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Annie Hawkins, a dear old friend of Our Intrepid Heroes' that nobody's ever heard of before tonight, gives the boys a call to inform them of some deeply disturbing goings-on in an abandoned whorehouse out in Bodega Bay, California. Seems the place has been witness to a number of suspicious disappearances over the years, and while those disappearances did taper off for a period of time a decade or so ago, renewed interest in the decaying manor has led to a fresh rash of vanishings in recent weeks, mostly of young area couples intent on performing vile acts of filthy premarital fornication in the old bordello. Because they apparently have nothing better to do with their time even though we're a mere five episodes away from this god-awful season's finale, Our Intrepid Heroes immediately agree to meet this Annie Hawkins person, and they promptly climb into This Week's Crapped-Out Piece Of Automotive Trash to make the hours-long drive to the Left Coast.
Unfortunately, Annie decides to begin the investigation without them, and she quickly finds herself the latest victim of the old house's former owner, a spectral psychopath by the name of Whitman Van Ness. Dead Annie's quite naturally at an utter loss as to how to proceed until Our Intrepid Heroes finally blow into town with Dead Bobby in tow, and the two friendly ghosts team up to battle the haunted whorehouse's evil overlord together, mainly because Our Intrepid Morons are too stupid to figure out what's going on themselves.
Dead Annie and Dead Bobby consult with various of the defunct brothel's other post-life residents, all of whom were viciously murdered by the eminent Mr. Van Ness, and they become especially friendly with one long-deceased and terribly helpful hooker in particular until the latter incurs the wrath of their vengeful host, who vanquishes the unfortunate lass by burning her bones in the manor's miraculously still-functioning fireplace. You see, Van Ness maintains his control over his victims by storing their earthly remains in a hidden household chamber, so it becomes necessary, finally, to involve Our Otherwise Useless Morons, as only they can desecrate Van Ness's grave before offering all of the fiend's victims an appropriate mass cremation ceremony that will send their restless spirits onwards towards... whatever the hell happens to ghosts on this show when you kill them. And no, I don't know why Dead Bobby can't just set the damn house on fire himself and be done with it, so don't ask.
In any event, Dead Bobby quickly gets the attention of Our Otherwise Useless Morons -- now, after four months' worth of failed attempts, mainly because the script says so -- and after some expected complications, Dashing El Deano and Darling Sammy take care of the messy situation as best they can. The Van Ness vanquish has the extra added bonus of rendering Dead Bobby visible to Our Mostly Useless Morons, and in the end, after Poor Dead Annie has been sent on to wherever, Our Ungrateful Idiots yell at Dead Bobby for several minutes before climbing back into This Week's Crapped-Out Piece Of Automotive Trash and motoring on off towards their adventure. Solid standalone episode, I must admit, but where the fuck are the goddamned Leviathans?
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Rattle, Rattle WE DON'T GIVE A SHIT ANYMORE THEN!, and this evening's THEN! takes a full minute and fifteen seconds of screen time to remind us all that Dead Bobby is dead. To be honest with you, though, I can't really dump on it too much, because it's probably the best-produced THEN! in recent memory on this show, even if it does linger a bit too long on That Loathsome Guest "Star" Who Shall Not Be Named toward the end, there. Then again, I might be allowing my ongoing affection for the sequence's central character to cloud my judgment regarding the sequence's actual quality. Which reminds me of a question that, while often asked over the last couple of months, has yet to be answered in a satisfactory manner: Why kill the crotchety old hairball off in the first place if you're just going to bring him back now? Oh, Cheap Manufactured Melodrama! Where would this season have been without you?
Rattle, Rattle STILL NOT GIVING A SHIT NOW! Somewhere dark and rain-streaked and remote, Our Intrepid Heroes perch atop the hood of this week's crapped-out piece of automotive trash, where Darling Sammy listens patiently and indulgently to Dashing El Deano's heartfelt and lengthy paean to the marvels of American fast food until Dashing El Deano shoves an entire Taco Macho into his mouth. That's talent. Naturally, even though Dashing El Deano procured an entire bag of food for the boys to split, Darling Sammy does little more than sip on a cup of ice water because -- as always -- he's watching that girlish figure of his.
