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Darling Sammy opens the episode all dolled up in FBI drag, the better to investigate a series of brutal and bloody murders in Lansing, Michigan, at the behest of Zombie Grandpa. Something, you see, has of late been breaking into various young marrieds' homes, slaughtering the young marrieds, and absconding with the now-dead young marrieds' six-month-old children. Even though Sam attempts to convince Zombie Grandpa that This Is Not Their Sort Of Thing, Zombie Grandpa quite correctly points out that even if it isn't, there's still someone out there collecting babies, and as the Lansing police seem especially inept, Sam might as well see what he can do about it. Acting on a hunch, Sam discovers all of the murdered marrieds had alarm systems installed by Harper Caine Security and races to the home of the last couple on the list. Of course, he's too late to save the parents, but he does end up with an adorable infant as compensation for all of his troubles.
Meanwhile, Paranoid El Deano's gone into extreme lockdown mode somewhere else, moving Bendy Lisa and The Brat from Cicero after the boring events of last week and refusing to allow either of them to leave their new house. Needless to say, this state of affairs pleases neither Bendy Lisa nor her Brat, so it's with no small amount of relief that Bendy Lisa sends Dean back on the road after Sam pleads for his big brother's help with the unexpected infant. Unsurprisingly, neither Sam nor Dean takes to parenting all that well, and wacky hijinks abound until the two run into a shapeshifter who tries to swipe the unexpected infant in the middle of a grocery store, because it turns out the unexpected infant is half-shifter himself. An "alpha" shapeshifter apparently decided to increase his species' numbers by temporarily posing as various young married Michigan males, knocking up the guys' wives, and then returning fifteen months later to claim his progeny.
The boys flee with the unexpected infant to the Campbell Compound, where dicks are hauled out and measured until the alpha shifter shows up, kills the only Campbell Cousin I liked, and vanishes with the unexpected infant after displaying some mad shifting skillz by simply shimmering from form to form, rather than molting in that spectacularly disgusting way to which we've become accustomed when dealing with monsters of this particular type. Later, after the dust has settled, we overhear one half of an ominous-sounding conversation between Zombie Grandpa and the entity he's secretly working for that makes it clear he's collecting monster specimens for some bizarre reason, but we don't learn much more than that.
And in the end, Bendy Lisa releases Dean from his obligations, so Our Dear Boys are finally free to embark upon the sixth season proper. In Metallicar. Hooray!
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Rattle, Rattle Scented Taffy Clear Blue Glitter THEN! A short time ago, Darling Sammy came back from the dead, and so did Zombie Grandpa, but nobody bothered to tell Dashing El Deano about this intriguing development, so Dashing El Deano worked his big-boy man-panties into a tremendous wad and yelled at everyone. Also, Bendy Lisa seriously abused her member privileges at Mystic Tan, and now looks like a hairy kumquat with teeth. Also also, Zombie Grandpa gathered up three of the most obnoxious Campbell family cousins you could possibly ever imagine, and all of them -- unfortunately -- survived the season premiere. Meanwhile, a very, very, very long time ago, Our Intrepid Heroes met these awesome glowy-eyed monsters known as shapeshifters, and they killed as many of them as they could, sometimes in spectacularly gruesome and hilarious ways. And in the end, Darling Sammy asked Dashing El Deano to rejoin him on the road, but because Dashing El Deano was finally getting some on the regular, he told Darling Sammy to go blow.
Rattle, Rattle Scented Taffy Clear Blue Glitter NOW! A fire, blazing merrily away in an expensive-looking hearth. A mantelpiece, filled end to end with adorable photos of a young couple displaying their fresh infant. A bloody hand, smashing the photos to bits! "GOOOOOOOOOOOOORE!" shrieks Raoul The Big Gay Supernatural Dragon as he writhes about atop his overstuffed armchair with especially exuberant amounts of delight, given the fact that last week's season premiere sent him flying into a coma of boredom within its first three seconds. "EEEEEEEEEEEEE!" He feels like he needs to catch up on his shrieking, you see, after so long a summer hiatus. "EEEEEEEEEEEEE!" Good thing you warmed up beforehand, friend of friends. In any event, mere seconds pass before we catch site of the bloody hand's owner, and it's apparently the woman from the now-destroyed photographs. She's in a mad panic, and she's clutching that fresh infant of hers to her blood-streaked chest, racing through her expensive-looking home's first floor in a desperate attempt to escape an attacker whose identity is, of course, as of yet unknown. The fresh infant remains -- dare I say it? -- preternaturally calm throughout, even when Imperiled Mommy jounces her all the way up the stairs to the second floor. I've a feeling my fresh nephew would be caterwauling his tiny fool head off if given similar rough treatment, but he's kind of a spoiled brat already, so maybe he's not the best fresh infant to cite for comparison purposes.
