Changing Channels
Updated 2009-11-06 09:49:12
Rattle, Rattle THEN! Let's see: Lilith was the final seal , Our Intrepid Heroes are Angel Condoms for Lucifer and St. Michael , My Sweet Baboo ensnared Raphael in a ring of flaming Jerusalem oil just because he could, and The Trickster entered Darling Sammy and Dashing El Deano's lives for the first time nearly three years ago , though Our Dear Boys haven't seen him since Dean rather amusingly choked on a sausage . And in the end, The Trickster warned Our Dear Boys that they represented each other's greatest weakness, or something like that, but I'm afraid I'll have to tell him to shut the hell up at this point, for if he doesn't, we'll miss the...
...Rattle, Rattle NOW! The NOW! advances ominously towards the front of the television screen, as is its wont, before it vanishes into the blackness. A few moments after it's gone, the camera fades up on a suspiciously saturated establishing shot of The Sun 'N Sands Motel, and as the camera slides into an easy pan across the brilliantly lit, palm tree-lined façade, Dashing El Deano announces in a cheery voice-over, " Supernatural is filmed before a live studio audience!" I'm kind of hating this premise already. Then again, I don't think I've willingly watched a three-camera, laugh-tracked sitcom in more than a dozen years, so perhaps I'm not the best person to judge all of this. A peppy little upbeat music cue twangs onto the soundtrack as the camera ducks inside one of the motel rooms to catch Dean's hand as it shoves condiments back into the room's well-stocked refrigerator, and when Our Intrepid Hero turns to gaze lovingly at the two-foot-high Dagwood of a sandwich he's just erected, the supposed studio audience erupts with the expected applause, along with a series of WOOOOOOOs that make me positively homicidal. "I'm gonna need a bigger mouth!" Dean perks. " Dirty! " shrieks Raoul The Big Gay Supernatural Dragon, clutching at his nonexistent pearls with an appalled yet perfectly honed paw, and if you think that's bad, my scaly friend, just you wait a couple of beats. At Dean's line, the supposed studio audience unleashes a braying collective guffaw that morphs into yet another series of murder-making WOOOOOOOs when Darling Sammy slides through the room's front door. "Hey there, Sam!" Dean sings upon his brother's entrance. "What's happening?" "Oh, nothing!" Sam chirps by way of response. "Just the end of the world! " More braying guffaws and applause from the supposed studio audience until Sam eyes Dean's erection and opines, "You're gonna need a bigger mouth!" " FILTHY! " shrieks Raoul, and see? I warned you. "You did indeed!" Raoul agrees before loudly wondering, " How did this trash ever make it past the charming little Network Standards people?!" I haven't the faintest, friend of friends, but might I hurry through this scene without further interruption? The sitcom format is clog-dancing on my last gay nerve. "Oh, by all means, please do! It's positively making my teeth itch!" Sounds uncomfortable, my impressively fanged companion. "It is!" Nevertheless, you'd best stop scratching at them, lest you ruin your manicure. "Eeeep!"
Before I rush through what follows, though, I should probably take a moment to note that the design for this sequence is flawless, in that it's perfectly replicating the sorts of nightmarishly overbright and impeccably spotless settings this type of show typically features. Yes, it's eye-searing and yes, I'm on the verge of a migraine just looking at it, but it is terrifically done. In any event, as the supposed studio audience continues to react in ways both expected and entirely grating, Sitcom Sam next asks if Sitcom Dean's been working on his research. By way of response, a bikini-clad brunette emerges from the bathroom to croon, "Dean? We have some more research to do!" Sitcom Sammy prissily crosses his arms and lets loose with a sitcom bitchface while Sitcom Dean pulls a slow-burn slow turn mug towards the camera before pouting, "Son of a bitch!"
And that's the cue to launch us into a pitch-perfect sendup of old-school situation comedy opening credits sequences, complete with an aggravatingly catchy theme song and a title card font stolen directly from Full House . In the interest of completeness, the theme song's lyrics are as follows:
Town to town, two-lane roads --
Family biz: Two hunting bros!
Living the lie, just to get by-y-y-y-y!
As long as we're movin' forward,
There's nothing we can't do!
Together, we'll fa-a-a-a-ace the day!
(Face the da-a-a-a-ay!)
You and I won't run awa-a-a-a-ay!
When demons come out to pla-a-a-a-ay,
Together we'll face the day!