After a bit of this, Dean's cell phone bleats, and he answers to find a thirtysomething Ellen-alike named "Annie Hawkins" on the other end of the line, just now calling to offer Our Intrepid Heroes her condolences even though Bobby's been dead for nearly five months already. Going by the easy and affable tone of the conversation that follows, Annie and the boys are obviously old friends, though I'll be damned straight to Hell if I can remember anyone on this show mentioning her before this evening. In any event, Annie claims she's calling because she's got a stack of Dead Bobby's old books, and would Dashing El Deano be interested in acquiring them for his collection? "Sure," Dean replies. "Where you at?" "Bodega Bay," Annie replies, "at the Crow's Nest Inn." "You working?" Dean wonders. "Always," Annie smirks. "You guys anywhere nearby?" They're near enough, as Dean readily admits, so he and Annie agree to meet for lunch the following afternoon at a restaurant I intentionally mishear as "The Tides," just to keep the Hitchcock references going for a little bit longer. And with their plans thus made, Dean and Annie hang up on each other so we might jump ahead to...
...the dark and forbidding façade of a majestic yet run-down manor somewhere overgrown and spooky, and in case you were wondering, we last saw this majestic and spooky façade "five years ago when it was on the other side of the continent. Just pointing that out. Anyway, after lingering on the place's weed-choked front gate for a moment, the camera ducks inside, where it finds this evening's first two bits of Monster Chow gnawing on each other's' faces in what remains the decrepit old pile's main parlor. The trespassing teens break the lip-lock long enough for the female of the two to titter, "We shouldn't be here!" and then it's back to the macking while...
...Miss Annie swings her car into the manor's forecourt. The headlights rake across the abandoned home's front windows...
...alerting the fornicating adolescents inside to the impending arrival of an unwanted interloper, and as they snatch up their flashlights to flee...
...Miss Annie trains a flashlight of her own on the manor's enviable Art Nouveau doors. Meanwhile...
...the imperiled fornicators have reached the shadowy foyer in their frantic attempt to flee, but what's that? Their flashlights start buzzing and blinking and flickering on and off, seemingly of their own accord! DUN! And things only get worse when a mountain of a man unexpectedly materializes in silhouette at the far end of the hall. Dun-dun-DUN! "You shouldn't have come here!" the morbidly obese manifestation seethes, right before it comes barreling down that hallway to, um, tackle the imperiled fornicators to the floor? We'll go with that for the moment, I suppose, and as the female piece of Monster Chow grimaces and furrows and makes to scream her damn fool bleached-blonde head off...
...Miss Annie click-click-clicks her oddly demure heels into the dark and forbidding entranceway, her perilous path lit only by the bitty beam of light in her hand. Cobwebs abound. As do corpses, unsurprisingly enough, which Miss Annie discovers when her bitty beam hits the rapidly-cooling remains of this evening's first bits of Monster Chow, now littering the foyer floor. The filthy fornicators appear to have bled out through their mouths, for whatever that's worth, but that's not really important right now because what is important right now is the fact that Miss Annie's flashlight has also taken to buzzing and blinking and flickering on and off, and Dun-dun-Dun-dun-Dun-dun-DUN! Almost immediately, the manor's front door slams shut behind her, and just as Miss Annie realizes she's stumbled into some very deep shit, indeed, her woebegone face gets itself obliterated by tonight's...
...SNOT ROCKET! Not that you care, but Raoul The Big Gay Supernatural Dragon is still missing. Yes, I dutifully checked out the manicure palaces of Bay Ridge over the Easter weekend as promised, and no, I didn't find any trace of the dizzy lizard in any of those places, either. Sigh. I'm just leaving it all up to fate or The Dragon God or whatever now, as I've really run out of ideas. Poor Raoul.
Anyway, where was I? Oh, yes: Once the dripping is done, we fade up on the interior of The Tides to find Darling Sammy perusing the menu, even though we know he's just going to order a cup of hot water with a chicken bone in it and a bowl of salted ice cubes, while Dashing El Deano scans that morning's copy of The Santa Rosa Press Democrat to note that Richard Roman "is funding another archeological dig." "The guy moves more dirt than the Drudge Report," Dashing El Deano harrumphs, and thanks for the trenchant cultural reference from 1998, dude. After the two chit-chat about the news article for a bit, Darling Sammy checks his watch and frowns, "Annie's not usually this late, is she?" "Never," Dean grunts, and as he whips out his cell phone to give their tardy lunch date a buzz, Sam cocks one of his waspish eyebrows to smile, "You know she and Bobby had a thing, right?" Dean's eyes widen, so we know he's a LYING LIAR WHO LIES when he too-casually claims, "Yeah, I knew that," before going back to punching Annie's number into his phone. Then, unable to stop himself, he throws Sam A Look and squints, "Really?" "Kind of a foxhole thing," Sam dishes. "Very Hemingway." "Huh!" Dean replies, clearly surprised, and he takes another few moments before reluctantly admitting, "She and I kind of went Hemingway this one time, too." "That happens," Sam too-casually shrugs. And then he shoots Dean A Look of his own. "What, you too?" Dean yelps. "Look, it was a while back," Sam hastens to explain, "and we ended up on the same case, and she was stressed, and I... I didn't have a soul." That lucky bitch. I should hate her with all the burning passion of a fiery and entirely unreasonable Internet rage, but I've got to admit: Miss Annie has excellent taste. Well, except for that whole Bobby thing, of course, but we all have similarly regrettable experiences in our past, do we not? Also: You of course realize this means Miss Annie is dead, yes? I mean, given the way that opening sequence ended, and taking into consideration Sam's notorious track record as far as the dear boy's paramours are concerned, there's no way in hell she's still alive, right? Right. So, let's keep this moving, then, shall we?
