Supernatural S01 E17 – Brought to you by Tumblr

Previously: Meg and her pet shadow demons tore up the boys’ pretty pretty faces, and Papa Winchester popped up for a red hot second before bailing again because he’s the worst.

Hell House

Kirsti: Richardson, Texas, two months ago. A group of teens walk through the woods in the middle of the night and find an abandoned log cabin.  Because they’re idiots, they decide to head inside. There are all kinds of weird occult-y symbols painted on the walls and floors. The dude manning the flashlight tells his friends that “they” say there’s a ghost who hides in the root cellar and strings up girls who stumble into the house. One friend is sceptical, wanting to know where he heard the legend. From his cousin, apparently. Sceptical Guy grabs the flashlight and leads the way down to the cellar. He scoffs about how all the cellar contains is random junk, but the others are staring in horror at something behind him. He turns and sees a girl hanging by her neck from the rafters. He screams and lightning flashes us to the Not!Credits.

Sara: I love haunted houses! And teenagers who make questionable choices! And this teaser!

K: Back in the present, the Bromobile rolls down Interstate 35 to Blue Oyster Cult’s Fire of Unknown Origin. Sam’s asleep in the passenger seat. A clearly bored Dean looks over at his brother, then slowly slips a plastic spoon into Sam’s open mouth. Mission accomplished, he snaps a quick photo on his phone, then grins and turns the stereo up and starts singing along.

Sam jolts awake, slapping the spoon out of his mouth before glaring at Dean. He snaps that they’re not kids any more and they’re not going to return to their pranking ways. “What’s the matter, Sammy? Afraid you’re going to get a little Nair in your shampoo again, huh?” Dean smirks. Sam tells him to bring it.

Sara: DON’T YOU DARE RUIN SAM’S BEAUTIFUL HAIR, DEAN.

K: Don’t worry, Sara. The hair is basically its own character by season 5. Dean then asks his brother for our regularly scheduled dose of info-dump. Sam obliges: local haunted house, group of moronic teenagers, misogynistic ghost, dead girl who was gone when the cops arrived. The cops think the kids made the whole thing up, but Sam says he’s read their accounts and they seem sincere. Dean asks where he found the accounts and Sam reluctantly admits that he checked out some local paranormal websites. Dean rolls his eyes when Sam says that the website was called HellHoundsLair.com. Legit, Dean.

Sam argues that it’s worth checking out, especially seeing as how Papa Winchester has disappeared again and they have no leads on where he might be. Dean reluctantly agrees and they decide to go in search of the moronic teenagers. Cut to the Bromobile pulling up outside a local restaurant to the strains of Blue Oyster Cult’s Burning for You. That throws us into a montage of them talking to Sceptical Guy and the other two teens, all of whom have massively conflicting stories. The Winchesters ask how they found out about the place. “Craig,” they reply in unison.

Over at a local record store, Craig turns out to be I-found-out-from-my-cousin guy. Dean introduces them as reporters for a Dallas newspaper doing a story on local ghost stories. They ask if he knows any, and he’s all “You mean the Hell House?” GOLD STAR, CRAIG.

Sara: Also, that house name really isn’t all that creative, kids. I think we could do better than that.

K: True. But I’m lazy, so I’m not going to try.

Sam asks for the story behind the Hell House, and Craig obliges: in the 1930s, a farmer called Mordecai Murdoch had six daughters and he couldn’t feed them thanks to the Depression and crop failure. He figured it was better for them to die fast, so he hanged them all and then hanged himself. And now he hangs any girl who walks in there. Dean asks where Craig heard the story, and he says his cousin Dana told him, but he doesn’t know where she heard it. He assures them that the girl was real and dead, and he doesn’t want to go near the house ever again.

Hell House. The boys investigate the exterior – during the day because they’re sane (S: FOR ONCE) – and Dean says that EMF is no good because a nearby power pole is still working, which is fucking with the readings. They head inside, and Dean jokes that their ghost must be a tagger because of all the spraypainted symbols on the walls. Sam nerdboys that the dates of the symbols are all over the place too, including one that wasn’t used until the 1960s. He starts snapping pictures. Dean says that one is familiar, but he doesn’t know why. Sam, on the other hand, has never seen it before. They suspect the cops were right and there’s nothing supernatural going on.

