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Dashing El Deano, left all by his lonesome as you'll no doubt recall after last week's stomach-churning end-of-episode drama, catches wind of a bizarre spate of gruesome deaths amongst the medium community in Lily Dale, New York, and so boosts yet another crapped-out piece of garbage to motor on up to Chautauqua County to investigate. Of course, he almost immediately runs into Sullen Sammy, who's there for the exact same reason, so the two reluctantly join forces to figure out what's actually going on. Seems one local supposed psychic of note got brained by her own crystal ball while another found her neck on the business end of a deadly airborne Ouija-board planchette, and their surviving compatriots in the hamlet's Spiritualist community are quite naturally on edge, especially after a third, spoon-bending mentalist ends up impaled on dozens of pieces of cutlery in his own salon.
After a brief bit of pointless misdirection involving a supposed "Orb Of Thessaly" that is actually a chunk of Made-In-Taiwan junk, Our Intrepid Heroes zero in on one of the psychics' granddaughters, a comely lass named Melanie who herself works the Spiritualist circuit despite being convinced it's all a load of crap. Through Melanie, Sam and Dean learn that Granny had a particularly vivid premonition of her own death mere hours before said death occurred, and after yet another supposed seer receives a similar vision, the boys realize they're dealing with the unquiet spirit of the infamous Kate Fox. Fortunately, in Supernatural Land, Miss Fox was buried in the local cemetery after her alcohol-related death in 1892, so Our Dear Boys are spared a lengthy road-trip down to Brooklyn and instead promptly desecrate the poor woman's grave right there in Lily Dale. Problem solved, right?
Wrong. Turns out Dead Kate was merely warning the various victims of her pissed-off sister Margaret's murderous intentions, and Dead Maggie wastes not a moment slaughtering her fourth target right before the horrified Melanie's eyes. Super-Smart Sammy does a little more investigating and quickly discovers that yet another local -- this one a true psychic who sucks at the whole entertainment aspect of the business -- wrapped the unquiet spirit of Dead Maggie up in some sort of binding spell to exact his jealousy-fueled vengeance on his more financially successful neighbors. So, Sam shoots the guy about a half-dozen times in the chest, then salts and burns Dead Maggie's bones, which the abject failure had been keeping in a sack by his bed.
And in the end, Our Intrepid Heroes finally -- finally -- hash out their differences regarding that recently deceased Special Guest Monster no one cares about, ever, and motor on off towards their adventure most happily reunited.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Rattle, Rattle WE DON'T GIVE A SHIT ANYMORE THEN! And as this evening's THEN! is All Dead Amy, All The Time, we'll be skipping ahead to the...
...Rattle, Rattle STILL NOT GIVING A SHIT NOW! And when the dripping is done, the shot cross-fades to an image of hands clasped lightly over a candlelit Ouija board. The camera travels up the heavily be-bangled arms attached to one of those pairs of hands to land on the serenely euphoric face of the supposed psychic to which they belong, and once the camera settles, the psychic breathes, "Yes! A spirit has gathered around us!" One of the psychic's customers, a middle-aged woman with carefully dyed hair, glances around the room with a nervous excitement. For his part, her brother -- a gentleman who looks every single one of his fiftysomething years -- does little more than roll his eyes. "Are you with us, spirit?" the psychic inquires. As if by response, a breeze sends the tastefully appointed parlor's lace curtains billowing inwards, and the female client giddily claims, "I feel something!" "I have goose bumps!" she practically titters before lifting her eyes up to the ceiling and wondering, "Uncle Danny?" The psychic, clearly an old pro at this act, pulls back the reins on her client at that, and instructs both the believer and the skeptic to place their hands on the Ouija board's planchette, so the three might "connect" with the spirit together. "Oh, spirit," the psychic then intones, "are you Uncle Danny?" Naturally, the planchette crawls across the board to land on YES. The grouchy brother harrumphs something about the psychic dragging the planchette across the board herself, but his complaints do nothing to throw the old gal off her game. She smilingly allows that his doubt and mistrust have as much of a place in this evening's proceedings as his sister's fervent belief, or something like that, then abandons the planchette to lift her palms into the air and coo, "Danny! If you're with us, knock twice for yes!"
Naturally, the psychic receives two distinct, sharp raps by way of reply, and the female client -- by now nearly weeping with joy -- burbles, "Is he happy?" Two raps sound out, so the female client asks about Sadie, much to her brother's immense irritation. "Now you're being ridiculous, Cynthia!" the man spits. "Who cares about Sadie?" The psychic slyly darts her eyes from one sibling to the other and back again, then hurls herself into the theatrical throes of a vision. "I see...a family pet?" she guesses, and when the Cynthia confirms that Sadie was, indeed, a Schnauzer, the psychic blissfully assures her that Sadie is now "chasing tennis balls in the afterlife." This last bit of nonsense is more than the brother can bear, and he snaps, "There were important papers -- no one could find them, they weren't in the safe -- can you ask him about that?" "Of course," the psychic assures him, but as she instructs the angry gentleman to place his hands with hers on the planchette, all of the lights in the parlor start buzzing and blinking and flickering on and off, seemingly of their own accord. DUN!
