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Castiel, slumming it on Earth while he's avoiding Heaven, decides to become a hunter like his buddies Sam and Dean. The brothers are a bit surprised, but amenable to the idea, as long as Castiel accompanies them in the Impala instead of magically flitting his way to the crime scene. Sadly, Castiel is not allowed to ride shotgun and must remain in the backseat like a little kid. For his first act as a hunter, he finds a case involving a man's heart literally leaping out of his body while he was meeting his mistress. At first the guys suspect the man's wife is a witch or something of that sort, but she and her late hubs had an open marriage and she wasn't jealous in the least. A little more digging uncovers another series of victims, including someone who gets squashed by a giant anvil. Is it a hapless viewer of this show? No, it's a bank security guard, killed in the line of duty.
The guys also notice that there are black circles painted into the bank walls and vault. They eventually come to the conclusion that the crimes seem to be something out of a cartoon. They trace down some of the theft victims to a nursing home. Most of the residents are so far gone that they don't even realize someone's been stealing from them. Even Castiel's adorable questioning of the nursing home's cat provides no leads. Then, by some coincidence, Sam recognizes one of the residents as their old friend Frank. Frank had psychokinetic powers back in the day, but now he's mostly just trapped in his own head, staring at cartoons all day and avoiding reality.
The Winchesters and their plus-one realize that the slimy nursing home director is using Frank and his cartoon fantasies to break into banks. Unfortunately, Frank is still powerful enough that a "bubble" of animated weirdness surrounds him and affects unintended targets. Castiel takes Sam into Frank's mind to ask him for his help. Frank snaps back to reality long enough to thwart the director, but he's worried that he'll hurt someone again when his dementia inevitably takes hold again. Castiel heals him -- sort of -- and while the act leaves Frank at peace, it also leaves him a shell of his former self. Castiel decides to stay with Frank for a bit, to watch over him.
In other subplots, we learn that the reason that Castiel is avoiding Heaven is that he's really super ashamed of all the awful things he did up there. He's been running away from his problems by playing at hunting. If there's one thing the show loves more than two parallels, it's three parallels, so we also get flashbacks to Sam and Amelia. The budding couple are also running away from their problems by playing at having a relationship. Amelia's father comes for a visit and acts like a jerk to Sam. They eventually start to get along... just in time for Amelia to get a phone call telling her that her dead husband Don isn't actually dead. Angels may or may not be responsible. It should probably be moving or at least make one feel sorry for Sam, but it's all too hilariously awful and predictable, not to mention not particularly well-acted. Stay tuned for the full recap.
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Want more? The full recap starts right below!THEN! Sam met a cranky lady vet named Amelia. They eventually bonded over the fact that they were both all alone in the world. Amelia revealed that her idea of pillow talk involved discussions of her dead husband. Dean thought he was hallucinating because he kept seeing Castiel everywhere. Then it turned out that Castiel was real, even if his terrible beard wasn't. Castiel tried to assuage Dean's feelings of guilt over the whole Purgatory escape because it turned out that Castiel actually wanted to stay there. He was still feeling pretty bad about messing up Heaven and Earth during his stint as God. Dean was glad to have his own personal angel back, even though he was a bit wary because Castiel couldn't remember how he managed to make it out. Unbeknownst to Castiel, a mysterious being named Naomi sent many doomed angels to rescue him. To repay her, he's going to become her little sleeper agent angel, reporting in to her when she summons him. Naomi must be crazy powerful, because she can wipe his memory and leave him completely unaware of their secret meetings.
NOW! We start off in a sunny park in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. For a few moments, it seems someone has spliced in a segment from Cheaters. The camera focuses on a man's wedding band as he texts something on his phone. He looks vaguely like Dillon Casey. He fiddles with his ring and looks worried. A few moments later, a young woman with long, reddish hair walks up to him. "Gary," she says by way of greeting. He's positively giddy to see her. "Olivia! After last time, I didn't think you'd come," he says. They smile at each other and make with the moon eyes. As Olivia reaches for Gary's hands, she hears a thumping sound. "Do you hear that?" she asks. "Is that... is that you?" The thumping grows louder, quicker. Gary doesn't have long to wonder what's going on before something in his chest crackles and crunches. He groans in pain and staggers back. He pulls open his shirt, revealing that his heart is quite literally trying to leap out of his chest. The heart, rather than being anatomically correct, is stylistic -- like a Valentine's Day candy box. It strains against Gary's flesh and then, with one final crunch of its bony prison, explodes all over a screaming Olivia. She looks like Carrie at the end of the prom. Meaty chunks of Gary dribble off the front of her dress and into the fiery explosion of the title card.
