Previously: Instagram flashbacks to Dean’s childhood trauma and a life force sucking monster in dire need of a manicure.
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Provenance
Kirsti: I’m going to start by saying that this episode gives me the wiggins.
We open with a shot of a creepyass painting of a family c.1910: husband, wife, three kids, cut throat razor. You know, the usual. The camera zooms out as a slightly tipsy couple in formal wear discuss their terrible decision to purchase said painting at a charity auction courtesy of said charity auction’s open bar. They make out a little and the guy tells his wife he’ll lock up and meet her in the bedroom. She giggles her way upstairs as the zoomy cameraman shows us the painting again. We see the Painted!Father’s head turn towards Drinking Leads To Bad Decisions Guy, who locks the doors and sets the alarm.
Sara: Moving people in paintings always get me. So fucking creepy.
K: No kidding. Upstairs, his wife lights a candle and calls for him to hurry up. Something thumps its way slowly up the stairs. Downstairs, DLTBD Guy walks past the painting, and the zoomy cameraman does his thing to show us that the cut throat razor is missing. Upstairs, someone opens the bedroom door, and the candle blows out. DLTBD Guy walks up the stairs in the dark (That’s What Happens, bro. Use the lights), and into the bedroom. He goes to climb into bed but his hand touches something wet. He turns on the light to find his hand covered in blood. He screams when he sees his wife, her throat slashed open. He falls to the floor in horror. A shadow falls over him, and he glances up before screaming us into the Not!Credits.
Sara: For real, though, about the walking around in the dark. If my house is dark on my way to bed, I run through the house. Flip the switch off, RUN LIKE HELL TO THE BED. This is normal procedure, people.
K: After the Not!Credits, the boys are at a bar. Sam’s researching while Dean flirts with a girl by the bar. Sam sees the article about DLTBD Guy and his wife, and calls Dean over. Dean reluctantly heads over, and Sam asks what his latest cover story for picking up is. Reality TV scouts, apparently. Also, the girl has a friend for Sam. Sam LOL NOPEs because he can get his own dates, and Dean scoffs. Sam changes the subject to the newspaper article, and info-dumps that there were no prints or murder weapons found, and all the doors and windows were locked from the inside. Dean has very few fucks to give because he’s thinking with his downstairs brain it doesn’t sound like their kind of thing.
Unfortunately for Dean, Papa Winchester’s Filofax of Shadows is on hand and says otherwise. Sam says that there’ve been three previous murders with the same M.O. in the same area of upstate New York over the past 70 years, but no one ever put the pattern together. Dean’s all “Cool, we’ll start in the morning, yeah? I have nameless female characters to bang.” He heads back over to the girls. Cut to the next morning and a very seedy looking Dean asleep in the passenger seat of the Bromobile. Sam, ever the asshole little brother, reaches through the window and honks the horn.
He laughs at Dean’s hungover misery, then says that he’s swept the DLTBD house with EMF but found nothing. And while Dean was banging nameless female characters, he researched the history of the house and found nothing. Dean suggests a cursed object, and Sam says that’s a little hard to assess because the house was empty. “Where’s all their stuff?” Dean says in confusion. Cut to a bunch of fancy cars – including a Rolls Royce with the numberplate “THE KRIP“. I SEE YOU THERE, ERIC KRIPKE – and swanky violin music. The dusty Bromobile parks next to a Ferrari, looking very out of place.
Inside, the boys are equally out of place. After Dean calls the auction house “a garage sale for WASPs” (accurate) and stuffs some food in his mouth, they’re accosted by a butler looking guy in a suit, who’s the owner. Sam introduces them as art dealers, and Butler Guy scoffs, eyeing their torn jeans and crappy hoodies, and says he doesn’t remember seeing them on the guest list. “Oh, we’re there, Chuckles!” Dean sasses before this happens:
Sara: Dean has the most gif-worthy faces of all time.
K: He really does.
Sam gives him bitch face, and they start searching through the auction pieces. Sam spots the creepy painting just as a fancy looking girl in a black dress asks him a question about it. He tells her with a grin that she’s testing him, and she introduces herself as Sarah, Butler Guy’s daughter. Sam and Sarah awkwardly flirt as Dean looks on in confusion, stuffing his face with mini quiche.