Cynthia's enraptured by the display, but the minor pyrotechnics seem to knock the psychic off balance, and she stammers something about Uncle Danny not appreciating the question. Unfortunately, the angry brother will not be deterred, but as he snarls something about his missing inheritance, the fireplace behind them belches out a sudden burst of flame before an ill wind shoots down the flue to snuff out the blaze completely. And as Cynthia and her brother quickly descend into a bout of petty squabbling, utterly oblivious to the ominous goings-on around them, the psychic grows increasingly panicked and pivots sharply about in her chair as the lights continue to flicker around her head until the planchette on the Ouija board captures all their attention when it begins skittering about on its own. "Oh, my God!" Cynthia exclaims. "Danny?" The planchette darts quickly and decisively over to the NO. Dun-dun-DUN! A sudden and drastic chill envelops the room, and as the trio's breath streams visibly from their mouths, Cynthia finally realizes that there's something not quite right about this particular séance. "What's going on?" she gasps, but the psychic's far too busy with her own massive freak-out to answer, thank you very much, and she staggers to her feet in abject terror as the planchette spins itself around on the board and slowly levitates into the air.
The planchette turns until it's directed its sharpest point at the psychic, and barely has the psychic had a chance to open her mouth to scream when the thing flies across the room to embed itself in her carotid. "GOOOOOOOOOOOOORE!" shrieks Raoul The Big Gay Supernatural Dragon, writhing about in an absolute frenzy of delight atop his overstuffed armchair, and if you think the dear, dizzy lizard liked that bit, just wait for what comes . A fresh gout of psychic's arterial spray paints the vast expanse of the angry gentleman's forehead red before the camera returns to the psychic to linger lovingly on the spurting gash in her neck as the poor woman crashes backwards onto her tasteful and now-ruined Oriental carpet. "GOOOOOOOOOOOOORE!" And as Cynthia unhinges her lower jaw to let her howls and wails echo throughout the tastefully appointed parlor, the camera focuses in on the crimson flood gushing from the psychic's fatal wound until the utterly awesome sight vanishes behind this evening's rudely appearing...
...SNOT ROCKET! "EEEEEEEEEEEEE!" Aw. He's so cute and bloodthirsty. "EEEEEEEEEEEEE!" I'm pretty sure he's gonna be like this for a while... "EEEEEEEEEEEEE!" ...so I'm just gonna let him writhe and keep going with the recap, okay? "EEEEEEEEEEEEE!" Good.
So, after the SNOT! is gone, the camera fades up to take in the low-slung façade of a long-defunct minor-league baseball team's stadium. Soon enough, Dashing El Deano's crotch wanders into the frame, and we watch as Dashing El Deano himself fishes his cell phone from his jeans pocket to check for messages. There are none, of course, because after last week's stomach-churning end-of-episode drama, Darling Sammy is not speaking to him, and as Dean has no other friends, it follows that his voice mail box would naturally be empty. Lonely El Deano takes a moment to look Very Very Sad Indeed, then perks up when he spots a crapped-out sky-blue first-generation Dodge Challenger parked in one of the stadium's spots. He whips out one of his trusty lock-jiggering tools from his jacket pocket, and presently finds himself sliding into the wreck's driver seat to crack open the steering column and hotwire the car. The instant the wires connect, the radio blasts into life, and the wackily voiced DJ informs us, "You're listening to The Morning Chaos with me, Bananas Foster." "The hell I am, asshat," Dean grumbles, and he's about to switch stations when the eminent Mr. Foster swings into his program's daily "News Of The Weird" segment. Today's top story? "Two very odd murders" in Lily Dale, New York, a hamlet the eminent Mr. Foster assures us is "the most psychic town in America." That's all Dashing El Deano needs to hear, of course, and he swings out of the parking lot to motor on up to...
...Lily Dale. Somewhere on the road from Raleigh, Our Intrepid Hero stopped long enough to don his FBI drag, and we rejoin Dapper El Deano just in time to watch as he LIES his way past the officers guarding the pre-credits crime scene to poke about the late psychic's parlor. He casually wanders around the room until he reaches the late psychic's chair, at which point he dons a pair of gloves and gets down on his knees for a closer examination, and he easily finds a couple of tricks of the psychic trade, like the barely hidden switch on the chair's arm that triggers the billowing curtains and the knee-operated knob beneath the tabletop that produces all those sharp raps. "Oh, Spirits of the Further," he jokingly intones, "am I going to win the Powerball?" One Dean-activated rap later, and he gleefully shouts out, "I'm gonna be rich!" Alas, there is no one there to appreciate his humor. Awwwwwww.
