I’m feeling festive! Much of my Christmas shopping is done, I’ve got Christmas music on at home constantly, and there are several Christmas parties coming up in my schedule.
I’ve been doing some podcast catchup this week: I listened to the Book Riot holiday recommendation shows, which I always love, and as I rewatch Gilmore Girls (currently on season four), I am listening to my beloved Gilmore Guys podcast.
New books:
I picked up a copy of The Gunners by Rebecca Kauffman from the library. This book has been on my TBR for a while, so I’m looking forward to reading it!
Books read:
I haven’t finished any books this week. I feel like all of my free time has been spent running various errands for my Christmas shopping / to-do list.
I’m planning to spend the rest of the day trying to finish one of my current reads, and getting started on my list of favourite reads of 2018! Happy Sunday!
This is yet another episode that I don’t really remember.
The recap reminds us that Sam doesn’t love Halloween (and this recap music is weird), and shows us various monsters and Castiel’s introduction. We are reminded about the seals that Lilith is trying to break in order to free Lucifer.
We open with people decorating two days before Halloween. A dad is feeding his baby while his wife comes in with Halloween candy. She goes to give their baby a bath while the husband hangs back to snag a piece of Halloween candy. Uh oh.
He eats a piece but as he swallows something is wrong. He puts his finger in his mouth and it has blood on it. He pulls out a razor blade! Eewwwww I hate mouth stuff.
Then he falls to his knees and starts coughing out blood and collapses. His wife comes downstairs and finds him dead!
Sam and Dean are interviewing her the next day in FBI mode, learning that her husband somehow swallowed four razorblades. There were no razors in the rest of the candy.
Dean is looking around the house, and notices that the fridge had been moved recently. He reaches behind it and pulls out a hex bag. WITCHES!
Sam asks the woman if her husband had any enemies, but his wife is very upset at the question and its implications. She makes the good point that if someone wanted to kill her husband, couldn’t they find a better way than a razor in candy he might eat?
Back at the motel, Dean comes in snacking on Halloween candy. Sam tells Dean that for them, every day is Halloween.
Apparently the hex bag has gold thread – an herb extinct for two hundred years – and something Celtic, and the charred metacarpal bone of a newborn baby, which is at least a hundred years old. So this is old, powerful stuff.
Dean says that the victim was so vanilla that he made vanilla seem spicy, haha. He can’t find any reason why anyone would have wanted him dead.
Next we cut to a Halloween party where a bunch of young people are dressed in costumes. Hey it’s Ashley Benson from Pretty Little Liars!
Apparently there’s a mausoleum party tomorrow…spooky.
Ashley goes to bob for apples (bless waterproof makeup) and her friend seems a little jealous at the attention it gets her, so she goes to try…but she drowns! Ashley tries to pull her out but they can’t. Then the water starts to boil. Creepy!! She’s dead.
FBI agent Sam and Dean show up to investigate. Dean tries to take lead on interviewing Ashley but Sam stops him: “Two words: jail bait”.
Dean, as Agent Seeger, tries to find out if there’s a connection between the dead girl and the dead man from the day before but they didn’t seem to know each other. Meanwhile, Sam finds a hex bag at the party.
Back at the motel, Dean tells Sam that both victims are squeaky clean. There’s no reason for payback – but Sam says this witch might not be working a grudge, but working a spell: reading from an old book, he talks about three blood sacrifices over three days, with the final before midnight on the final day of the final harvest. On the Celtic calendar, the final day of the final harvest is October 31.
Sam thinks the witch is summoning the demon Samhain – the origin of Halloween. October 31 was his night – sweets left on doorsteps to appease him, etc.
Sam says this can only be performed every 600 years and takes some heavy duty witchraft. Once raised, Samhain can do some raising of his own – ghosts, zombies, etc.
Dean makes jokes but Sam says that’s how it starts. By night’s end, every awful thing they’ve ever seen will be all in one place. Dean says it’s going to be a slaughterhouse.
The next day – Halloween – we see Dean snacking on Halloween candy in the Impala. Sam calls him and says that there has to be some connection between their two victims.
Then he sees the blonde girl (Tracy) from the party go into the dead man’s house – she’s the babysitter. Dean tells Sam that she told him she’d never heard of the dead man.
They suspect Tracy of being a witch. Sam says he’s done some digging and found out she got suspended from school after getting into a violent altercation with a teacher.
Dean visits the school and as he looks at some creepy masks, he hears sounds from his time in Hell. We see that he hasn’t told Sam yet that he remembers his time downstairs.
