Previously: The boys found out that there’s a truly terrible series of books about them, and they’re written by a prophet. LOL, OKAY.
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Jump the Shark
Kirsti: Look, let’s deal with the elephant in the room: Supernatural is throwing shade on the fact that it’s gotten beyond ridiculous, and yet we’re only in season 4. We have so many more seasons of shark jumping left, friends.
Marines: I’ve seen this whole episode and I’m actually surprised that this is the one they chose to name “Jump the Shark.”
K: Truth.
We open with a long shot down a hallway. After a bizarrely long period of silence, a woman bursts onto the screen, screaming. She stares back behind her, then sprints down the hall and locks herself in a bedroom. Something bangs on the door behind her. She barricades herself in with a dresser, then sits down on the bed to gasp for air. The fact that the camera angle switches to UNDER the bed, and that the zoomy cameraman is veeeeery slowly zooming in on her feet lets us know that shit’s about to go down.
She gasps some more, then hands reach out and grab her ankles. She’s dragged onto the floor and under the bed, but knocks over the bedside table in her attempts to get away. The zoomy cameraman zooms in on a framed photo that clatters to the floor, and it’s of Papa Winchester.
CREEPY BIRDS!
After the Not Credits, Sam’s sitting on the hood of the Bromobile, staring out at a lake and some mountains while pensively brushing his teeth. Seriously.
Not kidding.
Mari: Dear goodness, the man even broods while brushing.
K: Unclear whether Sam Winchester or Angel takes out the Brood King of Traumaland crown…
Dean wakes up, and grumbles his way out of the car. He wants to get breakfast, and Sam smirks as he points out they’re in the middle of nowhere. “But I’m hungry now!” Dean gripes. Legit, dude. (M: Me every time I wake up, ever.)
His griping is interrupted by a ringing phone. He digs it out of the glove box and Sam informs us that it’s Papa Winchester’s phone just as Dean answers it. It’s a young guy named Adam Milligan, who says he super duper needs to talk to Papa Winchester. Dean informs him that Papa Winchester’s been dead for two years, and Adam’s all “OMG WHAT” because he’s Papa Winchester’s kid. The zoomy cameraman earns the shit out of his pay cheque zooming in on Dean’s “EXCUSE YOU?” face.
Cut to the Bromobile pulling into Windom, Minnesota. Dean bitchfaces as he rummages through the boot and hides weapons in various sleeves and pockets. Sam, meanwhile, informs us that Adam is totally real, was born in 1992, and is pre-med at the University of Wisconsin. Dean gives zero fucks because this is totally a trap. He heads into a diner, Sam trailing after him.
As they wait for Adam to arrive, Dean manages to piss off the waitress, switch the water out for holy water, and switch the cutlery out for silver cutlery, thereby covering them if Adam turns out to be possessed or a shapeshifter. He’s going to bring the smackdown to whatever they’re dealing with for daring to use Papa Winchester’s name. Sam sighs and informs Dean that the Filofax of Shadows says Papa Winchester was in Minnesota nine months before Adam was born, and that the next two pages are torn out. Okay, it’s all very dramatic, but IT’S A FUCKING FILOFAX. YOU CAN JUST OPEN THE RINGS AND REMOVE THE PAGES. YOU DON’T NEED TO PHYSICALLY TEAR THEM OUT LEAVING OBVIOUS PAGE STUBS BEHIND. God.
Mari: No one has ever accused Papa Winchester of being the smartest.
K: There is that.
Dean grumps some more, and Sam points out that Papa Winchester would leave them for weeks at a time, and that when you save girls from monsters, sometimes the girls are grateful (ew) (M: I hate it.), so it’s totally plausible that Adam’s their brother. Just then, Adam walks in and he’s a total Winchester. Sam calls him over and makes introductions.
Adam asks how they knew his dad, and Sam says they worked together and that Papa Winchester died on the job. Adam’s confused because Papa Winchester was a mechanic, and Dean snaps “A car fell on him,” which makes me laugh more than it should. The waitress returns with a glass of water for Adam, and greets him by name. Dean snags the water, forcing Adam to take the holy water glass. The boys watch closely as he drinks, but nothing happens.