It's gruesome, isn't it? "Indeed!" And while that hideousness is wailing away on the soundtrack, we're treated to an appropriately awful montage of Sitcom Sam and Sitcom Dean engaging in wacky hijinks as they accidentally back into each other whilst performing a bit of Tough Guy Jazz Hands flashlight-fu, followed by Sitcom Sam reacting with sitcom terror when he finds a sheet-wearing "ghost" in a closet, after which Sitcom Dean "comically" smears motor oil all over his face. There's a shot of the two of them giggling on a tandem bicycle that's awfully reminiscent of Laverne And Shirley before Sitcom Sam and Sitcom Dean chase each other through a brilliantly sunlit city park on motor scooters (and no matter how long I live, I will never understand how Jared Padalecki managed to balance all fifteen feet of his squashed-up self on that tiny little mini Vespa), after which they toss around a football until the sequence ends with them back in their nightmarishly overbright and impeccably spotless motel room, toasting each other with beers over a pair of especially delicious-looking bacon double cheeseburgers before turning in unison towards the camera with disturbingly broad grins on their faces as The Kripkeeper's name appears in Full House font at the bottom of the screen. Hateful. "I'm terrified!" As well you should be, my scaly friend. As well you should be.
A gently strumming alterna-ovary whispers nonsensical crap about bending spoons with her mind, or some such bullshit, as a traditional Supernatural location card emerges from the blackness that follows to let us know we've landed in Wellington, Ohio , "Two Days Earlier." At first, the location card appears to be yet another LYING LIAR WHO LIES on this show, for the camera initially fades up in the middle of " Seattle Mercy Hospital ," where it lingers as we watch some greasy-haired bohunk of a doctor in cowboy boots enter an elevator with a fetchingly frazzled-looking nurse, who promptly maul each other the instant the elevator doors have closed. No sooner have they started humping against each other when the camera somehow magically extracts itself from the action inside this week's motel room's television set to pan across the room to one of the beds, where we find a rather dapper-looking Dashing El Deano slackjawed in concentration, completely mesmerized by the Grey's knock-off now unfolding just out of our view. " What are you watching?" Darling Sammy sneers, having emerged from the bathroom still fastening his cuffs, as Our Intrepid Heroes are apparently on the verge of masquerading yet again as FBI agents. Dean, busted, identifies the show as Dr. Sexy, MD , a weekly drama apparently based on a book. "When did you hit menopause?" Sam snarks, smirking as he crosses to fetch his jacket from the room's other twin. Dean protests that he was merely channel surfing, but we know his soap opera-loving ass is LYING, and besides, I should probably note at this point that the motel room's decor precisely matches the sitcom set we saw earlier, though this version of the place is considerably dingier, with the wallpaper having faded years ago and the now-filthy white paint peeling off the furniture and wainscoting. Bravo to the design crew. In any event, Dean snaps off the TV, snatches up his keys, and the next thing we know...
...the Lorain County sheriff's wondering why the FBI's muscling in on his turf, as "Bill Randolph died in a bear attack." "How sure are you that it was a bear?" Darling Sammy challenges. "What else would it be?" the sheriff shoots back. "Well," Dean acidly notes, "whatever it was, it chased Mr. Randolph through the woods, smashed through his front door, followed him up the stairs, and killed him in his bedroom. Is that common? " "' Common ' in the sense of ' rude ,' I'm sure!" Raoul interjects, appalled yet again. "Couldn't the darling gentlebeast responsible have knocked!? " That would have been preferable, I'm sure, Raoul, but would you mind if I made it through this scene as quickly as possible? I do believe we have some hijinks-related violence in our near future, so it seems a waste of time to tarry here, fretting about unrefined monsters' nonexistent manners. "'VIOLENCE'?!" shrieks Raoul, getting all excited. "Did you say, ' VIOLENCE '!?" I did indeed, my faithful lizardly companion. "Then what are you waiting for?! Do hurry along, you silly little man!" Well, I wanted to make sure you didn't have anyth... "CHOP CHOP!" Okay! Okay. Jeez.
Anyway, the Lorain County sheriff informs Our Intrepid LYING LIARS WHO LIE that Bill Randolph lived "way up in high country," making such an attack far more likely, and no, he didn't , so no, it wasn't, but whatever, because Darling Sammy's noticed that Mrs. Randolph claims to have witnessed the entire incident, so they're off to...
...the INTERVIEW ROOM, where Cathy Randolph's weakly insisting, "No, it must have been a bear -- I mean, what else could it have been?" Sam, spotting an opening in the middle of all of Cathy Randolph's wavering, leans forward to squint, "What did you think it was?" She darts her eyes from one of Our Dear Boys to the other before dropping them again and shakily repeating her earlier assertion. Dean hastens to assure her they're certain she's right, but adds that it might help if she described exactly what she thought she saw. You know, just because. Cathy Randolph takes a deep breath and mutters something about the impossibility of the situation before admitting, "I could have sworn I saw The Incredible Hulk." Sam's eyebrows shoot towards the ceiling. "I told you it was crazy!" Cathy Randolph sighs, but Dean affixes a look of studiously non-judgmental interest on his face and kindly asks for clarification: " Bana or Norton ?" Heh. "Oh, no," Cathy Randolph shakes her head. "Those movies were awful! " Hee. "The TV Hulk," she finishes. Dean's all, " Ferrigno? " "Yes." " Spiky-haired Lou Ferrigno?" "Yes!" Dean takes a moment to absorb the implications of all that before swallowing hard and delicately inquiring, "Would there be any reason that, uh, Lou Ferrigno -- The Incredible Hulk -- would have a grudge against your husband?" Cathy Randolph's all, "Um, that would be 'no,' duuuuuuuuh! " so Our Intrepid Heroes are perplexed.
