(As I mentioned in my post announcing this rewatch project,Β there will be spoilers!)
Season 2, Episode 16:Β Roadkill
Image and episode summary from Wikipedia:
As Molly McNamara (Tricia Helfer) and her husband drive along a highway, a man suddenly appears in the road. They crash in an attempt to avoid him, and Molly later wakes up alone in the car. The man reappears and chases after her, but Molly flags down a car driven by the Winchesters. She tries to show them the wreck, but the car has disappeared. While later driving to the police, they are confronted again by the man, but Dean drives through him, causing the ghost to dissipate. The brothers reveal that what has been chasing her is the vengeful spirit of Jonah Greeley (Winston Rekert), who died on that roadway years earlier and now kills drivers on the anniversary of his death. The trio locates Greeley's home nearby, and, after digging up his corpse, salt and burn the body. With the ghost of Greeley gone, the Winchesters explain to Molly that her husband is still alive, but is now married to someone else. Mollyβhaving died in the same car accident that killed Greeleyβis a spirit that has been reliving the same night since her death. Accepting the truth, she finally moves on.
This episode opens with a car driving down an empty stretch of highway at night. A woman, Molly, is driving and the man in the car β husband? β refuses to accept theyβre lost. Heβs looking at the map; Molly says theyβve been on the road for an hour. She wants to stop and get directions but he says he knows exactly where they are.
They are lost.
The man β David β kisses her, and they start laughing, but as they approach a corner, they see someone in the road and swerve; the car goes off the road β they weren’t paying attention! The car crashes. Molly wakes up in the car alone. Where is David? She gets out of the car to look for him but doesnβt see him.
Molly walks through the woods and calls for David. She sees a cabin/shed/house in the distance with a light on in a window and approaches. She knocks on the door but no one answers. Molly opens the door β it’s unlocked. It turns out the light in the window is a candle burning. And it looks like thereβs dried blood on the counter; lots of tools hanging up; a man standing in the corner. Molly recognizes it as the man they saw in the road. She says she didnβt see him there; sheβs so sorry. He turns around and his face goes wonky β heβs a ghost or something!
Molly runs through the woods and sees a car coming down the highway. It turns out to be Sam and Dean’s car!
They seem to know about this guy Mollyβs talking about β she tells them her story and asks for help. Sam wants her to go somewhere safe and then theyβll come back to look for David but she says no. She isnβt leaving without him.
They agree to take Molly back to her car. When they get there, the car is gone. Molly is sure this is the right spot but thereβs no car. Sam tells Dean they have to leave β that guy could show up at any second.
But Molly wonβt go anywhere without David. Dean says theyβll take her to the police. They get in the car.
Molly tells Sam and Dean it’s her 5 year anniversary β she and David were supposed to be in Lake Tahoe. They were fighting; she called him a jerk with the last words she said to him. Sam promises to figure out what happened to David. The car radio goes weird. Molly recognizes the song β it was playing when she and David crashed. They hear a voice on the radio saying βSheβs mineβ. They see the guy standing in the road and Dean drives right through him β heβs a ghost!
Molly is freaked out. The car dies, and Dean pulls over on the side of the road. It wonβt start. The ghost wonβt let them leave. They get out of the car and Dean gets some tools. Molly sees the weapons and is understandably nervous. She backs away, tells them thanks for the help but sheβs got it covered. She leaves β but Sam says it’s no coincidence they found her. They were already out hunting for ghosts.
Molly doesnβt believe them at first but Dean says she knows what she saw. Sam says the guy was Jonah Greeley, who died 15 years ago on the highway. He was a farmer. One night a year on the anniversary of his death, he haunts this road. The boys are there to try and stop him.
She doesnβt want to stick with them. Dean says plan A was trying to get her out of there but obviouslyΒ Greeley wonβt let them leave the highway. She wonβt be safe on her own. Every year Greeley finds someone to punish what happened to him. This year itβs Molly.
Molly asks them why her? She didn’t do anything.
Sam: “Doesn’t matter. Some spirits only see what they want.”
Molly wants to know if Greeley took her husband. The boys donβt answer but Sam says they can help. But Molly has to help them too β by taking them back to that cabin where she saw Greeley. They get there and look around β it must have been his hunting cabin, Dean says.