Don, the art teacher, comes in and Sam and Dean (agents Geddy and Lee) say they have some questions about Tracy. Apparently Don was only “trying to rap with her” about her work, which was apparently pretty disturbing. Detailed images of gory killings, for example.
They learn Tracy lives as an emancipated teenager.
Back at the motel, we learn that they have not been able to track down Tracy, and her friends don’t know where she is. Sam comments that she could be making the third sacrifice anytime.
They are approached by a kid dressed up as an astronaut trick or treating but the boys are out of candy (Dean ate it all). The kid is not impressed.
They enter their motel room and Castiel is there! This is Sam’s first time meeting him!
There’s someone else too – “Him I don’t know,” Dean says.
Sam looks very excited to be meeting Cas. He is very funny, telling Cas it’s an honour. He holds out his hand to shake it and Cas seems like he doesn’t know what to do with it.
Cas says he has heard about Sam – “The boy with the demon blood”.
Cas wants to know if they’ve killed the witch to stop the raising of Samhain. He shows them a hex bag from inside the walls of their motel room. The boys admit they don’t know where the witch is.
Cas tells them that raising Samhain is one of the 66 seals – so this is about Lucifer. Cas tells them breaking this seal must be prevented at all costs.
Dean wants to know where the witch is so they can gank her and move on, but Cas says the angels aren’t omniscient. They don’t know where the witch is. Sam says they know who she is so they can work together, but the other man in the room interrupts.
Cas introduces him as Uriel, a specialist. He’s an angel and he seems intense. Dean wants to know what kind of specialist he is. Cas tells Sam and Dean they need to leave town immediately, because he and Uriel are about to destroy it.
Their plan is to smite the entire town to make sure they kill the witch, so that the seal doesn’t break. Uriel says this isn’t the first time he’s purified a city.
Cas says he understands that this is regrettable but too many seals have been broken already and they have to do this.
“Lucifer cannot rise,” Cas says. He asks Dean if that’s something he’s willing to risk.
Uriel says they’re wasting time, as Cas and Dean make a lot of meaningful eye contact.
Sam is very upset, saying they’re angels, and aren’t they supposed to show mercy?
“Says who,” Uriel asks. Cas says they have no choice, but Dean disputes this. He asks Cas if he’s never question an order. Cas tells Dean that the plan is just, and even if he can’t understand, to have faith.
Cas asks Dean didn’t he obey when his father gave an order? Dean doesn’t answer but says plans have changed.
He tells Uriel that if he is going to smite the whole town, he’ll have to do it with Sam and Dean in it because they aren’t leaving.
Dean says that they pulled him out of hell for a reason, so if he wants to waste him, go ahead and see how God takes it.
He asks Uriel if he’s really going to wipe out a whole town for one witch: “Seems to me like you’re compensating for something.”
Dean tells Cas they’ll find the witch and stop the summoning. Cas tells Dean to work quickly.
Sam and Dean go outside to find that someone has egged their car! Oh no!
In the car, Sam holds the hex bag Cas found, saying he thought the angels would be different. He thought they would be righteous.
“They are righteous. That’s kind of the problem,” Dean says. “There’s nothing more dangerous than some ahole who thinks he’s on a holy mission”.
Sam is struggling, that this is what he’s been praying to. Dean tells him that just because there are a couple of bad apples, it doesn’t mean the whole barrel is rotten. He tells Sam not to give up on this stuff: “Babe Ruth is a dick but baseball’s still a beautiful game.”
I am sad that he is putting Cas in the rotten apple category.
Sam says it would take a lot of heat to char a bone like the one in the hex bag. He has an idea of where to look for the witch.
They go back to the school, looking at the kiln in the school art room. Sam says the hex bag showed up not after they talked to Tracy, but after they talked to the teacher.
They break open the locked drawer on the teacher’s desk and find some witchy stuff.
We see Cas and Uriel in a park while kids walk around trick or treating. Uriel calls humans savages and Cas says he’s close to blasphemy. He says there’s a reason they were sent to save Dean. There’s potential and he may succeed here, and it’s out of their hands.
Uriel says it doesn’t have to be. He says they should drag Dean out of here and blow this insignificant town off the map. But Cas tells Uriel he knows their true orders. Is he prepared to disobey?
Later that night we see kids going door to door trick or treating and in one of the houses, in the basement, Tracy the babysitter is tied up while Don the teacher – the witch! – is chanting. He is preparing for the final blood sacrifice.
Woo weird camera work.
