Supernatural S01 E13 – Road rage

Previously: Dean got himself a heart condition leading the boys to a faith healer in Nebraska. Also, they hung out with Darla and it was awesome. Except for the part where she probably died of her inoperable brain tumour. 

Route 666

Kirsti: Before we start, I should mention that this week’s episode involves racism and general race-related ickiness. If that makes you uncomfortable and you want to bug out while you can, I totally understand and we’ll see you back here for some irresponsible parenting and psychic weirdness next week. YAY?

Cape Girardeau, Missouri. (A place I know only because Emily used to live there) A middle aged black guy is driving down Route 6 when his radio starts to get all static-y and weird. He shuts it off as headlights flare out the back window. A big-ass truck accelerates towards him. He speeds up to get away from it, but the truck accelerates again and smashes into the back of his car. Suddenly, the radio switches back on and he notices that the truck has vanished. He keeps driving when headlights snap on. The truck is parked in the road directly in front of him. The guy skids to a stop and does a three point turn. He heads back the way we came, and the truck keeps smashing into the back of him until he loses control and his car flips off the road. The truck revs its engine a few more times, then reverses into nothingness. Yup. We’ve got ourselves a ghost truck, kids. Cue pseudo credits lightning flash.

Sara: This is a very real fear of mine after Jeepers Creepers, which I saw for the first time last year. You’d think that would make it less scary because it’s cheesy and older, but NOPE. Like I’ve said before: Supernatural is my threshold for scary things. Also, someone in the comments should probably tell me the proper procedure for not dying if a crazy ghost truck or crazy murderer in a truck ever does this to me. Snark Squad Commenters’ Advice Could Save Lives.

K: I would guess that not driving down deserted back roads after dark would be a good starting point… After the Not Credits, the boys are at a petrol station. Sam says he’s found them a quicker route to Pennsylvania but Dean, who’s been checking his voicemail, says they’re not going to Pennsylvania. He tells Sam that an old friend called to say that her father was killed and she’d like them to look into it. Sam WTFs, and Dean says that she never would have called if she weren’t desperate. The Bromobile classic rocks its way towards Missouri.

In the car, Sam grills Dean about his “old friend”, whose name is Cassie. Dean reveals – reluctantly – that she’s an old girlfriend, and Sam’s astonished that Dean ever had a relationship that wasn’t a one night stand. Sam argues that Cassie’s dad’s death doesn’t sound like their kind of gig, and then asks why Cassie even knows their big family secret. Dean just looks shifty, and Sam gets pissed because he spent like FOREVER lying to Jessica while Dean spilled his guts to some girl he dated for a couple of weeks. Dean’s unapologetic. I laugh forever because the transcript I’ve been using to check the lines says “Sam does the bitchface”, which YUP. I would say that Bitchface Shots need to be a thing on the drinking game, but we’d all be plastered in two minutes.

Cut to a newspaper office in Cape Girardeau. The mayor – who’s white and wearing a terrible bolo tie – has clearly just finished telling Cassie and the (black) newspaper editor what to print about the accident. The editor, Jimmy, argues that two black people were killed in the same way on that stretch of road in a week, and they should be able to print what they want. The mayor insists that they’re both too close to the situation, offers his condolences and leaves. Sam and Dean walk in, and Dean head nods at Cassie.

Sara: Dean Winchester can head nod at me ANY DAY. Cassie, you are one lucky woman.

K: SRSLY. They stare at each other in an Unfinished Business way while Sam gets “OH REEEEEEEEEALLY. INTERESTING.” face in the background. The guitar of We Never Got Closure starts up. Dean introduces Sam, then he and Cassie go right back to staring at each other as Sam smirks.