Imperiled Mommy hurtles through the second-floor hallway, barricades herself in one of the back bedrooms, and snatches up the cordless phone from the nightstand. Alas, the cordless chooses to blare an inexplicable busy signal into Imperiled Mommy's ear rather than a far more soothing dial tone, so there will be no emergency 9-1-1 calls for Imperiled Mommy tonight. By the way, Imperiled Mommy is wearing a blue shirt with a knee-length khaki shirt, which means Imperiled Mommy is a Twitard, which means Imperiled Mommy is already dead to me. "DEATH!" howls Raoul. "DEATH TO SHE WHO WOULD APE BELLA SWAN'S 'FASHION' 'SENSE'!" Raoul! "Yes?!" Sarcastic air quotes amidst the shrieking? "Yes!" You really seem to be on your game tonight. "Thanks!" Also, "ape Bella Swan" was a particularly nice touch. "I'm so pleased you approve!" Now, might I continue? "By all means!" Excellent.
So, Imperiled Mommy tosses the useless cordless aside the instant she hears her unidentified assailant's boots against the hardwood floor out there in the hallway, and she scuttles beneath the bed with her fresh infant, who still has yet to emit so much as a peep during all of this excitement. Nevertheless, Imperiled Mommy gently presses her grue-encrusted palm against her fresh infant's mouth, the better to further muffle the remarkably good-natured infant's ongoing silence. After a few tense moments, the unidentified assailant heads back from whence he came, and Imperiled Mommy allows herself a sigh of relief that quickly turns into a strangled cry of terror when she turns her head to find...Dead Daddy, with his neck sliced open from ear to ear! "GOOOOOOOOOOOOORE!" Given how shocked Imperiled Mommy is to see her dead husband, and given how prominently shapeshifters were featured in the THEN!, I'm guessing that grue on Imperiled Mommy's hands came from a shapeshifter molting when she tried to, like, strangle it, or something. "EEEEEEEEEEEEE!" Anyway, Imperiled Mommy admirably pulls it together and stifles herself before that wail of horror alerts her Shapeshifting Assailant to her presence in the back bedroom, and she comforts her still-quiet daughter through a series of choked-back sobs until...her Shapeshifting Assailant drags her off-screen by her feet! And I'm calling bullshit on all of this. We get a pretty clear view of the rest of the room while Imperiled Mommy's wrangling the cordless, and there are no other points of entry, nor are there any immediately apparent places for a Shapeshifter Accomplice to hide. (And a lurking Shapeshifter Accomplice, by the way, is a whole other level of bullshit I don't even want to try to deal with at this point in the recap.) So, who the hell is dragging Imperiled Mommy out from beneath the bed? "Who cares!?" shrieks Raoul. "We want her dead! DIE, YOU BADLY DRESSED WRETCH! DIE!" Raoul apparently gets his wish, for as the camera focuses in on the still-silent and somewhat wriggly infant beneath the bed, that off-screen series of moist, squishy-sounding thunks now hitting the soundtrack makes me think howling Imperiled Mommy's being run through an antique knee splitter. And howling Imperiled Mommy's screams echo through the room until...
...Tinkle, Tinkle RAAAWWWR! "...!" Um. "...!" Dude, did you miss your cue again? "Why, what on earth do you mean?!" Well, isn't this the point where you writhe about atop your overstuffed armchair, shrieking and hooting and howling and, like, thumping your tail against the floor with delight over the title card? "Hmph!" Raoul snorts, two perfect rings of smoke puffing from his evidently offended nostrils. So...that would be a no, then? "I'll not be wasting my precious breath like that this season, I can assure you!" New title card kind of sucks, yeah? "I should say so! Why, after last season's endlessly compelling and eternally delightful blood-burst of a title card, this...! This...! This...tawdry glassware effect is an insult!" Don't you think you're being a little... "AN INSULT!" Okay! Okay. "Must we dwell upon such unpleasantness!?" Well, of course we don't have to dwell... "Then chop-chop!" Don't make me start flicking you on the back of the neck this early in the season, houseguest. "CHOP-CHOP!" Fine. "Hee!"
Somewhere else (I'm guessing), the camera fades up on a huge suburban manse that's apparently just been rented out to -- wait for it -- Dean, who's already futzing around in the enormous manse's garage. The realtor sign on the front lawn, by the way, featured an area code that began with a 3, so unless Supremely Paranoid El Deano hauled Bendy Kumquat and The Brat all the way up to Saskatchewan to avoid any remaining genies lurking around his old house, I'm guessing they're still in the greater Cicero area. Dean's puttering around Metallicar's bottomless trunk again, closely examining random sawed-off shotguns before replacing them in favor of somewhat more badass models, and this continues through the entire guest-star scroll at the bottom of the screen until Dean finally slams the Impala's trunk shut, locks it, stows away the keys, and recovers everything with a dropcloth. He then grabs a nearby box labeled "KITCHEN" and hauls it back into...