Sam asks how long it’s been since Adam’s seen Papa Winchester, and he says it’s been a few years (duh – he’s been dead for two). Dean pulls a gun under the table. Adam says he didn’t know who else to call, and says his mum’s missing. Dean snaps that it’s super sad and all, but why haven’t they heard of him before? Adam says that he and Papa Winchester weren’t exactly close.
He says he knew snippets about his father – namely, that his mother, a nurse, met Papa Winchester when he turned up at the ER all torn to pieces – but they didn’t meet until he was 12. And that was when he begged his mum non-stop to call Papa Winchester. Who apparently dropped everything and drove half way across the country when he found out he had a son. Dean looks a little broken at that, probably because of That One Time When He Was Dying And Papa Winchester Didn’t Turn Up. (M: That or any other moment in his childhood when he was like, “hey, I’m a child. Having a parent would be cool.” and Papa Winchester didn’t show up.) (K: Or that.)
The waitress delivers Adam’s food, and Dean tells him to dig in, on account of the silver cutlery. He cocks the gun under the table. Adam starts eating – nothing happens – and says that Papa Winchester stopped by every year and called whenever he could. He taught Adam to play poker and pool and bought him his first beer and taught him to drive.
Dean goes from feelsy to THIS IS BULLSHIT in 2 seconds flat. He calls Adam a liar, and Adam’s all “…the fuck?”. Dean says that he and Sam are Papa Winchester’s sons, and Adam’s a dirty dirty liar. Sam looks awkward. Adam looks feelsy about having brothers, and Dean eyerolls a little before starting to walk out. Adam insists he can prove that he’s Papa Winchester’s kid.
Cut to Adam showing the boys a framed photo of him and Papa Winchester. “He took you to a baseball game?!” Dean says in disbelief. Adam smiles and says that he and Papa Winchester went for his birthday. Sam checks the Filofax of Shadows and finds the word “Minnesota” against the date in question. Dean’s still baffled by this responsible parent thing. He looks a little broken when he spots a framed photo of Adam’s mum and Papa Winchester on the mantelpiece.
Sam asks Adam about his mum’s disappearance. She’s been gone three days, their neighbour was the last person to see her, her boss called the police, and Adam drove down as soon as he heard. He blames himself for not being there. Dean asks what the police said, and Adam says they searched the house but found nothing. Adam gets teary as he says it’s like she just disappeared off the face of the earth.
Dean heads to Missing Mommy’s room and looks around. He bitchfaces a little over yet another framed happy families photo, then turns to find Adam behind him. Adam wants to know more about Papa Winchester, because Dean knew him better than Adam, and Dean gets sad panda-y because he doesn’t want to burst Adam’s decent parent bubble.
Mari: It’s really sad, this whole set-up. The framed photos for a guy who stopped by once a year and phoned a few times in between? Like, that is Papa Winchester’s standard of a decent parent? And these these two people just let him flit in and out of their lives and were grateful for it? I get it, for sure, but like I said: Sad.
K: Essentially, even when John Winchester was an involved parent, he was a shitty parent.
Sam walks up with some papers in his hand, and makes I Need To Talk To You face at Dean. They excuse themselves, and Sam shows Dean some newspaper articles from the early 90s about piles of bodies going missing from the cemetery and then being found later on. They postulate that it’s why Papa Winchester was there in the first place. Except whatever it was, he didn’t manage to kill it because three bodies have gone missing in the past month. Also, they have no idea what it was thanks to the missing journal pages.
Sam says that Missing Mommy isn’t the only one missing. A local bartender has also vanished. Dean grabs the picture from Sam and heads back into the bedroom to ask Adam if Missing Mommy knows the bartender. He doesn’t think so. Dean spots some scratch marks on the floor and looks under the bed. Then he has Adam help him move the mattress.
There’s an enormous grate under the bed, and I’m pretty sure Missing Mommy was asking for trouble by putting her bed on top of a fucking grate. Like, I saw the X-Files episode Tooms in 1996 and I’m STILL terrified about the possibility of a Mr Fantastic style murderer coming into my house through the ventilation shafts. Why the fuck would you put your bed over a grate in the floor?! Sam and Dean rock-paper-scissors to see who has to go down there, and Dean loses. Again.