Before he can kill Tracy, Sam and Dean show up and shoot Don! They cut Tracy down and she says he was going to kill her. Tracy turns out to be Don’s brother! She uses some witchy magic on Sam and Dean and tells them Don was going to make Tracy the final sacrifice, but now that honour goes to him. She says the spellwork is a two-man job.
She’s had to deal with her brother for 600 years. She collects some of his blood, telling Sam and Dean that they took out Don with a gun after all that time.
She takes the blood and finishes the ritual. Sam puts his hand in Don’s blood and puts it on his face and Dean’s, telling Dean to follow his lead.
The ground cracks and something rises. Demon smoke! It enters Don and he rises as the demon Samhain. Uh oh!
He approaches Tracy and, after a kiss (gross that’s supposed to be her brother), he tells her she’s aged. Haha. He says her beauty is beyond time, then snaps her neck and calls her a whore. (I’m really over that word. It gets thrown around too much in the early seasons here)
Samhain sees Sam and Dean, covered in blood, lying on the floor and walks past them. Sam and Dean look at each other. Sam tells Dean people used to wear masks to hide from Samhain so he gave it a shot!
Samhain is walking down the street, vision a little blurry.
Sam and Dean are wondering where to find him, and head to the cemetery. Sam says it might take more than the usual weapons to bring down this demon. Dean tells him not to use his powers, and the angels said so.
Sam doesn’t put much stock in what the angels have to say, but Dean asks him to please not use his powers. After all, didn’t Sam say himself that it was dangerous?
Dean holds out Ruby’s knife and Sam reluctantly takes it.
We see a party – remember that mausoleum party the kids were talking about earlier? They hide as they think a cop is coming – but it’s Don. The kids are confused when Don closes the doors and locks the kids in. He walks away and one of the kids calls out to Don, saying they’re locked in. Then behind the walls of the mausoleum, the caskets (is that the right word?) start to rattle. Remember what Sam said about zombies?
The kids are looking confused and scared and then a zombie breaks out and drags one of the kids into its casket!
Sam and Dean show up and Sam tells Dean to help the kids. Dean doesn’t want to let Sam go after Samhain alone but Dean shoots the lock off the door, letting the kids escape. He has to fend off a mini zombie horde. “Bring it on, stinky.”
We see Sam approach Samhain, who tries to blast Sam with some demon magic like Lillith did at the end of season three. And like that episode, it has no effect on Sam. He and Samhain start to fight.
After Dean fights off the zombies, he’s attacked by a ghost!
Sam is getting beat up by Samhain and he tries to use his powers. He has some effect on Samhain but the demon seems too strong.
Dean comes around the corner and sees what’s going on, and Sam manages to expel the demon from Don. But Sam’s nose starts to bleed and it looks like it pains him to do this.
Dean does not look at all happy as the demon is exorcised. He just stares at Sam, who looks up at Dean.
THEIR FACES! SO MUCH EMOTION!
The day after Halloween, we see Sam packing up in the motel room to leave.
Suddenly Uriel is there. He tells Sam, “Tomorrow, November 2nd, it’s an anniversary for you right?” He reminds Sam that it marks the day Azazel killed his mother, as well as his girlfriend Jessica.
Uriel is mad that Sam used his abilities when he was told not to. But Sam says otherwise that demon would have killed him, his brother, everyone. Uriel says that Sam has been warned twice now.
Sam says Dean was right, angels are dicks. Uriel gets in his face a little. “The only reason you’re still alive, Sam Winchester, is because you’ve been useful. But the moment that ceases to be true, the second you become more trouble than you’re worth, one word – one – and I will turn you to dust.”
OOOHHHH Uriel is so menacing. I like it. The angles are not playing around.
“As for your brother, tell him that maybe he should climb off that high horse of his. Ask Dean what he remembers from Hell.”
WOAH. After that, Uriel is gone.
We know Dean told Sam that he doesn’t remember anything from hell.
Then we see Dean sitting in a park. Castiel is there. Dean asks if he’s there for the “I told you so”. Cas says no, he’s not here to judge Dean.
He says that their orders were not to stop the summoning of Samhain, they were to do whatever Dean told them to do.
Dean leans forward. “Your orders were to follow my orders?”
Cas tells him it was a test, to see how Dean would perform under battlefield conditions. Dean says it was a witch, that’s all. He asks if he failed the test.
“But you know what? If you were to wave that magic time-travelling wand of yours and we had to do it all over, I’d make the same call.” Dean would not have a whole town of people killed. “I don’t know what’s going to happen when these seals are broken; hell, I don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow, but what I do know is that this, here, these kids, the swings, trees, all of it, is still here because of my brother and me.” THAT’S RIGHT!