...the enormous manse proper, where The Brat mopes at the dining room table while Bendy Lisa -- she's not nearly as orange in these scenes as she was in the THEN!, don't you know -- encourages her son not to give up on their new neighborhood before he's had a chance to explore it properly, or something. Believe it or not, I'm siding with The Brat in this particular argument. "Really?!" gasps Raoul, a shocked yet perfectly manicured paw pressed against his astounded chest. "Why!?" Because this is, like, the eighth goddamned house that poor kid's had to move to in the last three years, that's why. I'd be telling Bendy Lisa to shove her platitudes up her ass, too, if I were him. "Demian!" Raoul chides. "Language!" Honey, you were asleep all last week. You have no idea the kind of language this season's pushing me towards already. "Oh, my!" Now, if you don't mind? "Absolutely not!"
So, yeah, The Brat's moping, and Bendy Lisa's not exactly making him feel any better, so he jumps up to grab his bike for a self-guided tour around the block. Supremely Paranoid El Deano's all, "Whoa! Where's the fire?" and Bendy Lisa and The Brat stare at him like he's just grown a new head, so Supremely Paranoid El Deano tries to smooth it all over by chastising The Brat for making his mother unpack the kitchen all by herself. "She's got you for that, jackass," The Brat does not retort, instead rolling his eyes and slouching over to his mother's side to lend a reluctant hand. Bendy Lisa suggests they head out later for lunch. Supremely Paranoid El Deano LIES that it sounds like a plan and, after shooting a hairy side-eye at The Brat's blameless bicycle like he's going to salt and burn the damn thing the first chance he gets, Supremely Paranoid El Deano drags The Brat out to the garage to fetch another load of boxes.
Meanwhile, up in Lansing, Michigan, if that location card's anything to go by, Dapper Darling Sammy's masquerading as an FBI agent in order to get the skinny on the dead marrieds from the top of the hour. A representative of the local constabulary confides that the house's alarm never went off, so they're not thinking it was a break-in. Also, the fresh infant -- "EMMA COOPER," according to the MISSING flyer Dapper Sam's got in his hand -- has vanished, and the Lansing P.D. has no idea where she's gone. Dapper Sam thanks the detective for the latter's time, and ducks beneath the crime-scene tape to take a look at the rapidly cooling corpses.
New New Bendy Estates. The doorbell rings, and it's a delivery guy with a couple of pizzas. Supremely Paranoid El Deano, you see, "forgot" that they were supposed to go out for lunch. Bendy Lisa stares at him for a second all, "I have one nerve left, asshole, and you are tap-dancing all over it with those goddamned steel-toed hunting boots of yours," then icily announces she'll scrounge up some plates. The Brat sullenly regards his mother's dicksmack of a slampiece for a very long while, then just as sullenly trails after her into the kitchen. Supremely Paranoid El Deano gulps.
Lansing. Dapper Sam descends The Death House's front steps, babbling away on his cell to -- wait for it -- Zombie Grandpa. As Dapper Sam's found no traces of sulphur or EMF in The Death House, he's inclined to believe This Is Not Their Kind Of Thing. Zombie Grandpa, much like his aggressively bow-legged grandson did in years past, proceeds to argue This Is Totally Our Kind Of Thing, You Idiot, And If You Knew What You Were Doing, You'd Understand That. Moron. To be more specific about it all, Zombie Grandpa notes that four couples have been slaughtered in Ingham County over the last couple of days, and each of those couples had a fresh infant who's now gone missing. "Either we got monsters grabbing babies to make baby stew," he impatiently growls, "or we got a bunch of psychotic yokels grabbing babies to make baby stew. Either way, it's baby stew." It pleases me to note you've not gone all drooly on me, Raoul. "I beg your pardon?!" shrieks Raoul, an instantly affronted yet immaculately manicured paw fluttering up to clutch at his nonexistent pearls. "Human infants!? Really! What sort of base, sordid, déclassé dragon do you take me for, hmmmm?!" Just checking. "HMPH!" Oh, don't pout. Here -- have a snack. "Why, I do believe I shall!"
And while Raoul eviscerates another pawful of white mice in that impressively fanged maw of his, Dapper Sam...wait. Where the hell was I? Oh yeah: This Is Not Their Kind Of Thing/This Is Totally Their Kind Of Thing. So, Dapper Sam agrees to continue his investigation in Lansing, because even if this is a case of The Benders redux -- which it's not, because we all saw those shapeshifters in the THEN! -- it'll still be well worth his while to prevent any more murders while maybe saving those four missing fresh infants as well. Just then, Eagle-Eyed Sammy spots a sign on The Death House's front lawn, which reminds him of something the detective said earlier. "The alarm never went off," he reveals to Zombie Grandpa. "You mind taking a quick look, seeing if anyone else had a system from Harper Caine Security?" Zombie Grandpa agrees, but not before he makes some lousy joke about these goshdarn newfangled computing doohickeys all the kids are talking about nowadays. When is Zombie Grandpa going to drop dead again?