Mari: I’m a sucker for these little brother/human moments. I don’t care who you are. NO ONE wants to climb down into a murder grate.
K: Especially when Dean always seems to lose.
He sulks and Sam smirks at Adam. Dean grumps his way through the air vents, and finds a seriously nasty pile of blood and hair. He gets “Well, shit” face as we fade to black.
After the Not Commercial Break, we’re at the Motel of the Week. Adam bursts in, demanding answers on account of his house is a crime scene and Missing Mommy is probably dead and also his newfound brothers had to bail before the police turned up. Sam spills the beans and Dean headdesks. Cut to post-beans spilling. Adam’s surprisingly chill with everything, then asks what took Missing Mommy. Sam says they’re not sure.
Adam says he wants in on the hunt, and Dean’s all “NOPE”. Sam’s shocked, but Dean says it’s because Papa Winchester was clearly protecting Adam from hunting. That’s why he tore the pages out of the Filofax of Shadows. Dean’s going to respect his wishes. He storms out. Sam sighs, sarcastically welcomes Adam to the family, then hands him a gun and says he’ll teach him a few things because “I know what it’s like to want revenge.”
Meanwhile, Dean is across town at a cemetery pretending to be an FBI agent. A cemetery employee shows him around the crypt where the bodies went missing. The tombs are broken open, and Dean notices some goop dripping down the side of one of them. He sniffs it, then makes a grossed out face. The employee informs him it’s embalming fluid, and that it means whoever stole the bodies opened them up. Dean looks thoughtful.
He heads to the bar where the missing bartender worked, and ends up talking to his wife. As she fills him in, Dean studies the photos behind the bar, which include one of her husband in a deputy’s uniform. Dean asks about it, and she tells him that her husband was the one who found the missing bodies back in 1990. Dean studies the photo from the newspaper article, which includes a dude that could plausibly be Papa Winchester, as she says that if you got a few drinks in him, he’d admit that he had help from “a specialist“. Dean asks if they ever found the person responsible, and she tells him that her husband always told her not to worry because “we took care of what done it“. (M: That is actually not that reassuring, but okay.)
Back at the motel, Sam’s showing Adam how to clean guns. Adam asks how Papa Winchester really died, and Sam tells him it was a demon but that Dean killed it. Adam sighs that it’s over for them, but Sam says “It’s never over“. Just then, the power goes out. There are rattling noises in the walls. Sam spots a vent on the ceiling and aims at it. There’s another noise and he shoots, then rushes Adam out the door.
They run down to Adam’s car, and he tosses Sam the keys. Something grabs Sam’s feet and starts dragging him under the car. Adam runs over to help. The Bromobile pulls up, and Dean dashes over, pulls Sam clear, then grabs the shotgun from the ground and shoots blindly under the car. Everyone gasps in relief and we fade to black.
After the Not Commercial Break, it turns out that Adam parked over a manhole cover. Of course. But there’s a smear of blood on the cover, so Dean winged whatever it was. He asks if Sam saw anything, but nope. At least they now have a pattern, though. Whatever it is, it’s going after everyone in town who knew Papa Winchester. Clearly, it wants revenge.
They head over to Adam’s house and tell him to get his stuff. He heads upstairs and Sam says they shouldn’t leave town. Dean says staying is a fucking terrible idea, and that they’re going to drop Adam off at Bobby’s place before they start hunting. Sam suggests using Adam as bait (M: what. the. hell.), and that they should train him up so he’s ready for whatever comes after him. Dean’s totally not on board with this, but Adam returns in time to hear the tail end of it, and he wants in.
That throws us into a Sam-plays-big-brother session, teaching Adam to shoot. Dean stands in the background, eyerolling.
In the hall, Dean’s all “WHAT THE FUCK, SAM?” because Papa Winchester gave Sam that exact speech right before Sam left for university, and Sam hated him for it. Now he’s parroting The Gospel According To John Winchester. Sam says he’s just giving Adam the protection and skills that Papa Winchester taught them, and Dean’s all “what’s wrong with you?” He says it’s too late for them to ever have normal lives, but Adam can still grow up and be a doctor.