We join the Winchesters at a random gas station, somewhere between their last case and their . Sam talks to Mama Tran on his phone while Dean fetches two beers. Castiel leans against the side of the Impala, deep in thought as he reads a newspaper. Sam gets one of the beers; the angel does not. Sam, desperate to end his conversation with Mama Tran, hands off the phone to Dean. Dean looks not at all amused by this. "Mrs. Tran, yeah, hi," Dean says into the phone before hanging up. "Tunnel," he deadpans and tosses the phone back to Sam. Sam fills him in on what's going on with the Trans. Kevin hasn't had much luck reading his half of the tablet and Garth has them stashed away on his houseboat. Does saltwater deter demons like regular old dry salt? If so, then it's a rather ingenious place for a hideout. If not, then it seems kind of silly and dangerous. At least they don't have any vampirates to watch out for anymore.
Dean turns his attention to Castiel. "What's the word, Cass?" he asks. "It's a shortened version of my name," Castiel grumps. I may or may not be projecting my own dislike of the diminutive just a bit. "I mean," Dean begins again, "what's the word on the Word?" Castiel admits he has no idea, because he's tuned out Heaven. He offers to draw the confused boys a diagram of the subsonic frequencies involved, but they decline because they are no fun. Seriously, how great would it be to have a whole scene of Professor Castiel trying to explain the science of Angel Radio while the Winchesters' brains turn to goo? "I don't want anything to do with that place," Castiel says of his former home. Dean thinks about this for a moment and asks, "So, what now? Move to Vermont? Open up a charming B&B?" Is... that an invitation? Because I would watch the hell out of a Dean & Castiel version of Fawlty Towers. Alas, Castiel has other plans: "I'm gonna become a hunter!" He is extremely pleased with himself for coming up with this idea, and beams a big, crinkly smile at the brothers. "I can be your third wheel," he goes on, undeterred when Dean tries to explain to him that's not exactly a good thing. He's picturing some kind of stabilizing, additional wheel, as if the Winchesters are a cohesive bicycle instead of something more like diverging unicycles being piloted by bitter, angry bears.
"I even found a case," Castiel goes on when the brothers continue to be incredulous. He tells them about the guy with the heart in Oklahoma. "Sounds like our kind of thing, right?" Castiel is trying very hard to sound like one of them. Dean is too stunned to react. It's Sam who finally has to admit the angel has a point. "I'll meet you there," Castiel says, intending to flit off angelically. Dean calls him back, telling him if he wants to be a hunter, he has to stick with them. "None of this zapping around crap. Capiche?" Castiel looks like a kid who's just been told he has to eat all his vegetables. "Yeah, I capiche," he pouts. He asks if he can at least ride up front, but Sam has, like, permanent shotgun privileges.
Sadly, we are not privy to what sorts of road trip games may have transpired, because the scene has us arriving at the morgue in Oklahoma City. A detective fills them in on Gary's case: "Coroner said his heart was ejected from his body. Got some air, too -- found it in a sandbox." She says they suspect an "assload of drugs" was involved. Castiel whispers to Dean that there are no narcotics in Gary's system. (He can see things on a molecular level, apparently.) The detective shows them the heart-shaped hole in Gary's chest. It's fairly small and tidy, considering how much goop exploded out of him and onto his lady friend. It was Olivia who called the police after Gary exploded. As the detective heads out, Dean asks her to call them if she sees anything else weird.
