Supernatural S02 E06 – Oh God, no.

Previously: The boys met up with one of the demon’s other psychic kids and he turned out to have an evil twin.

No Exit

Kirsti: Okay, so I first saw this episode like two months after reading Devil in the White City. I barricaded myself in my bedroom after it aired. Is that a spoiler? Whatever. Also, I feel like I need to tell you guys that I’m not intentionally picking Dean gifs over Sam gifs. The internet apparently just loves Dean more… Anyway, let’s get to the episode, shall we?

Philadelphia. A young blonde complains over the phone about the flickering lights in her apartment and orders the super to come deal with it. She notices black goo pouring from a light switch, and goes over to investigate. She peers at the light switch and a bloodshot eye appears inside the wall. She screams, which is legit.

FLAME ON!

Harvelle’s. The boys get out of the Bromobile as Dean suggests that they go to LA to rescue a young girl from an evil cult. I mention this only because the girl in question is Katie Holmes, and I always mention crossover magic opportunities. They head inside to find Ellen and Jo screaming at each other. The gist of it is that Jo wants to go hunting and Ellen’s all “over my dead body”, which probably isn’t something she should say on a show where female characters regularly get fridged. ANYWHO. Jo tells the boys that she’s put the case together herself – six young blondes have vanished from the Philadelphia building in the past eighty years. Dean’s impressed by the work she put in, and Ellen tells the boys to take the case if it’s so great.

Cut to Philly. The boys break into the apartment and start investigating. Sam spots the dried out black goo on the light switch in shock. “That’s ectoplasm. Well, Sam, I think I know what we’re dealing with here. It’s the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man!” Dean sasses. Aaah, Ghostbusters… Sam eyerolls and says that ectoplasm is only created by hella pissed off spirits. They head out to start researching their ghost but hide ineffectively when they hear voices in the hall. It turns out to be Jo with the landlord. She says Dean’s her boyfriend and that they want to rent the apartment.

Inside the apartment, Dean asks about Ellen. Jo says she told her she was going to Vegas and had Ash fake a credit card trail all the way there. Dean’s phone rings and it’s Ellen. He claims he hasn’t seen Jo but promises to bring her back to the bar if he does. Jo grins happily. Sometime later, it’s Infodump O’Clock! Jo tells us/the boys that the building was constructed as a warehouse in 1924 and before that it was an empty field. There haven’t been any violent deaths in its 82 year history. Sam suggests it’s a cursed object, which means scanning the whole building. Dean says he’s not letting Jo out of his sight.

As they scan the building with EMF meters, Jo suggests using her as bait, seeing as she’s young and pretty and blonde and just the spirit’s type. Dean’s all “Hahahaha, NO”, and she calls him a chauvinist who thinks women can’t be hunters. High five, girl. Dean says a little sadly that no one chooses to be a hunter. She points out that he loves the job, and he’s all “Yeah, but I’m fucked up and have no good things in my life.” I have momentary Dean feels.

Jo stops next to a grate in the wall to continue the conversation and a hand slides through the grate and towards her leg. She gasps but can’t explain why, then they both smell something weird. Jo crouches down by the grate and her EMF meter goes crazy. Dean congratulates her on finding her first spirit. He opens the grate and reaches into the wall, pulling out a chunk of blonde hair with scalp still attached. Ew. “Somebody’s keeping souvenirs…” he says.

In another apartment, another blonde girl is getting ectoplasm dripped on her. A crack appears in her ceiling and she bemoans her shitty apartment building. The crack gets bigger, and she tries to phone the super, but only get static. The crack spreads all the way down the wall to a grate, then the creepy hand reaches through and grabs her leg. She screams as she’s dragged into the wall. (Okay, but HOW?!?!?! I get how the GHOST can pass through solid metal. But how can she?! Contriiiiiiiivance!!) Fade to black.

After the Not Commercial Break, it’s the next morning. Dean wakes, all twisted up in a recliner. Jo’s going over blueprints while twirling a knife.

Dean sulks momentarily about the fact that she didn’t use the bed, and look, you guys, I know Dean can be a jerkface a lot of the time. But he made sure Jo had the bed and Sam had the sofa, and he took the awkward-to-sleep-in recliner, and I have feels about it. ANYWAY, he pulls a Bowie knife from his bag and offers it to Jo, saying that her teeny knife is basically useless. She hands it to him, and it has her father’s initials on it. He gives it back and asks what she remembers about her dad. She says she mostly remembers how happy everything was when he came home from a hunt. She wants to be a hunter so she can be close to him. Dean looks feelsy.

Sam bursts in to inform them that another girl has disappeared. Cut to sometime later. Dean’s been to investigate the apartment and informs Sam and Jo that there are cracks and ectoplasm all over the place. Sam says the spirit must be in the walls. They’re confused though because the building’s history is clean. Jo picks up an old photo of the land where the building now stands and suggests they’re looking in the wrong place – the building next door has bars on the windows.

One phone call to Ash and they’ve discovered that there used to be a prison next door and that people were executed in the empty field that’s now the apartment building. Ash emails them a list of everyone executed at the prison over its hundred and thirty year history. Sometime later, Sam’s scrolling through the list of 157 names. They need to narrow it down. He stops at “Herman Webster Mudgett” and looks thoughtful. “Wasn’t that H. H. Holmes’ real name?” he asks. Aaaaand this was about the point where I started hiding behind a cushion when this episode first aired.

They infodump to Jo about H. H. Holmes – America’s first serial killer, he confessed to 27 murders but some estimates put it at more like 100. His victim of choice was pretty blonde girls, who he’d kill with chloroform. Dean realises this was the weird smell in the hall earlier. Jo says it should be pretty easy to salt and burn his bones, but LOL NOPE – he didn’t want people mutilating his corpse so he had his body encased in concrete. Womp womp.

