Episode Report Card Demian: B | 4 USERS: A YOU GRADE IT A Fistful Of Hardy Boys
By Demian | Season 6 | Episode 18 | Aired on 04.22.2011
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.The evening opens with Sam leading Dean and Bobby down deep beneath the former Campbell Compound into the bunker where Dead Zombie Grandpa stored his secret stash of spooky arcana, and no, I don't know why Sam's only just doing this now, so don't ask me. While there, the boys plus Bobby quickly find a piece of lore that claims The Mother Of All can be slain with phoenix ash right before they just as quickly find a potential source for said ash amid the alcoholic scribblings set down in Samuel Colt's personal diary. Of course, there's one tiny problem: Said source of phoenix ash exists 150 years in the past. The relevant entry, you see, notes that The Fucking Colt That Can Kill Anything Except When It Usually Can't successfully shot a phoenix on March 5, 1861, in a tiny bit of nowhere called Sunrise, Wyoming, so Our Intrepid Heroes must figure out a way to leap back in time, because they're too damn lazy to find a phoenix right here in the present. Or something like that.
Good thing, then, that they're best friends with a certain angel who's sent them into the past before, and it's also a good thing that that certain angel has absolutely nothing better to do with his life than cater to Our Intrepid Heroes' every whim. My Sweet Baboo therefore quite obligingly zaps Sam and Dean back to March 4, 1861, giving them a full 24 hours to locate the phoenix and scoop up its ashes, but because nothing's ever that simple for the boys, they must first entangle themselves in the rather sordid goings-on of the town's inhabitants, thereby wasting so much time that they ultimately fail to secure the phoenix's remains before Castiel's forced to yank them back into the present. Fortunately, Sam left his Android behind, and as the illustrious Samuel Colt's apparently well versed in the various plot machinations of the Back To The Future movies, he simply gathers up those remains and uses the information he gleans from Sam's phone to ship a bottle of the necessary ash to the boys in 2011 via "Western Courier."
I feel like strangling someone.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Rattle, Rattle Tacky Blue Glitter THEN! Way back at the end of Season Two, we learned that Samuel Colt -- of The Fucking Colt That Can Kill Anything Except When It Usually Can't fame -- built a series of railroads in Wyoming that formed a massive Devil's Trap protecting the portal to Hell. More recently, My Sweet Baboo shoved Dashing El Deano backwards through time so Our Intrepid Hero could interfere with his parents' lives, thereby setting in motion the disastrous series of events that led to last season's abortive Apocalypse. And finally, back in February, Raoul The Big Gay Supernatural Dragon led an especially tragic sartorially challenged virgin into his tastefully appointed makeover den, where he changed her life forever. "Doesn't she look fabulous?!" Yes, Raoul. Yes, she does, but I'm afraid I must ask for your silence, as it's time for the...
...Rattle, Rattle Tacky Blue Glitter NOW!, which once again this evening is a LYING LIAR WHO LIES, for the instant it vanishes from our screens, the just-appearing location card informs us we've arrived in "Sunrise, Wyoming," on "March 5, 1861." Actually, the just-appearing location card is also a LYING LIAR WHO LIES, because this is clearly Cold Oak, South Dakota, but we haven't time to scream about that because the camera's already leapt forward from the wide establishing shot to focus in on a swinging iron sign for the "Western Courier" delivery service, which will become very, very important at the very, very end of this episode, so remember that name. "I'm writing it down now!" Excellent, Raoul. And after a couple of moments of that, the camera scuttles down to ground level, where it tracks the heavy, deliberate footsteps of a spurs-sporting, duster-encased gent whose identity will remain a secret for exactly twenty-five seconds. Another pair of manly, cowboy-style legs appears on the town's wooden sidewalk before stepping down into the mud of the street, and as various tense womenfolk glance nervously out their windows at the scene, the two gentlemen square off for a duel at -- wait for it -- high noon. We're treated to an extreme close-up of the second, black-clad gent loudly cracking every joint in his clearly arthritic hand before the camera sweeps up to take in his face, and it's... Radioactive Ted from Heroes! Haven't thought about that show in a really long time, and as I'm not particularly thrilled to be thinking about it now, let's travel with the camera back to the first gentleman, where it pans up past the sheriff badge pinned to his vest before settling on his face, and it's... Dean! Dun-dun-DUN! Our Intrepidly Time-Traveling Hero, all steely-eyed and such, glances up at the town's clock as it strikes the hour, and the shot whips back to a wide-angle just as Dean and Radioactive Ted whip their pistols from their holsters. The screen suddenly snaps to black, and in the darkness, we can hear the two fire.