Castiel has the sense to wait until the detective is gone before he starts sniffing the corpse. He's not picking up any unusual EMF or traces of sulfur. He leans over to take a few more sniffs. "He did recently suffer from a mild -- what is that? -- bladder infection," he says. "Cass, stop smelling the dead guy," Dean says. Sam, going over Olivia's report, realizes that she and Gary were having an affair. Her account of how they met every Thursday for lunch sounds a little too rehearsed. Dean and Sam think they spent their time at a motel near the park. Castiel listens in befuddlement as the Winchesters pick apart the details of the case and come to the conclusion that Gary's wife probably found out about the affair and decided to get her revenge. "Sounds witchy," Sam says. Dean agrees. "Guy was living a lie and it came back to bite him in the ticker," he says. "But nice job on that bladder infection," he says to Castiel.
For some reason, the words "bladder infection" lead Sam into a flashback about Amelia. There's a hazy, gauzy filter in these scenes that's probably supposed to invoke a dreamlike quality, but looks more like the director thinks he's shooting a White Diamonds commercial. He and Amelia have apparently just moved into their house and Sam is unpacking all her things. He comes across her wedding album. "Amelia and Don Forever," says the cover. The dog, sitting to him, is avidly paying attention to something or someone behind the camera because even he is already bored with this flashback. Amelia walks into the room before Sam can take a look inside the album. "He said he'd be here by five," she says. Maybe he -- whoever he is -- can't find the house amid all the copious haze. "Deep breath," Sam tells her. "It's gonna be okay." Amelia seems nervous or annoyed. It's hard to tell, because she's kind of always the same. "He's gonna think we're moving too fast," she says. "Are we moving too fast?" Sam takes a deep breath and decides to say, "We're making up for lost time." He bends way, way down to give her a kiss.
A knock comes at the door. "Don't talk politics," Amelia reminds Sam. "Don't say anything bad about the Cowboys, and whatever you do, don't use the words 'moist' or 'irregardless.'" With this warning firmly in place, she throws open the door. There's a 50-something guy in a plaid shirt. "Hi, Dad!" They laugh and hug and he scoops her up off the ground. So, when Sam talked about her having "no one at all," she just, what, forgot about her dad? "So, who's this handsome fella?" her dad asks. Sam smiles goofily, like, "Yay! He thinks I'm handsome!" But, of course, he's talking about the dog, on whom he lavishes lots of cooing and belly rubs while Sam stands around looking awkward. "Stan Thompson, this is Sam Winchester," Amelia says. It seems a bit odd that he'd use his real name, doesn't it? A casual Googling would turn up some very interesting tidbits from his past. Anyway, Stan and Sam shake hands and Stan seems kind of friendly on the surface, but he's also sizing up his daughter's boyfriend. (It takes a while because Sam is 15 feet tall.) Then he starts in with the passive-aggressive critiques, like saying the lawn needs mowing and needling Sam about his motel job. He thinks it's weird that a guy who went to Stanford is a maintenance man. When Amelia goes to fetch them drinks, Sam is left to squirm under Stan's judgmental scrutiny all alone.
The fog lifts and we return to the present day. Dean interviews Gary's widow at her home. Or, rather, he tries to interview her, but Castiel interrupts. "I'll handle this," he says to Dean. "I've done research. I can crack her." Donning his best Lieutenant Columbo voice, he turns his attention to the crying woman. "Now, Miss Freeling, I don't wanna bother you, I really don't, but I do have just one question for you." He's got the bumbling politeness down pat, but then, without warning, he slaps the table and explodes, "WHY DID YOU KILL YOUR HUSBAND?!" Sam, Dean and the widow all jump back. Dean pulls him aside. "Agent Stills, may I have a word with you?" Now that they're a threesome, they've decided to call themselves Agents Crosby, Stills and Nash, like nobody is going to think that's a little bit odd. "I was being 'bad cop,'" Castiel whispers to Dean, delighted with himself. "You were being bad everything," Dean tells him. Sam takes over the interview. He tries to ask if Gary was having an affair without saying those exact words. His subtlety is all for naught, though, as Olivia arrives at that moment and Castiel blurts out that Gary was sleeping with her. This is not a surprise to the widow. "Gary and I, we had an arrangement," she says. "He was seeing Olivia and I was spending some time with our neighbor P.J." Castiel is rather puzzled by it all, but Dean pronounces the widow the "best wife ever!" "But what killed her husband?" Castiel muses. Dean smirks. "Who gives a -- "
The expletive that would have completed his thought is bleeped out by a car horn as we cut to a rooftop elsewhere in town. A man stands at the edge, staring down at the traffic far below. He sobs, takes a deep breath, and closes his eyes. He steps off the roof... and remains suspended in midair. He opens his eyes, shocked at this odd turn in gravitational forces. "It's a miracle!" he cries. "God wants me to live!" He whoops and hollers and then stands there laughing instead of stepping back onto the roof. With a gasp, he plummets to the street. A moment later, there's a crunching of metal and glass and the chirping of a car alarm.
