First off, a moment of silence to those who’ve lost their lives in Hurricane Sandy. Our thoughts go out to the families.
Next, Happy Halloween, guys. And finally… Holy effin’ Christ, those Dennystiel feels! *shudders*
Eagle Harbour, Washington. We open with a Christian Bale lookalike walking into the marina. He is ambushed by Benny, who is little pissed about the fact that C.B. held his legs down while “the old man” ordered Sorento to saw his head off. And Benny wants to know where “the old man” is.
But Christian Bale isn’t giving up the position of the Batcave anytime soon. Instead, a couple of his boys surround Benny, wanting to show “the old man (henceforth ref’d to as T.O.M)” that he has in fact resurrected from the dead, like some effed-up version of Bella Swan.
But Benny, who is more than itching for fight, is prepared (“Always Be Prepared”, that’s the Winchester motto. Get your head outta the gutter, Angel) and in the blink of an eye, Christian Bale’s head is lying on the ground as Benny turns around to take on the others.
Meanwhile, the Hunter duo breaks into a motel room in Enid, Oregon.
Turns out, Kevin (the Prophet of the Lord-turned-missing Prophet of the Lord) has led them on yet another goose chase to the middle of nowhere.
The Winchesters have a domestic about why the little birdie decided to blow the nest, where Sam blames Dean for trying off his mother, but Dean retorts with “I was trying to kill Crowley… who happened to be wearing Kevin’s mother at the time, okay? There’s a difference!”
And the future of humanity rested in their hands.
Suddenly Dean’s phone rings. After a bit of “Can’t hear you… Not enough bars”, which fools nobody, we learn that the person on other end is a seriously injured Benny, who needs Dean’s help.
So Dean drops everything, including Sam, off and decides to take a personal vacation to deal with his own “grown-up, personal… crap” because the only case they’re currently working on is “The Case of Kevin Tran and his missing Tablet” and they have no further leads on it. He leaves Sam behind, because it would be a bad idea to let a fully paid-for room go waste.
Really?!? And Sam buys that and stays put? I wonder if he really did have that stroke Dean was joking about.
Also, didn’t I say that if Sam continued to bitch and whine and nag long enough, Dean would find way to dump his sorry ass? Turns out I’m right.
On the way to Washington, Dean has a Purgatory flashback about killing Vamps back-to-back with Benny.
I loved how cool and collected Benny was in the middle of the battle, whistling a haunting tune while slashing the Vampire throats. Dean needs a partner like that.
Meanwhile in that stupid motel room, Sam fixes the overhead fan and recalls fond memories of the time he fixed an AC at the motel he was staying in with his dog, when Dean was killing Vamps in the Purg.
I seriously hope it was some kind of Monster Motel out of an R L Stine novel, and Sam had some excuse to live there, other than “a dog broke its leg and the vet told me to keep it”. On the up side, Everett, the receptionist, is cute.
Dean pulls up outside the docks, next to an old trailer. He looks at the contents in the back of the trailer rather disdainfully, then pulls out an ice-cooler with blood bags and walks inside the marina.
He climbs down an abandoned barge and encounters a half-dead Benny. A couple refreshing drinks later, Benny is all but ready to say goodbye and see the last of Dean.
But Dean, being Dean, wants to know heck is going and why is Benny going all El Mariachi on Vampire asses. Of course, Benny calls him out on being so Dean Winchester about the whole “friendship” thing.
This leads to another Purg flashback…
Just as Dean and Benny finish killing those pesky vamps, they are joined by none other the dirty trenchcoated Angel of the Lord, who mojos the last of the vamps.
Benny is concerned that Cas’ mojo is attracting attention to them like a beacon. But Dean points that if they can live with Dean’s “humanity” attracting the Purg scum, then they can cope with Cas’ mojo too. This leads to another Cas-Benny face-off, until Dean rolls his eyes tells them to cut it out.
Don’t be jealous Cas. You and Dean still have four years, and a profound bond, on him.
Anyway, Cas and Benny, once again, try to convince Dean that taking Cas with them is a very bad idea. Because after all, the only reason Dean can pass through the barrier is because he’s a living human caught in the Purgatory while Benny without “the fangs and the fun” (sounds like a subtitle for True Blood’s next season) was also once a human. But there’s no way Cas, who has never been a human, can possibly cross that barrier.