Dean dryly observes that Miss Annie somehow managed to find herself in an awful lot of foxholes over the course of her storied career and, after Miss Annie fails to answer her phone, the boys toast to "ghosts that aren't there," with Dean lacing his restaurant coffee with a shot from Dead Bobby's ever-present flask. And as they slowly realize they're being stood up, Dead Bobby's ever-present flask creaks back and forth atop the tablecloth, seemingly of its own accord. DUN!
Bodega Bay Marina. Our Intrepid Heroes approach this week's crapped-out piece of automotive trash, fretting as one over Miss Annie's apparent disappearance, until Darling Sammy sees fit to suggest Dashing El Deano pack Dead Bobby's ever-present flask away for no other reason than to offer the camera a chance to swing back to the car's passenger seat and show us that Dead Bobby's been listening to their entire conversation. D'OH! Dead Bobby scowls, and with that, we're off to...
...Miss Annie's motel room, which Our Intrepid Heroes have broken into, though how they knew where she was staying, I'll never know. And while Sam and Dean riffle through Miss Annie's research on a series of mysterious disappearances tied to the "old Van Ness house" there in town, Dead Bobby complains, "Guys, I just made that curtain shimmy!" Of course, neither Sam nor Dean can hear him, so Dead Bobby makes a few more griping noises to himself while Our Intrepid Heroes decide to check out Stately Van Ness Manor on their own. Unfortunately, Dean exits Miss Annie's motel room with neither his jacket nor the flask, which naturally has the effect of stranding Dead Bobby where he stands. Fortunately, Dean quickly ducks back in to yank both jacket and flask out the door, and Dead Bobby buzzes and zots out to this week's crapped-out piece of automotive trash with a weary and sardonic, "Thank you!"
Stately Van Ness Manor. Our Intrepid Heroes perform a little flashlight-fu upon entering, but there's nary a trace of last night's dead fornicators to be found. The boys quickly pass through the foyer to investigate the further corners of the house, but something ominous stops Dead Bobby in his tracks, and we watch as he goggles and gapes at that certain ominous something for a bit until the camera flips around to reveal that the foyer and grand staircase are positively teeming with sullenly silent spectral apparitions -- representing a variety of past decades, if their clothes are anything to go by -- and DUN! Bobby gamely attempts to address his fellow earthbound spirits, despite the decidedly unfriendly death glares several of them shoot in his general direction, but it's all for naught, as not a single one of the surrounding apparitions bothers with a reply.
Elsewhere, Darling Sammy's trusty little EMF reader is going positively batshit with the VWEEEE-YORPing and such, and when Dashing El Deano again dials Miss Annie's number on his cell, ringing erupts from a room just down the hall. The boys of course find Miss Annie's phone lying in the dust atop the floorboards, and needless to say, things aren't looking so good for Miss Annie right about now. Though, you know, that's what she gets for banging Sam Winchester. You'd think word would have gotten around about him by now, wouldn't you?
Back in the haunted foyer, Dead Bobby watches as a tall, dark, and spectral Arrow Collar Man berates the fat guy from the pre-credits sequence. "I know what you did last night," The Arrow Collar Man seethes, "and you know it was forbidden! I don't brook that sort of thing in my home -- don't do it again, Dexter, or there will be consequences!" Dead Bobby goes, "Hmmm!" at all that, but before he gets a chance to do more, Our Intrepid Heroes return to blunder obliviously up the stairs, and then a female voice calls out, "Bobby?" Dead Bobby spins around to find himself face-to-face with Dead Annie, and I'm sorry, but Jamie Luner's ashy-pale ghost makeup is making her look exactly like Grandma Tzeitel here, and it's incredibly distracting. "A blessing on your head!" Grandma Tzeitel smiles. "I'm a doornail," Dead Bobby sighs by way of reply, "and if you can see me, you are too." Grandma Tzeitel's all, "Haaaaaah?" at that, and we enter this evening's first CHOMP!-less commercial break wondering if they're going to fix Jamie Luner's goddamned face before this goes any much further.