Sam says they have an even bigger problem. Namely that Holmes had a creepy ass building in Chicago that became known as The Murder Castle. There were trap doors and acid pits and hidden shit in the walls, and sometimes he’d keep his victims alive for days. So Teresa – the girl taken the previous night – could still be alive. They decide that they need to grab sledgehammers and get inside the walls.

Cut to Dean and Jo walking through a crawl-space in the wall. Dean reaches a point where it’s too narrow for him to keep going, but Jo insists she can do it. She squeezes past him, leading to an Awkward Dean Boner.

Jo elbows him in the gut for being disgusting then disappears around the corner. Dean phones her. She says she’s in the north wall and that there’s an air shaft going down. Dean tells her to stay put, but she starts climbing down. When she gets to the bottom, ectoplasm starts oozing from the walls. “Oh God,” she says quietly. Dean rushes downstairs trying to work out where she is, then hears a scream over the phone. He yells her name and smashes a hole in the wall with a sledgehammer, only to see her phone lying abandoned on the ground. Fade to black.

After the Not Commercial Break, Dean tells Sam what’s happened. He blames himself for leaving Jo alone. Sam says they’ll find her, but Dean’s not so sure because they’ve checked all the walls and there’s no sign of anyone. Ellen rings and says Ash told her everything. She demands to speak to Jo. Dean says they’ll get her back, and Ellen freaks. Dean promises Jo will be okay, and Ellen snaps “That’s not the first time I’ve heard that from a Winchester!” Dean looks confused. Ellen says she’ll be on the next flight out and hangs up. Sam, meanwhile, has had an idea. Holmes’ Murder Castle had a basement torture chamber. He suggests that the old sewer system that runs beneath the apartment building might fit the bill nicely. They set out to investigate.

Jo comes to in the Creepy Sewer Torture Chamber. She conveniently still has her torch, and it shows her that she’s trapped in some kind of wooden wall niche with a little slit in one wall that lets her see into the main room. She hears a noise and calls out. It’s Teresa, who’s in another wall niche and isn’t reassured by Jo’s “I’m here to rescue you” comments. Teresa says the spirit is going to murder their faces off, and appropriately, footsteps sound. The spirit walks up to Jo’s wall niche, reaches in, and grabs a chunk of her hair. She screams as her hair’s ripped out and we fade to black.

After the Not Commercial Break, the boys search for an entrance to the sewer system. They uncover a metal trap door and head down into the sewers, carrying shotguns. Footsteps approach Jo’s niche again. Holmes creepily tells her that she’s beautiful and reaches in to stroke her hair. Jo stabs at Holmes’ hand with her father’s knife and he flees, screaming.

Sometime later, Teresa asks if he’s gone. Jo tells her to keep quiet because she’s not sure. Holmes’ hand clamps over her nose and mouth, and Jo struggles for breath. Conveniently, the boys arrive to shoot Holmes with rock salt. Dean struggles to free Jo while Sam helps Teresa. Once Jo’s free, Dean tells her they need her to stay put and act as bait, because it’s the only plan they have for stopping Holmes. She looks unimpressed.

Cut to Jo, sitting alone in the Creepy Sewer Torture Chamber. Holmes appears behind her and walks slowly towards her. Just as he’s about to grab her, Dean yells “Now!“. Jo slithers through a doorway as the boys shoot at rolled up tarps around the room. They fall open, creating a salt circle with Holmes in the middle. He screams as Jo and the boys escape, closing a grate behind them. Up on the street, Jo asks what will happen if a storm washes the salt away or someone finds the sewer entrance. Sam smirks and says that’s why they’re waiting for Dean. There’s a beeping sound and Dean reverses a concrete mixer up to the sewer entrance. Concrete pours into the sewer, trapping Holmes for good. Fade to black.

After the Not Commercial Break, the Bromobile speeds through the night. Dean’s driving, and keeps glancing awkwardly at the passenger seat. The camera pans to show us that Sam and Jo are in the back seat and Ellen’s riding shotgun. She looks pissed. Dean tries to awkwardly make conversation, but Ellen doesn’t react. He suggests they listen to some music and flicks on the radio. Foreigner’s Cold As Ice starts playing, which I will never not find hilarious. Ellen turns the radio off. Jo and Sam exchange a look as Dean sighs that it’s going to be a long drive.

Harvelle’s. Ellen drags Jo inside, and Dean says it’s all his fault. Ellen coldly tells him that she needs to speak to Jo alone. The boys head out to the car. Ellen yells that Jo shouldn’t be trusting the boys with her life, because “Like father, like sons!” Jo looks confused. Cut to outside, sometime later. Jo storms out of the bar. She glares at the boys and keeps walking. Dean asks her what happened, and she tells him that her father usually worked alone, but on his last hunt he had a partner. A partner who got him killed. A partner named Papa Winchester. Dean looks horrified as Jo informs him that that’s why Papa Winchester never mentioned Ellen to them. She tells him to leave and we fade to black.

This episode scares the bejesus out of me, because it’s hella creepy. And it’s even worse when you’ve read Devil in the White City. Which you should all do, because it’s an excellent book. But really, I think that “Like father, like sons” line of Ellen’s is interesting. Because the last few episodes have shown us just how different from John the boys really are. There’s no acceptable collateral damage,  they ask for help when they need it, they’re willing to change their views based on the evidence – like with saving Lenore. And they’re continually making sure others are safe and comfortable while they sleep in cars and on recliner chairs. Which really isn’t the point of this episode. But whatever.

Next time, the boys get arrested and there’s an awesome guest star. Find out more in S02 E07 – The Usual Suspects.