie who got a gastric bypass to drop his weight from "Dugong" to "Human-Appropriate." However, for whatever reason -- and as his now-bloated carcass attests -- "Lester Fitch," here, decided last night to go on a Twinkie binge, stuffing his gut until "he blew out the band around his stomach," after which he resorted to "jam[ming] the cakes down his gullet with a toilet brush," and... "EEEEEEEEEEEEE! [Thunk!]" Yep -- we've lost Raoul again, I'm afraid. "Glalalalalalaalallalalalllaalalalah!" Let me take another moment to shove a wallet into that gaping maw of his so he doesn't choke on his own tongue.
There. That's better. Now, where was I? Oh, yes: So poor, unfortunate Dead Lester was forcing those snack cakes down his throat "like he was ram-rodding a cannon," as the good doctor so vividly puts it, and now he's bloated-toes-up on a slab. "What do you make of it?" Sam asks. Doctor Corman draws a hip flask from his lab coat and, after taking a long, contemplative swig, he replies, "I'd say it was a very peculiar thing to do." "Peculiar"? Perhaps. "Awesome"? Most definitely. "Gauauauauuauauauauauh!"
Out on the street, Sam shares the details of Dead Lester's untimely demise with Dean via his cell phone, and Dean replies with news that this never-named village has seen eight suicides and nineteen intentional overdoses over the last couple of days which, as one would suspect, is far higher than the seasonal averages for such things in a town of this size. They ring off after agreeing to meet up with each other in ten minutes, and Darling Sammy's about to head back to this week's motel room when... his Spidey Sense sets to tingling! Again! Some more! DUN! The intentionally bald undertaker has just emerged from the coroner's office, you see, and as Our Intrepid Junkie is once again scenting massive amounts of sweet, delicious crack, he darts out of the frame to...
...attack the intentionally bald undertaker in an otherwise deserted alleyway! "AIIIOESSS! Ack! [Ptui!]" "VIOLENCE!" roars Raoul once he's managed to spit my now drool-encrusted wallet to the floor, and I won't be attempting that particular lifesaving trick again at any point in the near future. "WANTON ACTS OF UNREPENTANT JUNKIE-ON-CRACK-PIPE VIOLENCE AND GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORE!" Yep, the intentionally bald undertaker is actually a demon in intentionally bald undertaker's clothing, and The Crackhead Ginormotron, having sniffed out the sweet, delicious demonically enhanced blood coursing through the guy's veins, now flips him up against the wall to slash at his face and arms with The Knife That Can Kill Anything Except When It Usually Can't, for The Crackhead Ginormotron has rather uncharacteristically fallen back under the thrall of his addiction, and here merely wishes to wound his opponent rather than kill the bastard, because The Crackhead Ginormotron intends to, like, suck on the guy's cheek, or something. Or maybe his shoulder. Oh, I don't know. Leave me alone. In any event, The Crackhead Ginormotron still suh-huuuuuucks at the hand-to-hand at the moment, so the demonically enhanced undertaker's able to beat a hasty retreat, though he does leave that suspicious-looking briefcase of his behind. Along with, you know, a not insignificant amount of his demonically enhanced blood on the blade of The Knife That Can Kill Anything Except When It Usually Can't, which The Crackhead Ginormotron agonizes over for a few very long seconds before wiping the blade clean with a rag he snags from a nearby Dumpster. "EEEEEEEEEEEEE!" You're loving this episode, aren't you? "EEEEEEEEEEEEE!"