Back at this week's motel room, Dean's reading up on Bill Randolph's most untimely demise courtesy of The Wellington Guardian 's website when Sam returns from violating the crime scene. " Dirty! " No, not like that. "Rats!" He sneaked past the police cordon to examine the house, and wouldn't you know it? There's a giant, eight-foot-wide, Hulk-like hole where the front door used to be. Dean's not as surprised at this development as one might expect, as he's unearthed a string of evidence online that indicates Mr. Randolph "had quite the temper," including two citations for spousal abuse, several arrests for bar brawls, and a string of court-ordered anger-management sessions. "You might say you wouldn't like him when he's angry," Dean concludes. "Just desserts," Sam muses, understanding the connection between Mr. Randolph's unpleasant personality and the thing that apparently killed him before adding, "It's all starting to make sense." And why is that? Because Darling Sammy found the crime scene littered with candy wrappers, and as we all remember, I'm sure, tricksters have one hell of a sweet tooth. "And Richard Speight's name was in those gruesome opening credits!" Yes, Raoul, that's very perceptive of you. "Thanks!" Now, may I continue? "Please do!" So, as soon as Dean comes to understand what everyone in the audience already knew about this week's most likely suspect, he leaps from his research to his feet to snort, "Good! I've wanted to gank that mother since The Mystery Spot." Sam's of another mind on the matter, however, because he's been reading the forum boards, and so knows that The Trickster could be a valuable ally in their current struggles against both The Heavenly Host and all the forces of Hell. Dean, naturally, is outraged at the very suggestion they team up with the "bloody, violent monster" who took great pleasure in icing him thousands of times during the course of said monster's previous appearance on the show, but Sam eventually prevails by pointing out that they haven't "the luxury of a moral stand" at this point in the game. "And if it doesn't work," Sam adds, "we'll kill him." Dean rolls his eyes, but agrees to the plan. One thing, though: "How are we gonna find him?" Sam notes The Trickster never takes just one victim, so Our Intrepid Heroes...
...spend the next several hours sharpening wooden stakes while monitoring the local police band, apparently, for when next we see them, that's exactly what they're doing. Their lives are so exciting. Soon enough, a frightened-sounding deputy's voice breaks through the static on the radio to announce he's got "a possible one eighty-seven " "at the old paper mill on Route 6," so Our Intrepid Heroes hop to it, and quickly arrive at...
...the decrepit, rotting hulk of a former paper mill in question. They are, of course, the only ones there, because they're being set up by tonight's very special guest. Our Dear Boys do at least have the good grace to acknowledge that fact, and so arm themselves with flashlights and their special Trickster-sporking wooden stakes before yanking open the mill's door and scampering into...
... Dr. Sexy, MD ! D'OH! Yet another strummy alterna-ovary groans something I can't interpret thanks to her utter lack of proper enunciation as Our Befuddled Heroes shoot panicky, puzzled expressions at each other while fingering their unfamiliar white lab coats. After a pair of passing hospital wenches eye them lasciviously while addressing them both as "Doctor," Dean swings open the door they'd just passed through to find a candy striper and an orderly making out in a supply closet. D'OH! That fetchingly frazzled nurse from the earlier sequence approaches them at this point from the ward's main desk and immediately... slaps the taste straight out of Darling Sammy's mouth! "VIOLENCE!" howls Raoul, writhing about upon his overstuffed armchair with delight, for it's been three miserable weeks since we've seen any of the good stuff on this godforsaken show, and he's thus in the mood to take whatever this evening's presentation has to offer as far as that goes, despite the fact that this straggly-haired bint's just threatened to mar Darling Sammy's otherwise remarkably healthy face. "Woe!" cries Raoul. "Do you see how far they've forced me to lower my standards?! " It's heartbreaking, my scaly friend. "[ Sob! ]" Now, might I continue? Because she's about to slap him again, and it's really quite amusing. "Oh, if you must! " Thanks. "Don't mention it!"
