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When Darling Sammy receives a mysterious set of coordinates via text message from an anonymous source, Our Intrepid Heroes agree to hop over to Bristol, Rhode Island, where three suspiciously similar brunettes have gone missing over the last week or so. Unfortunately, and unbeknownst to either of them, Soulless Sammy had already been to Bristol a year ago with Zombie Grandpa to investigate a remarkably similar spate of disappearances, and barely has Metallicar grumbled through the city limits when Darling Sammy starts getting thrown into flashback after flashback of events from his forgotten past.
Of course, all of this freaks Dean right the hell out, because as you'll recall, they were warned that if Sam recovered any memory at all of the months his soulless body wreaked havoc upon the face of the earth while his soul chilled out downstairs in The Cage with Lucifer and Michael, it could destroy the wall Capital-D Death erected between Sam's soul and his brain (or whatever), thereby rendering Sam a drooling, twitching imbecile for all eternity. Or something like that. Sam, however, is determined to make amends for whatever sins his soulless self committed in his name over the last year and a half, and he insists they remain in Bristol until they figure everything out. With extreme amounts of reluctance, Dean agrees.
Naturally, what Soulless Sammy did all those many months ago is far worse than either of them could have imagined. Or, you know, so they would have us believe. Not only did he sleep his way through every toothsome brunette Bristol had to offer, he also apparently biffed the case he was there to solve in the first place. Turns out a spider-like beastie known as an "Arachne" blew into town on a breeding binge, and while Slutty Sam and Zombie Grandpa actually did manage to decapitate her, they mistakenly believed a gunshot or two to the head would take care of her hapless victims, whose numbers included Bristol's sheriff. Whom Soulless Sammy used as bait.
Unfortunately, last year's victims were too far along in the transformation process for mere bullets to have any effect on them, so Slutty Sam and Zombie Grandpa ended up accidentally unleashing a nest of human arachnids upon the unsuspecting population of southeastern New England. Those missing brunettes Sam and Dean are searching for? Turned, and by none other than Sheriff Monster Chow himself. Whoops.
In the end, though, Our Dear Boys do manage to take out the Spider-Cop, at least, and Sam seems to be no worse for the wear. Until the episode's final seconds, of course, when Death's shoddy wall completely collapses, tossing Sam's brain into a particularly vivid recollection of his first moments in Hell. Death should have hired an experienced contractor instead of half-assing that DIY crap we saw a couple of episodes ago, no?
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Rattle, Rattle Tacky Blue Glitter THEN! Death, as you'll no doubt recall, placed a "wall" between Darling Sammy's bruised and battered soul and his, uh, brain, I guess, to keep the soul's memories of The Cage at bay, lest our dear Ginormotron collapse into a quivering and somewhat sticky puddle of psychic trauma thanks to his soul's ill treatment at the hands of Lucifer and Michael. Unfortunately, that wall is also preventing Sam from remembering anything that happened after last season's finale, so Dreary El Deano must carefully tiptoe around various issues, lest those issues send Darling Sammy screaming straight towards a straitjacket. Alas, now that Captain Empathy's returned in all his damp, puppy-eyed glory, Darling Sammy's determined to make amends for the various terrible, horrible, no good, very bad crimes his soulless body perpetrated in his name over the last eighteen months, so all of Dean's careful tiptoeing seems doomed to fail. Makes you sort of think he should have just killed Darling Sammy outright, doesn't it?
Rattle, Rattle Tacky Blue Glitter NOW!, and it is my sad duty to inform you all that the NOW! is, once again, a LYING LIAR WHO LIES, for barely has it faded from view when the tattling title card at the bottom of the screen informs us we've arrived in Bristol, Rhode Island, "One Year Ago."
BAM! The blazing muzzle of an inky-black automatic fills the screen, and as the spent cartridge audibly plinks to the ground, the camera pans up the barrel of the gun to land on Soulless Sammy's beady-eyed furrow of a face. Blackout.
The camera focuses in on Zombie Grandpa's tormented expression as Soulless Sammy strides past in a blur to discharge his weapon three more times. No, not like that, you filthy-minded sickos. That sort of discharge comes later. "Dirty!" shrieks Raoul The Big Gay Supernatural Dragon, and while it is indeed a pleasure to have you once again safely ensconced atop your overstuffed armchair after your adventure last week in Vancouver, friend of friends, I'm afraid I must insist you remain quiet during this tense-making opening sequence, as you've already thrown everything off its carefully constructed rhythm with that little interjection of yours, justified though that little interjection might have been. "Hmph!" And I'll ignore that second interruption from your faithful recapper's faithful recapping companion in order to focus on the gunshots like so: BAM! BAM! BAM! Blackout.
Thunder rumbles overhead in the darkness for a moment until the camera snaps open on a far-distant overhead shot of an ancient dock house. Rain streaks down from the gloomy nighttime sky as Soulless Sammy and Zombie Grandpa emerge onto the narrow, weedy boardwalk, and the camera tracks down to meet them as they power towards us, with Soulless Sammy asking Zombie Grandpa if the latter's okay. "Yeah," Zombie Grandpa replies before wondering how Soulless Sammy's heretofore remarkably healthy arm is doing. "It'll hold 'til we get outta town," Soulless Sammy mutters, never once breaking his stride, somewhat comically forcing Zombie Grandpa into an ungainly old-guy hustle just to keep up with him. "Don't bleed out, all right?" Zombie Grandpa pants, and as Soulless Sammy smirks, "That's the plan," the camera jumps in close to examine the wet gash torn through his sleeve for a moment before leaping ahead to land on...