Cas tells Dean that he misunderstands him. He isn’t like Dean thinks. He tells Dean that he was praying that Dean would choose to save the town. “These people,” Cas says, “they’re all my father’s creations. They’re works of art. And yet, even though you stopped Samhain, the seal’s broken and we are one step closer to hell on earth for all creation, and that’s not an expression, Dean. That’s literal. You of all people should appreciate what that means.” More meaningful eye contact.
“Can I tell you something, if you promise not to tell another soul?” Cas asks. “I’m not a hammer, as you say. I have questions. I have doubts. I don’t know what is right and what is wrong anymore, whether you passed or failed here. But in the coming months, you will have more decisions to make. I don’t envy the weight that’s on your shoulders Dean. I truly don’t.”
Then Cas is gone.
Lore:
-demons
-angels
-zombies
-witches
-ghosts
We got a bit of everything!
Overall Thoughts:
I didn’t remember this episode but it was really good! I loved the scene at the mausoleum at the end, and the angel stuff with Uriel and Cas was great.
I really liked that we see already that Cas is questioning and may not be the obedient soldier that he is supposed to be (doesn’t that sound very Winchester of him??). And I love that I can already see the bond between Dean and Castiel. I feel like Dean still isn’t sure what to make of the angels and doesn’t totally trust Cas right now, but knowing that Cas has doubts might change the way Dean sees him.
And let’s not forget, they didn’t prevent this seal from being broken – Samhain still rose. And Sam is apparently powerful enough to expel such a strong, old demon! That is interesting. And now Sam knows, thanks to Uriel, that Dean does remember his time in hell…I think the boys will have some things to discuss!
This episode opens with Dean running down the road at night, being chased by something. Oh no! He turns a corner and trips, telling a homeless man to run!
Then we see that it’s a cute, tiny, adorable dog chasing after him! Hahaha.
43 hours earlier:
Sam and Dean (agents Tyler and Perry) arrive in a town in Colorado. At the morgue, they are shown the body of a man who died of a heart attack. But Sam notes that this man was in his forties and a marathon runner. Dean notes that a couple of other perfectly healthy men died of heart attacks the other day. They ask for the results of Frank’s autopsy.
As the doctor performs the autopsy, Sam and Dean watch. He asks Dean to pass him the rib cutters. Sam and Dean have clearly been to a few autopsies…
Dean notices a tan line like the kind left by a wedding ring, except this guy isn’t wearing a ring. He says he didn’t know that the dead guy was married.
Sam asks how the man got the scrapes on his hands and arms. The doctor says that when you drop dead, you actually tend to drop. He probably got scraped up when he hit the ground.
Then the doctor says that he can’t find any blockages in any major arteries. He removes the victim’s heart, saying it looks pretty damn healthy.
Haha he hands the heart to Dean to hold, and Sam gets sprayed with spleen juice! Gross.
At the sheriff’s office, Sam and Dean meet the sheriff (who makes them take off their shoes before entering his office). He introduces himself (Al Britton) and after shaking their hands, loads up on hand sanitizer.
Sam says they’re looking into the death of Frank O’Brien (the dead guy from earlier). Turns out he’d been a friend of the sheriff’s. They’d known each other since high school and says Frank was a good man.
Sam asks if he noticed Frank acting strange before he died. The sheriff says he was jumpy and wouldn’t answer his phone. When he sent some of his officers to check up on him, they found his body.
The sheriff starts to cough and uses some more hand sanitizer. A lot more. He wants to know why the FBI is interested. Dean says they’re just checking, and it was probably just a heart attack.
In the next scene, as Sam and Dean are heading to the car, Dean says there’s no way that was just a heart attack. Sam agrees, noting that they have three victims with the same red scratches and who all went from jittery to terrified to dead within 48 hours.
Dean figures something scared the victims to death and they try to determine what can do that.
“What can’t?” Dean asks, listing ghosts, vampires, chupacabra…it could be a hundred things.
Sam says they should make a list and start crossing things off. They figure they’ll go talk to the victim’s neighbour, the last person to see him alive. Dean stops Sam. “I don’t like the looks of those teenagers down there.” Sam looks. It’s 4 kids hanging out on the sidewalk by the car. Dean takes an alternate route.
We see the boys at the victim’s neighbour’s house – it seems he is a fan of snakes…and Dean seems nervous.
They learn that the victim was freaking out and Dean, after taking a moment to look around in fear, asks what scared Frank.