"Seriously!" the straggly-haired bint breathily rages while Darling Sammy gapes at her. "You're brilliant , you know that?" the bint continues, while Dean stares open-mouthed at her face. "And a coward! " she continues. "You're a brilliant coward! " Sam's all, "What are you talking about?" so she... hauls off an whacks him in the teeth one more time! Hee. "As if you don't know! " she spits before spinning on her heel and flouncing off down the hallway, and you'll pardon me for a moment while I note the following: I have never sat through a single moment of Grey's Anatomy , and if this spoof's dialogue is any indication of the original's quality -- and several people have indicated that it is -- then I am happy to say that I will never sit through a single moment of Grey's Anatomy as long as I live. Ignoring me, Dean exclaims, "I don't believe this!" the instant the straggly-haired bint's disappeared around a far corner. "That was Doctor Piccolo!" Sam's all, "Who in the what, now?" so Dean excitedly elaborates, "Doctor Ellen Piccolo! The sexy yet earnest doctor at Seattle Mercy Hospital!" Sam's still completely confused, so Dean practically piddles himself with glee as he explains that the doctor get-ups plus the sexy interns plus the Seriouslys can only mean one thing: They're actually in his favorite TV show! And with that, the strummy little mush-mouthed alterna-ovary tweedles us out into the first commercial break.
Seattle Mercy. Aftermath. Our Intrepid Heroes wander the halls, muddling their collective way through possible explanations for their current predicament until The Ginormotron finally comes up with the most readily apparent answer: "The Trickster trapped us in TV Land." Dean pffts that that's preposterous, but after they run into "Doctor Wang, the sexy but arrogant heart surgeon" and "Johnny Drake," "the ghost in the mind " of "the sexy but neurotic" doctor who never gets a name, Dean's a little more inclined to agree with Sam's assessment of the situation. " This show has ghosts?" Sam buhs. " Why? " "I don't know," Dean shrugs before adding, "It is compelling." Sam calls him out on that, noting Dean had claimed earlier that he wasn't a fan, and barely has Dean once again denied watching the show on a regular basis when, to the dulcet tones of a flourishing harpsichord, he sets his instantly smitten fanboy eyes on Doctor Sexy himself. Heh. Dean practically giggles when Doctor Sexy addresses them personally, and is instantly mortified when Doctor Sexy proceeds to lay into him for defying an earlier direct order to perform "the experimental face transplant on Mrs. Beale." Dean stammers for a moment, attempting to bluff his way through an answer until he spots Doctor Sexy's immaculate sneakers. Immediately understanding that footwear so pedestrian is dreadfully out of character for his mancrush, Dean slams "Doctor Sexy" up against a wall, seething something about knowing who the guy really is until the action around them grinds to a stop-motion halt. "Doctor Sexy" offers Our Intrepid Hero a broad grin before... morphing down into The Trickster! Which, you know, we've been anticipating ever since Richard Speight's name appeared in those gruesome opening credits, so whatever, and snore. "[ Yaaaaaaaaaaaaawn! ]" Raoul adds for emphasis, attempting to be helpful, and all of that jaw-cracking that's accompanied the unhinging of your maw is most impressive, indeed, Raoul, but do you mind? "Not at all!" Thanks. "No problem! [ Yaaaaaaaaaaaaawn! ]" Rrrrgh.
Anyway, and long story short, The Trickster heard these two "yahoos" -- his word, not mine, though it's terribly appropriate, don't you think? -- were in town, and couldn't resist having a little fun with them. He knows they "broke the world," and he knows they've come to request his assistance in setting things aright, but after the history these three have shared over the last few years, he's in no mood to do them any favors, so Our Intrepid Heroes must first survive the next twenty-four hours playing the "game" he's so thoughtfully constructed for them before he'll even consider listening to their arguments in favor of his intervention. And with that, he vanishes in a zap of televisual fuzz, leaving Sam and Dean to negotiate the game without further instruction. DUN!
So, what do they do? Bicker with each other as they continue roaming the seemingly neverending maze of halls there at Seattle Mercy, of course. Brilliant plan, boys. Just brilliant. However, it's not long before Sexy Yet Earnest Doctor Ellen Piccolo accosts Darling Sammy one more time, and when The Ginormotron leans down, and down, and down, and down and down and down and down and down and down into her face to inform her that he is not, in fact, a doctor, Sexy Yet Earnest Doctor Ellen Piccolo reacts with abject horror. "Don't say that!" she gasps. "You are the finest cerebro-vascular neurosurgeon" -- heh -- "I have ever met, and I have met plenty! " She babbles on endlessly about some girl dropping dead under Sam's watch in the OR and claims, "You're afraid to operate again, and you're afraid to love! " Even Dean has to roll his eyes at that one, but he's soon enough engaged in a bit of his own mind-numbing hospital-drama cliché when the scruffy and downtrodden Mr. Beale shambles into the hallway to wonder why Doctor Dean won't perform his wife's face transplant. And I can't believe I just typed that sentence. "It is rather silly! " Pipe down, Raoul. "Hmph!" As the ever-present alterna-ovary moans away on the soundtrack, Dean blares something in the guy's face about how none of this is real before whirling around and bow-leggedly clompy-stomping off down the hallway. Unfortunately for Dean, Mr. Beale's gun works just fine within the confines of The Trickster's Stay Tuned construct, and he blasts a hole through Dean's upper back before skittering off in the opposite direction. "VIOLENCE!" roars Raoul in a frenzy of delight. "WANTON ACTS OF HERETOFORE UNACCEPTABLE BACK-HARMING VIOLENCE AND GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORE! " Dean immediately drops to his knees in agony, his fresh wound gushing blood onto his previously pristine white coat, as Sam bays for a doctor, still not quite getting the fact that -- in this portion of The Trickster's construct at least -- he is a doctor.