...Zombie Grandpa's S&M Party Van chewing up a stretch of slick asphalt somewhere remote. Unfortunately for them, a trailing prowler activates its lights and siren mere moments before they cross out of the city limits, so Zombie Grandpa has little choice but to pull over to the side of the road. Soulless Sammy shoots a foul side-eye at the prowler's reflection in the rear-view mirror before adopting a far more neutral expression, and the two sit and wait in the dark until the lantern-jawed deputy sheriff who'd been tailing them emerges from his car to blind them with the beam from his flashlight. "Agent Roark?" barks the deputy. "Agent Wynand? Mind stepping out of the van a moment?" It is, of course, more of a sharp order than a polite request, and the faux-cheery smile Zombie Grandpa plastered across his face in anticipation of this confrontation dies a little as he complies, stepping down to the pavement to LIE, "We were just on our way to the office." "Everything okay?" he too-casually adds. "No!" the snippy little deputy sheriff sniffs before going on to complain, "I can't get Sheriff Dobbs on the phone -- I can't get anyone!" Zombie Grandpa hastens to bust out some sort of lame excuse, but the snippy deputy cuts this off quick when his flashlight lands on the gruesome tear in Soulless Sammy's sleeve. "Is that blood?" the snippy deputy spits. It is, indeed, and there's a whole lot more where that came from: The entire right side of Soulless Sammy's remarkably healthy neck seems to have been painted with the stuff, in fact. "GOOOOOOOOOOOOORE!" shrieks Raoul, no longer able to contain himself and writhing about atop his overstuffed armchair with delight despite yours truly's earlier admonition to remain silent until we hit the title card. "Oh, I do apologize, I'm sure!" Raoul shrieks again. "But I simply can't help myself! It makes him look so manly! EEEEEEEEEEEEE!" That's okay, hon -- you go ahead and shriek yourself into a tizzy while I carry on with the scene, okay? "EEEEEEEEEEEEE!" Okay.
"You're coming with me!" the snippy deputy seethes, in tones that indicate he'll not be taking no for an answer. Zombie Grandpa, valiantly attempting to keep things light, amiably agrees to follow the snippy deputy back into town, but the snippy deputy isn't having it, and insists the two pile themselves into the back seat of his prowler lest he throw both of them into handcuffs and sling them into cells. At this, Soulless Sammy finally sees fit to chime in, and he sneers, "You're gonna arrest two federal agents? Really?" He chuckles and flashes his blindingly white teeth for a moment before dismissing the snippy deputy with a curt, "Have a good night!" The snippy deputy, outraged by Soulless Sammy's saucy insouciance, or something, immediately makes to unholster his weapon, and that's all everybody's favorite sociopath needs to start in with the smackdown. "VIOLENCE!" shrieks Raoul as Soulless Sammy sucker-punches the snippy deputy smack in the schnozz. "WANTON ACTS OF UNREPENTANT VIOLENCE!" Raoul howls as Soulless Sammy tosses the snippy deputy up against the S&M party van's side to knee the guy in the groin. "GOOOOOOOOOOOOORE!" bays Raoul, all but thumping his tail against the floorboards with glee as the snippy deputy spews up a fountain of blood before dropping to the asphalt, unconscious. "EEEEEEEEEEEEE!" "Ya think there were maybe calmer ways we could've done all that?" Zombie Grandpa sarcastically wonders once it's all over. "Do we care?" Soulless Sammy snaps back, speaking for at least one member of this evening's audience, who's practically ululating with joy over the scintillatingly savage turn this episode's taken. "EEEEEEEEEEEEE!" And with that, Soulless Sammy and his Zombie Grandpa climb back into The S&M Party Van to speed off into the...
...Tinkle, Tinkle RAAAWWWR! So, my scaly friend. "Yes?!" Oh, don't play coy with me -- any dish from the set? You must know that the lovely people out there in Internetland are positively gasping for it. "[Sigh!]" sighs Raoul, a delicate and impeccably manicured paw rising to rest against his temporarily beleaguered brow. "You must know it grieves me to no end to disappoint my adoring public in such a manner, but no!" Oh, come on. Nothing? "Not a thing! After all, it would be most unchivalrous of me to disclose the various delightful confidences shared across the lavishly endowed craft services table between takes!" You're no fun. "I must admit, however, that Messieurs Ackles and Padalecki were quite the supportive and charming gentlemen the entire time!" Well, that's dull. "Call me, boys! Call me! Mwah!" Yawn.
In any event, as the tinny voice of an entertainment news reporter emerges from the blackness following the RAAAWWWR!, another card pops up on the screen to inform us we've arrived in the "Present Day." The camera fades up on This Week's Motel Room as Dreary El Deano enters with a bag of grilled grease to find Darling Sammy perched on the end of one of the beds, staring intently at the room's television screen. "What're you watching?" Dean asks. "Just trying to catch up," Sam replies, hitting the mute button on the remote as he marvels, "So, Mel Gibson really took a turn this past year, huh?" "Or he's possessed," Dean grins, tossing Sam a neatly packaged burrito. "Think about it." Dean announces that he just got off the phone with Bobby regarding last week's episode-ending "Mother Of All" mystery, and as everyone on this show is still too stupid to figure out what it all means, we'll be skipping ahead to the point where Sam's cell phone bleeps. Sam rises to answer, and finds a cryptic text message waiting for him. He flips the cell over to Dean, who takes one look at the screen and realizes, "Coordinates?" "Who they from?" he wonders. Sam hasn't a clue, but a quick, time-skipping hop over to...