Crosby, Stills and Nash go to investigate the latest scene of weirdness, having been called by the detective they met earlier. She tells them that witnesses saw the jumper hovering for a good ten seconds before he finally fell. Dean realizes it sounds like something out of a cartoon. The Winchesters and Castiel convene for a huddle. "The heart jumping out of the guy's chest, the delayed fall? That's straight-up Bugs Bunny," Dean says. Castiel listens to this and then very seriously asks, "So we're looking for some sort of insect-rabbit hybrid? How do we kill it?" For some reason, even though Castiel is a big fan of TV, he has no familiarity with cartoons at all. Dean tries to explain the hilarity of animated coyotes and roadrunners, but the angel isn't getting it.
So his task is to watch cartoons in the Winchesters' motel room of the week. It's kind of cute that he uses a remote control instead of his mojo. Perhaps that, too, was a condition of his new role as third wheel. "I understand," Castiel says with a chuckle as he clicks off the TV. "The bird represents God and the coyote is Man, endlessly chasing the divine and yet never able to catch him. It's hilarious!" Sam and Dean look at him, but have nothing to say to his analysis.
Instead, they turn to their research. So far, they can't find a connection between the victims and they don't know who or what is responsible. Dean guesses maybe a tulpa or a god who likes cartoons. Meanwhile, Castiel is in the background, inspecting the contents of one brother's luggage. (Castiel has no need for luggage, since he can just magically groom himself.) Dean gives up for the night. "Cass, you gonna book a room or what?" he asks. "No, I'll stay here," Castiel says, as he picks through a bag of toiletries like it's an archaeological dig. "Oh, okay, we'll have a slumber party and braid Sam's hair," Dean snarks. Well, it is a two man job. Castiel offers to watch over Dean while he sleeps, but for some odd reason, Dean doesn't find that thought appealing. Suddenly, Castiel raises a hand to his temple. He may have tuned out Angel Radio, but he can still pick up police band chatter. "A bank has been robbed," he says. He listens a bit more. "It sounds Looney." "Define 'Looney,'" Dean says.
Instead of a definition, we cut to the bank, where a giant anvil rests atop a heap of gooey red innards. "That's Looney, all right," Sam says. In the background, Castiel fiddles with a bank card reader. "Who's the pancake?" Dean asks. The detective tells them it was the security guard. "It looks like the Black Hole was trying to jimmy open the safe when Mr. Rent-a-Cop found him," she says. "Black Hole" is the robber's nickname because of the black circles he paints on the walls of all the banks he hits. The detective thinks it's the criminal's way of signing his work, but Crosby, Stills and Nash know better. Sam heads off with the detective to get files on the robber's other crimes. Dean asks Castiel to lift up the anvil as soon as they have the crime scene to themselves. Castiel's face goes "hmph," but he refrains from pointing out Dean's inconsistencies regarding the use of angelic powers. He upends the anvil with only a slight grunt of effort. Dean sees something peeking out from beneath the security guard's gooey remains. "X marks the spot," he says. "Whoever's doing this is playing by cartoon rules." Dean explains to Castiel about the heart and anvils and so forth, then figures that the thief is using the painted circles like doors to get in and out of the banks. Castiel feels around the circle, but it's solid wall under the paint. Whatever magic the circles may have possessed is gone now.
