Supernatural - Episode 6.09 - Clap Your Hands if You Believe... - Recap by Selina

Having seen the preview for once, I went into this episode with the utmost trepidation. It looked no less than the stupidest, lamest stunt Supernatural had ever pulled. And... well...


Children of the Corn... making children in the corn.

Two teenagers are making out in a cornfield. "There's something out there." In the corn.

Patrick disappears into the corn.

They wander, through the corn.

And what do they find in the corn? Is it... a spaceship? It beams up Scotty Patrick, and the female Canadian guest star is left standing in a very neat crop circle.

And then the credits roll and I realise:


THIS EPISODE IS GONNA BE TOTALLY AWESOME! PS The Truth is In There.

The X-Files style credits totally threw me off, and okay, I've never been a massive fan of that show but any intertextual postmodern episode such as this is enough to get my academic brain way overexcited!

A credit montage follows, with clips from old episodes (most notably hilarious 'Tall Tales' alien sequence). I was less impressed with this, it seemed choppy.

But the truth is in here, so let's find it. The town of something or other, Indiana, is ripe with excitement over the alien invasion, hoping to become the next Roswell. But one elderly lady calls bullshit on the whole UFO-nonsense: of course it's not aliens, it's fairies. Of course. Cause, spoiler alert, it was never really aliens in X-Files either. Allegedly.

By the way, it always strikes me as funny when characters in a supernatural environment refuse to believe in something supernatural they're unfamiliar with: we're vampires, but surely there can be no such thing as werewolves! We're witches and wizards and have seen all kinds of unbelievable things, but surely there is no such thing as the Deathly Hallows! We hunt demons and have previously fought fairytale creatures and GODS, but surely there is no such thing as fairies...... see what I mean?

Sam is offensive again like last week, and from all your comments I gather that some people find this amusing... I just find it annoying though. If Sam is so emotionless, why is he so damn pissed off all the time And rude? He's supposed to have no inhibitions, I get it, but being passive aggressive is emotional too. So to me, his behaviour makes his whole arc seem inconsistent. He's not possessed by something angry; the whole point is that he's possessed by NOTHING, not even himself. And based on what they said in the first few episodes, Sam should be emotionless, cold and calculating. What is calculating about screwing up investigations and making fun of the people they are investigating? It doesn't make much sense.


Pinocchio and Jiminy Cricket on new adventures. Does that make Castiel Gepetto?

Dean tells him he has to care... and I can't help thinking, he must care about something if he's getting so upset about them taking this case. But whatever, Dean promises to act as Sam's conscience (now there's an interesting role reversal), which can never go well...

Meanwhile, in Brennan's Watchwork, something fairytaley seems to be going on.

Brennan acts all sad and worried when Dean and Sam are there, but as soon as they leave, he asks his clock if he did alright. Yeah, his clock. lol.

Dean warns Sam not to do anything without calling him first, but Sam is not happy about this (...). Dean goes off to check out the scene of the crime, and finds the UFO. I knew he was gonna be the Mulder.

Sam doesn't really care, which I have to admit, is a little funny. Scotty Dean is beamed up, and Sam has another beer. Oh how it hurts me.


I've got to strings, to hold me down...

Sam goes to find Dean's phone, and now he's left to figure out the mystery on his own - watch out, humankind!

He goes to the alien hippie camp to talk to the believers - and delivers the funniest line of the episode: "My brother was abducted... it's fine, I've had time to adjust." Oh Sammy. You're gonna kick your own ass when you get your soul back.

Dean is beamed back, looking shaken but intact... and finds Sam um, hanging out with the nice lady from the alien hippie camp.

"Grabby, incandescent douchebags" - way to mix up SAT words with your hunter slang there, Dean, I like it. PGOTW leaves, and Dean is upset that Sam didn't freak out - I mean, I get it, but he can't really expect anything else. We find out that Dean lost some time while abducted. He starts to talk about it, and Sam is once again hilariously inappropriate with his "safe room" and attempt at reassurance. Bless him, even soulless he really is trying. Kind of like Spike trying to be good - you can't fault the guy from being evil, he's made that way, but seeing him fight back just shows how strong his humanity is... sigh. Okay, bad example, cause this is nowhere as moving as that was. Back to the safe room.


"I had a close encounter, Sam, and I won."

Dean may or may not have been heading for the probing table, but he managed to hack and slash his way out of the supposed space ship. It was all very funny, one of the more enjoyable interactions we've seen between the brothers for a while. It struck me while watching it though, that once again something is happening to Dean. I don't think anyone can argue that it's still the Sam and Dean show anymore, this is so clearly the Dean show, with Sam around only to trigger emotional reactions from Dean. Whether it will change when Sam gets his soul back, or whether we'll once again focus on how it all affects Dean, well... I'm skeptical of there being any change, frankly.

And funnily enough, in the next scene Dean says the very think I mentioned earlier in this recap, that on top of everything else they've faced, now there are aliens. What's next, hobbits? Haha, I wish.