New New Bendy Estates. The Brat, tired of having nothing to do because his mother's dicksmack of a slampiece didn't think to get the goddamned cable installed before they goddamned moved in, has repaired to the garage, where he's broken into Metallicar's bottomless trunk and is now playing with Dean's weaponry. Supremely Paranoid El Deano enters, immediately goes ballistic, and starts tearing The Hapless Brat a new one. The Hapless Brat protests that he knows there are things that go bump in the night, and he knows those things are after his family, and he knows that Supremely Paranoid El Deano was already hunting similar things when he was The Hapless Brat's age, so why can't The Hapless Brat learn how to defend himself, huh? Why can't Slampiece Dicksmack teach him how to use a gun? "Shut up about the freaking gun!" Supremely Paranoid El Deano howls, so The Hapless Brat beats a hasty and profusely apologetic retreat, and Supremely Paranoid El Deano, like, cries, or something, because he's turning into little more than a better-looking version of his own worthless bastard of a so-called father. I'm pretty sure. !
On the shores of a ridiculously scenic lake, Darling Sammy -- having by now divested himself of his FBI drag -- reviews some files when Zombie Grandpa calls to confirm his suspicions regarding Harper Caine Security. All four of the dead marrieds had malfunctioning Harper Caine systems present in their homes the nights of their respective murders, but in a bit of good news, there's one couple on the hacked Harper Caine client list who's still alive. Heroic Action Sammy charges to the rescue.
New New Bendy Estates. Supremely Paranoid El Deano's hiding in the garage when Bendy Lisa emerges from the house to confront him regarding the recent screamy slapfight he had with her son, and long story short, she's had it with his bullshit post-genie attitude, and will not be held prisoner in her own home, thank you very much. "I know you're trying to protect us," she allows, "but you're kind of scaring me, too." Supremely Paranoid El Deano doesn't have a snappy answer for that one, so Bendy Lisa returns to the house, alone.
Lansing. Heroic Action Sammy wheels his Charger over to the curb across the street from the nighttime facade of the fifth Harper Caine couple's home, and good goddamn, but it took Heroic Action Sammy a hell of a long time to get there, didn't it? It was broad daylight when he left that ridiculously scenic lake. Anyway, Sam retrieves an automatic and a flashlight from the Charger's trunk, deploys his mad lock-picking skillz to gain access to the house in question, and Tough-Guy Jazz-Hands his way through the first floor until he stumbles across...the fifth Harper Caine couple, swimming in their own blood! "GOOOOOOOOOOOOORE!" Hardly Heroic Sam spots a set of suspiciously bloody footprints tracking from the rapidly cooling corpses in the parlor towards the back of the house, so he tippy-toes after them into the dining room where he finds...and entirely empty broom closet! DUN! Okay, I'm kidding. Sort of. He actually does find an entirely empty broom closet, after which he finds...an unusually large Harper Caine security guard, leaping at him from the shadows! Dun-dun-DUN! And because Hardly Heroic Sam still suh-huuuuucks at the hand-to-hand, the unusually large security guard quickly flips Our Intrepid Hero onto his back, scattering the flashlight and the gun to opposite ends of the room. Fortunately, Hardly Heroic Sam's still got that silver switchblade from last week, and he whips it out of his pants to gouge a steaming, bloody trench into the unusually large security guard's meaty forearm. "VIOLENCE!" howls Raoul, writhing about atop his overstuffed armchair in paroxysms of glee. "WANTON ACTS OF UNREPENTANT VIOLENCE AND GOOOOOOOOOOOOORE!" Thus wounded, the unusually large security guard flees, leaving Hardly Heroic Sam alone with the corpses and whatever might be lurking beyond the kitchen.
Forced to abandon his whole Tough-Guy Jazz-Hands schtick thanks to the loss of his flashlight and gun, and armed only with that silver switchblade of his, Hardly Heroic Sam angles through the gloom of the abandoned kitchen for a very lengthy period of time until he reaches what appears to be a laundry room overlooking the home's backyard. Warily, he tugs back the cloth covering a small table and finds...something that makes him wriggle his eyebrows around in mild surprise! DUN!
New New Bendy Estates. Supremely Paranoid El Deano -- who'd been laying down salt lines along the windowsills, natch -- answers his chirping cell, and it's Hardly Heroic Sam, panicked, and calling to request Dean's immediate assistance. "I'm out, dude," Dean laconically replies. "Make an exception!" Sam hisses into his phone. "For what?" Dean asks. Sam directs his mighty bitchface into his rear-view mirror to glare at whatever he's got stowed away in the Charger's back seat, then vows, "Look, I'm thirty minutes away, and I will drive to your door if you don't meet me!" "And what's so nuts, you gotta threaten a drive-by?" Dean wonders. Sam tells him out of the audience's earshot, and Dean...wriggles his eyebrows around in mild surprise! DUN!
Somewhere remote, Dean parks his pickup in front of Sam's Charger, disembarks, and snaps, "Where is it?" "Strapped down in the back seat," Sam replies. Dean strides over to the Charger's rear passenger window, pokes his head inside, goggles, then straightens up to shoot Sam A Look. "Welcome to the party, Guttenberg!" Sam smirks. The camera finally -- finally -- darts inside the Charger to land upon...and adorable six-month-old infant! Wah. Wah. Waaaaaah! Also: METAL TEETH CHOMP!