We return from the break to linger on the decaying façade of Stately Van Ness Manor for a moment before shunting ourselves inside, and no, they haven't fixed Jamie Luner's goddamned face yet. Though now the primary source of annoyance is the fact that her face doesn't match her neck, so at least I don't have to keep typing out "Grandma Tzeitel" over and over again for the rest of the recap. Dead Bobby and Dead Annie have retired to the crumbling manse's parlor for a chat about various post-death issues, and I gotta say, Jim Beaver and Jamie Luner seem to have an easygoing rapport with one another that makes the subsequent bout of expository blathering almost fun to listen to. There's still way too much of it to bother with a direct transcription, though, so here are the facts, such as they are: Dead Annie never saw a Reaper when she met her untimely end at the apparent hands of the pre-credits fat guy, so we know Something's Not Quite Right on the spectral plane in Stately Van Ness Manor. Also, while Dead Bobby's "seen poltergeists bench-press a piano as a warm-up," he still hasn't been able to "crack the code on any of it" -- referring, of course, to matters of ghastly physics and such -- and he confesses, "I tried to help the boys out once by knocking a book off a table, and I blacked out for two weeks." So, that means you missed the episode? Well, then: Fuck you, Dead Bobby, because that episode was a wretched piece of...oh, wait a minute. You totally helped them out during that one, didn't you? So, you're just LYING to all of us now? Well, fuck you very much for that, then, good sir. And are we done here? Good.
Elsewhere, Dashing El Deano hacks into Dead Annie's voicemail, and he and Darling Sammy listen to a haze of EVP left earlier in the week that sounds as if it's repeating "Free me!" over and over again. DUN!
Back in the parlor, Dead Bobby and Dead Annie watch as another ghost emerges through a wall to push a stool closer to the parlor's bar. This new gentleman then takes a seat and begins leafing through an actual book he somehow managed to drag through that wall with him because this stupid show sucks even when it's otherwise busy being surprisingly engaging and, after both Dead Bobby and Dead Annie marvel at the new gentleman's mad ghosting skillz for a bit, Dead Bobby attempts to overturn a trunk masquerading as a coffee table. Of course, he fails, and instead goes flying through the thing to end up on his hands and knees atop the moldering parlor carpet, much to the amusement of Dead Annie. The gentleman at the bar makes a snippy and coldly dismissive remark or two, but as he's the first of their fellow spirits to give them the time of day, Dead Bobby and Dead Annie promptly pepper him with questions about the place, which the snooty elder ghost just as promptly refuses to answer. He does allow, however, that his name is "Haskell Crane," and that he's been stuck in Stately Van Ness Manor ever since he was brutally stabbed to death in that very room on April 17, 1932. And then, well, you remember that scene in Ghost wherein the late Vincent Schiavelli taught the late Patrick Swayze how to litter in the subway? Same thing happens here. Like, the exact same thing happens here, to the point where even Dead Bobby feels the need to comment on how similar the sequences are, so I'll be skipping ahead to the bit where the tawdry and utterly uninteresting rip-off's interrupted by the sudden high-pitched shrieking of one of their fellow specters. Dead Bobby and Dead Annie whip around to watch as a disheveled woman clad in tattered rags unhinges her lower jaw to howl at the air for a moment until she shudder-zips across the room to burst into a cloud of unearthly dust right in front of their faces. "What in cold hell was that?" Dead Bobby grumps. "That's you, one day," Dead Haskell haughtily replies. "That's all of us," he goes on to admit, explaining that the phantoms of Stately Van Ness Manor "deteriorate at different rates." As if to back this assertion up, he directs their attention towards a century-old apparition who looks like rats have been chewing on her face for at least the last three decades, and great big ups to the makeup crew for that one. I haven't seen anything that disgusting on this show in months.
Anyway, with his purely expository purpose having thus been fully served for the evening, Dead Haskell wanders off, leaving more than enough room for Our Intrepid Heroes to bumble back into the parlor, where they proceed to chat uselessly at each other for a few very long moments, never once noticing the ghosts around them, including the sassy little flapper who's positioned herself right to Dead Bobby for whatever reason. I'm thinking it was probably a lot of fun to be an extra in this episode. I'm also thinking I wouldn't be surprised to learn that more than a few of them tried to steal their costumes when it was over. In any event, Dead Annie yells at Our Clueless Heroes for a bit, but they just go wandering off somewhere else, and it's at this point that Dead Bobby spots a fragile-looking lass peering intently at him from across the room. "Is it me," Dead Bobby wonders, "or am I being checked out?" "No, stud," Dead Annie realizes, "I'm being checked out." Bamp-chicka-wow-wow. Alas, there will be no hot ghost-on-ghost action this evening, for the fragile-looking lass is simply seeking their assistance. In fact, it was this long-dead "Victoria" person who left that frantic haze of EVP on Dead Annie's voicemail earlier in the week. Polite introductions are made, after which Dead Annie asks of Dead Victoria, "So, what exactly did you mean when you said, 'Free me'? Free you from what?" Unfortunately, before Dead Victoria can provide them with an answer, Dead Bobby suddenly buzzes and zots on out of there, because...
