SPN - "The Girl Next Door"
Oct. 8th, 2011 08:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
feliciakwOh so much to love in this ep. Not the least of which are the guest stars (Jewel Staite! \o/ Colin Ford! \o/) and the director (What's-His-Name! \o/)
Also, moral ambiguity! :-O \o/
No time to lose. Let's get to it!
Then . . . Everything you need to know up to this point.
Now . . . Taking up where we left off previously. The guys made it to the hospital. Dean wakes up in a morphine haze, surrounded by strange faces. He screams in pain, bolting up as his leg is set. Where's Sam? Getting an MRI. Dean tries to get up to leave, the doctor states the obvious--he's not going anywhere on that leg. Someone adds a sedative/morphine to his IV drip, and he's out like a light.
He wakes up later--long enough to have been changed into a hospital gown, casted, and set up in a room with an IV. But Dean's always on the alert (relatively speaking), sees where he is, and knows he needs to get out of there. He rips out his IV (Ow!!!! Needle!) and gets out of bed--
--and promptly ends up on the floor, looking at his full leg cast in total confusion. Heh! Oh, Dean.
Much to his surprise, Bobby comes in!
Dean: Bobby, you're alive!
Bobby: 'Course I am. Why are you on the floor?
D: They gave me morphine. A lot. Hey, look. A monster broke my leg.
Bobby helps him back onto the bed, and makes for their getaway. He hands Dean his clothes, asks where Sam is. Dean is all morphined and slow, so Bobby hands him crutches and pats him on the face, sort of a combination "focus" and "It'll be okay." Some people around the 'Nets are suspicious of Bobby, but nothing really struck me as odd the first time I saw this. Just sort of a "Glad to see you. I'll take care of it" type of deal.
Dr. Monster Face and Head Nurse Monster Face are getting ready for surgery, talking about dessert. I'm guessing it's not pie. I'm also wondering if they're actually performing surgeries on some people, and saving the snack time for people it would make sense to die on the table. If they didn't want to draw attention to themselves (like every single patient "Dr. Gaines" operates on dies), it would be the smart thing to do. Or maybe they haven't been there long enough to figure that out.
Anyway, DMF gets a call alerting him to the Winchesters being in the hospital. Which means someone in admissions or even one of the EMTs is a leviathan.
Dean, dressed, upright, and loopy from the meds, makes arun hobble for it through the hospital. Meanwhile, Bobby has located Sam in route to his MRI (or his room), makes an excuse, and hijacks the gurney.
DMF and HNMF are headed to Dean's room, which they find empty.
Bobby loads Sam into an ambulance.
Deandashes gimps down the hallway.
Bobby has the motor running, anxiously awaiting Dean's arrival.
DMF and HNMF come out the door Bobby's expecting Dean to use. Not good!
Dean surprises Bobby and hops into the cab from the other side. Bobby floors it and they make their getaway just in time.
DMF picks up his cell and makes a call.
Title splat.
Three weeks later, the three are holed up in a cabin in Whitefish, MN. Dean has had three weeks to get hooked on telenovelas (BWAH!). Bobby comes in, and Dean immediately shares the latest development on the soap with a very interested Bobby. (BWAH X 2!) (Bobby watches Tori and Dean, though, so daytime TV for him makes sense as well, right? Heh.) Dean is delighted to have his baby back (Bobby hands him the keys), and can't wait to get his cast off so he can drive.
Recap/exposition. Hunters are running into these things all over the place. They're like shapeshifters, nothing can kill them, and they bleed black goo. Meanwhile, Sam does a little zone-out. He presses on his sliced hand to come back. Says he's okay, and Bobby's willing to accept it. Dean, not so much.
They're staying in Rufus's cabin! (One of many hideouts he had, I'm sure.) Bobby lost everything in the fire, and Rufus didn't leave anything referential at the cabin. So Bobby has to go round up his library.
Sam: I thought you said most of those books were one of a kind.
Bobby: Yep. That's why I stashed copies all over the place.
Me: Pleased to meet ya. Bobby Singer, Paranoid Bastard. \o\ /o/ \o/
Dean sends Sam on a food run. Admonishes him to be careful with the car. "And Sam?" In a tone that is most serious, as though the next bit of info is of utmost importance.
"Yeah?" Sam says.
"Pie." Dean replies.
"Obviously."
After Sam leaves, Dean and Bobby have a lively conversation about Sam's state of mind. Bobby's willing to take it at face value. Sam's not hiding anything, he checked out once, call it an upswing. Dean, otoh, knows that things don't work out well for them, especially Sam.
Dean: The other shoe is gonna drop, it's just a matter of when.
Me: I lost my shoe. Yeah.
Bobby takes off to round up his library, leaving Dean alone with an itchy cast. Petulant!Dean is so cute. And an invitation for trouble.
