Snarky Supernatural Recap: After School Special

While the Supernatural fandom mourns the seemingly unexpected death of beloved Supernatural director and producer, Kim Manners, this week’s installment of the show provided fans with a (rare) Sam-centric storyline, Dean in some fetching red shorts, and some patented Supernatural angst as an escape. Thank you, show, for proving that no matter how bad our lives get, Sam and Dean’s will always be worse.

The “THEN” previews are from all the way back in the first season, touching on Sam’s rocky relationship with his shitty father, his need to live a normal life, Dean’s inherit need to protect Sammy, and their collective miserable childhood. “NOW.” In the cafeteria of Truman High School in the fictional Fairfax, Indiana, a group of cheerleaders and jocks gossip about another, approaching cheerleader. She’s a “slut” who apparently had sex with another popular guy and gave him the “reverse cowgirl and everything!” Now, in my high school, gossip as salacious as that would make mighty popular. Go figure! Anyway, the head cheerleader, who is blonde, of course, declares their table is a “skeeve-free” zone and Skinny, Skanky Taylor needs to take her arse somewhere else. The table then starts a very obnoxious cough-into-the-hand chant of “slut, slut, slut” which predictably embarrasses Taylor in front of the entire school, and sends her running to another table to sit with a girl who isn’t a size two and is therefore obese! Jessica Simpson tells her that her friends are jerks and that she’s “sorry” about the way they treated her. Taylor, angry and humiliated, snarls back, “Don’t you feel sorry for me, you fat ugly pig!” and thus pays forward the social torture. She immediately regrets it when Jessica Simpson darts out of the cafeteria, feeling just as miserable and lost and alone as poor Taylor. Ah, high school, the supposed best years of our lives!

The next day, in the girl’s bathroom, Taylor comes out of the stall, tears falling freely and she tries to make herself presentable for her next class. Jessica Simpson is abruptly standing behind her, leering with dead eyes. “You think I’m ugly?” she asks in an eerie monotone. Taylor, whose coifed brunette hair belongs in a Pantene commercial, apologizes and promises she didn’t mean it. Jessica Simpson just stares at her blankly before snatching a handful of Taylor’s silky tresses and ramming her pretty little face into the mirror, breaking the glass. She then thunks her chin on the hard porcelain of the sink. Blood splatters from Taylor’s mouth, because that’s never NOT disgusting. Jessica Simpson bodily yanks a writhing Taylor across the bathroom and into the stall. Without hesitation, she pushes the cheerleader’s head into the toilet and flushes. “I’m not ugly,” Jessica Simpson declares as she drowns the poor girl, who is putting up one hell of a fight. But, of course, Taylor dies after inhaling putrid public high school toilet water, and Jessica Simpson throws her body onto the tiled floor, and still stares with a stony gaze. A nasty, black tear dribbles down her cheek as she announces to the soggy corpse, “you’re ugly.” I think killing her was a good enough come back, Jess.

Awesome! This almost makes me forget about the last two episodes. Hee!

Pimp title card! A beautiful, vertical shot of an old, classic building morphs into an orderly’s familiarly broad back. Jessica Simpson, who has recovered from whatever supernatural force overtook her body, is looking out the window of yet another insane asylum. “I’m not talking about it anymore,” she says. “I already told the cops and the doctors, no one believes me. They think I’m crazy!” “I’m a little more open-minded than most,” Sammy’s deep voice rumbles off-screen. Shocker, y’all, he’s the orderly! And wow, his voice has gotten octaves deeper since season one. Proving for the millionth time that our Darling Sammy is ALL man now! Apparently, Jessica Simpson’s real name is April, and she told the police she was possessed. And now we know why Sammy is talking to the witness and not Dean, because he has personal experience with demonic possession. April won’t tell Sammy why she thought she was possessed, but Sammy just twitches his magically sensitive eyes at her, and she relents. She’s a Sam-girl! Like me! (HEY!) Sorry, Dean! “When I hurt Taylor, I was there in my head but I couldn’t control my body. I could see what I was doing, but I couldn’t stop. I just wanted to stop.” And I now know that she’s a Canadian actress, by the way she pronounces the word “stop.” Haha! To make a long scene short, after Sammy asks if she smelled sulfur or happened to notice any black smoke trying to jam its way into her body, April is convinced HE’S crazy.

In the Metallicar, Sammy relays the information to Dean, who thinks that “maybe it wasn’t a demon, I mean, kids can be vicious.” Sammy concedes, but he thinks they should check out the school since they are in the area. Dean is reluctant, “Truman High, home of the Bombers,” he says with faux nostalgia. “We went there for like a month a million years ago, why are you so jazzed to go back?” Dean wonders. Sammy promises he’s not, that he just wants to be a thorough hunter. We know that’s a damn lie because he already has their covers picked out. Hilarity is about to ensue!

Dean cranks the Metallicar’s engine and the beginning drums of Foreigner’s, “Long, Long Way From Home,” plays on the soundtrack as the flashbacks begin! Truman High School, 1997. I have no idea what it is about this scene, be it the bright, happy, normal colors of a suburban high school, the blatant car porn as the Metallicar ambles up to the school in lurid slow motion with young Dean (played competently by Brock Kelley) in the passenger seat (and damn if that’s not a weird sight. Dean drives with GUNSHOT WOUNDS!), or the kinetic electric guitar of the song, but I squeal and scream and giggle like a true fangirl that I am. Young Dean, with full model face, licks his lips and ambles out of the car in Dean’s vintage leather jacket, collar turned up of course. These few seconds are enough to convince me that Brock Kelly knows just how hot he is in real life and as this character. And I’ll be damned if he doesn’t look like he could be related to Jensen Ackles. Great bit of casting!

Wee Sammy is small. Really small. I mean, he’s like four-foot-seven. But I recognize him immediately, because he’s broody and angsty and carrying a backpack that’s almost as big as he is! (Young Sammy is also being played by the same amazing little Colin Ford, who played him in “A Very Superatural Christmas.”) After he thanks his shitty father for a ride (who we never actually see, because he’s too busy playing a ghost on Grey’s Anatomy. Wrong show, Jeff, wrong fucking show!), he asks Sammy if he has his “Lunch? Books? Butterfly Knife?” Sammy glums a “yeah, Dean.” Dean steps in front of Wee Sam, asking him if he’s okay. Some things never change. Wee Sam is frustrated, “look this is the third school we’ve been to this year, and it’s only November. I’m just sick of always being the new kid.” “Anybody gives you any trouble, you just let me know?” Dean says, flexing his big brother muscle. “Relax, Dad said this hunt will take two weeks, tops. Soon as he gets back, we’re outta here!” “To another school,” Wee Sam sulks, “awesome.”

The next scene beautifully illustrates just how different yet alike Sam and Dean are in a way that only siblings can be by intercutting between the two Winchesters being introduced to their respective homerooms. Sam is crestfallen and sick of the entire process, while Dean calls the teacher “sweetheart” and “sugar” and is literally too cool for school. Sam slinks to this seat, head down, while Dean ambles down the aisle and charismatically spins into his desk in a way that would make The Fonz and AC Slater very, very proud. Both boys draw the attention of student. For Sam, it’s a freckle-faced geek in thick glasses who is impressed when Wee Sammy’s butterfly knife falls out of his backpack. For Dean, it’s a pixie-faced blonde in a pink sweater. The icing on an already delectable and ingenious scene piece of film is that Wee Sam’s class is reading “The Outsiders” as indicated on the board behind the teacher. I am falling in love with this show all over again.

Dean’s craggly-faced teacher asks him where his books are, and he smiles, “Don’t need them, sugar. Not gonna be here long enough anyway.” And the entire class, including Tinkerbell, thinks he’s just so dreamy and badass. I just might, too, because this Dean hasn’t been to Hell, doesn’t have the weight of the world on his shoulders, and is just a mouthy, teenage spitfire who knows his way around a sawed-off.

As Wee Sam’s class gets an essay assignment on “their most memorable family experience,” the geek, who more like an adorable Paul Pfeiffer from “The Wonder Years” introduces himself as Barry just before a burly bully starts repeatedly flicking the poor kid’s ear in an attempt to beat his previous record. Poor Barry winces, but takes the abuse. Sammy, bred to protect people who cannot protect themselves from bullies or…banshees, tells the bully to leave him alone. “You wanna take his place, midget?” Burly Bully asks. Wee Sam pivots in his seat, “yeah, sure,” he says, and stares the bully down with Giant Sammy’s unnerving confidence and a little smirk that makes him seem dangerous. Wow, Wee Sammy is a badass! Burly Bully is shocked by such a turn of events because little freshman midgets should be terrified of him, and this does not compute.

Wee Sammy continues to stare him down, and the screen morphs into Giant Sammy’s prominent mug as he walks the same halls in a janitor’s uniform. The bell rings and the same teacher who introduced Wee Sammy steps out of the classroom just as Sam passes it.

Gym. A whistle blows as the camera moves from one net of balls to…well Dean’s balls. That’s right, folks, our beloved Scrappy Doo is rocking a pair of supertight shorts, a Truman High Polo, high knee socks, and a red sweatband in a cute, sexy, hot, wrong, bow-legged way that only Dean can. Wow. Um, seriously, thank you, Supernatural! Next stop: SPEEDO! Dean is subbing as a gym teacher, and he walks up and down the line of Truman High School students, praising the game of Dodgeball like it’s an ancient, sacred art. If you’ve ever played Dodgeball in middle school with boys, you know how lethal it can be. And Dean was definitely the kind of kid that would injure and maim as many dorks as humanly possible with those painful rubber balls. “You will have the honor of playing one of the greatest games every invented. A game a skill, agility and cunning. A game with one simple rule: DODGE!” And with that he takes a ball and whips it full throttle at a poor little kid, who doesn’t catch on and dodge, and gets nailed in the gut for his short bus brand of specialness. That will definitely leave a mark. I’m ignoring the little comments about “Ms. B being in Massachusetts getting married,” because hello, the lesbian gym teacher joke has been done a five gazillion times. Dean forces the kid who dare defile the game of Dodgeball to take a lap, and I’ll be damned if we don’t have our Deano back! He just used the Dean voice. The real, non-pyscho Christian-Bale-as-Batman one! He’s gruff and embracing another role with Dean’s trademark reckless abandon. We haven’t seen Silly!Dean since before he admitted that he remembered his time in Hades waaaay back in an episode I refused to admit exists because it’s was as bad as “Route 66” and “Bugs” COMBINED!

Janitor Sammy steps into the gym, and literally fills up the entire doorway with his gigantic, manly frame. Jesus, I need to meet Jared Padalecki just so I can climb him like a Great Oak. Dean tosses the net of balls up in the air, and tells the kids to “go nuts” while he gets an update from Sammy. Sam hasn’t found any sulfur, and Dean quickly concludes, “No sulfur, no demon; no demon, no case” and he is itching to get on the road, but after lunch because it’s Sloppy Joe day. Aww, Dean’s appetite is back! Sammy winces as a kid predictably get beaned in the face with a ball off-screen and runs through the shot with a hand covering his mouth and nose. “Good hustle, Colby! WALK IT OFF!” Dean growls in a way his dad probably told him after he stabbed him with a pick-axe or something equally brutal. Then he licks his lips and smirks at Sam in a way that is so adorkable and hot, and why, why, why don’t I work on this show?! Oh, that’s right, the restraining orders. Moving on. Dean officially wins the Battle of the Pretty for this Episode. Just for that! Good job, Winchester!