New New Bendy Estates, early the following morning. Dean drills Bendy Lisa one last time on the proper care and feeding of a semiautomatic Glock and receives assurances she will keep the doors and windows well and truly salted while he's gone, then waffles about leaving her alone. "No offense," Bendy Lisa eyebrows, "but if you don't walk out that door, I'm gonna shoot you." Dean takes the hint, slings a duffle over his shoulder, snags his jacket from the stairwell banister, and leaves. Bendy Lisa looks down at the gun in her hand for a moment, then silently frets. They are so gonna break up at the end of the episode. "Demian! Spoiler!" Whatever. "Hee!"
Moments later, Dean's arrived for his super-secret assignation with Sam and The Fresh Infant. The boys chat about what they might possibly be up against this week because neither paid attention during the THEN!, after which Dean realizes they need to pick up some supplies. "I got an arsenal in the trunk," Sam duuuuuhs. "Not that kind," Dean double duuuuuhs, and with that, Our Intrepid Heroes speed off into...
...some wacky baby-related hijinks at the supermarket! Boudreaux's Butt Paste is carefully product-placed before Dean goes on a tear down the baby aisle. Bendy Lisa has a relatively new niece, you see, so Dean's acquired a bit of expertise in this area over the last year. He efficiently fills their shopping cart with disposable diapers, baby wipes, and the like until The Fresh Infant starts in with the low-key whining. "We gotta get moving," Dean grunts. "Waterworks in T-minus ten." Sam races up to the registers with The Fresh Infant while Dean -- wackily! -- loads up on the remaining items they'll need for the duration, but by the time Dean's reached the front of the store, The Fresh Infant has begun unleashing a series of full-throated wails. "Make it stop!" Sam spits. "How?" Dean bumbles back. "Everyone's staring at us like we're child abusers!" Sam bitchfaces. No, Sam, they're staring because there are two of you, which means that one of you can take your caterwauling brat out to the goddamned parking lot like a normal human being while the other settles the bill. The situation continues to deteriorate until a kindly little lady of a certain age stops by to coo, "Awwww! What's the matter?" Dean gawps at her, momentarily speechless. "What's his name?" the kindly lady prompts. Of course, Dean blurts "John" while Sam yelps "Bobby," so Our Intrepid Idiots mash the two together to end up with the atrocious "Bobby John," which makes the poor infant sound like he's some inbred hillbilly dirt-eater who's missing a chromosome or ten.
The kindly lady relieves Dean of the infant, quickly soothes the kid, and graciously offers to change the child's wet diaper, as Sam and Dean "look exhausted." Dean politely fake-laughs at this, somehow managing to spin himself around to the point where he can easily see the security monitors set up on an adjacent checkout counter in the process. Of course, the kindly lady appears on the screen as some sort of mutant hellbeast with glowing eyes, so Dean quickly tones down the faux affability to request the return of the infant, now. "I'm happy to help," the shapeshifter smiles. "Give me the baby before I stab you in your neck," Dean demands. Sam makes to chide his horrifically rude lout of a brother, but Dean simply hikes a thumb back in the monitors' general direction. Sam spots the mutant hellbeast's glowing eyes on the screen just as the mutant hellbeast in question darts off through the supermarket with the infant curled up tightly in its arms, so the boys give chase, with Dean lunging after the shapeshifter itself while Sam thunders around the other side of the registers in an attempt to head it off at the exit.
Dean makes first contact, snatching at the shapeshifter's arm. Unfortunately for him, it's apparently on the verge of a full molt, so Dean just ends up with a soggy strip of skin in his hand. "EEEEEEEEEEEEE!" Sam makes it around the far corner at the very last second, and basically body-checks the beast just inside the supermarket's front doors. "VIOLENCE!" Why the sheer force of this collision does not reduce The Fresh Infant to a crimson smear of blood and baby guts across Sam's remarkably broad and healthy chest, I'll never know. "GOOOOOOOOOOOOORE!" But Sam does manage to wrestle The Fresh Infant away from the shapeshifter, and as Dean comes from behind to tackle it to the floor, Sam skedaddles out into the parking lot to fire up the Charger. Meanwhile, Dean's somehow managed to whip out a silver switchblade of his own, but just as he's about to gut the creature, the supermarket manager comes roaring around a corner, and the shapeshifter pulls this piteous old lady schtick out of its unnatural ass to whimper, "Help me! He's hurting me!" The manager hauls Dean off the grisly thing on the floor, and Dean plays nice for the briefest of moments before bolting for the parking lot, where he hops into the Charger's back seat and starts hollering, "Go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, GO!" Sam quite literally burns rubber on the parking lot asphalt, and the Charger jumps towards the street just seconds before the shapeshifter flies out the door. The shapeshifter, however, has excellent vision, and makes note of the Charger's Illinois license plate -- I4Z 0892, for those of you playing along at home -- before the car vanishes from sight.
