Obviously, I have skipped “Party on Garth,” but I thought it was more pressing that we discuss the fact that Bobby, Dean and Sam have all slept with the same person, and the all time record for the fastest a female character has been killed off.
Dean gets a call from Annie, an old hunter friend who has some books of Bobby’s for them. They plan to meet in Bodega Bay the next day, where Annie is doing a job. Annie is on her way to a very haunted looking house. There are a couple of teenagers making out in there because nothing says sex like musty abandoned furniture and rat droppings. A ghost appears in the house and the two kids are killed. Annie comes in, and the door ominously closes behind her.
- Sexy, sexy asbestos.
Cut to Dean and Sam, who are waiting at the restaurant for Annie. She hasn’t shown, and she isn’t answering her phone. The boys are obviously worried. Sam keeps picking up his menu and putting it down for some reason, maybe because he and Dean just realized that they both slept with Annie, as did Bobby, and that makes them uncomfortable. They decide to go to Annie’s hotel to see what they can find.
There we see Bobby, who is still around but not able to communicate with the boys. There are basically two conversations going on at once, and though I watched the episode twice this weekend I’m still not 100% clear on what Dean and Sam figured out that made them go to the haunted house because I was distracted by Bobby. In any case they go to the house and Bobby can see dozens of ghosts there, just standing around being creepy doing nothing. There is a ghost who is obviously in charge, and telling off the ghost who apparently killed the kids earlier. That’s when Bobby sees Annie, who is also a ghost and apparently dead.
- Blink and she’s gone!
When Annie first showed up, I started making a note thinking it would be funny to do a countdown to when she was killed off. Turns out we didn’t need one, because she got like a minute and a half of air time before she died. However, at this point I did start making a “Balls” count for Bobby (3, in case you were wondering.) Annie and Bobby talk a bit about being dead, and then get some ghost 101 from one of the residents. It turns out that the leader and owner of the house, Whitman Van Ness, has some sort of hold over the rest of the ghosts and can sort of burn them away.
Our ghost friends meet Victoria, a “fancy lady” ghost. Victoria was the one who had brought Annie to the house, calling her phone and saying “free me.” Annie needs to find her body so she can move on, but no one knows where Van Ness keeps them. Back at the hotel, Dean is taking a shower and Bobby writes on the mirror, letting them know for sure that he is there.
Two more teenagers, friends of the first pair, go into the house. They are killed by Van Ness, and Victoria and Annie work together to try and find the bodies. The boys show up at the house, and Victoria (who has a little more ghost juice than the others) acts as a translator. Van Ness kills her, and, unable to get help from the living, Bobby and Annie decide to find the secret room with the bodies.
- “Fancy lady” means “whore.” Supernatural is educational like that.
The boys go off to burn Van Ness’ body, and Van Ness plants something on Sam so he can try and stop them. They fight, and Van Ness is snapped back to the house, where Bobby and Annie are getting ready to cremate some bodies. They struggle for a moment and Bobby almost bites it, but Sam and Dean come through and burn Van Ness.
Everyone meets back together at the house. Bobby can now make himself visible to the boys, and they say goodbye and cremate Annie. Dean is obviously upset Bobby choosing to stay around, because he can see the end of the road and burying family twice sounds like not a lot of fun. Bobby flickers out, pissed.
- This is Bobby’s “I’m a creepy ghost who listens in on people’s conversations” face.
I don’t know what to say about this episode, other than that it was frustrating. Annie seemed like a cool character, but with how little we know her it’s hard to be honestly upset that she’s gone. My frustration here is probably misplaced, and more Jo-Ellen-Lisa related than anything else. We got one line about the Dick Roman/Leviathan storyline. One. I mean, come on. Bobby finally has a chance to talk to the boys, but they immediately get into a fight and aren’t speaking anymore. So, that’s good.
At least next week we get Felicia Day.
(PS: I’ve been heartlessly taking my caps from Home of the Nutty, and they are fantastic.)
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Julia Santo knows that she would never survive the Hunger Games or fighting monsters, but that doesn't stop her from being obsessed with genre fiction. She's the Operational Programming Director for GeekGirlCon, a nonprofit that celebrates and supports geeky women through events. 
Hmm… I agree. This episode was, I don’t know, weird. There were some really awesome things, like the ghost 101. It was interesting to get to see a couple of hunters have to deal with the other side of things. It really brings back to light the dilemma that the boys faced in Roadkill, namely, when a hunter fries a ghost, where does it go?Is it someplace better? The answer is probably not; they are better off just passing on when they get the chance. Sticking around doesn’t really seem to lead to very good things for most ghosts which puts Bobby in an interesting position. Another good thing IMO is the return of Bobby himself. I know many fans have mixed feelings about what Sylvia referred to as “magical Bobby” but I was quite happy to see him again, and on the bottom end of the learning curve to boot. It’s an interesting turn for his character for him to be the novice in a hunting situation. Another thing I liked… the locations that were used, Bodega Bay is beautiful and the old house that they used is wonderful. I believe that this is the same house that was used in season 2′s Playthings, although they did seem to be trying to disguise the place to some extent.