A little while later, Lonely El Deano strolls through Lily Dale's main business district, looking for lunch, but every single storefront seems to be filled with palmists and tarot-card readers and such, so it is with great relief that Our Intrepid Hero finally stumbles upon The Only Diner In Town. He pauses for a moment to scoff at a poster advertising "THE ANNUAL LILY DALE PSYCHIC FESTIVAL" before heading inside, where he's greeted by...
...some slap-happy New Age dipshit, for Our Intrepid Hero's found himself in the "Good Graces Cafe," where the special of the day is always "YOU!" The slap-happy dipshit eagerly assures Lonely El Deano that Good Graces is both "one-hundred-percent locally sourced" and "biodynamic," and promises him "a free affirmation with every order," as well. "I think I'll source a taco joint," Dean dryly replies, and with that, he turns to leave, but what's that? Why, it's Sullen Sammy, moping over some grisly crime-scene photos at one of the nearby tables! Awkwardness ensues as Dean invites himself to take a seat opposite his momentarily estranged brother, and he counters Sam's stoic silence with a stream of babble regarding the particulars of the current case. Long story short, there was "enough EMF" floating around the late psychic's parlor "to make your hair stand up." "I know," he concedes, "this whole town's supposedly calling ghosts, but that takes some serious spell work and some serious mojo." As the only books the late psychic had in her possession were of the "Oprah-crap" variety, Dean finds it extremely unlikely she had anything to do with her own spectacular demise.
The slap-happy dipshit chooses this moment to interrupt the proceedings by asking Dean for his order. "Pancakes, side of pig," Dean grunts, for he is always such a charmer. "Fantastic!" the slap-happy dipshit beams before beatifically adding, "You are a virile manifestation of the divine." Promised affirmation thus so cloyingly delivered, the slap-happy dipshit floats off towards the kitchen, leaving Dean to flounder about in his chair and peeve, "What the hell did he say to me?" Sullen Sammy, who still has yet to open his damn mouth, remains silent -- some more -- for a very long moment, then fidgets a bit and begins, "Look..." Dean, well aware of what's coming, immediately shuts Sam's whining down with a curt, "You might as well bite the bullet and work with me on this one." "I don't know if I can," Sam snaps back. Dean, bless him, is not having any of that, and counters, "Let's try and stop the killings. That's it." Sam heaves a tremendous and tremendously put-upon sigh, then nods his head.
Meanwhile, some dizzy broad wanders into the diner from outside and stops dead in her tracks, for she's recognized Our Intrepid Heroes from their doppelgangers' well-publicized rampage across America "a couple weeks back." "You're the brothers!" the dizzy broad gasps. Sam and Dean take great pains to hastily assure her they are not, in fact, "the Winchester guys," and that "those depraved killers got put down like the dogs they were." The dizzy broad blithers something about misreading the boys' auras, or some such bullshit, and it's all just an excuse to have the woman's heavily accented dining companion stride over and introduce himself. According to the card he offers Sam, this elaborately coiffed and uniquely goateed gentleman is one "Nikolai Lishin," the world-famous Russian spoon-bender. He's also one of the headliners at Lily Dale's annual festival, by the by, and he invites the boys to drop in on his "demonstration," if you know what he means, and I think you do. "I do not!" Quiet, lizard -- I'm trying to get us to the good part with a minimum of hassle, here. "Okay!" I do so love it when you're being agreeable.
Anyway, Nikolai hoists Sam's teaspoon into the air, grunts at it, and retreats with his dizzy associate to their booth, thereby finally allowing Sam a chance to get down to business. He spreads his little case file out on the table for Dean's perusal, and we learn that the first Lily Dale victim was "Imelda Graven," a medium "brained by her own crystal ball." The glorious pre-credits death sequence took from our world one "Grandma Goldy," and Dean immediately notes from the vivid crime-scene photographs that both Imelda and Goldy were wearing the same necklace. "Yeah," Sam confirms, "Imelda gave it to Goldy in her will." Dean guesses they're looking at a cursed object, here, and Sam agrees it's an avenue of inquiry they'd be wise to pursue, especially since Goldy's -of-kin is also a psychic in town and therefore the likely victim, should that person have inherited Goldy's effects. Dapper Sam turns his attention towards sweetening his coffee, only to have his trifled-with spoon crap out on him by bending in half, seemingly of its own accord. Dapper Sam unleashes a relatively minor bitchface in Nikolai's general direction while griping, "He broke my spoon!" and with that, we're off to...