Cassie’s mum’s house that night. Cassie tells the boys that she’s been staying with her mother as her mum’s too scared to be alone. Apparently her dad was seeing things before he died. A big-ass truck following him around, for instance. Sam asks who the driver was, but Cassie says her dad never mentioned a driver, just the truck. She mentions how the back of her dad’s car was all smashed up, and says that it was raining that night but the only tyre tracks on the scene were from her dad’s car. Dean asks about the previous death, and Cassie said that it was her father’s business partner and he died in exactly the same way. Also, the cops have no fucks to give.

Sara: WTF? That makes no sense in the real world, but I guess when it comes to the LOLPD of Traumaland, we can’t expect much else. 

K: Truth. Cassie says that she’s sceptical about the whole ghosts thing, but not sceptical enough that she wouldn’t call Dean to investigate. Just then, her mum – who’s white – walks in. She’s flustered to see visitors, and Cassie introduces Dean as a friend from college. The boys offer their condolences and Dean says they’d like to talk to her. But Mama Cass glares a little and says she’s not up to that. She hurries away, leaving the others exchanging awkward glances.

Cut to the scene of another car accident. Jimmy, the newspaper editor, is dead behind the wheel as the Ghost Truck reverses into nothing in the background. At the scene the next morning, Cassie begs the mayor to close that stretch of road. He scoffs, because apparently that’s the only road into town. LOL, okay, show. Two seconds on Google Maps didn’t bust that at ALL. (S: Oh Kirsti. Applying actual logic to things that happen in Traumaland. You’re so cute!) (K: I should know better by now. But NOPE.) Anyway, the mayor insists that they’re accidents. Sam and Dean appear to ask if the authorities have checked for signs that Jimmy’s car was pushed off the road. The mayor points out that there was only one set of tyre tracks. Cassie gets all up in his face, asking if he’d close the road if the victims were all white. Dean gets “Ooooh, shots fired, THIS GONNA BE GOOOOOD” face. The mayor says he’s the last person she should accuse of being racist. When she’s all “The fuck does that mean??”, he tells her to ask her mother, and leaves.

Sara: Oh no. I bet the mayor has a black friend, right? So he obviously can’t be racist, Cassie, duh. -_-

K: Something like that. Motel of the Week. The boys suit up for their obligatory fake ID gig. As they fix their ties, Sam says that he thinks it’s interesting how Dean and Cassie never look at each other at the same time. He sniggers when it’s obvious he’s hit a nerve. Down by the river, they approach a couple of middle aged guys who were friends with Jimmy, and introduce themselves as being from his insurance company. They ask if he’d been having hallucinations before he died, more specifically a truck. The white guy is all “The fuck?”, but the black guy says that he’s heard about a truck like that. Sam asks where, and the guy replies that it’s not a where so much as a WHEN. Apparently back in the 60s, a whole string of black men died and according to the stories, they all disappeared in a truck matching that description. They never caught the guy who did it, because no one really cared enough to look. (S: Depressing.) (K: SO MUCH.)

As they head back to the Bromobile, Dean says that he has a theory: just like the Flying Dutchman was a ghost ship infused with the evil spirit of its captain, maybe the truck is a racist ghost that’s going after black men who are connected to Cassie and her family. Sam tells Dean to follow it up and talk to Cassie, and also to mention “the serious unfinished business“. Dean doesn’t reply. Sam pokes some more, and Dean admits that he and Cassie were more involved than he let on. Sam’s face is torn between “I KNEW IT!!” and “Aww, bless”.

Dean basically says that getting close to Cassie and telling her The Big Secret was a huge fuck up and he’s never going to get close to anyone again. (S: #daddyissues) (K: #ALLTHEISSUES)

Sam just smiles at him, not saying anything and generally doing the annoying younger brother thing. Dean tells him to stop. “You loved her,” Sam says. Dean turns away. Sam’s a little gleeful, but stops when he realises that it was Cassie who did the dumping and not Dean, kind of like everything he knew about his big brother has just been turned on its head. Dean demands that Sam get in the car.