Diamond Jack's. After some meaningless chit-chat, Our Intrepid Heroes crack open the demonically enhanced undertaker's suspicious-looking briefcase to find... an atomic bomb! "EEEEEEEEEEEEE! [Thunk!]" I was kidding! Oh, well -- too late now, I suppose. "Glalalalalalaalallalalalllaalalalah!" In any event, what Sam and Dean actually find is a human soul, which swirls up out of the briefcase to dazzle them for a moment before vanishing, and no, I don't get how this meshes with that whole Reaper thing they've already established, so don't bother asking me, because My Sweet Baboo's just returned to this week's motel room with a bagful of burgers and is now stuffing his face with flame-broiled beef products, and I'd rather focus on that at the moment, if you don't mind. "When did you start eating?" Dean demands. "Exactly!" a pop-eyed Castiel excitedly replies. "My hunger's a clue!" "For what?" Our Dear Boys guh in unison. "This town isn't suffering from some love-gone-wrong effect," Castiel explains around whopping mouthfuls of bacon double cheeseburger, "it's suffering from hunger -- starvation, to be exact. Specifically, Famine." And yes, my capitalization of "Famine" there was deliberate, for this show is finally about to introduce us all to The Third Horseman Of The Apocalypse. First, though, we must endure yet more expository blather, this bit regarding how, precisely, Famine affects people, and it all basically boils down to this: Famine somehow figures out what it is that you most desire -- food, drugs, sex, affection, acceptance, acclamation, whatever -- and makes you positively "rabid" for it, after which you gorge yourself on the desire of your choice until you choke on it and die. More or less. Castiel himself has developed a craving for off-brand Big Macs because, as you'll recall, he tends to starve his Vessel, and that Vessel is now exerting a certain amount of control over Castiel's behavior thanks to Famine's intervention. And of course, The Crackhead Ginormotron is lusting after demonically enhanced blood again because of Famine's influence, which leaves Dashing El Deano the odd man out at the moment, but we'll get to his problem eventually. In the meantime, let's meet Famine, shall we? "Glalalalalalaalallalalalllaalalalah!"
"And then will come Famine, riding on a black steed," Castiel narrates as the scene shifts towards a Biggerson's on the outskirts of town. A motorcade composed entirely of black Ford Broncos spins into the parking lot from points unknown, and a squadron of demonically enhanced Men In Black emerges from the vehicles to prepare Famine's way. "He will ride into the land of plenty," Castiel continues as one of the demonic underlings sets up a pricey-looking wheelchair on the asphalt while some demonically enhanced bruiser of a henchman reaches into the lead car to haul out Famine himself, and in a very nice choice by all involved, Famine's a frail, withered, ghastly, ghostly husk of a man who clearly hasn't the strength to move of his own volition. Or does he? Muah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! The demonically enhanced bruiser loads Famine's wasted form into the pricey-looking wheelchair, and yet another demonically enhanced attendant fixes an oxygen line under Famine's nose as Famine stretches a bony, beringed claw towards the pricey-looking wheelchair's controls. "And great will be The Horseman's hunger, for he is hunger!" By now, Famine and his entourage have reached Biggerson's front doors, and you'll excuse me while I retrieve my poking stick and... "Hey! EEEEEEEEEEEEE!" For yes, gentle reader, as Famine rolls across the diner's threshold in his pricey-looking wheelchair, and as Castiel assures us that "his hunger will seep out and poison the air," each and every single one of the two dozen or so human beings present flips the fuck out. "EEEEEEEEEEEEE!" Most of the customers just start cramming fistfuls of food into their mouths, though the waitress immediately dives for the register to stuff all the cash into her bra, and it's Alice and Russell redux with an especially frisky pair over there by the windows, but the most memorable -- and most gruesome -- bit of spectacular self-immolation during this sequence arrives courtesy of the diner's short-order cook, who -- get this -- maniacally plunges his hands into the deep fryer to scarf down some piping hot French fries! "GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORE!" Oh, my holy God. "EEEEEEEEEEEEE!" You should see this guy's fingers when he pulls them out of the oil. "GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORE!" I think I'm gonna hurl. "EEEEEEEEEEEEE!" Speaking of my holy God, I think Raoul's just seen Him. "EEEEEEEEEEEEE! GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORE! EEEEEEEEEEEEE! GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORE! EEEEEEEEEEEEE! [Thunk!]" Aw. It's always so cute when Raoul succumbs to incapacitating amounts of near-religious ecstasy. "Glalalalalalaalallalalalllaalalalah!"