Moments later, Dean's facedown on an OR gurney while the nervous Ginormotron hovers somewhere far above him, delicately dabbing at the hole in Dean's back with wads of gauze until a nurse attempts to pass him a scalpel. "I don't know how to use any of this stuff!" he hisses at the still-conscious Dean, who snarls back that Sam nevertheless has to do something, and fast. And so, under the tenderly loving gaze of Sexy Yet Earnest Doctor Ellen Piccolo, Sam calls for "a penknife, some dental floss, a sewing needle, and a fifth of whiskey, STAT." A funky adult contemporary ovary proceeds to deface the soundtrack as Sam proceeds to operate successfully on his brother, and I mention this last in a string of ear-gouging ovaries they've featured over the last ten minutes for two reasons: One of her lyrics is slyly relevant to the situation at hand, and I can actually understand the words she's singing. "You embrace the essence of a soul that must have been sent here straight from Heaven," she bops as Sam reluctantly acknowledges Sexy Yet Earnest Doctor Ellen Piccolo's teary yet silent profession of love, and oh, show. Oh, clever, clever show . Meanwhile, while all that's going on somewhere behind his back, the floor beneath Dean inexplicably pulses with light as the noise of a crowd chanting in Japanese assaults his ears until the blue mats below him transmogrify into the...
...blue doors of a garishly decorated game show set, through which a silver-suited Asian gentleman bounds to announce in heavily accented Engrish, "Ah-ret's pray Nutcrackaaaaaah! " Our Intrepid Heroes have magically been strapped into immobile ski boots atop a pair of matching podiums which individually feature both an appropriate game show buzzer up by the player's chest and an ominous-looking hard rubber ball on the end of a spring-loaded pole down below the player's feet, so even without having seen what's to come in the promos for this episode, you can probably guess how Nutcrackaaaaaah! got its name. First question, to Sam, in Japanese, which Sam of course does not understand, though it has been helpfully subtitled for the benefit of those of us playing along at home: "What was the name of the demon you chose over your own brother?" Sam fails to answer in the twenty seconds allotted, so it's... a rubber ball in the nuts for Sam! "VIOLENCE!" Raoul roars once again. "WANTON ACTS OF HERETOFORE UNACCEPTABLE...oh, I can't! " You can't what, friend of friends? "You know! [ Titter! ]" What, scream about Darling Sammy's privates? "[ Snick! ]" Why, Raoul! I do believe you're blushing. "[ Tee! ]" Prude. "I can't help it! Hee!"
In any event, we're treated to repeated slow-motion shots of that rubber ball nailing Darling Sammy in his heretofore remarkably healthy groin while the host joyously shouts the show's name over and over and over again until one of his nubile assistants -- they're both clad in coy Sexy Devil outfits, don't you know -- calls the host off to the side for a live commercial promoting Shrimp Chips. Dean attempts to strategize, but he's not having much luck on that front, so it's really quite fortunate for him that My Sweet Baboo decides to barge in on the proceedings at this very moment. Yep, Castiel marches through the set's blue doors, and he's about to whisk Sam and Dean away from this torture with a simple touch of his fingertips when he... unexpectedly vanishes in a zap of televisual fuzz! DUN! "Mee-stah Treek-stah does not rike pretty-boy angerrrs!" the host chides before launching himself into round two of the competition. Second question, to Dean, again in Japanese: "Would your Mother and Father still be alive if your brother was never born?" That's all [ sic ], by the way. In the twenty seconds allotted, Our Intrepid Heroes engage in a hastily hissed processing summit during which Darling Sammy somehow miraculously stumbles across the fact that they have to play the roles they've been assigned in order to survive the overall game, and he orders Dean to answer in Japanese. Which Dean supposedly does, though the answer we're led to believe he delivers is "yes," and I'm not hearing any "hai" in that sentence he just blurted out, so whatever. "Demian!" Yes? " Wherever did you learn Japanese!? " Shogun , of course, you dizzy lizard. "Oh, I am such a silly sometimes! Of course! " Now, may I continue? "Please do!" Excellent.