...Google does tell him those coordinates are pointing towards Bristol -- where, incidentally, three women have "vanished into thin air" over the past week. Sam'd also tried calling the number from which the cryptic text originated, but no one's answering. "Could be another hunter, looking for backup," Sam guesses. Could also be a massive trap, as Dean oh-so-correctly points out: "You got mysterious coordinates from a mysterious Mister X leading to a mysterious town, and that doesn't throw up red flags to you?" "Dunno," Sam shrugs, "maybe, but that doesn't mean we can just ignore a bunch of missing girls, right?" Dean sways back and forth, rolling his eyes and sucking on the lower of his tantalizing Ducky Lips before deciding to humor his stupid brother like so: "Okay, we'll check it out, but if things get squirrelly, we dump out, okay?" Sam's all, "Yeah! Fine! Absolutely!" so the thing we know, we're...
...in the Impala, arriving on the outskirts of Bristol. The town's "Welcome" sign features a jolly, pea-green octopus scaling a web-like bit of ship's rigging above the equally cheery slogan "Where Memories Are Made." Oh, show. Oh, clever, clever show. Sam stares at the sign for all of two seconds, gapes, and gets his ginormous self hurled into...
...a grainy, jittery, black-and-white flashback. DUN! If you Zapruder this bit, you get a clear image of tonight's Special Guest Beast before it dissolves into a series of terrifying close-ups of Zombie Grandpa's craggy mug, which would seem to indicate the answer to this evening's case is far closer to the surface of Sam's conscious mind than subsequent scenes would have us believe, but whatever. At normal speed, it zips past far too quickly to make much of an impression.
And when Sam snaps back to the present, thoroughly and visibly freaked, Dean quite reasonably wonders what gives. "Nothing!" Sam LIES. To his credit, Dean clearly recognizes that falsehood for what it is, but he wisely chooses not to pursue the matter at this point, and instead steers Metallicar towards Bristol proper.
Cut to Captain Bob's Buccaneer, a pirate-themed seafood joint that is home not only to "Bob's's Famous Crablegs," but also to "The Sea Captain's Challenge," which basically boils down to this: Should you manage to consume seventy-two ounces of Surf 'N' Turf without vomiting, Captain Bob will comp your meal. This will become important later, I presume, but for now, let's shuttle over to Our Intrepid Heroes' table, where Dean's riffling through a sheaf of missing persons flyers issued by the Bristol County Sheriff's Department and the Rhode Island State Police. The flyer for Nicole Handler draws his particular attention for some never-explained reason, and after he makes a pointless remark I'll not be bothering to transcribe, the camera shifts over to Sam, who notes that none of the missing brunettes -- for, indeed, they are all brunettes -- have anything in common with each other aside from their hair color. Dean suggests Sam brainstorm a link while he hits the head -- down on what this restaurant unappetizingly refers to as "The Poop Deck," which perhaps not so coincidentally includes the kitchen -- and Sam dutifully sets his brain-gears to turning until he's accosted by a beaming, late-thirtysomething brunette and her scowling significant other, the former of whom greets him with a decidedly flirtatious, "Agent Roark? It's good to see you again!" Barely waiting for a response, she reintroduces her scowling significant other as her husband, "Don," then leans in to give Our Intrepid Hero an eyeful of her cleavage as she whispers, "So, you're back because it started again? The disappearances?" Darling Sammy hems and haws and stutters and stammers and eventually confirms her cleavage's suspicions before encouraging them to give him a call should they stumble across any leads for him.
Meanwhile, down on The Poop Deck, a much-relieved Dean dallies with a decidedly receptive waitress for a moment or two before grinning up at the large corkboard covered with Polaroids of those iron-stomached gentlemen who actually succeeded in their attempts at The Sea Captain's Challenge. A tiny detail in one of the photographs catches his eye, and as he leans in to squint at the thing, we shoot...
...back upstairs, where the brunette's just now asking of Sam, "Where's your partner?" "Sex rehab," the just-arriving Dean snarkily replies, adding, "You heard of plushies, right? Ew!" Sam thinks fast and introduces Dean as his new partner, and Dean just as quickly makes leaving noises, so the brunette and her still-scowling husband continue on their way towards the bar. As she passes by, however, the brunette places a lingering hand upon one of Darling Sammy's remarkably broad shoulders, and Our Intrepid Hero is hurled straight into...
...yet another grainy, jittery, black-and-white flashback! DUN! Soulless Sammy hikes his tongue down the married brunette's throat, then hoists her into the air, the better to plant her rear end down on the sink in an otherwise deserted public toilet. Kinky. "Cuff me!" the married brunette coos in Slutty Sammy's ear. "Atta girl!" shrieks Raoul, and Raoul, it behooves me to ask: Are you speaking to her, or to him? "Both!" Gotcha. Moving on, then.