Meanwhile, back at this week's motel room, Castiel concludes his lecture by noting that Famine "must devour the souls of his victims," which explains the Soul-In-A-Box Sam and Dean found in the demonically enhanced undertaker's briefcase. Oh, wait a minute -- my bad. My Sweet Baboo actually has one more point to make: "Lucifer has sent his demons to care for Famine, to feed him, to make certain he'll be ready." "Ready for what?" Super-Stupid Sammy asks. "To march across the land," Castiel all but duuuuuuuuuuhs as the camera hops back to what remains of the Biggerson's patrons, and I'd attempt to rouse Raoul so the dear lizard might shriek and howl with delight over these shots of flies swarming the corpses, but I'm quite seriously worried that his sweet little cold-blooded heart will burst should he be exposed to any more of this evening's awesomeness, so I'll leave him be for now. "Glalalalalalaalallalalalllaalalalah!" As for those flies, well, it didn't occur to me until now that the sequence was a flashback to Famine's initial arrival in town, but given the fact that it takes a bit of time for the fly party to really get going on a fresh corpse, that's clearly what it was. Just so you know.
In any event, as the camera pans across various fly-infested Biggerson's corpses, that demonically enhanced undertaker from a couple of scenes ago hesitantly enters the diner, clutching at his wounded arm, and quickly fills Famine in on Darling Sammy's current coordinates, wisely choosing to go with the good news first. Famine's all, "Yes, yes, very nice, FEED ME! FEED ME THE ONE WHO LOVES TWINKIES BRAND NON-DAIRY SNACK CAKES FROM HOSTESS!" The profusely apologetic demonically enhanced undertaker hastens to explain the unfortunate soul-ditching sitch and spins to hustle off in search of a replacement, but Famine wants what he wants when he wants it and so shoots out a seemingly frail arm towards the demonically enhanced undertaker's rapidly retreating back. The demonically enhanced undertaker stops dead in his tracks and immediately belches out a foul, bitterly black cloud of demonic goo, which pours down the front of his body to linger above the linoleum just long enough for the now thoroughly depossessed undertaker's corpse to disappear into the murk as said corpse drops to the floor. And then, the cloud of goo streams through the air into Famine's mouth, and after it vanishes down whatever Famine's using for a digestive tract these days, The Horseman flashes his pearly yellows and murmurs, "Delicious!" right before the entire scene vanishes down the METAL TEETH CHOMP!
This Week's Motel Room. Crackie The Crackheaded Crackormocrack's all sweaty and panting and such in the bathroom because he's jonesing for a great, big crack rock cookie sprinkled with fresh crack, but Dean and Castiel are too busy to notice because they're yammering about Horsemen-related details the audience already learned months ago. Finally, Crackie cracks, and orders Dean and Cracktiel to handcrack him to the crack before barricracking him in the crackroom with a crackoire because crack crackety crack-crack-crack. Crack. CRACK!
Morgue. Guess what? Doctor Corman drank himself to death last night, but nobody's been by to "harvest his soul yet," because The Reapers are addicted to crack now, too. CRACK!
Crackroom. CRACK!
Morgue. Stakeout. Dean patiently waits for one of Famine's underlings to retrieve Doctor Corman's soul while Cracktiel cracks down on his three zillionth crackburger. Eventually, the underling exits the morgue, boards a Bronco, and drives off into the night with the Impala hot on his crack. Or something like that.
Crackroom. CRACK! Crackie hears crack noises coming from the other crack of the crack, and cracks out to the arrivals, cracking that it's his crack with their crack. Actually, the arrivals are two of Famine's henchdemons, who are very pleased indeed to find Crackie all trussed up for them. They're apparently under orders to deliver Crackie to their lord and master, so the male henchdemon moves to uncrack Crackie from the crack, but no sooner has the henchdemon freed Crackie's hands than... WHAMMO! For while Darling Sammy might suh-huuuuuuck at the hand-to-hand, Crackie The Crackheaded Crack-Crack is actually quite adept as far as all that goes, and he quickly smashes the female henchdemon through this week's motel room's glass-topped coffee table, whereupon he plunges a jagged shard of the table's remains into her jugular, the better to suck down some of that sweet, delicious crack. "Glalalalalalaalallalalalllaalalalah!" The male henchdemon flies to the aid of his companion, but by that point, Crackie's had enough crack to hoist his Mighty Crack Of Discontent into the crack and send the male henchdemon telekinetically flying crack-over-crack into this week's motel room's far crack, where the male henchdemon cracks to the floor, uncrackscious. And through luridly crack-stained lips, Crackie The Crackheaded Crack-Crack cracks, "Wait. Your. TURN!" "Glalalalalalaalallalalalllaalalalah!"