Mama Cass’ house. Cassie ushers Dean in, and says that she’s writing a tribute to Jimmy for the newspaper. She tells him that the paper used to be owned by a rich family, the Dorians, who had a whites-only staff policy. After the paper was sold, Jimmy was the paper’s first black reporter and slowly worked his way up to editor. She asks where Sam is, and Dean looks awkward before saying “…not here?“. She asks what he’s doing there, and he says that he’s looking for a connection between the victims before asking if she talked to Mama Cass about what the mayor said. She did, and Mama Cass didn’t want to talk about it.

He stops suddenly, and asks why she asked where Sam was. Cassie’s cagey, and he hypothesises that it’s because without Sam there, it’s just the two of them. He promises things will be strictly business between them, and Cassie snaps at him in response.

Dean insists that he’s not the one who did the dumping, that he was honest with her and she dumped him. Cassie scoffs, because at the time, “I’m a professional ghost hunter” seemed less like honesty and more like “I can’t be bothered to come up with a decent reason for us to break up”. She dumped him because she thought it was what he wanted.

They start yelling about being sorry and then make out, because Serious Unfinished Business or whatever. The scene fades into them having sex to the strains of Blind Faith’s “Can’t Find My Way Home”. There are lots of close ups of Dean’s back and forearms, which is kind of legit because Jensen Ackles has a nice back and nice forearms, but it’s also insanely weird. (S: DON’T CARE, TOTALLY OKAY WITH IT.) ANYWAY. The sex fades into the mayor standing alone at a construction site, looking at some plans. He looks around him with approval, then heads back towards his car. Before he can get there, Ghost Truck appears. He turns and runs, but Ghost Truck sends him flying off the road. We get a close up of his mangled dead face before we fade to black.

Sara: WHEW. I thought that it was just a racist truck, but it’s an equal opportunity murdery ghost truck! Cool!

K: Well. It’s a mostly racist but willing to break the pattern one time murdery ghost truck… After the Not Commercial Break, Cassie and Dean are snuggling. She asks why he told her about being a hunter, and he says that he couldn’t lie to her. She tells him that his big secret terrified her and gave her a reason to walk away. She goes on to say that they both need to stop making excuses. He agrees, and they kiss before being cockblocked by Dean’s phone ringing. He answers and looks shocked. Cut to the scene of the mayor’s death where Sam’s talking to a cop. Dean walks up as the cop leaves and Sam asks with a smirk where Dean was the previous night. Dean changes the subject to what happened. Sam tells him that the authorities are baffled because it’s exactly like the mayor got hit by a truck but with no signs of a truck having been there. Dean’s baffled because the mayor was white, and therefore doesn’t fit the pattern. Sam points out that he wasn’t killed on Route 6 either.

Cut to the newspaper office. Dean’s using Cassie’s computer to check the newspaper archives for connections when he gets a call from Sam. Sam tells him that he’s checked the courthouse records and the mayor recently bought the abandoned property where he was killed. Prior to that, it belonged to the Dorian family. Just like the newspaper. And, according to Cassie, most stuff in town. Dean quickly checks the archives and finds that a guy named Cyrus Dorian disappeared in 1963. Sam says that the Dorian house must have been in bad shape because the first thing the mayor did was tear it down. They do some quick digging, and find that Ghost Truck started killing people the day after the house was destroyed.

Mama Cass’s house, that night. Cassie walks around the house, sipping wine. The lights start to flicker and she hears an engine revving outside. Ghost Truck is out there. The headlights snap on, and Cassie quickly closes the blinds. Ghost Truck jerks towards the house, and Cassie panics. She runs around closing all the blinds, then calls Dean, terrified. Fade to black.

Sara: Um, I don’t think closing the blinds is going to keep a giant racist truck from crashing through the wall, Cassie.