Sam notices that there are no markers or headstones. He explains that they want to dig up the corpse and salt and burn it to get rid of the spirit, provided thereβs a corpse to be found. But they have no clue where it could be β Greeley had 1,000 acres and he could be buried anywhere.
Dean is being kind of rude and short with Molly β this highway haunting only happens once a year and they have until sunrise to wrap this up. They go look around outside for Greeleyβs house, in case heβs buried there. Dean goes one way, Sam and Molly go another. Molly starts calling Davidβs name, walking away from Sam, and Greeleyβs ghost pops out of nowhere. Dean shows up and shoots him in the head with a rocksalt round, making him go away (temporarily).
They find a path to Greeleyβs house and follow it. Sam explains to Molly about rocksalt/salt keeping spirits away, how it repels impure and unnatural things (in many cultures salt represents purity).
They enter the house β it’s abandoned, neglected, run-down. There are no headstones outside. Dean tells Sam and Molly to check upstairs for notes or records that might indicate where Greeley could be buried, and heβll look downstairs.
Upstairs, there are papers strewn all over the place. Sam starts looking through them while Molly finds an old album, full of pictures of Greeley and his wife, newspaper clippings, a love letter he wrote his wife. Molly doesnβt understand how a guy like that can turn into a monster. Sam says spirits like Greeley are like wounded animals; they’re lost, in so much pain they lash out. Molly asks why theyβre here β Sam says some part of them is keeping them here. It could be their remains, or unfinished business. It could be revenge, love, hate, but whatever it is, they hold on too tight and canβt let go. Theyβre trapped, caught in the same loops, playing the same tragedies over and over. Molly says she feels sorry for him. Sam says something happened to spirits, something they couldn’t control.
Dean pops up β says Sam always gets all Jennifer Love Hewitt about this stuff, but as for Dean, he doesnβt like them, and isn’t making apologies for them. Thereβs nothing downstairs.
Dean sees a hidden door behind a piece of furniture. He breaks it down and they enter the room. Thereβs a skeleton in there!! It’s Greeley’s wife, who hanged herself – and who no one ever saw after she claimed her husband’s dead body. Molly says she didnβt want to live without him.
They agree that theyΒ canβt leave her like this. She deserves to be put to rest. Dean doesnβt really seem to want to help but he does.
Sam cuts the rope and they bury her body.
Molly asks what happens if they find Greeley’s bones and put him to rest.Β Dean says that answerβs beyond their pay grade. All that matters to Dean is that they never come back. Sam says after spirits let go of whateverβs keeping them, they just go. Hopefully someplace better but they donβt know β no one does.
S says their fatherΒ used to tell them burning their bones is like death for ghosts. The truth is, they still donβt know for sure, and thatβs why we all hold on to life so hard. We’re all scared of the unknown.
Molly says the only thing sheβs scared of is losing David. She has to see him again.
Theyβre back waiting in Greeleyβs house, and Molly’s looking though the photo album again. Sam and Dean talk β Sam wants to tell her about her husband but Dean says they canβt. Sam says itβs cruel to keep her in the dark but Dean says for her own good. He tells Sam to stick to plan β get her out of there and then tell her.
Molly heard that last part β “Tell me what?”
Sheβs upset, saying they donβt care about her or David, they just donβt want her to mess up the hunt. But then they hear a radio β they know Greeley is coming. Dean tells Sam to stay with Molly. He goes into the room where they hear the radio. Which isn’t even plugged in. This is definitely ghostly.
Dean gets ready for Greeley Β to show up. The windows ice up and the words Sheβs Mine appear in the ice on the glass!
Molly is standing in front of a window in the other room β bad move. Greeley breaks through the glass and takes her. The boys run after them into the woods but canβt find them.
They go back to the house. Dean says they have less then 2 hours until sunrise. He wants to find Greeleyβs bones; Sam wants to find Molly.
They notice a picture in the album and realize that thereβs a tree marking a grave marker by the cabin. It’s an old country custom, Sam says.
