by Kimmie Chameleon:
“Plucky Pennywhistle’s Magical Menagerie”
Original Air Date: Friday February 10, 2012
Season 7, Episode 14
To our shock and utter disbelief, Dean tells Sam that he wants to stay far away from booze and hot chicks…this due to Dean’s tryst with an Amazon that spawned a killer monster baby in last week’s episode. Sam does not disappoint! The Winchester boys take us on a magical journey that includes pizza that tastes like butt, killer unicorns, and octopus hickeys.
Octopussy
Sam and Dean read a report about a peculiar death and decide to investigate. The coroner pulls out a man’s body from the morgue covered in enormous hickeys. He speculates this gentleman, named Brian, died by a 30 ft. Giant Pacific Octopus. This seems odd since they are nowhere near the ocean and Brian was not in any kind of body of water. He also points out that Brian’s neck has a deep bite and he bled through this wound. Dean and Sam joke that there must be an octovamp on the loose…but this is definitely a case for them.
They go to Brian’s house and question his wife Debra. She tells them she was out of town, but that he was hanging out with the nanny all night. Dean, of course, can’t resist the urge to question the possible hot nanny. She tells him that there was no hanky panky between her and Brian, but does tell Dean that the night he died they had gone to a birthday party at a pizza chain called Plucky’s with Kelly, Brian’s daughter. She tells Dean that Debra was gone on business, as usual, and Brian left the party early. The nanny had to console Kelly because she was teased that her parents didn’t love her because her parent’s always ignore her.
Later that evening, in the same town, a man is running near a community ballpark from a white unicorn that has a rainbow illuminating from its tail. The man jumps to his safety behind the scoreboard, but meets his death when the unicorn spears him through the scoreboard.
Coulrophobia
The next day, Dean is on the scene and learns through the local authorities how sad it is that they have to tell the man’s 8 year old son, Billy, that his father is dead. This raises a red flag for Dean and he races over to question the victim’s wife. She tells Dean that her husband had just attended a birthday party with their son at Plucky’s the night he died. Dean calls Sam to have him check out Plucky’s. Sam shutters at the thought of having to be around a clown-themed pizza joint. He has a long-standing phobia of clowns.
When Sam arrives at Plucky’s, he nearly has a panic attack from exposure to clowns, but he presses forward and requests to speak to the manager. As he waits, he saunters over to a wall covered in artistic renderings that kids have been encouraged to “draw their worst fear.” Jean, the shift manager, introduces herself to Sam and explains that the owner is obsessed with “aiding children’s development” and that Plucky the clown will magically transform the fear into “rainbows and candy”. She tells Sam that these fears can last long into adulthood if not dealt with…and Sam can’t deny this fact since at that exact moment he stiffens up and winces when a clown walks past him. As he collects himself, Sam asks Jean if she knows anything about the boy Billy who just lost his father the evening before. She tells him that she remembers seeing Billy, and also remembers that Billy’s father had embarrassed him and through a conniption fit when Billy didn’t want to leave the birthday party early. So the dad took off anyway without Billy.
A janitor named Saul overhears Sam, and tells him to meet him after the place closes so he can tell him something. After the place closes, Sam and Dean attempt to meet up with Saul, but find police removing his body from the ball pit that he was cleaning. It appears as though he was attacked by a 20ft. shark. Dean and Sam start to snoop around inside Plucky’s but are unable to pick up on anything paranormal inside the restaurant. They do come across a name tag with a drawing missing from the ‘wall of fear’ and believe that the drawing must have been of a shark… and that the mere drawing was willed to life to protect the identity of the entity responsible for all of the recent murders.
Since Dean and Sam were unable to find any leads, they are forced to question employees. Sam instructs Dean to just be a pizza patron, while he will play “bad cop” and scare information out of the employees. Uncomfortable with seeming like a lonely pervert hanging out at a kids pizza place, Dean distracts himself by playing Skeeball. After all, if he wins 1000 prize tickets, he can get that giant rainbow slinky he has wanted all of his life. Meanwhile, Sam is in the break room at Plucky’s questioning every employee with his over-exaggerated “bad cop” act. One employee, Cliff, takes off running when questioned. Sam summons for Dean’s help, and when they tackle Cliff, he admits to a completely unrelated crime. It seems as though all employees that work at Plucky’s use recreational drugs. Cliff tells Dean and Sam that sometimes he goes to get high in the sub-basement with other employees, and sometimes they hear spooky sounds coming from the boiler room. As the three make their way back inside Plucky’s, Dean overhears a little boy named Tyler tell his mom that his ‘fear’ drawing is missing. Dean remembers seeing it earlier and fears that a “robot the size of a house with destructive laser beam eyes” might be unleashed on Tyler’s mom for her neglectful behavior. Sam follows after Tyler and his mom, while Dean inspects the boiler room.
Bubble, Bubble…Toil and Trouble
Dean makes his way down into Plucky’s boiler room and finds it filled with ritualistic books and a ceremonial fire in the center of the room. One of the overly pleasant employees, Howard, holds up Dean at gunpoint. He reveals to Dean that he hates bullies, and hates neglectful parents even more. He explains that he takes the drawings the kids create and toss them into this fire, and the awful parents meet a magical death. Dean sees that Howard has a multitude of drawings of a drowning boy. He questions Howard about this and Howard shares that his parents would not listen to his screams for help as his brother was drowning years ago when they were little children. Dean implores that killing other parents does not justify his actions, but Howard only laughs and tells Dean that Sam is in imminent danger. He has noticed Sam’s fear of clowns, and has tossed in a drawing that will prove to scare Sam to death. Dean knows that the only way to stop this is to kill Howard. Dean grabs one of Howard’s drawings and tosses it into the fire. Instantly, Howard’s little brother appears and Howard drowns to death from choking on a mouth full of water that has suddenly flooded his body from within. This is just in the nick of time because Sam was about to be murdered by two creepy clowns. As soon as Howard died, the two clowns exploded into a poof of glitter. When Sam and Dean reunite, Dean gets a good chuckle out of Sam being covered and smothered in glitter. Sam surprises Dean with the ultimate gift…that giant rainbow slinky!
Quotable Quotes:
Dean to Frank: “Seriously, Frank…pay phones? I mean, come on. I’m getting the clap from this thing just by touching it.”
Sam to himself: “If it bleeds, you can kill it.”
Dean to Sam: “ ‘Shark Week’, man. How do you not watch that?”
Dean to himself: “Dractopus. Seabiscuit the Impaler. Land shark….What’s next?”
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