Previously: Cannibalistic hillbillies were the first creature of the week who were human, and it was incredibly disturbing.
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Shadow
Sara: Chicago, Illinois. A girl walks home late at night, listening to her iPod. She starts seeing a ghostly wind that has a big shadow and whispers really annoyingly, so she takes off running for her apartment. Smart move. She immediately arms her security system and breathes a sigh of relief. Then for some reason, she doesn’t turn one damn light on in the whole place as she drinks a beer and listens to her messages on her answering machine. Right, because every 20 something owns an answering machine these days? And even if they did, they sure as shit wouldn’t have three messages just from one night away at work. Anyways, the camera pans back and we watch the shadows on the wall as something creeps up behind Beer Girl and stabs her in the back, blood squirting everywhere.
Kirsti: And that’s what happens when you don’t turn the lights on. But also it makes no sense because the creepy shadow stabs her through the chest and the blood splatters on the wall 90 degrees to her left. Sense: this makes none.
Sara: The Winchester boys get out of the Bromobile in yet another great costume that Dean is bitching about. He complains that he and Papa Winchester did just fine without costumes, plus they cost a lot of hard-earned money. “Who’s money?” “Ours! You think credit card fraud is easy?”
The landlord lets the guys into Beer Girl’s apartment under the impression that they work for the alarm company that was securing the place. She does make sure to tell them that their alarms must really suck, though. She goes on that she was the one to find Beer Girl’s body a few days after her death. There were no open windows, no open doors, and even the chain lock was still bolted along with the alarm system still being on. The only thing that wasn’t put together was Beer Girl, who was laying in pieces all over her living room. Ick.
The landlord leaves them alone in the apartment, and as they search around with their demon monitors, Dean fills Sam in on what he found out from the police station that wasn’t in the papers: Beer Girl’s heart was missing when the cops showed up. Double ick. Dean finds some tape and begins to tape the blood spots together that are all over the carpet. Fortunately, he’s connected the dots in the perfect order, because they make a symbol. Unfortunately, neither of the boys recognize it.
K: Nine years after I first saw this episode and the taping-the-blood-spots-together thing still pisses me off. Because those could have been connected in literally any order. It’s a hot mess of blood spots and Dean just makes some shit up.
Sara: So glad you’re with me on this! I was annoyed about it for a while.
Later that night, Dean is hitting on a busty bartender while Sam sits at a table and does all the research work. Sam asks if he got any information out of her besides her number, and Dean pretends to be offended for a second before grinning that he did indeed score the number. Dean says that there isn’t anything to report – she worked at the bar, wasn’t acting weird, and everything seemed normal.
Sam couldn’t find anything on the symbol from her room, but he did find a few other news stories that sound awfully similar to what happened to Beer Girl. He interrupts this thought process because he’s spotted Meg across the bar, the girl that everyone in the comments likes but I wanted to punch last time she was on my screen.
He thought Meg was going to California, and she answers that she did but she’s back now, and also she met Chad Michael Murray. Sam is like, “Who?” which is cute because of how they were both on Gilmore Girls many moons ago. Remember, “BECAUSE I’LL KILL YOU TRISTAN.” I love to say that line out loud, and now that I’ve forced my husband to watch the entire series, it finally makes sense to him.
K: I love when they put in these sneaky meta references. I can’t wait until we get to a particular episode of season 2…
Sara” Meg is glad they ran into each other again, and their flirty stare is interrupted by Dean coughing for an introduction. Meg is like, “Dude, cover your mouth,” which LOL. I still don’t like you, Meg, but that was funny. Meg says that she’s heard plenty about him and how he treats his brother like crap and Dean is all, “Oooookay, I’m going to go get a drink and be… not here.” Meg apologizes to Sam afterwards; she just felt so bad for him after that half a second that they knew each other in that other episode, and if Dean were her brother, she’d kill him. Before leaving, she gives Sam her number and her last name: Masters.
K: Dean’s “WTF, A GIRL WHO PREFERS SAM TO ME?!?!?!” indignation is hilarious. As is Meg’s “Dude, cover your mouth”. And now I wish McGonagall had said that to Umbridge every time she went “Hem, hem”…
Sara: As the boys leave, Sam is smarter than I gave him credit for because he’s immediately like: Something is up. He thinks it’s weird that he happened to meet Meg on the side of the road a few weeks ago, and then she just happened to show up in Chicago while they were there a few weeks later. Dean is still stuck on the part where Meg said that Dean is holding Sam back. He wants to know if Sam really feels that way, but Sam directs him back to the weirdness of running into Meg again. Sam tells Dean to look up the name Meg Masters and see if she actually exists, along with the symbol they found in Beer Girl’s apartment while he follows Meg.
Later, Sam gets a call from Dean letting him know that Meg Masters checks out as a real person, and the symbol has something to do with a nasty demon. These demons have to be summoned and controlled, and it’s pretty dangerous. Unfortunately, no one knows what these demons look like because they haven’t been seen in a long time, but whoever is controlling it must be pretty powerful.
After they hang up, Sam, sitting in a car outside of Meg’s apartment, sees a light go on and Meg start changing her shirt in the window.
Sara: As Meg leaves her apartment, walking with a purpose, Sam gets out of the car and follows. He hides out in an elevator shaft and watches her speak Latin into that creepy goblet from the last episode she was in. She tells the goblet that he shouldn’t come because the brothers are in town, but a voice we can’t hear seems to interrupt as she just responds with a yes sir. She tells him she’ll be here waiting and leaves her creepy altar and Sam behind.