Sam snaps back to the present, once again thoroughly and visibly freaked, only this time around, he immediately admits to Dean, "I think [Zombie Grandpa] and I worked a case in this town!" "Ya think?" Dean eyebrows, tossing Sam one of the Polaroids from the wall downstairs. The foreground of the image is, of course, dominated by some human garbage can sporting an outsized pirate's hat, grinning at the camera while his long-suffering waitress readies a vomit bucket behind his back. In the far, blurry background of the shot, however, are Slutty Sam and Zombie Grandpa, looking supremely annoyed. DUN! Or, you know, so the panicky thrumming of those sudden strings on the soundtrack would have us believe. "Let's get the hell out of here," Dean growls, throwing some cash down on the table, and as they exit, Cuckold Don scorches Darling Sammy's rapidly retreating back with yet another five-alarm scowl.
Over in the abandoned hovel Our Intrepid Heroes requisitioned for their stay in Bristol because they apparently ran out of the pool-sharking cash required to rent an actual motel room, a frenzied Dean barks, "Hop to, wouldya?" as he shoves his clothes into a duffel bag. "We can't go," Sam glumly announces from his perch atop an absolutely filthy abandoned mattress. "Uh, yeah, we can," Dean duhs, but his solid bit of reasoning, there, is all for naught, for Sam and his recently restored conscience have been furiously Googling Bristol on the Interwebs, and they've discovered that a similar series of disappearances plagued the town about a year ago, only that time, it was men who went missing. "Something's here," Darling Sammy insists, "so either we didn't stop it, or we only thought we did." Dean points out that the "gender bend" between last year's victims and the recent spate of vanished brunettes equals "a totally different M.O.," and besides, he argues, "There is a reason that hunters don't hit the same town over again: We have a habit of leaving messes behind!" Sam attempts to splutter something relevant, but Dean loudly out-talks him to lecture, "One of [our worthless bastard of a so-called father's] rules? 'You never use the same crapper twice!'" "Everyone uses the same crapper twice," Sam counters, but Dean will not be swayed, and he again insists they skedaddle, pronto. Darling Sammy and His Recently Restored Conscience heave a tremendously put-upon sigh and, long story short, they browbeat and guilt-trip Dreary El Deano into seeing the current case through, regardless of the danger said course of action might represent with regards to Capital-D Death's obviously shoddy Wall. "All right," Dean reluctantly concedes, "I'll follow up with the brunettes, you see what you can get from the cops."
Cut to the former abode of the unfortunate Nicole Handler, where we find Dean -- once again all dolled up in his FBI drag -- interviewing Unfortunate Nicole's longtime roommate "April," and wow. That's some cleft April's got in her chin. "I find it makes her look terribly distinguished!" Oh, Raoul. Your recent Vancouver excursion has left you far too congenial by half. "I do feel unusually invigorated and refreshed, I must admit!" Yeah, we'll see how long that lasts. "Hey!" And while Raoul works himself up into a righteous snit over my last remark, let's listen in to what April has to say, shall we?
Turns out, it's not much, but while she's yakking away, Devious El Deano surreptitiously fingers his way through a stack of business cards in a heart-shaped ashtray on the kitchen counter, cutting April's unhelpful monologue short when he finds one from Agent H. Roark of the FBI. "Where'd you get this?" he demands, flapping the thing around in her cleft. "Nicole got that," April replies, explaining that one of last year's missing men lived in their building, and that Agent Roark took particular interest in what Unfortunate Nicole had to say about the whole thing. In fact, as April emphasizes, "He came by a few times." "Did he?" Dean eyebrows, his suspicions mounting. "And how would you characterize their relationship?" he asks. "Just the...tone, or the nature of their conversation?" "Loud," April admits. "Whee!" shrieks Raoul, by now thoroughly recovered from his earlier snit. "And athletic," April adds. "Atta girl!" April offers Our Intrepid Hero a winning smile, but Deeply Disturbed El Deano's mind is already racing halfway towards a horrifying realization.
Meanwhile, over in downtown Bristol, Darling Sammy ambles over towards the sheriff's department, which turns out to be a very bad move on his part, indeed, for barely has he made it midway across the parking lot when that snippy little deputy from the pre-credits sequence bellows, "Hold it right there!" while shoving his cocked revolver into Darling Sammy's face. Ooops.
Bristol County Jail. Darling Sammy finds himself slung into one of the holding cells while the snippy little deputy sneers, "Man, you are as dumb as a sack of hair!" "Coming back here?" he continues. "After what you did?" Darling Sammy attempts to explain his condition, but the snippy little deputy is having none of it and, after making it clear he holds Sam responsible for last year's spate of disappearances -- including that of Bristol County's sheriff at the time -- he stomps off in a mighty huff, leaving Darling Sammy alone to brood and pout.
