Sam leans outside on the car talking to Mrs. Tran on his cell phone. He hands the phone over to Dean who hangs up quipping that he went thru a tunnel. The Trans have gotten to their houseboat but Kevin is having trouble wit the tablet; he can read bits and pieces but it’s slow going and there’s nothing about boarding up hell.
“What’s the word Cas?”
“It’s a shortened version of my name.”
Either Cas has gained a sense of humor or Dean had lost his because that was pretty funny. Dean asks why he turned off the whole “Angel Radio” thing and Cas says he wants nothing to do with heaven anymore. But as Cas still wants to help people, he’s decided to be a hunter. Skepticism runs high. Cas tells them he has a case and being Sam and Dean approved, he tries to teleport there before Dean informs him that to be a hunter Cas has to at least try to be like them. Cas agrees and both boys ban him from the front seat.They drive to the town and start to wonder what could have caused this. Cas tells them that the man’s molecules are all wrong for drugs. Sam asks the detective what she thinks about the case and she confirms the weird. She leaves and Castiel smells the corpse to determine he had a bladder infection, which I’m guessing is irrelevant. Sam opens the files reading aloud the overly precise account of the dead man and his lady’s affairs. They decide to work under the assumption of an affair and go back to the hotel and decide it sounds witchy.
Sammy flashes back to Amelia and the dog where he's meeting Amelia's father. She wonders if they’re moving too fast and Sam declares they’re making up for lost time. She gives him a list of things not to say and he replies “there goes my opener.” Amelia’s dad’s a little less impressed than one would hope with the house, Sam, and Sam’s job but he did like Sam’s dog. Score! He says Sam looks like a fixer upper. Amelia's ex was named Don by the way.
The dead guy (Gary’s) wife is being questioned by Cas. Dean stops it after one question.
“I just have one question for you, why did you kill you husband!”
"I was being bad cop."
"You were being bad everything."
As it turns out, she knew about Mike's affair and was not only friends with his mistress but welcomes her with open arms. Why? Because he was having an affair of her own. So not a witch and not guilty. We leave the "best wife ever" to see a guy on a ledge. He steps off, stands on thin air for a few seconds before falling to his death again.
Apparently the dead guy used to work for Roman Industries. Nice folding in of last year. The local detective called them because they had two witnesses to the floating and our team wanted weird. Need I even note that Cas doesn’t get Sam’s classic cartoon reference? At night, they catch up Cas with the old cartoons and he thinks the roadrunner is a parable for god with man (coyote) endless chasing the divine (roadrunner). Okay.... He also thinks the three them are going to sleep in the same room. Optimistic much? Cas doesn't sleep and offers to watch over Dean. Never fear, they have a new murder; guy was hit by an anvil. Seriously.
“Do you guys chase the crazy or does the crazy chase you?”
Cas loves John Winchester’s handwriting. Not really relevant to anything but I like that he likes it. He’s feeling guilty over what he did to heaven last year when he killed all the angels. He explains this from Dean. Sam walks in and explains that everywhere there's been a death, there's been a robbery, and everywhere there’s been a robbery, there’s been a lot of cartoony activity. Deciding it’s collateral weird, the new theory is that he lives at the retirement center because all the things that were hit were owned by residents there.
“It’s wabbit season.”
“I don’t think you pronounced that correctly.”
The head doctor is cooperative, a little too cooperative... Sam takes one set of residents and Dean and Cas take another. Cas is mistaken for a ladies' third husband who calls him “so pretty” but she didn’t trust him. Mrs. Tate also thinks the cats talks sometimes so Cas goes to interrogate it. Neither of them earn any leads. Sam talks to an orderly who is also a little fishy and then flashes back to Amelia’s dad who knows that they're holding onto each other.
Sam remembers one of the guys on a board of residents being psychokinetic and a former hunter. He consults Dean and they go into his room.
“Dumbass.”
Fred Jones, former hunter, is watching cartoons. To figure out if he's the culprit, Dean hits himself in the head with a book and literally hears birds. Fred could apparently reshape reality but unfortunately, he doesn’t have an off switch. Cas offers to kill Fred. The head doc over hears and kicks them all out. The three of them leave and Dean instructs Cas to go "invisible girl" and keep an eye on their suspect.
Unfortunately is Cas’s wife’s birthday and the suspect was watching a cartoon where a similarly colored bomb explodes and her candle goes firecracker. When we return, Fred is gone. Mrs. Tate, both the birthday lady and the woman Cas talked to, accused one of the orderly’s of having her diamonds. They find the orderly’s boyfriend who gave it to her on the floor dying. Cas magics him better and the brother's ask what happens. Apparently the head doctor, Mahoney, took Fred. The pair of them were working together to rip off the patients. Mahoney is planning on one last robbery and then killing Fred.
They find Fred and Cas does his glowy think to Sam’s' objection. Sam and Cas are transported into Fred's mind which is entirely cartoonland. Sam reminds Mr. Jones about who he is and then they get down to brass tacks. Dean finds Mahoney. "What's up Doc?" Same points out to Fred that he's spending more time in his head than in the really world and Fred says the worst thing that can happen to a man like him is to lose his mind. The doctor doesn't see it as stealing from his patient, but stealing from his patients kids. He figures because they're bastards to their parents, he's earned something. Dean doesn't see it that way. Then they have a battle of cartoons you pretty much have to see. Sam has a metaphor laced conversation. With Fred about how trying to keep dead dreams alive will drive one crazy. Fred says cartoons always made him feel better. Fred turns off the cartoons, confronts the Doc, and shoots the Doc with the Doc's own gun by magic.
Fred is good now but he knows that eventually, he'll lose control again and he asks them to make it stop. Cas offers a procedure he warns will be painful where Cas sets him in a state of blissful unawares. Cas is called back up to the white office where the woman orders him out of heaven unless he is called. She sends him back asking him what he wants to do. Cas says he wants to stay with Fred for a few days but he doesn't want to run any longer and he doesn't want to ride with them.
Back in the past, Amelia gets a phone call that Don is alive after Sam and her dad bond a little more. Cut back to the present and Cas sits next to Fred who is still enjoying Ode to Joy.
Next/Already Aired: Benny and Sam go at it again and we're at the mid-season finale already.
Loved this episode, Supernatural is one of the few shows that can do a cartoon world without it being cartoon-y. And I’m sorry, but I don’t understand what title 'Hunteri Heroici' means.
Only one question remains: Post the only recap/review I haven’t yet or leave it to purgatory?
UPDATED: Thanks to Cliff who pointed out not only that Cas was doing Columbo when he interrogated Gary's wife but also that Hunteri Heroici means 'Epic Hunters'.