Sam crawls the rest of the way up the elevator shaft and finds the altar, which has the symbol from Beer Girl’s apartment on it, written in blood. He immediately goes back to the Motel of the Week to tell Dean what he saw and that Meg is using a dark altar to control a demon. He also shares that she’s using the Goblet of Evil to give orders to someone or something.
Dean holy craps that both victims of the Shadow guys were born in Lawrence, Kansas, where the boys are originally from. They deduce that Meg is working with the fire demon who killed their mother, and they need to catch her in the act without tipping her off to what they know. Dean leaves a voicemail for Papa Winchester (psh) about what’s going on and which warehouse he should meet them at, like that’s ever going to happen. This kid never gives up hope on his shitty dad. Sads.
Sam has packed up all the weapons and books they might need, which is basically everything that the boys own. Probably a good idea. The brothers ask each other if they’re nervous, and they both, “Psh, no, duh,” about it even though they obviously are. Sam is excited about the idea that they could kill this demon tonight, and he could go back to school and to his normal life again. Dean isn’t as excited about this idea, and Sam wonders what he’ll do once all of this is over. Unfortunately for Dean, he doesn’t see it as ever being over because there will always be things to hunt, and he also doesn’t want Sam to leave right after the fire demon is gone because FEELINGS.
K: Definitely implied.
Sara: Sam tells Dean that when this is all over, he’s going to have to let him go his own way. Well, we’ve got at least ten seasons left, so it’ll be a while, boys!
Warehouse of Black Magic. Meg is doing her Latin chanting thing at the dark altar while Sam and Dean hide in the back of the warehouse with guns raised. She calls them out right away for hiding and tells them to come out. They do, but refuse to put their guns down. Sam demands to know who Meg is waiting for, and she replies, “You,” right before a shadow attacks the boys and knocks them unconscious, which seems really unfair because how do you fight a shadow? That’s why you should always carry an emergency flashlight, boys and girls.
K: Snark Squad advice: saving lives since 2011.
Sara: When the boys come to, they’re tied up and bloody, but they have just enough energy to talk shit about Meg, which: fair. Dean wants to know why she won’t just kill them already if that’s the plan and Meg smirks that this trap isn’t for them. It takes Sam a couple of beats longer than it probably should have to figure out that the trap is for Papa Winchester. Dean is like, “LOL. Don’t you know our dad doesn’t love us and will *never* come to rescue us?” Seriously, girl. She says that his one weakness is his sons, but I disagree. Dude, Dean was given a week left to live and he didn’t even show up. Dumb.
Dean argues that no matter what, it’s going to take a lot more than a shadow to kill his father, earning himself the gold star!
Meg says they aren’t just shadows (too late, bitch, already gave out that star!), they’re the demons and they’re just invisible. Seriously unfair advantage. Meg grossly crawls over and straddles Sam and tries to get all sexy while Dean tells them to get a room. Fortunately, the grossness is cut short when Meg hears Dean trying to cut himself free and goes over to take his knife away. When she goes back to Sam and asks if he was trying to distract her, he tells her, “Nope! I got a knife of my own!”and grabs her shoulders to head butt the shit out of her. Awesome!
The shadow demon drags Meg away and tosses her out the window, for some reason that makes no sense to me. They see her body lying on the ground below, but COME ON. Bitch ain’t dead. We’ve all seen that horror movie.
K: Except apparently the Winchesters haven’t. Idiots.
Sara: The boys get back to the Motel of the Week and find Papa Winchester there, looking perfectly fine and healthy and like the stupid terrible father he is. Dean hugs him and Sam side eyes him, which: FAIR. He tells them that he got to the warehouse just in time to see Meg take a swan dive out the window. He shares that he’s going to kill the demon, but he just doesn’t know how yet. He tells the boys they can’t come with him, because he doesn’t want them to get hurt. Maybe he should have thought of that a loooooong time ago?
K: Oh, he definitely should have. But this reunion, even though he’s the worst father of EVER, still gives me feels.
Sara: It’s all the emotional manliness. It does something to us ladies.
Papa Winchester and Sam hug it out before the whole damn family is suddenly attacked by that stupid shadow demon again. Meg watches from the street below as she holds on to a necklace. TOLD YOU THAT BITCH WASN’T DEAD. I forgot to mention that she reminds me of an evil poor man’s Veronica Mars. I still want to punch her, by the way.
When we get back from the Not Commercial Break, the shadow demons are fucking all these guys up. Sam lights an emergency flare that lights up the whole apartment and leaves no room for the shadow demon, which was totally my idea with the flashlights earlier. I would be such a good demon hunter if it weren’t for the being scared of everything and not having good cardio and having to leave the couch.
K: Right there with you. We could run the Demon Hunter Advice Line though. Where, instead of calling their deadbeat fathers, they call us and we’re like “…………[insert common sense here]”, and we save a ton of lives.
Sara: YES. The boys rush downstairs to the Bromobile, and Sam says they all need to get in the car and head out. Dean tells Papa Winchester that he’s gotta hit the road, because the demons will use the boys to get to their father and it isn’t safe for them all to be together. Sam still wants their dad to come with him, but Papa Winchester peaces out because that’s just the kind of dad he is. Bye Papa Winchester! Until next time! The boys drive away, with no rock music which is a little depressing. Man, Papa Winchester ruins everything.
K: You have no idea.
Next time: Sam and Dean investigate a haunted house in Supernatural S01 E17 — Hell House.
I'm a 30-something with three kids who spends an embarrassing amount of time watching teen television dramas. There's a whole lot of Internet out there, and I plan on reading all of it before I die.
I'm a 30-something librarian and I still live with my parents because I'm super broke. Leader of Team Heartless Cow. I have an inexplicable love for 90s television, eat too much chocolate, and read more than is good for me.