Dean and Castiel return to the motel room to do more research. Castiel goes through John Winchester's old notebook. "Your father had beautiful handwriting," he says. (Perhaps I wrongly attributed John's nice handwriting to Bobby a couple episodes back.) Dean looks over at his friend for a bit. "How you feeling, Cass?" he asks. "Fine," Castiel says, still flipping through the notebook. Dean tries to get him to talk about his post-Purgatory feelings. He suggests he go back to Heaven for answers, but Castiel refuses. Dean keeps pressing him until Castiel angrily cuts him off. "Dean! I said no." If Dean were talking to Sam, this is the point where things would rapidly deteriorate into accusations and pouting and contests to see whose feelings can be hurt the most. But luckily, this isn't a Sam and Dean scene, so Dean sits down across from his friend and says, with gentle concern, "Talk to me."
Castiel responds to this by calming down and confessing his great shame. "I caused a lot of suffering on Earth," he says, "but I devastated Heaven -- I vaporized thousands of my own kind." "I can't go back," he adds. "Because the angels will kill you?" Dean asks. "Because," Castiel says, "if I see what Heaven has become, what I made of it, I'm afraid I might kill myself." Dean looks at Castiel as he finally fully realizes the full expanse of Castiel's guilt. Guilt is something Dean can understand.
Unfortunately, Sam chooses this moment to return from the police station, cutting short their conversation. Castiel is all too eager to get back to work on the case. Dean lingers for a bit, looking sadder than he has for a long time, which is kind of saying something. Sam tells them that the "Black Hole" thief's crimes seem to happen at the same time and near the same place as all the cartoonish deaths. Sam pulls out a map with the locations all circled. He also checked around and found people had reported other craziness: "Like a jogger bumping his head and sprouting a four-inch bump, or a kid walking into a wall and hearing birdies." There seems to be a 50-yard circle of weirdness around the thief that lasts a few minutes. Sam has also learned that the theft victims -- from the safe deposit boxes in the bank to various houses -- all live at the Sunset Fields Retirement Home. "All right, let's gear up," Dean says. "It's wabbit season!" Castiel leans towards him and whispers, "I don't think you pronounced that correctly." Heh.
They head on over the retirement home, where Dean acts all creeped out by the presence of old folks, apparently having forgotten he used to be one of them. A guy in a suit and glasses walks up to them and introduces himself as the thief they're looking for. He doesn't, really, but it's plainly obvious to anyone who's watched more than ten minutes of television in their lives that he's the bad guy. He actually introduces himself as Dr. Dwight Mahoney and says he runs the place. Sam and Dean flash their FBI badges while Castiel pats down his own coat pockets and comes up empty. They head off to question the residents. "No flirting, you two," Dean says to Sam and Dean. Castiel looks ever so slightly confused. Perhaps he's wondering if they're not meant to flirt with the residents or with each other.
First up for questioning is a cute little lady with rosy cheeks and sparkling eyes. She ogles Castiel and sighs, "You are so pretty, Charles." If she's not careful, her heart's going to leap across the table. "That's not my name," Castiel says gently. Dean eyeballs a pretty nurse who walks by. Rosy Cheeks has mistaken Castiel for her third husband. Dean mentions the jewelry and bearer bonds that were stolen from her house recently. The police have already questioned her about it, but she doesn't really remember. "Have you noticed anything strange lately -- cold spots, smells?" Dean asks. "Well, there's the cat," she says. She points to a fluffy orange cat sitting on a couch nearby. "He talks sometimes. Really hates that mouse!" Castiel sets off to interrogate the cat, like, for real. Sadly, we're not privy to this.
Meanwhile, Sam is diving his time between looking at a wall displaying photos of all the residents and looking at a very old gentleman in a wheelchair. The gentleman stares into space, seemingly unaware of his surroundings. He doesn't even notice when a young orderly picks up his food tray. "Creepy, huh?" the orderly says to Sam. "A lot of these people just tune out and live in their own heads. It's like, maybe the real world is too much for them and they just run and hide, you know?" This isn't meant to be an accurate description of dementia or senility so much as it's a way to announce the theme of the episode. To drive the point home, Sam retreats into his own head for a flashback.