Sam snaps that everything but monsters is a lie. Dean says Papa Winchester had a choice with Adam, and chose to let him stay innocent. “Adam doesn’t have to be cursed,” he insists. Sam says he’s already cursed because he’s a Winchester. Dean snaps that he’ll find whatever’s hunting Adam. The Bromobile speeds off into the night.
Mari: The apparent flip flop in their positions is so complete. I know I give this show a hard time and I honestly have a hard time taking it seriously. However, I’m tipping my hat because they lead us here with their characterization pretty damn well. We can definitely see the journey Dean’s been on to bring him to this place where he wouldn’t want Adam, no matter how much he resents him, involved. And of course, Sam is so lost in all of this monster jazz. Not only that, but he’s lost so much humanity. It’s scary.
K: Back at the crypt, Dean looks around by torchlight, which seems like a terrible idea. He spots a loose stone and yanks it out with a crowbar to reveal a tunnel. After a small case of “WHY ME?” face, he crawls in. It leads to another crypt, this one scattered with body parts and Missing Bartender’s glasses. He hears something in the tunnel and shoots blindly. The tunnel collapses. And there’s no phone reception. Sorry, Dean. You’re trapped.
At Adam’s house, he and Sam board up the vents and pour salt in the doorways and windows. All except for the vent in Missing Mommy’s room. Sam says that if the beastie is coming for them, it’ll be coming through there. Just then, there’s a noise from downstairs. Sam gets all “Well, shit”. Adam hears Missing Mommy calling his name and rushes downstairs against Sam’s advice. He hugs her while Sam, his shotgun raised, tells Adam to get away from her because that’s not his mother.
Crypt of Doom. Dean tries unsuccessfully to bust his way out. Then he gives up and looks around instead. There’s a skeleton sitting on the ground, and he stares at it in confusion for a second, then lifts the lid on a nearby coffin. He recoils because it contains Missing Mommy, and she’s now missing parts.
Adam’s house. Sam repeats his “get away from her, that’s not your mother” spiel, insisting that there was too much blood and Missing Mommy is 100% dead. Adam grabs Sam’s shotgun and wavers between aiming at his “mother” and aiming at Sam. Sam yells “Shoot it! It’s not human!” and Adam smirks. “I know,” he says before smashing the shotgun into Sam’s face. Sam collapses and Not Mommy smiles.
Crypt of Doom. Dean opens another coffin and recoils again. Because this one contains Dead Adam. Like, seriously dead. Missing his internal organs dead. Dean gets “OH SHIT” face, and the Orchestra of OMG WHAT’S GOING TO HAPPEN crescendos us to black.
Mari: I was making unhappy, disgusted faces at my screen so hard.
K: Legit. It was nasty.
After the Not Commercial Break, Dean resumes his attempts at breaking out as the music gets all OMG SERIOUS. He looks up in despair and spots a stained glass window of an angel on the ceiling. Back at Adam’s house, Sam’s tied to a table as Not Mommy hums and cleans her fingernails with a knife. Sam fights against the ropes and says he finally knows what they are: ghouls. Not Mommy sniffs at him and gets all excited about the prospect of fresh meat.
Sam says he should have known they were ghouls, but the missing people threw him. Ghouls are usually bottom feeders, living off corpses and taking on the form of the last thing they ate. But this time, they went after live victims. Not Adam enternouces that they don’t just take the form of the last person they ate. They get their thoughts and memories too.
Sam calls them monsters, and Not Adam slices his arm. Not Mommy starts licking up Sam’s blood as Not Adam gets all judgey about how often Sam uses the word “monster”. Not Mommy says Sam’s blood tastes different. Not Adam insists that his father wasn’t a monster, because he only lived off the dead. Not Mommy says he was killed by a monster though. One named John Winchester.
Mari: Look, guys. I don’t want to decide who among you all is the biggest monster. It’s too hard.
K: Crypt of Doom. Somehow, Dean’s managed to get a coffin directly below the stained glass window. He stands on top of it, and uses a metal bar torn from the side to smash the window. Then he shoves the bar across the hole and basically does one hell of a chin up before swinging his legs up and clambering out. Essentially, I’d be stuck down there for fucking ever because I have zero upper body strength. (M: So much same.)