Sam at the stop-n-go, making a supply run. He spots a headline in the newspaper that grabs his attention. He uses one of their many fraudulent cards, and that gets flagged at a credit company. Flagged, it turns out, by a leviathan search. Okay, here's a question: How do the leviathan know what Sam and Dean's aliases are? There's an insider somewhere we don't know about yet. Hm . . . or maybe the leviathan that's still possessing Jimmy's body has Cas's knowledge, and Cas knew? (And yes, I'm of the opinion that the head leviathan, the Big Boss, will show up in the person of Misha Collins.) Credit Card Leviathan calls Edgar. Edgar tells him to go after them.
Sam returns from the supply run. Dean asks Sam how he's doing, is it getting better? Sam doesn't know if it's getting better, but he is managing it. This is one area where it would be beneficial for Dean to trust Sam. Be alert, be aware, but don't be paranoid. I know, easier said than done.
But it is obvious that Sam is not 100% because he brought cake instead of pie. WT??? "It's close enough, right?" Sam, you ask any pie lover or cake lover if they're "close enough" and you will be informed in no uncertain terms that this is NOT the case. Dude! And Dean looks personally offended by this. Heh!
Later, empty pill bottle, empty beer bottles, Dean sacked out on the couch. Sam reads the news headline and remembers back to a case he did the research on back in 1998. Flashback:
Colin? Is that you? I . . . don't quite recognize you. You're growing up! Dude! You're gonna be a looker.
I also like the sepia of the flashbacks.
Teen!Sam is on the phone to Dean, filling him in on what he's got thus far. It's a kitsune, and it looks human until it sprouts claw and stab you behind your ear to get to your brain. (Oh, are they related to a wraith?) Sam hasn't gotten much farther and is on his way to the library.
Present day: Sam leaves Dean a note, takes the keys, and silently slips out of the cabin. Leaving Dean alone and crippled. Let's hope the cabin actually is a safe house.
On the TV, we hear, "There's no date night like a 3-D right to Hell." Wait a minute. Why does that tag line sound familiar. It's . . . wait . . . wha . . . My Bloodiest Valentine???? BWAHAHAHA! Oh, Jensen. Inside joke much?
Under a dark bridge, a drug dealer is (not) making a sale. He tells the girl that the price went up. She doesn't have it, so he offers to make a "trade." Cop sirens sound in the distance, and she takes off. He heads into the dark, and is promptly attacked in a most splattery fashion.
Back at the cabin, Dean is still lounging, snoozing on the couch, while a wildebeest documentary plays on the TV. The last time we heard this documentary, the guy got got by a zombie. "Predator in the shadows"? Oh, that doesn't sound good.
Dean wakes up and finds Sam's note. "Back in a few days. I'm fine. Sam" And he immediately calls Bobby.
Dean (to Bobby): Other shoe!
Geo: Ha!
Dean is freaking out about a missing Sam running around, possibly with a hallucinatory Lucifer at the wheel. And he left Dean there like "Jimmy freakin' Stewart." How sad is it that I was thinking, "What band does he play for? The name sounds familiar," when in fact that was a reference to one of my very favorite Hitchcock movies ever, Rear Window. I'm so ashamed of myself that I didn't get that reference. *sigh* Oy.
Bobby tells Dean, "Don't panic."
"Too late," Dean says.
Bobby says there's nothing Dean can do until he gets the cast off. Well, guess what.
Dean's taking the cast off himself. Oh, Dean. You make me laugh and cringe at the same time. Please don't slip with that circular saw. 'Cause that would be bad.
Sam is at the police station. He's worked a case like this before. He's also ignoring Dean's calls.
Dean limps into the stop-and-go where Sam stopped yesterday. The clerk is wearing a Batman: Under the Red Hood shirt. Bwah! Oh, Jensen.
And oh, Jensen. You are looking particularly good this season.
Sam was there, picked up a paper. Dean asks for yesterday's paper, sees the headline, and something clicks.
Sam at the morgue. Drug Dealer is missing part of his brain, specifically, the portion containing the pituitary gland.
Sepia Flashback: Sam has discovered in the library that kitsune need a steady diet of human pituitary glands. (He figured this out by translating Uncle Bobby's Japanese book.)
Present Day/Sepia Flashback: Sam has his Hunter's Wall going. Both now and then, he traces the path of the killings. Now!Sam figures out where the killer will strike next.He then strikes a very thoughtful, dramatic pose.
Sam heads to the next kill site. And I kinda love the shots with mirrors that Jensen is using in this ep. One for Sam, one later for Dean, both before they ready to kill the monster.
SF: Sam spots a pretty girl at the library, and they do that look-then-look-away-when-the-other-person-looks thing.
PD: Sam spots an SUV pull up. Someone in boots and jeans gets out. Sam follows.
SF: Teen!Sam and Mystery Girl spot each other through the stacks. Sam ducks away.
On the phone, Teen!Sam tells Dean the upshot--you stab it in the heart. Can he have a normal life for five minutes. Oh, and btw, how do you talk to girls?
Teen!Sam is adorably nervous as he goes to say "hi" to Mystery Girl. Who shuts him down post haste. "No. Go away." (Rather like Kali, no?) Then she explains--she's not supposed to talk to boys.