...the tastefully appointed home of one "Melanie Golden." The Dapper Duo climb Miss Melanie's front steps just as she happens to emerge onto the porch with a friend, whom we learn had stopped by to offer her condolences. Melanie's the granddaughter of the late Grandma Goldy, you see, and after the friend takes her leave, Miss Golden invites the boys in for a chat. For whatever reason, they decide to treat us to a lengthy review of Miss Melanie's biography instead of getting straight to the point, so long story short, Melanie's a regular on "The Circuit," even though she freely admits she's not actually a psychic. She "reads" people instead, you see, relying primarily on body language, and as an example, she accurately notes that Sam and Dean are "longtime partners" with "a lot of tension." "You're pissed," she determines, gesturing first in Sam's direction. "And you're stressed," she continues, focusing her attention on Dean. The Dapper Duo looks abashed as Miss Melanie shrugs, "It's not brain surgery." It's also why she and her grandmother never quite saw eye-to-eye regarding their chosen profession. While Goldy unapologetically indulged in the "full smoke-machine" nonsense, a part of her "actually believed in all that stuff." "You don't?" Dean eyebrows. "You do?" Melanie sasses back. "I've got an open mind," Dean mildly allows, and a bit of silent flirting follows until Sam finally thinks to ask about the suspicious necklace. "Don't have it," Melanie immediately replies. The late Grandma Goldy had some vague deal with a local merchant, so if The Dapper Duo's looking for something specific, they'd best head over to...
...Lily Dale's bustling all-purpose indoor flea market. Come on. You don't think I was actually going to call it "The Emporium," do you? The boys waste little time tracking down the flea's proprietor, a shabby-looking also-psychic named "Jimmy Tomorrow," whose proffered card promises "Private Readings -- NO FUTURE TOO GRIM!" He quickly identifies the necklace they seek as "The Orb of Thessaly," a purportedly powerful and rare artifact Jimmy's keeping locked in a case beneath the junk shop's register, so incalculable is its value. Much to Jimmy's annoyance, The Dapper Duo claims a "state's evidence discount" and confiscates the trinket, which ends up being just some glittery piece of Made-In-Taiwan trash, anyway, as Eagle-Eyed Sammy discovers when he examines the bauble out in the sunlight. "A fake, around here?" Dean sarcastically sniffs. "Imagine that!" "Of course," he needlessly adds, "that means that whatever's killing mediums is still out there." "EEEEEEEEEEEEE!" I can see you can see where this is going, my scaly friend. "EEEEEEEEEEEEE!" Well, let's not be dragging our heels, then.
We join Nikolai The Spoon-Bender in his home -- a home that is, I'm sad to say, only modestly appointed -- as he dumps a bagful of cheap restaurant cutlery across his glass-topped coffee table. He selects a fork from the resultant pile and begins working the joint of the handle between his thumb and forefinger before simply bending the tines downward with his other hand. Dark, infernal whisperings assault the soundtrack, and all of the lights around him start buzzing and blinking and flickering on and off, seemingly of their own accord, as the fork mysteriously straightens itself out. DUN! Nikolai, perturbed, glances briefly at the malfunctioning fixture above his head, and when he looks back down at the coffee table, he finds all of the knives and forks standing on end with their pointy bits directed towards the ceiling! "EEEEEEEEEEEEE!" Naturally, Nikolai freaks and scrambles to his feet just in time to feel a sudden and drastic chill envelop the room, and as his breath streams visibly from his mouth, an unseen force hoists him bodily into the air. And then? "GOOOOOOOOOOOOORE!" Indeed. For yes, gentle reader, that unseen force has carefully positioned the hapless charlatan above his eerily erect cutlery, and when the proper moment arrives, that unseen force slams this evening's bit of Monster Chow down onto the table, impaling his head and torso upon several dozen cheaply made eating utensils. "EEEEEEEEEEEEE!" Most felicitously, the camera ducks beneath the coffee table's glass top to linger lovingly while the dying Nikolai wheezes out a couple of lungfuls of blood, and we can see that one of the knives has been driven into his skull. "EEEEEEEEEEEEE!" There's also a fork in his neck. "EEEEEEEEEEEEE!" And a rapidly expanding puddle of grue staining his nice white shirt. "EEEEEEEEEEEEE!" Okay, I'll stop now, because Raoul's about to shriek himself hoarse. "EEEEEEEEEEEEE!" And as Nikolai's wildly staring eyes slowly dim and glaze over, we head into this evening's first METAL TEETH CHOMP! more gratified than we've been in a very, very long time. "EEEEEEEEEEEEE!"
Murder Scene. Aftermath. The Dapper Duo arrives to survey what little remains of the spoon-bender's most spectacular demise, and after a few quippy remarks from Dashing El Deano, the two cross the room to see if the local police chief's received any leads. "I got leads coming out of my ass," the head cop wearily sighs. "Our tip line's had forty-six calls," he explains, "all from clairvoyants that know what really happened." "What's the popular theory?" Dean hesitates to ask. "It's a toss-up between a ghost and some sort of ogre that only attacks Russians." "That would be Kip!" Raoul shrieks with a confidence unusual even for him, and do I want to ask, friend of friends? "Well!" Raoul shriekingly allows. "It is rather a lengthy story!" Then we must save it for another time, I'm afraid. "Rats!" I realizes this disappoints you, doll, but we really must use the now to follow along as Our Intrepid Heroes learn Nikolai had apparently been struck with a detailed premonition of his own spectacular demise shortly before said spectacular demise transpired, and we'd hear more about this fascinating discovery, I'm sure, were it not for the fact that Miss Melanie chooses this very moment to ring Dashing El Deano's cell. "Did you mean it when you said you had an open mind?" Miss Melanie asks. Dean goes, "Hmmmm!" and then it's off to...