Just then, they hear a noise from another room and jump into action. They yank open the door and find two nerdy guys with a video camera and a massive flashlight on the other side. The nerdy guys introduce themselves as professional paranormal investigators, and hand the Winchesters a couple of business cards. Dean eyerolls while Sam info-dumps some more: the two guys are Ed Zeddmore and Harry Spangler and they run HellHoundsLair.com. Dean snarks that they’re big fans. Ed says that they know who the boys are too: amateurs. The boys play dumb and ask what Ed and Harry have got so far. They gush over the insane EMF results while the boys grin at each other. Dean asks if they’ve ever seen a ghost, and Ed says that they have, once. They think. The boys smirk and say that they’ll leave things to the “professionals”.

Sara: See, if you aren’t ridiculously good looking, it’s way harder to be a ghost hunter. 

K: Sometime later, Sam heads out of the local library and tells Dean that he did find a dude named Murdoch who lived in that house in the 1930s, but his name was Mark and he had no daughters. Also, there’s no record of him ever killing anyone. Dean, meanwhile, has been looking into missing persons at the police station. There’s no one matching the dead girl’s description, and he suspects Ed and Harry made the whole thing up. They decide it’s a bust and that they should go find a bar before leaving town. Dean hops in the Bromobile, but Sam waits outside until Dean turns the engine on. When he does, the radio blares, the heat blasts, and the wipers are on. Dean frantically turns everything off as Sam giggles. Dean gives him bitchface and tells him that his prank is weak.

Sara: HELLA WEAK. God, that prank is just so Sam, isn’t it?

K: SO MUCH.

Cut to the Hell House that night. A new group of moronic teenagers inform a girl that as she chose Dare instead of Truth, she has to grab a jar from the root cellar. The Orchestra of Bitch, You Gonna Die strikes up as she heads inside. There’s a metallic noise, and she calls out but there’s no reply. She heads down into the cellar. Downstairs, she grabs a jar, then promptly drops it when there’s a noise from upstairs. An overall-clad figure appears behind her and throws a noose over her head. He yanks on the rope and she flies into the rafters, screaming. Her body stills, and we fade to black.

After the Not Commercial Break, it’s the next morning. The Hell House is surrounded by cop cars. The boys walk up and ask what happened, and are informed that the girl hung herself. I stop to Hulk Smash things because that’s one of my grammatical pet peeves. Pictures are hung. People are HANGED. It’s not that fucking hard, y’all. Ahem. (S: I SAID THE SAME THING. Grammar nerds unite!) (K: This is why we’re friends, Sara) Anyway, the girl was a straight A student with a full college scholarship, so the cops are baffled by her “suicide”. The boys exchange looks and decide they missed something.

Fade from day to night. Cops patrol the house, and the Winchesters – who are hiding in the bushes – wonder how they’re going to get past them. Just then, Ed and Harry turn up, laden with equipment and bickering non-stop. Dean yells out “WHO YOU GONNA CALL?“, and the cops turn, spotting Ed and Harry. They run and the cops give chase, allowing the boys to duck into the Hell House. Inside, they pull out their rocksalt-laden shotguns and Dean stops to be annoyed that he still can’t work out where he’s seen that one symbol before. Just in case we missed all the dropped anvils, the Zoomy Cameraman zooms in on the symbol.

In the cellar, Dean double dares his brother to take a swig from one of the random jars of grossness, and I get random feels because being a big brother was the one normal part of Dean Winchester’s childhood. Sam apparently doesn’t understand this and is all “Um. EW?” There’s a noise from across the room and they rush over there to find a closed cupboard. Sam yanks the door open to reveal several rats. Sam relaxed, but Dean is grossed out on account of RATS. He’d prefer a ghost. With that, Farmer Overalls appears, an axe raised. Just as he’s about to get to head chopping, the boys spin around and shoot at him. After a few shots, Farmer Overalls turns to smoke and vanishes.