Now, on to the things that either I didn’t like or made me go huh? I really liked Annie. She was a tough cookie and you’re right, she lasted about 6 minutes. She was cool dead, but would have been cooler alive and possibly a great ally. Why introduce her at all? Why have her sleep with all the guys and then only mention that and not do anything with it? Here’s another major gripe I had regarding her character. She’s an experienced hunter who goes to investigate a haunted house bringing only a flashlight???? Are you kidding me?!! No salt, no gun, no knife, holy water, nothing? I don’t buy it. And why did Annie not get a reaper? Everyone who dies has the opportunity to go with the reaper who comes for them, that has been established since the start of season 2. I feel like Bobby, Sam and Dean burned poor Annie before she even had a chance to cross over naturally. I think she would have too, she mentioned that she only lived for the job and had no one in her life. There would have been no reason for her to stay attached to life and become a restless ghost, unlike Bobby who’s chosen to do exactly that. We could have seen her choose to cross over, maybe given Bobby a chance to wonder if he had done the right thing by rejecting his chance. We know from Roadkill and Death Takes a Holiday that a reaper can still offer the choice of going or staying months, even years later. So, where was Annie’s opportunity?
And one more thing of a more technical nature. Does anyone know who’s job is it to edit the show after it’s shot? You know, the person who takes all of the pieces of film and assembles them together into an episode? Is it the director of each episode, the show runner, the producer or is there a separate editing team who handles each episode? I’d like to know, because I have felt over the past two seasons in particular that the editing has been poor. There are so many quick cuts that sometimes I can’t even follow what is going on, particularly in action sequences. There are cheesy “setup” shots to hand-feed the viewer the situation and then a series of payoff shots and reaction shots that I find to be more like a music video than an episode of Supernatural. Where is the continuity? Where is the detail and creativity that was such a part of the show in seasons past? Sometimes, especially recently, the sequences and editing remind me of far inferior shows like Charmed for instance. I’m sorry if anybody really liked that show, but it had the worst cheese ball camera work and editing and certain parts of last night’s ep. felt like that to me.
Whew!! So, I guess I had a lot to say. Sorry for rambling on so.
Hey, you really don’t have to apologize to *me* for wanting to write long posts about Supernatural. It’s a special brand of crazy.
Okay, yes yes yes on Annie not bringing a weapon into the house. I mean, we obviously didn’t really get to see what happened. That’s how unimportant her death was, we didn’t even get to see it.
And to my knowledge most television shows have separate editors (with some exceptions, like I know that Louis CK edits Louie himself.) I haven’t noticed anything weird about the editing this season, but now I’ll keep an eye out for it. What I have noticed is a sort of high-school senior attitude of not caring how far-fetched or silly the show gets. I guess we could be proven wrong as the season closes, we shall see.
This episode was so frustrating to me. It’s like the writers have sucked all of the emotion out of the series and replaced it with gore and fart jokes. I laughed out loud at your sexy sexy asbestos cap and completely agree with your take on Annie’s death. And the scenes with her and bobby, is it just me or did the dialogue and blocking seem really awkward? The show has all these great characters and fantastic actors and the writers keep churning out episodes that fall flat. The point of the episode seemed to be to get Bobby visible again but couldn’t they have done that while giving us more of the Leviathans or Dick Roman?? Come on Supernatural! This season started out so great! Get yourself back on track! *sigh*
Agree, there’s definitely something lacking in this season. Hopefully a new showrunner will get some life back in the series.
I had promised to myself that I’d quit commenting since I ‘ve got nothing good to say and no one has to listen to my constant complaints. But I’ve got to agree with Marie that all the emotion got sucked out of the series. And that happened, IMO, when the focus of the show shifted from the brothers’ relationship to secondary characters, like Bobby and Castiel. I’m sorry, I know that these are beloved characters to many fans but I no longer see the magic there used to be in the first seasons, when it was all about Sam and Dean. Maybe it’s only me but I think the ratings are telling.
Totally agree!!
No, this is totally legit because as much as I might love Cas, he is not the driving force behind the story. If Dean and Sam are off track, the WHOLE SHOW is off track.