...Our Intrepid Heroes have returned to this week's crapped-out piece of automotive trash, and ghosts like Dead Bobby can't be too far away from the objects they've linked themselves to. Which is a fact I'm thinking will become important later, because otherwise, why bother reminding us of it here, right? Right. Anyway, in spite of Dead Bobby's loud and repeated objections, Our Intrepid Heroes decide to backtrack their way through Dead Annie's research, and with that, Dean keys the ignition, and the boys plus Dead Bobby motor on over to...
...The Bodega Bay Historical Society, where Our Intrepid Heroes find themselves on the receiving end of a lengthy and fact-filled lecture regarding the origins of Stately Van Ness Manor from an exceedingly helpful albeit somewhat supercilious docent while Dead Bobby tries and fails to knock a nearby lantern off its hook. And I totally didn't notice this when this episode originally aired, but because of Dead Bobby's spectral presence in the room, the supercilious docent's breath becomes visible at several points during the scene. Which, you know, you'd think would trigger some sort of reaction from Sam and Dean, but this is apparently one of those weeks where Our Intrepid Heroes decide to be total fucking idiots for the entire hour, so the visible streams of air shooting from the supercilious docent's mouth remain unremarked-upon, allowing us all to focus on the origins of Stately Van Ness Manor instead. Long story short, the house was built by a forty-niner who made a fortune during The Gold Rush, and it eventually passed into the hands of that gentleman's son, "Whitman Van Ness," who also happens to be the tall, dark, and spectral Arrow Collar Man from a couple of scenes ago, as we can see from a portrait on one of the society's walls. The fat guy from the pre-credits sequence is "Dexter O'Connell," an ex-con Whitman Van Ness hired as a groundskeeper and who later was convicted of murdering Whitman's fiancée the night before they were to be wed. Whitman Van Ness retreated into isolation after the death of his intended, losing the family's fortune in the process, and Stately Van Ness Manor ended up functioning as a high-end whorehouse for a few years before being boarded up for good. Got all that? Good. And when the boys are about to take their leave, the somewhat supercilious docent issues the following warning: "Stay away from the place. It's extremely unsafe." Our Intrepid Idiots are all, "Righty-o!" and with that, they retire to...
...Dead Annie's motel room, where Dashing El Deano showers while Darling Sammy reads various factoids aloud to him from Dead Annie's research. Meanwhile, Dead Bobby tries and fails to push some loose change across the table, grumbling to himself the entire time. The additional details Darling Sammy dredges up aren't particularly interesting -- Fat Dexter also snuffed a couple of the bordello's hookers before getting himself shot to death inside the manor -- and you know they aren't going to push the camera inside the shower so we can sneak a peek at Wet Dean, so the focus of the scene of course falls onto Dead Bobby, who huffs and gruffs his way through a couple of unimportant lines of dialogue before stumbling across a cunning plan. He darts into the bathroom, stares at the fogged-up mirror for a bit, steels his resolve, and...
...crap! I totally forgot about this bit. We've cut back over to Stately Van Ness Manor, where two probably-gay dolts with a digital video camera try to bore us to death until we...
...shoot back to Dead Annie's motel room, where Dean emerges from his refreshing shower to find the following scrawled across that fogged-up mirror: "Annie trapped in House." Dun-dun-DUN! Well, for Our Intrepid Idiots, at any rate.
Meanwhile, back at Stately Van Ness Manor, The Probable Gays have forced their way into the foyer, where they proceed to bore us some more until...
...oh, for Christ's sake, would you please knock it off with this fucking back-and-forth already? We know Dead Bobby wrote the message on the mirror, and we know The Probable Gays are gonna bite it, so just fucking get to the goddamned point already, okay? Jesus! GAH! ANY-way, Dean calls out, "Who's there?" so the momentarily invisible Dead Bobby twists open the hot tap in the sink to fog up the mirror again, after which he scrawls out a "B," followed by an "O." "Bobby?" Dean bleats. YES.