Biggerson's Bar And Grill. Dean rolls the Impala as inconspicuously as he can into a dark corner of the diner's lot and watches as the soul-bearing henchdemon enters the restaurant, which incidentally features several pairs of his henchfellows guarding each point of entry. Dean grumbles about the size of Famine's entourage for a moment before turning to My Sweet Baboo to review their plan of attack. Castiel, however, is busy licking a wrapper. Hee. Dean eventually gets his angelic boyfriend's attention, and Castiel desultorily recites the plan of attack like so: "I take The Knife [That Can Kill Anything Except When It Usually Can't], I go in, I cut off the ring hand of Famine, and I meet you back here in the parking lot." Dean rolls his eyes. "Well, that sounds foolproof," he grumps, but his carefully enunciated sarcasm is all for naught, for My Sweet Baboo's already fluttered off to the diner's interior, so Dean waits. And waits. And waits. And waits and waits and waits and waits and waits and waits and waits until he's finally all, "This is taking too long!" Arming himself with one of his trusty sawed-off shotguns, Dashing El Deano disembarks to...
...sneak into Biggerson's through the suspiciously unguarded kitchen entrance. Idiot. Oh, but get this: On his wary way towards the dining room, Our Intrepid Hero stumbles across... wait -- I have to wake him up for this. "Hey! EEEEEEEEEEEEE! [Thunk!]" It was brief, but it was worth it, I'm sure, for Our Intrepid Hero has stumbled across the bloated corpse of Biggerson's short-order cook, which is presently face-down in the still-bubbling deep fryer. Christ, but that has got to stank. Anyway, Dean stifles his gag reflex and soldiers on out to the dining room, where he finds Castiel...oh, for gross. Our Intrepid Hero might have no problems stifling his gag reflex, but the absolutely repulsive scene now playing out on my television screen is making it incredibly difficult for me to stifle mine. It's Castiel, on his hands and knees above a buffet tray overheaped with raw hamburger meat, and Misha Collins is pushing handfuls of that crap into his mouth, chewing, and swallowing it. "Glalalalalalaalallalalalllaalalalah!" Though, you know, thanks to this episode, I've learned that Misha Collins apparently lacks any semblance of a gag reflex whatsoever, which probably makes him, like, a rilly fun date. "Glalalalalalaalal -- DIRTY! -- lalalalllaalalalah!" And look at that! While I've been so busily alternating between retching and leching, a gaggle of henchdemons have drop-kicked Dimwitted El Deano right into the METAL TEETH CHOMP!
Biggerson's. Aftermath. The henchdemons drag Dean into the restaurant's main dining room, where Famine's been eagerly awaiting Our Intrepid Hero's entrance. "What did you do to him?" Dean demands with a quick jerk of his head in his angelic boyfriend's direction. "You set your dog on me," Famine wheezes, "so I just threw him a steak." Castiel, oblivious, continues to shove cold, limp meat into his mouth. Dean snarls something stupid regarding Famine's methods, so Famine retorts that he really doesn't have to do all that much to push people over the edge -- especially in the United States, where our already-ravenous consumer culture has turned us into "a swarm of locusts in stretch pants" who nevertheless are "all still starving" because we've apparently failed to realize that "hunger doesn't just come from the body." "It also comes from the soul!" Famine hisses triumphantly. I'm certain Dean would chide Famine for unleashing so facile and sophomoric a bit of social criticism so late in the episode, were Dean not a complete fucking idiot. Gotta admit that that "locusts in stretch pants" line was pretty good, though. In any event, that whole Starving Soul crap conveniently leads us into the segment of this neverending bout of blathering, as we finally get Famine's explanation for why Dashing El Deano and Dashing El Deano alone has remained impervious to Famine's influence throughout the course of the evening's festivities: "You're not hungry, Dean, because inside, you're already dead!" Good to know. Thanks, Famine!