Sam makes himself scarce, and two other boys give her the once-over as they walk by. And dude. Is the kid with the long hair "Lucas" from "Dead in the Water"? How fun is that that Jensen cast an actor he worked with as a child? Whom he pretty much had to hold onto and "save" while they shot the underwater stuff? Trust, Jensen haz it from his actors.
These guys corner Mystery Girl and start making advances. Sam, ever the night in shining armor, tells them to take a hike. They don't, much to their misfortune. After he wallops them and they take off:
"Hi. I'm Sam."
"I'm Amy."
PD: Sam tracks the Mysterious Stranger through theVancouver woods. (Nicely shot, btw, Jensen. Very dynamic, and an interesting set-up.) An inebriated dude is trying to fumble his car keys into the lock. He would be the next victim, except Sam catches up and holds a knife on the would-be assailant. The very pretty woman is, as Sam recognizes from her necklace, Amy.
Amy, all wide-eyed surprise, never thought she'd see Sam again. He walks her at knife point back to the cars. She tries to explain--she's had the same job for six years, she's got two cats and a mortgage, she's living a normal life. Sam doesn't quite believe her.
SF: Amy cleans Sam's wound from the fight, offers him a drink. But, dude. There are brains in jars in her fridge. She moves them like nothing to reach the soda. That is not right.
She gives him the can of pop, which he uses on his bruised head. They commiserate and bond about moving all the time and seeing the world's largest ball of twine and being "freaks." "All the coolest people are freaks," Amy says.
And Sam has his first kiss!
This kiss, of course, sort of sets up the pattern for much of the rest of his life. But I won't get into that. Oh, Sam.
PD: Now!Amy tries to explain that she's handling her situation, that she's not just a murderer. She had to spike those guys. She can't explain, but she begs Sam to believe her. He can't. She shoves him away and makes her getaway, but not before Sam was able to pull something out of her pocket.
Dean following up Sam's leads, and wow Dean is in this ep a lot more than he was in the last ep Jensen directed. It's like he's not missing at all.
The missing pituitary glands are the clue that allows Dean to put two and two together. In the car, he calls Bobby and fills him in. He and Dad worked a case in '98.
Also? Dean in profile really shows off his amazing eyelashes. Just sayin'.
Amy has raced home and is starting to pack. She's surprised to sense Sam behind her, how did he find her? She dropped something. "Amy Pond?" BWAH! Okay, we know what Amy likes to watch--as well as the writers. Actually, Jewel does kind of look like she could be related to the actress who plays Amy Pond.
Sam notices fresh blood on Amy's hand, and it's not his. He very forcefully tells her that if she doesn't start explaining, he'll have to kill her whether he wants to or not.
"You know me," she says. "You know the kind of person I am."
SF: They break off the kiss. Sam accidentally spills his soda. Amy rushes to clean it up, because her mom has a temper. So does his dad, Sam says. Amy doesn't think her mom is a good person. Sometimes she doesn't think she's a good person, either. Sam assures her she is, says he's seen enough bad to recognize good when he sees it.
PD: Sam agrees to give her a chance, if she'll explain. She opens the bedroom door and shows Sam her son, Jacob, asleep in his bed. She's built a life, she says. She's a member of the PTA. She's boring.
But she's still feeding, Sam points out.
"On the dead," she replies. "I'm a mortician."
Brilliant, says I! And Sam is torn.
Amy quietly takes what she and her son need, no one gets hurt. But it can be risky. Jacob got sick, he was dying, and he needed fresh meat. At which point, all bets are off.
Amy swears that now that Jacob's fever has broken, she's done. No more killing. Sam points out that she can't guarantee that. Amy gives her word. They can still both walk away. Especially after what she did for Sam.
SF: Amy's mom comes home, and Amy hides Sam in the closet. Mom is freaked out because a couple of pros in a crap Impala have caught up to them. They have to leave now. Amy is ready to argue, but Mom lays down the law. When Mom heads for the closet, Amy suddenly agrees. Mom seems pleased.
In the closet, Sam pulls out his knife. When her mom is gone, Amy gets Sam out of the closet. He's looking at her differently now. She tries to play it off, but he's got to leave. Then he sees the brain in a jar on the table. Amy tries to explain (and really, how do you explain that?).
Sam reveals that it's his father and brother in that Impala. He holds his knife out on her.
S: You're a monster.
A: You're a hunter.
The Winchester version of Romeo and Juliette.
Amy has never killed anyone, and she doesn't want to hurt Sam. Sam doesn't want to hurt her. She tells Sam to run. Just run. Her mom will kill him if she finds him. Sam picks up his backpack and puts his knife away.
PD: Sam returns to his hotel, where he is ambushed by an angry brother. "New rule: You steal my baby, you get punched."
Dean was pretty well on frantic with worry. "You have any idea the kind of horror shows I had goin' on in my head."
Sam, holding a cold can of soda pop to his head, insists that he's fine, that he's managing.
There was a job in town, and Sam wanted to take care of it himself. It's taken care of.
D: Where's the body?
S: There is no body.
D: Why not?
S: Because I let her go.
Because Sam is a sucker for a pretty monster. Oh, Sam.