Much later, long after night has fallen, yet another Bristol brunette eases herself onto the cell block and quickly crosses to berate Our Incarcerated Hero. "What happened to my husband?" Bristol Brunette Number...what is this, now, eight? We'll go with eight. "What happened to my husband?" Bristol Brunette Number Eight demands. Darling Sammy unleashes the mighty power of his recently reconstituted Puppy-Dog Eyes Of Pleading And Doom, but alas! They seem to have no hold on this woman. For now, at any rate. "Don't lie to me!" Bristol Brunette Number Eight fumes. "I know who you are, Sam, and I know what you do!" Dun-dun-DUN! Also:
FLASHBACK! This one is, by far, the lengthiest we've seen up to this point, and as the jittery jumps around in time are being kept to a minimum, I'm guessing this means Death's crappy little Wall will be tumbling down long before this evening's episode ends. In any event, it's all still in black-and-white, and in it, we find Slutty Sammy and Zombie Grandpa explaining themselves to Soon-To-Be-Dead Sheriff and his lovely wife, Bristol Brunette Number Eight. The latter are, of course, initially shocked and appalled, but as testament to their solid character, or whatever, the flashback ends with Sheriff Monster Chow stoically taking his wife's hand in his own and asking of Slutty Sammy, "What do you need us to do?"
Sam snaps back to the present in time to gasp, "Your husband -- he's the sheriff?" "Was the sheriff," Bristol Brunette Number Eight frostily corrects, "until he vanished!" She rages at Our Incarcerated Hero for a bit before calming herself down and insisting, "I just want to know what happened." "So do I," Sam admits, and there's a bit of tiresome back-and-forth wherein he attempts to explain his condition and she yells that he's full of shit until he unleashes a heretofore never-seen extra-special super-powered version of his patented Ultra-Deluxe Puppy-Dog Eyes Of Abject Pleading And Doom, and she lets him out of the cell. Just go with it. She reintroduces herself as "Brenna Dobbs," and follows that up with, "Help me find some rope -- if it's gonna look like a breakout, you're gonna need to tie me up." "Atta girl!" shrieks Raoul, and honey, you know I love you more than my luggage, but she didn't mean it like that. "Rats!" Now, pay attention. "I shall!" Excellent.
Elsewhere, Bristol Brunette Number Four pours herself a healing glass of boxed wine while her cuckold of a husband -- wait for it -- scowls. "What?" she snaps after catching his disapproving eye. "It's not like it's gonna drink itself." "Atta girl!" Raoul, hush -- I'm not sure if you've noticed, but we haven't even hit the first damn commercial break yet, and I'd like to get through this before Justin Bieber reaches in and crushes what's left of my puny little brain. "Oh, I do apologize, I'm sure! Please continue!" Thanks. Cuckold Don -- wait for it -- scowls, again, after which he exits the scene, never to be heard from again. Thus so left alone, Brunette Number Four returns her attentions to her wine box, but alas, it is drained, so she heads down into her gloomy basement to fetch some more. Of course, the light's out, so she must navigate the rickety staircase atop her tottering heels in the dark, and barely has she made it halfway down when...a grubby hand snatches at her ankle! DUN! Brunette Number Four howls and wails and lands flat on her face on the concrete floor below, and when she opens her eyes to stare up at the clacking, chittering thing now looming high above her, she unhinges her lower jaw and screams herself all the way into this evening's very first METAL TEETH CHOMP!
This Week's Hovel. A jittery Sam nearly shoots Dean in the face when the latter returns from points unknown entirely unannounced, and once things settle down, the two banter about Sam's fresh fugitive status for a bit until they refocus their attentions on the case at hand. Dean's done a little more digging, and discovered that Soulless Sammy was, as we've already seen, quite the humongous slut during his last sojourn in Bristol. "I gotta admit," Dean grins, "I'm impressed." As are we all, Dean. As are we all. "Atta girl!" Shhhh! "Ooops! Hee!" Anyway, Dean would delve further into that particular topic, I'm sure, were it not for the scratchy interruption from the police scanner Sam's set up on one of the hovel's rotting tables. They instantly realize it's a general notification of yet another missing brunette, so Dean volunteers to check it out while Sam remains far away from prying eyes in the hovel. Of course, the instant Dean's gone, Sam lunges for his jacket and heads out the door, because he is a moron.
Cuckold Estates. Dean emerges from his interview with Scowling Don and immediately dials Sam's cell. The call falls instantly into voice mail, leaving Dean little choice but to growl, "Answer the phone, dammit -- I found the connection between the missing chicks: You nailed all of them!" "Atta girl!" Dean, completely ignoring Raoul's vociferous shrieks of approval, continues, "The texts, the victims, all of it -- it's a trap for you! Call me back." And with that, he crawls into the Impala's front seat to drive away.
Chez Sheriff. Brenna Dobbs returns from the grocery with a load of paper products and nearly panics herself into an aneurysm when Darling Sammy pops out to greet her. During the conversation that follows, we learn Brunette Number Four is actually "Debbie Harris," and that Brenna of course suspects Sam in her disappearance. Sam insists he wasn't involved, and enlists Brenna's aid in hunting down the case files for last year's victims, which have evidently gone missing from the sheriff's office. Which, you know, the gigantic idiot broke into a couple of hours ago, even though he's the primary suspect in the probable murders of at least nine people over the last twelve months. Fathead. Brenna, of course, resists him at first, but she soon finds herself once again powerless against the overwhelming force of Sam's patented Ultra-Deluxe Puppy-Dog Eyes Of Abject Pleading And Doom, so she admits she swiped the case files from the office herself, and heads upstairs to retrieve them. Sam heaves a mighty sigh of relief at the news, which for whatever reason hurls him into this evening's ...