...Manse Melanie, where the lady of the house reveals that her late grandmother had also been struck with a detailed premonition of her own spectacular demise shortly before said spectacular demise transpired. The Dapper Duo, perched side by side on Miss Melanie's tasteful sofa, listen intently as Melanie notes, "She said she was in a séance, then the lights go, it's freezing..." "Wait," Darling Sammy interrupts. "She said that? That the room got cold?" Melanie's all, "Um. Yeah. Is that important?" Our Intrepid Heroes exchange A Look Fraught With Significance and silently agree to blow their cover, with Dean delicately explaining that the mediums of Lily Dale are being offed by an actual, honest-to-God ghost. Melanie takes a moment to absorb that unsettling bit of information, then sighs, "I need a drink." "Atta girl!"
Afterwards, Sam and Dean descend the steps from Melanie's front porch, loudly processing their way through recent developments as they go. It's clear to them that they're not dealing with "your average spook tied to a house," and as Lily Dale is "packed with people summoning spirits," the boys have little choice but to "split up and canvass" the town. Which they do, after a bit of grumbling from Dashing El Deano regarding Sullen Sammy's ongoing bout of whiny pissiness.
Elsewhere, Melanie's as-yet-unnamed friend -- here doing business as "Sister Thibodeaux," a garishly attired island-accented nightmare in the Miss Cleo mold -- counsels an anxious and extremely gullible client regarding the latter's utterly irrelevant woes, and when that's over and done with, we watch as Sister Thibodeaux stashes her hefty fee away in a lockbox until...she's struck by a debilitating premonition right there in the middle of her parlor! DUN! Sister Thibodeaux's eyes flip milky-white, her breath streams visibly from her mouth in the sudden and drastic chill now enveloping the room, and she witnesses herself being choked to death by a pair of pale, bony hands as her cunning and incongruously chipper little cuckoo clock strikes two. It's enough to send the woman reeling backwards in shock, and barely has she composed herself again when...
...Miss Melanie materializes on her doorstep with Dashing El Deano at her side. "It's okay," Melanie assures her. "Like I said on the phone, he can help." "Phony lawman, huh?" Melanie's friend scoffs as she lets them in, and because I'm already sick of typing out "Melanie's friend" and "Sister Thibodeaux" over and over again, I'm just gonna spoil you all right here and now and start referring to this woman by her actual character name, which is "Camille," which we don't find out about until right before she dies. You can thank me later. "Okay!" In any event, Camille recounts the details of her debilitating premonition for Dashing El Deano's benefit. Unfortunately, her debilitating premonition did not include a clear view of her attacker's face. Fortunately, Camille's rigged up a tiny and artfully concealed video camera to capture all activity in her parlor, for whatever bizarre and paranoid reason, so Dean hooks the thing up to Camille's computer, and the three are soon scanning the footage for any pertinent information. A haze of supernaturally induced interference clouds the screen at a key moment, but Dean's somehow magically able to clarify the image, and we can see that Camille's spectral assailant is a primly dressed and dour woman from the late Victorian era. "You know," Melanie frowns as she stares at the spirit's unsmiling face, "I swear I've seen her -- like in a painting, or something." "One of those old photos in the museum!" she suddenly remembers, so it's off to...
...the commodious "LILY DALE MUSEUM OF CURIOSITIES," where a formally attired docent leads a tour group through the various exhibits while The Dapper Duo scan the hundreds of photographs lining the walls for any sign of Camille's spectral assailant. Purely by happenstance, I'm sure, the two meet up in front of a portrait of "The Mystifying Campbell Brothers," and Our Intrepid Heroes exchange yet another Look Fraught With Significance as the chatty docent ambles up behind them to drop the following bit of anvilicious science on their tantalizing asses: "Never ended well for the siblings -- the strain of working together, or maybe just being around each other their entire lives?" "Those two," the docent continues, indicating the Campbells, "were the exception." "Of course," he confides, "that was just a stage name -- they weren't actually brothers. It was a cover for their, um, alternative lifestyle." "Kinky!" Now, now, Raoul -- we can either mock at the docent's unfortunate choice of words, here, or we can marvel at the fact that what he's told them about the Campbells is actually true. "Let's mock!" Later. "Oh, poop!"