The neighbour tells them: witches. But he means the bad witch from The Wizard of Oz. And it turns out that wasn’t the only thing that scared him: Al-Qaeda; ferrets; artificial sweetener; Pez dispensers…
Sam asks what Frank was like and his neighbour doesn’t want to speak ill of the dead. He hesitantly says that Frank was a bully in high school.
Dean asks if anyone would have wanted to get revenge on Frank. The neighbour says no, Frank got better, and after what happened to his wife – she died 20 years ago and Frank was broken up about it.
The neighbour notices Dean staring at the snake he’d holding. He laughs, telling him not to be scared of this snake, Donny. “It’s Marie you gotta look out for. She smells fear.”
Then we see Marie slither over the back of the couch behind Dean and start to climb over him. That is a big snake!
Later we see Dean sitting in the car, scratching at his arm. Sam gets in the passenger side. Dean tells Sam what he learned about Frank’s wife, Jessie. She had manic depression and back in 1988 she went off her meds, and vanished. Her body was found two weeks later, three towns over, dead in what was deemed a suicide.
Sam asks if there was any chance that Frank had something to do with her death. Dean says no, he was working when Jessie disappeared and had an airtight alibi.
Sam, meanwhile, had been to Frank’s place. He didn’t find any EMF, hex bags, or sulphur, ruling out ghosts, witches, and demons.
Sam notices that Dean is driving the speed limit. Very unlike Dean.
They pass the motel and when Sam points it out, Dean tells him, “I’m not going to make a left-hand turn into oncoming traffic. I’m not suicidal.”
Sam stares at him.
“Did I just say that? That was kind of weird,” Dean remarks.
Sam asks Dean if he hears something. His EMF meter! It’s going nuts but as Sam moves it away from Dean it dies down. He moves it back towards Dean and it starts going off.
“Am I haunted?” Dean asks.
Later we see Sam approaching the motel, getting off the phone with Bobby, telling him to keep looking. He hears music. He turns and sees Dean in the car, ‘Eye of the Tiger’ playing.
[Note: the end of this episode has the full video of Jensen Ackles rocking out to this song. It is very worth watching so I’ve embedded it here for your entertainment!]
Sam goes over to him and Dean gets out of the car, showing Sam the scrapes on his arm. Sam says he just talked to Bobby and Dean won’t like this: it’s ghost sickness.
Dean doesn’t know what that is.
Sam says that some cultures believe that certain spirits can infect the living with a disease. It’s why they stopped displaying bodies in houses and started taking them to funeral homes. Symptoms of ghost sickness include: getting anxious, then getting scared, then really scared, then your heart gives out. Just like their victims.
Dean says they haven’t even seen a ghost in weeks. But Sam says ghost sickness spreads like any sickness – a cough, handshake, whatever. Frank was the first to die and probably the first infected. He infected the other victims during a softball tournament. And Dean likely got it from Frank’s corpse.
Sam says Dean probably has 24 hours until his heart gives out. Dean asks why him and not Sam, who did, after all, get hit with spleen juice.
Sam says that he and Bobby have a theory: all three victims were dicks. They all used fear as a weapon and this disease is returning the favour. Dean says he doesn’t scare people, but Sam responds: “Dean, all we do is scare people.”
Dean asks how they stop it, and Sam tells him they have to kill the ghost who started it all. They think it might be Frank’s wife.
Sam then asks Dean what he’s doing waiting out in the car. Dean tells him their room is on the fourth floor. “It’s high.” Sam says he’ll try to get them a room on the ground floor.
Back in their room, Dean stares at the clock, and as it ticks, he notices his heart beating. As he looks at an old book with some gruesome pictures about ghost sickness, he begins to have hallucinations.
Sam comes back into the room to find the clock ripped off the wall and broken on the floor, and Dean drinking a beer on the couch. Sam says that Jessie’s body was cremated, so she is not their ghost. He tells Dean to stop scratching at his arm.
Dean coughs, and can’t stop. He runs to the sink and coughs something up. Sam realizes that Dean is their biggest clue.
“I don’t wanna be a clue.”
Sam says the abrasions on Dean’s arm and the wood chip he just coughed up are clues. They drive out to a lumber mill.
Dean takes a look and says he is not going in there but Sam says he needs backup and Dean’s all he’s got. Dean takes a gulp of some sort of alcohol and opens the trunk.
“It’s a little spooky, isn’t it?” he asks Sam. Sam rolls his eyes.
They grab some weapons. Sam goes to hand Dean a gun and Dean won’t take it, saying it could go off. “I’ll man the flashlight.”