Home Ec. The camera pans across a food processor as three finger-sized pieces of are tossed in, and the whirring blades chop, dice and mince it finely in mere seconds. After four seasons of watching this show, I already know where this is heading, and I’m simultaneously excited and nauseous for the impending gore. The same jock from the late Taylor’s table is bugging a poor skinny kid with emo hair. “I need to copy your algebra homework again!” Emo McGee ignores him, spacing out. Jock shoves him roughly and repeats his demand. Emo McGee looks at him menacingly. “Why, because you’re a stupid brain-dead dick?” He seethes, and then turns on the food processor, prepping it for the assignment. Just as surprised as Burly Bully was at Wee Sam’s defiance, Jock is momentarily stunned by the refusal. Then, of course, he amps up the aggression to threaten, “I’m going to shove my first down your throat, you freak!” “That fist?” Emo McGee evilly inquires. “Yeah!” Grinning, Emo McGee shoves the aforementioned fist into the appliance of doom! I highly doubt Bobby Flay will be serving THAT up for dinner. Jock screams and howls as Emo McGee laughs and laughs. Blood splatters all over them, and the camera even zooms in for a shadowy glimpse of the hand being julienned in a bowl full of blood and flesh. Tasty. I may have been screaming in a psychotic combination of glee and visceral disgust during this whole awesome display of gore, but you cannot prove it. The show hasn’t been that gory in a while, and it definitely beats out the hand-down-the-garbage-disposal from “Home” in Season One. The students, raised in the post-Columbine generation, scatter, duck and bolt as the teacher rushes poor screaming, bloody Jock and his mangled hand pass Janitor Sammy—who has quite a mess to clean up now— and down the hall. Guess what? Jock ain’t a jock anymore. It’s a tragedy. Emo McGee, who is splattered in Jock’s blood, passes out. Sammy rushes over to him and notices an icky black substance oozes from his ear, and THAT seriously skeeves me out, maybe more than the hand in the food processor. Ick. Emo McGee is disoriented and woozily asks Janitor Sammy what happened. Sammy just frowns and has nothing good to say.

In the deserted hallway, Sammy is using his trusty EMF monitor to check for any readings, when Dean finds him, wearing an absolutely fetching Truman High tracksuit. And I haven’t been this happy with the guys’ wardrobes since “In My Time of Dying” when Dean ran around for the whole hour in a tee shirt and thin cotton pants. He looks loose and comfortable and gorgeous. Red is definitely his color. Sammy asks how the “Non-Violence Assembly” is going. “Apparently shoving a kid’s arm into a Cuisinart is not a healthy display of anger.” No, but it makes great TV. Ha! Sam tells Dean that he saw ectoplasm leaking out of his ear, and figures they are dealing with a ghost possession from a very angry spirit. Sammy does admit that they can’t figure out where the ghost is haunting, exactly, as it’s not giving off any readable electromagnetic activity. They need to find record of “someone dying bloody” inside the school. Dean, picking an incredibly odd time to start doing his homework, already found out that “three of the cheerleaders are legal” and “there was only one death on campus back in ’98, some kid named Barry Cook.” Um…quoi? Suddenly Sad Sammy snatches the paper in shock and surprise. Dean says that he “slit his wrists in the first floor girls’ bathroom” which is where poor Taylor was “swirly-ed to death.” Obviously, they figure out that the ghost is possessing nerds and using them to go after bullies. Sam confesses that “Barry had a hard time” in school.

In another seamless transition, the camera zooms tight on Wee Sam’s face and then curls around to show the busy hallways Truman in 1997. Barry, the kid Sam met on his first day, walks down the hall when an older jock swipes his books and sends them flying down the hallway. Students in the hall laugh as Barry scrambles to gather up his textbooks and pencil case. As Sam dutifully helps him, we learn that Barry is counting the days until he’s free from high school and he can go to Michigan State and becoming a veterinarian, because “animals are a lot nicer than people.”

Janitor’s Closet. Young Dean is making out with Tinkerbell, and describing his perfect date night to her: “you. Me. A bucket of popcorn extra butter. And a midnight screening of ‘I Spit on Your Grave’ at the Cinedome.” He says between kisses. Tinkerbell can’t because she has an eleven o’clock curfew. Dean, having a terrible father, who rather fight demons and train his sons like warriors than be a good parent, and a crispified mother, doesn’t understand. “So if I break it, my folks will ground me for a month,” she explains. “Yeah, parents terrifying,” Dean buhs. I guess the threat of eternal grounding isn’t exactly scary when you were raised to battle evil. Tinkerbell is shocked to learn that Dean’s father has left him to his own devices for two weeks while he’s “on a job.” Dean claims he has a “pretty sweet set-up at The Pines [Motel]. HBO, Magic Fingers, free ice, it’s great.” I definitely agree with him on the free ice, but apparently, he’s never swiped Citrus-Infused Water from Marriott lobby in downtown Chicago. It is fantastic! Dean and I are both incredibly cheap dates. Back to the show. “I do whatever I want, when I want, it’s perfect.” Dean admits. When Tinkerbell asks him if he misses his dad, Dean becomes uncharacteristically quiet, because his bravado is hiding the fact that he is more than likely petrified that his father will never come back and exhausted from the responsibility of taking care of a 14-year-old while he’s gone. Dean ends their make-out session and greets Sammy as he walks through the halls with Barry, who thinks Dean is cool, and even cooler because he was hanging out with Tinkerbell. Sammy and Barry walk directly into the path of Burly Bully, who towers over Wee Sammy and outweighs him by a good 75 pounds. “Hey, tough guy, still want to take [Barry’s] place?” Barry runs to get a teacher, and Wee Brave Sammy places a hand on Barry’s rotund tummy to keep him from following. The whole school gathers around to watch Burly Bully antagonize and then punch poor Sammy. Wee Sammy falls to his hands and knees, and struggles with anger and the fact that he could easily kick this bastard’s ass. Unfortunately, Mr. Wyatt arrives to escort Burly Bully to the principal’s office before Wee Sammy can unleash a smackdown that he deserves. Barry stands behind Sam as he watches him go.

And I want to take a moment to praise the flashbacks. Usually, I hate flashbacks in television shows, especially when they don’t use the same actors. Supernatural has always made the flashbacks fit flawlessly into the plot of the show and it always sheds an enormous amount of light on the characters, painting them as layered, complete, and complicated people in a usually gut-wrenching, heartbreaking manner. Bravo!

We fade into Sad Sammy salting and burning his childhood friend’s bones. “So long Barry Cook,” Dean says, somewhat insensitively. Rain coats the Metallicar’s otherwise pristine windshield as Sammy broods in the passenger seat. “You alright?” Dean asks, and for some reason him saying that feels wonderful. It comforts ME because it’s been months since he was worried about Sam, and not the other way around. Regardless of how big and strong and big Sammy is, he is still Dean’s younger brother, and Dean will always try to protect and worry about him. That’s just the way it is. “Barry was my friend, and I just burned his bones,” Sam responds. And no, he’s definitely not alright. “Well, he’s at peace now, Sam.” Dean offers weakly. “I mean if Dad had let us stay just a little while longer, maybe I could have helped the kid,” Sammy shoulda-coulda-wouldas. Dean, being pragmatic, admits that Barry was on every anti-anxiety and anti-depressant available, and his parents had just gotten divorced. He even admits that “school was hell for that kid”—and we know Dean is sensitive about the use of the word “Hell”—and he “just wanted out.” Sam couldn’t have saved him. Dean skillfully changes the subject, and admits he was glad they left that school because he hated it. Dean wonders why Sam didn’t think it was “that bad” after “what happened to [him].”

Whiteout to Wee Sammy sitting outside on the bleachers, brooding as Dean plots Burly Bully’s death in a way only Dean can. “That kid’s dead! I’m going to rip his LUNGS OUT!” Hee! Brock hasn’t exactly mastered the Dean growl, but neither did Dean until the end of Season One…it’s as close as anyone else can get. Sammy pleads for him to “just shut up” because he doesn’t need Dean’s help. “That’s right, you don’t. You could have torn him apart, why didn’t you?” “Because I don’t want to be the freak for once Dean. I want to be normal.” And the writers just scored majority continuity points, because Giant Sammy hates being considered a freak just as much as Wee Samy. “So taking a beating, that’s normal?” Dean asks. I could easily site the whole Superman-complex to back up Sam’s argument (Superman’s alterego Clark Kent is a bumbling, spineless wimp not because that’s how Kal-el saw mankind, etc) but I won’t. Sammy is smart enough to know that most kids aren’t trained to take down grown men and demons, so he hides it. Sammy asks if Dean’s heard from his father. Dean pouts that they’re going to have to stay another week, and he is weirded out because Tinkerbell wants Dean to meet her parents, and he “doesn’t do parents” as he’s never had a real one.

Wee Sammy gets detained by the teacher by Mr. Wyatt. Sam is worried that he got in trouble about the fight, but Mr. Wyatt wants to talk to Sam about the essay he wrote. His most memorable family experience was killing a werewolf with his dad and brother. Mr. Wyatt gives him an A even though he believes Sam wrote mistakenly wrote a fictional story because he it was a well-written. Being an English teacher, Mr. Wyatt asks if Wee Sam has ever thought about pursuing a career in writing. “I can’t. I have to go into the family business” which is wink-wink car repair. It just occurs to me, and hopefully to the audience Wee Sammy thought about doing anything else but hunting demons. He was born into a world of parent-stealing evil and violence and assumed that he had to stay there. If your heart has broken already, you won’t make it to the end of the episode, so bail now. Mr. Wyatt asks Sam point blank if he wants to follow his dad and brother’s footsteps. “No one’s ever asked me that before,” Sam says. And then? “More than anything, no.” Mr. Wyatt then offers Sam probably the most invaluable piece of advice of his young life: “I don’t want to over step my bounds here, but you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. Look, I know what it’s like, I come from a family of surgeons and that wasn’t me. So I traded in the money and prestige of being a doctor for all the glamour you see around you. The point is there may be three or four big choices that shape someone’s whole life, and you need to be the one that makes them. Not anyone else. Just live the life you want to live.” And those are probably the most beautiful, precious words Sammy has ever heard in his entire life.

Everyone has a teacher that touches their lives and makes them feel special. For me, it was my first grade teacher, Ms. Harris, who was Southern and had perfect red hair and was the most glamorous and smart woman I’d ever seen. For Wee Samuel Winchester, it’s Mr. Wyatt. We now know why Sammy was so determined to get back to this school and why he had the strength to leave his family behind for Stanford.

The next morning, Dean drives Sammy back to the school, so he can have his “Oh, Captain, my Captain moment” with his former teacher. In a neat moment of continuity, the camera spirals around Giant Sammy and then morphs into Wee Sammy as he runs his fingers through his hair, then back to Giant Sammy as he does the same thing with that almost-mullet. When Sammy turns into the Antichrist, can he get a makeover? I’m thinking a trendy fauxhawk, some eyeliner and black suits. Yes? No? Before Sammy can even knock on the door, a young, tiny student mysteriously appears out of nowhere to ask for directions. I now know that if I ever get the pleasure of meeting Jared Padalecki, I will come up to about his navel, because this girl and I are about the same size. After Darling Sammy gives her directions, she smiles sweetly and innocently, and says, “Thanks, Sam.” Wait, WHAT?! Sam quirks his head to the side like the confused puppy he is because she thanked him by name. Kung Fu Spice takes this moment to whip out her standard issue tenth grade compass and stab Sammy in on one his finely chiseled pectoral muscles! Possessed or not, this bitch needs to die! How dare she defile the sacred pec! Her voice drops several octaves when she proclaims, “you got tall, Winchester!” And she then does what my father taught me to do to bring guys to bring them down: she kicks him swiftly in the balls. And honestly, I’m more pissed off about the pec-stabbing than the scrotum-kicking, because I know where Lil’ Sammy’s been, and I want none of it. She follows up the nutcracker kick with a roundhouse to the face that sends Sammy (well, his stunt-double) crashing into the lockers and then to the floor. Why is Sam getting his ass kicked by a 15-year-old? I know he knows he could render this possessed girl a vegetable if he actually fought back, but come on, Sam! Man up! Ectoplasm oozes out of Kung-Fu Spice’s mouth as Sammy recovers, takes out his trusty flask, and pours a handful of salt in his palm. Since when does he carry salt in his flask? Mighty convenient, show! Anyway, he rolls to his knees and jams the stuff down her throat. Kung-Fu Spice shakes and wiggles as the salt forces the ghost out of her. The black blob of the ghost bounces down the hall and splatters through the ceiling like demonic flubber. Cool! Sammy saved the girl from the ghost, but she now has high blood pressure from ingesting a year’s worth of salt.