Fortunately for my rapidly dwindling sanity, Crackie The Crackheaded Crack-Crack cracks into the cracker at crack crack, Crackie's cracky, cracky crack crackycrackly cracking with crack. Famine, bless him, attempts to make with the pleasantries and the sweet-talk and such, but Crackie The Crackheaded Crack-Crack crack cracking crack crack crack, cracker crack Crackie The Crackheaded Crack-Crack cracks his Cracky Crack Of Crackcrackcrack, cracky cracking the crackcracks to crack their crackerly crack cracks of crack crackic crack to the crack. Dean is horrified. And once the henchdemons have thus been so efficiently dispatched, Famine sucks their still-lingering bitterly black clouds of dark demonic goo into what's passing for his digestive tract these days. Uh oh. Things are looking mighty grim for Team Free Crack at the moment, but Crackie The Crackheaded Crack-Crack cracks crack cracking the crack when Crackie cracks his Cracky Crack Of Crackcrackcrack to crack the cracky cracken crackerly crack cracks of crack crackic crack. Famine explodes. Well, I'm pretty sure, because one second he's there, and the second he's gone, and after it's all over, My Sweet Baboo no longer has a hankering for cold, limp meat so, you know. You do the math. And as Crackie The Crackheaded Crack-Crack cracks crack from his crack, Despondent El Deano weeps his girly ass all the way into this evening's final METAL TEETH CHOMP!
Bobby's Emporium, somewhere deep within the lush coastal rainforests of central South Dakota. I think. I mean, that looks like Bobby's Bad-Ass Panic Room behind Dean and Castiel, who lean wearily against the walls while Crackie The Crackheaded Crack-Crack cracks out at them from within, so I'm guessing My Sweet Baboo whisked Our Intrepid Crackheads up to Bobby's after that last scene. Dean swigs from a bottle of generic Kentucky bourbon while his angelic boyfriend offers him some tender words of consolation, but Dean's not having it, and he flees topside to bow-leggedly amble amongst the automotive wrecks in Bobby's yard for a bit until he reaches the rain-streaked Impala. Openly despairing now that he's alone, and with thunder subtly rumbling over his head, Dean lifts his anguished face up to Heaven and pleads, "Please! I can't... I need some help! Please?" And this time, despite the repeated hitch in his voice, there are no tears.
Whew. That was pretty fucking awesome, wasn't it? "...!" Crap. "...!" Does this mean I have to fetch my own goddamned cocktail this week? "...!" I guess it does. Hell, if the mention of booze doesn't wake him up, nothing will.
week: The 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver! The men's figure skating free skate's scheduled for the evening of the 18th, so be sure to tune in so you can point and laugh with the rest of us. The new episode of Supernatural won't get here until March 25th, so until we see you here again, have fun!
Discuss this episode in our forums, then see how the Winchester boys stack up against Other Ghost Hunters!
Demian CRACK! Raoul glalalalalalaalallalalalllaalalalah. You may crack the cracker at crack@crack.crack. The latter is an imaginary gay dragon currently comatose from The Awesome, so don't bother trying to write.
Bobby's Emporium, somewhere deep within the lush coastal rainforests of central South Dakota. I think. I mean, that looks like Bobby's Bad-Ass Panic Room behind Dean and Castiel, who lean wearily against the walls while Crackie The Crackheaded Crack-Crack cracks out at them from within, so I'm guessing My Sweet Baboo whisked Our Intrepid Crackheads up to Bobby's after that last scene. Dean swigs from a bottle of generic Kentucky bourbon while his angelic boyfriend offers him some tender words of consolation, but Dean's not having it, and he flees topside to bow-leggedly amble amongst the automotive wrecks in Bobby's yard for a bit until he reaches the rain-streaked Impala. Openly despairing now that he's alone, and with thunder subtly rumbling over his head, Dean lifts his anguished face up to Heaven and pleads, "Please! I can't... I need some help! Please?" And this time, despite the repeated hitch in his voice, there are no tears.
Whew. That was pretty fucking awesome, wasn't it? "...!" Crap. "...!" Does this mean I have to fetch my own goddamned cocktail this week? "...!" I guess it does. Hell, if the mention of booze doesn't wake him up, nothing will.
week: The 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver! The men's figure skating free skate's scheduled for the evening of the 18th, so be sure to tune in so you can point and laugh with the rest of us. The new episode of Supernatural won't get here until March 25th, so until we see you here again, have fun!
Discuss this episode in our forums, then see how the Winchester boys stack up against Other Ghost Hunters!
Demian CRACK! Raoul glalalalalalaalallalalalllaalalalah. You may crack the cracker at crack@crack.crack. The latter is an imaginary gay dragon currently comatose from The Awesome, so don't bother trying to write.