Sam asks if they can see the provenances, but they’re interrupted by Butler Guy who tells them to GTFO because they’re definitely not on the list. I debate whether or not to give Sam a gold star for using the plural. NO. I WILL NOT. EXACT WORDS ONLY, YO. Ahem. Sam and Sarah make moon eyes to each other. Cut to the Motel of the Week, where Sam is telling Dean that he took art history to meet girls and now it’s paying off. They walk into the room and there’s a weirdly long pan shot with accompanying groovy music to show us that the room is disco themed.
Dean asks what providences are, and Sam corrects him – provenances are the bits of paper that tell you the past owners of an artwork. Man, it must be great working in the art world. In the museum world, the provenance is more like “IDK, apparently some famous guy’s wife used this to brush her hair between having babies 10-12″… Dean tells Sam to pump Sarah for information, complete with eyebrows of innuendo. Sam doesn’t approve, but we cut to him and Sarah on a date at a fancy restaurant. Sam’s totally awkward. The waiter hands him the wine list, then gives him judgey side eye when he dithers. Sarah rescues him by ordering beer.
Sara: Good to know that I’m not the only awkward fool when trying to order wine. Why must all the words be so hard to pronounce???
K: This is why Australians abbreviate shit. Cab sav, anyone?
Sometime later, they’re much more relaxed and discussing college. She asks why he didn’t go on to law school, and he awkwards before asking why she hasn’t been on a date in a while. She says that her mother died a year ago and it kind of fucked her up. She asks the same question of him, and he awkwards some more, not ready to talk about Jessica. Back at the Disco!Motel, Sam leafs through the provenances. He finds the one for the creepy painting and hands it to Dean, telling him to check the listed owners against the Filofax of Shadows. The names of the owners match the murder victims. Dean doesn’t care if it’s cursed or haunted, he just wants it gone.
Cut to the boys breaking into the auction house. They disable the alarm, locate the painting, cut it out of the frame, and then set fire to it in an abandoned lot. As it burns, we cut back to the auction house to see the painting reappear in its frame. Fade to black.
After the Not Commercial Break, it’s the next morning. Dean rushes around, stressing that he lost his wallet at the auction house. He says they have to go get it because it has his prints and fake IDs in it. Course, the whole thing turns out to be a scam to let Sam see Sarah again. Aww. Dean not-even-remotely-stealthily leaves Sam and Sarah alone together. Sarah suggests they go out again, and Sam tells her that they’re leaving town later that day. Just then, a couple of workers carry the creepy painting past. “OH MY GOD!!” Sam yells. Sarah’s all “The fuck?” and he awkwardly covers that he was blown away by how great the painting is.
Sara: I want to keep interrupting just to say LOL. I love this episode.
K: It’s not the same kind of hilarious ridiculous that we got in Hell House, but it’s up there. She’s all “Right, if by ‘great’ you mean ‘creepy as fuck’, sure!” She says that her dad wants to sell it again but she won’t let him because ew. Sam says he’ll call her and rushes out, leaving her all happy puppy because he’s not leaving town yet.
In the Bromobile, the boys discuss their next steps. Dean says that they need to find out everything there is to know about the creepy family in the creepy painting, because the subject is usually the haunter. Cut to the library and a librarian delivering them a ton of historic records. He gushes enthusiastically about the creepy family, showing the boys a newspaper featuring a story about the Titanic and also Painted!Father murdering his whole family. Apparently he was a barber and used his cut throat razor to kill them, then kill himself. So…Sweeney Todd, yeah? Except without the pies…
Sara: The lack of pies makes me very sad. Pie makes everything better, even murder. (I assume.)
K: Dean would agree with you, Sara. He asks what happened to their bodies, and Enthusiastic Librarian says they were all cremated. He then grabs an art book, saying that he found a picture of the family. He opens the book to a photo of the creepy painting. Sam looks at it for a second, then asks if they can get a copy of it. Back at the auction house, Butler Guy is having the creepy painting boxed up for transport. Sarah’s all “Dude, WTF?”, and Butler Guy replies “Evelyn’s offered a persuasive amount of money…” Clearly, Evelyn has terrible taste with a side of deathwish…
Disco!Motel. Sam tells Dean that in the photo from the book, Painted!Father is looking straight ahead, but when they saw the painting, he was looking down. The painting has changed. Dean says they should go look at the painting again because if other things have changed, that might let them know how to destroy the ghost. Plus, it will let Sam see Sarah again, he says with eyebrows of innuendo. Sam snaps, asking why Dean cares so much about him getting laid. “Cause maybe then you wouldn’t be so cranky all the time!” Dean replies. Sam glares at his brother. Legit, dude, legit.