The funniest part about this whole scene is that he cradles the now unconscious Kung Fu Spice the gorgeous chest she stabbed not seconds ago. He caringly hooks his chin over her head even though he’s still on his damn knees. Wow. He’s huge!

Dean has parked the Metallicar near a scenic creek with a bridge used in the pilot as a backdrop. (Another fantastic touch!) Sammy is nursing his ego and his wounds. Dean digs in a cooler and produces a thoroughly chilled bottle of what looks like malt liquor. “Trust me, this’ll help.” At first, I think he means drinking it it’ll help with the pain of his pectoral puncture wound and be a great disinfectant, but Sammy sheepishly takes the bottle and gingerly places it between his legs. Hee! I can hold that there, Sam. “That ghost is dead!” Dean seethes. “I’m going to rips its LUNGS OUT!” Dean growls, providing his character continuity. “Well, you know what I mean,” he amends, because ghosts don’t actually have lungs. And I know this entire scene—Dean worried about Sam’s injured johnson and defending his honor and all—is going to send Wincest fandom into a frenzy.

“It knew my name, Dean, my real name.” Sam declares, “what the hell?” Clearly, he’s bewildered because both Sam and Dean thought that Barry was the ghost and the case was essentially over. Dean figures they missed something and checks out the stolen stats on the three nerds-turned-aggressors, and realizes that all of them ride the same bus. But it’s confusing because as far as Dean knows, “Ghosts are tied to the places that they haunt, they can’t just bail.” But Studious Sammy knows that there is “lore about ghosts possessing people and riding them for miles…when they leave the body, they’re bungeyed back to their usual haunt, but until then the ghosts can go wherever they want.” “Ghosts getting creative, well that’s super,” Dean glums and opens his own bottle of malt liquor while they gameplan.

To make a long recap shorter, it’s time to summarize! Sammy and Dean investigate the bus “a flap of skin, a hangnail” anything that could tie the ghost to the bus. When Dean looks into the glove compartment, he finds that driving permit was issued just two weeks ago—right before attacks started—to a Dirk McGregor, Sr. Sammy, of course, knew Dirk, Jr. “Did you know everybody at this school?” Dean wonders.

Flashback. School is letting out and Sammy steps outside to see Burly Bully once again picking on helpless Barry. He immediately comes to his defense, “Leave him alone, Dirk!” That’s right, folks, Dirk Jr., is the Burly Bully. “You never learn, do you, MIDGET?” Dirk hisses. Sam sighs and tells Barry to get on the bus. When he tries to follow, Dirk pushes Sammy to the ground again and starts to heckle him. “Come on LOSE-chester, let’s see what you got? Come on, FREAK!” Dirk found the magic word, because Wee Sammy springs up from the ground and shoves Dirk, ready to RUUUUMMMMMBBLLLLE!! Dirk swings, and Agile Sammy dodges it, and clobbers him with a punch to the gut. Sammy backs up and lets Dirk take the offensive. Dirk swings and misses again, allowing Sam to nail him in the stomach and knee him chest, and then punch him in the face. Sam continues, punching him with a left and a right, and then kicks him at bend of his knee, taking Dirk to the ground before effectively finishing the fight with a teeth-rattling haymaker! The crowd, of course, cheers Wee Sammy on and so do I, because Wee Sammy is better at the hand-to-hand than Giant Sammy. Wee Sammy gets his first lesson in how to loom and tower over bad guys as he leans over Dirk to inform him, “You’re not tough, you’re just a jerk! Dirk the Jerk.” And now the Burly Bully runs away as the crowd laughs and chants “DIRK THE JERK! DIRK THE JERK!” The tables have been turned.

Are you proud of Sam? Are you glad he put that bully in his place? Just wait, because you’re going to feel like shit in about two minutes.

The guys visit Daddy Dirk claiming to be friends of late son. Dirk’s father is an old man, who looks like a cross between a Santa Claus without the beard and Bilbo Baggins without the hobbit feet. He has white eyelashes, sad eyes, and seems eternally grateful for the company. Dirk apparently passed away when he was 18 from booze and drugs. “He slipped through my fingers. It was my fault.” Daddy Dirk guiltily admits, because because “school was never easy for Dirk” because “they didn’t have much money. Kids picked on him. They called him poor and dirty and stupid. They even had a nickname for him: Dirk the Jerk.” Sammy gulps down his responsibility for that. To make matters even worse, Dirk’s mother suffered for years with cancer before dying when Dirk was thirteen. It fell to Dirk, Jr. to “makes sure Jane got her medicine” and clean up after her, because Dirk, Sr. worked three jobs. Sammy looks at a picture of Dirk, young and clean and smiling like a normal kid. Not the mindless blowhard he remembers. Now, it’s time for Daddy Dirk (the mean, evil writers) to twist the knife a bit deeper. “You watch somebody die slow, waste away to nothing, it does things to a person, horrible things.” Dirk never talked about the mighty, psychological burden his mother’s death took on his son but he knew that he was incredibly angry. And that’s why he bullied kids at school. Dean takes over for Sammy, who looks like he may vomit from the heady realizations that he and Dirk actually had some common ground, and lies to Daddy Dirk about wanting to pay respects to his son. Dirk was cremated. “All of him?” Dean blurts out. HA! Daddy Dirk apparently keeps a lock of his hair in his Bible on his bus.

The dead of night. Papa Dirk’s haunted bus plows through the fog, taking the still unspecified sports team to or from a game or meet. Eddie, a huge dude who looks like a Hell’s Angel with his bald, goatee and sun-weathered skin, is a substitute driver for Daddy Dirk. We know he’s haunted by his devilish smile, but ectoplasm leaks out of his nose for the folks in the back. Coach asks Ectoplasm Eddie to watch his speed, but Ectoplasm Eddie is on the plan for revenge. Fortunately for everyone on the bus not named Ectoplasm Eddie, it is derailed by a row of spikes placed in the middle of the road by Sammy and Dean. The bus rolls over them and blows all of its tires, forcing Ectoplasm Eddie steer the bus to the shoulder of the road running through the Canadian backwoods. Ectoplasm Eddie steps off the bus to smell the air and look evil and isn’t surprised when Sammy pops out of nowhere, a shotgun trained on his back. “Winchester?” he sneers, “what are you going to do? Shoot me?” “Don’t need to!” Dean pops up and ties Eddie up with a length of rope that’s been soaked in salt water to keep the ghost from jumping bodies. Um, okay. Sure. I guess that works. Dean bounds on the bus, and demands everyone to stay where they are in his best hero voice. Someone asks if he’s the gym teacher and he blows his cover. Sort of. “I’m like 21 Jump Street. The busdriver sells pot. Yeah!” Hee! Now I don’t remember the show “21 Jump Street”, but I don’t think Johnny Depp ran around tying people up in ropes soaked in condiments. Dean’s cute enough to make the kids buy it, so they do. But Scrappy Doo can’t find the hair, and Ectoplasm Eddie apparently stashed it somewhere they’ll never find it. Ew. Not there, nasty!

Sammy, desperate, slams him against the side of the bus and demands to know where the hair is. “Sam Winchester, still a bully.” God, this ghost is clueless! Ectoplasm Eddie decides to launch into a tirade about the evils of Sammy the Bully and the jocks who think they’re better than everyone else. “To you I was just Dirk the Jerk, right?” Um, you tortured him from the second you saw him, so yeah, that’s what you were. “Now you evil sons a bitches are going to get what’s coming to you.” “I’m not evil, Dirk!” YES YOU ARE! I KEEP WAITING FOR THAT EVIL TO EMERGE! “I’m not!” Sammy implores. “And neither were you. Trust me, I’ve seen real evil. We were scared and miserable, and we took it out on each other. That’s high school, but you suffer through that, and it gets better. I’m just sorry you didn’t get a chance to see that. You or Barry.” Sammy explains, continuing to break my heart. But this isn’t exactly comforting to Dirk the Ghost. “Things aren’t going to get better for me, not ever!” He screams and gains the strength to snap through those salt-encrusted ropes. Sammy shoots him (and his host body) twice in the chest. Granted it’s rock salt, but OUCH. Dirk the Ghost jumps from Eddie to Plump Stan on the bus, who tackles Sammy and starts pummeling him all about the face and head. Dean shoots the poor possessed bastard in the back, but that has no effect, and Sammy would rather he find the hair and not further injure the teenager. Dean searches and searches, and even pats down a wheezing Eddie and eventually finds the hair in his boot. He immediately torches it, killing the ghost in an impressive display of computer generated sparks and fire. Plump Stanley promptly passes out ontop of Sam, who chokes and coughs beneath his weight, and it’s a lot funnier than it should be because of Jared’s long, long limbs. “Lil’ help!” he hisses as Dean comments about Plump Stanley giving his brother “the full cowgirl!” Hee!

Want to know why Dean hates Truman High School? Here’s why: Dean being Dean decides to sabotage his relationship with Tinkerbell by making out with an unnamed dimpled brunette and gets caught by Tinkerbell. But she’s not mad at him. She feels sorry for him because she thought that “maybe underneath your whole, I-could-give-a-crap bad boy thing that there was something more going on, like the way you are with your brother. But I was wrong. You spend so much time trying to convince people that you’re cool, but it’s just an act. We both know that you’re a sad, lonely little kid, and I feel sorry for you Dean.” And she says this in front of the whole school. Dean’s only response is “Don’t feel sorry for me. I save lives. I’m a hero. A HERO!” to Amanda’s retreating form. Tinkerbell is right, and it reads all over his pretty, pretty face. As this is happening to Dean, Sammy is being congratulated and praised by everyone in school for whooping Dirk the Jerk’s ass. So there Sam learns the rewards of doing the right thing, and eventually decides to dedicate his life to doing the right thing the RIGHT WAY. John soon arrives to collect the boys. Dean trips over himself to get out of that school, and Sam has a newfound confidence, but he has to leave Barry. Without his protector, Barry will be terrorized by Dirk the Jerk until he kills himself just that next year. Dirk will suffer for three more years before dying as well.

Sammy’s “Dead Poet’s Society” moment isn’t exactly a happy one. He admits to Mr. Wyatt that he did indeed go to college, probably because the advice he gave him, but that eventually the real world responsibilities caught up with him and he had to deal with that. Sammy thanks him for “taking an interest in him when no one else did.” Mr. Wyatt, being a teacher, replies, “the only thing that really matters is that you’re happy. Are you happy, Sam?” Jared Padalecki’s face barely moves. His lips tense a tiny bit, but his eyes seem to sink and darken as the camera tracks his face and eventually fades to black. He’s not happy. He only had four years to live his life the way he wanted before he was blindsided by the death of his girlfriend, and then everything he ran away from, and then the fast-approaching apocalypse.