...FLASHBACK! After shuddering through a brief glimpse of Slutty Sammy firing a gun while Zombie Grandpa yells, "Let's go!" the vision settles itself into a lengthy little scene in which Slutty Sammy and Zombie Grandpa expound upon, like, The Hunter's Philosophy Of Life, or some such bullshit, to a rapt audience comprised of Sheriff Monster Chow and his wife. It's largely pointless, and when it's over...
...Sam snaps back to the present to find Brenna standing before him with a banker's box filled with folders. They truck the thing over to the dining room table, and are soon engrossed in the minutiae of last year's disappearances. Well, Brenna's engrossed in the minutiae of last year's disappearances. Sam keeps hurling himself into bad acid flashbacks whenever he picks up a new piece of evidence, be it a missing persons flyer for one James Edward Drake, which elicits a few scattershot images of the bespectacled gentleman in question apparently encased in a gigantic cotton ball, or a little baggie of stringy white fibers, which hurls Our Intrepid Hero into this evening's damn...
...FLASHBACK! "Best guess?" Zombie Grandpa offers, twiddling a small puff of those stringy white fibers between his fingers. "Came from an Arachne." "You ever seen one?" Slutty Sammy asks. "No one has," Zombie Grandpa replies before amending that answer with, "Not outside of Crete, and not for about two thousand years." "Then, what do we even know about them?" Slutty Sammy wonders. "Zip," Zombie Grandpa frowns. "Just a bunch of guesses and a blurry picture on the side of a Greek vase." Suddenly, the human garbage can at the table roars, "Yeeeeeaaaah!" and a gaggle of pirate-themed waitresses jiggle over to take his Polaroid for The Poop Deck's wall. Slutty Sammy looks even more annoyed in this flashback than he did in the photograph Dean found a year later, if that's at all possible. And once the rollicking festivities at the table have ebbed, Slutty Sammy and Zombie Grandpa return to their strategizing, admitting they haven't the faintest idea how to kill the thing they're after before Slutty Sammy whips out a map. All of the missing gentlemen vanished from an area of suburban sprawl two miles from the center of Lonely Pines Park. They can either start knocking on doors, which Slutty Sammy of course thinks is a waste of time, or they can -- as Slutty Sammy puts it -- "make this thing come to us." "How do we do that?" Zombie Grandpa blinks. Alas, Zombie Grandpa, you must wait for your answer, for that just-appearing zappy noise means we're being kicked back to...
...the present, where Sam snaps out of his reverie to clench his mighty jaw and dart his frantic eyes from left to right until he realizes Brenna's been staring at him this entire time like he's a lunatic. Darling Sammy nervously clears his throat and asks if he could borrow the case files for a little bit. Obviously eager to get this ginormous crackhead of a freak out of her dining room, Brenna readily agrees. Well, after she offers us all a touching valedictory for her dead husband, but whatever. "I beg your pardon, I'm sure! But where on earth has this evening's gooooooooooooore got to?!" Exactly, Raoul. !
Out on the front porch, Sam finally listens to Dean's last voice mail, but that's not important right now, because what is important right now is the fact that Sam's spotted a massive spider web clinging to the side of Chez Sheriff. Well, "spider" "web" -- and "clinging," for that matter -- but you know what they're going for, here. As Sam tippy-toes over to investigate, a familiar chittery clacking hits the soundtrack, and the camera switches over to gift us all with a spider-eye view of his progress across the porch until...Dean pops up from out of nowhere to scare the living shit out of him! DUN! Of course, for his troubles, Dean nearly gets his head blown off -- again -- but once Sam calms down, the two clomp down off the porch and into this evening's METAL TEETH CHOMP!
This Week's Hovel. A lengthy conversation between Darling Sammy and Dreary El Deano ensues, the upshot of which is this: Dean's spazzing out because every inadvertently recovered memory drags Sam that much closer to the funny farm, and he wants them to get out of Bristol before the situation in Sam's brain deteriorates any further. Sam, however, is convinced he must atone for some mighty sin he committed a year ago, and he refuses to leave until they've captured and killed whatever's snatching up the brunettes of Rhode Island. Dean rails against this latest example of reprehensible stupidity on his brother's part, but even he is not immune to Darling Sammy's Ultra-Deluxe Puppy-Dog Eyes Of Abject Pleading And Doom, so he finally caves and suggests, "Well, let's Memento this thing, shall we?"
Memento Montage. Sam and Dean tack various pieces of evidence to the hovel's wall, connecting each bit to numerous others with lengths of twine until...
...FLASHBACK! This one starts off with a barrage of scattershot images, the most prominent of which feature this week's Special Guest Beast and the double irises she's got in her eyes, before it settles into another long narrative passage that picks up shortly after the last one left off. Via his cell, Slutty Sammy arranges with Sheriff Monster Chow to meet them in Lonely Pines Park, and when he hangs up, Zombie Grandpa wonders, "You sure about this?" "The Arachne's been snacking on mid-thirties guys," Slutty Sam reminds him. "We need bait that fits the demo -- I'm too young, and you're too old." "Eighty-nine and counting," Zombie Grandpa smirks, and with that bit of trivia at long last accounted for, he goes on to state, "I still think that we should have looped [Sheriff Monster Chow] in on the plan." Slutty Sammy counters that Roy's ignorance will lead to a more credible performance on his part, and while the two continue to bicker over cocktails at Captain Bob's, the flashback jumps forward in time to land on Sheriff Monster Chow as he steps into a clearing in the middle of the park. He glances around a bit uneasily for a moment, watched all the while by Zombie Grandpa and Slutty Sam, who have hidden themselves behind some reeds about fifty yards away. At long last, tonight's Special Guest Beast descends from the trees, knocking Sheriff Monster Chow into the dirt before snatching him up again and vanishing just as quickly as she'd appeared.