The boys freak because he’s immune to rocksalt, and rush towards the stairs. Farmer Overalls attacks again, knocking Dean to the floor. Sam manages to hold him off long enough for Dean to get up, and the boys run upstairs. Farmer Overalls is close behind. Outside, Ed and Harry have eluded the cops and crept back to the house. Harry wants to leave, but Ed refuses. Just as they’re about to head inside, the Winchesters come bursting through the front door. They sprint past Ed and Harry, who stare in horror at Farmer Overalls in the doorway. This moment brought to you by Tumblr:

They start to run, but almost immediately bump into the cops. When they point to the house in a panic, Farmer Overalls has disappeared. The cops eyeroll and frisk them.

Motel of the Week. Dean doodles the mystery symbol while Sam does research. They discuss how things now make no sense because Farmer Overalls is meant to only go after girls and to have hanged himself, but he attacked them and had slit wrists and an axe. Which is weird, because ghosts can’t change stuff like that. Conveniently, Sam refreshes HellHoundsLair.com and finds a new post, saying that Farmer Overalls was a Satanist who chopped his victims up with an axe and then slit his wrists. Just then, Dean realises what the mystery symbol is, and says that he knows where the whole thing started.

Sara: Well I’m glad he does, because I’m still at a total loss.

K: Record Store. The boys walk in, and Craig says that he’s not in the mood for questions. Dean says that they’re just looking to buy an album. He flips through some records, then pulls one out. He loudly tells Sam that he was initially baffled by the mystery symbol, but then realised it means nothing because it’s the logo for Blue Oyster Cult. He hands the album to Craig, asking if he’s a fan. Craig flips it over, revealing the symbol. Dean asks for the truth about the Hell House.

Craig spills his guts through a series of flashbacks – his cousin Dana was on spring break and they got bored. So they decided to vandalise an abandoned house to make it look haunted. They pulled the symbols from albums and Dana’s theology textbooks, and then fake-hanged her. The moronic teenagers told other moronic teenagers, and then Harry and Ed put it on their website and things went crazy. He says a little tearily that it was all made up and no one was meant to get hurt. The boys leave him to his feels, and wonder how Farmer Overalls can exist if none of it was true. Fade to black.

After the Not Commercial Break, we’re at the Motel of the Week. Sam’s in the shower, and Dean takes advantage of the opportunity to put itching powder in Sam’s underwear. Sam calls through the bathroom door that he’s been thinking and maybe Farmer Overalls is a tulpa, a Tibetan thought form. Dean looks guilty when Sam walks out of the bathroom. This moment ALSO brought to you by Tumblr, because DAMN:

Sara: UM. DOUBLE DAMN. God bless you, Tumblr.

K: Dean tells him to get dressed so they can grab some food. (S: Don’t encourage him, Dean!)

At a diner, Dean grabs coffee while Sam awkwardly scratches himself. Dean asks about tulpas, and Sam tells him that there was an incident in Tibet in the 1950s where a group of monks pictured a gollum. They focused on it so hard that they brought it to life. Dean’s all “Okay, and??”, and Sam points out that 10,000 internet visitors holds a lot more focusing power than 20 Tibetan monks. In short, Sam thinks that Farmer Overalls is real because people believe. Dean wants to know why, if people believing in something makes it real, Santa isn’t hooking him up with presents every Christmas. “Because you’re a bad person,” Sam replies. Dean shrugs. Sam continues, showing Dean one of the symbols painted on the wall of the house. He says that it’s a Tibetan spirit sigil that magnifies people’s thoughts. Okay, show. Whatever.

Sara: LOL. Right, right. I won’t complain too much because I like haunted houses, but okay.

K: Sam makes a series of hilarious faces and tries to subtlely scratch his junk as Dean suggests that they remove the sigil, and therefore get rid of the tulpa. But apparently not. Once tulpas are created, they take on a life of their own, as evidenced by Farmer Overalls changing as the legend changes. And it’s getting worse, because Harry and Ed posted a grainy video of Farmer Overalls and now their hits are insane. Dean says he has a plan and heads out. Sam scratches some more and says he’s allergic to their washing powder. Dean cackles, and Sam yells “You did this? You’re a frigging JERK” after him.