The episode was heavy, not only for the boys, but for anyone who has dealt with bullies and teasing and lives ending far too soon. It was fantastic and sad and smart and very, very real. Sammy and I are the same age and it dealt with a lot of issues I experienced as a youth. Fortunately, my biggest worry is trying to find and keep a job in this economy, and not the safety of the human race. As always, Sam and Dean’s terrible lives put everything in perspective. Thank you, boys.

A Pop Culture Thanksgiving

By this point in your Thanksgiving holiday, the turkey has been devoured and the pants are unbuttoned and you’re either curled up by the fire watching movies and dozing, or huddled over the Thursday sale papers to gameplan how to get the most Black Friday loot. I’d like to take a brief pause between slices of homemade coconut cake and my mother’s sweet potato pie to list what I am thankful for in pop culture! I know you’re excited! Let’s go!

*Rihanna’s “Rehab” Video featuring Justin Timberlake.
Justin’s Timberlake’s recent surprise “SNL” appearance reminded us why he is a Grammy-winning, Emmy-winning superstar at the ripe ole age of 27. He can do the impossible: upstage Beyonce and look fierce in a leotard and heels. In the music video for a song he wrote and produced, Mr. SexyBack and Sasha Fierce’s biggest competition, Rihanna, combine their uber-hottness in a way that is nothing but scrumptious, sexy candy for the senses. The video has no actual plot, but is a live action work of art. There’s a gulf-stream trailer and leather and tattoos and those weird one-piece fashion suits celebrities have suddenly decided are the new black. All of these pieces add up to three-and-half minutes of visual ambrosia that will leave you very much addicted.

*Pink’s “Funhouse”.
Pop’s baddest bitch discovers her inner singer-songwriter just in time for The Divorce Album. True to Pink form, she’s not crying in the corner. In her most coherent and focused LP, Pink honestly and cathartically presses the bruises and scars left by her split with motocross champ, Carey Hart. The crash-bang fury of “So What”, the party anthem-turned-ex-husband-hate-mail that launched the album, ebbs away to expose the softer side of a rocker chick in beautiful ballads like “Glitter in the Air” and “Crystal Ball.” It saddens me that Pink doesn’t garner the unabashed praise that is erroneously heaped onto her poptastic competition (Katy Perry, Beyonce, even Miley friggin’ Cyrus), because she is a consistent, self-aware and open musician, who wholeheartedly deserves it. I downloaded this disc when it leaked two weeks before the album’s release date, and loved it enough to buy it when it was in stores. A month later, I am suddenly enamored with songs I usually skipped, like “One Foot Wrong” and “Please Don’t Leave Me.” Other tracks, like “Funhouse,” “Ave Mary A” and “Bad Influence”, make you selfishly glad she got divorced.

*“Supernatural”
If you haven’t noticed by my extremely detailed and snarky blogs immediately following this entry, I have been completely obsessed with this show, and have been since early last season. It is the best television show (about two brothers who hunt demons and other “supernatural” monsters) you’ve never heard about, complete with dreamy lead actors in Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles and fantastic writing. I’ve stopped watching the shark-jumping “Grey’s Anatomy” for this show, and you should too! Jeffrey Dean Morgan died on this show before Denny was a even a figment of Shonda Rhimes’ imagination. So it’s odd that he is playing a ghost on a medical drama. It’s just one more reason, you need to watch this show.

Oh and just for laughs, find their Supernatural Convention videos on Youtube. Those two riff off each other and make the most mundane of stories absolutely hilarious. You can also discover how scarily dedicated their fandom is. Hee!

*“Seven Pounds” Trailer.
There is nothing better than a trailer to a new movie. Trailers are an adrenaline-packed promise of what a movie can be or what the producers and directors think it IS. They’re all gleaming and slickly spliced and hit all of the right buttons in order to get butts in those expensive, red velvet seats. The promo for Will Smith’s new movie, “Seven Pounds” is thirty-seconds of mounting drama that leaves me aching for its opening day, Dec. 19th. Will Smith’s character has apparently done something terrible and decides to pay it forward to seven strangers—one of which is Rosario Daweson—before doing something unthinkable to himself? Yes, please!

*Ugly Betty, “When Betty Meets YETI.”
Last week’s installment of “Ugly Betty” reminded me why American Ferrera is nothing but awesome, and why “Ugly Betty” is still a fabulous fun. While I find the show a warm and fuzzy guilty pleasure with its frothy, pop art aesthetic and deliciously eccentric characters, I also have a very real and very sincere appreciation for its entire premise: a big-hearted, hardworking, not Elle’s versions of pretty woman works at the nation’s hottest fashion magazine. She’s no “Gossip Girl” or tarty career woman desperate for a man, she’s a Queens raised daughter of a Mexican immigrant who wants nothing more than to succeed in a cut-throat business while maintaining her innate goodness. “When Betty Met YETI” pits Betty and Marc against each other as they vie for a career-launching slot in the Young Editors Training Initiative. In true Betty form, she has two days to come up with an idea, goes the most logical root, then starts over, compelled to follow her heart. Her application pitch for B Magazine is not a fashion mag, of course, but one that encourages young women to be smart, intelligent, confident and powerful. In short, it’s the anti-“Cosmo”. She is picked over Marc, who spent three months creating an entire magazine that serves as both of a subscriber and critique of the celebrity machine. He nastily points out that it was because of affirmative action, and Betty’s reaction is so viscerally real that I wanted to cry watching her reaction.

“Ugly Betty” uses the backdrop of kitsch and camp to comment on the true uglies of society, and uses the completely wonderful brilliant, undeniable talented American Ferrera as the main source of beauty. As a woman of color who has to put on heels to reach 5’2’’ and hasn’t been skinny since 2004, I can relate to Betty (and America) more than any character on television, and for that I am truly grateful.

*Barack Obama.
After a 20-month president campaign, I constantly have to remind myself that it is over. That we have a winner, and it doesn’t involve the (feminist) nightmare that is Sarah Palin. That when I see Barack Obama speaking with Barbara Walters or Dianne Sawyer, he’s speaking as the President-elect, and not the Democratic National Nominee vying for votes. And every time that happens, I swell with a pride I didn’t think I would feel in my lifetime, and simultaneously breathe a sigh of relief, because not only is he an admirable man who's rejuvenated the American Dream through his smart, no-nonsense politics, swagger and unflappable aplomb, he is this country's first black president. This writer has no way of expressing how she felt during those historic moments on Tuesday, November 4th even though I've tried every day since. I’m awe-stricken and hopeful for the first time in eight years. The icing on a truly wonderful cake? My birthday gift will be watching President-elect Barack Obama become President Barack Obama. That is a present for the entire nation.

Snarky Supernatural Recap: "It's The Great Pumpkin, Sam Winchester"

In the “Supernatural”-verse, everyday is Halloween. The Winchesters seek out the scariest creatures and dispatch them with their trademark style. But what would they do when confronted with the very founder of Halloween, Samhain? That is what “It’s The Great Pumpkin, Sam Winchester”, the first Halloween-centric episode since the show’s debut in 2005, poses in a very special episode that takes place on the days surrounding October 31st. Let the slaughterin’ begin!

It’s two days before Halloween in a picturesque, suburban town that clearly loves the holiday. Kids spookify their front yards into haunted cemeteries or and hang homemade ghosts and goblins from trees. Susan Soccer Mom carries a pumpkin and a bucket of Halloween candy into her own festive home furnished by Martha Stewart, judging by the crisp greens and grays of the foyer and kitchen. Inside, Scott Soccer Dad feeds his infant son a vibrantly orange slop that I hope is baby sweet potatoes and not the disgusting strained carrots. They chatter amiably about her trip to the market, and Halloweentown’s mad rush to stockpile candy. Susan tells her husband that he cannot have any of the Halloween candy until after the trick-or-treaters have come and gone. Their conversation is so pathetically boring that I remind myself to never get married and live in the suburbs. She takes her toddler upstairs for a bath. Predictably, the husband sidles over to the enormous bucket of candy and wastes no time eating one. He grunts in satisfaction and grabs a few more pieces. Suddenly, his eyes widen, he puts the candy back in the bucket, and reaches into his mouth, alarmed. For a second, I think I’m watching “CSI: Miami” as the shot switches to a mouth’s…eye view of Scott Soccer Dad’s index finger and thumb tactilely examine the roof of his mouth. His fingers graze a razor blade that was in the candy and has now embedded itself in the roof of his mouth right by his molars. He draws his bloody fingers back before gathering enough courage to it out, which of course, allows blood to flow freely. Immediately, he folds to his knees in pain and spits out another razor blade and splatters the hardwood kitchen floor with crimson. In a series of stylish quick cuts, we see poor Scott Soccer Dad hacking up blood and choking before face-plants on the floor and dies. Susan Soccer Mom must have heard the choking or the thuds for she ventures into the kitchen with the little one, asking her husband what’s wrong. She, of course, finds him dead-eyed on floor and promptly screams while the child she’s holding sucks on his rattle completely unaffected. We fade to black before David Caruso and Sunglasses of Justice arrive.

Kick-ass title card. One day before Halloween. David Caruso and his Sunglasses of Justice have sadly departed, after handing the case over to Fed-Like Sammy and Un-Fed-Like Dean. Sammy’s wonderfully broad shoulders and strong back cut masculine lines in his dark blazer. Dean discreetly canvases the kitchen, searching for any supernatural evidence, while Sammy questions the widow. “So how many razorblades did they find?” He asks. Susan Soccer Mom, despite her customary grieving widow ensemble of dark, shapeless layers, doesn’t seem all that broken up about her husband’s death as she answers Sammy, “two on the floor, one in his stomach, and one was stuck in his throat. He swallowed for of them, how is that even possible?” Fed-Like Sammy makes an adorable face that screams, “if you only knew.” Both Fed-Like Sammy and Susan Soccer Mom turn their heads to gawk at Un-Fed-Like Dean as he noisily examines the oven. “The candy was never in the oven,” Susan snipes. “We just have to be thorough, Ms. [Soccer Mom].” Fed-Like Sammy asks if there were razorblades in the rest of the candy, but Susan says there wasn’t. Un-Fed-Like Dean rummages through the fridge, which the candy definitely wasn’t in, but he’s just looking for some beer tenderloin to swipe for later. The widow continues to not have a nervous breakdown about her husband’s terrible demise and answer Sammy’s questions while Dean sees fresh scuffmarks on the floor, indicating that the fridge had recently been moved. He discovers a hexbag behind it. Behind the widows back, he shows it to Fed-Like Sammy, who immediately adjusts his line of questioning to see if Scott Soccer Dad had any enemies who may be female, because they suspect a witch was responsible for the murder. Susan Soccer Mom, of course, is outraged, and then points out the obvious, “if someone wanted to kill my husband, don’t you think they’d find a better than that a razor in a piece of candy he might eat?” And scene!