Molly is tied up in the cabin, asking Greeley what he did to David. He tells her not to worry about him anymore β she should worry about herself. She says she didn’t do anything to Greeley. She knows about his wife, and says hurting her (Molly) won’t bring back his wife. Greeley says his wife is gone, and all heβs got left is hurting Molly. He cuts her. She begs him to let her go. He says sheβs not going to leave. Never going to leave. He cuts her again.
The boys are outside the cabin, hear Molly’s scream, and see her tied up with Greeley in there. Sam tells Dean to get Molly, and he goes over to the tree marking the grave. Dean shoots Greeley with a rock salt round. Greeley shows up again, and hurts Dean.
Sam is digging outside, and Dean yells at him to hurry up. Sam sees Greeleyβs skull. As Greeley gets a knife and approaches Dean, Sam applies salt to the bones and lights them up. Molly watches as Greeleyβs ghost goes up in flames, and it seems to pain Greeley. Greeley’s ghost is gone!
They take Molly back to their car. Sam says to Molly, “Letβs get you out of here”. She refuses to go anywhere without knowing what happened to David. She thinks Greeley killed him. Sam says Davidβs alive. Theyβll take her to him. She gets in the car.
They pull up outside a house and show Molly that David is inside. She doesnβt understand. Heβs making coffee. The boys look at each other, as she watches David smooch another woman in the kitchen. She asks them whatβs going on.
Itβs Davidβs wife. It turns out that Molly died 15 years ago when they hit Greeley with their car. David survived. It wasn’t just one spirit haunting the highway β Greeley and Molly both were. For the past 15 years, one night a year Molly appears on the highway. 1992 was their anniversary β itβs 2007 now. We flashback to Sam and Dean talking about the accidents on the highway over the years, saying the crashes happened because a woman appeared in the middle of the road chased by a man covered in blood. Research flashback! They piece together that Molly and Greeley are both spirits haunting the road. They talk about where Molly was buried. It turns out she was cremated. They canβt burn her bones. So whatβs keeping her here? Her love of David.
We flashback to the night of accident, with Sam telling Molly some spirits only see what they want.
Sam and Dean encounter her and Sam realizes that she doesnβt know sheβs dead. I love the way we flashback through the episode!
Now Molly understands. Each year Greeley punishes someone for his death, chasing them, torturing them, and each year, itβs Molly. She doesnβt remember any of it because she couldnβt see the truth. Thatβs why he wonβt let her off the highway: because she killed him β she killed them both.
Sam and Dean waited to tell her truth because she wouldn’t have believed them, and they needed Molly to get rid of Greeley. They brought Molly to see David so she could move on. She wants to see him, to tell him she loves him. Sam says he already knows that. If she wants to go in, they wonβt stop her, but sheβll freak David out β for life, Dean says.
Sam says David has already said his goodbyes and now itβs her turn. This is her unfinished business. Sam says to let go. Of David, of everything β and Sam thinks then sheβll move on. He admits that he doesnβt know where she’ll go, but she doesnβt belong here. βHavenβt you suffered long enough? Itβs time. Itβs time to go.β
Molly walks away and as the sun comes up, Molly disappears. Sam and even Dean have tears in their eyes. Dean says she wasn’t so bad for a ghost. Is she really going to a better place? Sam says he hopes so. Dean says theyβll never know until they take the plunge themselves. Sam says it doesnβt really matter β βHopeβs kinda the whole pointβ.
Then they hit the road.
Overall Thoughts:
I figured out very early on that Molly was dead but I loved watching Sam and Dean react to her and interact with her. SO GOOD. I loved that the boys knew she would be there, the date of her death, etc. They were looking for her β hunting her. And I liked watching the way they reacted to her story. It seems like theyβre hunting the βmanβ coming after Molly but they know their stories (Greeley and Molly’s) are connected. On a rewatch, thereβs so much to see and pick up on.
This is another MOTW ep that plays with narrative and structure in a way thatβs super entertaining and rewatchable.
Lore:
-Ghosts
2 Responses
Loved this episode, too! In some ways it reminded me of two much-enjoyed movies: The Sixth Sense and The Others. Great re-watch!!!
Yes I agree! It’s a really good episode to rewatch.