Dean changes tack, saying that he thinks Sarah could be good for Sam, and that Sam’s reluctance is about Jessica. He says that he knows Jessica would want Sam to be happy, and Sam tears up. He tells his brother that it’s partly, but not totally, about Jessica. Then he clams up. Dean tells him to call Sarah and arrange for them to see the painting. Sam reluctantly does, and Dean smirks at their awkwardly cute conversation. Right up until Sarah tells Sam that the painting’s been sold. Sam tells her he needs the address of the buyer immediately.
Cut to a fancy house. A Maggie Smith lookalike sits in an armchair, reading an antique book, the creepy painting hanging about her open fire. We see Painted!Father’s head move. Maggie Smith Lite takes off her glasses and reaches for her tea. The zoomy cameraman shows us the reflection of a cut throat razor in the lenses of her glasses. There’s a noise behind her, and she turns with a scream. Fade to black.
After the Not Commercial Break, the Bromobile pulls in at the fancy house. Sarah’s already there. She demands to know what’s happening as the boys hammer on the front door. Dean picks the lock as Sam tells Sarah to wait in her car. She’s all “THE FUCK I WILL” because she’s great and also because Maggie Smith Lite is a friend. Lock successfully picked, the three of them rush into the house. They find Maggie Smith Lite still sitting in her chair, and heave a sigh of relief. But Sarah touches her on the shoulder, and her head practically falls off. Sarah screams and the zoomy cameraman shows us that Painted!Father is staring right at her.
Sara: Man, talk about traumatizing. I don’t think I’d ever be the same again after seeing someone’s head fall back like that. Yuck.
K: No kidding. Especially if a creepy painting was staring at me too.
At the Disco!Motel the next morning, Sarah barges in and tells the boys that she lied to the LOLPD, saying that she went to Maggie Smith Lite’s house alone. She demands to know what’s happening. Sam and Dean exchange a look, and Sam reluctantly tells her that the painting is haunted. Sarah goes from “LOL WHUT” to “Wow, I have shitty taste in men” in about two seconds flat. Sam gives her evidence, and says that they’re just trying to stop it. She sighs and says that she’s going with them. Sam’s all “DUDE, NO” but she insists because she and her dad were the ones who sold the painting. She walks over to the door, and says “Are we going or what?“. She leaves, and Dean says “Sam? Marry that girl.” Not gonna lie, when this episode first aired, I harboured secret hopes that Sarah was going to become a regular, travelling with the boys and hunting evil. Sigh…
Cut to Maggie Smith Lite’s house. They break in, Sarah protesting that it’s a crime scene, and pull the painting off the wall. Sam assures Sarah that the painting only gets murdery at night so they’re totally fine. Dean notes that in the book version, the razor is closed but in the real version, it’s open. Sam notices that the painting behind Painted!Father has changed too – it shows a crypt. Dean uses an ashtray as a magnifying glass and reads off the name: Merchant, the name of the creepy painted family.
Cemetery. Sarah’s all “…so this is your job?” and Sam’s all “Yup. Except for the getting paid part.” My version of this conversation involves Snark Squad rather than monsters, something I’m eternally grateful for.
I feel your pain, Sam.
Dean locates the crypt, and they break in. Inside, they find plaques for the family members, urns of ashes, and creepy little niches for the favourite toy of each kid. The little girl’s toy is a doll. Sarah declares it to be the creepiest thing she’s ever seen. Dean realises that there are only four urns in the crypt – the mother and the three kids. Painted!Father isn’t there.
Sam and Sarah sit outside a government building while Dean searches death records for answers. She asks if there’s something romance-y happening between them, and he agrees that there could be but says it’s not a good idea because people tend to get hurt when he gets close to them. He tells her about Jessica and his mother dying, and says that he’s worried about letting himself have feelings for anyone. “You’re scared they’d get hurt too. That’s very sweet. And very archaic,” she replies. She says that she should be allowed to make her own decisions and that every relationship carries the chance of being hurt. He argues that he’s talking about life and death, and she’s all “BIG DEAL. I could get hit by a bus tomorrow!” She tells him that shutting himself off from pain is shutting him off from everything else too. Just then, Dean returns, rather hilariously.