Motel room. I have realized with great sadness that “Supernatural” has stopped creating the over-the-top theme motel rooms. In the past, the boys always checked into hotel rooms that were as refreshingly tacky as they were impeccably designed. I still covet the trippy, psychedelic, black and white wallpaper from the ‘70s disco room in “Provenances.” This season has opted to use the same two layouts, even the same table by the window and just change the flooring, bedspreads and walls. I’m sure it saves money for more important things, like Jensen Ackles’ mascara or Jared Padalecki’s big and tall wardrobe, but those tasteless hotel rooms will be missed! This room, however, is still visually offensive with its red and black-checkered floor, green couch and purple crushed velvet bedspreads. But I digress, a lot. Sorry. Dean enters the motel enthusiastically opening Halloween candy. Sammy sits on a vibrantly green couch, engrossed in his research on the contents of the hexbag. “Really, after that guy choked down all those razorblades?” Sammy questions. With his mouth full, Dean shrugs with a groovy, “it’s Halloween, man.” “For us, every day is Halloween.” “Don’t be a downer,” Dean says. Straight-Laced Exposition Sammy proceeds to totally bring the room down by explaining the contents of the hexbag: “Goldthread, an herb that’s been extinct for 200 years; a Celtic coin that’s 600 years old” and “the charred metacarpal bone of a newborn baby,” Sammy says, referring to the small, blackened object that Dean is currently sniffing and touching. Gross! “Witches, man, they’re so freakin’ skeevy,” Dean recoils with a shudder. His hatred for witches was made known in “Malleus Maleficarum,” and that was before the witch tried to kill him with a torture spell that nearly made him cough up his lungs. “It’s a pretty powerful one to put a bag like this together. More juice than we’ve ever dealt with before,” Sammy says. While Sammy was researching, Dean was investigating the late Scott Soccer Dad. The results: “He was so vanilla that he made vanilla seems spicy. I can’t find any reason why somebody would want this guy dead,” Dean laments.

Cut to the most boring basement Halloween party ever. The basement is as festive as the rest of this Halloween-loving town, but there are only about twelve kids at this bash and no one is dancing, making out or smoking weed. In other words, it’s like all the parties I went to in high school. Two girls, a brunette and a blonde, stroll through the lamefest. The brunette is wearing a slut-tastic nurse outfit, complete with red garter and a red patent leather accents. Her friend, who I immediately recognize as a grown up Abby Devreaux from “Days of our Lives” is wearing the cheapest cheerleading uniform I’ve ever seen. It’s nothing more than a tiny blue pleated skirt and a skimpy tight tee-shirt with a WW and a megaphone emblazed across the bust. Go Team Winchester! And the skanky cheerleader stereotype continues to live on. Abby and Slutty Nurse sidle up to Justin, a kid in a clothes and tireprints across his chest and face, and hope he got into his parents liquor cabinet, but it’s triple-locked. He’s a skinny, awkward kid and brags about how he’s going to get “so baked” at the mausoleum party on Halloween night. Instantly, we see the love triangle. Justin stares at Abby as she laughs and Slutty Nurse laughs too hard at while making eyes at him, “Well, it’s gotta be better than this G-rated ass-fest.” Stop with the pseudo-trendy slang, “Supernatural” and kill someone please, preferably Abby. And it suddenly clicks, Slutty Nurse is wearing a SLUTTY NURSE COSTUME very much like the one our poor, flambéed Jessica Moore wore in the series premiere. She’s toast! Boo! I liked her.

Anyway, Abby boasts that this party isn’t that bad, and she struts over to a tub filled with water and apples, and kneels down, inviting Justin to check out assets (which are about as round and supple as a pancake) and skillfully surfaces with a shiny red apple in her mouth. She bites it while making eyes at Justin. Jealous of the attention Justin is giving only Abby, Jessica 2.0 decides to give it a try. The water-cam shows her trying to complete the task in the same way that Abby did, but the apples bounce away when she bites for them. On the third try, she submerges her entire face in the water. There is a magical woosh on the soundtrack and Jessica 2.0 struggles like some force has locked her underwater. Justin compliments her on her ability to hold her breath. Dumbass. Jessica 2.0 (who’s real name is JENNY) starts flailing, her shoes scrape against the basement floor and her hands open and close against the rim of the tub. Abby and Justin call for help, and tug at her shoulders and hands, trying to get her out of the water before she drowns.

Common sense would tell these kids to knock the tub over or at least scoop the water out so she could breathe. They continue to tug at her and scream as The Tragic Re-Embodiment of Sammy’s Girlfriend fights for her life. What happens next is the strangest, wrongest thing I could ever imagine. The water stars BOILING! That’s right, folks, the tub of water launches into a rolling boil, poaching Jessica 2.0’s pretty face until it is golden brown, flaky and a well-done 212 degrees. Yummo! Underwater, Jessica 2.0 is screaming in agony. Above water, Justin wonders what the hell is going on. Mercifully, Jessica’s 2.0’s hands relax and her feet, strapped into some fetching white heels, go slack and flop against the basement floor. Abby cries as Justin pulls Jessica 2.0 out of the tub, and cradles her in a way that she would forever remembered and cherished if, you know, her face hadn’t just been boiled off. God, I thought drowning was the worst way to go. The show spares us a close up of the carnage. I can’t tell if I’m relieved or disappointed.

Fed-Like Sammy and Un-Fed-Like Dean enter the crime scene. Dean takes one look at the petite blonde “Days of our Lives” album, Abby, puts a hand on Sammy’s chest, and says, “I got this one” and then licks his plump lips. Sammy warns his older brother who has now turned into a dirty old man, because he’s thirty-years-old (if it wasn’t so annoying to type, I’d call Deano Milo Ventimiglia for the remainder of this recap), and is about to hit on a high school cheerleader, “Two words: jailbait.” It’s one word, Sammy. One. “I would never!” Dean barely dredges up faux outrage before Sammy shoots him a prim bitchface with pointedly wide eyes. Dean definitely would and probably has. Eagerly, he approaches her for questioning, while Sammy moves around the basement to search for hexbags. And I need to interject. I love the writer’s decision to subtly hint at Sammy’s past by putting Jessica 2.0 in the slutty nurse costume. I imagine that was blatant choice and point of discussion in the writing room and it was made for a very specific reason. Naturally, I was disappointed when there was no trace of the body at the crime scene, and thus, no chance for Fed-Like Sammy to look at the dead girl in an outfit that is painfully similar to one of the last things his girlfriend wore, and be affected by that for a moment, but “Supernatural” isn’t a soap opera. Like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives! The melodramatic reunion of the two “Days” alum is everything I ever thought it would be, complete long-winded declarations of how strong their love is and patented John Black facial expressions. Except it’s really not because Jensen Ackles left the soap opera years before Ashley Benson (Abby) was cast (and eventually replaced because she’s not that great of an actress. She just so happens to be blonde and pretty.) All he does is ask if she knew the late Scott Soccer Dad. She vehemently denies it. Sam finds the hexbag in the couch, and they roll out without any lingering looks of betrayal or suspicion.

Motel. Dean finds that “both of these vics are squeaky clean. There is no reason for wicked bitch payback.” Sammy, with his face buried in a book, suggests that maybe the victims aren’t dying because of revenge, but maybe their deaths are a part of a bigger plan. “’Three blood sacrifices over three days. The last before midnight on the final day of the final harvest.” According to the Celtic calendar, the last day of the harvest being…all together, kids, HALLOWEEN! The witch is slaving over her proverbial cauldron to raise “Samhain” or “Sam Hain” as it’s pronounced on this show, which is fine with me, because I have no clue how you pronounce the traditional spelling that has more unpronounceable symbols than consonants. Although I’m disappointed Dean didn’t make a snarky comment about Sam Hain’s name to Sam. But then I guess since Sammy’s about fifteen episodes from turning evil, it wouldn’t be all that funny. Moving on. After Jared does his adorable lip purse, flashes his dimples, and simply looks gorgeous, Straight-Laced Exposition Sammy continues, “Sam Hain is the damn origin of Halloween. The Celts believed that October 31st was the one night of the year when the veil between was thinnest between the living and the dead. Masks put on to hid from him. Sweets left on doorsteps to appease him. Faces carved into pumpkins to worship him. He was exorcised centuries ago.” Breathe, Sammy, breathe. Halloween traditions stuck except now it’s about “kids, candy and costumes.”

Dean still isn’t as impressed or as bright-eyed as our Stanford Grad Sammy, “So some witches want to raise Samhain and ‘Take Back the Night?’” Wet Blanket Sammy to the rescue! “Dean, this is serious. We’re talking heavyweight witchcraft. This ritual can only be performed every six hundred years!” And you all know when the 600th anniversary is, right, kids? HALLOWEEN! Good job! You get a gold star. Apparently, once Sammy Hain “is raised, he can do some raisin’ of his own,” which sounds vaguely dirty. “Raising what exactly?” Dean asks. “Dark evil crap, and lots of it.” This line tickled me for no reason. Sammy isn’t so straight-laced during the mandatory exposition of this episode, and the looseness given to the character (FINALLY) makes the scene more fun and compelling. Kudos to writer Julie Siege. I really love when the show takes something firmly rooted in history and use it in the show, with artistic license, of course. And they do that with more than you could ever imagine. “They follow him around like the friggin’ Pied Pipper.” And now we’re no longer talking about Sam Hain, but R Kelly. Can they go after him instead? Dean quizzes Sammy on all that could be raised, which is pretty much everything, and also bashes leprechauns. “Those little dudes are scary, small hands!” He says, holding up a fist. And I’m definitely not touching that one. Annoyed, Sammy breaks it down for his smart ass of an older brother, “It just starts with ghosts and ghouls. By night’s end, we’re talking about every awful thing we’ve ever seen. Everything, we fight, all in one place.” The gravity of the situation finally sinks in on Dean’s pretty, pretty face, but he isn’t as scared as he is intrigued. He gives me some much-needed eye porn by blinking slowly, and declares, “it’s going to be a slaughterhouse.” Yay! Massacre is the new black! The episode is off to a running start, and so is The Battle of the Pretty!

Metallicar. Halloween afternoon. Alone, Dean stakes out the Widow’s Soccer Mom’s house and apparently passed the time by devouring roughly four pounds of Halloween candy, judging by the wrappers covering the front seat. He pops another piece into his mouth, and then adorably clutches his stomach in discomfort. I’ll rub it for you, Dean! Sammy calls to checks in. “I talked to Mrs. Razorblade again. I’ve been sitting outside of her house for hours, and I’ve got a big steaming pile of nothing,” Dean recaps. Sammy is convinced that there has to be some sort of connection between the victims. “Well, I hope we find them soon because I’m starting to cramp like a…sonofabitch!” Hee! Dean’s period is right on time. “Quit whining!” Sam shoots back. “No, Sam, I mean, Son of a bitch!” He corrects as he watches Abby enter Susan Soccer Mom’s house (and walks right past a life-sized ghoul I honestly thought was real person) and takes the infant from her arms.

Moonlight Motel. Sammy is still researching, stretched out on the bed. And after rewinding this part several times, I can honestly report that for Jared Padalecki to actually lounge on the bed, he has to rest his hips all at the head of the bed in order for the nine feet of his legs stretch out to the foot! I notice stupid, inane things like this because I’m a short freak of nature, and I love tall men. Jared Padalecki, and therefore Sammy Winchester, is the epitome of tall, dark and handsome. Mama like! Dean enters to the hotel to announce that Abby is the Soccer Family’s babysitter. Dean, a man who lies for a living, is apparently outraged that someone would actually lie to him. Hypocrite, much? “Interesting look for a centuries old witch,” Sam notes. Good news is she’s fair game for Deano, right? “Well if you were a 600-year-old hag and you could pick any costume to come back in, wouldn’t you go for a hot cheerleader?” Dean asks rhetorically, and then sinks into his dirty old man daydreams. “I would…mhmm.” He imagines that cheerleader doing all sorts of bendy things until Sam gawks at him with a deeply furrowed brow because he’s imagining sesky time with a murdering, demon-raising witch. Sammy’s research uncovered that Abby wasn’t nearly as vanilla as they first imagined. “Apparently, she got into a violent altercation with one of her teachers, got suspended from school.”