Zombie Grandpa and Slutty Sam race on over with a couple of machetes at the ready, but they're far too late to be of any use. Good thing, then, that Slutty Sam activated the GPS in Sheriff Monster Chow's phone. Unfortunately, Zombie Grandpa chooses this moment to get lippy about Slutty Sam's nonexistent moral compass, given the fact that Slutty Sam just used Sheriff Monster Chow as bait, and after putting up with Zombie Grandpa's nonexistent moral compass for the entire first half of this season, all I can say to that is this: Take your fucking qualms and shove them up your goddamned ass, Grandpa. "Demian!" Oh, don't you start with me. You know you hate that guy as much as I do. "Hee! You are correct!" Then, may I continue? "By all means!" Good.
Zombie Grandpa's S&M Party Van chugs up to that ancient dock house from the pre-credits sequence, and he and Slutty Sam disembark to wade through the parking lot's mud puddles until they hit that narrow little weedy boardwalk. They enter, machetes once again at the ready, and are soon hacking their way through sheets of webbing until they stumble upon at least four cocooned corpses littering the main dock house floor. Zombie Grandpa kneels beside one of them and carefully pulls back the webbing to reveal the still-bespectacled face of James Edward Drake. One problem: James Edward Drake is still alive. DUN! James Edward Drake gasps and flops about on the floor while the other cocoons begin to wriggle around in the throes of sympathetic agony, and one of them even bleats, "Help me!" Nice touch. Slutty Sam staggers back into a cocoon neither of them had noticed before, and of course, it's Sheriff Monster Chow. Barely has Slutty Sam split open the webbing to reveal Sheriff Monster Chow's face, though, when tonight's Special Guest Beast slinks up from behind to pimp-smack him into the far wall. "VIOLENCE!" shrieks Raoul, positively ecstatic to be getting some of the good stuff again, even if it is so goddamned late in the game. Slutty Sam recovers fairly quickly, and he boots tonight's Special Guest Beast in her stomach just as Zombie Grandpa opens fire on the thing from behind. "WANTON ACTS OF UNREPENTANT SPECIAL GUEST BEAST SLAUGHTERING VIOLENCE!" The very first round plows straight through the Special Guest Beast's torso to embed itself in Slutty Sam's heretofore remarkably healthy arm, thus explaining his injury at the top of the hour. "GOOOOOOOOOOOOORE!" The other rounds from Zombie Grandpa's revolver also pass through the Special Guest Beast's body with no apparent effect, so Slutty Sam snatches up his trusty machete and lops her head off. "EEEEEEEEEEEEE!" Worth the wait, Raoul? "AIEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" I'll take that as a yes.
Once the various parts of tonight's Special Guest Beast have dropped to the floor, dead -- "EEEEEEEEEEEEE!" -- Zombie Grandpa and Slutty Sam return to Sheriff Monster Chow's side, and Sheriff Monster Chow, quite frankly, isn't looking too good. Add to that the fact that he very nearly bored me to tears each and every time he appeared on screen this evening, and I think you'll understand when I tell you I find myself siding with Slutty Sam when he decides their only option is to kill him. "KILL HIM! KILL THE TASTY SPECIAL GUEST BEAST SNACK!" Naturally, Sheriff Monster Chow has a few problems with Slutty Sam's decided course of action, but because the Special Guest Beast's venom has rendered him virtually paralytic, it's left to Zombie Grandpa to plead the guy's case. Which he does, to no avail. Slutty Sam whips out his trusty automatic and, after assuring Sheriff Monster Chow that he dies a hero, Slutty Sam puts a bullet in his head. BAM!
As we saw during the pre-credits sequence, Slutty Sam repeats this process with each of the four remaining cocooned bits of monster chow -- minus the little speech, of course --- and when it's all over, Slutty Sam turns to Zombie Grandpa and says, "We can't just leave the bodies here. Get the gasoline." "EEEEEEEEEEEEE! FIRE! FIRE! EEEEEEEEEEEEE!"
And when it's all over -- and when Raoul's shrieking is done -- Darling Sammy snaps back to the present, turns to stare all wild-eyed at Dreary El Deano, and breathes, "I know what happened!" Dun-dun-DUN!
Chez Sheriff. Snow blankets the home's exterior while inside, Brenna Dobbs suddenly startles herself awake from the nap she'd been taking on the couch, and she rises to find...oh, this is just fucking ridiculous. It's Sheriff Monster Chow, back from the dead, because tonight's Special Guest Beast didn't actually paralyze him with her venom a year ago. "She didn't?!" No, Raoul, she didn't. "Then what, pray tell, did she do to him!?" Well, if you'd hush up for just one damn second, I'd tell you. "Ooops! Please continue!" Fine. Judging by those double-irised, bright-blue drag queen contacts he's now sporting, I'd guess tonight's Special Guest Beast actually turned this bit of monster chow into an actual monster. "Oooh! How thrilling!" Uh, yeah. Not so much, because as you might have guessed from my initial reaction upon his entrance, his makeup is a mess. "Oh! How depressing!" Indeed.