Cut to a trailer park. Ed wants to go back into the Hell House for more footage, but Harry’s all “NOPE NOPITY NOPE”. Ed tells him that Farmer Overalls is their ticket to the big leagues, and he needs to be brave and focus on their motto: “W.W.B.D – what would Buffy do?“. Also brought to you by Tumblr:

Harry says that Buffy’s stronger than him. Ed tries to reassure him, but just then someone knocks on the side of the trailer. Harry jumps a mile. It’s the Winchesters. Dean asks them to take the website down, because people will keep showing up at the Hell House and someone might get hurt. Harry thinks that’s a good point, but Ed’s all “LOL NOPE” on account of the Winchesters got them arrested. Dean threatens violence, but Sam says that Harry and Ed won’t help, not even if they tell them “that thing about Mordecai”. The boys head back towards the Bromobile.

Suddenly, Ed and Harry are very eager to help, and promise to shut everything down. Sam smirks to himself, and agrees to tell them: Farmer Overalls shot himself with a .45, and if you shoot him with a .45 loaded with wrought iron rounds, he’ll go poof. Harry sprints excitedly back towards the trailer. At a diner, Sam refreshes the website as Dean yanks the chain on a laughing fisherman thing on the wall. I tried to find out what the thing is actually called, but Google just gave me a bunch of articles about a fisherman in Norway who found a massive dildo in the stomach of a fish he caught. Thanks for that moments of WTFery, Norway.

Sara: Questionable Google search of the day?

K: Definitely.

Anyway, the story is up on the website. Sam says they should wait until nightfall to allow the new story time to spread, and then head for the house. He and Dean toast to the defeat of Farmer Overalls, then Sam laughs when Dean discovers that Sam put superglue on his beer bottle and it’s now stuck to his hand.

That night, they use the laughing fisherman thing to lure the cops away, then sneak into the house with their guns drawn. They head for the cellar only to find Ed and Harry waiting, video camera ready. Farmer Overalls bursts out of the cellar and attacks with an axe. The bullets do nothing. After Farmer Overalls turns to smoke, Dean asks about them posting the story. Harry says that their server crashed just after they posted it. #bloggerproblems

They rush for the exit, but Farmer Overalls attacks. Sam fights him off, and tells Ed and Harry to run. They do, while Farmer Overalls pins Sam against the wall by his neck. Dean appears and uses a spray can and his lighter as a flame thrower.

Farmer Overalls vanishes and Dean drags his brother towards the door. “Mordecai can’t leave the house and we can’t kill him? We improvise,” he says before setting fire to the house. They rush out the door and watch Farmer Overalls vanish as the house burns around him. Sam looks thoughtful and says “Kinda makes you wonder – of all the things we hunted, how many existed just ’cause people believed in ’em?“.

After a Not Commercial Break, we’re at the trailer park. Ed and Harry smugly tell the Winchesters that they’ve received a call from a very important Hollywood producer, and are heading to LA to discuss turning Farmer Overalls’ story into a movie. The Winchesters wish them luck, and Ed says that it’s not about luck, it’s about talent. They drive off. Sam tells Dean he has a confession to make: he called Ed and Harry claiming to be a producer. The brothers laugh, and Dean reveals that he hid a dead fish in their car. The boys call a truce on the pranking and roll out of town to the strains of Blue Oyster Cult.

Sara: Those two little admissions were so great. Jared Padalecki isn’t always the *best* actor, but he is great at comedy. 

K: Agreed.

You guys, this is one of my favourite episodes, because it’s just so silly and because I really love the dorktastic Ghostfacers. The playing-pranks-on-your-sibling thing is great, and we can basically pretend that Papa Winchester never showed up and ruined things. Which is a major win as far as I’m concerned.

Sara: Yes, this is definitely a favorite for me, too. I’m a bigger fan of the stand alone episodes, than the ones that are revealing about the overall series plot. Last week’s episode felt like a giant bore-fest to me, but this one was back to what I loved about the earlier ones. 

 

Next time: Some legit childhood trauma and Instagram filtered flashbacks. Find out more in S01 E18 – Something Wicked.