Out on some brilliantly lit backwoods lane, Sam busies himself putting as many miles between Our Intrepid Heroes and the supermarket monster as he can while Dean wrestles with The Fresh Infant's car seat. "The hell does a 'shifter want with a baby, anyway?" Dean grunts. "And how the hell did it find us?" "It could have been following me this whole time," Sam's depressed to realize, "since the baby's house." Dean determines their best course of action at the moment involves getting off the damn roads, already, and squirreling The Fresh Infant away somewhere safe. Sam's all, "Right-o!" and from there, we're off to...
...a secluded cul-de-sac somewhere quite close, I'm guessing, where we find a local sheriff's deputy requesting an ID on a certain Illinois license plate. The camera travels across the front of the prowler to take in the officer behind the wheel, the open-eyed corpse of the actual officer in the passenger seat because the first guy's the frigging shapeshifter, and, finally, the puddle of sticky goo and discarded clothing that are all that remains of the seemingly kindly little lady in the supermarket. "EEEEEEEEEEEEE!"
This Week's Motel Room. Dean finally gets around to changing The Fresh Infant's diaper, and successfully manages to put the kid down for a nap. Sam, who'd spent this entire time making mocking noises from across the room, is unduly impressed with Dean's parenting skills. This leads to a discussion regarding Dean's home life with Bendy Lisa and The Brat, which leads to a discussion regarding their worthless bastard of a so-called father and their near-Dickensian upbringing thanks to same, which leads to a discussion regarding Dean's hopes for a better life for The Brat, even though The Brat isn't actually his child. Well, okay, it's not so much "a discussion" as it is "a monologue from Dean, who has downed several shots of whiskey by this point and is therefore feeling just a wee bit loquacious," but whatever. Sam ponders over everything Dean's said for a moment, then announces that it doesn't seem like Dashing El Deano's doing a much better job than the worst father in the history of the planet, Sucky John himself. Dean's constantly moving Bendy Lisa and The Brat around, and when they do settle in one place for longer than fifteen minutes, Dean puts them in lockdown, and how is any of that different from the way Shut Up Daddy raised them? This depressing conversation ends with the conclusion that Dean is turning into his father. "I'm bored!" Not to worry, friend of friends. There's plenty of excitement coming up in a couple of minutes. "Whee!"
First, though, we must watch as Sam returns to his research, only to discover a major clue he'd somehow overlooked until this very moment. Seems one of the slaughtered gentlemen of Lansing was not the natural father of the infant who ended up missing, and the natural father of the infant in question is still alive. Sam suggests they head back to Lansing for a chat, and Dean's all eager to go until he remembers they've got a six-month-old on their hands, so he agrees to remain at this week's motel room while Sam shimmies back into his FBI drag and hits the road. The instant Sam's gone, The Fresh Infant begins to fuss, so Dean wets a finger with some of the whiskey he'd been drinking and pops it into the kid's mouth. Atta boy.
Lansing. Dapper Sam drops by Jimmy's Custom Auto Body & Repair to speak with the proprietor of the establishment himself, and long story short, it quickly becomes apparent that the shapeshifter posed as various men in the town in order to impregnate their wives, after which the thing bided its time until the children were six months old, at which point the shapeshifter resurfaced to slaughter the couples involved and steal away into the night with its progeny. "That's...! That's...! That's revolting!" If you want revolting, Raoul, just wait for what happens . "EEEEEEEEEEEEE!"
This Week's Motel Room. The Fresh Infant -- who really is quite the adorable little thing, I have to admit -- cools his jets all by his lonesome while Dean enjoys some time with his bed's Magic Fingers. And then? SPLAT! "GOOOOOOOOOOOOORE!" Yep, The Fresh Infant apparently exploded right there in his crib, for the wall above is now coated with drippy bits of baby hide and blood. "GOOOOOOOOOOOOORE!" I told you this episode was about to get exciting again. "GOOOOOOOOOOOOORE!" Dean's absolutely horrified until he hears The Fresh Infant squalling, and he warily approaches the crib just as Dapper Sam rings in from Lansing with the latest. "I talked to the father -- he checks out," Sam babbles, "but the baby? I think the shapeshifter is his dad!" Dean's all, "Ya think?" for he's by now reached the crib to discover that The Fresh Infant spontaneously molted from the six-month-old Caucasian they've been lugging around for the last twenty-four hours to a six-month-old African-American who bears suspicious resemblance to the baby model on a nearby box of diapers. D'OH! Dean stands there, slackjawed, with The New And Improved Fresh Infant oozing shapeshifter goo all over the carpeting until the METAL TEETH CHOMP! drags both of them into the commercial break.