Dean wants to know why Sam let her go.
SF: Amy's mom comes back in the house; she knew Amy was hiding something. Amy was way to agreeable to the move this time. Mom grabs Sam, Amy pleads for his life. Mom refuses. "You can't have friends" and "This kid is food." Amy makes to intervene, and Mom shoves Sam aside to wallop Amy one. Mom turns, grabs Sam, gets ready to tear his brains out . . . and Amy stabs her mom in the back. Literally.
But is it just me, or do these knives seem to be missing the heart?
PD: Sam never told Dean any of this. He never told anyone. She killed her mother to save Sam, and Dean gets it. He does. But Amy is dropping bodies now, and that means the Winchesters have to drop her. Dean is not malicious about it, not vindictive, just pragmatic.
Nothing about their lives is simple, Sam says.
SF: Sam tells Amy to run. Does she have cash? Yes. Sam wants her on the first bus out of town. He'll take care of the body. Amy wants Sam to come with her. But he can't. (Can you imagine what that would have done to Dean and John?) Amy leaves.
PD: During the course of the conversation, Dean calls Amy a freak, and that's all Sam can take. Dean tries to apologize, that he didn't mean Sam was a freak, and we're back to how Dean looks at Sam funny. This time, it's like he's a grenade that Dean is waiting to go off. But Sam insists that he's not going off. Yes, he's a freak. After everything he's been through, after everything he's done? No doubt he's a freak. But that's not the same as dangerous. He's managing it, and so is Amy.
Dean asks how, and Sam explains the funeral home. What about the bodies? Her kid was dying. Put Sam or Dean in the same situation, and they would have done the same thing. Yep. Of course, we've already established that the Winchesters aren't the picture of mental health.
Sam knows Dean doesn't trust Amy. He asks Dean to trust him. "Okay," Dean says. "Gotta start sometime, right?" And I'm rather pleased. Could this be progress?
The next morning, and they're outside a Biggerson's. Which now has a pie bar, you know. That better be pie in that bag there, Sammy.
Dean hangs up from a call to Bobby, tosses the keys to Sam. They're gonna hole up in Spokane.
At the motel, Dean tells Sam to check them in while he hits the pharmacy (i.e., candy store) for more pain meds. (Because he's been walking around on a leg that should not be out of a cast yet.)
Amy rushes into a motel room, and a light clicks on in the corner. It's Dean, waiting for her. (Okay, maybe not so much progress on the trust issues.) And I so love the shot composition there, with Dean in the mirror. These mirror images, prior to killing the monster . . . things that make you go hmmmm . . .
"Next time you run, you should change your license plates. Keepin' the same tags makes you easy to track," Dean says. And Dean? How long have you kept the same tags, and the same very recognizable car? Hmm?
Amy doesn't know how he is, so Dean introduces himself. He's Sam's brother. Sam doesn't know he's here.
Dean knows why she did what she did. He understands. But he's become very fatalistic, and he tells her that people are what they are. She is what she is, and she will kill again. She denies it, but Dean says he's an expert. Maybe in a year, maybe in ten, but eventually, the other shoe will drop. It always does.
And he stabs her (again, it looks like he got her south of the heart). "I'm sorry," he says as we get a glimpse of her eyes and the light goes out. He gently lays her down on the bed. He didn't want to do this. He takes no joy in it. But he sees no way around it, either.
He pulls the knife out carefully, turns around, and there's Jacob standing in the door. Yipes.
"You got someone you can go to?" Dean asks.
The kid nods.
"You ever kill anyone?" Dean asks.
The kid shakes his head.
Dean promises that if the kid ever does, Dean will be back for him, too.
The only person Jacob plans on killing . . . is Dean.
"Well look me up in a few years," Dean says. "Assuming I live that long."
Dean circles the kid as he leaves the room, hands up in a "truce" gesture. Jacob runs to his mom.
Dean? He knows what he's just done. He's killed a mother for protecting her child. He's made a new enemy, another monster. He knows there's a big ol' clodhopper waiting to drop on him.
But this is how Dean works. Dean doesn't kill unless the monster has a history of killing. He knows the difference between a killer with a history and an "innocent." The baby 'shifter, Gary the body-swapping teen, even the ruguru guy. He warns those who might kill or might be dangerous, but he doesn't kill unless there's a history. I've written about this in more detail elsewhere. And though I'm . . . bothered . . . by Dean's choice, I also understand it, and don't necessarily disagree with it. It's what he's learned from experience, that monsters with a history of killing will kill again. And now, with his experiences of people are who they are (i.e., "I am who I am, and there's not changing that. I'm a killer, I know that now"), this fatalism, combined with doing the job . . . oh, Dean.
(It reminds me of the lyrics to "The Snake," and the fable of the frog and the scorpion. Dean recognizes the nature of monsters, and he acts accordingly. But he doesn't do the "pre-emptive strike" thing, something he no doubt learned from Sam.)
Oh, Dean. The weight he carries.
I feel like I'm not expressing this well. It's such an ambiguous situation, and there's no "perfect" choice, no cure-all answer.