Tinkle, Tinkle YEE-HAA! For this evening's presentation, the usual title card has been replaced by an old-timey map of the Wyoming Territory, the center of which bursts into flame, slowly burning outwards towards the edges in a direct rip-off of homage to Bonanza's opening credits. The fiery title of the show blazes into view from behind the map before exploding, and I suppose here's as good a point as any to note that the Wyoming Territory didn't exist until 1868. "Oh, my!" shrieks Raoul, feigning distress. "How on earth could they have made such an egregious mistake!?" And Raoul? "Yes?!" Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit. "Hee!" Now, why don't you toddle off to your den to fix yourself a brace of flagons, because I'm pretty sure this episode is entirely gore-free, which means you'll be needing the... "ZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!" Well, that certainly was unexpected.
The camera fades up on yet another establishing shot, this of the now most blessedly defunct Campbell Compound, and as a card materializes at the bottom of the screen to let us know it's "48 Hours Earlier (And 150 Years Later)," Darling Sammy can be heard to insist, "It's here, somewhere -- I know it!" "Help me move this," he continues as the camera ducks indoors to find the boys plus Bobby shoving aside a large desk in Dead Zombie Grandpa's former office. The instant that desk is out of the way, Sam scrambles down to his hands and knees to claw away at the floorboards, and he eventually latches on to a loose nail. He pulls the thing up, in the process opening a hidden, heavily cobwebbed trapdoor to the Compound's basement, and the next thing we know, Bobby and the boys are...
...descending a ladder into the book-lined and bunker-like basement. "Welcome to the Campbell Family Library," Sam smirks as Dean deploys a little flashlight-fu to investigate their surroundings while waiting for the overhead fluorescents to warm up. Aside from the books -- many of which are locked in cages, for whatever stupid reason -- there's a wall of what appears to be old family photographs and daguerreotypes that the nerdy genealogist in me wishes they'd take time to explore, but alas! Dashing El Deano doesn't go for that touchy-feely self-help family history crap, bitch, and, after confirming that Dead Zombie Grandpa did indeed collect all of the materials present himself, he asks, "So, what are we looking for?" "Anything that'll put a run in the Octomom's stockings," Bobby replies, and with that, we leap into a...
...RESEARCH MONTAGE! "ZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!" I couldn't agree with you more, my snoozy friend. Eventually, Bobby flips open an ancient, leather-bound tome, grunts, "Bingo!" and hauls the thing over to the table at the bunker's center, where he wonders, "Either of you jokers ever heard anything about a phoenix?" "River, Joaquin, or the giant flaming bird?" Dean rather unhelpfully snarks back. Bobby ignores the weak attempt at humor to consult the text he's translating and informs the other two "that the ashes of a phoenix can burn The Mother." "Great!" Dean perks. "Where do we get one?" "You got me," Bobby shrugs. "I thought it was a myth." "Well," Sam sighs, "let's see if we can find something out about a phoenix." And with that, we leap into yet another...
...RESEARCH MONTAGE! "ZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!" How I envy Raoul and his Coma Of Boredom at the moment. Eventually, Dean pulls an ancient, leather-bound journal from one of the shelves and scans several entries from the early 1860s before landing on one of particular relevance to this evening's main plot. "Guys, check this out!" he excitedly calls out as he hustles the thing back to the table, where he begins reading aloud from the entry in question like so: "'March fifth, eighteen sixty-one. Sunrise, Wyoming. Gun killed a phoenix today. Left a pile of smoldering ash.'" "Whose gun?" Sam eyebrows. "Colt's!" Dean grins, so pleased with himself, he's practically piddling his pants. The ancient, leather-bound journal, you see, had been penned by this show's version of Samuel Colt himself back when he was laying down those railroads to nowhere, and Sam gets all grabby-hands about it for a bit before things settle down and Bobby thinks to ask if the illustrious Mr. Colt thought to include a description of the beast. Unfortunately, the illustrious Mr. Colt did not, nor did the illustrious Mr. Colt mention how he managed to track t