So, Dashing El Deano's answer is correct, and he therefore wins at Nutcrackaaaaaah! , thereby proving Darling Sammy's theory just in time for...
...oh, my holy God, this has got to be the best part of the episode. Immediately after the METAL TEETH CHOMP! drags us all kicking and screaming into the next commercial break, the camera fades up on a serene-looking woman practicing yoga on the shores of a beautifully shot, sunwashed lake. "I've got genital herpes," she calmly announces. "I've got genital herpes," an elderly gentleman nods after the shot's cut to a tastefully appointed domestic interior. " Seriously? " Darling Sammy bitchfaces into the camera once the shot's cut to a brilliantly lit outdoor basketball court. HA! Dean hustles over for the briefest of moments to remind Sam that they have to play the roles they've been assigned, so Sam shakes his head and announces that he, too, has genital herpes. Hee! Poor Sam. What follows is an exact replica of every Valtrex ad you've ever seen in your entire life, with Dean jumping in to offer the following voice-over towards the end: "Patients should always consult with a physician before using HerpeXia. Possible side-effects include headache, diarrhea, permanent erectile dysfunction, thoughts of suicide, and nausea." Heh. By the way, as he reaches the end of that little speech, the camera lingers on Lady Yoga's camel toe. Or maybe it's her polterwang. Or maybe it's both. Your call. "It's both!" Thanks, Raoul. "No problem!" And in conclusion, Sam's happy he's doing all he can to "slightly lessen" the spread of genital herpes, and that's a good thing. I'm sure it is, Sam. I'm sure it is.
After the actual commercial break, we land on yet another establishing shot of The Sun 'N Sands Motel as Dean VOs, "We now return to Supernatural !" and from there, we continue with the sitcom set-up from the top of the hour, and as it's as aggravating now as it was then, I'll be skimming through it to offer you the most relevant bits. "Okay!" I wasn't talking to you, Raoul. "Ooops! Sorry! Hee!" Argh. ANY-way, Sam hustles the bikini bimbo out the door, and there's some unfunny business involving the supposedly live studio audience until My Sweet Baboo comes barreling through the motel room's front door, looking a little worse for the wear since last we saw him, specifically with all of those cuts and bruises scattered across his otherwise pretty, pretty face. He's barely got Our Intrepid Heroes' attention when he announces -- referring of course to The Trickster -- "This thing is much more powerful than it should be!" Unfortunately, he doesn't get a chance to elaborate, for no sooner have those words left his mouth than The Trickster in question bounds through the door to hurl My Sweet Baboo up against the wall with a whack of telekinetic mojo, and when Castiel rises from his subsequent pile on the floor, his mouth's been magically duct-taped. The Trickster next flicks his fingers at Castiel, who promptly vanishes in a zap of televisual fuzz, and the upshot of the lengthy conversation that follows is this: The Trickster expects Our Intrepid Heroes to fulfill their roles not only within the confines of this construct of his, but also outside in the real world. In other words, he wants them to "play the roles Destiny has chosen" for them and acquiesce to Lucifer and St. Michael. The boys both offer defiant challenges, and for their troubles get snapped into...
... C.S.I.: Miami . No, seriously. No. Seriously. There's a garroted and skewered corpse lying in the midst of a copse of trees surrounded by swarming lab techs, and over at the perimeter by the police tape stand Sam and Dean, wearing sunglasses at night. HA! God, I hate Horatio Caine. And -- bless his little heart -- so does Dashing El Deano, for when he tells a approaching lab tech to go screw himself, and after Darling Sammy has ordered him to calm down lest they get their tantalizing asses slaughtered there in the middle of The Trickster's construct, Dean unleashes the following rant: " Calm down? I am wearing sunglasses at night! You know who does that? No-talent douchebags! I hate this game! I hate that we're in a procedural cop show, and you wanna know why? Because I hate procedural cop shows! " And while Dean's been so entertainingly twisting his boxers up into a mighty wad, Eagle-Eyed Sammy's noticed that their lab tech friend's sucking on a lollipop. "Think that's him?" Dean gulps. "Just follow my lead," Sam smirks, and as they don their sunglasses once more, a reasonable facsimile of "Won't Get Fooled Again" screams its way onto the soundtrack, and I really can't do justice in this recap to the dueling David Caruso impressions that follow, though I have to say that while Jared Padalecki delivers the superior Carusoesque facial expressions, Jensen Ackles does a better job with the vocal intonations. But enough of that, for while they've been trading painfully unfunny Caine quips with their lollipop-sucking lab tech, Dean's oh-so-casually coated the tip of a sharp stick with the murder victim's blood, and once he's sidled on over to the lollipop-sucking lab tech... " GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORE! " Yep, Dean jabs the business end of the stick into the lab tech's chest, and the shot amusingly cuts to C.S.I. 