SHIT! Stately Van Ness Manor. The Probable Gays get all jumpy when a sudden noise startles them.
Dead Annie's Motel Room. Our Intrepid Idiots babble stupidly amongst themselves until Darling Sammy somehow makes the connection between the flask and The Spectral Presence Of Bobby Singer. "We got to get back to that house!" Dean barks.
That House. Dead Dexter waddles on up to The Probable Gays, yelling, "You shouldn't have come here!" the entire time until Dead Whitman materializes to block The Probable Gays' screaming exit from the manor. And, after Dead Whitman again chides Dead Dexter for disobeying his orders, Dead Whitman rams his spectral fists into The Probable Gays' chests! DUN! From her nearby hiding place, Dead Annie watches on in silent horror as The Probable Gays shudder and jerk and hack up gouts of blood until they finally drop to the floor, never to annoy us again. Hooray! Dead Whitman then excoriates Dead Dexter for trying to warn his latest victims away, and when Dead Dexter turns to leave, petulantly claiming, "I can't watch this happen all over again!" Dead Whitman zips over to ram his spectral fist into Dead Dexter's incorporeal chest. For some bizarre reason, this makes Dead Dexter erupt into a cloud of glowy, golden...uh... ectoplasm, I guess? And in a very nice effects shot, indeed, that glowy, golden cloud of whatever first twines itself around Dead Whitman's arm before vanishing entirely into his body. I don't know what the hell just happened, here, and I'm almost positive we never get a satisfactory explanation for it before the evening ends, but it sure was pretty to look at. And when it's over, Dead Annie cowers in her shadowy corner of the foyer for a moment until she disappears into this evening's CHOMP!-less commercial break.
Stately Van Ness Manor. Aftermath. The rapidly-cooling remains of The Probable Gays litter the foyer floor, with one of the fresh corpses still clinging to that digital video camera. Dead Annie hustles on over to pull the thing from the corpse's clammy hand, but alas! Her mad ghosting skillz are still not what they should be, so it's a very good thing, indeed, that Dead Victoria decides to make a reappearance at this point. Unfortunately for Dead Annie, though, Dead Victoria flat-out refuses to "meddle in Whitman's affairs," lest what happened to Dead Dexter happen to her, as well. And just what did happen to Dead Dexter, anyway? Like I said, no satisfactory explanation, here, just some vague chatter about Dead Whitman "draining" Dead Dexter, with Dead Dexter going "poof" "forever." I'd call it infuriating, but to be honest with you, I really don't care at this point. In any event, Dead Victoria does provide some explicit confirmation of what I'm assuming you've already guessed -- that it was Whitman Van Ness who killed all those hookers and the never-named fiancée before murdering Fat Dexter as well -- so that's nice, I suppose. Dead Victoria herself was one of the "fancy ladies" who got their throats slit during the manor's bordello days, and she also confirms that Dead Whitman's own untimely demise in 1935 hasn't prevented him from offing and trapping people there ever since. And just where, Dead Annie wonders, is Dead Whitman storing all the corpses? After all, he couldn't possibly maintain control over his unwilling houseguests unless their earthly remains were squirreled away somewhere on the premises, right? Dead Victoria doesn't have an answer for that one, as she and the others avoid Dead Whitman as much as they possibly can. Eventually, Dead Annie convinces Dead Victoria to slide the digital video camera off of the fresh gay corpse's hand, but the instant she's done so, a noise sets her to fleeing, leaving Dead Annie to scuttle back to her shadowy hiding place alone, where she cowers in the dark as Dead Whitman arrives to drag the fresh gay corpses over to...
...a super-secret passageway? Hidden behind a swinging bookcase? That's opened by yanking down on a wall sconce? Oh, blow it out your ass, Supernatural. Though it does remind me of this rather amusing scene for what I hope are obvious reasons, so maybe it's not a total loss.
Meanwhile, out in the forecourt, Our Intrepid Idiots lug various implements of ghastly destruction from the relatively shallow trunk of this week's crapped-out piece of automotive trash while growling a variety of colorful threats and such. Once they consider themselves well and truly armed, they march up the manor's front steps to commence with the flashlight-fu and the Tough Guy Jazz Hands through the manor's foyer until they stupidly decide to split up, with Dimwit Sammy heading upstairs while Dumbass El Deano remains on the ground floor. Before Dumbass El Deano wanders off on his lonesome, however, Sly Dead Bobby makes use of his newfound mad ghosting skillz to remove the flask from Dean's jacket pocket, so he doesn't end up getting hauled away against his will again. Yeah, sure, that makes sense. Whatever.