"Soup's on!" says Amelia as she brings out dinner for her father and Sam. Peering through the haze, I can just make out a big bowl of dry-looking spaghetti and hot dogs cut into limp, vertical slices. The squashed bank guard looked more appetizing. "You remembered," Stan says with a laugh. Amelia tells Sam about how they always moved around when her dad was in the Army and they would have hot dog spaghetti their first night in a new home. Sam tries to talk about his dad being a Marine, thinking, hey, here's something we can talk safely about. Alas, Stan has a pretty snotty attitude toward jarheads, and an even snottier attitude toward Sam for not being in the service at all. Amelia looks uncomfortable, but neglects to tell her asshole father to shut the hell up. As soon as Amelia leaves the room, Stan starts in on Sam about how he looks like he's "seen a lot of crap he can't forget" and I don't know how he's getting that from Sam's vaguely uncomfortable expressions, but whatever. He thinks Amelia and Sam have latched onto each other out of fear. "After Don, I don't blame her for taking off, needing to run away and hide," he says. "I know why she did it. The question is, what are you running from, Sam?" Sam flares his nostrils and clenches his jaw, but says nothing.
In the present day, Dean joins Sam at the picture display. Since Sam has spent most of his time having flashbacks, he just now realizes that he recognizes one resident's photo. This guy, Fred Jones, was apparently such a good friend of the family that he gave both the boys their first introduction to beer. He's also psychokinetic, which you'd think would have come in handy on a case or two, but of course they've never mentioned the guy. There's no real reason the show had to make this guy be someone they knew except that it's a shortcut to figuring out the case. So off they go to question Fred, after first pulling Castiel away from his feline interrogation. "Dumbass," says the cat as they walk away. To cats, even angels are lesser beings.
They find Fred in his room, staring at cartoons on his TV. He doesn't even look at them when they greet him. Dean turns off the TV, but Fred continues to stare at the empty screen. "You really think this one man is causing all these shenanigans?" Castiel asks. "Well, if he is, he'd be surrounded by a circle of crazy," Dean says. To put the theory to the test, he grabs a book and beans himself. There's a metallic clang and then the chirping of birds. We don't get to see the birds, which is kind of lame. If you're going to show cartoony stuff like anvils and talking cats, you might as well go all the way with the birds. When Castiel is confused as to how Fred is able to do all this, Sam explains that Fred is so powerful that he can "reshape reality," which, again, just makes it seem weird they would never mention him. "Do we kill him?" Castiel wonders. Of course, Dr. Mahoney walks into the room just in time to hear this. "Did he just threaten to murder one of my patients?" Crosby, Stills and Nash have nothing to say for themselves. thing you know, the trio gets booted out of the place. Castiel offers to teleport Fred away, but Sam explains Fred is too dangerous for that. Castiel is left behind to watch over Fred invisibly while the Winchesters go maintain their stubble or whatever it is they do when they're not on screen.
Some time later, all the residents have gathered in the common room for Mrs. Rosy Cheek's birthday party. The nurse lights a comically huge candle atop a comically huge cake. At the same time, Fred is off in the corner, watching cartoons on TV. Just as the character on the screen becomes the victim of an exploding candle, Mrs. Rosy Cheeks befalls a similar fate. Pink and red goo spatters violently across the screen.
Luckily, Mrs. Rosy Cheeks is totally fine, barring a few frosting stains in her hair. It was just her cake that exploded and not her innards, although we had to wait through a commercial break to learn this. Dean returns to Sunset Fields in his street clothes and gawks at the aftermath. "What the hell happened?" he asks. "There was a pastry mishap," Castiel explains. "The frosting reached near-supersonic speeds." Sam joins them in a panic. He says Fred is gone. Dean chastises Castiel for not keeping a better eye on him. Did Naomi zap him away or something? Because there's no good reason why Castiel wouldn't notice Fred leaving. The pretty nurse wheels Mrs. Rosy Cheeks away from the mess. Or, rather, she tries to, but Mrs. Rosy cheeks calls out to Castiel: "Charles! She's wearing my diamonds!" Castiel grabs the nurse's hand, showing everyone the sparkly bracelet around her wrist. The nurse blurts out that her boyfriend gave it to her.