But Dean’s not having any of it. “I’m the one with the mojo, I’m the one with the plan.” And he’s determined to “shove Cas’ ass back through the eye of that needle, even if it kills all three of us.” Admittedly, Benny is less comfortable, but the slight smile on Cas’ face more than makes up for it.
And they want us to believe Dean left him there? No way in Hell!!
Back in the present, Benny says that he is hunting his old nest-buddies and his maker, T.O.M. before they kill him. Again.
Meanwhile in that motel room, Sam notices an ice-box and remembers the time he fixed an ice-box at the Motel Monster.
This leads to yet another assignment to fix plumbing in the cabin 118 (I hope it’s a code or something) and comes face to face with its very creepy occupant… the Vet!… who, of course, goes on a bender about Sam stalking her and whatnot, until Sam gives her the “I’m the maintenance guy” schtick.
Can she get more ridiculous? Also, she’s hiding something.
In the barge, Benny tells Dean that he was a Vampirate, i.e. his nest plundered the ships and fed off the sailors, then let their sins get buried at the sea. It was a decent operation until Benny, the second-in-command and T.O.M’s fav “child”, defected. And Dean gets that hungry “Hungry Hunter” look in his eyes.
Going through the dead vamps’ personal effects, wherein Dean pockets the cash, they find a cable bill for a place on Prentiss Island. Benny knows the place, so Dean and Benny take off without bothering to inform Sam.
Don’t want to interrupt his weird-ass flashbacks, now, do we?
In the car, Dean wonders why T.O.M. suddenly decided to kill his second-in-command. Answer: A girl, obviously.
Benny fell for a human girl and decided to make a life with her. He let go off all his past contacts and tried to move on, but his past caught up with him. His last memory is having his head sawed off while T.O.M fed on his girl.
And Dean has the same old “you can never get out of the life” look on his face that he gets when Sam starts whining. I wonder if this is some kind of subtext.
Now Benny wants revenge and Dean is more than happy to help him with the payback.
Once on the island, Benny comments it’s just like the old times. This brings Dean out of his plan to call Sam for back-up.
Benny shows a little “Is this really real” PTS doubt, but Dean the resident PTSD/Survivor’s Guilt expert convinces him that they did, in fact, get out. And it really is “really real”.
Trust Dean, Benny. He knows how to deal with all this crap. He’s like the World’s Most F*cked-up Psychiatrist Ever.
In the vampire nest, Dean and Benny separate and scout the place, when Benny notices a photo of a woman in the living room.
No points for guessing, it’s his girl, Andrea, who is now important enough to warrant her own place.
And when it couldn’t get any worse, he comes face to face with her, followed by her own troupe of bodyguards, including Sorento, who beat him up and handcuff him to a chair, while Dean watches from afar, bidding his time.
Dean is still scoping the place, trying to pull a John McClane on the Vamps, when his phone goes off. He rejects the call, while Sam sits in that room and frets.
Then Sam has another crappy flashback where he is horribly trying to charm a girl by manhandling her lemons. The actual lemons, as in… the kind you squeeze. Nevermind.
In the present, a very irritated Dean calls Sam back. He tries to explain that he is in the middle of cleaning a Vampires’ nest and it’s gone a little sideways. And he needs some back-up.
But instead of turning up to have his back, like any normal… well, Dean would have done, Sam nags and nags and nags until Dean uses Sam’s loud nagging to distract and kill a vampire. Good job, Hunter Numero Uno!
Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you see it) his phone is destroyed.
Benny realizes that Andrea has replaced him as the second-in-command. But Andrea proves where her loyalties lie when she discreetly hands him the keys to his cuffs and a vampire-killing blade.
Benny tells Andrea that he wasn’t just out for revenge. He wants to clean the nest and burn the operation to the ground. Andrea just wants to be free.
T.O.M. summons Benny and we find that T.O.M is not really an old man. But he’s definitely a creepy and kind of reminds me of those slimy villains in black and white movies, without the mustache and the walking stick.
Anyway, like all the creepy, slimy villains, he wants to know how the hell is Benny back, esp. since they went to the trouble of chopping his head off, what happened to him after death, where did he go if not Hell... same old, same old.
He should’ve talked to Dean, the Resident Death Expert, about this stuff. The guy’s a triple Ph.D in Death and Related Matters.