At the stop-n-go, one of the leviathans is reporting in. Sam was there. He's tracking every alias they've got for the Winchesters, and he's only a couple days behind. He's just going to grab a bit first.
The bite being a person covered in melted cheese. That . . . is just horrible. Truly. I can hardly watch this ending scene. *cringe*
Okay, my brain has gone mushy, so I'll stop there.
Next week: Dean will get crushed as the other shoe drops.
Also, moral ambiguity! :-O \o/
No time to lose. Let's get to it!
Then . . . Everything you need to know up to this point.
Now . . . Taking up where we left off previously. The guys made it to the hospital. Dean wakes up in a morphine haze, surrounded by strange faces. He screams in pain, bolting up as his leg is set. Where's Sam? Getting an MRI. Dean tries to get up to leave, the doctor states the obvious--he's not going anywhere on that leg. Someone adds a sedative/morphine to his IV drip, and he's out like a light.
He wakes up later--long enough to have been changed into a hospital gown, casted, and set up in a room with an IV. But Dean's always on the alert (relatively speaking), sees where he is, and knows he needs to get out of there. He rips out his IV (Ow!!!! Needle!) and gets out of bed--
--and promptly ends up on the floor, looking at his full leg cast in total confusion. Heh! Oh, Dean.
Much to his surprise, Bobby comes in!
Dean: Bobby, you're alive!
Bobby: 'Course I am. Why are you on the floor?
D: They gave me morphine. A lot. Hey, look. A monster broke my leg.
Bobby helps him back onto the bed, and makes for their getaway. He hands Dean his clothes, asks where Sam is. Dean is all morphined and slow, so Bobby hands him crutches and pats him on the face, sort of a combination "focus" and "It'll be okay." Some people around the 'Nets are suspicious of Bobby, but nothing really struck me as odd the first time I saw this. Just sort of a "Glad to see you. I'll take care of it" type of deal.
Dr. Monster Face and Head Nurse Monster Face are getting ready for surgery, talking about dessert. I'm guessing it's not pie. I'm also wondering if they're actually performing surgeries on some people, and saving the snack time for people it would make sense to die on the table. If they didn't want to draw attention to themselves (like every single patient "Dr. Gaines" operates on dies), it would be the smart thing to do. Or maybe they haven't been there long enough to figure that out.
Anyway, DMF gets a call alerting him to the Winchesters being in the hospital. Which means someone in admissions or even one of the EMTs is a leviathan.
Dean, dressed, upright, and loopy from the meds, makes a
DMF and HNMF are headed to Dean's room, which they find empty.
Bobby loads Sam into an ambulance.
Dean
Bobby has the motor running, anxiously awaiting Dean's arrival.
DMF and HNMF come out the door Bobby's expecting Dean to use. Not good!
Dean surprises Bobby and hops into the cab from the other side. Bobby floors it and they make their getaway just in time.
DMF picks up his cell and makes a call.
Title splat.
Three weeks later, the three are holed up in a cabin in Whitefish, MN. Dean has had three weeks to get hooked on telenovelas (BWAH!). Bobby comes in, and Dean immediately shares the latest development on the soap with a very interested Bobby. (BWAH X 2!) (Bobby watches Tori and Dean, though, so daytime TV for him makes sense as well, right? Heh.) Dean is delighted to have his baby back (Bobby hands him the keys), and can't wait to get his cast off so he can drive.
Recap/exposition. Hunters are running into these things all over the place. They're like shapeshifters, nothing can kill them, and they bleed black goo. Meanwhile, Sam does a little zone-out. He presses on his sliced hand to come back. Says he's okay, and Bobby's willing to accept it. Dean, not so much.
They're staying in Rufus's cabin! (One of many hideouts he had, I'm sure.) Bobby lost everything in the fire, and Rufus didn't leave anything referential at the cabin. So Bobby has to go round up his library.
Sam: I thought you said most of those books were one of a kind.
Bobby: Yep. That's why I stashed copies all over the place.
Me: Pleased to meet ya. Bobby Singer, Paranoid Bastard. \o\ /o/ \o/
Dean sends Sam on a food run. Admonishes him to be careful with the car. "And Sam?" In a tone that is most serious, as though the next bit of info is of utmost importance.
"Yeah?" Sam says.
"Pie." Dean replies.
"Obviously."
After Sam leaves, Dean and Bobby have a lively conversation about Sam's state of mind. Bobby's willing to take it at face value. Sam's not hiding anything, he checked out once, call it an upswing. Dean, otoh, knows that things don't work out well for them, especially Sam.
Dean: The other shoe is gonna drop, it's just a matter of when.
Me: I lost my shoe. Yeah.
Bobby takes off to round up his library, leaving Dean alone with an itchy cast. Petulant!Dean is so cute. And an invitation for trouble.