In any event, where the hell was I? Oh, yes: Just as Spider-Cop tells Brenette how much he loves her, the phone rings, and it's Sam, calling to make amends for shooting her husband in the face last year, so Brenette invites the boys over for some tea and biscotti. Or something like that.
Moments later, the Impala grumbles up in front of Chez Spider-Cop, and the boys step out into the driving snow with their trusty machetes at the ready, because something in Brenette's tone of voice during their last conversation indicated that something's not quite right at Chez Spider-Cop. The two are about to bust in the front door when eagle-eyed Dean spots a light on in the shed, so Our Intrepid Heroes tippy-toe on over through the snow, and they enter the shed to find Brenette crouched behind a filing cabinet, weeping. "What you did to Roy," she mewls, barely able to look up at Sam, "is it true?" Before Sam gets a chance to answer, however, Spider-Cop swings in from points unknown to boot Dreary El Deano through an expanse of fisherman's netting and into the utility shed's far wall. "VIOLENCE!" Dean slumps to the floor, barely conscious, so it's Darling Sammy's turn to get smacked around for a bit. "VIOLENCE!" And when it's over, Spider-Cop hoists Darling Sammy into the air by his throat and sneers, "Answer the question!" "EEEEEEEE-eep! Oh, my! I see what you mean! That makeup is appalling!" You know I'd never lie to you, Raoul. Also: METAL TEETH CHOMP!
Shed Of The Spider-Cop. Aftermath. Darling Sammy and Dreary El Deano awake to find themselves encased in massive balls of cotton wool with Spider-Cop and his bride standing triumphantly above them, and let the speechifying commence! Well, actually, let's pretend the speechifying never happened, and that the few minutes are filled with nothing but manly tussling until Our Intrepid Heroes free themselves from their massive cotton balls and lop off Spider-Cop's head. The end! "Hooray!"
Oh, fine: Spider-Cop exposits at length that tonight's Special Guest Beast was actually in town to -- you guessed it -- breed, and her venom in fact began a transformation process in each of her victims that somehow rendered them all impervious to both gunshots and fire, so after Slutty Sam and Zombie Grandpa left, Spider-Cop and the other four guys skulked off into the night to lick at their wounds and plot their revenge. In the meantime, they also managed to turn any number of unsuspecting Rhode Island lassies into spiders, themselves -- including the four brunettes Sam nailed during his last visit -- so when Slutty Sam punched his way out of Bristol twelve months ago, he actually left behind an ever-expanding nest of human arachnids in his wake. Ooops. Now, Spider-Cop plans to exact vengeance first by turning his bride, then by turning Our Intrepid Heroes. Fortunately, while Spider-Cop was so busy falling in love with the sound of his own voice, Devious El Deano managed to grab hold of a sliver of shattered glass, and once he's sliced himself free from his cotton ball, the manly tussling finally -- finally -- begins. It doesn't take much for Spider-Cop to wrestle Dreary El Deano into a chokehold, though, so it's up to Brenette to free Darling Sammy, who then grabs one of the temporarily discarded machetes, and WHACK! "GOOOOOOOOOOOOORE!" Spider-Cop's headless body jerks around for a bit before collapsing onto the shed's concrete floor, and after the camera offers us one last, lingering shot of Spider-Cop's lolling head -- "GOOOOOOOOOOOOORE!" -- the boys plus Brenette pant and gasp and wheeze their collective way into this evening's final, CHOMP!-less commercial break.
Chez Spider-Cop. Aftermath. Sam attempts to apologize. Brenette slams the door in his face. "Atta girl!" !
This Week's Hovel. Denouement. "You okay?" Dean asks a pensive Sam. "You were right," Sam mumbles. "We shouldn't have come back here." "Well," Dean shrugs, affably trying to bright-side things, "you're one up on Julie Taymor. For now, at least." "So, you're suggesting that what I did back there was a good thing?" Sam sniffs. "I'm just saying..." Dean begins. "What?" Sam snaps. "You gotta understand," Dean all but pleads, "all that crap last year -- all of it -- none of it was you!" Sam, never one to stop a good pity party once he's really got it going, of course disagrees, and he pouts and moans and wails and WHAM! All fifteen massive feet of The Ginormomope suddenly collapse to the floor, and by the time Dean's had a chance to react, Sam's thrashing about like he's in the middle of a grand mal. "Talk to me!" Dean shouts, but he might just as well have saved his breath, for Darling Sammy's eyes have long since glazed over, and the camera dives down into his left iris to find...
...a cheap rehash of this scene from the end of Season Three. "Whee!" Without the meat hooks. "Rats!" I know, Raoul. I know. "And this charming little installment was going so well! Poop!"
week, Our Intrepid Heroes battle a posse of possessed mannequins, which sounds an awful lot like an old Doctor Who episode to me, but what the hell do I know? With a little bit of luck, maybe it won't completely suck. See you then! "Kisses!"
Demian's still hoping for some dirt from the set. Raoul, unfortunately, is maintaining his chivalrous silence. "You'll get no scurrilous gossip from me!" You may reach the former at demian_twop@yahoo.com. The latter is an imaginary gay dragon on the Internet.
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