K: Stupid plan is stupid. After the Not Commercial Break, Sam brings tea to Cassie and Mama Cass while Dean asks Cassie what happened. She tells him that there wasn’t anyone driving the truck and wants to know why she’s not dead. Dean postulates that Ghost Truck wants her scared first. Dean notices that Mama Cass is shaking, and tells her that she has to tell them what she knows. Reluctantly, she agrees. Papa Cass, she says, had seen the truck. And he thought he knew who it belonged to – a guy named Cyrus. Dean pulls out a picture of Cyrus Dorian that he printed from the paper, and asks if that’s the guy. Mama Cass says that Cyrus Dorian’s been dead for 40 years. “How do you know he died, Mrs Robinson? The paper’s said he went missing. How do you know he died?” Dean asks.

Mama Cass tells them that when she was young, she dated Cyrus for like five minutes. But she was also dating Papa Cass. Secretly, because interracial couples were a big fucking deal in the early 60s. Cyrus found out and his racism turned violent. She says that she and Papa Cass were going to get married in a little church nearby, but decided to elope at the last minute. The day they’d set for their wedding, the church caught fire and burned to the ground with a children’s choir inside. Sam asks if the attacks stopped after that. Mama Cass cries as she says that there was one more – Cyrus came for Papa Cass. She voiceovers us through a flashback of Cyrus beating Papa Cass with a bat, saying that Papa Cass got loose and managed to get hold of the bat. He beat Cyrus to death.

Back in the present, she tells the boys that Papa Cass called his friends – Jimmy and his business partner – to come help him hide the body. They shoved it into Cyrus’ truck, and rolled the truck into the swamp. Dean asks about the mayor, and Mama Cass says that he was a deputy back then and was assigned to investigate Cyrus’ disappearance. But when he worked out what had happened, he said nothing. Cassie tearily asks why Mama Cass didn’t tell her, and Mama Cass replies that she thought she was protecting them. Except now, there’s no one left to protect. “Yes, there is,” Dean says with a meaningful glance at Cassie.

Sara: Oh, damn. I totally was not good at TV today, because I figured the Mayor would be eeeeevil, as mayors tend to be. Now I feel bad for judging. RIP Mayor.

K: He wore a bolo tie, of course you figured he’d be eeeeeeevil!! Outside, the boys lean against the Bromobile and discuss plans. “I miss conversations that didn’t start with ‘so this killer truck’…” Sam says. Me too, dude. Me too. Anyway, they decide that the mayor – the guy who covered up Cyrus’ death – tearing down the house is what woke Cyrus’ spirit, and share an “our lives are weird” moment about the fact that they’ll have to dredge the swamp for Cyrus’ body. Cassie joins them to say that Mama Cass is asleep. Dean tells her to stay put and look after her mother while they take care of the ghost problem. They kiss, which Sam grins at before fake coughing to remind them of his presence. Dean gives him a “just a second” hand gesture before breaking the kiss and saying “You comin’ or what?” to Sam.

Cut to the Swamp o’ Body Hiding, which is conveniently right next to the mayor’s construction site. They’ve miraculously located the truck without either of them setting foot in the swamp, and Dean’s pulling it out of the water with a bulldozer. When Sam gestures that they’re good, Dean heads to the Bromobile to grab supplies. Sam tries to talk about how Dean’s still in love with Cassie, but Dean’s all business. Supplies in hand, he heads towards the truck and opens the door. A mummified looking corpse topples out and the boys both look disgusted. They lay the corpse out on a board, and salt and burn the bones. “Think that’ll do it?” Sam asks. Ghost Truck appears. “I guess not…” Dean says. Fade to black.

Sara: The whole burning-the-bones thing seems pretty hit or miss on this show. Like, if they’re 50 minutes into the episode, it’ll work. 40 minutes in? Nope.

K: Contrivance, yo. After the Not Commercial Break, Dean tells Sam that he’ll have to find a way to burn the (real) truck in order to get rid of Ghost Truck. He jumps in the Bromobile to lead Ghost Truck away while Sam hides. Sam promptly decides that burning the truck is impractical and starts flipping through the Filofax of Shadows. Then he switches to a map of the local area. Dean, meanwhile, is on a crazy backroads driving match with Ghost Truck. He rings Sam and asks for info. Sam says he needs a minute, and calls Cassie for specific information.