Inside the mill, Dean keeps close to Sam while Sam looks around. Sam’s EMF reader is lighting up. They realize the EMF won’t work with Dean around. Sam puts it away.
He bends down to pick something up – an engraved ring. Frank’s ring. Dean asks what Frank was doing out here.
As they move slowly down a dark hallway, they hear a noise. They approach a set of lockers and Sam gets ready to open it. Dean looks so nervous. When Sam opens it and a cat jumps out, Dean loses it and screams.
“That was scary!”
This clip is a classic!
They keep looking around and find an office. Sam looks at the papers on the desk and Dean notices something: a pass for an employee named Luther Garland, and a drawing of Frank’s wife Jessie.
Suddenly the machinery turns on! Creepy!
Then Dean sees a ghost – Luther, in the corner. Sam turns around and sees it too. He slowly approaches Luther and calls out to him. When Sam turns back to Dean, we see Dean running away in fear!
Sam turns back just in time to see Luther walking towards him, his face scraped up. Sam shoots him with a rocksalt round and the ghost dissipates.
Sam finds Dean crouched by the trunk of the car drinking. He holds up Luther’s employee pass, saying they’ve got the right place. Dean looks very scared.
Back at the sheriff’s office, Sam gets the file on Luther Garland. Dean stands behind him, swaying.
“Is he drunk?” the deputy asks Sam, who replies no (but clearly yes).
Sam reads the file, saying that according to its contents, Luther Garland’s cause of death was physical trauma. He asks what that means, but the deputy says that it happened 20 years ago, before his time. He doesn’t know anything more. Sam asks if they can talk to the sheriff, but he is apparently out sick.
Sam says to have the sheriff call and he takes the file with him.
After they leave, we hear the sheriff on the intercom to the deputy asking who it was. The deputy tells him it was the FBI guys, wanting the Luther Garland file. So the sheriff isn’t out sick after all.
We see him in his office scratching up his arm, loading his gun. He is hallucinating and it is not good.
Sam and Dean arrive at their next location, with Dean freaking out, telling Sam their plan won’t work. Their badges are fake. If they get busted, they could go to jail! Sam is impatient, telling Dean to calm down and take a deep breath and not to scratch.
They approach Luther Garland’s brother, saying they’d like to ask some questions about Luther. They show their ID and Dean is super nervous as the man inspects them.
He asks what they want to know about his brother. Sam says that according to the police report, Luther died of physical trauma. His brother laughs. He says that it doesn’t matter what he thinks but Sam says they’re trying to get the truth.
He says everyone was scared of Luther and called him a monster, he was too big, too mean looking, too different. It didn’t matter if he was kind or never hurt anyone. A lot of people failed his brother, including him. He was a widower with young kids and told himself there was nothing he could do.
Sam shows him the drawing of Jessie. He recognizes her and says that her husband Frank killed her. He said everybody knows. Jessie worked at the mill and she was always really nice to Luther. He had a crush on Jessie and Frank didn’t like that. When Jessie went missing he was sure that Luther had done something to her. Jessie killed herself but Frank didn’t know that.
We see a flashback of Frank coming at Luther with a gun, attacking him and chaining him behind his car, dragging him to his death. Frank was never arrested because Frank was buddies with the right people and Luther was just a freak.
Sam says he must have hated Frank. Luther’s brother says he did for a while, but life is too short for hate. And Frank wasn’t thinking straight, with his wife missing. It was a shame what he did to Luther, but that’s fear: it spreads and spreads.
As they leave, Dean says he knows what the scrapes are on his arm: road rash. And Luther probably swallowed some wood chips when he was being dragged behind Frank’s car.
Sam says it makes sense – Dean is experiencing his death in slow motion. Dean says they need to burn Luther’s bones and get him healthy, but Sam says it won’t be that easy: Luther’s body was ripped to pieces and there’s no way they’ll find all of his remains. But they’ll figure something else out.
Dean starts to lose it: “What are we doing?”
Sam: “We’re hunting a ghost.”
Dean: “A ghost? Exactly. Who does that?”
Sam: “Us.”
Dean: “Us. Right. And that, Sam, that’s exactly why our lives suck. Come on, we hunt monsters! What the hell? Normal people, they see a monster and they run, but not us, no no no, we search out things that want to kill us or eat us. You know who does that? Crazy people! We are insane! Then there’s the bad diner food and the skeevy motel rooms and the truck stop waitress with the bizarre rash…I mean, who wants this life, Sam? Seriously! Do you actually like being stuck in a car with me eight hours a day every single day? I don’t think so! I mean, I drive too fast and I listen to the same five albums over and over and over again and I sing along, I’m annoying, I know that, and you…you’re gassy! You eat half a burrito and you get toxic! You know what? You can forget it.”