I understand your disappointment, friend of friends, but we really must get to the point of this scene, which is this: Sam indicates a stiff-looking portrait of The Fox Sisters on the wall, and inquires as to the ladies' particulars. The docent claims Kate -- the one from Camille's security camera footage, of course -- was both "mesmerizing onstage" and able to "foretell one's death," while Margaret apparently had no special gifts to speak of at all. After appropriate amounts of prompting from both Sam and Dean, the docent reveals that both Margaret and Kate are buried in the Lily Dale cemetery -- a claim which is actually false, as it turns out -- and at that, Sam motors on out of there to desecrate Kate Fox's final resting place. Dean would follow, I'm sure, were it not for the fact that the docent now grabs his arm quite unexpectedly. "I'm sorry," the docent apologizes, "I don't normally do this during business hours, but do you know an Eleanor, or an Ellen?" Dun-dun-DUN! Turns out the docent's one of the few actual psychics in town, and the sorely missed Ellen Harvelle has reached out from beyond the grave to entrust him with the following message for Dashing El Deano: "If you don't tell someone how bad it really is, she'll kick your ass."
Cut to the walkway outside the museum, and oh, my holy God. They're talking about Dead Amy again. AGAIN. Yes, I know I should be happy that they're at long last laying all of their Capital-I Issues out in the open, and yes, I know I should be especially happy that Dashing El Deano's finally -- FINALLY -- telling Sullen Sammy to "quit being a bitch," but you know what? I never bought that crap about Dead Amy and her supposedly deep and abiding connection to poor, tortured Sam in the first place, so I never gave a rat's ass about Dead Amy and her supposedly deep and abiding connection to poor, tortured Sam no matter how many times this frigging show insisted such a connection exists, so can we please skip all of this tedious, tedious bullshit about secrets and LIES and "family does the dirty work" and just desecrate a goddamned grave already?
THANK YOU. We've skipped ahead to that evening to find Sam and Dean dousing Kate Fox's earthly remains with salt and lighter fluid. Just as the boys are about to set the whole thing on fire, however, Spectral Kate comes roaring out of the surrounding gloom to knock Darling Sammy onto his remarkably healthy ass. "VIOLENCE!" Dashing El Deano darkly warns "Crazy Eyes" to back off, but Spectral Kate will not be deterred, and as she advances upon him with every last one of her yellowing teeth gleaming in the low beam of Darling Sammy's temporarily discarded flashlight, the ghost screams, "Listen to me! Why isn't anybody listening?" Unfortunately for her, Dashing El Deano's not exactly in the listening mood at the moment, and Spectral Kate finds herself exploding outwards in a massive gout of flame and gooey ghost bits the instant Our Intrepid Heroes ignite the mess in her grave. "Hooray!"
A very short time later, we find ourselves in the wholesome and affirming confines of Good Graces Cafe, where Melanie and Camille have apparently decided to camp out for the duration. Via her cell, Melanie receives the welcome news that Camille's would-be assailant has been vanquished, and she volunteers to escort her friend home. Camille balks at that, because she's still more than a bit on edge after that afternoon's debilitating premonition, so Melanie kindly invites Camille to spend the couple of weeks at her place. Camille gratefully accepts this gracious offer, and the two head on over to...
...Camille's parlor? Buh? Yeah, I get that they just dropped by to pick up a few of Camille's essentials, but don't you think that could have waited until the morning? "Such a course of action would have been most prudent, indeed!" Raoul wisely opines, and thanks for backing me up on that, friend of friends. "No problem!" Now, where the hell was I? Oh, yeah: As Camille tosses a couple of her essentials into an overnight bag, her incongruously chipper little cuckoo clock strikes two. DUN! The camera goes all shaky and hand-held, so we know dear Camille's not long for this world, and as if to support that notion, the fireplace behind her belches out a sudden burst of flame before an ill wind shoots down the flue to snuff out the blaze completely. Dun-dun-DUN! "Call them back!" Camille demands, all wild-eyed with panic and fear. "Now!"
Crapped-Out Dodge Challenger. Dashing El Deano nonchalantly answers his insistently bleeping cell, only to end up with a screaming earful of frantic Melanie for his troubles. "It's still happening!" she bays. A quick jump back to Camille's parlor reveals that all of the lights around the women have started to buzz and blink and flicker on and off, seemingly of their own accord. Sam snatches the phone from Dean's hand and orders Melanie to grab salt from the kitchen, and here's where everything starts to go nuts with the quick cross-cuts and the extreme close-ups and whatnot, but what you need to know is this: The unquiet spirit of Margaret Fox materializes in Doomed Camille's parlor, and this ghost is creepy as hell. "Eeep!" See? Even Raoul's become unnerved by her cadaverous appearance, and everyone knows there's normally nothing Raoul likes more than a good cadaver. "Eeep!" Don't worry, hon -- it's almost over. So, Melanie lashes at the supremely creepy Spectral Margaret with what little salt Doomed Camille had stored away in her severely understocked kitchen, and while Spectral Margaret does vanish thanks to Melanie's high-sodium onslaught, the ghost's retreat is merely temporary. Sam bellows for them to brandish fireplace pokers instead, but that potential solution goes all to hell when Spectral Margaret telekinetically flings a sideboard at Melanie's back. D'OH! Doomed Camille races to her injured friend's aid, and that's a very bad move on Doomed Camille's part, indeed, for the instant Doomed Camille kneels at Melanie's side, Spectral Margaret rematerializes to tear Camille's head clean off at her neck. "GOOOOOOOOOOOOORE!" Off screen. "Rats!" And as the loud, squishy sounds of Camille's off-camera evisceration fill the soundtrack, Melanie unhinges her lower jaw to let her howls and wails echo all the way into this evening's METAL TEETH CHOMP!