So off to the boyfriend's apartment they go. They find the place dark and in disarray. Dean spies one of the missing bearer bonds. Sam comes across the boyfriend, lying on the floor to an upended table. Dean turns on the lights. The boyfriend is the orderly Sam talked to at Sunset Fields. He's clutching a bloody wound in his gut, gasping for breath. Dean motions for Castiel to heal him. Castiel doesn't look like he especially wants to, but does so anyway. The orderly sputters in disbelief. Dean and Sam yank him up off the floor. "Where is Fred Jones?" Dean asks. "He took him," says the orderly. "Dr. Mahoney, that guy is evil, man!" He tells them that Mahoney is using Fred. The orderly was the one who brought Fred's abilities to Mahoney's attention. He and Mahoney decided to use Fred to their advantage. Then the orderly discovered Mahoney's plan to pull one last score, after which he would kill Fred. The orderly threatened to go to the cops and that's when Mahoney shot him.
The Winchesters and Castiel head back to the Impala. "Do you think Mr. Jones knows what's happening?" Castiel asks. "Seems like the dude's living in a dream world," Dean says. This inspires Sam to drift back into the smoggy realm of flashbacks.
As Sam washes dishes, Amelia and her dad argue in the dining room. He wants her to come back home. "You're living in a dream world," he tells her. It's terribly convenient that people in the present day are giving Sam all these cues so he can have his flashbacks in chronological order. Amelia says she likes Sam and she's happy with him, but her dad thinks he's a mess. Sam, of course, overhears everything. "Just give us a chance," Amelia says. So Stan sucks it up and goes into the kitchen to help with the dishes. At this point, I'm wondering if Gabriel has come back to life and is making Sam live out a really awful Lifetime TV movie because these may well be the most boring scenes in the show's history. They're even worse than all the scenes of Sam and Dean just sitting around reading things to each other out of library books. At least then they're reading about monsters and ghosts and not about hot dogs and domestic problems and unpacking and oh my God lawn maintenance! Anyway, to sum of the rest of this scene: Sam and Stan kind of bond over the awesomeness of the Impala.
Back to the present. The Winchesters and Castiel park in an alley behind Mahoney's bank of choice. Dean slips into the bank through one of Mahoney's painted circles while Sam and Castiel set off in search of Fred. As they race up and down the street, peering into parked cars, Castiel gets a whiff of something powerful. This time, it's not a bladder infection. He finds Fred in the back of a van, watching cartoons on a tablet. Sam tries to get his attention, but Fred doesn't even seem to hear him. "If we could just talk to him," Sam says. Castiel places his hands on top of both Fred's and Sam's. A bright light envelops them...
... and transports them into Fred's mind. It looks like a cartoon desert. "Who the hell are you?" Fred asks. The desert landscape shatters like glass, giving way to 360 degrees of TV static. "I'm Sam! Sam Winchester." Fred concentrates for a bit. Then: "John's boy? The scrawny one?" Sam makes a hilarious face because he's the opposite of scrawny now. The static lifts for a few moments, showing the cartoon desert again, but as Fred's wariness grows, so does the static. "Why are you here, Sam?" We cut over to bank vault for a second as Dean confronts Mahoney: "What's up, Doc?"
By the time we get back to Fred's mind, Sam and Castiel have explained most of what's been going on. Fred is having a hard time believing that someone is using him as some kind of psychic power source. "It doesn't work that way," he says. "How would you know?" Sam asks. "No offense, but it seems like you've been spending more time in here than you have out there." It's not like Alzheimer's patients choose to lose their minds. The show is just trying too hard to compare Fred's situation to Sam's and Castiel's.
Back inside the vault, Mahoney tries to buy Dean off with half the loot. "I'm not into stealing from sweet old ladies," Dean says. "I'm not stealing from them -- I'm stealing from their children," Mahoney says. Dean still doesn't bite, so Mahoney shoves past him and scampers out of the vault. Dean raises his gun, pulls the trigger and out pops a little flag that says "BANG!" Dean chases Mahoney through the bank. As he takes a flying leap to tackle Mahoney, the frame freezes and a little cartoon caption pops up to Dean: "Dean Winchester (Hunterus Heroicus)." Unlike Wile E. Coyote, Dean manages to catch his prey. Mahoney reaches into his jacket and produces a cast iron skillet, with which he proceeds to beat Dean about the head and face. A slide whistle provides a musical accompaniment to Dean's comical tumble to the floor. Just when it looks like he might lose the goofy battle, he reveals that he's painted an X right where Mahoney is standing. An anvil falls from the sky, but Mahoney, having been forewarned, dives out of the way.