Dean tosses the car keys to Sam. Sam calls after him and Dean says he’s done with hit. He’s out, he’s done, he quits, and he walks away.
Then we see Dean walking down the road alone, and he hears a noise. He turns around and sees the adorable little dog behind him from the beginning of the episode.
Next we see Dean sweating and out of breath in their motel room. Sam walks in, saying he looked everywhere for him.
Dean asks what they do now. He’s got less than four hours. “I’m gonna die, Sammy.”
“Yeah you are,” Sam says. “You’re going back.”
“Back?” Dean asks.
Downstairs, Sam tells him. “Hell. It’s about damn time too. Truth is, you’ve been a real pain in my ass.”
Dean’s vision is getting a bit blurry and we can hear his heart beating faster. As he looks at Sam, his eyes go yellow. Startled, Dean gets up but Sam puts out a hand and Dean is thrown back against the wall.
Dean yells at the demon to get out of his brother but Sam says no one is possessing him, this is what he is going to become. It’s what he wants to become, and there’s nothing Dean can do about it. He puts a hand around Dean’s neck.
Suddenly we see Sam calling Dean’s name, trying to get his attention. So that was all a hallucination.
Next we see Sam and Bobby meeting up on the side of the road somewhere. Bobby asks where Dean is and Sam tells him home sick. Bobby!!
We see Dean in the motel, watching Gumby and scratching his arm.
Bobby asks Sam if Dean has started hallucinating yet, and Sam tells him yes, a few hours ago. He tells Bobby that Dean has just under two hours. Bobby found an old encyclopedia of spirits – written in Japanese – that lists a ghost that could be what they’re looking at. A buruburu infects people with fear but you have to burn its remains. The lore says that the ghost is fear, and it can be killed with fear.
“So we have to scare a ghost to death,” Sam summarizes.
Back in the motel, Dean’s phone rings. Sam tells him he’ll be fine and they have a plan. He tells him to hang in there and we see he and Bobby are at the mill. Bobby says this is a terrible plan but Sam says if Bobby has a better idea, he’s listening.
They enter the mill and Luther’s ghost is there watching.
Dean, in the motel, hears hell hounds barking and clawing at the door. Suddenly the door opens and it’s the sheriff. Dean asks what he’s doing and the sheriff, with his gun drawn, asks why they’re looking into Luther’s death. He hits Dean and says Frank was his friend; so he made a mistake; so he didn’t bust him; so what? And Dean is going to bring him down over that? No.
They fight, and Dean throws the sheriff of him, thinking he’s a demon. We see the sheriff start to seize up as his heart starts to beat too fast, calling at Dean to get away from him. Dean tells him to calm down but the sheriff dies.
Back at the mill, Sam enters the office and tells Bobby on the walkie talkie that last time the ghost came right at him. It’s almost like he’s scared. Sam puts his gun down and says he’s gotta make him angry.
Sam grabs a drawing of Jessie and starts ripping it, calling Luther’s name. He rips up more drawings and the machinery comes to life again. Sam keeps calling Luther’s name, and when he turns around, Luther is right behind him. The ghost grabs Sam.
Back at the motel, Dean is scratching his arm and hearing Sam talk about him going back to hell, while hell hounds bark.
Dean picks up a bible but he hears a voice say hi: it’s Lilith! The creepy little girl version, telling Dean it’s time to go back now. Dean tells her she is not real, but she asks what’s wrong. Doesn’t he remember all the fun he had down there?
Lilith tells him he does remember – four months down there is like 40 years. “Like doggie years.”
Lilith tells Dean, as he grabs his chest, that he remembers every second. He tells Lilith that she is not real but she says it doesn’t matter. He’s still gonna die and burn.
Dean asks why him, why he got infected, and she tells him he knows why; listen to his heart.
As Dean is panicking, Sam is fighting off Luther’s ghost. He gets tossed around but manages to wrap a chain around the ghost’s neck and yells for Bobby. We see Bobby drive off and the chain around Luther’s neck is connected to the back of the car. As Bobby drives off, the ghost is pulled behind him.
Meanwhile Lilith is still tormenting Dean, but as Luther’s ghost is pulled behind Bobby’s car, he vanishes and the machinery shuts off. It looks like they saved Dean just in time.