's patented TMI Cam to show us the route the stick takes to perforate the lab tech's heart. Hee! The lab tech takes an absolutely ridiculous amount of time to die, given the wound he's just suffered, but... " GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORE! " Well, I was going to say that it doesn't seem to bother R... " GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORE! " But I think you can figure out where I was going wi... " GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORE! "
Unfortunately, no sooner has the lollipop-sucking lab tech expired than one of the other cops on the scene dissolves into giggles before morphing into The Trickster. "You got the wrong guy!" I'm sure he cackles. "Did we?" Dean asks rhetorically, still laying it on thick with the Caruso impersonation as Sam... jams another jagged stick through The Trickster's back! " GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORE! " Oh, Raoul. I'm so glad you're enjoying these developments. " EEEEEEEEEEEEE! " The Trickster drops to the ground, apparently dead, and within moments of his passing, the grass around his apparent corpse vanishes in a zap of televisual fuzz, and the camera pans up from his body to show Sam and Dean, once more in their regular clothes, standing in the middle of that abandoned paper mill. The camera passes from one panting Intrepid Hero to the next until the METAL TEETH CHOMP! gets sick of the merciless tease and finally races in to nibble on Darling Sammy's lips.
This week's motel room. Aftermath. Dean finishes up brushing his teeth while expressing his concerns for his angelic boyfriend's well being, but Sam doesn't answer. Dean pokes his head into the room proper to find it deserted, so he heads outdoors. Sam's nowhere to be found -- or is he? Dean leaves an abrupt message on his brother's voice mail and crawls into the Impala, grumbling to himself about Sam's disappearance until Sam's electronically enhanced voice hesitantly calls out, "Dean?" and oh, my awesome. "Where are you?" Dean barks. "I don't know," Sam replies as the camera scuttles down beneath the dashboard to take in a familiar-looking LED panel where the tape deck should be, and the panel lights up when Sam realizes, "Oh, crap! I don't think we killed The Trickster." HA!
The Knight Rider theme music kicks in as The Sampala tears through a sunny stretch of backwoods blacktop and yes, they've got that little red light bouncing back and forth behind the car's grille, and you know how I said the HerpeXia ad was the best part of the episode? I was a LYING LIAR WHO LIES. We get some glorious car porn as The Sampala grumbles down the road towards points unknown until the camera finally settles in on a supremely unamused and stone-faced Dean behind the wheel. Dean and the car -- hee! -- puzzle through their latest conundrum with the Knight Industries Sam Two Thousand eventually understanding that The Trickster mustn't be a trickster at all. "Son of a bitch!" Dean growls, figuring it all out, and the next thing we know, they've...
...parked at The Centennial Point Wilderness Area so Dean can root through The Sampala's bottomless trunk. "Dean?" KISTT interrupts. "That, uh, feels really uncomfortable." HA! Dean, thoroughly over it all by now, rolls his eyes and slams the trunk shut, eliciting a tiny "Ow!" from The Sampala. Once KISTT's recovered from the indignity of the situation, he asks, "You think this is gonna work?" "No," Dean grumps, crossing to the front of the car, "but I have no other ideas." He then plants his feet in the dirt and screams up at the sky, "All right, you son of a bitch! Uncle! We'll do it!" Pause. "Should I honk?" Hee! This is just fucking adorable. I'm kind of hoping The Non-Trickster Trickster just leaves them like this for the rest of the series. "Heaven forefend!" shrieks Raoul. "That impressively broad young man simply must be restored to his naturally delightful stature posthaste!" I suppose you're right, Raoul. Still, I could probably handle an entire episode like this. "Bite your tongue!" Oh, lighten up. "Hmph!"