Sam at the stop-n-go, making a supply run. He spots a headline in the newspaper that grabs his attention. He uses one of their many fraudulent cards, and that gets flagged at a credit company. Flagged, it turns out, by a leviathan search. Okay, here's a question: How do the leviathan know what Sam and Dean's aliases are? There's an insider somewhere we don't know about yet. Hm . . . or maybe the leviathan that's still possessing Jimmy's body has Cas's knowledge, and Cas knew? (And yes, I'm of the opinion that the head leviathan, the Big Boss, will show up in the person of Misha Collins.) Credit Card Leviathan calls Edgar. Edgar tells him to go after them.
Sam returns from the supply run. Dean asks Sam how he's doing, is it getting better? Sam doesn't know if it's getting better, but he is managing it. This is one area where it would be beneficial for Dean to trust Sam. Be alert, be aware, but don't be paranoid. I know, easier said than done.
But it is obvious that Sam is not 100% because he brought cake instead of pie. WT??? "It's close enough, right?" Sam, you ask any pie lover or cake lover if they're "close enough" and you will be informed in no uncertain terms that this is NOT the case. Dude! And Dean looks personally offended by this. Heh!
Later, empty pill bottle, empty beer bottles, Dean sacked out on the couch. Sam reads the news headline and remembers back to a case he did the research on back in 1998. Flashback:
Colin? Is that you? I . . . don't quite recognize you. You're growing up! Dude! You're gonna be a looker.
I also like the sepia of the flashbacks.
Teen!Sam is on the phone to Dean, filling him in on what he's got thus far. It's a kitsune, and it looks human until it sprouts claw and stab you behind your ear to get to your brain. (Oh, are they related to a wraith?) Sam hasn't gotten much farther and is on his way to the library.
Present day: Sam leaves Dean a note, takes the keys, and silently slips out of the cabin. Leaving Dean alone and crippled. Let's hope the cabin actually is a safe house.
On the TV, we hear, "There's no date night like a 3-D right to Hell." Wait a minute. Why does that tag line sound familiar. It's . . . wait . . . wha . . . My Bloodiest Valentine???? BWAHAHAHA! Oh, Jensen. Inside joke much?
Under a dark bridge, a drug dealer is (not) making a sale. He tells the girl that the price went up. She doesn't have it, so he offers to make a "trade." Cop sirens sound in the distance, and she takes off. He heads into the dark, and is promptly attacked in a most splattery fashion.
Back at the cabin, Dean is still lounging, snoozing on the couch, while a wildebeest documentary plays on the TV. The last time we heard this documentary, the guy got got by a zombie. "Predator in the shadows"? Oh, that doesn't sound good.
Dean wakes up and finds Sam's note. "Back in a few days. I'm fine. Sam" And he immediately calls Bobby.
Dean (to Bobby): Other shoe!
Geo: Ha!
Dean is freaking out about a missing Sam running around, possibly with a hallucinatory Lucifer at the wheel. And he left Dean there like "Jimmy freakin' Stewart." How sad is it that I was thinking, "What band does he play for? The name sounds familiar," when in fact that was a reference to one of my very favorite Hitchcock movies ever, Rear Window. I'm so ashamed of myself that I didn't get that reference. *sigh* Oy.
Bobby tells Dean, "Don't panic."
"Too late," Dean says.
Bobby says there's nothing Dean can do until he gets the cast off. Well, guess what.
Dean's taking the cast off himself. Oh, Dean. You make me laugh and cringe at the same time. Please don't slip with that circular saw. 'Cause that would be bad.
Sam is at the police station. He's worked a case like this before. He's also ignoring Dean's calls.
Dean limps into the stop-and-go where Sam stopped yesterday. The clerk is wearing a Batman: Under the Red Hood shirt. Bwah! Oh, Jensen.
And oh, Jensen. You are looking particularly good this season.
Sam was there, picked up a paper. Dean asks for yesterday's paper, sees the headline, and something clicks.
Sam at the morgue. Drug Dealer is missing part of his brain, specifically, the portion containing the pituitary gland.
Sepia Flashback: Sam has discovered in the library that kitsune need a steady diet of human pituitary glands. (He figured this out by translating Uncle Bobby's Japanese book.)
Present Day/Sepia Flashback: Sam has his Hunter's Wall going. Both now and then, he traces the path of the killings. Now!Sam figures out where the killer will strike next.
Sam heads to the next kill site. And I kinda love the shots with mirrors that Jensen is using in this ep. One for Sam, one later for Dean, both before they ready to kill the monster.
SF: Sam spots a pretty girl at the library, and they do that look-then-look-away-when-the-other-person-looks thing.
PD: Sam spots an SUV pull up. Someone in boots and jeans gets out. Sam follows.
SF: Teen!Sam and Mystery Girl spot each other through the stacks. Sam ducks away.
On the phone, Teen!Sam tells Dean the upshot--you stab it in the heart. Can he have a normal life for five minutes. Oh, and btw, how do you talk to girls?
Teen!Sam is adorably nervous as he goes to say "hi" to Mystery Girl. Who shuts him down post haste. "No. Go away." (Rather like Kali, no?) Then she explains--she's not supposed to talk to boys.
Sam makes himself scarce, and two other boys give her the once-over as they walk by. And dude. Is the kid with the long hair "Lucas" from "Dead in the Water"? How fun is that that Jensen cast an actor he worked with as a child? Whom he pretty much had to hold onto and "save" while they shot the underwater stuff? Trust, Jensen haz it from his actors.