I had the same reaction. This show used to be about the boys with guest stars and characters playing a secondary roll. Now, it’s like Sam and Dean are guest starring in their own show. I think that comes, partly from, the fact that they killed off everyone else and need to introduce new people or bring back old people and partly from the fact that they just don’t know where to do with this season. The second part of that is frustrating, because it’s not like they don’t have a storyline waiting to be told. Leviathans, anyone? There’s what 3 or 4 episodes left in this season and we aren’t getting anywhere with the big baddy. I just want this season to move on already which is sad because I can watch the first 4 seasons over and over and over again.
“This show used to be about the boys with guest stars and characters playing a secondary roll. Now, it’s like Sam and Dean are guest starring in their own show.”
Yes, that’s exactly what I mean. These days, when I want to see brother moments I resource to my past seasons DVDs.
“This show used to be about the boys with guest stars and characters playing a secondary roll. Now, it’s like Sam and Dean are guest starring in their own show.”
This! And what makes it all the more frustrating is the promises that this season would go back to being about just Sam and Dean. And instead it’s everyone but Sam and Dean.
Hi Andrea! I really have to agree with you. Sam and Dean really, really felt like guest stars on this one. They came into the scene, made a comment or two and then went out again. They really felt secondary to the plot and it was annoying, because the basic premise of this story was really great in a lot of ways.
Still even thought you are frustrated, I love your comments, so keep coming back please! I am holding out great hopes for Jeremy Carver. I hope he can change the tone of things. It doesn’t even have to go back to what it was (which many fans want) it just has to refocus back on the boys. Their relationship with each other and their internal problems and conflicts were always the primary focus in the good old days, which is what made the show so relatable. Their hunting lives were in some ways just an incidental, yet undeniably cool, side note. It’s almost like the shows own mythology and premise has taken over and swallowed the boys up. The complexity of their relationship has been lost. They discuss cases, but that’s it. It’s too bad too, because I think in RL Jared and Jensen are closer than ever. Watch some of the recent Con videos and you’ll see what I mean. That special connection that Sam and Dean have is still there in Jensen and Jared, but it’s not being used by the writers in the show.
BoGirle
Hey, thank you! I love your coments too and even though I hadn’t been commenting I was really happy to see you around.
” Their relationship with each other and their internal problems and conflicts were always the primary focus in the good old days, which is what made the show so relatable. Their hunting lives were in some ways just an incidental, yet undeniably cool, side note. It’s almost like the shows own mythology and premise has taken over and swallowed the boys up. The complexity of their relationship has been lost. ”
OMG, yes, yes!! My feelings exactly. Showrunners keep talking about this famous relationship and how it is the show’s heart and soul, blah, blah. But truth is, you don’t really see that relationship play out on screen anymore. After a very promising season beginning, the disappointments started. First, Sam’s underdeveloped arc, leaving him with nothing to do but rubbing his hand. Menwhile, Dean is busy with booze, self-pity and, after Bobby died, revenge. I’m a Samgirl but I still remember what a fun, fascinating character Dean used to be. I don’t recognize this Dean anymore. How does this serve the premise that “they don’t have anything else but each other”? They look more like two strangers living side by side, if you ask me.
The last straw came with The Born Again Identity. Sam and Dean shared exactly one scene in this very important episode (if you don’t count the ending) which was so meaningful to the brother’s universe. After all, Sam was in his deathbed. But not only they were separated for the entire episode, but Dean seemed strangely devoid of emotion considering the situation. He did his best to find help, that’s true, but in a somewhat mechanic way. When Castiel told him that there was nothing to do for Sam, he just stood there in the corner of the room, looking almost bored. Jensen is wonderful and I know very well what he’s capable of. So what was that? It seems to me that the writer and director were more invested in Castiel’s return than in the brothers. And I won’t even start with the Deus-Ex-Machina resolution to Sam’s case, leaving him virtually arcless.
After that episode I seriously considered quitting. Ridiculous as it may sound, I felt betrayed by the show. But I still had feeble hopes that the remaining episodes would bring something good. But ghost Bobby? With all due respect to Bobby’s fans, I wish they just let Bobby rest and moved on. I don’t want to spend the rest of the season dealing with Bobby’s ghost. And I certainly don’t want Castiel to come back and take over the show like he did last season. What I want to see is the brothers giving some attention to each other and receiving such attention from the show, for a change.
I’m hopeful too with Jeremy Carver’s return. Maybe, just maybe, he will do something about the current state of things and restore the show to its former glory. It doesn’t have to be exactly like old days but it has to focus on the brothers. Just that. But I have a long list of frustated hopes with Supernatural so I don’t want to to keep false expectations. Let’s wait and see.
Sorry about all that. I hope you don’t regret inviting me, LOL!
Absolutely no regrets, Andrea, none at all. Try and stick with it! I really enjoy your comments too; very insightful. This site help ease things when our fav show doesn’t live up to our expectations. Here’s to hoping that things will improve and that some of the regular contributors to this site will come back as well!