Meanwhile, Not Adam digs a finger into a wound on Sam’s side and sucks the blood off. Gross. Sam screams, because obviously. The ghouls consult the Big Book of Villain Gloating, and inform us that they’re siblings and they’ve spent the past 20 years living like rats. Until they figured it was time for revenge, so they started killing off people associated with Papa Winchester.
Not Adam digs the point of his knife into Sam’s arm, and says they’re going to eat him really slowly, like they did with Adam. Who, FYI, actually *was* a Winchester. And also a screamer, because he was alive when they started eating him. Also also, Dean for sure won’t be interrupting this time. Sam struggles some more. They start slicing at his arms, collecting the blood in bowls under the table. Not Adam tells him to quit struggling because he’ll just die faster.
“HEY!” yells a voice from off screen. It’s Dean, who starts blasting away with the shotgun. Sam yells out that they’re ghouls, and Dean blows Not Mommy’s head off. Not Adam attacks, and he and Dean fight. Sam struggles, and just bleeds faster. The fight continues. Dean knocks Not Adam down, and bashes his head in with a metal bar. It’s unnecessarily violent. Sam calls out to his brother, on account of the bleeding to death thing, and Dean rushes over to free Sam and tie up his wounds. Sam gives him a weak thank you, and Dean says “That’s what family’s for, right?” Fade to black.
After the Not Commercial Break, the boys give Adam – actual Adam – a hunter’s funeral. Sam’s not sure about it, but Dean insists. The ghouls couldn’t have faked the pictures or the journal. Adam died like a hunter and deserves to go out like one. Sam suggests calling in a favour with Cas to bring Adam back, but Dean says Adam’s in a better place.
He sets fire to the body and watches it burn. As it does, he says he finally understands why Sam and Papa Winchester fought so much: they were basically the same person. Dean tried everything he could to be like Papa Winchester, his hero. But no matter what he did, Sam will always be more like their dad. “I’ll take that as a compliment,” Sam says. Dean thinks for a second, then coldly says “You can take that any way you want“. The camera pulls back and we watch them watching their brother’s corpse burn before we fade to black.
This episode is…odd. I really like the idea of them finding out that Papa Winchester had another kid and that he was actually a responsible(ish) parent to that kid. But then turning it into yet another Monster of the Week episode where they find out that they have a brother and discover that he’d dead all in the same episode? Like, did they ever actually meet the real Adam? Or was it the ghoul the entire time?
Incoherent thoughts are incoherent, but basically? This extra-Winchester-sibling idea could have been done SO MUCH BETTER. Sigh.
Mari: My thoughts aren’t going to be much better because while I think this was rushed, I’m not sure that I would’ve liked to see it dragged out across more than a couple of episodes. Definitely not a season. Definitely not THIS season. There is already too much happening this season and this episode is weirdly dropped in. I guess, after everything we’ve seen from Dean about denying his hunter destiny and such, this is a small continuation of that. He doesn’t want to involve Adam in the hunter life. It’s a weak connection, in my opinion, to all the other big stuff that has been happening this season. Of course, I say all this as someone who doesn’t know what’s yet to come. It’s possible there is a bigger link I’m not seeing.
I find the idea that Papa Winchester had another kid entirely plausible and I love that he would’ve been a “better” parent to this kid. I like what it highlighted in both Sam and Dean. I didn’t see the twist with Adam being dead already coming and think he was definitely a ghoul the whole time. It makes the whole revenge plot on the part of the ghouls really carefully laid out and acted. You have to hand it to them. Adam talked a lot about revenge in this episode, but it was always the ghoul, hoping to get revenge on Papa Winchester, though he’s long dead and gone.
In more “Ways Sam is Creeping Me Out” news, he related so much to a revenge-driven ghoul. Come back to me, Sammy.
Next time on Supernatural: We meet the dude that Castiel’s possessing in S04 E20 – The Rapture.
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 south Floridan who loves the beach but cannot swim. Such is my life, full of small contradictions and little trivialities. My main life goals are never to take life too seriously, but to do everything I attempt seriously well. After that, my life goals devolve into things like not wearing pants and eating all of the Zebra Cakes in the world. THE WORLD.