These guys corner Mystery Girl and start making advances. Sam, ever the night in shining armor, tells them to take a hike. They don't, much to their misfortune. After he wallops them and they take off:
"Hi. I'm Sam."
"I'm Amy."
PD: Sam tracks the Mysterious Stranger through the
Amy, all wide-eyed surprise, never thought she'd see Sam again. He walks her at knife point back to the cars. She tries to explain--she's had the same job for six years, she's got two cats and a mortgage, she's living a normal life. Sam doesn't quite believe her.
SF: Amy cleans Sam's wound from the fight, offers him a drink. But, dude. There are brains in jars in her fridge. She moves them like nothing to reach the soda. That is not right.
She gives him the can of pop, which he uses on his bruised head. They commiserate and bond about moving all the time and seeing the world's largest ball of twine and being "freaks." "All the coolest people are freaks," Amy says.
And Sam has his first kiss!
This kiss, of course, sort of sets up the pattern for much of the rest of his life. But I won't get into that. Oh, Sam.
PD: Now!Amy tries to explain that she's handling her situation, that she's not just a murderer. She had to spike those guys. She can't explain, but she begs Sam to believe her. He can't. She shoves him away and makes her getaway, but not before Sam was able to pull something out of her pocket.
Dean following up Sam's leads, and wow Dean is in this ep a lot more than he was in the last ep Jensen directed. It's like he's not missing at all.
The missing pituitary glands are the clue that allows Dean to put two and two together. In the car, he calls Bobby and fills him in. He and Dad worked a case in '98.
Also? Dean in profile really shows off his amazing eyelashes. Just sayin'.
Amy has raced home and is starting to pack. She's surprised to sense Sam behind her, how did he find her? She dropped something. "Amy Pond?" BWAH! Okay, we know what Amy likes to watch--as well as the writers. Actually, Jewel does kind of look like she could be related to the actress who plays Amy Pond.
Sam notices fresh blood on Amy's hand, and it's not his. He very forcefully tells her that if she doesn't start explaining, he'll have to kill her whether he wants to or not.
"You know me," she says. "You know the kind of person I am."
SF: They break off the kiss. Sam accidentally spills his soda. Amy rushes to clean it up, because her mom has a temper. So does his dad, Sam says. Amy doesn't think her mom is a good person. Sometimes she doesn't think she's a good person, either. Sam assures her she is, says he's seen enough bad to recognize good when he sees it.
PD: Sam agrees to give her a chance, if she'll explain. She opens the bedroom door and shows Sam her son, Jacob, asleep in his bed. She's built a life, she says. She's a member of the PTA. She's boring.
But she's still feeding, Sam points out.
"On the dead," she replies. "I'm a mortician."
Brilliant, says I! And Sam is torn.
Amy quietly takes what she and her son need, no one gets hurt. But it can be risky. Jacob got sick, he was dying, and he needed fresh meat. At which point, all bets are off.
Amy swears that now that Jacob's fever has broken, she's done. No more killing. Sam points out that she can't guarantee that. Amy gives her word. They can still both walk away. Especially after what she did for Sam.
SF: Amy's mom comes home, and Amy hides Sam in the closet. Mom is freaked out because a couple of pros in a crap Impala have caught up to them. They have to leave now. Amy is ready to argue, but Mom lays down the law. When Mom heads for the closet, Amy suddenly agrees. Mom seems pleased.
In the closet, Sam pulls out his knife. When her mom is gone, Amy gets Sam out of the closet. He's looking at her differently now. She tries to play it off, but he's got to leave. Then he sees the brain in a jar on the table. Amy tries to explain (and really, how do you explain that?).
Sam reveals that it's his father and brother in that Impala. He holds his knife out on her.
S: You're a monster.
A: You're a hunter.
The Winchester version of Romeo and Juliette.
Amy has never killed anyone, and she doesn't want to hurt Sam. Sam doesn't want to hurt her. She tells Sam to run. Just run. Her mom will kill him if she finds him. Sam picks up his backpack and puts his knife away.
PD: Sam returns to his hotel, where he is ambushed by an angry brother. "New rule: You steal my baby, you get punched."
Dean was pretty well on frantic with worry. "You have any idea the kind of horror shows I had goin' on in my head."
Sam, holding a cold can of soda pop to his head, insists that he's fine, that he's managing.
There was a job in town, and Sam wanted to take care of it himself. It's taken care of.
D: Where's the body?
S: There is no body.
D: Why not?
S: Because I let her go.
Because Sam is a sucker for a pretty monster. Oh, Sam.
Dean wants to know why Sam let her go.
SF: Amy's mom comes back in the house; she knew Amy was hiding something. Amy was way to agreeable to the move this time. Mom grabs Sam, Amy pleads for his life. Mom refuses. "You can't have friends" and "This kid is food." Amy makes to intervene, and Mom shoves Sam aside to wallop Amy one. Mom turns, grabs Sam, gets ready to tear his brains out . . . and Amy stabs her mom in the back. Literally.