Eventually, Dead Victoria boots the fresh gay corpses' digital video camera over to Dean's feet, and as she, Dead Annie, and Dead Bobby look on from the sidelines, Dean calls Sam back downstairs so they can examine the footage together. As it happens, the camera picked up a quick shot of Dead Annie's face, so the boys start calling out for her again while Dead Annie argues with a still-vacillating Dead Victoria until the latter finally agrees to manifest herself to Our Intrepid Idiots. Chatter ensues, with Dead Victoria bringing Sam and Dean up to speed on what we few in this wretched husk of a show's rapidly-dwindling audience already know about Whitman Van Ness. Dead Whitman himself eavesdrops on the conversation from above for a little bit until he snarls and zaps himself elsewhere, and almost immediately upon his departure from the scene, Dead Victoria unhinges her lower jaw to let loose with a mighty wail. And as Our Intrepid Idiots gape and goggle like the useless fools they are this evening, Dead Victoria vanishes in a veil of flame. D'OH!
When the screaming is done, Our Intrepid Idiots bang their empty heads together for a couple of minutes until they finally decide to desecrate Whitman Van Ness's grave. Rather than killing them on the spot, which any sane person would expect him to do at this moment, Dead Whitman instead slips a skeleton key into Dimwit Sammy's pocket, and here's what I don't understand: If Dead Whitman has a grave that can still be desecrated -- and he does -- then why is he tied to some rando skeleton key back at Stately Van Ness Manor? Since he wasn't cremated back in 1935, wouldn't he be able to move from spot to spot on his own volition, like all of the other free-range ghosts we've seen on this show in the past? Margaret Fox, to cite just one recent example, was able to terrorize an entire town from beyond her grave, even while her bones were getting boned by that thrift-shop sicko, so what the hell is going on here tonight?
Oh, whatever. It's just one more piece of utter stupidity in a season that's been full of them, and I'm gonna let it slide, because this episode has been pretty damn entertaining so far. In any event, as Dead Bobby and Dead Annie look on, aghast, Dead Whitman buzzes and zots on out of the foyer to join Our Intrepid Idiots in this week's crapped-out piece of automotive trash, and as Oblivious El Deano steers the car out into this evening's CHOMP!-less commercial break, Dead Whitman gifts us all with one extremely wicked grin. DUN!
Stately Van Ness Manor. Aftermath. Dead Bobby beats himself up for a little while over stranding himself there in the manor until Dead Annie figuratively slaps him in the teeth and tells him to get over it. With Dead Whitman gone, she points out, they now have an opportunity to search the entire house, including the one room Dead Whitman normally "guards like Fort Knox." They pass through the locked door of said room to find themselves in a tastefully-appointed den, and they eventually make their way over to the fireplace, where the scorched bones of Dead Victoria still blaze merrily in the hearth. "That's how he took her out," super-smart Dead Annie instantly realizes, which leads to yet another discussion regarding the current location of everybody's remains, which leads to yet another discussion regarding the manor's past incarnations. In addition to housing a brothel, Dead Annie relates, Stately Van Ness Manor also functioned as a boarding house, a school and a speakeasy at various points in its sordid past, and goddamn, but there's got to be a hell of a lot of bodies tucked away in Dead Whitman's super-secret passageway by now. Dead Bobby picks up on the "speakeasy" thing, notes that speakeasies tended to have a variety of super-secret passageways at their disposal for the expected reasons and begins feeling around the mantel until he chances upon Dead Whitman's magical wall sconce. Deploying his newfound mad ghosting skillz, Dead Bobby yanks the thing down, and he and Dead Annie bounce into Dead Whitman's super-secret passageway to find -- among other things in various states of decay -- Dead Annie's corpse propped against the wall. Dead Annie ponders her rather photogenic earthly remains for second or so, then thinks to ask an excellent question regarding the ultimate disposition of spirits who get themselves "ghost-killed," as Dean put it earlier in the episode. Dead Bobby supposes they just vanish for good -- no Heaven, no Hell, just gone. Dead Annie agrees, but as neither of them know for certain, I wouldn't take their musings here as the last word on the matter. Especially because I'm all but certain the unquiet spirits of the world's human dead are going to figure prominently in the Leviathans' defeat during this season's finale.
In any event, Dead Annie plainly states that she'd like to have her rather photogenic corpse salted and burned as quickly as possible, thank you very much, regardless of the consequences, as being stuck in Stately Van Ness Manor until she deteriorates into insanity is not really her idea of a good time. And here's another thing I don't understand: With his newfound mad ghosting skillz, Dead Bobby could torch Stately Van Ness Manor and all the corpses therein right now -- after first removing his special flask from the premises, of course -- so what the hell is he waiting for? No, I don't really care about the answer to that one at this point, either, but I just thought I'd ask.
