Previously: Sam’s murder penis claimed another victim and it was most definitely murder.
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Hollywood Babylon
Kirsti: Night, the woods. A young woman calls out to her friends. There’s no response. A guy comes rushing up to her, yelling that her friends are dead and that he has to find his sister. He runs off into the darkness and she shouts after him. There’s a noise behind her and she turns, then screams. Her scream trails off pathetically as the camera pans out to show that she’s on a film set, pretending to be terrified of a tennis ball. The director calls a cut, and production assistants rush around doing their thing. The director asks Tara, the actress, to try a better scream next time, and she says she’s struggling with the tennis ball thing. He insists that the final product will be terrifying, she says she’ll try harder and withdraws to a seat nearby.
There, the other actor is with a stagehand, who’s talking about how weird things happen on the set after dark and he thinks the set is haunted. Later, Tara’s wandering through the “woods” practising her lines and screams. There’s a groaning sound behind her, and she calls out. There’s no response. She keeps walking, and a baseball hat falls in front of her. She looks up into the scaffolding where a ghost flickers and vanishes. The stagehand lies dead, blood dripping from his face. Tara screams, for real this time, and across the set the director looks thrilled.
FLAME ON!
After the Not Credits, Sam and Dean are in Los Angeles on a studio tour. Dean’s fangirl flailing while Sam looks decidedly uncomfortable. He bails on the tour when their guide mentions Stars Hollow and heads towards the sound stage. I will never not find this hilarious because my headcanon is basically “DEAN CAN NEVER KNOW HOW I EARNT MONEY DURING COLLEGE”, and Sam’s facial expression backs that up.
On set, a douchey studio executive is talking to the director (McG, not played by McG) and a producer played by Don Stark, who I know as Bob Pinciotti from That 70s Show. Douchey Exec insists that the dark mysterious horror movie be “brighter” because it’s too depressing right now. Not!McG and Bob Pinciotti eyeroll. Sam and Dean wander in, and Douchey Exec mistakes Dean for a production assistant, asking for a smoothie. Dean’s confused, but it’s a decent cover story, so he goes with it.
Sometime later, Dean walks back in with a tray of smoothies. As shooting starts again, he climbs the scaffolding and scans it with his EMF meter. On set, Tara stumbles her way through a Latin spell. Down by the food table, Dean fills Sam in on the lack of EMF. Sam says the stagehand, Frank, was just working there for the day, so no one knew him. But he’s managed to find out about the history of the stage – four people have died there over the past eighty years, and they were all messy so any of them could be a vengeful spirit. They need to find a way of narrowing it down.
Dean has no fucks to give though because Tara’s just appeared. He walks up to her, awkwardly saying that it’s his first day and he’s got no idea what he’s doing.
He fangirls a little, which puts her at ease, then asks about finding Frank. She tells him about it, including seeing the ghost disappear. Dean listens intently, then asks if she knew Frank. She didn’t, but conveniently, her hobby is taking Polaroids of everyone who works on set, so she can show him a picture! Dean studies it, then mutters “Son of a bitch…”
Cut to a house in the suburbs. The boys knock, and Frank answers. Except that he’s not Frank. He’s an actor named Gerard St James. Dean recognised him from a bunch of bit parts in crappy movies. Over coffee, Gerard tells the boys that the producers brought him in to create hype around the movie, haunted film set blah blah blah. The ghost Tara saw was just a projection. RUDE. Dean fangirls some more as they leave.
Back on set, shooting continues though the sound’s marred by staticky feedback. Douchey Exec tells Not!McG and the writer, Marty, that things don’t make sense. How do the ghosts hear the Latin chanting? Marty says he’ll write in an explanation. Douchey Exec walks away to check his messages and spots a woman who’s completely in greyscale, like she just stepped out of a black and white movie. He studies the ligature marks on her neck, then tells her to get back to make-up because the marks won’t show up on camera. He turns away to make a call, and she taps him on the shoulder, then drops her robe. He studies her naked body, then follows her up the stairs into the scaffolding.
On set, the scene is reshooting with Marty’s explanation included (“They must have super-hearing!“). Suddenly, Douchey Exec’s body falls through the ceiling, hanging from a noose. The actors scream and run as his body spins and his Bluetooth headset falls to the floor. Fade to black.
After the Not Commercial Break, it’s the next morning. Shooting resumes in the same place, and Tara’s character says something about needing to find salt because it keeps ghosts away. Off camera, Marty whispers to Bob Pinciotti that it seems harsh to be filming just after Douchey Exec killed himself. “We had a moment of silence for him at breakfast,” Bob Pinciotti replies. The actors call for a cut and the call goes around the staff, including Dean who’s now wearing a PA’s headset. Tara tells Not!McG that the script makes no sense – why the hell would ghosts be scared of salt? Dean smirks. Not!McG asks Marty for a rewrite, and a nerdy little guy next to Dean who’s been scurrying around in the background gets pissy and storms off.
Sam turns up to ask how things are going. Dean gushes about Tara’s performance, and Sam’s all “WTF??” because apparently Dean really likes being a PA now.
I have feels because Dean Winchester never had the chance to discover what he wanted to do in life. Sam says he went to the morgue and Douchey Exec is definitely dead. Dean pulls Sam over to one of the sound guys and has him play an audio clip for them. When the dialogue is overtaken by static, Sam and Dean exchange a look.