A little while later, Dean's still trying to comfort The New And Improved Fresh Infant when the manager starts a-knocking on the motel room door to complain about the noise. Well, "manager," because we all know damn well it's the shapeshifter, come to snatch The New And Improved Fresh Infant away from Our Intrepid Hero, but whatever. The shapeshifter eventually picks the door's lock and, still in deputy form, advances into the room with its sidearm drawn, but Dean gets the jump on the thing, and manly tussling ensues, with The New And Improved Fresh Infant screaming all the while in the background. The shapeshifter quickly gets the better of Dean, and things are looking mighty grim, indeed, when Dapper Sam suddenly pops up from out of nowhere to aerate the shapeshifter's torso with his automatic. "VIOLENCE!" "There goes our deposit," Dean deadpans as a pool of blood slowly spreads across the carpeting from the massive hole Dapper Sam just blew through the monster's chest. "GOOOOOOOOOOOOORE!" This is turning out to be a pretty good episode for you, isn't it, Raoul? "It is, indeed! Whee!"
Back out on the road, with The New And Improved Fresh Infant now finally asleep in its car seat, Sam marvels over the fact that shapeshifters can actually reproduce. "I thought they were just freaks of nature," Sam buhs. "Like X-Men." It's called "retconning," darling, and I do believe you're soaking in it. Sam admits he's never encountered "a baby monster" before, leading Dean to opine that it's really still just an innocent little infant, and while I'm sure there are many in the audience who would love to debate endlessly with you boys on this topic, I'm not one of them, so could you move along, please? Thanks. While wondering what they're going to do with the thing, Dean gets in a good one when he notes, "We can't actually drop it off at an orphanage -- they might get upset when it turns Asian." Heh. Sam's solution? Tote the kid up to The Campbell Compound, where Zombie Grandpa will know what to do. Dean objects, for he knows that a secret coven packed with "headcase" hunting types is the last place you'd want to stow a baby monster, but as he's momentarily at a loss for viable alternatives, The Campbell Compound it is.
Much later, Our Intrepid Heroes arrive at the heavily fortified barn currently serving as Zombie Grandpa's home base and, after passing through security, they head inside to introduce all of their annoying relatives to The New And Improved Fresh Infant. Girl Campbell's even more irritating than she was last week -- which is saying a lot -- and Corin Nemec continues to suck the very life force out of yours truly simply by appearing on the television screen, so it's left to Somewhat Attractive Blond Campbell to pick up the slack in this scene, which he does by silently approaching Dashing El Deano and staring at him. "You got something to say?" Dean challenges. Somewhat Attractive Blond Campbell continues to stare. "All right," Dean shrugs. "You just stand there and think at me." Having thus served his purpose, Somewhat Attractive Blond Campbell wanders off, the better to allow Zombie Grandpa an opening to step forward and commence with the incredibly tedious pissing contest that chews up a majority of the three minutes. Long story short, Sam and Zombie Grandpa want to hand The New And Improved Fresh Infant over to Corin Nemec so the latter and his never-seen wife might raise the thing into the hunting lifestyle, and Dean howls his objections to this proposed solution because, basically, some genius decided a role reversal between Sam and Dean would be the perfect way to carry this series forward into the decade, and no, and not, and try again, and shut up while you're at it, and drop dead. I sat through five seasons of Sam fleeing their shared heritage while Dean wholeheartedly embraced it, and I have absolutely no desire now to see the exact same story play itself out -- again -- the other way around. Now, could we please get back to shooting monsters in the fact with rock salt? "Yes, please!" I knew I could count on you to get my back on that one, Raoul. "Tee!"
And once that pointless scene's over with, the guard dogs surrounding the barn start yowling, so I'm guessing yet another shapeshifter's managed to track down The New And Improved Fresh Infant. Zombie Grandpa agrees with me, and pushes the much-abused child into Dean's arms before propelling them downstairs towards the barn's demon-proof panic room, where Dean's to remain during the battle that follows. Sam, for whatever reason, scampers off to stand guard over his brother and the kid while the aggravating Campbells attempt to ward off the thing that's about to come crashing through their door, and that thing is...Zombie Grandpa? Dun-dun-DUN! Or, you know, not, because that thing is actually the shapeshifter in Zombie Grandpa form. Anyway, Fake Zombie Grandpa batters in the triple-locked barn door and lopes to the center of the room before allowing a devious smirk to cross his face as he announces, "You have something of ours." Is that something a METAL TEETH CHOMP!? Because that's all you're getting, Fake Zombie Grandpa. For the moment, at any rate.
Campbell Compound. Immediate aftermath. Girl Campbell fires two rounds of buckshot into Fake Zombie Grandpa's back, but Fake Zombie Grandpa simply shrugs off the shotgun blasts and turns to kill her dead. "Hooray!" Unfortunately, Attractive Blond Campbell stupidly leaps into the frame at this moment to plunge a knife into Fake Zombie Grandpa's chest. "Rats!" Fake Zombie Grandpa calmly snaps Attractive Blond Campbell's neck, and there goes my only reason for caring about any of these people. Raoul, however, is practically piddling his overstuffed armchair with glee. "VIOLENCE!" Actual Zombie Grandpa and Soul-Sucking Corin Nemec shoot Fake Zombie Grandpa up with enough elephant tranquilizers to take down a Kardashian, but alas! This merely prevents Fake Zombie Grandpa from snapping Girl Campbell's neck as well. Fake Zombie Grandpa swoons for a bit, but soon enough regains his composure and -- get this -- flexes his back muscles to send those tranquilizing darts zipping back across the room. "EEEEEEEEEEEEE!"