Local High School. Fed-Like Sammy and Un-Fed Like Dean stroll into the impressively outfitted high school art room. A variety of exotic and masks of both human and the supernatural masks hang from the ceiling. Dean studies them. The scariest mask looks as f it was carved in stone with severely hooded eyes and a nose, and no mouth. Gooey blood is caked around its orphises, and upon second glance, it looks like a face-meat is melting off the skull like wax off a candle. The camera alternates between tight shots on Dean’s pretty, pretty face and an equally close shot of the mask accompanied with the jarring combination of people screaming and the growl of some kind of monster. Dean’s eyes are large and they narrow slightly as he stares at the mask. “Brings back memories?” Sammy asks. That’s when I realized our poor Dean was having sensory flashbacks of his time in hell. Poor Deano, he suffers from Supernatural Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome (SNPTSD). “What do you mean?” He asks, jerkily looking around. He hides whatever horror he was reliving quite well while still conveying distress to the viewer. This is what critics called a “nuanced performance”, I just called it AWESOME. “Being a teenager, all that angst.” Sammy answers as if their lives are completely angst-free, and they make ice cream for a living. I’ll take the angst of not being able to go to prom over stopping the impending Apocalypse. “What did you think I meant?” Sammy wonders, and grins because he has not a clue as what just happened to Dean. Poor stupid, giant Sammy. Dean shakes his head, “nothing.” He watches a skid-mark free Justin trying to fit a pottery bong into one of the kilns. “Now that brings back memories,” he smirks. “Dude,” Justin says to no one in particular, “I’m gonna need a bigger kiln!” The art teacher enters the room, and is immediately pegged as the Generic Cool Teacher who encourages his students to sculpt pottery bongs and call him by his first name. He’s even wearing the Generic Cool Teacher Uniform: button down shirt, blazer and jeans. Don expresses remorse about Abby’s suspension, but says that if another teacher hadn’t walked by Abby would have “clawed his eyes out” because he “just wanted to rap with her about her work. Yeah, he actually said “rap” because in this town, it’s still 1995. “It had gotten inappropriate and disturbing.” Dean scoffs, and points to the rows of scary masks, “more disturbing than those guys?” “She would color page after page of these bizarre Celtic symbols.” This catches Sammy’s attention. “And then were the drawings: detailed images of killings—gory, primitive--and she would depict herself in the middle of them, participating.” This is a double DUN! The symbols were Celtic, matching the engravings on the ancient coins found in the hexbags and he establishes a pattern for “primitive” violence in Abby’s past. We all know demons love dispatchin’ folks old school style. The teacher goes onto to tell our boys that Abby was an “emancipated teen” with her own apartment. Oh, did anyone find it odd that the teacher specifically identified the coins as Celtic? I did. Hmm.

Motel Exterior. The Metallicar rumbles into the empty parking lot of the Moonlight Motel. Sammy and Dean return from trying to find Abby, but no one seems to know where she is. Dean complains, “it’s like the bitch hopped a broomstick.” Sam conveys the importance of finding her, because the third sacrifice could happen anytime. A rather large child in an elaborate astronaut costume approach the Winchesters with a polite “trick-or-treat.” “This is a motel,” Dean says, “We don’t have any candy.” Dean, the greedy, bow-legged heathen who is literally taking candy from a baby, cuts Sammy off when he begins to say they have a ton of it in the Metallicar. “We did but it’s gone,” he snaps. “Sorry, kid, we can’t help ya.” The camera switches to the child’s point of view, shooting through the helmet of his costume as Dean says, “I want candy.” “Well, I think you’ve had enough,” Dean says to the brat. And yes, he probably needs a nutritionist more than a Nestle’s Crunch, but you can’t say that to kids! The kid glares at Dean and actually bumps his shoulder as he angrily waddles off in his cumbersome costume. Dean looks at him and spreads his arms out, hilariously ready to rumble with a nine-year-old.

Sammy enters the dark hotel room and instantly draws his gun on two unseen figures, who have somehow broken into their room. Honestly when are they going to start booby-trapping the door? The camera slides to the right, to the right to reveal…HOLY MOTHER OF MARY WINCHESTER…it’s Castiel perched on the edge of one of the beds. His face is holds an expression of infinite anguish, and his large eyes are a beautiful crystalline blue, but incredible sadness or maybe guilt? Dean runs in, “Sam, wait! That’s Castiel, the angel.” After three seasons of Sammy being a bit wary about using weapons, and being the more sensitive of the two he finally mans up to the trigger-happy plate and ends up drawing down on an angel. Hee! Dean pushes Sam’s gun down and eyes as another figure in the corner. In a simple, but ridiculously stunning shot, a man who challenges Sammy in the Tall, Dark and Handsome competition, stands stoically in front of the white chiffon curtains in a black suit, back to the boys…and angel. “Him, I don’t know.” We know from “Houses of the Holy” that Sammy has a great deal of faith, and eyes the two figures in the room with unabashed slack-mouthed wonderment of a child on Christmas morning. Aww! “Oh, my God!” Sammy gasps, dumbfounded. He quickly stumbles to apologize for using the Lord’s name in vain. Sam steps forward, thrilled. “It’s an honor. I’ve heard a lot about you,” he extends his hand for Castiel to shake. Castiel seems hesitant and regards his hand like it’s coated in angelic kryptonite, but he eventually shakes it. “And I you,” he replies in a voice that is deep and rich and a pleasure to listen to through headphones. Ever since Ruby 2.0 challenged Sam about him not fearing the angels, I wondered if they would ever meet and how such a meeting would go down. Out of the 513 scenarios I concocted, I never thought that Castiel would simply offer polite salutations. “Sam Winchester, the boy with the demon blood,” he announces pointing out the irony of their meeting. There, that’s more like it. Castiel gently shakes his hand and places his left hand ontop of his. After watching this fabulous scene many, many times, I cannot pinpoint why he did it. Is that how angels shake hands? Is he trying to gage Sam’s faith like he did with Dean in the season premiere? Does he see how much Sam believes in him? I honestly have no clue, but it’s an important gesture nonetheless. “Glad to hear you’ve ceased your…extracurricular activities.” “Let’s keep it that way,” Tall, Dark and Rude says his back still facing the group. He has yet to introduce himself. Poor Giant Sammy now feels like more of a freak than he ever has.

Dean frowns, “Who’s your friend?” Castiel ignores him. “This raising of Sam Hain, have you stopped it?” The angel asks Sam. “Why?” Dean asks. “Dean, have you located the witch?” “Yes, we’ve located the witch,” Dean answers, irritably. “And is the witch dead?” “We know who it is,” Dean says, subscribing to the glass-half-full philosophy for the first time in his life…both of them. “Apparently the witch knows who you are too,” he produces a hexbag. “This was inside the wall of your room. If we haven’t found it, surely one or both of you would be dead.” I need to interject for a moment. After Dean’s last encounter with the mostly harmless witches in “Malleus Maleficarum” that involved an extremely well hidden hexbag and Dean in excruciating pain and Sammy almost meeting his maker (again), why on earth do they not take extra precautions to protect themselves? Stupid boys. Back to the action. Dean reiterates that they don’t know where the witch is right now, and Castiel methodically says, “That’s unfortunate.” He announces that the raising of Sam Hain is another one of the sixty-six seals that need to be broken so Lucifer can walk free. “The breaking of the seal must be prevented at all costs,” Castiel says. Dean shrugs, “Okay, great. Why don’t you tell us where the witch is, we’ll gank her and everybody goes home,” Dean simplifies. “We are not omniscient. This witch is very powerful. She’s cloaked even our methods,” Castiel explains. Sammy pipes in that they should work together, and Tall, Dark and Rude finally decides to come out and play. “Enough of this!” He yells. “Who are you and why should I care?” Dean snaps back. “This is Uriel. He’s what you might call…a specialist.” Castiel ominously introduces. Crap, that can’t be good. Uriel turns around, and sadly looks much older than I imagined like a veteran gangster who is desensitized to pretty much everything, except anger. “What are you going to do?” Dean questions. There is underlying fear in his voice and you know that he truly doesn’t want to know the answer. “Both of you need to leave this town immediately,” Castiel advises, “because we’re about to destroy it.” And that, my friends, is a motherfuckin’ DUN!

We return from commercial break, and all four men are standing in the checkered floor like living chess pieces. And I will note that Castiel is huddled with the boys while Uriel is standing on five feet away. “So that’s your plan, you’re going to smite the whole friggin’ town?” “We’re out of time. This witch has to die. The seal must be saved,” Castiel explains. “There are a thousand people here,” Sammy implores. And wow does his hair look really, really good. “One thousand two hundred and fourteen,” Uriel coldly corrects. “And you’re willing to kill them all?” Sammy gasps in horror. Uriel is unfazed by the idea. “This isn’t the first time I’ve…purified a city.” This angel has a unique, almost lyrical cadence to his deep, deep voice that makes him quirkily creepy. I forgot to mention that our new angel is black and bald. The part of me who took that damn Media Studies class in college and simply cannot turned off what I learned, wants to point out that he is doing a fantastic job of reinforcing the Intimidating Black Man stereotype TV loves so much. The part of me that’s a snarky recapper tells the other part to shut the hell up. “I understand this is regrettable. We have to hold the line, too many seals have been broken already,” Castiel says. “It’s the lives of 1,000 versus of lives of 6 billion. There’s a bigger picture here.” Needless to say, the tension in the hotel room steadily rises as decisions are being made that will somehow affect the future of the entire world. Sammy, who has just encountered the angels, currently reels quietly as the weight grows on his ridiculously broad shoulders. “Right, ‘cause you’re bigger picture kinda guys,” Dean snarks, which is dumb, because they really are. Castiel, who is probably all of 5’8’’, steps forward and does the Tough Guy Eskimo Kiss with Dean, and he still has to look up. There’s no way he could pull that crap with Sammy without a step ladder. “Lucifer cannot rise. He does and hell…rises…with him.” Castiel’s face twitches when he utters the word “hell” as if it causes him physical paid to say it. “Is that something you’re willing to risk?” Dean is speechless. But he senses that Castiel could be a contender for The Battle For The Pretty For This Episode, and licks his lips to prevent that from happening. Well played! Sammy cuts in, and he promises that they’ll kill the witch and protect the seal. Uriel is bored and wants to commence with the smiting. “We’re wasting time with these mud-monkeys.” Media Studies Kira and Recapper Kira think it’s effin’ AWESOME that a black man refers to the human race as (mud)monkeys, a known slur for black men, and that it got on network television. Sammy winces at Uriel’s derogatory term for human life. And I pretty much want to kiss his badass bald head.

“I’m sorry, but we have our orders.” Castiel says. Sammy’s is at his wit’s end. “But you can’t do this…y-you’re ANGELS.” Uriel laughs at him. It’s obvious that Sam, like most people, subscribes the homogenized and pasteurized Hallmark school of thought and believes that angels embody mercy and grace, wear shapeless white robes and communicate with humans through grand acts of benevolence. Biblically, angels are God’s Warriors who protect His creations through a mighty smiting, and those are the kind of angel “Supernatural” wisely has decided to use. The power of this storyline lies in the dichotomy between the two vastly different beliefs. So, we understand when Sammy’s divine disappointment morphs into holy indignation. “You’re supposed to show mercy!” “Says who?” Uriel smirks. God, this angel is an asshole. I love him. Castiel, now gazing away from Dean with his beautiful eyes, assures Dean that he has no choice. Dean argues that of course they have a choice, “You never questioned a crap order? What are you, just a couple of hammers?” Castiel’s decidedly un-cherubic face tightens with contained anger. “Even if you can’t understand it, have faith. The plan is just. It comes from Heaven.” Castiel continues to drive his point home and aligns his need to follow orders with Dean’s obedience to Papa Winchester. “Tell me something, Dean. When your father gave you an order, you obey?” Bad move, Castiel. Dean’s hero worship for John Winchester died the second he told him he had to off his baby brother. Dean’s face never flinches or changes, but that question pushes Dean to play a card of his own, and we immediately know it. “Sorry, boys, it looks like the plans have changed.” “You think you can stop us?” Uriel scoffs. “No, but if you’re going to smite this town, then you’re going to have to smite us with it, because we’re not leaving.” Sammy’s all “Um, I want to leave! I’ve died before too, and it kinda sucks.” Well, okay, not really. Dean approaches Uriel, unafraid. “You went to the trouble of busting me out of hell, I figure I’m worth something to the man upstairs. Go ahead, see how he digs that!” “I will drag you out of here myself,” Uriel promises. “Yeah but you’ll have to kill me. I mean, come on, you’re going to wipe out a whole town for one little witch? Sounds like you’re overcompensating for something!” ZING! That’s the Dean Winchester I love…intense, determined, with a popped collar and offering up his life for the greater good. “We can do this!” He says, channeling Notre Dame’s Rudy, because they are extreme underdogs, but they’ve accomplished more with less. “We will find that witch, and we will stop the summoning!” Dean’s brazen disrespect has finally ruffled Uriel’s feathers (HEE!) and he is about to go off on the elder Winchester, but Cas reigns him in. “I suggest you move quickly.” CHECKMATE.