Dean ‘John McClane’s all the bodyguards and has time for yet another Purg flashback.
After having firmly established that there is no way anyone is leaving anyone behind, the Purgboys (I like that name) are walking around, with the Supernaturals teaming against the human, talking shit about value of life and all that philosophical jab etc etc, when Benny gives the old fashioned “I saw something in humanity” speech that simply melts Dean’s heart.
Cas completely ignores the conversation because (1) he originated that speech and (2) he is busy sensing the monsters close in.
The “humanity” speech is followed by yet another the cursed!Angel is gonna bring us down speech, which has Dean’s knickers in a twist.
Benny is about to retort when Cas interrupts to tell them that the monsters closing in are not regular scum, they are Leviathans following his scent. And since they are too close for Cas to use his powers and disappear, they have no other choice but to run.
Why do I get the feeling that it wasn’t Dean, but Cas, who let go? Wouldn’t be the first time he’s done something foolish to save Dean’s life.
Sam, on the other hand, steals a car and has yet another crappy flashback about the time his dog, Dog (How very Audrey Hepburn!), ran into that creepy vet’s motel room.
They bond over Dog’s antibiotics and whether Sam is a serial killer – right now, I kind of wish he was and that the vet fit his Victim M.O. – and how they are all alone in the big bad world. Seriously?! I’m gonna gag.
He remembers telling her he is alone, then remembers that he is, in fact, not and starts driving faster. Finally!
T.O.M. starts some crap about how “you are my fav. son and I wailed when I had to kill you. I turned your cow because you left me for her” blah blah, while Sorento brandishes a shiny knife. That is… until Benny uncuffs himself and shows who’s really in power.
Sorento attacks. Benny ducks and turns the tables, using the handcuffs to incapacitate him, then uses his own shiny knife to slice his head off. I love Benny!
T.O.M. starts patronizing him. Okay, maybe T.O.M is just a very old school bully who is in control only until the smallest kid he’s hitting on starts to fight back. But Benny who’s probably tired of his bullshit and wannabe ways uses Andrea’s vampire-knife to finish job.
Or rather, I hope he finished it, because we never see actually see him killing T.O.M. Just a knife with blood on it.
He comes out of the meeting and tells Andrea “T.O.M is dead”. He asks her to go away with him, but she doesn’t want to leave.
She is perfectly content with being a vampirate and running that little operation. She just wanted T.O.M out of the picture because he was getting in the way. Now, she wants Benny to join her.
This brings us a scene reminiscent of one at the end of season 4, where Ruby tried to lull Sam over to the dark side.
Benny realizes he’s been played but before he can act on it, Dean pops up behind her, stabs her in the back and knocks her head off. Then he gives him a silent “I told you so” stink-eye, while Benny looks around sheepishly.
Wait! Are they trying to make us hate Sam so Benny can replace him? Coz that’s simply not done!!
Back on the dinghy to Mainland, Benny wonders why Dean saved him… or even resurrected him.
This brings to the last Purg flashback of the day…
The Purgboys are still running when they are ambushed by 2 Levis. Dean takes on one, while the other attacks Cas.
And while Dean is able to fight and finish his opponent, Cas, since his mojo doesn’t work on them, is more or less a dead-meat, until Benny jumps in and saves the day for Cas.
Of course, that’s why Dean owes him so much. He saved Cas! Cue the profound bond theme song.
Back on the mainland, a very jealous and pissed off Sam is waiting for Dean and the interloper… er eh, “Dean’s new friend” to get back.
He sidesteps Dean to shake hands with Benny, only to discover that the “friend” is a non-human.
I hope it’s because Sam’s old powers are returning and not because of some commonplace explanation like “his hands felt clammy like a corpse”. C’mon! Give me something. I need to like Sam.
Sam discreetly reaches for his demon-knife – I’m not sure where he got it from, since Dean carries the only one in existence – but Dean gives him a “Peter Burke head-nod” which means “Back down (and run off to the Caribbean)”.
Sam glares but backs his hand. Benny smirks and quips “Looks like you two need to have a talk.” Uh… oh!
So… what did you think of this episode? Dean’s Purg flashbacks vs Sam’s Motel Monster flashbacks.
Tell us in the comments… while I bury my head and try to come to terms with the latest dose of Dennystiel feels.