Sam calls Dean back and says he needs to know exactly where he is. When Dean tells him, Sam tells him to turn right. Dean does so. Sam then says to turn left. But Ghost Truck is on Dean’s left. He slams on the brakes, and Ghost Truck flies past.

Dean makes the turn. Sam tells him to go exactly seven tenths of a mile and stop. Dean’s all “Dafuq, dude??”, but Sam insists. Dean does as instructed, slingshotting the car to a stop between two pillars. Ghost Truck appears. Sam asks what’s happening, and Dean asks what he’s meant to do. “Just what you are doing, bringing it to you,” Sam replies. Dean freaks.

Ghost Truck chooses that moment to make its move, hurtling towards Dean. Dean squeezes his eyes shut just before impact, but Ghost Truck slams into a ghostly set of gates, disintegrating into nothing.

Dean looks around him in shock, then asks Sam what happened. Sam tells him that he’s where the church was, the church that Cyrus burnt down, and that even though the church itself is gone, the ground is still consecrated. And evil spirits can sometimes be destroyed by crossing onto consecrated ground, so he figured it was maybe worth a try. “Maybe? MAYBE???” Dean yells. But apparently it didn’t occur to Sam that he could be wrong. Smartass. “I’m gonna kill him…” Dean mutters. Fade to black.

After the Not Commercial Break, Sam’s waiting in the Bromobile as Dean and Cassie make their goodbyes. He says that maybe this time, it’ll be temporary. But Cassie’s a realist and says she doesn’t see much hope for them. He replies that stranger things have happened, and he’s seen them. She says goodbye, and he promises that they’ll see each other again. They kiss before he gets in the car and classic rocks his way out of town. On the road, Sam gives Cassie his seal of approval, and Dean smiles. Sam asks if, meeting someone like Cassie, Dean’s ever wondered if putting their lives on hold to hunt evil is really worth it. Dean grins, puts on his sunglasses, and settles down to take a nap. Sam shakes his head as they drive on and we fade to black.

Well. That was a thing. This is probably my least favourite episode of season 1, because let’s face it – it’s about a guy who gets so butthurt over being friendzoned that he murders a bunch of people of colour, and then becomes a pissed off ghost who murders a bunch of people of colour. Also, the timeline is pretty whacked out. Mama and Papa Cass got married in 1963. But Cassie – who presumably has no siblings considering there’s no mention of them and no one else there so soon after her dad’s death – is likely the same age as Dean. Who was born in 1979. And even if her parents got married crazy young, I’m not sure them being married for SIXTEEN YEARS before having kids makes a whole lot of sense. Plus, the point of Cassie mostly seems to be “OMG, DEAN HAD FEELINGS THIS ONE TIME”, but it’s handled in a pretty clunky way.

Sara: Yeah, this one definitely isn’t my favorite. I’m not sure I trust this show enough to handle a racism plot line, which made this all kinds of awkward and not-fully-explored for me. I kind of liked Cassie, because lord knows Dean would only be able to fall in love with a hard ass like her. But she did definitely feel like a quick way to prove that Dean has feelings, too, which you didn’t need to tell me because I’ve seen his brotherly relationship and it is all sorts of squishy feelsy.

K: Basically, the whole episode was a pretty poorly thought out concept with a subplot that’s meant to make us okay with Dean sleeping with Cassie and then leaving her. Gross. (S: I guess I don’t really mind this idea, because it was more that they slept with each other, knowing that it wouldn’t work out in the long run. And Cassie seemed totally okay with their relationship not continuing at the end. She’s a practical girl.) I mean, it’s still a way better episode than most of season 6. But as far as season 1 goes? Easily at the bottom of the heap.

Next time, Sam has another psychic nightmare that leads them to go undercover as priests. Find out more in S01 E14 – Nightmare.