Casa Camille. Aftermath. A deeply traumatized Melanie emerges into the rain to collapse into the just-arriving Dean's arms, and...scene.
The morning finds Our Intrepid Heroes back in Melanie's tastefully appointed living room, where Dean rages about the latest depressing turn of events until a very damp Melanie emerges from the bathroom, where she'd apparently spent the last several hours treating herself a full Silkwood. There's not much she has to add to what she's already told them of Camille's unfortunate off-screen demise, so Sam and Dean head back to...
...the cemetery, where they busy themselves desecrating Margaret Fox's grave in broad daylight. One problem: Someone's already removed the corpse's bones. D'OH! And as Our Intrepid Heroes dejectedly trudge back to the crapped-out Dodge Challenger, Sam frets, "If someone knew enough to take Margaret's bones, they're not kidding around -- that's serious binding magic." Sam suggests they give the ever-reliable Bobby a call for a much-needed assist, but something on the slip of paper Dean's just distractedly pulled from his pocket has caught his eye. It's a flyer for the annual festival, and wouldn't you know it? The festival's headliners were meant to be Imelda Graven, Grandma Goldy, and Nikolai Lishin. D'OH! Again!
Cut back to Melanie's tastefully appointed living room. Melanie confirms Dean's suspicion that Camille was asked to take Nikolai's place after the spoon-bender's most spectacular demise. "Your grandma was headlining at the big hall," he reminds her. "Who do you think they would ask to fill in for her?" "Probably me," Melanie realizes. DUN!
Lily Dale Flea Market. Darling Sammy heads up to the counter and demands the name and address of the person who purchased an ashwood altar in the last week. Jimmy Tomorrow happily complies. And just how does Darling Sammy know that someone purchased an ashwood altar at The Lily Dale Flea in the last week? Beats the living crap out of me. !
Manse Melanie. Dashing El Deano lays down a thick circle of salt in the middle of Melanie's tastefully appointed living room, the implication being that Melanie will remain within its boundaries until Darling Sammy's successfully destroyed whatever's left of Margaret Fox's earthly remains. "Does it hurt them?" Melanie asks. "Burning their bones?" Dashing El Deano's forced to admit he never actually considered that possibility, but he imagines it does. "Good," Melanie nods.
That evening, as a thunderstorm rages overhead, Darling Sammy pulls up to the address Jimmy Tomorrow gave him, and he bursts through the door unannounced with his brother's trusty pearl-handled automatic at the ready. Of course, because Jimmy Tomorrow is a LYING LIAR WHO LIES, Sam's actually burst in upon some earthy-crunchy holistic Lamaze class conducted by none other than that dizzy broad from the diner, so he has little choice but to beat a hasty and embarrassed retreat. To his credit, though, he immediately understands what's actually going on, and he calls Dean to rage about Jimmy Tomorrow's abhorrent duplicity. Or something like that. Dean would have something valuable to add to the conversation, I'm sure, were it not for the fact that Spectral Margaret's now glowering balefully at him through Melanie's front window. DUN! "Eeep!" That too, of course. God, this woman is freaking me out. "Eeep!" Oh, you poor thing.
Lily Dale Main Drag. After a tiny bit of difficulty, Darling Sammy locates Jimmy Tomorrow's seedy apartment, picks the lock, and tippy-toes through the front door to ransack the place. Barely has he found Margaret's skull adorning a makeshift altar in the living room, though, when Jimmy himself sneaks up from behind to press a loudly cocked revolver against the nape of his neck. D'OH! "Somehow," Jimmy grins, "I just knew you'd be back." The camera gets all up in Darling Sammy's grille for one tense moment before everything disappears into the all-consuming maw of this evening's METAL TEETH CHOMP!
Lair Of Tomorrow. Immediate aftermath. Jimmy icily instructs Darling Sammy to relinquish control of Margaret Fox's much-abused skull. Sam slowly passes the thing back to his captor, but when Jimmy reaches for it, Sam somehow gets the drop on the guy, and he rips the revolver out of Jimmy's hand to snarl, "That's enough!"
Meanwhile, back at The Manse, Spectral Margaret blows out the windows. Uh oh.
Lair Of Tomorrow. Sam upends the makeshift altar and sneers, "Nice binding spell!" "Doesn't matter," Jimmy shrugs. "She helps me because she wants to." Sam goes, "Whaaaaaaaa?"
Manse Melanie. A violent breeze now whips through Melanie's tastefully appointed living room, violating the sanctity of Dashing El Deano's salt circle. Almost immediately, Spectral Margaret materializes in the middle of the floor to telekinetically fling Dean ass-over-end into the room. DUN!