Later, Sam announces that it’s EVP (just like the “I can never go home” in the pilot), and Dean confirms that he’s now getting all kinds of readings on his EMF meter. They decide to take a look at Douchey Exec’s moment of death. Outside, they sneak into one of the trailers. Dean pops a DVD into the TV as he rambles about how he got it from someone on the crew and HE’S FITTING IN AND MAKING FRIENDS AND I HAVE FEELS AGAIN DAMMIT. Anyway, they watch Douchey Exec fall through the ceiling, and Sam spots Monochrome Ghost Lady in the background, then realises that he’s seen her before. Back on set, he tells Dean that she was a starlet in the 1930s who had an affair with a studio exec, then killed herself exactly the way Douchey Exec died when she got dumped. They declare her their prime suspect and decide to go grave digging that night.
Production wraps for the day. Bob Pinciotti stays behind as everyone else leaves. Cut to the boys walking through a cemetery that night. Dean gushes a little over the celebrity graves:
After the Not Commercial Break, we’re treated to a trailer for this terrible movie, Hell Hazers 2. It’s only worth mentioning because it says it’s “From the producers of Cornfield Massacre and Monster Truck“, accompanied by shots from Scarecrow and Route 666. Cut to the boys arriving on set the next morning. They watch the police examine the scene of Bob Pinciotti’s death, and Sam says that an electrician in the 1960s died the same way. They’re confused by the tag-teaming ghosts. Outside in the lot, Not!McG announces that they’re shutting down production for a few days, but they owe it to Bob Pinciotti to finish the movie.
Cut to Sam watching dailies in a trailer. Dean walks in to say that the electrician was cremated. Sam says he hasn’t spotted any ghosts on the dailies, but then realises that the summoning ritual the actors are reading in Latin is legit. They head inside to question Marty, whose office features posters for movies that are totally Supernatural episodes in disguise. It’s kind of great. Anyway, they gush about how they loved the attention to detail, and he’s all “Skkrrrrt, huh?” because apparently the original screenwriter was Walter, the nerdy little guy who’s been in the background the whole time. Marty just did the rewrites.
Back on set, the boys are reading a copy of the original screenplay. Dean declares it to be “pretty good” while Sam says that it’s essentially a how-to guide on summoning ghosts and get them to do your bidding. They decide to track Walter down and ask some questions. In the woods-y part of the set, Marty’s meeting with Walter to talk about the script. But not really. Walter bitches about how his script would have meant Hollywood getting things right for the first time ever, and holds up a talisman. He chants in Latin, and Marty comes face-to-face with Fan Man. He screams and we fade to black.
After the Not Commercial Break, Fan Man is dragging Marty towards a fan as Marty pleads for his life. There’s a shotgun blast and the ghost vanishes. Sam turns off the fan as Marty looks at a gun-toting Dean and says “You’re one hell of a PA…“. Dean looks proud. Sam heads over to Walter and is all “Dude, WTF”. Walter starts up the stairs of the scaffolding, telling Sam that he can’t understand what it’s like to pour his life into something and then have it crapped on by Hollywood. He starts chanting again, causing Fan Man and two other ghosts to appear. They walk towards Marty. Dean raises his shotgun, but the ghosts vanish.
The boys and Marty run for it, lights exploding behind them. It’s like the collapsing prophecies scene in Order of the Phoenix, but not. They rush into a building and sigh with relief before realising it’s just the set for the cabin. Marty freaks about ghosts being real while Sam says that Walter’s probably controlling them with the amulet. He pulls out his phone and uses it to scan the room, suggesting that if the ghosts show up on the movie dailies, maybe his phone camera will work too. Contrivance dictates that this terrible plan works brilliantly.
Sam points Dean in the right direction and Dean shoots, banishing the ghosts temporarily. Then Sam spots Walter walking around in the scaffolding. He hands Marty his phone and gives chase.
Walter tries to sneak out the back exit, but bumps into Sam. Sam tells him it’s over, and Walter smashes the talisman on the ground. Sam’s all “Dude, are you an idiot??” because that’s a terrible idea. Now the ghosts he summoned are free and also pissed at him. Walter’s all “So??”, then gets dragged to the ground, blood appearing all over his clothes. Dean and Marty join Sam, and Marty watches through Sam’s phone as the ghosts tear Walter apart. Fade to black.
After the Not Commercial Break, it’s a few days later and production is back in full swing. Marty’s written the ghosts-can-be-seen-on-phone-cameras thing into the script and Not!McG is gushing about how great it is. Off to the side, Sam eyerolls. He heads out through the lot, and bumps into a dishevelled Dean coming out of one of the trailers. Tara follows, wrapped in a bathrobe. “You’re one hell of a PA…” she says. Dean grins and thanks her as Sam looks insanely awkward. The boys walk away, Dean grabbing a sandwich as they pass a food table. They walk towards a painted sunset, which is rolled away at the last minute. “God, I love this town…” Dean says as we fade to black.
I like this episode. It’s dumb, yes, but it’s fun. And after the emotional trauma of the last episode, we needed a dose of fun. It’s not a great episode – it’s laden with contrivance, for starters – but everyone who dies is a dick, no female characters die (unless you count the starlet’s ghost, who was already dead), and Dean finds his perfect job which gives me feels. On the whole, it’s pretty good stuff.
Next time on Supernatural: The inevitable happens when Agent Henriksen catches up with the Winchesters in S02 E19 – Folsom Prison Blues.
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.