But is it just me, or do these knives seem to be missing the heart?
PD: Sam never told Dean any of this. He never told anyone. She killed her mother to save Sam, and Dean gets it. He does. But Amy is dropping bodies now, and that means the Winchesters have to drop her. Dean is not malicious about it, not vindictive, just pragmatic.
Nothing about their lives is simple, Sam says.
SF: Sam tells Amy to run. Does she have cash? Yes. Sam wants her on the first bus out of town. He'll take care of the body. Amy wants Sam to come with her. But he can't. (Can you imagine what that would have done to Dean and John?) Amy leaves.
PD: During the course of the conversation, Dean calls Amy a freak, and that's all Sam can take. Dean tries to apologize, that he didn't mean Sam was a freak, and we're back to how Dean looks at Sam funny. This time, it's like he's a grenade that Dean is waiting to go off. But Sam insists that he's not going off. Yes, he's a freak. After everything he's been through, after everything he's done? No doubt he's a freak. But that's not the same as dangerous. He's managing it, and so is Amy.
Dean asks how, and Sam explains the funeral home. What about the bodies? Her kid was dying. Put Sam or Dean in the same situation, and they would have done the same thing. Yep. Of course, we've already established that the Winchesters aren't the picture of mental health.
Sam knows Dean doesn't trust Amy. He asks Dean to trust him. "Okay," Dean says. "Gotta start sometime, right?" And I'm rather pleased. Could this be progress?
The next morning, and they're outside a Biggerson's. Which now has a pie bar, you know. That better be pie in that bag there, Sammy.
Dean hangs up from a call to Bobby, tosses the keys to Sam. They're gonna hole up in Spokane.
At the motel, Dean tells Sam to check them in while he hits the pharmacy (i.e., candy store) for more pain meds. (Because he's been walking around on a leg that should not be out of a cast yet.)
Amy rushes into a motel room, and a light clicks on in the corner. It's Dean, waiting for her. (Okay, maybe not so much progress on the trust issues.) And I so love the shot composition there, with Dean in the mirror. These mirror images, prior to killing the monster . . . things that make you go hmmmm . . .
"Next time you run, you should change your license plates. Keepin' the same tags makes you easy to track," Dean says. And Dean? How long have you kept the same tags, and the same very recognizable car? Hmm?
Amy doesn't know how he is, so Dean introduces himself. He's Sam's brother. Sam doesn't know he's here.
Dean knows why she did what she did. He understands. But he's become very fatalistic, and he tells her that people are what they are. She is what she is, and she will kill again. She denies it, but Dean says he's an expert. Maybe in a year, maybe in ten, but eventually, the other shoe will drop. It always does.
And he stabs her (again, it looks like he got her south of the heart). "I'm sorry," he says as we get a glimpse of her eyes and the light goes out. He gently lays her down on the bed. He didn't want to do this. He takes no joy in it. But he sees no way around it, either.
He pulls the knife out carefully, turns around, and there's Jacob standing in the door. Yipes.
"You got someone you can go to?" Dean asks.
The kid nods.
"You ever kill anyone?" Dean asks.
The kid shakes his head.
Dean promises that if the kid ever does, Dean will be back for him, too.
The only person Jacob plans on killing . . . is Dean.
"Well look me up in a few years," Dean says. "Assuming I live that long."
Dean circles the kid as he leaves the room, hands up in a "truce" gesture. Jacob runs to his mom.
Dean? He knows what he's just done. He's killed a mother for protecting her child. He's made a new enemy, another monster. He knows there's a big ol' clodhopper waiting to drop on him.
But this is how Dean works. Dean doesn't kill unless the monster has a history of killing. He knows the difference between a killer with a history and an "innocent." The baby 'shifter, Gary the body-swapping teen, even the ruguru guy. He warns those who might kill or might be dangerous, but he doesn't kill unless there's a history. I've written about this in more detail elsewhere. And though I'm . . . bothered . . . by Dean's choice, I also understand it, and don't necessarily disagree with it. It's what he's learned from experience, that monsters with a history of killing will kill again. And now, with his experiences of people are who they are (i.e., "I am who I am, and there's not changing that. I'm a killer, I know that now"), this fatalism, combined with doing the job . . . oh, Dean.
(It reminds me of the lyrics to "The Snake," and the fable of the frog and the scorpion. Dean recognizes the nature of monsters, and he acts accordingly. But he doesn't do the "pre-emptive strike" thing, something he no doubt learned from Sam.)
Oh, Dean. The weight he carries.
I feel like I'm not expressing this well. It's such an ambiguous situation, and there's no "perfect" choice, no cure-all answer.
At the stop-n-go, one of the leviathans is reporting in. Sam was there. He's tracking every alias they've got for the Winchesters, and he's only a couple days behind. He's just going to grab a bit first.
The bite being a person covered in melted cheese. That . . . is just horrible. Truly. I can hardly watch this ending scene. *cringe*
Okay, my brain has gone mushy, so I'll stop there.
Next week: Dean will get crushed as the other shoe drops.