In any event, The Non-Trickster Trickster ambles on over, and in a twist I didn't see coming despite the presence of that Raphael clip in the THEN!, after The Non-Trickster Trickster restores Darling Sammy to his -- as Raoul would have it -- "naturally delightful stature," Sam flicks open a Zippo and sets alight the ring of Jerusalem oil Dean had oh-so-cleverly laid down before The Non-Trickster Trickster's arrival. The Non-Trickster Trickster attempts to bluff his way out of it for a moment, but he quickly caves, and with a zap of televisual fuzz, he knocks them all back to that abandoned paper mill, for real this time around. This reveal -- that the character we'd known up until now as a pagan god is actually another of Castiel's brethren -- isn't as mind-bending as the one they threw at us midway through last season's finale , but it fits neatly with everything they've presented to us up to this point, so indulge me while I offer Kripke & Ko. a slow golf clap. Bravo, Mr. Kripkeeper, sir. Bravo. "Where'd you get the holy oil?" our latest angelic acquaintance asks of Our Intrepid Heroes while offering them a slow golf clap of his own. "Let's just say we pulled it out of Sam's ass," Dean jokes. Sam bitchfaces. Heh. And what tipped the boys off to The Non-Trickster Trickster's true identity? "Mostly it was the way you talked about Armageddon," Dean allows. "Nobody gets that angry unless their talking about their own family." And I didn't note that much anger rising off The Non-Trickster Trickster during their brief shared scene in Sitcom Hell, but I'll allow Dean his point, mostly because the fun part of this episode's over, and I want to get through the next seven goddamned minutes' worth of speechifying as quickly as possible. To that end, I'll try to keep this brief: Long story short, The Non-Trickster Trickster is actually Gabriel -- as in The Annunciation's Archangel Gabriel -- and just between you and me, Delinquent El Deano's missing out on a chance to ask our latest angelic acquaintance if Mary really was a hot as all those paintings would have us believe. "Demian!" What? "She was fourteen! " Says you , you dizzy lizard. What, were you there? "Was that an insult , you pathetic little man?! Were you implying something about my age!? " Well, since you brought it up... "Why, I never! Of all the hateful little heartless little...!" Raoul? "WHAT?!" You know I love you more than my luggage. Now, go fix us some end-of-episode cocktails while I drag us through the rest of this crap. "Okay!"
Now, where was I? Oh, yes: The Non-Trickster Trickster is actually Gabriel, who skipped out on Heaven more than a few centuries ago to enter what he calls his "own private witness protection" program, and he managed to carve out a nifty little niche for himself amongst the hairless apes until Our Intrepid Heroes showed up and ruined everything. By the way, the timing of his descent to Earth is a little fuzzy, as he seems to imply that he left Heaven before Lucifer was cast down into Hell, though the angelically internecine bickering he's blathering about might have been reaction to God going AWOL. In any event, as Sam and Dean have seen fit to unleash Lucifer from Hell and kick-start The Apocalypse, Gabriel's now more than happy to see an end to everything, and for that reason, he'd like Our Dear Boys to acquiesce to their betters already so everyone can be rid of the squabbling -- not to mention this planet -- once and for all. Of course, he's far more verbose with his explanation, and he's particularly heavy-handed with the references to family, as at the point where he describes the initial throwdown between Lucifer and Michael as being about little more than "two brothers who loved each other and betrayed each other," thereby eliciting appropriately guilty grimaces from Sam and Dean and oh, my holy crap, I totally forgot about this particularly anvilicious bit right here: "Why do you think you two are The Vessels?" he howls when Sam proves to be just a little too obtuse for his own good. "Think about it," Gabriel snots, focusing his attention for the moment on Dean. "Michael: The big brother loyal to an absent father." "And Lucifer," Gabriel continues, lasering in on Sam. "The little brother rebellious of Daddy's plan." "You were born to this, boys! " Gabriel duhs. "It's your destiny! It was always you! " And I think we get the point, angel man, so could you please just restore My Sweet Baboo to his proper place next to Dashing El Deano so we can get this episode over with? Besides, you just implied that Sucky John is God, and I really can't handle that notion without copious amounts of alcohol. Jackhole.
And look at that! He listened to me. Well, after delivering another two and a half minutes of dialogue I don't care about and zapping us through the final commercial break of the hour, but still. Thanks, Gabriel. And after The Archangel rags on God's littlest and bluest-eyed foot soldier over the latter's thus-far-fruitless search for their father, Our Intrepid Heroes plus My Sweet Baboo turn to leave, apparently intending to strand Gabriel there in that ring of fire for a very, very long time. At the last minute, though, Dean triggers the abandoned mill's miraculously still-working sprinkler system, and as the unnatural indoor rain gradually tamps down the flaming Jerusalem oil, Dean offers Gabriel one final cutting remark before he, his brother, and his boyfriend leave The Archangel for good.
Out at the Impala, the boys exchange a few words of absolutely no significance under the watchful eye of Castiel before all three embark to disappear into the evening's final blackout.
Next week, Our Intrepid Heroes visit a fan convention, with special appearances by The Prophet Chuck, Becky The Wincesting Fangirl, and a couple of LARPing dolts named "Demian" and "Barnes." Kripke can suck my ass. Raoul! "Yes?!" Flagon! "Of course!" See you next week, kids. "Kisses! November Sweeps flagon kisses for all of my pretties!"
Demian thinks you should just admit to having genital herpes already. Raoul , surprisingly enough, agrees. "There's no shame in the truth!" You may reach the former at demian_twop@yahoo.com. The latter is an imaginary gay dragon currently under house arrest on the Internet.
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