Supernatural

Previously on Supernatural: Dean and Sam met the Hell Hounds, two lovable losers with a fondness for Ghostbusters and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Finally new Supernatural episodes are back, and in an interesting twist, the show is putting the main storyline about Dean's fate on hold for a fun stand-alone episode. So let's all enjoy the geeky pleasure of the pilot episode for a new ghost hunting show, Ghostfacers.

Harry and Ed provide a hilarious introduction to their “unsolicited pilot” being sent to network studio heads. They make jokes about how the writers' strike was lame and that reality is better. I imagine the Supernatural writers had boatloads of fun writing this entire episode.

This leads to an opening credit sequence for Ghostfacers that is as perfect as you'd hope for. This whole episode is the pilot episode, so it's all hand-held, Blair Witch-style. I'll try to do it justice, but you really just need to watch the episode to appreciate its genius.

Ed and Harry explain how they assembled a new team. Corbett looks exactly like Bret Harrison (Sam on Reaper) and acts exactly like a cross between Jim Halpert from The Office and Andrew Wells from Buffy, complete with the man crush on his leader, Ed. Maggie is Ed's adoptive sister. Spruce is the wisecracking proud Jewish cameraman.

Their mission is Morton House, the most haunted place in America in which the Leap Year Ghost shows up at midnight at the start of every February 29. They break into the house at night, but their infiltration is interrupted by some classic rock coming from a black Chevy Impala. Once inside the house, the Ghostfacers set up command center one, the “Eagle's Nest” as Harry calls it. They set up cameras in all the rooms.

Phase III of the operation is called “Face Time,” when they face off with the ghosts. As they search the house, the cameras act up with some ghostly interference. Harry sees a rat and runs like a terrified little girl. In a confessional, he says, “Rats are like the rats of the world.” Sadly, he's trying yet failing to be like Michael Scott.

Dean (Jensen Ackles) and Sam (Jared Padalecki) bust in pretending to be cops. Ed recognizes the Winchesters, and Sam recognizes the former Hell Hound. Dean and Sam want the Ghostfacers to leave, but Ed tells “chiseled chest” Dean that they were there first. Spruce and Harry are upstairs and see a ghost get shot.

Dean and Sam try to convince the Ghostfacers to leave because the place is seriously haunted. Harry rushes down screaming about how they saw a real ghost. He momentarily stops to ask, “Aren't those the a**holes from Texas?” They all watch the video of the ghost, which Dean identifies as a “death echo.” The Winchesters try rush them out, but Harry suggests they could become recurring guest stars on Ghostfacers. Much the same way I pray the Ghostfacers become recurring guest stars on Supernatural.

Corbett sneaks away upstairs to make contact with the ghost, but when the gang goes upstairs to find him, Corbett is missing. There's a supernatural shutdown on the house, so they're all locked inside. They see another creepy death echo of a guy who gets run over by a train.

After some investigating, they find some toe tags, which lead Sam and Dean to hypothesize that the man who lived in Morton House brought dead bodies back to his home from the morgue “to play” and these are the death echoes. Another spectral power surge hits, and when it's over, Sam is missing.

Harry tries to calm Maggie down…with his tongue! Ed isn't too happy to see his best friend with his sister and goes in for a nerd fight. Dean stops the skirmish and realizes the ghost's fear of an atomic bomb means he has a bomb shelter. They rush downstairs, but the ghost splits Dean and Spruce from the others, so Dean tells them to get some salt from his duffel bag and make a circle to stand in and stay safe. Once in the circle, Ed gives his blessing for Harry to do his sister.

Corbett and Sam are in the weird bomb shelter where the ghost is torturing them at a table set for a birthday party. The ghost kills Corbett, but Dean saves Sam before the same thing happens to him. Sam explains the ghost is lonely and used the dead bodies to stage a birthday part for himself.

Upstairs, Ed, Harry and Maggie see Corbett stuck in a death echo. Ed steps outside the salt circle to talk to Ghost Corbett, trying to get him out of the death echo loop. Harry convinces Ed that to help Corbett, Ed “has to go be gay for that poor dead intern.” So Ed tells Corbett that he loves him and asks for his help, so Corbett takes down the ghost.

The next morning, the Ghostfacers (minus Corbett) and the Winchesters head outside, so Ed and Harry provide some final narration, in which they memorialize Corbett, noting the power of gay love and hoping that Corbett will stay a Ghostfacer because “it would be cool to have a ghost on the team.” The final shot is a tribute to Corbett, then it ends and we see the Winchesters watching the pilot in Ed and Harry's trailer. Hilariously, the opening credits for Supernatural start now, at the very end, and they go in reverse.

The Winchesters are offended by the exploitation of Corbett and don't think the world is ready to see the truth, but they leave. The Ghostfacers revel and notice the Winchesters left their bag, which contains an EMP device that wipes all the footage. Poor guys, especially since Sam and Dean agree the Ghostfacers pilot wasn't half bad.

Next week on Supernatural: Dean gets a phone call from his dad. His dead dad. Also, this is the episode I got to watch them film during our set visit, so I'm doubly excited.  It also means BuddyTV will have some exclusive behind-the-scenes footage of the boys rehearsing and filming a scene.


Also, head over to the Weekly Prize Giveaway section of the BuddyTV Forum to enter our latest contest for the chance to win an autographed photograph of Jensen and Jared.


-John Kubicek, BuddyTV Senior Writer
(Image courtesy of the CW)