Still inside Fred's mind, Sam asks him to take back control. "It can be nice living in a dream world," Sam says. "It can be great! I know that. You can hide and pretend that all the crap out there doesn't exist, but you can't do it forever because eventually, whatever it is you're running from will find you." The panoramic static turns to a test pattern. The camera focuses on Castiel so we know that he's recognizing his own situation. Sam pleads with Fred to wake up before his dreams destroy him. The test pattern gives way to searing white light.
Mahoney makes a run for it, but hits a solid wall when he tries to leap through one of his painted circles. "Looks like somebody turned off the boob tube," Dean snarks. "Good, that means I can use this," Mahoney says, pulling out a gun. Fred, Sam and Castiel appear inside the bank. Fred, having regained control of his powers, makes Mahoney point the gun at himself and pull the trigger. You'd think somebody would suggest that maybe they turn Mahoney over to the police, but then Dean wouldn't be able to say this: "That's all, folks!"
Fred takes a commercial break to survey all the damage his powers have wrought. He's worried he'll lose control again. "You gotta make it stop," he tells them. "There might be a way," Castiel says. "The procedure will be painful, and when it's over I'm not sure how much of you will be left."
The procedure takes place off screen. It seems like it would be easier to heal a man's dementia than strip away his psychokinetic abilities. Perhaps Professor Castiel will explain this one day, along with the workings of Angel Radio. The time we see Fred, he's back at Sunset Fields, sitting in his wheelchair, smiling at nothing in particular. "Is he okay?" Sam asks. "He's listening to 'Ode to Joy,'" Castiel says. "He's happy." The music is taking place entirely in Fred's mind, where once there was cartoon mayhem. Dean, proud of Castiel's work, offers to let him ride shotgun on the way to their case. Castiel starts to explain that he won't be going with them --
-- when he suddenly finds himself standing in Naomi's office. She tells him right off the bat that she won't allow him back into Heaven. He pleads with her. "I have been trying to pretend that I can escape what I did in Heaven, but I can't!" He looks like he's very near to crying. Naomi looks vaguely uncomfortable at this display of emotion. "I have to come back to make things right," Castiel goes on. "And you are," Naomi says, "by doing what you're told." She says he's only allowed back in Heaven when she summons him. "Then what should I do?" he asks. She turns the question back around on him: "What do you want to do?" He thinks about this utterly novel concept for a while --
-- and then he's suddenly back at Sunset Fields, looking a bit confused. Sam prods him to finish his thought. "I want to stay with Mr. Jones," he finally says. "Someone should watch over him for a few days, just to be safe." He says he knows he can't keep running anymore.
This inspires Sam to have one more flashback to that fateful dinner. By now, everyone's getting along and acting like old friends, which is how you know things are about to go right down the crapper. Stan is in the middle of recounting an embarrassing story from Amelia's childhood when the phone starts ringing. Amelia excuses herself to go answer it, leaving the menfolk to enjoy their beers. Sam notices that Stan opens his beer just like Dean, which to me doesn't look any different from anybody else opening their beers, but whatever. In the room, Amelia says, "Oh, my God. Are you sure?" She listens to someone on the other end of the line, then walks back into the dining room. She still has the phone in her hand. "It's Don," she says. "He's alive." Sam's face can't quite decide what expression it wants to make. I have to admit, I laughed and laughed on first watching because the dead husband miraculously being alive just so perfectly and awfully completed the bad TV movie feel that has been Sam and Amelia's trademark.
In the present, Sam and Dean say their goodbyes to Castiel, who pulls up a chair to sit beside Fred. We're finally allowed to hear their shared music as Castiel gives Fred a sweet look of contentment. You might even say his look is... beatific. Enjoy the peace while it lasts, because this show being what it is, it won't be long before the soul-killing angst makes a comeback.
Tippi Blevins has been possessed by a recapping demon. Send holy water to b_tippi@yahoo.com, or chant spells at her on Twitter: @TippiB.