Dean and Sam and Bobby are on the side of the road, with Dean getting the lowdown on what they did to save him while he passes around some beer.
Sam tells him that it was what Luther was most afraid of – pretty brutal though. Sam and Bobby ask how Dean’s feeling and he says fine. Bobby asks if he’s sure – “this line of work can get awful scary.” Haha Bobby.
Bobby drives off, leaving Sam and Dean together. Sam asks Dean what he saw near the end. He looks at Sam but sees his eyes flash yellow for a second. Woah creepy.
Dean lies. “Howler monkeys,” he says. Sam laughs. Dean says it was just the usual stuff, nothing he couldn’t handle.
Lore:
-ghost
-buruburu
Overall Thoughts:
This episode has some really good moments, including Dean’s speech to Sam about how strange their lives are, and it shows us that yes, Dean does remember his time in hell, and that time was longer down there than it was up here. While Sam and Bobby would have experienced four months passing with Dean in hell, for Dean it felt like 40 years. That’s a long time to be tortured.
And it also showed us that one of the things that Dean fears the most is not only Sam becoming some sort of demon, but choosing to become that way. And when he hallucinated Lilith, she told Dean that he knows why he’s been infected by the buruburu, perhaps hinting at something else that Sam (and the viewer) doesn’t know about Dean’s time in Hell.
I do love that Bobby showed up to save the day, because I just love Bobby, but I do think it was really cruel that in order to stop a ghost who was basically misunderstood and tortured to death, they had yo reenact his death. That just didn’t sit well with me.
Overall, this was a good monster of the week episode that sheds some more light on Dean’s time in hell.
Lorrie Hollander used to be a rich girl who spent her money on boarding school and equestrian camp. But that was before. It’s been twelve years since Lorrie’s mother skipped town and left Lorrie and her sister in the care of her unstable aunt Gigi. Together they live in a decaying mansion called Edgewater, the eyesore in a town of extraordinary wealth and privilege.
While Lorrie is desperately trying to keep her family from collapse, she meets Charlie, the son of an esteemed senator. Terrified that he will learn the truth about her, she holds him at a distance. But Charlie’s family is hiding something, too. And Lorrie could never have imagined how their secrets, and their lives, are inextricably bound.
Courtney Sheinmel’s Edgewater is a gripping story of scandal and romance, shame and redemption, and how one girl must come to terms with a shocking past in order to understand who she truly is.
I can’t remember where I first heard about this book, but it had been on my list of books to check out from the library for a long time.
This was an interesting, quick read about family, privilege, and secrets, with some romance added in. It didn’t totally grab me, but it was an enjoyable enough read.
I wish that some of what’s revealed in the end of the book was explored more in depth (I don’t want to say because it’s a little spoilery). I felt like the things that come to light in the end were revealed somewhat abruptly.
Overall, this was a good YA story that I don’t recall seeing discussed or reviewed (but that could just be my little corner of the blogosphere), so I didn’t know anything about it going in, beyond the synopsis. I think fans of contemporary YA will enjoy this one.
The snow has arrived! And it doesn’t seem like it will be leaving any time soon. As usual, autumn went way too quickly. Summer lasted too long and winter started too soon.
But the cold and snow guarantees that I will be spending most of my free time inside, snuggled under a blanket with a book and some tea or coffee.
New books:
Thank you thank you thank you to Simon and Schuster Canada for the e-ARC of Kiersten White’s Slayer! I’m a huggeeee Buffy the Vampire Slayer fan. I’ve been slowly rewatching the whole series (possibly finishing this weekend), and I can’t overstate how much that show and Buffy herself have meant to me. So when I learned that there was a YA book set in the Buffyverse coming out in 2019, I was excited but apprehensive. But when I saw that Kiersten White was the author, I breathed a sigh of relief. She’s a big Buffy fan herself, and I’ve listened to her on a Buffy podcast I subscribe to, so I feel like Buffy’s world is in good hands. As soon as I finish my rewatch, I’ll be starting Slayer!
I’m reading Whiskey When We’re Dry, by John Larison, and I’m really really enjoying it so far. I’m only about 20% of the way in, but I’m taking my time with it (and also trying to read library books, instead of hunkering down with one book at a time). I feel really pulled in by the story and language. I think I love female-protagonist-westerns, but it’s taken me a long time to realize it. When I read this book, I want to have a big chunk of time set aside because I feel myself getting lost in its world.
Time for some more Buffy, some more coffee, and some more books. And then Mickey’s Christmas Carol on CBC tonight! I’m feeling very cozy and festive today!
Edgewater 