Unfortunately, the camera cuts away from the shapeshifter-delivered smackdown that follows, and we join Our Intrepid Heroes down in the panic room as they anxiously listen to the delightful sounds of the all-out Campbell thrashing now taking place somewhere above their heads. Sam stupidly -- stupidly -- decides to return topside to help, but before he makes it halfway across the floor...his ginormous doppelganger pops up in the door's window! DUN! Fake Sam rips the panic room's door off its hinges, and because Fake Sam is far better at the hand-to-hand than Real Sam is, Real Sam soon finds himself sprawled unconscious out in the hall. Fake Sam begins to advance upon Dean, but then pauses about a dozen feet away from him. And in a very "special" "effect" ripped straight from the Satanic Hell that was CANCELLED!, Fake Sam squiggles, and turns into Fake Dean. And I have officially had enough of this bullshit, so let's cut to the chase: Squiggly Fake Dean hoists Real Dean up into a chokehold, latches onto The New And Improved Fresh Infant while Real Dean is thus otherwise occupied, and hurls Real Dean off to one side so it might casually exit with its child.
And after it's all over, we return to the main floor with Real Dean to discover -- to our immense dismay -- that Girl Campbell and Soul-Sucking Corin Nemec have survived to plague another episode. We also receive the following bit of Additional Show Mythology: That last adult shapeshifter was actually The Alpha Shapeshifter. In other words, it is the original shapeshifter from which all lesser shapeshifters descend, which explains both its great power and the telepathic link it shares with all of its offspring, and seriously? Seriously? They renewed this show for a sixth goddamned season, just so it can start ripping off Anne Fucking Rice? Supernatural can blow me. "Demian!" Don't "Demian!" me, lizard. I told you this season had already pushed me to the brink, didn't I? "You did!" Well, this just kicked me over. "Oh, you poor dear! Shall I fetch you something soothing?!" That's probably a good idea, Raoul. I've a feeling I'll need it after I plow through the five godforsaken minutes that remain in this hateful episode. "Whee!" Aw. It's good to have him back.
Anyway, "lore" has it that all otherworldly creatures descend from such Alphas, and no one knows how to kill them, so I guess we've got our throughline for the season. Maybe we'll get lucky, and The CW'll cancel this crap before sweeps. !
Out in the barnyard, Studiously Nonchalant Sam and Suddenly Suspicious El Deano amble back to the Charger. You see, the motel shapeshifter had mentioned having a father shortly before Sam blew those holes through the thing's chest, and Dean's wondering if maybe Sam perhaps might have overheard that, then engineered things so Zombie Grandpa might lure Shapeshifter Alpha up to The Compound by using The New And Improved Fresh Infant as bait. Sam, of course, denies all of it, and I gotta admit, I'm inclined to believe him, mainly because I watched that damn motel scene six times in a row, and Sam was nowhere in sight when the relevant line was uttered. But whatever. I'm sure there will be some great big hair-pulling slapfight between the two of them over it later in the season, and I'll fall off that bridge when I get to it.
After the final commercial break -- which happened to arrive most woefully CHOMP!-less, I am sad to note -- we return to The Compound to find Zombie Grandpa surreptitiously talking on the phone with his never-heard boss. And the plot thickens. To the point where it's getting a little bit hard to see through. Just a little bit, though. Based on what I can gather from Zombie Grandpa's end of the conversation, someone's hired him to procure demonic beasties for some obscure and mysterious purpose, which is presumably why Zombie Grandpa had Soul-Sucking Corin Nemec bundle Genie Brigitta into the back of The S&M Party Van last week, rather than killing her on the spot. And...that's about it, for now. Zombie Grandpa of course failed in the hunt for Shapeshifter Alpha, but he promises the higher-ups that he and his posse won't be making that particular mistake twice, and the conversation ends.
Meanwhile, back in Indiana, Dean and Bendy Lisa finally break up. Of course, they're terribly amicable about it all, and Bendy Lisa even goes so far as to grant Dean an open invitation to return for a quickie every now and then, but it's over. Just in time, too, 'cause Bendy Lisa was starting to look like a kumquat again.
And in the end, as Deep Purple's "Smoke On The Water" grinds its way across the soundtrack, Dean finally unleashes Metallicar. Pity I completely gave up on this episode four scenes ago.
week, My Sweet Baboo makes his triumphant return to the small screen. Please don't let it suck. Now, where the hell is that dizzy lizard with my booze?
Demian still can't believe they're ripping off Anne Fucking Rice. Raoul's pretending the cocktail shaker is a maraca. "¡Ay!" You may reach the former at demian_twop@yahoo.com. The latter is an imaginary gay dragon on the Internet.
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