He tells them that the family were too ashamed of Painted!Father to bury him with everyone else, so they gave his body to the county who buried him in a pauper’s grave. They have bones to burn. Cut to the cemetery that night. Sarah holds the flashlight while the boys dig up the grave. Coffin reached, they salt and burn the bones as Sarah looks increasingly grossed out.
They head back to Maggie Smith Lite’s house. Sam tells Dean to keep the motor running, just to be safe. Sarah insists on going inside with Sam because of contrivance. Dean whispers to Sam that he’ll stay in the car so Sam can make his move. He cranks a love song on the radio and Sam’s all “DUDE WTF”. Dean reluctantly shuts it off as the others sneak inside. Inside, Sam and Sarah stare at the painting in horror. The little girl is gone, as is the cut throat razor. The door slams shut behind them and we fade to black.
Sara: This show is making me terrified to have my child. Too many creepy children doing creepy things for me to handle.
K: SORRY SARA.
After the Not Commercial Break, Dean and Sam rush at the door from opposite sides. It won’t budge. Over the phone, Sam fills Dean in on the creepy little girl and that maybe Painted!Father was looking down at her in the painting as a warning. Dean says that he can’t get the door open and they’ll have to find some salt or iron to hold her off. Sam and Sarah rush to the kitchen looking for salt, and snarky brilliance ensues: “What kind of house doesn’t have salt?? Low-sodium freaks…” Sam mutters. Back in the living room, they search for iron instead. The sliding doors slam shut, and the little girl appears. She drags her doll behind her, the razor in her other hand.
Sam backs up, keeping Sarah behind him as the ghost moves forward. He grabs a poker from the fireplace and swipes at the little girl, who roars then disappears.
Ghost temporarily dealt with, Sam’s back on the phone to Dean. They don’t know how to deal with things, seeing as the kid was already cremated and there’s nothing left to burn. Sarah says that the auction house used to handle antique dolls and that sometimes they were made with the kid’s own hair. Which, EW. Dean jumps back in the Bromobile and speeds towards the cemetery. Back in the living room, wind starts to blow papers all over the place. Sam lifts the poker, but a rolltop desk flies across the room and slams into him, knocking him down. Sarah runs towards him, then hears a noise behind her. She turns and finds herself face to face with the little girl.
Sara: NGL, I about jumped out of my skin at this point. Go away, you creepy little shit!
K: At the cemetery, Dean pounds on the glass of the doll’s case with his fist, then the butt of his gun. Nothing happens. He turns towards the car, then mutters “Come on, Dean!” and shoots the glass out. Sarah shuffles backwards away from the little girl, who raises her razor. Dean lights the doll’s hair. Sam throws himself in front of Sarah just as the little girl bursts into flames.
She vanishes, reappearing in the painting. Fade to black.
Auction house. Dean tells Sam and Sarah that he did some more digging through the county records and found out that the Merchant family had adopted the creepy little girl. And that she was up for adoption because her real family were murdered. No one ever suspected her, and Painted!Father has been trying to warn people about her ever since. A staff member asks Sarah where she wants the painting, and she tells him to take it outside and burn it. She turns back to the guys and asks why the little girl did it. The response is basically “IDK, some people are crazy”.
Sara: When I watched this one with my husband, we could not stop laughing at how hard that creepy father tried to warn everyone about his daughter. One second, he was looking at the weapon. The next, he was looking at the girl. Last, he was staring at the next victim all, “AHEM AHEM I AM GIVING YOU ALL THE CLUES.” Poor dead dad.
K: He did all he could expect write notes. Dean reveals that they’re leaving town, and Sam gives him a “PLEASE LEAVE ME ALONE WITH THE HOT GIRL” look. Dean reluctantly heads outside, muttering as he goes.
Cut to Dean leaning against the Bromobile. Sarah shows Sam out of the auction house and sadly closes the door. Dean shakes his head. Sarah hears a knock on the door and opens it to find Sam on the other side. She smiles and he kisses her in the doorway.
From outside, Dean watches (a little creepily, I have to say. I would NOT watch my siblings kissing people) and proudly says “That’s my boy!” as he gets in the car. Sam and Sarah keep kissing and we fade to black.
I adore Sarah and I’m still sad that she didn’t become a series regular. Because that would have been awesome. Other than that? Creepy child is creepy as shit.
Next time: VAMPIRES! And a very special gun. Find out more on Supernatural S01 E20 – Dead Man’s Blood.
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.
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.
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