This Week's Crapped-Out Piece Of Automotive Trash. Invisible Dead Whitman stomps his foot down on the gas pedal, then manifests himself in a somewhat successful attempt to scare the living shit out of Our Intrepid Idiots while he twists and wrenches at the steering wheel, but as this seems like an unnecessarily complicated way for him to kill them when he could have just rammed his spectral fists into their chests back at Stately Van Ness Manor, I'll be skipping ahead to the bit where Dumbass El Deano somehow manages to regain control of this week's crapped-out piece of automotive trash, after which he and Dimwit Sammy hop out, quickly locate that rando skeleton key, and -- get this -- shoot it with bullets until it's dead. Kick ass. For whatever reason, shooting the rando skeleton key with bullets until it's dead sends Dead Whitman shrieking back to Stately Van Ness Manor, so Our Intrepid Idiots proceed to The Bodega Bay Cemetery, where they commence with the desecration of Whitman Van Ness's grave.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Dead Bobby and Dead Annie escape from that tastefully-appointed den mere seconds before Dead Whitman charges into the room. Though, you know, why Dead Whitman bothered to walk all the way up there from the foyer below when he could have just zotted himself...you know what? Fuck it.
Bodega Bay Cemetery. The desecration continues apace.
Stately Van Ness Manor. Dead Whitman zots himself back down to the foyer to make psychotic noises at Dead Bobby and Dead Annie until he rams his spectral fist into Dead Bobby's incorporeal chest. DUN!
Bodega Bay Cemetery. The desecration is complete.
Stately Van Ness Manor. Perhaps significantly, Dead Whitman shouts, "I will not be taken!" before howling and wailing and blazing his merry way on off to wherever the hell dead ghosts go on this show and, the instant his connection with Dead Bobby is broken, the ghastly hairball collapses to the foyer carpet, unconscious.
Bodega Bay Cemetery. Our Intrepid Idiots stand around looking pretty while what's left of Whitman Van Ness turns to ash in its coffin.
Stately Van Ness Manor. Dead Bobby awakens just as Sam and Dean return and, much to everybody's surprise, Our Intrepid Idiots can actually see him now. Before anyone can do anything about it, though, they all get knocked into this evening's final CHOMP!-less commercial break.
Stately Van Ness Manor. Immediate aftermath. And let's start wrapping this up, shall we? What follows here is, quite honestly, a nicely-played little reunion scene between Dead Bobby and Our Intrepid Idiots, after which Dead Bobby leads the boys upstairs to commence with the mass cremation of Whitman Van Ness's multitudinous victims, but because they say nothing to each other that's of relevance to any of the plotlines this show's got going at the moment, I'll be skipping ahead to...
...the scene, where the boys plus Dead Bobby gather around this week's crapped-out piece of automotive trash to make with a few sad faces regarding Dead Annie's off-screen immolation, after which Dumbass El Deano castigates Dead Bobby for dodging his Reaper and remaining earth-adjacent for the last five months. Fortunately enough, Dead Bobby bails on the whole thing by blinking out long before Dumbass El Deano's obnoxious little speech manages to kill the goodwill I'm feeling for tonight's presentation, and after I ignore the few stray bits of similarly-annoying dialogue that follow, we finally fade to black.
week: Leviathans! Lesbians! Some other episode-appropriate word that starts with L to comply with The Rule Of Three! Have fun!
Demian somehow neglected to mention how attractive Antonio Cupo is. Raoul remains at large. You may reach the former at demian_twop@yahoo.com. The latter is an imaginary gay dragon on the Internet who vanished without a trace way back in mid-January.
...the scene, where the boys plus Dead Bobby gather around this week's crapped-out piece of automotive trash to make with a few sad faces regarding Dead Annie's off-screen immolation, after which Dumbass El Deano castigates Dead Bobby for dodging his Reaper and remaining earth-adjacent for the last five months. Fortunately enough, Dead Bobby bails on the whole thing by blinking out long before Dumbass El Deano's obnoxious little speech manages to kill the goodwill I'm feeling for tonight's presentation, and after I ignore the few stray bits of similarly-annoying dialogue that follow, we finally fade to black.
week: Leviathans! Lesbians! Some other episode-appropriate word that starts with L to comply with The Rule Of Three! Have fun!
Demian somehow neglected to mention how attractive Antonio Cupo is. Raoul remains at large. You may reach the former at demian_twop@yahoo.com. The latter is an imaginary gay dragon on the Internet who vanished without a trace way back in mid-January.