Exterior of motel. The Metallicar has been defiled, streaked with a gloppy white substance that looks more like paint than eggs. Silently, Dean surveys the damage, pauses to keep himself from tearing the hotel apart to throttle a pudgy nine-year-old, and rages, “ASTRONAUT!” through the empty parking lot. And it’s kind of sexy. His jaw is clenched and his nostrils are flared and I really wish this moment last a lot longer, but it doesn’t. Dean, still seething, gets into the car where Sam is fidgeting the hexbag and broodily quiet. Sam confesses that he thought the angels would be different, “righteous,” and Dean’s positively sparkle as he says, “They are…that’s kind of the problem. Of course, there’s nothing more dangerous than an a-hole who thinks he’s on a holy mission,” and we know that that is a pointed statement. Hee! Sammy remains understandably morose, “I mean this is God and heaven? This is what I’ve been praying to?” He wonders pessimistically. And we feel for him, because he’s seen tremendous evil, and needed to believe that angels and heaven were as divinely good as demons and hell are fiendisly bad. And Castiel and Uriel just destroyed that belief, and further grayed Sammy’s black and white philosophies. Ever the big brother, Dean does his best to reaffirm Sam’s faith while establishing a bit of his own. “Look, man, I know you’re into the whole God thing—Jesus on a tortilla and all that—just because there’s two bad apples doesn’t mean the whole barrel’s rotten. Don’t give up on this stuff. Babe Ruth was a dick but baseball’s still a beautiful game,” he argues in a way that is unusually patient for our Deano. But it fails on me because I think baseball is a stupid game. Sammy half-smiles as he plays with the charred infant’s metacarpal bone from the hexbag, but doesn’t say anything, which irritates me. Does Jared Padalecki have a clause in his contract that limits the amount of words he can say per episode? “You gonna find a way to track down this witch or are you just going to sit there fingerin’ your bone?” Dean snarks. Hee! Wet Blanket Sammy again has no smartass reply to that. I grit my teeth. Does Jared Padalecki have a clause in his contract that limits the amount of words he can say per episode? For an episode that’s supposed to center on Sammy’s crisis of faith (which is a very clever first step of Sammy’s step toward Darth Sammy) and the anniversary of his girlfriend’s death, he was written as blandly as he as been in previous episodes. Anyway, he realizes that it would take an extreme amount of heat to char the bone, something hotter than your average oven, something like the kilns in the high school art room.

The next scene is really boring, so I summarize. Straight-Laced Exposition Sammy points out that the hexbag didn’t show up in their room until they spoke with Don, the cool teacher, not after they spoke with Abby, who they first suspected. Sammy finds a locked drawer, breaks it open with a HAMMER and finds a bowl full of uncharred bones of children. Creepy. But it means the witch performing the summoning is a none other than Don, the dude-witch.

In one of many artful and lush shots, we cut to adorable trick-or-treaters moving down a misty path littered with giant trees. Uriel and Castiel sit near a bench, watching the Norman Rockwell-ian image unfold. “The decision’s been made.” Castiel says, indicating that we’re joining them in the middle of a conversation. “By a mud-monkey. What? That’s what they are,” Uriel gripes,” just plumbing on two legs.” Strangely, it’s not that hard to me believe that angels, who were seemingly created to protect humans, don’t exactly love their “savage” charges, especially since they have a bird’s eye view of the wars and the ethnic cleansing and the Republican National Committee. “There’s a reason we were sent to save him. He has potential, he may succeed here.” Castiel says. “Either way, it’s out of our hands.” Castiel suggests that they can go rogue, get Dean to safety and “wipe this insignificant pinprick off the map.” “You know our true orders. Are you prepared to disobey?” Um, DUN? What are their true orders? I hope it’s to smite that heinous beige jacket Sammy wears all the time. THAT thing is pure evil!

Trick-or-treaters flood Halloweentown. A mother-daughter pair of classic witches—pointy hat, stringy hair, and black robes—move by a darkened home that belongs to none other than Don, the dude-witch. Very cute! In the basement, MIA Abby is gagged and bound with her arms above her head. I don’t know if that’s a DUN! or not, but I’d prefer that he killed her as to spare me the torture or recapping her upcoming villain soliloquy. After a “Matrix”-y slide jump-slide that is needless, but cool, we find Dude-witch is performing an incantation over a dark alter. And he’s going to sacrifice recently vindicated Abby in order for Sam Hain to rise. Yay! I have not idea what language it is and I’m not going to waste hours googling to find out. It’s Witch-ease. Another “Matrix”-y slide jump and Dude-witch does the Standardized Evil Knife Torture and gingerly glides the blade around her neck and down her breasts sadistically as she shudders and cringes and cries. That shit’s not even scary because he’s doing it wrong! Get Evil Sammy to show you how to do it! Just as he raises the knife, a bullet blasts through his chest just below his collarbone, followed by another, then another. And you’ll never guess who killed him. Nope, it’s not Sarah Palin who mistook him for a moose or even Dick Cheney who mistook him for a Democrat. It is our very own Trigger-Happy Sammy! Dude-witch faceplants onto the cement floor below, dead. Now it’s time for Abby to show us all why she was booted from “Days of our Lives” and has to settle for throwaway bit parts. Take it away, Abby! She flings off her gag and shrilly faux-rages, “that sick sonofabitch!” Um, sweetie, the Magic Winchester Catchphrase doesn’t work for shitty actors. While I grit my teeth in the effort to fight not to fast forward, she reveals that she is in fact a witch by sneering, “did you hear how sloppy his incantation was?” Jensen Ackles, who was wincing at Abby’s thin, squeaky voice and unflatteringly blonde hair, remembers to react to this moment. Oh yeah, dude-witch was her brother so Don’s attack was nothing more than witch-sibling rivalry. Her speechifying screams of my high school drama club monologue except worse (and I was one of three kids who didn’t make it). Sammy and Dean attempt to unholster their guns, but Abby curses them with the binding spell all men fear: Cruciatius Crampyolis! Our poor heroes are thrown to the floor, unable to move or stop her from raising Sam Hain because they are doubled over with the DEE-MONIC Menstral Cramps of Doom! Hurts, don’t it? Sammy and Dean writhe in agony as Abby monologues hating her brother, but putting up with him for 600 years, blah blah yada yada snore. She collects blood from his corpse in her first edition pimp cup, continues with the incantation. I want to move on with the action so much that I’m not even going to question how a 600 year-old witch would be killed by three bullets or, in a few minutes, a simple neck snap.

Sammy, blinded by cramps and probably hankerin’ for a tub of ice cream, can’t stop her, so he crawls over to the corpse of Dude-witch, places his oversized mit into a pool of his blood and SMEARS IT ALL OVER HIS FACE? Okay, I’ve heard of some exotic facials, especially in Hollywood, but I can’t see that catching on. Dean asks what he’s doing. “Follow my lead,” Sammy deftly and enthusiastically paints Dean’s face in witch blood, and then flops on his back to play possum. The floor begins to rumble as Abby finishes the reverse exorcism and then it cracks, shifting tectonically as the demon-black smoke rises from hell and tornadoes into the corpse of her brother. I don’t really care what happens next because the next sequence is so fucking badass that I will super-summarize. Sam Hain is an ice-blue eyed, eerily quiet demon (that looks nothing like the ram-horned man-beast in the pictures we saw during the initial exposition) who snaps Abby’s neck for no reason. He is also in dire need of a trip to Lenscrafters, because his vision is extremely blurry. He sees the limp bodies of Sammy and Dean, faces covered in a makeshift mask of blood, in a muddled fashion and steps over them. Once he leaves, Sammy recounts Halloween lore, “people used to wear masks to hide from him” and he “gave it a shot.” Dean’s all “you gave it a shot?!” Hee. Done.

Sam Hain evilly walks through the streets of Halloweentown, and perceives the throngs of trick-or-treats as actual demons and other devilish creatures. Sammy and Dean scrub the blood off their now rejuvenated and pore-free faces, and figure out that the best place to start raising nightmare things would be the cemetery. They tear off in the Metallicar, and Sam uses this time to strategize. “So this demon’s pretty powerful,” he bushbeats. “Might take more the usual weapons.” Dean immediately clues in one what he’s suggesting and shuts him down. “Sam, no, you’re not using your psychic whatever. Don’t even think about it. Ruby’s knife is enough.” Dean makes some surprisingly good points about why he shouldn’t use them: the angels warned him not to, and just a few weeks ago, after dispatching our very own human-sushi loving Ruguaru, Sammy admitted that using his powers were like “playing with fire.” Sam argues that the angels don’t seem to be right about anything, even though they just saved their lives by finding the hexbag and resurrected his brother, but Sammy’s struggling with the reality of the angels, so I forgive him for that. Dean tells him to take the knife, and actually says “please.” Sammy, like you and I, can’t fight Dean’s sparkly green eyes, so he begrudgingly takes it. But I can tell by the look on Sammy’s gorgeous face that he has no intention of listening to Dean, but he will at least humor him. Dean’s critical sideways glance tells us the he is aware of the same thing.

Badass Sequence of Badassness. In a pleasing move of continuity, Sam Hain heads to the mausoleum and finds the kick ass Halloween party. The partygoers aren’t actually dressed as scary creatures, but slutty nurses, sailors, aristocrats, and superheroes. And there’s a lesson here: slutty costumes may be fun, but they’ll get you killed, kids! Guest star Don McManus has no actual dialogue, but does a fantastic job of making Sam Hain wickedly skincrawling. He slinks down the stairs and sees Skid Mark Justin and about twenty others in their wack costumes. He wordlessly closes the gate, smirking in a way that cannot be good for the teeagers. Skid Mark Justin recognizes his art teacher’s meat suit and panics. He is confused when he locks them in, and probably thinks he is keeping them there and notifying their parents. Sam Hain quietly away, trailing his fingers along the locked gate of the crypt. Suddenly, the cement lids housing the deceased vibrate and shake. The kids scream and move away from the shaking drawers. Skid Mark Justin backs away from the coffins in front of him. Behind him, an unidentifiable, scary bald creature pushes the cement grate off his grave, whips him inside the grave by his ankles, and juices him like a Florida Orange. An abundance of bloody pulp splatters out of the grave and poor young Skid Mark Justin is reduced to…well, a skid mark? Very clever! The kids now bang and shake the locked gate as Sammy and Dean arrive before the slaughterin’ can truly begin. I hate them! “Help them,” Sammy says, backing up. “Dude, you’re not going off alone!” “Do it,” Sammy orders and he runs off in search of Sam Hain. Dean blows off the lock with his pretty, pearl-handled gun, and orders the kids out. He steps into the crypt as two more cement grates shatter on the ground. Two corpses slither out of their tombs and dumbly stand upright. These are classic zombies, folks, not the rage-happy chick who broke Sam’s wrist from “Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things.” They shuffle forward like lemmings searching for braaaaains. And hey, it’s our very own Scott Soccer Dad! He’s back. And decomposing. Dean brandishes a metal stake, and engages, “Bring it on, stinky!” Only Jensen Ackles could make THAT line kick-ass.