Lair Of Tomorrow, and here we go with the apeshit jump-cuts again. Jimmy takes this opportunity to speechify at length regarding his methods and motivations -- of course -- and as he leisurely explains himself to Sam, the camera keeps pulling this rapid-fire back-and-forth between The Manse and The Lair with Jimmy speaking continuously throughout, so bear with me while I try to keep everything straight, by which I of course mean "rip everything apart and paste the pieces back together to form two separate scenes that are entirely independent of one another." "Okay!" Thanks. "Don't mention it!"
So: "Margaret and me are the same," Jimmy asserts. "We're the real thing, but guess what? Sometimes the real thing just isn't pretty or entertaining enough." "When I show people what I'm capable of," he seethes, "it scares them -- I can't pay my rent!" "Margaret's happy to kill for me," he insists, adding, "She likes the leash." "You're sick!" Sam hisses. "You know what else I am?" Jimmy eyebrows. "A real psychic, you dickbag." And with that, he flips a little telekinetic mojo at the gun, which promptly zips out of Sam's hands to go skittering across the room, eventually landing at Jimmy's feet. He wastes not an instant retrieving the thing from the floor, of course, and as the unhinged loser aims directly for Sam's remarkably broad and healthy chest, Our Intrepid Hero cries out, "These people don't deserve to die!" "Are you kidding me?" Jimmy howls. "I live in squalor, 'cause I can't put on a show like them?" Sounds about right to me, pal, but who am I to say? Super-Smart Sammy wisely decides to change tacks, and asks about the rest of Margaret's bones instead. Jimmy, like, involuntarily twitches, or something, and something in that twitch tells Sam he's stashed the remainder of the remains in the bedroom. Just go with it. Jimmy then accidentally squeezes off a round, startling himself and giving Sam the opening he needs to whip out Dean's trusty pearl-handled automatic from the waistband of his jeans. Jimmy flails around with his own revolver for an instant, so Sam -- without hesitation, I should note -- plugs the guy full of holes.
Meanwhile, back at The Manse, the action never stops. After dumping Dean on his tantalizing derriere, Spectral Margaret unleashes one of her terrifying grins and proceeds to back the cowering Melanie into a corner. She reaches out with one of her bony claws to wrap it around Melanie's useless neck, and just when we think Spectral Margaret's actually going to throttle her, Dashing El Deano blasts the disquieting spirit into a spray of wispy ghost bits with a round of rock salt. Dean and Melanie then retreat into the relative safety of The Manse's kitchen, where Melanie gets busy lining the room's threshold with salt. Spectral Margaret, entirely undeterred, rematerializes and easily cracks the threshold apart with a little more telekinetic mojo, breaking the salt barrier just as Dean realizes he's out of shotgun shells. D'OH! Thinking fast, he flails at her with a length of iron chain, but it doesn't dissipate her supremely creepy form for very long, and she's back to kicking that tantalizing derriere of his from one end of The Manse to the other in no time.
Fortunately, it's at this point that Darling Sammy finds the remainder of the remains in the late Jimmy's bed, and he salts and burns the entire set, thereby...
...exploding Spectral Margaret upwards in a massive gout of flame and gooey ghost bits back at The Manse. And with that bitch of a sequence complete, we head into this evening's final commercial break most woefully CHOMP!-less. "Eeep!" Really, Raoul? You're still paralytic with fear? "Eeep!" I'll take that as a yes.
Good Graces Cafe, and let's wrap this up quickly, shall we? "Eeep!" Poor Raoul. Anyway, Our Intrepid Heroes chit-chat over coffee for a bit until Melanie stops by to bid Dean a fond farewell. The two agree that, had they met under happier circumstances, their flirtations might well have led to something more, but they didn't, so whatever.
After that's over with, Dean emerges from the cafe to find Sam loading his meager belongings into the crapped-out Dodge Challenger's trunk. Long story short, Sam graciously admits he understands why Dean killed Dead Amy, but he still wonders why Dean's been drinking so much as of late if he's certain his actions were justified. Dashing El Deano promptly whaps Stupid Sammy upside the head for being such a gigantic moron and tells him to get his dumb ass in the car, now. You know, more or less. And once they've settled themselves in, Sam sighs, "I still want to know how that guy bent my spoon." "Forget it, Sam," Dean deadpans. "It's Lily Dale."
Oh, my CHRIST, that last line sucked.
week, Darling Sammy gets married. Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got to go whip up a few healing flagons for the lizard. The poor dear's been frozen in place atop his overstuffed armchair for at least the last hour and a half. "Eeep!" See you week!
Demian should accept that this evening's most awesome presentation represented an utterly bizarre anomaly in the otherwise unbroken downward trajectory of this show, and he therefore should not get his hopes up again for the episodes still to come, right? Raoul has no answer for that, for the dear, dizzy lizard remains paralytic with fear. "Eeep!" You may reach the former at demian_twop@yahoo.com. The latter is an imaginary gay dragon on the Internet.