Dean says to Sam: "Our reality is collapsing around us and you're trying to pick up our waitress?" And huh - in season 1, Sam could have said something very similar to Dean. When Dean was Hell-bound in season 3, Sam DID say something very similar to Dean. So careful with the stone throwing Mister, I know you've got some new writers backing you, but the fans are all the same and their memories are frightening.

Sam has some moral questions for Dean: "what when there are no more leads? Do you just sit there in the dark and suffer, even when there is nothing to be done?" Yeah, Dean says like it's the most natural thing in the world. But Sam, like a newborn baby unburdened by social semiotics (cha-ching!), is in a position where he can question the logic of this and make humanity seem a little weird. Ironic, in an episode supposedly about aliens.


"So you're saying that having a soul equals suffering."

Dude, did you watch Angel at all?! I can't decide if I'm excited or annoyed at how much SPN is ripping off the Buffyverse this season. I'll go with excited; some of it's unintentional after all, and some of it's just good TV.

Then OMG creepy guy in the window creeped me out! There's a homeless guy only Dean can see... but we'll get back to that.

They research aliens online... and the aliens come back to finish what they started. But instead of an alien, it's um, Tinkerbell? And Dean KILLS her with a microwave omg mean!!! But again, Sam doesn't see the splatter. I could have gone without it, too.

Sam connects the dust, and reaches a logical conclusion: smurfs fairies. And Dean KILLED one. :(

They go to the "crazy" lady - except she's not much crazier than Dean and Sam, considering they all believe in real things. She sings of a fairie dimension, where the little blighters probably skedaddle along happily, tinkering and blowing flower petals on each other... until a big ugly giant comes along and microwaves them. Sigh. Anyway, by fairy lady's logic, Dean can see fairies because he has been to their realm. And they only take first-born sons. Huh, imagine that. Honestly, I don't know why this is more plausible than aliens. To me it's like choosing whether to head down the sci-fi or the fantasy aisle in a book store. "Does make me wanna believe in UFOs again," Dean says, heading down the sci-fi aisle. No surprise there eh?

And now Dean is asking how to kill them, and at this point I'm thinking, if this turns into some giant Tinkerbell massacre I'm turning off my television. Sorry, I'm guess I'm just too girl to find fairy slaughter entertaining.


I do, I do, I do believe in fairies! And leprechauns! And Winchesters!

And now he sees them: little actual people (men, so they're dressed), busy little beavers in the clock shop. Now they believe that Brennan is using the fairies to make his clocks - but did he really trade his son for clocks? And yeah, the award for Stupid of the Year goes to... So because of Brennan, firstborn sons have been taken by the fairies and the leprechaun, supposedly to be eaten or in other ways servicing the king of fairies (it's best if we don't ask).

Dean once again sees creepy homeless man. He follows him down the obligatory dark alley, but instead attacks a poor little man and calls him a fairy. Haha, epic fail.

As Dean is taken into custody (for once I don't blame them), he calls to Sam to "fight the fairies!" And really, I thought Supernatural was more liberal than that!? In the prison, we're in for more hilariousness: "If this gentleman was a full sized homosexual, would that be okay?" the officer asks, trying to determine the nature of this hate crime. He tells Dean he'a all kinds of messed up, and well, we knew that.

Sam follows the Clockmaker into the fairies' den, but with the obvious disadvantage of not being able to see the fairies. Brennan is killed by a very visible enemy, however: the leprechaun, aka. crazy alien man. WHO SAW THAT COMING?!?!??!? I actually didn't. Too busy writing notes eh?

Dean has been marked by the fairies... he's theirs now. Heh heh heh. The leprechaun notices Sam's lack of soul (again, couldn't they have encountered all these knowledgeable creatures in episode 2 when no one knew what the hell was going on? Oh the wonders of linear storytelling. He does tell Sam something interesting though, that his soul is not completely out of reach. He can even get it back for him - for a price.

But Sam doesn't take the bait and takes a shot. Sadly iron isn't enough to kill him, and he fights back. Meanwhile, Dean fights Little Red Homeless Hood in his cell, and both brothers seem to be fighting a losing battle - unless Sam makes the leprechaun count some salt lol.

He dispels the fairies, back to their own reality where they belong - what a terrible metaphor - and the episode begins to close off. And I'm left thinking, a) so the fairies were actually just there making clocks and Dean actually killed one of them horribly, and b) the choppy credits very carefully included Misha Collins and he wasn't even in the fricking episode?! Double fail for the credits!

But definitely not for the rest of the episode - it's not going into the best episode hall of fame or anything of the sort, but Supernatural hasn't had quite the same level of comedic success in a while, and as random of a story and weak of a premise it was, it had some great gags and brotherly interaction not to be scoffed at.

In the final scene, Sam and Dean once again have a let's-wrap-up-the-remaining-loose-ends car hood chat with beer. Dean asks Sam why Sam said no to the soul... suspecting that maybe he doesn't want his soul back after all. Sam tells him he still does, but I'm betting he's lying. Seriously, we're headed for the mid season in a few eps - don't you agree it's soul time already?!

Don't forget you guys, you can find past SPN recaps and interesting entertainment blogging over at The Patchwork Blog, check it out.