Sammy, in that fucking heinous beige jacket, determinedly searches for Sam Hain in the halls of the elaborate mausoleum. Sam Hain is in another room, assumingly trying to raise more hell, which is strangely taking longer than it did before. Sammy narrows his pretty eyes at the back of Sam Hain. This is when I notice Jared Padalecki’s eyebrows are perfectly arched. And it’s weird. Because he’s a dude. After the Witch Blood Facial, did Jared get his eyebrows threaded by a gremlin? Anyway, Sam Hain whirls around and tries to vanquish Sammy with that nuclear burst of white light. The white light gobbles up Sammy, and eventually the entire screen. The light fades, revealing Sammy advancing unarmed and unscathed with a cocky swagger that’s hotter than anything really should be and also lets me know that he’s done this shit before back when Dean was dead. “Yeah, that demon ray gun stuff doesn’t work on me.” Sam Hain charges, enraged. Let the Sam vs. Sam Smackdown BEGIN! From Hain’s garbled point of view, Sammy awesomely launches an uppercut to Sam Hain’s chin and decks him with his left, then right. I LOVE THIS FREAKING SHOW! And Sammy Winchester’s Rating of Badassery just soared to 8.4! I swear I will never tease him for wearing that damn jacket again! Oh wait, Sam Hain blocks Sammy’s next punch and starts wailing on him like one of the drunk bitches from “The Bad Girls’ Club.” And seconds later, Sammy’s Rating of Badassery plummets to a dismal 5.7 because—surprise—Sammy’s getting choked!

Cut to mausoleum. Dean is violently subduing Stinky Scott Soccer Day just out of frame. Seconds later, the dead un-dead thing falls into frame with a metal stake in his belly. Dean expertly shoves it through him, thus pinning to his grave bed. Sort of. Out of the corner of his eye, Dean sees bony feet in some hideous stiletto heels venture towards him. Quickly, he snatches another stake from his knapsack, and jumps up to dispatch her, but she flickers like a malfunctioning hologram, disappears, and pops up behind him. She’s not a zombie. She’s a GHOST! And I understand why! She needs to haunt whoever buried her in those fugly shoes. Before Dean can react, she telepathically flings him into a wall and disappears again. “Zombie-ghost orgy, huh? Well that’s it, I’m torching everybody.” Scrappy Doo decides. He’s such a Pyro. And wait! Hold the phone. Dean promised me a slaughterhouse. So far, we have one human skid mark and a ventilated art teacher. Slaughterhouses require a six-corpse minimum! This is an outrage!

Yawn. Sammy’s still getting choked. He produces The Knife from his jacket pocket. How he managed to fight with it in his packet without shanking himself, I’ll never know. I’ve always thought the Winchesters were like the immortals from “Highlander,” and they have magic coats that store their weapons safely, regardless of the size. One day Sammy will pull a bazooka from his pants. Sammy attempts to stab Sam Hain with it, but the vile demon blocks that too. It does, however, shallowly slice his arm, which electrically pops and flickers with escaping life. Angrily, he bats The Knife away. And even SAM knows he’s about to be chucked across the room like the neighbor’s cat, and has mastered a magnificent “I’m about to hit a wall” expression. Seconds later, he does indeed careen into the stone wall. Now, Sammy is unarmed and overpowered. He scrambles to his feet, anticipating the demon’s next move. Sam Hain doesn’t hesitate to bumrush him. Reflexively and instinctively, Sammy lifts his hand, thinks real hard and stops him in his tracks. Sam Hain hits Sam’s telekinetic force field like an unseen brick wall, and is utterly baffled by it. And I am too, because he’s never done that before! What else can he do?! He dumbly pushes against the invisible thing holding him back as Sam cringes, but keeps his concentration. Sam Hain struggles helplessly as wisps of demonic black smoke seep from the three bullet holds in Dude-witch’s meat suit! And that is so freakin’ cool! Incensed, Sam Hain throws all of his evil power at Sam, whose face is painfully twisted in the mental effort it takes to keep the demon at bay. Both Sam and Sam Hain are digging into their reserves, hitting their opponents with everything they have and more. Sam Hain inches closer, feet sliding against the floor. Sammy holds his ground.

Dean rounds the corner, orange flicker of flames from the fire in the crypt reflecting off the far wall behind him. He deflates with heartbreak and disappointment as he discovers Sam working his mojo on Sam Hain. The brothers share a loaded look before Sam pulls his eyes away to finish the job. Sam Hain animalistically fights, engaged in the weirdest game of supernatural tug o’ war. Sammy’s head bursts with agony as he pushes his power farther than he’s ever taken it before. He grabs his head and the camera moves in tight as Sam’s NOSE STARTS TO BLEED. His face changes from one contorted in agony to superiorly wicked as if he finally gained control of the unadulterated energy pumping out of him, and he likes it. Fans have passionately debated whether Sam’s eyes turn black at this moment, and after dozens of viewings and an embarrassing amount of thought, I’m voting a resounding NO on Proposition Black-Eyed Sammy (like people should have voted for Prop 8). Black eyes would mean that that Sammy would be possessed by a lower-level demon, and not that he’s beginning the transition to the dark side. I also think if he was, it would be much more obvious for the folks in the back. Granted, just last week I realized Jared Padalecki’s eyes are blue, so take my observation for what its worth. Back to the action. At long last, Sam Hain’s demonic essence pours out of him and sizzles back to hell. Dude-witch’s body thuds against the floor, skin powder white and obviously dead and his evil ice-blue eyes snap back to their normal, dark color. Flushed, shaking and exhausted, Sam reluctantly meets Dean’s eyes. He looks ashamed and vulnerable and so young. Dean doesn’t look angry anymore, just worried about Sammy and the power that resides in him. Kudos to Jared Padalecki for doing an amazing job! Bravo!

Motel room. Day After Halloween. A positively ripped Sammy packs in solitude when Uriel abruptly appears on seated on the green couch behind him, and scares Sammy senseless. “Tomorrow, November 2nd, that’s an anniversary for you, right?” Uriel asks, and his tone is noticeably lighter, almost conversational. “That’s the day Azazel killed your mother and twenty-two years later, your girlfriend.” If you want to know how awesome the writers are, google November 2nd. And I know you’re too lazy, so here it is: traditionally, it is known as All Souls’ Day or a day to commemorate lost souls. Jessica’s death tragically honored that of Sammy’s mother. But I digress. Uriel seems almost sympathetic that Sammy is Boy, Interrupted, and has such a heavy “burden to bare,” but seamlessly transitions into an attack on Sam for “brazenly use the power [Azazel’s] given you.” Sammy explains that he had no choice because Sam Hain would have destroyed the entire town. Of course, Uriel doesn’t care, because he’s “been warned twice now.” “My brother was right about you. You are dicks.” Sammy’s upper lip twitches when he says it. Oh snap! Sammy’s Rating of Badassery is now 11.3, and his Rating of Stupidity is 15.7! Uriel cuts his eyes in Sammy’s direction, and we know he’s about to open an angelic can of Whoopass of Sammy that’s far worse than the Cruciatis Crampyolis. Sammy stumbles backwards and his hair flutters as the camera soars closer tight on Sam’s face. Uriel is now an inch away from Sammy, looking him directly in the eyes. In the wickedly cool and minimalist effect, Uriel just FLEW across the room to threaten Sammy’s life, “the only reason you’re still alive Sam Winchester, is because you’re still useful. The second that ceases to be true, one word, and I’ll turn you into dust.” Sammy gulps in fear, and we know it takes a lot to rattle Sammy Winchester’s resolve. Uriel steps back, but he’s not finished. “As for your brother, tell him to climb off that high horse of his. Ask Dean what he remembers from hell.” OH SNAP! Uriel flies away leaving Sammy confused and panicked, because not only are God’s Angels menacing, wingless freaks who want to obliterate towns, they now want him dead. Poor Sammy. And now I need to interject. I’m glad that the Halloween Special referenced Jessica’s death, but I feel that it was completely half-assed, and didn’t add anything to the story. Sammy Winchester never personally wrestled with The Angst that would understandably swirl around the time of her death. Dean never even brought it up when there were perfect places for him to mention it. It wasn’t a plot point until Uriel mentioned it. And damnit, I feel cheated! AGAIN! First, you deny me my slaughterhouse, and then you won’t even give me some Sammy Angst?! Suck it, Supernatural!

Playground. Dean might be risking a visit from Chris Mathews because he is sitting in a park watching the carefree kids play when Castiel abruptly appears. Are the angels playing divide and conquer? Hmm. Apparently, Sam and Dean are taking some time from each other to process everything that happened. I can imagine what transpired on Halloween night (even though I’d much rather SEE IT): Sammy’s head hurt him too much for Dean to punch him in it or scream at him, but Dean was too worried to do either, so they opted to avoid the Supernatural elephant in the room and have barely spoken since. Dean doesn’t want to hear Castiel’s lecture about not stopping the summoning. Castiel confesses, “our orders were not to stop the summoning of Sam Hain. They were to do whatever you told us to do.” Angels ARE dicks! LYING, MANIPULATIVE LITTLE DICKS! The only thing that makes them different from demons is that they’re on our side. “It was a test to see how you might perform in…battlefield conditions, you might say.” Shit. Dean seems insulted, and not terrified that he was plucked from hell to lead a war so big that that Castiel uses the fate of an entire town as a dry run. “It was a witch, not the Tet Offensive,” Dean says. Castiel seems amused, and almost laughs. Aww, they’re bonding. Dean assures Castiel that he would make the same exact decisions if Castiel were to “wave his magical time traveling wand” because “this: the kids, the swings, the trees, are all here because of my brother and me.” “You misunderstand me, Dean,” Castiel begins, “I was praying you would choose to save the town. These people, they’re all my Father’s creations. They’re works of art.” Finally, he says something profound sweet and sounds like the type of angel that will be topping my Christmas tree in two weeks. Regardless of Dean’s intentions, the seal was broken and they’re one step closer to literal “hell on earth. You of all people should appreciate what that means.” And Dean’s face darkens with a flood of hellish memories. Castiel then shares a secret with Dean, confiding in him in a way that makes him seem far more human that we’ve ever seen. He isn’t a hammer as Dean called him, but a being with “questions and doubts” and a serious mancrush on Zac Efron. You and me both, Castiel. You and me both! “I don’t know what is right and what is wrong anymore, whether you passed or failed here.” I think Castiel realized that Sammy’s Sleight of Hand can be useful, and is may be a necessary evil if used for the greater good. But the Captial-I Iimportance of this moment is that Dean and Castiel have found improbable common ground. They sit side-by-side and feel the same smothering uncertainty and trepidation about the future. And because this is “Superntural,” Castiel has to completely ruin the moment with this little ditty: “In the coming months you will have more decisions to make. I don’t envy the weight that’s on your shoulders, Dean.” Dean looks at the children for a source of courage and when he looks back, Castiel is gone.

“It’s The Great Pumpkin, Sam Winchester,” had some hiccups that worked against the story, but never negated the quality of the episode. This installment continues the fervent, dramatic and sophisticated trend the show has taken since the season premiere.